The cure for the evils of
democracy is more democracy!
H. L. Mencken, Notes on Democracy, 1926
It has
been an active week from a political perspective and it is now clear what the
legislative battles will encompass for the next several months.
The
Madison Conservative will begin to discuss these issues in depth upon our
return in two weeks – next weeks post will be missed due to the Easter holiday.
The
following bits of news information will provide the basis for the forthcoming
discussions. They are garnered from various and sundry news sources and should
be understood as evidence that in many ways, indeed the lunatics are running
the asylum, and running it poorly.
These
are being collated and posted with no specific rhyme or reason, save maybe for
their absurdity level.
To
wit:
A news
story on the idiocy of ‘fairness’ gripping the political and media classes:
A Massachusetts principal has been criticized
for canceling his school's Honors Night, saying it could be 'devastating' to
the students who worked hard, but fell short of the grades.
David Fabrizio, principal of
Ipswich Middle School, notified parents last week of his plan to eliminate the
event.
"The Honors Night, which can
be a great sense of pride for the recipients' families, can also be devastating
to a child who has worked extremely hard in a difficult class but who, despite
growth, has not been able to maintain a high grade-point average,"
Fabrizio penned in his first letter to parents, the station reported.
A
lengthy report on some classic governmental pork by a self-aggrandizing member
of Congress:
A state-of-the-art transportation
hub that was going to give students at South Carolina State University a leg up
on the competition., the four building, 33-acre complex, named after its most
famous alumnus, Rep. James Clyburn, would be a monument to the future -- where
students could get hands-on experience and be a part of groundbreaking research
in transportation.
Fast forward 15 years and the
site once called the "project of the future" has morphed into a
money-sucking pit. Aside from the $24 million in federal funding already spent
on the project, an estimated $80 million more is needed to finish it. Of the
four proposed buildings, only one has been constructed, and the program's core goal
-- to provide educational and research opportunities to students at new
high-tech facilities -- has obviously not been met.
Federal funding, as of now, has
been suspended. But the school could still reapply. Funding for the James E.
Clyburn Transportation
Center was earmarked by
Congress, through the Department of Transportation.
The problems facing South Carolina State University
aren't new or isolated. There have been multiple projects that have been
financed or earmarked with taxpayer money that have been forced to be
abandoned. Millions of dollars wasted on proposals green-lighted through the
federal government and now put on hold have added to the crippling fiscal
problems facing the country.
In South Carolina, the almost two decades-old
construction project was supposed to include 8,500 square feet of automotive
research and education space, a chiller plant and workspace. There were also
supposed to be research bays and other transportation work pods. But that isn't
what happened.
According to Clyburn, the 2005
groundbreaking was followed by a series of bizarre and crippling problems.
Clyburn, in a statement provided
by his office, said the school learned -- after the groundbreaking -- that it
did not own 3 acres in the middle of the 23-acre site and that negotiations to
purchase that property took 18 months. Another year was tacked on for the city
of Orangeburg
to deed the street involved to the university. Then the state of South Carolina ordered
the university to complete a traffic impact study, which took six months to do.
In 2008, the chief architect for the project was diagnosed with cancer. This
was followed by a record number of permit denials and modification demands. In
2009, more than one decade after the project was given the green light by the
federal government, it finally won approval of the FHA and State Engineer's
Office.
But the headaches only grew,
Clyburn said.
The university opened the project
up for bids on Dec. 18, 2009. The lowest of the 18 bids was selected, but four
of the companies filed a protest. Then the chief architect died, and the search
for a new one began. While permits were being secured and staff was being
hired, the university underwent its own staffing changes -- there had been
three different presidents and the staff on the Clyburn transportation center
had changed "four or five times" Clyburn said.
Spiraling construction costs and
the loss of federal recognition for the facility brought the program to a
standstill multiple times. And last year, the school was hit with a number of
audits. There have also been allegations of missing money and reports of
duplicate billings, questionable payments and abuses by individual employees at
the center.
The school itself is facing
declining enrollment numbers and a $6 million shortfall.
University spokeswoman Antia
Dawkins said in a written statement that the university has had to make changes
in its plan to complete the center.
"The current approach is to
seek the advice of a broad-based advisory board consisting of subject-matter
experts in transportation," she said. "This advisory board will help
us shape the focus and direction for the Transportation Initiative."
There is a possibility the amount
of money the school needs to finish the project could eclipse the estimated $80
million.
"While various
transportation activities have been discussed and included in our
Transportation Program over the last 15 years, we cannot adequately determine
the financial requirement for any plan that was discussed over that time
period," Dawkins said.
Since accusations of gross
mismanagement hit the school, Clyburn's enthusiasm seemed to ease a bit for the
problem-plagued project. But instead of blaming the school and reported
mishandling of resources, Clyburn believes the problem is a political one.
"The faculty and the school
have become victims of vicious manufactured attacks by political partisans, and
that is unfortunate for the university and the students who would benefit from
this program," Clyburn said in a written statement to FoxNews.com Monday.
"I don't know what the future of the center is, and I will leave that up
to the university and its alumni to determine."
The
reality that ‘Big Brother’ is watching:
The U.S. government is expanding a
cybersecurity program that scans Internet traffic headed into and out of
defense contractors to include far more of the country's private, civilian-run
infrastructure.
As a result, more private sector
employees than ever before, including those at big banks, utilities and key
transportation companies, will have their emails and Web surfing scanned as a
precaution against cyber attacks.
Under last month's White House
executive order on cybersecurity, the scans will be driven by classified
information provided by U.S. intelligence agencies — including data from the
National Security Agency (NSA) — on new or especially serious espionage threats
and other hacking attempts. U.S.
spy chiefs said on March 12 that cyber attacks have supplanted terrorism as the
top threat to the country.
Something
from the comedy of the absurd:
Customers who want to pay with a
$100 bill at a Rhode Island
chain of restaurants will now have to fill out a form.
WJAR-TV reports that all four
locations of Gregg’s will now require a name, phone number and driver’s license
number whenever someone pays with a $100 bill.
Owner Bob Bacon says it’s because
they have received five fake $100s in the last three months. He tells the
station the policy is not about getting restitution if they receive a fake
bill. He says it’s about creating a paper trail so they can track down whoever
is making the fake bills.
A
reminder that all tyranny needs to defeat democracy is for good people to go
silent in the face of the loss of any modicum of liberty:
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid
demanded Thursday that any bill that passes the Senate on gun control include
broader background checks, drawing a tougher line on the issue ahead of a
contentious floor debate next month.
Reid plans to tee up a vote on a
package in early April, the first floor fight over guns in the wake of deadly
mass killings, including at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., late last
year.
The
absolute idiocy of the Senate leadership in their apparent belief that the
American electorate is not being taxed enough:
After a grueling, all-night
debate that ended close to 5 a.m., the Senate on Saturday adopted its first
budget in four years, a $3.7 trillion blueprint for 2014 that would fast-track
passage of tax increases, trim spending gingerly and leave the government still
deeply in the debt a decade from now. The tax bill would amount to
approximately 1 trillion dollars over ten years.
And
further proof that government is never one to miss a trick gouging the
beleaguered American taxpayer:
Governors in cash-strapped states
are revving the motor on efforts to hike the gasoline tax to cover shortfalls
or pay for transportation projects -- frustrating drivers, Republican lawmakers
and others in a delicate economy.
The tax hikes mean that drivers
could soon be paying more at the pump, even if the price of fuel goes down.
Wyoming and California have already
approved increases. Wyoming's
state gas tax goes from 14 cents to 24 cents a gallon in July and is projected
to bring in roughly $70 million in fiscal 2014 for transportation projects. And
California
regulators last month approved a 3.5-cent hike on its state excise tax that
will take effect in July and increase the cost of an average fill-up by roughly
52 cents.
At least 14 other states --
including Maryland, Massachusetts
and Minnesota
-- have either passed similar increases or are considering them, according to
the National Conference of State Legislatures.
And
after all, it is only a million dollars in a time of 16 trillion dollar debt
and a slashing of public tours of the White House:
Vice President Biden and his
entourage spent a little time in London
in early February during his first foreign trip of the second term of
the Obama administration. A document released
today revealed that the cost of lodging in London alone was close to half a million
dollars. The contract was awarded on January 30, 2013 to the Hyatt Regency London for a total of
$459,388.65.
As it turns out, Vice President
Joe Biden's London
stay in February was not the most expensive part of his
trip. A government document released on February 14, 2013 shows
that the contract for the Hotel Intercontinental Paris Le Grand came in at $585,000.50.
Still
looking for a buck instead of being responsible fiscal stewards – this issue is
exceptionally troubling for a nation looking for an economic resurgence:
Advocates of an effort to help
states collect taxes on Internet sales won a symbolic but important victory
Friday as the Senate signaled solid bipartisan support for the proposal.
Senators voted 75-24 for a
nonbinding measure that endorses giving states more power to collect existing
sales taxes on purchases their residents make from out-of-state Internet
companies.
And
lastly, for those convinced that members of Congress are so far removed from
their constituency and live in a warped universe where hyperbole is never
confronted with reality:
Automatic federal cuts are bringing
staffers to the brink of starvation, suggested Debbie Wasserman Schultz, at a
recent House Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee hearing.
Restaurants on the House side of
Congress are increasing in cost so much that aides are being “priced out” of a
good meal, she said. The comments came by way of a discussion about the impacts
of the sequester on lawmakers’ office budgets. Rep. Jim Moran said he may be
forced to lay off a staffer — and then Ms. Wasserman Schultz weighed in with
her tale of hard times.
{Just to clarify: An 8-ounce bowl
of Ham and Bean soup at the Cannon
Office Building’s
carry-out café costs $2. A gourmet wrap or sliced bread sandwich sells for
about $5. And in the Longworth
Building’s sit-down
cafeteria, a serving of stuffed chicken, asparagus and mashed potatoes sells
for about $7.}
Meanwhile,
Ms. Wasserman Schultz’s staffers earn between $60,000 and $160,000 per year.
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