Hot dogs, Frank and Weiner, running the country?

It seems that Barney Frank and Anthony Weiner haven't learned anything. In an article today from Reuters, they are asking Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to lower restrictions on condominium mortgages. Really? What? It seems that the restrictions are too stiff for these two Congressmen because they are preventing people from being able to buy condos. Uh, duh, people who shouldn't be. Do these two Congressmen have such short memories that they don't even realize they are asking these "companies" to do exactly what got us into this mess in the first place? I mean... oh never mind, my title says it all I suppose.

PBS bans religion?

In today's FoxNews, they reported about policy decisions at PBS. Now, before I continue, I'll mention that you'd be hard pressed to find a stronger supporter of the religious clauses of the first amendment of the Constitution. That said, this decision by a national board for PBS is a shining example of trying to control something nationally that should be local. If PBS doesn't want religious content in its nationally distributed programming, so be it, I'm all for that. Creating programming at the national level and telling us all we have to have it on PBS could constitute a de facto sense of religious establishment. That would make sense if that is what this decision were about. It isn't. In fact, a national board is telling local PBS stations that they can't have the national programming if they show anything commercial, partisan or sectarian. Huh, that pretty much counts out most of what PBS currently shows, but I digress. Although this is an enforcement of an unenforced rule that dates back to 1985, what made PBS worthwhile was that it showed local programming of local interest. This included religious programming. A local station knows better about what their audience wants to view than a national board could ever know. That's the real issue here. Somebody in Washington dictating to Jackson, Mississippi or Dallas, Texas or Chicago, Illinois what is and isn't appropriate for their local audience. Now, we come to the separation of church and state issue. Really? Has PBS recently been sued and nobody said anything? No, the reality is that this is an excuse, nothing more. In fact, nobody is worried about this except apparently, the PBS board. The Constitution guarantees freedom of exercise and prohibits religious establishment. Would a local PBS station showing a Sunday morning preacher (from any religion) constitute religious establishment? I don't really think it does, and after 40 years of programming and no publically known complaints, I'd say the public doesn't think so either. However, prohibiting such programming might be construed as hostility to religion. This is also prohibited by the Constitution since it violates free exercise. All organizations should have access to PBS and that includes religions. Finally, PBS cites worries that religious programming "would cause the public's trust in PBS to erode, along with the value of the brand,". Really? Again, if this were true, you'd have lost that trust and value decades ago. After all, it is all based on an unenforced rule dating back to 1985. 24 years people! Not to mention the many years before the rule. So, my question becomes, why now? What has suddenly changed that has made this an issue? Could it be who occupies the White House and who is the majority party in Congress? Of course not!

The current tally!

Just for the sake of actually paying attention, Sarah Palin has AGAIN been cleared of any wrongdoing (see the story in the Washington Times). An independent board in her own state has now said 13 out of 13 times that she has not committed any ethics violations and the FCC has said 1 out of 1 times that she has not committed any ethics violations. Oooh, that can't be right. 14 out of 14 times now she has been cleared of ethics violations charges. Huh, that must mean, I don't know, that the media has been lying about Sarah Palin? Imagine that!

Tax the poor!

An article in today's USAToday talked about the possibility of taxing sodas and other sweet drinks as well as alcoholic beverages with an additional excise tax (meaning one you'll never see). They cite health reasons for wanting to do this. The fact that sodas have been linked to increased risk of heart disease, diabetes and obesity. You know what? I agree entirely that sodas have been linked to these things and therefore, I have chosen not to drink a lot of soda. Most of my drinking diet is made up of water and juice (100% juice, not sugar water). In addition, we rarely give soda to our children. This is a free choice we've made as individuals and as parents. Placing an excise tax on these products however means that we will buy even less soda. All that said, this is a horrible idea, especially at this time. After all, who drinks soda, beer, sugar water pretending to be juice, etc.? That's right, it is primarily a product sold to the lower classes in this country. It makes perfect sense to me to go out and tax the poor to pay for health care all the while claiming you are doing exactly the opposite, taxing the rich. Similar taxes were tried during the New Deal era as well. They disproportionately affected the poor then too. History teaches that if you tax the people who buy products, thereby taking away their ability to buy products, you succeed in deepening the economic downturn you are in rather than pulling people out of it. In fact, history teaches that the way to end an economic downturn is to lower taxes, not raise them, so let's all continue to cheer this administration who wants to create all these new and "useful" programs to make us all more and more dependent on the government in the name of health care and environmental friendliness. Oh yes, we are definitely headed down the road to prosperity now. Three cheers for Obama, Congress and the Democrats!