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It's a little hard to find -- since it's not yet on the bill's page -- but the proposed substitute for the income tax bill is available under that page's Committee Materials link.

It's not an amendment, but a completely different bill. You'll want to look at Section 401 ("For income earned on or after January 1, 2011, a tax is imposed at the rate of four and five-tenths percent on all taxable income of resident individuals and on all individuals deriving income from sources in Washington for each taxable year.") and Section 504 ("There is allowed from taxable income the following standard deductions. ...").

However, there is no severability clause: so if that's the case and Section 504 is found to be unconstitutional, the whole thing would get thrown out. That is made explicit in Section 1202. That's the only good news here. Perhaps they changed the severability clause from last year's version because of exactly this criticism: that it would end up as a tax on everyone if the standard deductions were found unconstitutional, which is likely, if the Court follows longstanding precedent.

As a refresher, our State Constitution, in Article VII, Section 1, says, "All taxes shall be uniform upon the same class of property within the territorial limits of the authority levying the tax. ..." And our Court has consistently ruled that money is property (having found this because, I presume, it is obviously true). So without overturning many decades of precedent and finding that money is not property, the only way to make this fly would be to rule that different levels of income are property, which would be even more twisted than finding that money isn't property.

Or they could just completely take leave of their senses and find that a standard deduction that is, by the words of the people who authored it, explicitly designed to target specific taxpayers (thus violating the spirit and letter of the Constitution), is nevertheless "uniform" because "the tax is on everyone, but it just exempts certain amounts for everyone."

Recession. Massive unemployment. Tax increases. Higher health insurance costs. Property values in the toilet. Loans impossible to get for most people. And today the WA Senate announces that they want to force car insurance rates higher, for an auto theft surcharge (makes you wonder who the actual thieves are).

And students who have never had a job or paid taxes -- along with teachers who have never worked in the private sector -- are protesting that we aren't giving them enough free money for college educations most of them probably won't use and don't need.

If you really want a college education, I am highly in favor of it. A college education can be a great way to prepare you for the real world. You know what's another great way of preparing for the real world? Learning how to pay for things yourself, if you really want them.

But I have enough to pay for already without covering your Higher Ed Fantasy Camp.

Did the Democrats give any signal, at all, that they would be willing to take out any significant provision of their health care bill?

It seems to me that if not, it's hard to make a claim they were trying to compromise or be bipartisan.

Many people, in both parties, think that the legislative act is one of buying votes. From beginning to end.

They make sure you vote for the bill by putting something in it you want, whether it's a Bridge to Nowhere, the "Cornhusker Kickback," the public option, individual mandates, or whatever.

They don't seem to consider that some people will vote against the bill for what is in it, rather than what is not in it.

We saw this in display all day long with Obama and the Democrats saying over and over again that they have and would put in the bill what the Republicans want, and all the Republicans need to do is accept what the Democrats want. In this way, we have compromise, and there would be peace in the land.

But if what the Democrats want is something the Republicans are philosophically opposed to, then it's not compromise: it's surrender. And the Democrats know this. They know the Republicans cannot support an individual mandate, for example.

Real compromise involves subtraction, usually moreso than addition.

If the Democrats really cared about bipartisanship they would not try to add things to the bill to buy Republican votes, but they would offer to remove things from the bill that prevent Republicans from supporting it.

I am not implying the Republicans are perfectly principled and wonderful people. You wouldn't respect me if I did. I wouldn't respect myself. But there are lines they won't cross; the Democraic proposal has some of them; the Democrats know this; and they insist on Republican agreement anyway.

Now, I do accept the idea that this all could be part of the process, and the Democrats will eventually work with the Republicans by dropping the things that the Republicans will not support. But it doesn't look like it that's going to happen.

When a "compromise" "bipartisan" proposal includes ideas the Republicans cannot possibly support, according to their principles -- most obviously forcing everyone to buy health insurance, but also forcing people and businesses into a new "health insurance exchange," punishing people for buying services the government doesn't think they should have, and so on -- then it's not bipartisan. It's not a compromise.

The White House is going through great pains to say, "hey look at all the Republican ideas we included in our plan!" But that's not enough. They could include everything the Republicans want, but if it also includes things Republicans cannot support, then Republicans will oppose it.

For those who don't get it, try this analogy: a bill that cuts taxes, but that also forces dog owners to kill the cutest puppy of every litter, won't get support from conservatives. They like the tax cut; they don't like forcing people to kill cute puppies.

The individual mandate cannot be supported by the Republicans. Period. Adding in Republican ideas to a bill Republicans cannot support doesn't make it bipartisan: cutting out the things Republicans cannot support makes it bipartisan. And the White House has shown no willingness to do that.

Also, I'd like to point out that Obama is still making the claim, "Nothing in the proposal forces anyone to change the insurance they have. Period." But that's a lie. An individual mandate does precisely this. A mandate sets a minimum level of coverage, and forces people under that level -- through punishment of hefty fine, up into thousands of dollars per year for many people -- if they don't meet it. If you have insurance that does not meet that minimum standard, you are being forced to change it. Period. Obama is lying.

The Mackinac Center predicts that the cigarette tax will make half of all cigarettes illegally smuggled in to Washington State.

I don't know if that's true or not, but what I do know is that over half of Gregoire's proposed $605m tax increases are "sin taxes" (on candy, gum, bottled water, carbonated beverages, and tobacco); I know that these "sin taxes" will serve -- and are designed -- to discourage the behavior being taxed; I know Gregoire knows these things; and, therfore, I know that Gregoire's prediction of $345m in revenue from these taxes is dishonest.

I also know, by the way, that if our state hadn't abandoned Priorities of Government, they couldn't lie to the people and say they need these taxes to fund "vital services": they would have to be honest and say they can already fund "vital services" with the money they have, because PoG would require them to fund those things first. Instead, they choose to fund non-vital things first, so they can strengthen their case for tax increases for "vital services."

And while I'm at it, I also know that if Gregoire and the Democrats had kept spending to 10-15 percent in her first term, instead of the 33 percent we actually had, we would not have to raise taxes to fund anything today.

As usual, this whole thing is just long-term scheming to get bigger, and bigger, and bigger government. "Never let a crisis go to waste."

Mike Reitz at EFF gives a good writeup of the Supreme Court of Washington's decision in State v. Sieyes, which -- in essence -- says that our federal Constitution (through the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment) guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms, but not necessarily for minors.

The court did not actually rule that minors do not have such rights, but basically asserted that they weren't convinced they did. Civil libertarian Justice Richard Sanders wrote for the majority, saying, "we keep our powder dry on this issue for another day."

The current doctrine of selective incorporation -- which I've many times discussed -- was a travesty designed to prevent the plain language, and explicitly stated intent of the authors of, the Fourteenth Amendment from taking effect. Indeed, the sponsor of the Fourteenth Amendment in the Senate said at the amendment's introduction that "[t]he great object of the first section of this amendment is, therefore, to restrain the power of the States and compel them at all times to respect these great fundamental guarantees," which include "the freedom of speech and of the press; the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the Government for a redress of grievances, a right appertaining to each and all the people; the right to keep and to bear arms; the right to be exempted from the quartering of soldiers in a house without the consent of the owner," and so on.

Applying the Second Amendment to the States was part of the stated purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment. And the language is clear.

Sanders didn't write about this century-old travesty, but instead applied existing federal standards for incorporation, and demonstrated quite clearly and convincingly that the Second Amendment meets those standards.

New Chief Justice Barbara Madsen agreed with the decision in "result only," while Justice Debra Stephens wrote a concurring opinion claiming that she too agreed with the result -- that minors are not found to have gun rights -- but asserted that the decision to incorporate the Second Amendment was not warranted by the case, particularly in light of this summer's pending decision in the federal Court, because "I do not believe this is an instance where there is anything to be accomplished" by doing so. This could betray biases on both sides: perhaps Sanders wishes to contribute to the discussion the federal Court will be having, and Stephens does not.

Conservative Justice James Johnson dissented with the decision, for though he agreed with the incorporation part of the decision, he -- perhaps giving weight to Stephens' complaint of lack of restraint -- disagreed with the part of the decision regarding minors.

The main point here is what level of scrutiny to apply to our right to keep and bear arms. Johnson argued for strict scrutiny, the notion that in order to override someone's Constitutional rights, there must be in order to serve a compelling state interest, the law must be narrowly tailored to serve that interest, and it must use the least restrictive means to serve that interest. Under strict scrutiny, surely the case would have been found in favor of gun rights for minors; however, the question I have is whether minors should get strict scrutiny applied to them. Johnson is right, however, that the Washington Court does apply strict scrutiny to minors, so it seems in violation of precedent to not do so here.

Sanders responded that the Supreme Court itself refused to define a level of scrutiny for Second Amendment matters. It's curious, though, that Sanders punts on scrutiny because of an explicit lack of federal Court guidance, but forges ahead with incorporation despite the same lack of guidance, especially in light of the coming decision later this year. This makes me think even more that Sanders wants to, if he can, contribute to the federal Court's decision to incorporate.

I've not spoken much about this, because there's many arguments to be made for or against whether Umar Farouq Abdulmuttalab should be tried in criminal court or military court; whether he should have been read his rights soon after being taken into custody, or later, or not at all.

But I am struck by how terribly illogical the administration's defense of its actions has been. One official claimed they had to Mirandize him because the Constitution required it, which just isn't true, and there's precedent to prove it (and no caselaw to argue the contrary).

Joe Biden repeated the latest talking point the other day, that, well, the military tribunals have released two of the three people who were tried in them, so obviously, they don't work very well! The logical contortions behind this argument are astounding.

Biden's argument first asks us to believe that three is a reasonable statistical sampling from which to draw any conclusions, which on its face, is ridiculous. But if you look at who those three people are, it becomes even more ridiculous. All three were charged with, and covincted of, providing material support for terrorism. In addition, Salim Hamdan was charged with, and acquitted of, conspiracy. He, along with Australian David Hicks, were sentenced to 66 and 84 months in prison, respectively, because the crime is not as severe as actual terrorism.

The other person tried was Ali Hamza al-Bahlul, who was convicted for -- in addition to providing material support -- conspiracy and solicitation to commit murder. This is obviously a more servere crime, and he was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

So if we actually follow Biden's argument here -- that we should look at the past results of the tribunals as indicators for what will happen in the future -- then, in fact, we should expect that someone like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who actively planned and participated in killing thousands of civilians, will be convicted and subjected to, at least, life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

How sad is it that when someone looks at your own argument, it actually disproves the point you were making?

Moreover, Biden clearly frames the administration as active in trying to prosecute and jail terrorists, but at the same time, he is framing the fact that two of the three people tried and convicted by the military tribunals as some sort of failure that he wants to avoid with civilian trials.

But if Salim Hamdan being sentenced to only 66 months in jail, and being free today, is such a failure, then shouldn't we at least ask the Obama administration why it hired Hamdan's lawyer, Neal Katyal, as the principal Deputy Solicitor General of the United States?

Again, I am not saying we should not use civilian law enforcement methods for investigation and trial of these people. There's arguments for, and against. But it does make me question how strong Obama's case is when he keeps making such terrible arguments to support it.

Says DNC head Tim Kaine in a fundraising letter: "It's a breathtaking display of public hypocrisy. At least 116 Republican governors, senators, and representatives have spent the past year railing against the Recovery Act, while simultaneously requesting funds to create jobs in their districts and taking credit for projects at ribbon-cutting ceremonies."

So according to the Democrats, if you oppose certain funding, but then -- when you lose the vote to kill that funding -- want to make sure that your district -- full of taxpayers who are paying for that funding -- gets its fair share of that funding ... you're a hypocrite.

This, obviously, makes no sense. I am opposed to Social Security; but I am paying into it, and I will take what is legally mine when it comes time. I was opposed to Obama's (extremely tiny) tax credit last year, but I will take my fair share of it. Many Democrats were opposed to the Republican tax cuts for all American income tax payers, because they also cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans ... but those same wealthy Democrats took those tax breaks.

Only a moron could believe that taking your fair share of a program you didn't want, but that you're paying for, is hypocrisy. Unfortunately for Tim Kaine, I am taking him at his word, that he believes what he says, which means he's pretty dumb.

Obama and College
President Obama wants more control over education, but he doesn't really understand education.

It's scary enough that Obama wants to further violate the Constitution by dictating (either with carrots or sticks) what kids should be learning, as if what Washington or Oregon schools teach -- or when they teach it -- is any of the federal government's business. (And I opposed Bush's "No Child Left Behind" so chill out.) And Obama has said all along that everyone should get some post-K-12 education for at least a year (for the "good of society" to get a "better workforce"), which again, is none of the federal government's business.

But what's really depressingly scary is that Obama either has no clue how higher ed works, or ... perhaps worse, he does, since that would mean he is intentionally manipulating the cost of college upward, probably with the intent of controlling it like he wants to control health care.

Under Obama's plan, students who get "loans" will only have to pay back a small portion of them. Not only does this create a disincentive to get a good job after college (since the more money you make, the more you have to pay back on your loan), but it dramatically increases the actual cost of education, which Obama says is the reason we need to cover the costs in the first place.

The reason why higher ed costs so much, why it's increased dramatically faster than the rate of inflation, is because of government aid, not in spite of it. Obviously, when students don't pay the costs directly, they are more likely to pay a higher price. (This well-known effect happens in health care all the time, too.) You get a government loan: why not pay whatever the school is asking? Especially since, thanks to Obama, you will only pay a fraction of the value of the loan and only over 20 years.

And the college therefore has every incentive to charge as much as they can get government to pay: it uses the extra money to build new buildings and add all sorts of programs that get even more students to want to attend at even higher prices, bringing in even more government dollars.

Many of Obama's allies say they want to end subsidies for large corporations, but that's precisely what our system of student loans is. Never mind the fact that the actual value of a college education has been steadily decreasing.

Washington State and "Ample Provision"

What is the value of a year of college? For my money, a lot less than the $30,000 it costs for many schools. It's a complete ripoff. You can learn as much -- more, really -- for a small fraction of that price, and end up a better (and wealthier) person for it.

Of course, education cannot be measured in dollars. That doesn't stop some people from trying, though: a recent ruling in a court in Washington State claimed that the state had to spend more money on education because it was not fulfilling its constitutional "paramount duty" to make "ample provision" for education.

It should be obvious to everyone who understands any math concepts more advanced than "two dimes and a nickel equal a quarter" that because education cannot be measured in dollars, therefore "ample provision" for that education also cannot be measured in dollars. In other words, you can increase the quality of education without increasing the dollars being spent.

There's no evidence that there is not enough money being spent on education: there's only evidence that the quality of education being provided is insufficient. It is an incredible leap of logic to then say "since the quality of education is bad, therefore we need to spend more money." It assumes something we know, for a fact, is false: that money and education are directly correlated; that more money equals better education, less money worse education, and same money same education. It's nonsense.

And even if more money needed to be spent, one thing that should be pointed out -- and therefore I point it out -- is that anyone who says that Washington State taxes need to be increased to pay for education is lying. Period.

For it to be true, the state must not be funding anything else. The state's "paramount duty" -- the thing it must do first, above all else -- is to make "ample provision" for education. As long as the government is spending money on other programs, it therefore must not need to raise taxes for education: it can (and constitutionally, must) take money from other programs if it needs more for education. It's the other stuff that might "need" more money justifying increased taxes.

Of course, if the voters were told that their taxes were being raised for the state's "Say WA?" ad campaign and art in new buildings, they'd never get the support they needed to raise taxes.

Which is why they lie.

There's nothing new under the sun. Five years ago, the Republicans were using recess appointments to avoid (then unprecedented) Democratic filibusters. Now we're looking at a reversal. Then, Democrats lambasted Bush for undermining democracy with his use of the recess appointment; now, surely, Republicans will do the same to Obama.

I do love Harry Reid's completely incredible claim that while recess appointments under Bush were an "an end run around the Senate and the Constitution," now he supports them because, well, "what alternative do we have?"

How about ... not doing what you believe is an "end run around the Senate and the Constitution?" No one is forcing Obama to do what you believe is an "end run around the Senate and the Constitution."

Unless of course, you never actually believed that. Which is, of course, true.

Please, Senator Reid, realize that no one, of any political stripe, believes you when you pretend that this is not pure partisanship. And let's be further clear here that never before in our history had judicial nominees been blocked from a vote by filibuster until the Democrats, led in part by Reid, did it under Bush. So not only is Reid being a hypocrite, but let's face facts here: in this war over nominees, he started it.

Not that the Republicans are blameless, of course. There's more than enough blame to go around.

For those who want to end filibusters, my plan has been -- for many years -- and remains this: end the ability of Senators to block a vote on anything, using the filibuster. There's various ways to do this, but the key point is this: change the rule now, but don't have it take effect for two more legislative sessions. So if you do it now, it would take effect in 2014. That way no one knows who would be in the majority or minority by the time the rule change takes effect.

There's ten questions on the 2010 census questionnaire. I believe several of them cannot legally be required, and I won't be answering them.

The Constitution says on the subject:

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct.

The point here is twofold: a. that the federal government gets to count us, and b. that they can do it in such manner the law directs. Implied in the latter part, of course, implies "that doesn't violate the Constitution." Otherwise, they could just make pass a law that says "no one may criticize the Census," and it would not violate the First Amendment.

That's obviously silly, but it's the argument they actually make when they say they can require us to provide any information they choose to force us to provide, despite the fact that the Constitution says they cannot.

There's four types of questions on the form. The first is the explicitly constitutional one: the number of people living there; the second is about whether those people sometimes live elsewhere; the third type is individual identification: name, phone number; the fourth is demographic information for the purposes of tailoring government programs: age, sex, gender, and home ownership.

The first type of question is obviously legitimate, speaking directly to the point of the census as explained in the Constitution. The second is arguably legitimate, as it can aid in preventing double-counting.

The third type -- personal identifying information -- is arguably legitimate as well, for the same basic reason: helping to get an accurate count. Naming each person can aid the respondent in listing all the people properly, and the phone number might be used for clarification if necessary.

The fourth type, though ... it's pure nonsense. In fact, the federal government explicitly states the purpose is all about government programs, instead of enumeration. The constitutional purpose of the census is not served. This questions can, arguably, still be allowed and required, however, if any other part of the constitution is not violated in the process.

Unfortunately for the government, however, the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments do protect my right to privacy. Government cannot compel this extra-constitutional information from me without following due process, and "passing a law" is not due process.

So in the end, I'll only be answering the questions about how many people live here. I am undecided whether I will provide any names of the people living here. The justification is shaky, and it's arguable either way. I'll give them my phone number, though. The Census Bureau will be free to call me and ask for clarification, which will include recitations of relevant portions of the Constitution and legal precedents like Griswold v. Connecticut.

CNN dutifully reports that "The government's monthly job report on Friday showed that the disastrous labor situation plaguing the nation's economy is moderating."

The facts: "The unemployment rate fell unexpectedly in January to 9.7%. And businesses shed 20,000 jobs for the month, far fewer than the 150,000 jobs that were lost in December."

So when CNN says the "unemployment rate fell unexpectedly," they mean "more people stopped looking for jobs than expected," obviously, because that's the only way you can lose jobs and still increase the percentage of the workforce that is employed.

And when CNN says that the situation is "moderating," they mean "still getting worse, but not getting worse as badly as before," obviously, because we're still losing jobs.

And when it says we lost far fewer jobs than in December, it also means we lost far more jobs than in November.

I hope that helps.

I'm actually not pessmistic about all this. I don't believe this is the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression (I still remember the 70s and 80s); I see a lot of fundamentally good things in the economy (which Obama also says ... now, even though he dishonestly attacked McCain for saying so in the campaign); and so on.

The thing that makes me most pessimistic is not where we are, but what we are doing: sowing the seeds for future crises by manipulating the market and drastically increasing debt and deficit, instead of letting the market actually work.

I guess this would be a good time to post this awesome rap video about Keynes and Hayek.

One thing I dislike about many politicians is that they genuinely dislike many of their constituents.

Take Washington Governor Christine Gregoire, for example. When presented with a petition of 14,000 signatures -- mostly from corporate special interests who get government subsidies -- calling for tax increases, she met with them, happy to be asked to raise taxes.

But when 20,000 signatures -- mostly from the people who pay for those subsidies -- were provided in a petition against tax increases, none of our leaders -- not Gregoire, not Speaker Chopp, not Majority Leader Brown -- would meet with them.

Even if they disagree, shouldn't they at least meet with the representatives of 20,000 citizens? Let's face it: they just don't like you. Sorry.

Gregoire was the one who said in her first term, multiple times, that we should not spend a lot during good times, so we would not have to make drastic cuts and tax increases in the bad times. But the 33 percent spending increase in her first term, signing bills passed by Chopp and Brown, is precisely why we are faced with drastic cuts and tax increases today: we could have had the modest increases she dishonestly preached about, and we wouldn't be facing large deficits (if any at all).

So now she and Chopp and Brown want to raise taxes to fix the problem they created, supposedly on your behalf.

Last year, a massive rally on their doorstep successfully diuscouraged them from raising taxes. This year, we can do it again. On President's Day, February 15, there will be another rally on the steps of the Capitol, at 10 a.m.

HB 2837 puts additional regulations on some pregnancy centers if they do not offer referrals for abortions. So two clinics that are exactly the same, except that one offers abortion referrals and one doesn't, and the latter is defined as a "limited service pregnancy center," and must disclose to each client -- both verbally upon first contact, and in writing on the wall, on any advertisement, and on the home page, in English and Spanish -- that it "does not provide medical care for pregnant women."

As if offerring abortion referrals means it does provide medical care for pregnant women? Newsflash: providing a referral for "medical care" is not, itself, providing medical care. I shouldn't have to point out the obvious, but it seems it's necessary.

The center that does not provide abortion referrals also must not administer over-the-counter pregnancy tests, but instead inform the client that it is over-the-counter and give it to the client to self-administer. As if offerring abortion referrals means it should have to do differently?

It also introduces new requirements for disclosure of health care records ... again, as if offering abortion referrals means a center shouldn't have to do such disclosures?

This bill is not about protecting potential clients, it is about trying to harm anti-abortion pregnancy centers, plain and simple. If the state wants to make these restrictions apply to everyone, fine, but to single out centers for restrictions where the only differentiating factor is that they do not offer abortion restrictions is so completely off-the-wall that there's few places it could possibly happen. We in Washington just happen to live in one of those places.

Wow. Forgetting the incorrect claim that John Koster "has offered no long-term solution to the problems of funding ... county services," the main point of the letter -- that refusing to vote for tax increases is a "capitulation of the authority of the seat he occupies" -- is a special kind of crazy worthy of note ... especially when, at the same time, the letter-writer says that we should be cutting spending.

A friend of mine said he thought a representative should vote the way his constituents want, thinking that many Senators are not doing their job by voting against health insurance reform that their constituents don't want.

To me, however, this is not the republican form of government our founders instituted. Edmund Burke said in 1774, in one of my favorite quotes, "Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion."

I've always loved that quote, but in the case of health insurance reform, I think the context immediately preceding that quote is even more relevant: "... his unbiassed opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living. These he does not derive from your pleasure; no, nor from the law and the constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply answerable."

When a legislator is bought off, or when he otherwise allows himself to be swayed for the good of the party or some other thing besides the legislation at hand, he is doing something worse than going against the will of his constituents: he is going against his own judgment, abusing a sacred trust.

I do not respect representatives who vote on legislation on a basis other than their own views of whether that legislation should or should not be law. That's their job, that's the power they've been entrusted with. But that's not how the parties expect representatives to act: they expect them to tow the party line, and at the very least, be willing to be bought off.

I understand this to some degree: parties exist to get agendas implemented. If you're a member of the party, you're expressing agreement with a significant portion of that agenda. But that is short-sighted. A strong party, long term, will nurture not fealty to specific (and ever-changing) agendas and compliance with leadership, but, rather, consistent application of the principles that support that agenda.

When you do that, you might lose some bills, but you get something much more valuable: a party comprised of representaives that the public trusts to follow their established principles and vote their conscience.

Read it and weep, if you love liberty and the Constitution. Or you just like guns.

Thankfully, this being an election year in which Democrats are already running for cover, this ban most likely has no chance whatsoever of passing. I imagine most Democrats in the legislature are angry at liberal Seattle Senators Adam Kline, Darlene Fairley, Jeanne Kohl-Welles, and Joe McDermott, because just by introducing this bill, it's going to hurt Democrats who aren't in safe districts like Seattle.

I am very pleased to report that Snohomish County Councilman John Koster is running for U.S. Congress in Washington's Second Congressional District against current representative Rick Larsen.

Koster's a conservative's conservative. He lost to Larsen in 2000 by a thin margin -- the only time he's ever lost a general election -- but this time, combining Larsen's many missteps with John's record and the voter mood, if Koster can get his message out, he will win.

Check out his web site, his Twitter feed, and his Facebook page.

I don't know Rep. Matt Shea (R-4th LD, around Spokane), but I consider him a bit of a hero, actually standing up for rights and liberty when most people, on either side of the aisle, don't.

Here's some of his fantabulous bills dropped for this session. I don't know if any of them will pass, but here's hopin'. Some of the highlights:

House Bill 2709 (Preventing federal regulation from affecting state gun laws), House Bill 2711 (Regarding the constitutional right of self defense), House Bill 2712 (Creating a federal tax account to protect state sovereignty), House Bill 2713 (Regulating arrests and searches by federal employees), House Bill 2714 (exempting initiative and referendum signatures from public disclosure), House Bill 2715 (Changing the electoral college representatives), House Bill 2716 (Allowing first repurchase of surplus transportation property), House Bill 2718 (Concerning defendants who are found to be guilty and mentally ill).

Let's be honest here, Governor Gregoire: you are most of the problem. Our deficit problems were caused by you. And you knew it at the time. You said, several times, in previous State of the State addresses, that we needed to stop the cycle of spending during good times, followed by cutting essential programs and raising taxes during bad times.

But that's exactly what you gave us: a state budget that increased 33 percent in your first term, and now we're faced with billions of dollars in deficits.

You can talk all you like about the recession and so on, but you knew a recession could be coming, and you knew what we needed to do to reduce its impact, but you didn't take your own advice. If we'd held the budget increases to reasonable levels we wouldn't be facing significant deficits at all.

You are -- along with the Democratic legislature that passed the spending bills you signed -- the reason we have this problem. It's why your job approval ratings are the worst they've ever been.

But you can redeem yourself, a little bit. You can promise to veto any removal of the two-thirds requirement to raise taxes, or any bill that increases taxes, that doesn't get a two-thirds majority of both the House and the Senate. Back when you were running for re-election you brought back the 1 percent cap on property tax because, you said, "The voters approved Initiative 747" and "it has been in place for five years." The two-thirds requirement has been on the books for 17 years, and was reaffirmed only three years ago; does it not deserve the same respect?

Or do you really not care about whether the voters approve something, as you said you did when you were running for re-election?

You can say all you want that we can't cut our way out of this. But we know that's not true, because you spent our way into it. You know, we know it, and you can drop the charade.

The Big Lie the Democrats and their allies are telling of late is that while people are against the health insurance bill, they like what is in the bill. They cite polls that show people like this, that, and the other thing.

And indeed, if this, that, and the other thing were each a separate bill -- or combined with nothing else into a single bill -- the Congress would pass them overwhelmingly.

But that's not what this bill is. If you're going to poll people on specific items in the bill, it is only fair -- which is why the Democrats don't do it -- to poll them on all the provisions of the bill, not just the ones you think they'll like. The tax increases, the mandates to employers and individual citizens, the reduced choices, and so on.

It's these other things that are also in the bill that are the reason why a majority of Americans oppose the bill.

However, the Democrats do have a point, though most of them won't say it explicitly: despite all the bad in the bill, once it's implemented, people will get attached to the things in the bill they like, and it will be nearly impossible to repeal it.

Take Medicare: people would never vote to repeal it today. But if it were being proposed today as a new program -- laying out all of the facts, about how it is nearly bankrupt, and how many providers don't accept it, about its many flaws -- it would never become law.

This is also why the Democrats are stupid to be worried about the details. They should instead make whatever compromises they have to, to get it passed as quickly as possible, and have it implemented as soon as possible. That's all that matters. Once they get that, they have the whole shebang. Once implemented, it will never be repealed and they can always enlarge it later. By fighting amongst themselves and trying to include everything they can possibly get and pushing out the implementation, they give opponents more opportunity to kill it.

I am grateful for this.

In Seattle Democrats' latest assault on the Constitution, several state legislators are attempting to ban the sale of semi-automatic weapons and force current owners to submit to background checks.

Why? Because "there's no place to have sales of military assault rifles or weapons in this state." Why? Because, according to Ralph Fascitelli, the board president of Washington Ceasefire, "These are weapons of war. They can kill, shoot 200 bullets a minute."

All types of guns are weapons of war. All guns can kill. And no, these guns cannot shoot 200 bullets a minute, not with accuracy, and not at a sustained rate before they break down.

(I want someone to explain why the board president of a gun control group doesn't know much about guns. You'd think being informed would be a prerequisite for a position like that.)

So really, why? Rep. Ross Hunter and Senators Adam Kline and Jeanne Kohl-Welles are proposing to ban semi-automatics "designed for military use" (which would be determined, no doubt, by subjecting the gun designers to Vulcan mind melds) that are "capable of rapid fire" (which is likely a synonym for either "automatic," or "semi-automatic") and "can hold more than 10 rounds," motivated in part by the slaying in October of Seattle Police Officer Timothy Brenton, with a .223 semi-automatic rifle.

The "10 rounds" thing is a dumb ploy: it's meant simply to exclude hunting rifles, which are ballistically equivalent to "military" rifles (the .223 round that killed Brenton is used for hunting, and "military" rifles don't shoot the round differently, of course). And the difference in number of rounds isn't significant: no one can point to shooting incidents where the shooter used more than a few rounds, or didn't have time to swap magazines. They include this simply because they know they will lose the bill if hunters oppose it.

Of course, Brenton could have been killed with a rifle not covered under this ban: witnesses heard eight to 10 shots. But facts don't matter when people are dying!

Now, the text of the bill isn't up, but this would probably ban the sale of some hunting rifles, and certainly would ban the sale most semi-automatic handguns, because most of them can accept clips of more than 10 rounds, and were designed with military use in mind (for example, the classic 1911 was designed explicitly for use in war, and you could easily make the argument that all semi-automatic weapons were designed for military use, given that they all use concepts designed for military weapons).

My favorite quote in all this is from Kohl-Welles: "Did the framers of our Constitution ever envision something like a semi-automatic weapon?" Actually, yes, they almost surely did.

While the first repeating rifle as we know it today didn't come along for 100 years, it was not for lack of trying: the problems of reloading quickly were well-considered by The Framers, and many people of the time wondered what it would take to be able to just pull the trigger multiple times without having to reload. (Indeed, in 1780, Bartolomeo Girandoni developed his first repeater, an air rifle.) And there can be no doubt whatsoever that if they could have had such practical weapons, they would have loved for the citizens to have them, that they might be used against the British.

Maybe Kohl-Welles and her colleagues can join Fascitelli in taking a gun education class.

Republican Congresswoman from Spokane, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, cosponsored a bill to make certain types of punishment and restraint illegal in schools.

She says in her piece on CNN.com, "It's difficult to believe, but there are no federal laws to prevent this from happening." I don't see how it is difficult to believe that there's no federal law regarding a purely state matter. While I have nothing against the aim of this legislation -- to restrict these particular practices -- it is nevertheless obvious that the law has no constitutional foundation, and further obvious that the citizens of each state -- being guaranteed a republican form of state government by the Constitution -- are fully capable of fixing the problem without federal legislation.

She never even attempts to say what justifies such an intrusion into the states. On her Facebook page -- I am on her friends list -- several people are congratulating her. They say the law is justified because "some states don't have these laws" and "states sometimes need a swift kick in the bumpus."

Last time I checked my Constitution, there was no clause that read, "the federal government can take over state functions if the states choose not to."

Even worse, many of these people are parrotting the Democratic deception that if you classify something as a "right," then that justifies federal intrusion. By that standard, almost any criminal statute can become a federal statute.

It's disheartening to see so many Republicans continuing -- in the face of the events of the last few years -- to jump on this bandwagon accelerating down the slippery slope toward tyranny.

I don't fault McMorris Rodgers' intentions, but it's obvious that good intentions are not good enough from a government. Following the Constitution and the important principles of limited government it is based on is the means by which our liberty is protected: it's what allows us to know we can speak freely, own property, purchase (or not purchase!) goods and services of our choice. McMorris Rodgers, through her misguided though well-intentioned sponsorship of this bill, is fighting against those liberty-protecting principles, and -- hopefully -- against the tide of change in her own party.

Senator Harry Reid said today, "Instead of joining us on the right side of history, all [the] Republicans can come up with is, 'slow down, stop everything, let's start over.' If you think you've heard these same excuses before, you're right. When this country belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery, there were those who dug in their heels and said 'slow down, it's too early, things aren't bad enough.'"

He went on to compare it to women's suffrage and civil rights, too.

So according to Reid, any time anyone says any bill is bad and that you should slow down or start over, then you are like the defenders of slavery. I won't even bother to point out the many times Reid tried to "slow down" or "start over" something under Bush and a Republican Congress (nor that the Democrats were primarily the ones doing the blocking in all three of his examples).

And then when Reid was, rightfully and obviously, condemned for his insipid remarks, his spokesman actually attacks the people for pointing out the fact that what Senator Reid sayid was moronic: "It is hard to believe Senate Republicans are making these charges with a straight face."

Right. When you actually make the argument that any attempt to delay or block legislation amounts to trying to preseve slavery and hold back the rights of women and other minorities, it's hard to imagine people would actually criticize you for it.

So I don't know if he is dumb enough to believe this idiotic comparison, but the Senate Majority Leader is dumb enough to believe it's reasonable or helpful to say it, and then to defend it.

Ladies and gentlemen: your Democratic Party.

A man from Chicago, presumably Muslim, who travels the globe, is accused of being behind the Mumbai attacks a year ago.

Sound familiar?

It does to me. I'm no genius, but it sounds awfully familiar to me.

Let's get out the chalkboard.

The man's name is David Headley, and the connections to Obama are too questionable to not question, especially if you match up the letters in their names. I am not making up words here, these are their own names; names which, in at least one case, they chose for themselves.

Let's just take the first letter off of each name. O for Obama, H for Headley. "OH!" is an exclamation: this is important, this is big.

Next we take a B from Obama and EAD from Headley. You draw a "BEAD" on a target you're going to strike.

Then there's AM and EL. "AMEL" is an Arabic name, meaning "hard work." Curiouser and curiouser.

Finally, the last letter of each name, A and Y. "AY," as in, affirmative: yes, do proceed with the important attack we've been working hard for.

If you need it spelled out for you, there it is!

Rick Larsen is the elected Representative for Washington's Second Congressional District. He's been there for several terms, and some of us think this is the year to unseat the guy who supports continued funding for corrupt organizations like ACORN, liberty-killing and economy-destroying health insurance reform, and nation-bankrupting stimulus.

We need a strong candidate in the Second CD: someone who is well-known and well-respected; who is unapologetically conservative; who is thoughtful, rather than merely opinionated; who works well with others; who can raise money; who appeals strongly to everyone from middle-of-the-road moderates to far-right libertarians, because even when they don't agree with his specific views, they agree with his goals and principles and the way he expresses them.

In the Snohomish County Council, we have such a candidate: John Koster. He can win if he runs, and if he is well-supported. He can unseat the guy who supports continued funding for corrupt organizations like ACORN, liberty-killing economy-destroying health insurance reform, and nation-bankrupting stimulus.

But he hasn't said he'll run, so a petition has been started to ask him to run. I encourage you to fill it out. This is the year.

David Brooks: I think it is a suicide pact for the Republican Party, essentially taking a moderate Republican, dead-center in American politics, and saying, sorry, you are too liberal. That's crazy.

George Will: Newt [Gingrich] was just tone deaf as were the people who picked this woman, who is a candidate of, among other things, the Working Families Party, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Public Employees Union. She's for tax increases, same-sex marriage. She's for abolishing the right of secret ballot in union elections. There's already a party for people who think like that. It's called the Democratic Party.

I like David Brooks a lot. But when it comes to his perspective of where the Republican Party is, he is completely out to lunch. George Will, as usual, is correct.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was on Meet the Press with David Gregory today, and Gregory asked him, regarding the health insurance bills, "there is going to be a heavy burden on the middle-class through health care by taxes going up, by premiums going up. It will affect the middle-class."

Geithner responded, "You know, I don't think that's the way to look at it. The--our tax--our healthcare system today imposes enormous burdens not just on businesses, but on families. There are very high hidden costs to our current system. And the best way to add to our long-term deficits, and the best way to add to those burdens is not reform health care today."

Gregory: "But it doesn't answer the question about premiums going up with an individual mandate and taxes going up on so-called Cadillac plans and other parts of this bill as they're moving their way through the process that would increase taxes."

And then Geithner again: "Right. Again, I don't think that's the right way to think about it. I think you have to look at the entire system today and the cost that presents. And if you look at those..."

Gregory: "Well, why isn't that the right way to look at it if that's the reality of what the legislation would do?"

Geithner: "No."

No.

Seriously. This is what he said.

If you are firmly in the middle class, recognizing significantly increased health care costs due to the Democrats' plan -- even though this is the reality you face -- you shouldn't think about it that way.

Ignore reality. Trust in Obama, instead.

Now, maybe Geithner meant (and stated poorly) that is not the reality. A moment later Geithner apparently denied that the Democratic plan calls for tax hikes. If that is what he meant, he's a liar, of course, because everyone knows Gregory was exactly right: the proposed mandates and taxes on "Cadillac plans" will increase costs for many people at all income groups, except the poor.

I don't think Geithner was lying in that way: I think he was trying to reframe the issue to say, the tax cuts aren't the point; rather, look at how great this bill is (except for the parts you dislike)!

And if you choose to focus on the parts you dislike, well, "that's not the right way to think about it."

Obama said in his inaugural address that "we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord." People cheered.

I didn't.

I like conflict and discord. Not incivility, but argument and debate, expressions of disagreement, which often become heated and passionate. A lack of conflict and discord means that everyone agrees, or -- much worse -- are somehow prevented from disagreeing, either by force of government, or a lack of personal desire or will. It's bad no matter the cause. We necessarily will disagree, and we must speak out about our disagreement, which will result in conflict and discord. Without that, we lose liberty -- and quickly -- no matter who is in power, left, or right.

Nancy Pelosi was right when she said she loved "disruptors" under Bush; but she was obviously self-serving when she said it, because she changed her tune about disrptions under Obama, calling it "un-American." It is people like this -- again, of any party -- we must be wary of losing our freedom to if we do not speak out, if we abandon "conflict and discord" in exchange for "unity of purpose."

One of the reasons I love Federalist 10 is because James Madison so clearly explains the importance of understanding dissent and disagreement in the framing of our new government.

There are two methods of curing the mischiefs of faction: the one, by removing its causes; the other, by controlling its effects.

There are again two methods of removing the causes of faction: the one, which is essential to its existence; the other, by giving to every citizen the same opinions, the same passions, and the same interests.

It could never be more truly said than of the first remedy, that it was worse than the disease. Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency.

The second expedient is as impracticable as the first would be unwise. As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. As long as the connection subsists between his reason and his self-love, his opinions and his passions will have a reciprocal influence on each other; and the former will be objects to which the latter will attach themselves. The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government. From the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results; and from the influence of these on the sentiments and views of the respective proprietors, ensues a division of the society into different interests and parties.

Far from Obama's "unity of purpose," Madison tells us we all inherently have difference of purpose, and that a "uniformity of interests" is not possible.

But many in our society don't accept the impracticability of this. They work hard to give us a "uniformity of interests." One of the obvious examples of this is Social Security. It doesn't make economic or policy sense in any way to give Warren Buffett a Social Security check; we have universal Social Security for one reason only: to give citizens the same passions and interests, that they might share the same opinions. That is: everyone is in Social Security, so most people support it.

If we cannot force people who have different and unequal faculties, and different degress and kinds of property, to share the same opinions, then these people will work on reducing those differences, that we might share the same opinions. That is obviously what the universality of Social Security is about, and it's also what the "health care reform" is largely about: forcing everyone (starting with individuals) into a government-run system like the health insurance exchange, and forcing everyone to have health insurance with individual mandates.

The initial reason behind it is fine, and something virtually everyone agrees with: people should have health care, and should have enough resources to live past retirement age. However, they take a leap many of us don't like, saying government should provide those things to people who don't have them. And because so many of us don't share their opinion, they try to force us into the system in order to slowly change our opinions to supporting the system.

And yes, it is as sinister as it sounds. Individual mandates are not about taking care of YOU if something happens to you, they are about two things: the first is taking your money to give to other people, but no less important is that by putting you into the system, you will be more likely to support its continuation and expansion.

We see this again and again. We see it in forced unionization. We see it in Medicare. We see it in public schooling. We see it in Rep. Rangel's vision for reinstatement of the military draft. Wherever you see government creating a system and trying to force everyone into it, forcing people to have the same interests, encouraging them to share the opinion of continuing and expanding the system is a big reason why.

This is separate from, though related to, the Democrats' push to literally silence the opposition, whether it's pushing out an entire news network they dislike, or trying to enforce "fairness" on broadcast radio stations (which most of the top Democratic leaders in Congress have expressed support for, just in the last year or two).

This silencing and undermining of dissent is more along the lines of Madison's first remedy to faction, the abolishing the liberty essential to political life. But it's all about the same thing: the Democrats want to remove the causes of faction, so Obama can have his "unity of purpose," and they do this as they long have done: by trying to destroy our liberty; and by pushing us to share the same opinions, by giving us the same interests.

I have two things to tell the Democrats (and the Republicans and others who engage in similar behaviors). First, you should embrace faction. It is how we protect liberty, it is how we ensure justice, it is how we progress as a civilization. It is not without problems, but it represents far more good than harm. Its effects can, and should, be controlled, which is why we have a republic and not a democracy. Read the rest of Federalist 10 if you don't understand.

Second, and more practically, perhaps, it won't work. It never does. It only creates more factiousness, and make its effects harder to control.

Remember a couple of years ago, when a bunch of us ridiculed the notion that Forbes named Washington State in the top five best states for business?

Some of their criteria was laughable, and their analysis moreso. We knew what most businesses knew: that on the most important points to businesses (business costs and quality of life), Washington State failed. And on other factors like "regulatory climate" and "outlook" we incredibly scored well: to the former, Washington scored highly because we employ people to help guide businesses through the regulatory morass; but that doesn't diminish the fact that there are massive regulatory roadblocks in the first place; to the latter, well, our "outlook" -- which includes ever-increasing spending, even in the face of a recession -- is the reason why we're facing significant tax increases, if Gregoire and the Democrats get their way.

So, now, Boeing is leaving. Rep. Dan Kristiansen (R-39) probably has the best answer as to why, in a press release yesterday:

It's extremely disappointing that Boeing has chosen South Carolina over Washington, but not surprising at all. Boeing has been very critical of our state's difficult regulatory atmosphere. At the end of the day, it has to be able to compete successfully on an international scale, especially against Airbus. Instead of providing a level playing field, Washington has consistently put up barriers that make it difficult not only for Boeing to compete, but also for other employers throughout our state.

It's been no secret that other states have been courting Boeing for years. Boeing has tried to make it work here. However, it has gotten to a point with unemployment insurance issues, regulatory burdens, business and occupation taxes, and recently, the governor being willing to consider tax increases, that Washington is no longer a place where Boeing can be competitive.

In South Carolina, it took only days for Boeing to get the permits it needs to move forward with the second 787 plant. In Washington, it would take years. That's one of many examples in which our state has not been helpful and has stood in the way of the ability for Boeing to successfully compete here.

When Boeing decided several years ago to move its headquarters from Seattle to Chicago, many of my House Republican colleagues and I warned that unless the Legislature was willing to make reforms to improve the state's business climate, we may see further departures. The governor and the majority party have been in denial about concerns of job providers and now our predictions are unfortunately coming true.

We must also remember this is not just about Boeing. Many other employers rely on Boeing and its workforce to support their companies. Hundreds of thousands of jobs in Washington are indirectly related to Boeing and are affected. I've been very critical not only about how our state has treated Boeing, but all employers in Washington. Even when the Legislature made concessions to Boeing in 2003 to secure the Dreamliner in our state, I also said we should extend those tax relief benefits to all businesses. Unfortunately, very little has been done in the Legislature to make Washington attractive for business.

Today's announcement needs to be a wake-up call to our political leaders in Washington to create a more competitive business climate before we lose more employers to other states.

Rep. Mike Hope weighed in, too:

To call today's announcement by Boeing disappointing is a gross understatement. Governor Gregoire and the majority party in the Legislature ignored the warning signs, and the price of Washington's terrible business climate will be the loss of thousands of family jobs. At a time when unemployment is over 9 percent, this is a painful blow for Snohomish County and the entire state.

When Boeing's decision was on the line, the governor of South Carolina wasted no time in calling a special legislative session to adopt a package of upfront grants and tax breaks. I have to ask our governor, 'Why were you sitting on the sidelines? Why aren't we in session to demonstrate an equally strong commitment to keeping the aerospace industry vibrant and growing in Washington?

Governor Gregoire claims that this was a negotiation between the Union and Boeing. I strongly disagree. This was a negotiation between Boeing, the State of South Carolina, and the State of Washington -- and we lost. We lost because the business climate in our state needs immediate and dramatic improvement.

Consistently, my Republican colleagues and I have fought to address the most serious obstacles to making our state more competitive, starting with our enormously expensive workers' compensation system. But our efforts were ignored, and proposals to help employers and to create a more competitive business climate were rejected.

The governor said she thinks the company 'made the wrong decision.' On that point we agree, but she has also failed to be the leader we needed at one of the most critical times in our state's history.

I was watching "Law & Order" last week, an episode about an abortion doctor being murdered by a protestor. The twist was that the protestor was trying to prevent the abortion of a specific child, who was in his third-trimester, who had no terminal illness, who put the mother in no danger, and was therefore (according to New York law) going to be aborted illegally.

So in the course of this case, they find out the same doctor once killed a newborn baby after an unsuccessful abortion attempt. The doctor asked the mother if she wanted him to finish the "abortion" and she said yes, so he stuck scissors in the base of its skull. Everyone in the show was, of course, aghast that such a thing could happen, and the prosecution tried to keep this from the court because it would obviously bias the jury against the doctor.

What they didn't mention in the show, however, is that Obama fought hard to protect the ability of mothers and doctors to perform this procedure. I think it's worth remembering that our President literally believes it is OK to kill live, born, baby humans. (Perhaps he has changed his mind since, but all we know is that he later lied to cover up his positions, which means he regrets people knowing his positions, not that he has changed his mind.)

Oddly, this is a fact that can prejudice a jury against a doctor, but apparently not an electorate against a candidate for President.

The Congress passed a law that, when signed by President Obama, will make ia a federal crime to assault someone because of their sexual orientation or "gender identity."

The "Human Rights" Campaign said, "We now can begin the important steps to erasing hate in our country."

A few thoughts.

First, you cannot end hate through legislation.

Second, government has no business even trying to get people to stop hating. That's none of its business. Literally. Indeed, its duty is to protect our right to hate, and our faculties that lead us to whatever opinions we might have, including hate.

Third, this law is unconstitutional by the Tenth Amendment. I find it astonishing that anyone thinks this needs to be a federal law, which is utterly insulting to the state legislatures, which are, in fact, perfectly capable of deciding for themselves whether this should be a crime.

Fourth, this law also runs afoul of the Fifth Amendment right to due process. In our judicial system, motive and intent are two different things, and motive is not a crime. This law makes it a crime. That is why people, correctly, compare it to Thought Police. Some say, but this is different, because the result of the crime is to intimidate a whole class of people; but if that is the case, then you need to show that the person had intent to produce that result ... else you really are just punishing motive, which we don't do. Laws like this are really an end run around the prosecution's burden of proof.

I would be perfectly willing to support a (state) law that said someone intending to, through a violent act, terrorize or intimidate a group of people, is committing a felony. But that would require evidence, which -- despite being constitutionally required -- is an unattractive prospect to many. So instead, they just tell us that some for assaulting people are worse than others, and get around that pesky "evidence" thing. And we're supposed to just nod in approval, because if you don't, well, you are a dirty hatemonger.

It's a sad day in America, that we incorrectly think we need such a paternalistic law, and that we are willing to toss aside civil liberties to get it.

Back before Obama even started publicly running for the presidency, I remember a speech he gave in which he said all Americans should put aside their disagreements and come together. I liked what he had to say, but I couldn't shake the feeling that by "come together" he meant "agree with me."

When he gave his State of the Union address, it was the same thing, but more obvious. He said he wanted us to put aside our "petty grievances" and have "unity of purpose," and that we should not have "conflict" or "discord" or "recriminations;" that if we believed, due to "worn-out dogmas," that our government is too big (and therefore, in our opinion, takes away too much of our liberty), then we are focusing on "childish things" and our "stale political arguments" no longer apply.

Translation: if you disagree with Obama, if you don't share his "purpose" or agenda -- even for principled reasons shared by most of the founders of this country -- then you are not part of us.

A lot of people didn't hear that subtext, or didn't want to. But it's proven to be more than just words. Obama has asked Americans to report people who disagree with his health care plan to the White House; he redefines "disagreement" as "spreading misinformation," of course, to make it sound good (not that misinformation doesn't exist, but it's on both sides, clearly; and further, the White House has no business being the arbiter of what is, and isn't, true).

He attacked the Tea Parties, which brought millions of Americans together in opposition to his plans, as merely astroturfing.

He later said in his health care reform speech he "will not waste time" with people who oppose his plans, instead choosing to question their motives as purely political.

He refused to do an interview with Fox News Channel only because of FNC's political leanings.

Now his two top advisors are saying that FNC is "not really news," which was said only to incite a culture war, drawing a divide between millions of Americans in a cynical attempt to throw his detractors overboard and to keep the Good Ship Obama afloat. He's already said he "will not waste time" with people who oppose his plan, so why not alienate them intentionally, if it will shore up his base? (And by the way, where's the rest of the media attacking Obama for attacking Fox? It used to be that the media took such attacks personally, even if not directed at themselves.)

If Bush had done any of these things, the left would have gone completely nuts over it. But when Obama does it, that's perfectly acceptable. Even desirable.

Bush caused division in this country by unapologetically pushing an agenda that much of the country disagreed with, even hated. Obama -- who is guilty of the same thing, of course -- is causing even more division in this country by actively pursuing it, in order to exploit it for political gains.

James Madison said in Federalist 10 that one of the "two methods of removing the causes of faction" is "by giving to every citizen the same opinions, the same passions, and the same interests." He adds, "The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is ... an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government."

The only "unity of purpose" we can expect Americans to share is that of securing individual liberty, and maintaining the government that so secures it. Obama surely knows he cannot force everyone to have a "unity of purpose" in creating new and massive government programs; so, instead, he is pretending that if you don't share in that purpose -- an individual right which government is designed to protect -- then you are the enemy.

I submit that a President so disdainful of expressions of liberty is the problem, and not the people with such expressions, whatever they may be.

In Washington State we have a public records law that assumes that, unless there's a really good reason not to, the people have a right to documents created and owned by the government, because those things belong to the public, and they have a right to know what is going on.

So whenever the government refuses to release documents, or heavily redacts them, I look for a really good reason why ... and if I can't find one, it makes me angry. It's literally telling the public it does not have a right to know.

So it is with Governor Gregoire's response to a request for documents about the judicial appointment process. At least this time she didn't invent an illegal excuse for not releasing the documents, but this is almost as bad. An exemption for public employment applications does not rationally cover an appointment to a vacated elected office, and if attorney-client privilege covers it all, then it can cover everything the governor does.

She should just reply, "I don't want to give it to you, and I don't have or need an excuse" and at least be honest about it.

"Barack, Imma let you finish, but ..."

Well, granted, I am not shaking in my Keen sandals over this, but it seems the elves over at the ELF have been stepping things up. First there was the KRKO radio tower, resulting in millions of dollars of damage. Senator Val Stevens warned this could lead to escalation, and a new threat purporting to be from the ELF says likewise.

Like many extremists, the ELF hates the rule of law, and wants to push their views on everyone else regardless of how many votes are against them, or whose rights they violate. Their press release from the KRKO crime included this insanity: "When all legal channels of opposition have been exhausted, concerned citizens have to take action into their own hands to protect life and the planet."

Their childishly spraypainted message on buildings in Maltby last week read: "If you continue to risk killing children, mother earth and her creations, all your holdings are targets. Rise up earth children, ever, ever, ever, ever so carefully."

Then it went from merely idiotic, to a little creepy: "Authentic ELF? Ask ATF/FBI about restricted water mains. Little water, better burn." It seems to me they are claiming that they encourage out-of-control fires.

It's a generally good rule of thumb that if someone values trees or fish more than human life and livlihood, they aren't playing with a full deck.

Sure, we can make fun of their low intelligence, including the fact that their own press release on their own web site points to the wrong web site (using .com instead of .org). But they cost us all millions of dollars in intentional damage, they lack any serious sense of morality, and sooner or later someone is going to get seriously hurt. We can only hope they hurt themselves, rather than an innocent person.

Stevens said, "They don't care about what harm they do. We need a state law that recognizes these people for the monsters they are." She pushed for tougher sentences -- right now many of these crimes are punishable by only a year in jail -- and a state registry for convicted terrorists.

I don't know what the law should be, or whether it should be changed, but I do know these people should be found and locked up for a very long time. Such sociopaths, when they've proven to be a danger to society, should not be allowed in society, obviously; this includes those providing aid to the terrorists, such as Jason Crawford and Tomas Peterson, with their work for the ELF Press Office. And every nation should be willing to prosecute or extradict them, just as most would with other terrorists.

When FactCheck.org came out a few years ago, I liked most of what they did. But in the last year, I simply don't even care what they say anymore, because so much of it so poorly done.

Take this recent example. The question is: "Did Obama change his back-to-school speech in response to pressure from conservatives?" The answer they give is: "One exercise in the accompanying lesson plan was reworded."

That's the wrong answer. The correct answer is, at the very least, "the White House claims the text was not substantively altered in response to any pressure." The lesson plan information is a footnote; it is not the answer to the question. FactCheck's Jess Henig gives nearly 500 words of response in the full answer, but almost half of those were about the lesson plan, which isn't the point. And four-fifths of what's left is explaining that "well, this happened under other Presidents too."

The only part of the response actually addressing the question is these 43 words, less than a tenth of the entire answer: White House spokesman Tommy Vietor told us that the speech itself had not been substantively changed: "The President's speech was always going to be about talking with students about the importance of working hard, staying in school and taking responsibility for their education."

Which, of course, implies that maybe it was changed, at least a little bit, in response to criticism. And yet Henig doesn't put that in the answer.

You can find examples like this almost every day. FactCheck just cannot be trusted as long as it puts out such careless junk.

Federal government mandates for health insurance violate the Constitution in several ways.

The most obvious is the Tenth Amendment: Congress has no authority, implied or expressed, to force everyone to get health insurance. Therefore it cannot do it. And no, please don't say "general welfare," as this was never intended to be a grant of power, but a description of the powers to follow in Article I, Section 8. And no, please don't say "regulating interstate commerce," because regulating commerce is not similar to forcing everyone to engage in a particular commercial act.

There's also the Fourth Amendment. I have the right to be secure in my papers: the government has no right to know if I even have health insurance.

Then there's the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments: I cannot have my liberty taken away from without due process. This is admittedly the shakiest of my claims for historical reasons, due to the unfortunate slippery slope of history, but it seems to me that I should have to be proven to have done something wrong in order to have my liberty taken from me.

Perhaps the strongest claim, however, is that the First Amendment guarantees the freedom of association. The Supreme Court has held that this necessarily also implies the freedom to not associate. If I dislike all insurance companies and choose to not associate with them, that is my constitutional right. Similarly, I may decide that having insurance (entirely, or when I have more important uses for the money, such as donating it to an anti-sex slavery charity) is against my religious beliefs.

Has there ever, in our history, been a mandate on all Americans?

"If you are an American/live in this country, you must do this."

I am against all mandates on people. It's one thing to say, "if you want to drive, you must have auto insurance." It's completely another to say, "if you are alive, you must have health insurance." The comparison is fundamentally dishonest. The government, quite literally, has no right to force people into a particular action simply because they exist.

That goes for the military draft, especially. But it only applied to healthy males of a certain age. Obama and the Democrats are, for the first time, attempting to put such a mandate on all Americans.

It obviously should be ruled unconstitutional, since the federal government has no right to do this. But even apart from the constitutional questions, why aren't we having a debate about whether or not we want to have a country that forces all people to do something, just because those people are alive?

More practically (though not more important), I am especially angered by the fact that the reason why the mandate exists in Obama's plan is not what he says. He says it is so that if something happens to you, then you won't leech of society for your problems. Then why not allow means testing or other opt-out options?

Every expert, for many years, who has pushed individual mandates for health insurance has said the same thing: individual mandates exist because the people who don't have health insurance (who can afford it) overwhelmingly make a personal economic decision that it is better for themselves to not pay for health insurance: they save money doing it. Their money spent on insurance is not used for themselves, it's used for other people. This makes the pool of money smaller, and the percent per capita going to care larger.

So, therefore, the experts say, the mandate, by forcing the people who do not need insurance to pay into insurance, increases the pool of money without significantly increasing the amount of money being paid out.

It is a tax, for the explicit purpose of wealth redistribution: to take money from you, and give it to someone else who needs health care.

Obviously, Obama is lying when he says this is not a tax, and that it does not violate his campaign promise to not increase taxes on people who make less than $250K. But I care less about that than the fact that he is lying about the reason for this tax: he says it is about paying for me if I get sick, but it's really about Obama hoping that I won't get sick, so my money will be paying for other people.

Individual health insurance mandates are about wealth redistribution, pure and simple. It is a literally unprecedented act against American liberty, with the sole goal of forcing people to pay into a system they won't use, so they can pay for other people who do use it.

I have to wonder if someone is being honest when they say that they aren't paying attention to a major scandal centered around an organization they worked for, and with, their entire career -- especially when Congress is cutting off all funds for that organization. So it is with President Obama and ACORN when he said yesterday, "You know, it's -- frankly, it's not really something I've followed closely. I didn't even know that ACORN was getting a whole lot of federal money."

If ACORN had not canceled its "Prosperity Forum" in Everett last week, I wonder how many of the Democrats scheduled to show up would've been there. Maybe none; maybe that is why it was canceled. We don't know.

But we do know that they are closely tied to ACORN.

I am not saying they knew about or condoned any of these terrible things ACORN has done. I am not playing guilt by association. Rather, I am condemning the attempt of many Democrats, especially President Obama, to pretend they aren't associated: to distance themselves in order to avoid questions of potential guilt.

Just look at the Everett ACORN office itself for plenty of examples. It's a place called the Labor Temple, at 2812 Lombard Avenue. What else is there? Well, for starters, a bunch of unions. And the Snohomish County Democrats.

Democratic state legislators from the 38th District (Mike Sells and John McCoy) and the 44th District (Hans Dunshee) call 2812 Lombard in Everett their home. Their offices are on the same floor as ACORN. Funny how they couldn't make it to a meeting down the hall from their offices, right after the scandal broke.

Governor Gregoire went there while campaigning.

Even President Obama's campaign office was there.

Look, if ACORN or its employees do some terrible things -- like, for example, attempt to aid and abet child sex slavery, or commit nationwide acts of voter registration fraud -- condemn them. Vote to defund them or investigate them as necessary. We won't hold it against you for knowing them. But don't pretend you don't know them.

ONE MORE THING

Speaking of voting to defund ACORN, I want to know what Rep. Rick Larsen (WA-2) thinks is important. He said that voting to defund ACORN is not a good use of Congress' time. "We have issues facing this country about job creation, about protecting jobs like those at ALCOA, like increasing access to health care, increasing access to higher education, that frankly deserve more attention from a member of Congress," Larsen said. "Somebody has to stand up and make a statement about what are the important issues facing this country."

All of those are important. I agree. But I submit that a few minutes of your time to cut off a visibly corrupt organization like ACORN -- especially since the debate was over and you were simply voting at that point -- is worthwhile. We're not talking about meaningless resolutions here, like H.Res. 484: Expressing support for designation of June 10th as "National Pipeline Safety Day" and H.Res. 652: Recognizing the 150th anniversary of the Pig War crisis, both of which were sponsored by Larsen this year.

Seriously, I want to know which is more important for our Congress to address, Congressman: recognizing a bloodless "war" 150 years ago and expressing support for the designation of "National Pipeline Safety Day" -- which does not actually designate such a day, but merely expresses support for its designation -- or cutting off from taxpayer dollars an organization that systemically, nationally, committed voter registration fraud and attempted to aid and abet prostitution and child sex slavery?

Or did you already give us your answer?

[N.B. Apparently John Fund this morning also had an article called Acorn Who?, in the Wall Street Journal. I make no apologies for not changing my title when I saw his. Besides, mine has the proper capitalization. But his article is definitely worth reading.]

On September 17, at 7 p.m., at the Everett Labor Temple at 2810 Lombard in Everett, ACORN is holding a "Prosperity Forum." Scheduled to speak are state legislators John McCoy, Mary Helen Roberts, and Mike Sells; Snohomoish County PUD Commissioner David Aldrich; and Snohomish County Councilman Mike Cooper. ACORN says on their flier that they will be helping people with food, baby supplies, health care, child care, energy bills, taxes, credit, and, of course mortgage help.

All you pimps and prostitutes, come on down tomorrow night!

This is just funny. Last week Congressman Bill Delahunt -- whose 10th Congressional District in Massachusetts now covers where I grew up -- was on NewsHour talking about Honduras with his colleague, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

He described Honduras as a "banana republic" (which is a stupid claim, but not the funny part) and she took offense, as one would. She says, "I think that's an insult to the people of Honduras." And he replies, "Then I dare say that you don't -- you're not that familiar with Latin America."

Bill, Ros-Lehtinen was born in Cuba, and her whole life has been active in Cuban political issues. Saying she is not that familiar with Latin America is like saying you're not that familiar with pasty white Irish Catholics.

I plowed through a bunch of bugs for Mac-Carbon today. And I found an unfixed endian bug in Mac::Glue.

And I did it without the help of a union!

I hope to get this work done before September 9th, after which my time will belong to The Beatles Rock Band for awhile. I might not release by then, but the bulk of the work should be there.

Thanks to everyone who filed reports, and their subsequent patience. I've gone through the process many open source developers before me have ... as we get older and have more obligations, some of our public release work slows down. A lot. Thankfully most of the bugs are pretty superficial; unfortunately, being related to tests, they will prevented some people from getting the code installed.

I've promised myself I won't waste my time feeling guilty about it, but I apologize for the inconvenience.

(And no, Mac-Carbon won't work on 64-bit perl, but I will document the reasons why, and various workarounds.)

I don't know what President Obama is going to say to schoolkids this week. I do know, however, that when a parent or politician expresses concerns that Obama might try to indoctrinate them with socialist propaganda, there's good reasons for it. Start with the fact that Obama's own web site last year said that he would require middle and high school students to do public service (which is a violation of the constitutional prohibition on slavery), and then onto the fact that Obama's teaching materials for this week's speech ask students to "write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president [sic]" and so on; but I don't want to help the President, and don't want to encourage anyone else to do so, either, unless you happen to work for him, or you share his agenda and want to see it accomplished.

Obviously, our children should not be considered Obama's employees, or tools to further his agenda.

Maybe Obama will just innocuously say (wasting taxpayer dollars to do it) that kids should study hard, stay in school, and help their communities and families. But don't attack people for thinking there may be a more sinister agenda.

Jacob Hacker, perhaps best known as the man behind the "public option," and a longtime proponent of single-payer care (who famously said that the public option would lead to single payer), was on NewsHour this week.

Hacker said that there's "three B's" of the public option: a "backup" for people who don't have secure coverage, a "benchmark" for private insurance plans, and a "backstop" for cost controls.

Unfortunately for Hacker, he needed to lie about the latter two, at least.

He says it is a "benchmark" because it will provide competition. He said he thinks that the public option should not get any subsidies so it will compete "on a complete level playing field." But that's not remotely possible. The public option will require massive taxpayer funds to get off the ground. And even apart from that, the people who run the public option will also be controlling the playing field, and will force the private insurers to play the game on their terms. It won't be -- can't be -- level, unless you have different people writing the rules than playing the game, and unless you somehow get private funds to bootstrap the public option.

And there's no evidence it will control costs, either. Hacker's only evidence for this is that the "per capita" cost of health care has been held down, due to Medicare. But Medicare has not led to a decrease in cost in care for people outside of Medicare. And inside of Medicare costs have been kept down by underfunding the care, so much so that many doctors have stopped accepting, and sometimes even dropped, Medicare patients. And on top of it all, Medicare is going bankrupt, which is going to require decreased services or increased taxes (or both).

This is not, in any sensible examination, an actual decrease in the cost of care. It's a combination of reducing care, and artficially reducing costs through price controls.

As to Hacker's "backup," it will only be such if it does the same as Medicare: artificially controls market prices or uses increased tax revenues to enable them to cover everyone who needs it.

Hacker also lied by omission when asked about supporting single payer. He responded, "Well, all I can say is that I think that, for most people who work for larger employers, the private health insurance system works pretty well. ..." Yes, it does, but the fact is, he is a strong supporter of gradually moving this entire country to a single-payer system, and away from that private health insurance system that works pretty well. And as shown in the verumserum link above, he believes that the public option is part of the process for getting us there (he even thinks it's obvious that it is so -- and I agree with him on that).

The real goal of Hacker is to get everyone covered through -- eventually -- complete government control of the health care system. As Hacker himself has said, the "eventually" part is explicitly designed to get people to go along with small apparently innocuous changes over time, so they won't be scared by Hacker's desired result.

Read or listen to the whole interview (and the versumserum link above). It's very instructive, seeing the lengths the far left will go not only to deceive people into jumping on board their plan, but also to hide their true motives. [UPDATE: the next night, NewsHour interviewed an opponent of the public option, who made many of these same points, and some other excellent ones.]

I am a big fan of They Might Be Giants, and have been since the early 90s. They are excellent songwriters and performers. And I also really dig their kids albums, Here Come The ABCs and Here Come The 123s. I recommend them to many parents.

Unfortunately, I have some reservations about their new album, Here Comes Science. The first track is called "Science Is Real," and they express the notion that science is real, while "angels" are not. Now, it may be that they mean "real" as in "provable through the scientific method," but this is an album for kids, and kids hear "real" and think "not fake," and vice versa. It's a pretty clear message kids will receive: the Big Bang and evolution are true, and angels don't exist.

The chorus goes, "I like those stories about angels, unicorns, and elves / Now, I like those stories as much as anyone else / But when I'm seeking knowledge, either simple or abstract / The facts are with science, the facts are with science." Later, they add, "a scientific theory isn't just a hunch or guess / it's more like a question that's been put through a lot of tests / and when a theory emerges consistent with the facts / the proof is with science, the truth is with science."

It's simply false to say that any "proof" or "truth" is with science. We all know this; even John and John of TMBG know this themselves: later in the album they contradict their song (a remake of an older work) "Why Does The Sun Shine?" In the original, "the sun is a mass of incandescent gas." In the very next song, "Why Does the Sun Really Shine?," they quip, "the sun is a miasma of incandescent plasma, the sun's not simply made out of gas ... forget that song, they got it wrong, that thesis has been rendered invalid." Very clever, but it clearly demonstrates that simply having a good and useful theory that matches the facts doesn't give us proof or truth.

The reason for this is that science is necessarily incomplete. If science could be complete, we wouldn't need it: science is a way to investigate things in the physical world, that aren't self-evident, that cannot be discovered through reason alone. The only way science could be complete is if we had all knowledge, so we could account for all possibilities, and in such a case, we would have no need for investigation. And in that case we'd have no need for science in the first place.

I ordinarily wouldn't quibble too much on this whole point except that they exclude angels as science, and therefore, as truth: it's not "real" because it's not science. It is utterly irrational and unscientific to say that because angels are apparently outside of science, they therefore do not exist. You may believe that -- and that's fine -- but you can't use science to get you to that belief.

I do believe angels exist. And there's simply no science, or even a broadly accepted philosophy of science, that says they don't.

The sad thing is that I like the song otherwise. It's a catchy tune. But I wouldn't allow TMBG to use it to push their atheist propaganda on my kids.

As to the rest of the album, there's a few other tracks I have problems with. Above, I mentioned the Big Bang and evolution. I did not intend to imply that I don't generally believe in either theory. I do. However, my belief in both are very scientific: that is, they are filled with doubt. We have lots of holes in both theories, and while they are extremely useful and explain a lot of what happened and may be mostly right, there's also gaps in our knowledge. I don't consider these to be truth, I consider them to be useful and probably correct.

So I also can't recommend the song "My Brother the Ape." Lest you think I am being a fundamentalist stickinthemud, I also recently panned a Focus on the Family audio program for kids, about evolution: I understood it to be saying that man did not evolve from a common ancestor as the ape. Both views -- asserting we did, and we did not -- are unsustainable based on our current level of knowledge.

There's also a song on the album called "Electric Car." "Electric car, on roads so dark, to change the end, rewrite the start ... How can you deny an electric car? Won't you take a ride with me? Not diesel, steam, or gasoline! ... Happiness resides in an electric car. ..." They push the whole we-need-to-be-green-to-save-the-planet nonsense that -- frankly -- is about as scientific as angels are. And the song's actually pretty creepy.

Finally, they have a song called "How Many Planets?," which falsely pushes the idea that an arbitrary group of scientists have the authority to define the word "planet" for everyone else, by excluding Pluto.* This song I can recommend to kids, as it's a great way to teach them to question not only authority, but the validity of claims of authority themselves. (Although the song is a bit weak regardless of its message.)

I like the rest of the album (in addition to "Why Does the Sun Shine?," they include the previously released remake by the same composers, "What is a Shooting Star?," and the classic "The Bloodmobile;" and I really like "I Am a Paleontologist" and "Meet the Elements"). The good thing is that these days, you can always uncheck a song and it won't show up on your iPods.

* As a side note, I've met a lot of homeschoolers and evangelicals who question the exclusion of Pluto. This has nothing to do with any theology implications, so why the apparent high degree of questioning in this particular group? Some people might think the connection is because such people are generally conservative and dislike change, or embrace tradition. That's part of it, but I think it's deeper, strengthened by a deep-seated, centuries-long tendency toward independence and questioning authority. Whether it was rejection of the authority of the Catholic Church in the Reformation, or of the Anglican Church leading to colonizing the New World, or of the British Crown's right to arbitrarily tax, or of the U.S. government's right to control our lives in myriad ways ... many of us in this tradition tend to reject authority -- why do you think there's so many different Protestant denominations? -- and the ones who question authority the most are often the ones most likely to engage in homeschooling.

Not that all such people are Protestants; the tradition runs strong through much of the culture of the United States today. I've known various agnostic homeschoolers who have the same outlook. We see this pattern over, and over, in this country. Protestants and their philosophical and cultural cousins don't tend to go along to get along. They would rather be left alone to get along.

In Washington State it is the paramount duty of the state to provide education to its children. To not do so violates the right of the children. For that reason and others, it is illegal for public school teachers to strike. That doesn't stop the teachers union from doing it, though, and as a result, violating the right of the children to get that education.

The teachers in Kent are currently violating the rights of their district's children.

Senator Dianne Feinstein was asked on Face the Nation this week about Senator Ted Kennedy's legacy in regards to his assault on Judge Bork's nomination in the 80s, and how things have changed in the nomination process as a result. She replied -- I kid you not -- "I do think it's become much more partisan; and there are many of us on that committee that are trying very hard to end that kind of partisanship. I was very surprised, for example, when Justice Sotomayor was not confirmed by more Republicans on the committee than--than voted for her."

This coming from a woman who voted against both Justices Roberts and Alito, both in committee and in the full Senate.

Sotomayor's low numbers (68-31) relative to her Democratic predecessors (Ginsburg 97-3, Breyer 87-9) are the direct result of the Republicans deciding to play the game the way the Democrats had been playing it since Bork (Thomas 52-48, Alito 58-42, Roberts 78-22).

Compare how the Republicans in the Senate Judiciary Committee treated Sotomayor, versus how the Democrats treated Alito. Honestly, does Feinstein actually believe the nonsense she's peddling?

On Meet the Press this morning, Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said:

[The public option] doesn't have to make a profit or merchandise as much, so its costs are probably 20 percent lower. But then, on a level playing field, it competes with private insurance.