The Problem with Knee Jerk Legislation

Instapundit calls it the problem with naming laws after dead people. True, but it is also the problem with rushing to pass new laws to make the public feel good. Not only do you look foolish, sometimes you actually create mini-disasters. See, e.g. Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank.

"Murder victim’s mother blames ‘bath salts’ drugs for her daughter’s death. New Jersey rushes to pass a ban on bath salts, names law after victim. Now: Tests show accused killer had no bath salts in his system.”

Laws Named After Dead People | The Agitator

Congressman Wants Special Treatment By The TSA

Some Congressman, including James Clyburn, are using the Tuson shooting tragedy to argue for special privileges at airports, looking to by-pass the intrusive screening processes that they set up, through the TSA, for the rest of the country. It is an amazing peek into the minds of these elected officials, who seem to believe that they are better than the rest of us, and entitled to special treatment.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/136849-house-dem-calls-for-beefed-up-security-special-treatment-by-tsa?

65% Favor Getting Rid of Entire Congress and Starting Over

Interesting survey from Rasmussen. I would have thought it would be higher.

65% Favor Getting Rid of Entire Congress and Starting Over - Rasmussen Reports™

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 65% of Likely U.S. Voters say if they had the option next week, they would vote to get rid of the entire Congress and start all over again.

MA Securities Regulators Leaks SSNs of Advisers

According to Investmentnews.com advisers in Massachusetts were stunned after receiving a letter from the Massachusetts Securities Division, announcing that the regulator had accidentally leaked personal information on some 139,000 advisers registered in the Bay State.

The regulator, which headed by Secretary of State William F. Gavin accidentally released the social security numbers of 139,000 state registered investment advisers. According to the article a spokesman for the securities division downplayed the privacy breach stating "the important thing is there was no breach and that the material was returned in tact."

More political doublespeak? The release of the social security numbers of over 100,000 individuals is not a security breach? If an adviser made that type of statement to the Massachusetts securities division, they would be filing charges for misrepresentation - not to mention the violation of state privacy acts for the underlying breach - accident or not.

Why do the regulators get a pass for this violation? Is someone being fired and having their permanent record permanently marked?

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Who You Calling a Tea Bagger?

Apparently President Obama is quoted in a book referring to the supporters of the Tea Party Movement as "tea baggers" and the right is having an absolute fit, claiming the term is disgusting and inappropriate. The feigned outrage is simply amazing.

Please. Let's be honest here. The reason the term has become so popular is that it is demonstrative of the complete lack of understanding. The joke has always been on Fox News - where anchor after anchor used the term "tea bagger" in supportive pieces, and never had a clue what the term meant. The mocking was directed at Fox News, and reporters and anchors who were so eager to support anything that was anti-Obama and so out of touch, that they had no idea that the term referred to a sexual act.

It wasn't only Fox News who used the term, the tea baggers themselves used it to identify themselves well before any "liberal" used the term. If you doubt this, search the news archives at Google for the term "tea bagger" and just scan the headlines. The term has been used by the movement itself, and by the "right" wing news media. Witness the "Proud to Be a Tea Bagger pins."

That is what made the term so appropriate. Clueless news anchors using the term to report about clueless protesters sitting in worn out lawn chairs waiving little American flags proudly referring to themselves as tea baggers, without a clue what they were protesting about, or that they were saying. Check out Teabaggers, You Named Yourselves,  Rise of an Epithet at the National Review, The Slur That Must Not Be Named, for more,

Sort of like the protests over the Czars that the President was appointing, and the woman who wanted to know who they were going to rule over, and how much land the government was giving them.

But the real issue here is the feigned uproar. The press needs some honesty, politicians on both sides need to stop the feigned outrage, and the Tea Party Movement needs to focus on its core mission and getting the nut jobs off the stage.

A New American Tea Party: The Counterrevolution Against Bailouts, Handouts, Reckless Spending, and More Taxes

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