George Rebane

• Radical left says that Tea party is now a thugocracy
• Alan Blinder and economics in the real political world
• EPA comes to help CARB crush California
• Charlie Rangel didn’t have time to get a lawyer (really!)

The Tea Party is now painted as a thugocracy by the progressives and their farther left brethren and cistern 😉  This is happening at all levels of discourse, just as if the word went out to start the rant from national outlets to local blogs.  The charge is that the new conservative House will not fund the socialist programs put in place by the Barry, Harry, and Nancy show.  Obviously this will “shut down the government” and only legislative thugs would use the appropriations clause (Art I, Sec 9, Clause 7) of the Constitution to do such a thing.  And predictably the Saul Alinsky manual calls for the immediate launch of a vilification campaign which is now under way.

Princeton’s Alan Blinder is perhaps my favorite liberal economist.  His no nonsense visage and prognostications are even on the mark now and then.  But no kudos for his ‘In Defense of Ben Bernanke’ in the 15nov10 WSJ.  There Dr Blinder takes us through a ding-dong school version of Econ 101 presenting a weak apology of his buddy Ben’s QE2.  But what Princeton’s finest doesn’t seem to understand is that economics is not yet (and may never be) a science.

An economy is a complex dynamic system which contains a mighty stochastic element called the human bean.  Not only that, but no matter how reasonable the rank and file humans attempt to be, their best intentions are almost always short-circuited by the politicians they elect whose utility function has only one attribute to be maximized – expected number of years to suck on the public tit.  The math models of Blinder and tribe do not include the resulting policy perfidies, and therefore we hear daily reports of economists being ‘surprised’ and ‘disappointed’ that their predictions are constantly off by hundreds of percent.  Opposing economists weigh in here, and I here.

We now discover that Washington’s EPA is coming to the aid of our state’s CARB in making sure that the enforcement of AB32’s greenhouse gas provisions will be sufficiently draconian on California’s economy.  It’s more of the ‘if the right one don’t a getcha, then the left one will’.  Russ Steele has more of this on NC Media Watch.  The Rebane cars will proudly wear their Prop23 bumper stickers until the sun bleaches them off.

Concluding with a picking from the Capitol Clowns’ Corner, we hear reports that ol’ Charlie Rangel got a mite ired this morning.  Seems that his House trial on multiple charges of years’ long corruption kinda snuck up on him.  For months the rest of the country knew that today was when he would have to stand tall in front of his colleagues, and explain how come he has been paying over a million dollars in lawyers’ fees absconded illegally from various PACs and other no-no funds.  All this in addition to not paying taxes on vacation homes and using rent-controlled living units for his private offices.

So this morning the old irascible scumbag got on his high horse in front of the House panel trying him, and (drum roll please) demanded a delay in the proceedings because he hadn’t yet hired another lawyer.  And then, after excoriating the panel and with high dudgeon firmly strapped on, the sumbich walked out of the hearing room.   Next we will be able to enjoy the Maxine Waters Show that’s also been in the oven for some months now.  No end to the entertainment value coming out of that greatest deliberative body in the world.  Only in Congress.