TheDC Morning: Governor Moonbeam sharpens his budget-cutting knives

Mike Riggs Contributor
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1.) Two Democrats announce plans to overreact to Tucson massacre — A little more than 24 hours after a lone gunman attempted to assassinate Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, killing and wounding more than a dozen others in the process, two Democratic representatives announced their plans to further restrict Americans’ freedom. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, whose husband was killed and her son injured in a subway car shooting, wants to renew a Clinton-era ban on large ammunition magazines, as well as investigate the type of ammunition used by deranged (and possibly schizophrenic) shooter Jared L. Loughner. “Looking at the number of clips that he was able to fire, from 15 to 20 rounds, we need to look at those and say, ‘Why should an average citizen be able to have that?'” McCarthy told Newsday. “If you have a semiautomatic and can’t take someone down with a standard clip, you shouldn’t have one.” Meanwhile, Democratic Rep. Robert Brady would like to make it “a federal crime for a person to use language or symbols that could be perceived as threatening or inciting violence against a Member of Congress or federal official.” When asked by CNN if he honestly expected his colleagues to join him in defecating on the First Amendment, Brady replied, “Why would you be against it?”

2.) Opportunists mount their high horses after Giffords shooting — Don’t look now, but the Internet is awash with Big Important Ideas and Stern Warnings and Wake Up Calls: Even though lunatic Jared Loughner is the first person to shoot a Congressperson since Rep. Leo Ryan was murdered by the communitarian followers of the Rev. Jim Jones, America is apparently barreling toward oblivion. Writing in Foreign Policy, David J. Rothkopf saw this weekend as reason to ask, “How can a gun-crazed society lead the world?” Meanwhile, an unnamed Democratic operative told Politico, “They need to deftly pin this on the tea partiers….Just like the Clinton White House deftly pinned the Oklahoma City bombing on the militia and anti-government people.” Economist and Stigmata sufferer Paul Krugman, who once instructed progressives to “hang Senator Joe Lieberman in effigy,” wrote Sunday that he was expecting this to happen, and that he still remembers “the upsurge in political hatred after Bill Clinton’s election in 1992 — an upsurge that culminated in the Oklahoma City bombing. And you could see, just by watching the crowds at McCain-Palin rallies, that it was ready to happen again.”

3.) Westboro Baptist Church manages to unite all of America against Westboro Baptist Church — Christina-Taylor Green was born on September 11, 2001. She was a straight-A student and the only girl on her little league baseball team. And as of Saturday, she is no more, after lunatic Jared Loughner shot her down during his rampage in Tucson. While good people mourn Green’s death, the sickos at the Westboro Baptist Church celebrate it. The very same organization that made headlines by picketing military funerals not only thanked “God” for Loughner’s attack, but has announced that it plans to picket Green’s funeral.

4.) Forget Powerball: Pols guaranteed to win when they play ‘Great Health Care Cash-out’ — “Democrat Earl Pomeroy’s vote for the health care bill may have cost him his seat in Congress, but it also earned him a job on K Street,” observes the Examiner’s Tim Carney. It seems Pomeroy wasn’t really falling on his sword, but laying the foundations for a career as an Obamacare leech. Pomeroy’s easy transition from corrupt king to wiley wormtongue “demolishes President Obama’s insistent claims that his health care push was a battle against the special interests. In truth, the bill’s subsidies and mandates are a boondoggle for the powerful drug industry and were received warmly by hospitals and the doctors lobby,” writes Carney. “Ethics law prohibits Pomeroy from lobbying the House for two years, but he can get started by lobbying the Senate and executive-branch agencies such as the Department of Health and Human Services.” That loophole is big enough to chuck a 2,000-page bill through.

5.) Governor Moonbeam sharpens his budget-cutting knives — “The budget Jerry Brown will propose Monday includes deep program cuts, a June election to extend tax increases and a broad reordering of state and local government to close a deficit estimated at $25 billion to $28 billion,” reports the Sacramento Bee. Moonbeam’s plan for California’s beleaguered higher ed system include “deep cuts to both UC and CSU systems, in ways targeted to minimize fee hikes and enrollment reductions.” He’ll “consolidate some state departments and agencies,” thereby reducing the cost of bureaucratic waste and incompetence. And he’ll also reduce his own budget by $7 million, by eliminating the positions of “education secretary, Cabinet secretaries and first lady’s staff.” Perhaps Moonbeam is the right man for the job after all?

6.) Senile former president calls China a peaceful country — Peanut farmer and former Pres. Jimmy Carter was allowed in front of a camera recently, where he laid out his progressive foreign policy view of China. “They are basically a peaceful country, which gives them another advantage over the United States when we are much more inclined to go to war for various reasons,” Carter said of the country that refused to commute the prison sentence of a Nobel-prize winning dissident. If there was any doubt as to whether Carter was making a distinction between internal and external peace, he quickly clarified by saying, “Since January 1, 1979, China has expanded its freedom within its country.” The Falung Gong might disagree.