Bookworm Room

Tweet I’m working on a settlement statement in a very depressing divorce case (divorce cases, which I work on as infrequently as possible, are always depressing, but this one is worse than most), so blogging will suffer today.  Nevertheless, I wanted to share with you a matched set about government overreach: At the White House [...]

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Tweet I woke up this morning to find that my Leftist friends literally plastered Facebook with the above poster.  (Since I grew up and still live in the Bay Area, I have lots of Leftist friends.)  If the text on the image is unclear, this is what it says: There is nobody in this country [...]

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Tweet For those readers under 40 (and I know I have at least one), let me open this post by explaining what a Potemkin Village is.  The story goes (and it is a story) that when Catherine the Great traveled through late 18th century Russia, her lover and go-to guy Prince Gregori Potemkin would hasten [...]

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Tweet Sometimes the matched sets just write themselves.  Both of the articles I’m quoting here are from England.  The first in our set is an article saying that town councils across England are being told that they need to reinstate actual playgrounds.  The current versions, which are the kid equivalent of a padded room, are [...]

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Tweet Last night was back-to-school night at my daughter’s new high school.  I was deeply impressed.  The facility is beautiful; the classrooms are clean, bright and well-maintained; the teachers are engaging; the test scores are over-the-top; and the expensive extras (fancy computers, lab equipment, etc.) are all in place.  My daughter loves her new school.  [...]

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Tweet My child participates in a youth swim league.  In a couple of weeks, all the regional swim teams are gathering together for the big meet of the season.  Each swim team has to pay a fee to participate.  Because I’m on the planning committee this year, I learned something interesting:  the private swim clubs [...]

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Tweet Do you ever listen to Frank Caliendo?  He’s a talented impressionist who spends much of his time ragging on John Madden.  One of the things Caliendo claims that Madden does is restate his premise as if it’s a different conclusion, i.e., “Here’s a guy with mud on his jersey.  When you mix dirt and [...]

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Tweet There are  few issues that have been obfuscated as diligently by the media organs of the MSM Left as has been the housing crisis that led to our current economic depression. Why, of course they would do that: the Democrats are guilty as sin! We’ve observed on the pages of this very blog the [...]

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Tweet I like to consider myself a true and patriotic American, but I have a confession to make:  I hate baseball.  Yes, I know it’s the quintessential American sport, right up there in Americana with Mom and apple pie.  But I still hate it.  I find it boring and surprisingly non-athletic.  It’s such a static [...]

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Tweet A charming and pointed reminder about Obama’s game-playing with our money: Hat tip:  Long-time blog friend judyrose.

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Tweet This post tells the story of a case on which I worked.  It’s a true story. Picture this: It’s 2001.  You live in California and you own a small business that consists of you and maybe three to five at-will employees.  Your profits are decent. One morning, Jane, one of your employees, announces that [...]

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Tweet Is our democracy germinating the seeds of its own destruction? Alexis de Toqueville warned, “The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.” That day has come. It is not yet gone. Democracy  in ancient Athens lasted about 250 years. We in the [...]

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Tweet There’s a fiery debate over whether Republicans won or lost the budget round over discretionary spending.  Good examples of the pros and cons on that debate are Peter Wehner (Boehner did great) and Dick Morris (Boehner was a spaghetti-spined disaster). What do you think?

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Tweet DQ here.  My wife works for the government.  She received an e-mail today from the Dan Tangherlini, Assistant Secretary for Management, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Performance Officer, U.S. Department of the Treasury.  The message related to the possible shut down of the government and it began with the following paragraph: Throughout the discussions about [...]

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Tweet I am cheap.  Very cheap.  That means that I’m a bargain hunter.  I like used books and cheap clothes.  I prefer to buy American but, if my pocketbook tells me that America isn’t a good deal, I’ll usually follow my pocketbook.  Usually, but not always.  If buying something from another country would put me [...]

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Tweet I find Ron Paul abhorrent, and I worry about Rand Paul, who seems like a slightly more polished version of Daddy.  Nevertheless, even creepy people can be right, as Rand Paul is about government spending. His point, basically, is that Republicans and Democrats are battling over bandage quality, rather than actually treating the wound.  [...]

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Tweet I was reading Rick Steves’ Italy 2011 (the 2010) version, when I was surprised to learn this little fact on page 21: Because Europeans are generally careful with energy use, you’ll find government-enforced limits on air-conditioning and heating.  There’s a one-month period each spring and fall when neither is allowed. For those of us [...]

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Tweet It’s not often I get the pleasure of laughing out loud when I read a “serious” political piece, especially one from an Obama acolyte, but I have to admit that this one completely lifted my mood.  The author, David Kendall, at heart, seems to be an honest soul because he recognizes that there is [...]

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Tweet In 1832, Andrew Jackson vetoed a bill granting a new charter to the Second National Bank.  In a statement justifying that veto, he wrote a stirring statement defending equality of opportunity, and acknowledging how ridiculous it is to pretend that government can force equality of outcome: It is to be regretted that the rich [...]

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Tweet Democrats are the friends of big business, Conservatives are the friends of small business. Democrat government inevitably ratchets its way to corruptocracy. If you don’t agree with this, can we at least agree that Democrats favor highly regulated economies and societies and conservatives don’t? Let me explain with two examples. 1) The Wall Street [...]

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Tweet Rumor has it that the President is going to use the State of the Union address to call for more government spending.  Much more government spending: President Barack Obama will call for new government spending on infrastructure, education and research in his State of the Union address Tuesday, sharpening his response to Republicans in [...]

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The U.S. is already bankrupt

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Tweet Remember that Rockwell song from the 1980s?  “I always feel like somebody’s watching me….“  It turns out that, if you’re having any dealings with the FCC, that feeling is right on the money.  I just received the following email from a friend: I just called the FCC and asked for info on how to [...]

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Tweet Mitch McConnell proved himself, really proved himself, when it came to the omnibus spending bill.  Kimberly Strassel explains: This week Democrats unveiled a $1.2 trillion omnibus, legislation as pure an insult to the electorate as it gets. It was a 1,924-page monstrosity that nobody had time to read. It took 11 spending bills that [...]

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Tweet I have friends who have taught in inner city schools.  Without exception, they have told me that, if a child’s parents are drug-addled, the school lunch may be the only meal the child gets.  There is a tremendous virtue to feeding starving children. Having said that, I found revealing a statement Michelle Obama made [...]

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