And I don’t understand that concern. It is the theory of most Democrats that giving money to people stimulates the economy. It should be of no concern to anyone whether that money is used to stimulate patrons of a strip club, liquor store owners, or casino magnates (who BTW are often HUGE political contributors).

The bill is almost completely futile. It won’t insure that welfare money is not spent at a strip club; it only means that the ATM at the gas station across the street from the strip club is going to see a lot more traffic.

This is just the kind of government bias, that gives legitimate business a bad name. Certainly those girls are working as hard as any SEIU employee; whose pensions were paid out of stimulus funds, while they protested in Wisconsin. Money spent on bikini wax, cover stick, and glittery lingerie will trickle down through the economy just like any other stimulus package.

If that money was earmarked for scientific research on the anthropological roots of exotic dancing and its impact on global warming; or if it were an NEA grant to promote the American Folk legacy of lap dancing, there would be no question whether taxpayer money should eventually find its way into a g-string. The welfare recipient should not be punished, since he is actually a victim of a public education system, that did not teach him how to write a proper grant proposal.

Meanwhile, spending money at a casino is no less risky than “investing” in green energy. At the rate subsidized industries like Solyndra and Ener1 have been flying down tubes, a crap shot seems like a much more conservative measure than putting half a billion on Solyndra to win.

And what is wrong with using an EBT card at a liquor store? What the bill effectively does, is limit the amount of ATMs in poor neighborhoods. Many ATMs are privately owned, and grocery stores in poor neighborhoods won’t want to file the paperwork (and campaign contributions) necessary to prove they’re not a “liquor store.” Even if they are a liquor store, there are plenty of legitimate State Approved® items available in liquor stores, like tomato juice, citrus, and Lotto tickets. I might add that most grocery stores not only sell cigarettes and liquor, they sell all the ingredients necessary to make meth. There are a lot of things more intoxicating than liquor, one of them being congressional power

Because, ultimately, what business is it of the government to decide which decisions are made? In this country, we’ve decided that poor people should get free money. There is no way the government can absolutely ensure it isn’t spent on stupid things. (In many cases, it is those same stupid things that caused recipients to be on welfare on the first place.) And does the government have any moral authority in the first place? They can’t even prevent themselves from spending it on stupid things. Which is why we’re 16 trillion dollars in debt.

I think we need a Congressional Budget Integrity Now for Children and Families Act of 2012.

Lawyers cannot fix cars. The talent required for turning a wrench is not the same talent you use when twisting a contract. Most attorneys are not as comfortable working beneath the hood of a car as they are running behind an ambulance. So a wise nation keeps attorneys as far away from their automotive plants as possible.

But change has again found its way into the auto industry. No longer content to direct the industry from the back seat, this Administration has planted itself firmly behind the steering wheel. After taking over General Motors and selling Chrysler to Fiat (an Italian manufacturer best known for its expensive short-lived replacement parts), they invested half a billion taxpayer dollars into the the Fisker–Al Gore’s car of the future. There is no question who is driving the industry into the second decade of the new millennium.

But it’s not going as smoothly as planned. Just recently, the electric Fisker recalled its entire product line for problems that could lead to the cars catching on fire. I guess the future just came a little too early. It seems the problem is not unique to the Fisker either. A Chevy Volt burst into flames while ironically parked over at the Safety Administration. Nothing says “Green” more than black smoke car fires.

In an effort to stem the worst PR event since the Ford Pinto, GM offered Volt owners loaner cars until they could figure out what caused the fire. When two more blew up, they actually offered to buy them all back, resulting in the largest one-day sale of Volts in the history of the nameplate.

Just yesterday, it was announced that all 8,000 were being “called back” to the dealers for structural modifications. It’s exactly like a recall… without being called one.

After all, GM knows what a real recall is. Last week, they announced a recall of all 4,296 Chevy Sonics, out of concern that many might have left the plant without brake pads. Apparently, to a government owned auto company, small parts like brake pads are as irrelevant as the Constitution, the proverbial brake pads on the federal government.

This is the same plant that Obama visited last October and claimed that it was a sign of the comeback of the auto industry. The factory was a joint venture personally overseen by Korean President Lee Myung-bak working in collaboration with the Administration, and it was much heralded for its green technology. President Obama personally took credit for retooling the plant  “churning out ground-breaking fuel efficient cars like the Chevy Sonic, the only one of its kind made and sold in the United States of America.”

Apparently, the Secret Service was aware of the safety issues with the car, because according to the President, when he sat in one, they took away the keys.

What made the American auto industry great was not the league of academics in Washington; it was the garages full of gearheads across the nation who have a passion for mechanical things. While academics often look down on the humble grease monkey, it requires a different skill set that they just don’t teach at the Kennedy School of Government. If you left one million bureaucrats in a machine shop for an infinite amount of time, they could never produce a single exhaust manifold.

It’s time to get Washington out of the auto industry. Let people who love cars go back to building cars, and let Washington do what Washington does best. And let me know when you figure out what that is.

There is little similarity. While the Tea Parties were neat and orderly, the Occupy protests are noisy, juvenile, and stinky. The Tea Parties were friendly while the Occupy movement is violent, angry, and crime ridden; they have the same problem with lawlessness that plagues most Democrat-controlled cities.

#OccupyBastille

This explains why there is such a vast difference between the two. The Occupy movement is not only mostly Democrat; it is also democratic. Likewise, the Tea Parties are both a republic and Republican. They are microcosms of the political philosophies they each represent.

Tea parties are controlled by the rule of law and are planned in advance. They acquire proper permits, rent PA systems, Porti-Potties, and Tents. When they’re over, people pick up the trash and go home.

Occupy is famous for creepy chanting after every speaker finishes a sentence and a guy relieving himself against the side of a police car.  Some of the Occupy residents have, ironically, used the facilities of McDonalds and Starbucks and even took ironic shelter from the rain in a Bank of America ATM kiosk (I’m sure the irony is lost on them, though).  They loudly proclaim that “this is what Democracy looks like!”

Constitutional author James Madison would agree. In Federalist # 10 he wrote: “Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.“

Two years later, the French Revolution made his words almost prophetic. Absent an existing governmental structure to fill the vacuum, post-revolutionary France exploded into chaos. A Republic is necessary to defend the rights of the minority. Without such protections, government degenerates into mob rule.

And mob rule is exactly what we’re seeing in the Occupy protests. Their rally cry of “We Are the 99%” takes a triumphant delight in announcing that the opposition is way outnumbered. There is no clear message outside of anger. Attempts to write a list of demands have been hindered by the very democratic process they cherish.

In their miniature utopia, there is no personal security or right to property. They could not even maintain enough civility to protect their drums from vandals. The OWS drummers had $8,000 worth of damage done to their kits. When it came time to vote for reimbursement out of  the OWS Treasury (lately estimated at $500,000), they couldn’t even find the consensus to replace them. The drum owners were told to beat sand.

The Tea Party wants to change the system from within the existing structure. They seek to use the electoral process, to vote out the big spenders and restore fiscal sanity to a republic that has already proven its viability. The Occupy movement wants to tear down the system, and replace it with… replace it with… well, they’ll figure that out, after they grab something to satiate their munchies.

We are certainly in trouble if these people get hold of a guillotine.

My friend Louis took up electronic smoking about three years ago; partly because he was trying to quit, and partly because he was tired of going out into the cold Minneapolis winter, to huddle outside the restaurant with the other smokers after dinner.

It seemed like a perfect solution. electronic cigarettes offer the enjoyment of a smoke, without any of the nuisance. You don’t have to light one; it’s just a metal tube that releases a warm nicotine mist. There is even a little red light on the end, that glows when you draw in, so it looks like a cigarette.

It’s completely odorless and smokeless, and doesn’t have the carbon monoxide or tars that cause most of the health problems associated with cigarettes and second hand smoke. So there is no real reason for anybody to complain about electronic smoking.

I thought I might get one myself, because I enjoy the occasional cigar with a cocktail, and it would make a great drinking companion –especially on airplanes. I imagined myself flying across the country with a cigarette and Martini in classic Mad Men fashion. I started flying in an era when you could still book a seat in the smoking section; riding in a comforting veil of nicotine, as you contemplated all the things that could go wrong on a flight.

But Louis told me not to bother. I’m flying to Minneapolis to work at his club this week (Acme Comedy Company, Tuesday & Wednesday September 20 & 21) and he sent me this release. Apparently a lot of people have taken up electronic smoking to while away the hours; and the Department of Transportation aren’t happy.

The only proven health issue with electronic smoke is the possibility of stroke, as anti-smokers burst into red-faced rage at the sight of people enjoying themselves in public. It reveals something I’ve always suspected about the anti-smoking crowd: they are more concerned with people having fun, than they are about health

Making people put out an electronic cigarettes is the same kind of logic that has forced motion pictures to put smoking warnings at the front of their films. Apparently we’ve gotten so overprotective in society, that just the image of someone smoking  is cautioned for its negative health consequences.

The DOT knows how ridiculous this sounds. They try to make a case for the ban by stressing that nobody yet knows the health consequences of electronic smoke. It’s not enough to protect us from real proven dangers; they need to protect us from the imagined ones as well. Heck by the same logic I don’t yet know the health consequences of the cell phone at the restaurant table next to me (and cell phones have been linked to cancer). Certainly I have the right to enjoy a meal without exposing myself to Second-Hand Cell.

I understand why people don’t want to sit in a smoky airplane for five hours. I also understand why people would want to spend those five hours smoking. (And I guarantee if I were on a plane that was going down, I’d be pestering my crash mates for a smoke.) But I can’t understand how anyone could be opposed to such a harmless activity, as electronic smoking.

At the very least, let’s segregate the electronic smokers. Put them in the back of the plane, so the anti-happiness passengers will have to severely crane their necks to be outraged.  As long as we’re not endangering anyone, it is our unalienable right.

But to the Left, pursuit of happiness is no longer a right. They view it, like they view the Second Amendment: just an antiquated concept written by rich white men, into a flexible document, almost like a hundred years ago.

I have a bit in my act where I’ve said as much: There is nobody starving in America. If there were, it would be in the papers. The last people I remember reading about actually starving the death in America, were Lindsay Lohan and Mary Kate Olsen. If there were really people starving in America, you wouldn’t see people in parks feeding the birds; in fact, you wouldn’t see birds.

So imagine my surprise, when a couple friends sent me this article. Apparently there is a group of people living in Brooklyn, who relies on stray animals for their sustenance. It is truly a vision reminiscent of the Great Depression, camps of poor people living on the fringes of society, being harassed by police.

As rounds of trillion-dollar stimulus failed to reinvigorate the economy, and have only served to create a debt crisis, I fear that there is still a bottom we have yet only grazed. Perhaps that is the ultimate plan of Michelle’s Childhood Obesity Program: to prepare parents of soon to be emaciated children by substituting their remorse, with a feeling of accomplishment.

The only reason why this article did not get wider play is because we have a Democrat in the White House. If a Republican were taking Air-Force One on Spanish vacations and to Hollywood fundraisers, most certainly the consumption of stray animals in a borough of our nations financial capital would be Page One of the New York Times. In fact, these people would suddenly become celebrities, as 60 Minutes and other newsmagazines rushed to show America the New Grapes of Wrath Era, brought on by a Republican Administration.

But it’s not too late. If the polls are right, and the Republicans win in 2012, expect these people to be suddenly discovered. It is one of the bigger problems of being a Republican: you start getting blamed the minute you take office, but your legacy can last the entire term of a Democrat. For the most part, Democrat Administrations over the past century, have been have been islands of blamelessness, in between the deluge of Republicans.

What I really don’t understand is the crackdown of authorities on these 21^st Century Hobos. It seems to me that starving people and stray animals are problems that should eventually balance out. It’s a great example of how over-regulation creates more problems than it solves. Legislative concern for animal welfare created two more problems: over-population of vermin, and hungry people.

Like obesity, stray animals are symptomatic of prosperity. North Korea does not have a problem with stray dogs. Nor did Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. During the lean days of the embargo, you never heard of any stray dog problem. The first signs of change were the articles about the stray dog assassination squads in that newly liberated nation.

As bond-rating services seem unimpressed by “compromise,” I hope we can get a handle on it before it’s too late. My fondest wishes for future generations, are that they inherit a manageable National debt, continue to struggle with obesity, and hold the same belief I grew up with: that squirrel stew is only a disgusting joke.

When Republicans held the majority, they were civil with Democrats. They would give them important seats, seek their council on policies, and pass through every Democrat judicial nominee with respect; hoping that when they were in the minority again, they will be shown the same respect. (Whoops again.) No wonder Conservative ideas never gain any traction. They are as helpless as red-coated soldiers marching into the forest with pipes and drums blaring.

Now that Republicans have the majority back, and the President has initiated force in Libya, there was a futile hope that a Democrat President will respect the War Powers Resolution. (Whoops cubed. Fool me one time, shame on you; fool me twice, let’s go for three!) It was a mistake of perception. Despite the antiquated notion of equal treatment under the law, the War Powers Resolution wasn’t written for Democrat Presidents –it only applies to Republicans.

It all boils down to our differing views of law. While we see the Constitution as an inflexible document that outlines the sole authority under which the Federal Government can legally exist, the Democrats see it as six pages of enormous loopholes. To us, laws are inflexible orders that apply to everyone, regardless of their position in society; to Democrats they are nothing more than handy tools for leveraging a campaign donation out of a stingy donor. The Health Care waivers are good examples of this double standard; another is Al Gore’s private jet.

Every Republican President has complied with The War Powers Resolution since President Nixon vetoed it in 1974; believing it to be unconstitutional. Both Obama and Clinton scoffed at the law, knowing full well that Democrats wouldn’t pull the trigger, and Republicans just can’t. Every Republican President has complied with the Resolution, even though most of them believe it supersedes the Constitution.

There was a silly attempt to protest the President’s violation by voting against the action in Libya, followed up by a failure to de-fund it. It was all a futile charade to fool the hardliners, who want this President forced to behave like every Republican President before him. Instead the Legislature does nothing, and like the Fox walking away from the “sour” grapes, mutters under their breath that the The War Powers Resolution is unconstitutional anyway. We are in a crisis.

A famous ballet dancer once said that crises are rife with opportunity, and “you never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”

Well then, why don’t they vote to repeal The War Powers Resolution? Show some initiative. They’ve been saying for thirty-seven years now, that the dang thing just ‘aint right. Lets get rid of it.  There’s a the majority in the House, and you could probably coax a few moderates over in the Senate; lets get that repeal on the Presidents desk. Put him in a position where he has to either agree that the law is unconstitutional, or explain why he is above the law. Put him in the hot seat. Make him grant himself a War Powers waiver.

Or we could just make the Democrats promise not to make the next Republican President comply with The War Powers Resolution. I’d bet we can trust them THIS time…

Also, to give the new guidelines a youthful appeal, it has been named MyPlate, an obvious reference to the hip new website: MySpace, which was abandoned by everyone hip, about five years ago; and is now populated by pathetic unknown bands, and creepy old pedophiles, soliciting cops posing as teenagers. (Perhaps the original title from the contemporarily-challenged USDA was “You’ve Got Meals.”) I imagine in ten years or so, the USDA will announce their new guidelines, called Platebook.

This reversion cost the taxpayers only two million dollars, just a little more than the original Food Pyramid which has been around since 1992, and cost the taxpayers 1.4 million inflation-adjusted dollars. The USDA has been telling Americans what they should be eating since 1923 when the Bureau of Home Economics established the 12 basic food groups at the height of the Prohibition Era, when obesity was a luxury.

Bureaucrats always think they can rewire the Darwinian instinct of children, which is to eat the food they like. In 2005, the Pyramid was updated with a tedious video game that wouldn’t even entertain a child of the Atari® generation. Maybe their plan was to make video games so boring that kids would be forced outside to play. Most children are overweight from lack of exercise, and bureaucrats are partially responsible for that. When you have to wear a dorky helmet every time you go out to play, who even wants to ride a bike anymore?

Michelle had to refrain from calling the new guidelines YourPlate, because they certainly don’t seem to reflect HerPlate. If we were to chart Michelle’sPlate it would be divided into four different sections for Cheeseburgers, Lobster, Ribs, and the majority of the plate devoted to Bacon. (I’m not sure if she even touches the radioactive vegetables that grew on the South Lawn, practically overnight.)

Inexplicably dairy, which was once part of the four basics, is now relegated to a circle outside of the MyPlate. This might reflect either a sensitivity to cultures that prohibit milk, or in classic Chicago style, a lack of campaign contributions from the American Dairy Association.

The New York Times claims that later phases of the MyPlate campaign. “will urge consumers to avoid oversize portions, enjoy their food but eat less of it and drink water instead of sugary drinks.”

Which almost seems to be preparing us for worsening economic conditions. Because If the economy continues it’s slide there is a really good chance that MyPlate will eventually be nothing more than your daily ration of rice. I can’t help but think the President’s economic plan, is a wing of Michelle’s anti-obesity campaign.

Because when you get right down to it, there is no better cure for obesity, than poverty.