It’s Friday, May 25th, 2012….and here’s The Gouge!

First up on the Friday edition, a series of articles and video clips forwarded from Bill Meisen highlights the hypocrisy inherent in almost every policy Progressives pursue; in this case, equal pay for women.  We start with a bit of history, and President Obama’s own words from 2009:

So problem solved, right?  Leastwise according to The Dear Misleader.  So why is it still mentioned in his 2012 Misstatement of the Union….

….let alone a subject worthy of consideration in the midst of the so many other, far more important crises facing the country?

Senate Dems Push Pay Fairness Three Years After Obama Declared Victory

Mainly because, as this next item by Andrew Stiles writing at FreeBeacon.com reports, the very people pushing the policy are talking out both sides of their mouths:

Holy hypocrites, Batman!

A group of Democratic female senators on Wednesday declared war on the so-called “gender pay gap,” urging their colleagues to pass the aptly named Paycheck Fairness Act when Congress returns from recess next month. However, a substantial gender pay gap exists in their own offices, a Washington Free Beacon analysis of Senate salary data reveals.

Of the five senators who participated in Wednesday’s press conference—Barbara Mikulski (D., Md.), Patty Murray (D., Wash.), Debbie Stabenow (D., Mich.), Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) and Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.)—three pay their female staff members significantly less than male staffers. (Ouch!)

Murray, who has repeatedly accused Republicans of waging a “war a women,” is one of the worst offenders. Female members of Murray’s staff made about $21,000 less per year than male staffers in 2011, a difference of 35.2 percent.

That is well above the 23 percent gap that Democrats claim exists between male and female workers nationwide. The figure is based on a 2010 U.S. Census Bureau report, and is technically accurate. However, as CNN’s Lisa Sylvester has reported, when factors such as area of employment, hours of work, and time in the workplace are taken into account, the gap shrinks to about 5 percent.

A significant “gender gap” exists in Feinstein’s office, where women also made about $21,000 less than men in 2011, but the percentage difference—41 percent—was even higher than Murray’s. Boxer’s female staffers made about $5,000 less, a difference of 7.3 percent.

http://freebeacon.com/senate-dems-betray-lilly/

Forgetting for the moment the rank hypocrisy clearly evident on both Capitol Hill and the White House….

Obama White House Pays Women Less Than Men

….FOX News asks the obvious question:

So if a bill that supposedly ensures pay equity is already on the books, why are Senate Democrats intent on pushing for another one? “Dems are still fundraising over their support for the Lilly Ledbetter Act, which Obama signed in January 2009—and which he said at the time leveled the playing field,” a senior Republican Senate aide tells me.

….The senior Republican Senate aide continues, “So they’re playing women for money–and votes. Their hucksterism knows no bounds.”

Neither does their dishonesty, deceitfulness and duplicity….which Liberals always rationalize by convincing themselves their ends justifying any means.  Where have we heard that before?

And as this next item courtesy of Carl Polizzi confirms, if Progressives’ hucksterism knows no bounds, neither do they apparently possess any sense of shame:

Bill Clinton just out-Clinton’d himself — posing with two famous porn stars in Monaco moments ago … and one of them’s a real up-and-comer. Clinton’s in a Monte Carlo casino right now for a special “Nights in Monaco” gala event — and several celebrities are in attendance … including Diane Kruger, Joshua Jackson … and a BUNCH OF PORN STARS.

The two porn stars on Bill’s arms are Tasha Reign (left) and Brooklyn Lee — AVN’s “Best New Starlet” in porn. Brooklyn — who just posted the pic on her Twitter account — also just won the award for “Best Sex Scene” in “Mission Asspossible.” As for Tasha’s film credits … those include “Baby Got Boobs 8” and “Farm Girls Gone Bad.”

Der Schlickmeister: introducing America’s children to subjects far beyond their tender years since 1998.  Eat your heart out, Tiger!

Next up, writing in the WSJ, former judge Michael McConnell comments on….

The Liberal Legal Meltdown Over ObamaCare

If supporters of mandatory insurance were as confident of its merits as they claim to be, they would offer legal arguments, not moral accusations.

In apparent panic at the tenor of the Supreme Court argument over the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare), liberal law professors have exploded with anticipatory denunciations of the court’s conservative justices—claiming that it would be “hypocritical” and “partisan” of them to invalidate legislation passed by Congress when they generally oppose “judicial activism.”

It appears the professors’ idea of sound jurisprudence is that their favored justices are free to invalidate statutes that offend their sensibilities whether or not the words of the Constitution have anything to say on the matter, as in the case of same-sex marriage or partial-birth abortion, and even if the Constitution seems to endorse it, as in capital punishment. But if conservative justices have the temerity to enforce actual limits on government power stated in Article I, Section 8—over liberal dissents—then they are acting as shameless partisans.

It seems unlikely this one-sided definition of “activism” will persuade anyone. Judicial review might be aggressive and it might be deferential, but there cannot be one set of rules for liberal justices and another set for conservatives.

If liberal supporters of the health-care law were as confident of the merits of their position as they claim to be, they would offer actual legal arguments, based on text, history, structure and precedent, instead of labeling justices with whom they disagree as hypocrites and partisans.

The health-care case is hard for a reason. As James Madison wrote in The Federalist, No. 37, “marking the proper line of partition between the authority of the general and that of the State governments” is so “arduous” that it will “puzzle the greatest adepts in political science.”

As American commerce has grown more national and even global in nature, the line has become only harder to draw. It is not intellectually responsible for defenders of the health-care statute to pretend there is only one clear right answer to the case, and to imply that those who disagree must be blinded by partisanship.

Both sides in the ObamaCare litigation agree, in principle, that a line must be drawn somewhere, and that it must be drawn by the Supreme Court. As the great Chief Justice John Marshall put it, the enumeration of certain powers of Congress “presupposes something not enumerated,” and “by this tribunal alone can the decision be made.” It is not “judicial activism” for the court to do its duty to draw this line. Unlike some cases that could be named, the court is not thrusting itself into a political controversy where the Constitution has nothing to say.

The states challenging the individual mandate rely on a simple conceptual point: Under its power to regulate “commerce,” Congress can regulate only transactions taking place in the economy; it has no power to regulate nonactivity—to regulate persons not engaged in commerce by requiring them to buy products or services they would not otherwise purchase, in this case health insurance.

That may be a correct reading of the Constitution, or not, but it must be taken seriously. There is no precedent either way, because Congress has never passed a law like this before.

The oral arguments made before the Supreme Court in March revealed that the defenders of the health-care mandate are unable to identify any line between what they say Congress can do and what it cannot. The solicitor general offered various reasons why health care is unique, but none of them are grounded in any principle based in constitutional text, history or theory. That does not mean ObamaCare is doomed. But it does mean that, if the court wishes to uphold the statue, the justices will have to come up with their own rationale.

The drafters and defenders of the health-care law have only themselves to blame for this mess. With a filibuster-proof Senate and total domination of the House, they did not trouble to build the consensus necessary for transformative legislation of this scope.

More importantly, they did not take seriously their obligation to legislate within the limits set by the Constitution. Indeed, when a reporter asked in October 2009 what the constitutional basis was for the statute, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi dismissively responded, “Are you serious?”

Either the drafters of the legislation should have stayed within the generous bounds of authority established by prior precedent, or the administration’s lawyers needed to offer a legal defense for going beyond those precedents that does not do violence to fundamental structural features of our Constitution. They could hardly expect the independent judiciary to write Congress a blank check of plenary regulatory authority, without discernible limit.

With all due respect to the Honorable Judge McConnell, two comments: first, intellectual dishonesty is the hallmark of modern Liberalism.  It has to be, as almost every one of their arguments are based not on facts but feelings.

Second, Dimocrats most certainly could and did expect “the independent judiciary” to write them “a blank check of plenary regulatory authority, without discernible limit”; it’s exactly what they need to consolidate control over every aspect of our lives….

….acting in our best interest of course!

In a related item, courtesy of the WSJ, Tom Perkins co-inventor the PSA test, notes another nail that needs to be driven in the coffin of Obamascare:

Prostate Testing and the Death Panel

A free economy leads to life-saving innovations. A highly taxed and overregulated economy leads to government agencies that discourage their use.

A recent announcement by the U.S. Preventative Health Service can rather simply be summed up: Most men eventually get prostate cancer, but most don’t die from it; those who do are mostly over 75 years of age, so that ends their continuing burden on the public purse. Further, early and prolonged testing is expensive, and can lead to medical complications from biopsy examination.

Happily I can report that I have successfully completed my 80th trip around the sun. A few years ago prostrate cancer was detected by my annual prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test; it was of a particularly aggressive type, as revealed by a routine biopsy. That test led to surgery, radiation and hormone therapy.

Unfortunately, the cancer returned, and for the last couple of years I have been undergoing both routine and quite advanced experimental therapies, and everything has been monitored and controlled by PSA tests. Happily, the cancer has been knocked off its feet, and though not eliminated, it is controlled to the point that I am writing this from Fiji where I am actively scuba diving every day. (Fiji is a marvelous place for that sport, my favorite.)

Life is full of ironies. The PSA test was developed by a Kleiner & Perkins company, Hybritech, in the mid 1970s. How happy I am that Eugene Kleiner and I backed that effort so long ago; the partnership no longer has the remotest financial interest in the field, so these thoughts are not motivated by any residual economic involvement.

It’s hard to avoid a political aside, so I won’t try. A healthy market-driven free economy leads to innovation and the development of breakthroughs, like the PSA test. A highly taxed and highly regulated economy leads to “Death Panels,” like the U.S. Preventative Health Service.

Obamascare….

 Coming soon to a town, city, county, state or country near you!

And in the Environmental Moment, courtesy of Ket Troxell, here’s a question: why don’t Conservatives lie about Liberals the way Progressives about them?  Because Liberals are constantly doing stuff you just can’t make up!

Will.I.Am attends climate change talk in helicop[t]er

Musician Will.I.Am has been criticised for arriving at a climate change debate in a private helicopter, producing the same amount of CO2 most people do in a month.

The Voice judge had been meeting climate change experts at Oxford University as part of a guest speaking role. Despite his environmentally-conscious stance on green issues, the Black Eyed Peas rapper, 37, chose to take a private helicopter to the venue.

Gee….who does that….

….bring to mind?!?

On the Lighter Side….

Finally, in News of the Bizarre, Bret Baier notes an….

Unwelcome Addition

There’s quite a stir over a Harvard alumni directory updated ahead of the 50th class reunion. Among the entries is “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski who is, of course, locked up at the federal supermax prison in Colorado for killing three people and injuring 23 others during a bombing spree. Kaczynski lists his current occupation as “prisoner” and says his awards are “eight life sentences.”

The Harvard Alumni Association regrets publishing the update and issued the following statement — quote — “While all members of the class who submit entries are included, we regret publishing Kaczynski’s references to his convictions and apologize for any distress that it may have caused others.”

A Harvard spokesman says the update was indeed submitted by Kaczynski, but wouldn’t say how that was confirmed.

Ted Kaczynski, Ted Kennedy….what are the odds Ted Bundy attended Harvard as well?

Magoo