Is there any doubt left that Obama is one of the most cynical political calculators to run for President in recent memory? There shouldn’t be:

Obama says give Fla. and Mich. delegates full vote

Now that Barack Obama has clinched the Democratic nomination for president, he wants convention delegates from Florida and Michigan to have full voting rights at the party’s national convention.

Obama sent a letter Sunday to the party’s credentials committee, asking members to reinstate the delegates’ voting rights when the committee meets at the start of the convention in Denver.

…Now that Barack Obama has clinched the Democratic nomination for president, he wants convention delegates from Florida and Michigan to have full voting rights at the party’s national convention.

The most ardent opponents of seating Michigan and Florida delegates were all Obama supporters and underlings. His website published in April a list of articles and editorials vehemently opposing the seating of delegates, clearly condoning this position. But that wasn’t the Barack Obama he knew.

Continuing their war against free choice, Democrats are ramping up their crusade to save people from themselves, this time by bringing tobacco under the control of the FDA.

The House voted 326-102 Wednesday to approve legislation granting FDA authority over tobacco products, paving the way for the Senate to possibly consider the bill in the fall.

Lawmakers have tried for more than a decade to place tobacco products under FDA purview in an effort to stem smoking.

The bill has wide bipartisan support, but Republican leaders and the Bush administration oppose it. They assert FDA would not have the resources to take on a new responsibility and argue agency oversight would give the public the wrong impression that tobacco is safe.

The administration threatened to veto the bill Wednesday, arguing the bill would disproportionately tax low-income Americans. The measure would assess user fees from tobacco companies to raise an estimated $5 billion over 10 years to underwrite FDA’s efforts.

The debate turned heated when House Minority Leader Boehner, perhaps the House’s highest profile smoker, took the floor.

“Most of my colleagues know that I smoke,” he said. “I know that smoking is probably not good for my health. Most Americans know cigarettes are probably not good for their health. Do we need the government to tell us? Do we need to spend $5 billion of smokers’ money for the government to tell us?”

Summoning the self-righteous hot air of all the liberal crusaders in this nation’s history, Dingus responded by patting himself on the back for his noble purpose.

“This legislation is on the floor because people are killing themselves by smoking these evil cigarettes,” Dingell said.

“The distinguished gentleman, the minority leader, is going to be amongst the next to die,” said Dingell. Then with a wide smile, he added, “I am trying to save him, as the rest of us are, because he is committing suicide every time he puffs on one of those things.”

What exactly makes Dingus more qualified to evaluate the risk versus reward of Boehner’s smoking than Boehner himself?

Some might be wondering why Phillip Morris broke from the rest of the industry and supported this legislation. The easy answer might be that they saw the writing on the wall and sought to mitigate the extent of the damage. I believe the answer is something else.

These kinds of regulatory interventions in the name of consumer protection are nothing new. What apparently only Phillip Morris realized, however, is that after do-gooders get what they want, they lose interest. The regulatory bodies they created are then free to be co-opted by industry, where they are then used to prevent competition.

When the uproar began against the railroad industry, far thinking railroaders realized they could use the federal intervention to their advantage. After the creation of the Interstate Commerce Commission they were able to do just that. Because no one understood the railroad industry more than railroaders, the more regulatory power was granted to the ICC over railroads the more their own bureaucrats were drawn from the industry itself. By the time trucking became a major threat to the railroad industry, ICC was perfectly placed to defend the railroads from competition. The Motor Carrier Act of 1935 gave the ICC authority to regulate truckers (to protect the railroads), which they used to severely limit the ability of new truckers to enter the industry.

The story of the ICC is hardly unique. Indeed, it represents the natural history of government intervention, as described by Milton Friedman:

A real of fancied evil leads to demands to do something about it. A political coalition forms consisting of sincere, high-minded reformers and equally sincere interested parties. The incompatible objectives of the members of the coalition (e.g., low prices to consumers and high prices to producers) are glossed over by fine rhetoric about “the public interest,” “fair competition,” and the like. The coalition succeeds in getting Congress (or a state legislature) to pass a law. The preamble to the law pays lip service to th rhetoric and the body of the law grants power to government officials to “do something.” The high-minded reformers experience a glow of triumph and turn their attention to new causes. The interested parties go to work to make sure that the power is used for their benefit. They generally succeed.

The history of the FDA itself meets this pattern. Reformers were concerned about the conditions at meat-packing plants. Special interests quickly hoped on board. Meat-packers were more than happy to have government certify the cleanliness of their product, and have taxpayers pay for the process.

Today’s FDA does far more harm than good. It prevents the creation and distribution of valuable new drugs, benefiting manufacturers who face limited competition once they’ve established themselves. Phillip Morris is apparently more forward-thinking than other tobacco companies and has learned from this history. They realize government can grant them far more power than the market ever would allow, and they know that high-minded reformers are the vehicle through which they can successfully grab this power.

Some people just never learn.

Exactly two weeks ago, we told Mayor Adrian Fenty and the D.C. Council that the overbearing emergency legislation regulating gun purchases, registration and ownership they passed would face a lawsuit. The week before, we told them how to possibly avoid litigation. City Hall did not listen. Despite the Supreme Court ruling, the District remains onerous.

A lawsuit was filed Monday by Dick Heller, the very gun-rights advocate who challenged the city’s strict handgun ban that led to the Supreme Court decision. The high court affirmed that citizens do indeed have the individual right to bear arms. In his latest suit, Mr. Heller is contending that the new D.C. regulations are “unreasonable and burdensome” for prospective gunowners. Mr. Heller argues, for example, that the city’s classification that a machine gun is any weapon that shoots more than 12 rounds without reloading makes most semi-automatic pistols off limits and does not conform to the public’s perception of what a machine gun is nor with the definition in any English language dictionary.

But there are other encroachments, including a provision that requires residents to keep their guns unloaded and disassembled in the home or equipped with a trigger lock.

They must be under the mistaken understanding that houses are only burglarized by appointment.

The House is apparently about to apologize on behalf of dead men for a crime committed against dead men.

The House of Representatives was poised Tuesday to pass a resolution apologizing to African-Americans for slavery and the era of Jim Crow.

The nonbinding resolution, which is expected to pass, was introduced by Rep. Steve Cohen, a white lawmaker who represents a majority black district in Memphis, Tennessee.

…By passing the resolution, the House would also acknowledge the “injustice, cruelty, brutality and inhumanity of slavery and Jim Crow.”

…”African-Americans continue to suffer from the consequences of slavery and Jim Crow — long after both systems were formally abolished — through enormous damage and loss, both tangible and intangible, including the loss of human dignity and liberty, the frustration of careers and professional lives, and the long-term loss of income and opportunity,” the resolution states.

Certainly slavery was all of those things - an injustice, cruel, brutal and inhumane.  However, there is no denying (as the resolution attempts to do) that the descendants of slaves are much better off today than they otherwise would be, despite the abhorrent immorality of slavery itself.  Descendants of slavery, if there had been no such institution, would today be inhabiting a continent full of misery, civil war and genocide instead of a land of unparalleled opportunity.  This fact is by no means meant to mitigate the atrocities of slavery and certainly cannot be used to provide a post hoc moral justification for such a horrendous practice, but it is fact nonetheless.

If the House is interested in apologizing for things that have made today’s black community worse off, and not just those things that harmed it in the past, I suggest they start apologizing for The New Deal and Great Society disasters, both of which have done a magnificent job of decimating the black family - something even slavery could not accomplish.

The longest serving Republican Senator in history has been indicted by a federal grand jury.

In a press conference, acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew Friedrich said that according to the indictment, Stevens is being charged with seven felony counts of making false statements on his Senate financial disclosure forms. The indictment alleges that Stevens did not, as he is required to do, report gifts he received from Veco Corp., which included $250,000 of materials and labor related to the renovation of his home in Girdwood.

Ted Stevens is well known for his love of bacon and ability to direct it toward his home state of Alaska.  Even the imminent threat of a corruption investigation couldn’t slow down his rampant porking.

“He’s at the head of the pack,” Ellis said. “His ability to bring home the bacon to Alaska is legendary and he doesn’t make any bones about doing that.”

Stevens gets his buying power from his staying power. With nearly four decades in the Senate, now at age 83, he’s the longest-serving Republican senator in history.

Less than three months after the FBI searched his Alaska home in a bribery and public corruption probe, Stevens proved he hasn’t lost an ounce of clout. He added an incredible $215 million in earmarks to the defense bill - more than any other senator.

Ted Stevens epitomized the failures of the republican party to govern responsibly.  Let’s hope his eventual replacement brings with him more respect for the taxpayer.

Now this is “speaking truth to power”:

Cited environmental benefits of Meridian Energy’s proposed Project Hayes wind farm were based on misleading scientific information, an Environment Court appeal hearing in Cromwell was told yesterday.

Prof Bob Carter, of Queensland, Australia, appeared as a witness for appellant Roch Sullivan to give evidence at the hearing on issues of climate change.

Prof Carter said the Government’s justification of its support of Project Hayes - in order to reduce global warming - was a waste of time and money.

“No significant increase in global average temperature has occurred since 1998 despite an increase in carbon dioxide over the same period of about 5%.”

…”A human effect on global climate change has not yet been distinguished and measured . . . meanwhile, global temperature change is occurring, as it always naturally does, and a phase of cooling has succeeded the mild late 20th century warming,” he said.

Prof Carter said the available scientific data on global warming did not justify the belief carbon dioxide emission controls could be used as a means of managing or stopping future climate change, which the Government believed Project Hayes could do.

Therefore, the Government’s notion of global warming, which prompted its 10-year moratorium on new fossil fuel power stations, would cost taxpayers dearly for no additional environmental benefit, he said.

It’s unlikely that they’ll listen.  Before all is said and done, the world will be wasting a lot more time and money on this nonsense.

Or so says the Senator from Illinois, whose security in Afghanistan was provided by the much maligned firm.

Sen. Barack Obama has not been a fan of private police like Blackwater in war zones, and some news outlets even reported that they were spurned for his trip last week to Afghanistan and Iraq. But Whispers confirms that Blackwater did handle the Democratic presidential candidate’s security in Afghanistan and helped out in Iraq. What’s more, Obama was overheard saying: “Blackwater is getting a bad rap.” Since everything appeared to go swimmingly, maybe he will take firms like Blackwater out of his sights, the company’s supporters hope.

Hat tip: Protein Wisdom

Now to put Obama’s recent observation in context. His official Senate website features a number of op-eds disparaging the private security firm. In one from the Chicago-Sun Times the group is likened to a “rogue militia” group:

Contractors shouldn’t be rogue militia, roaming the country shooting without justification and without consequences. This is especially true since the federal government has apparently hired out the Iraq war right under our noses: There are nearly as many private military employees there as troops.

In the same article the administration is also chastised for relying on a “shadow military.” Another featured op-ed, this time from the LA TImes, declares that such contractors should not be tasked with providing security to American diplomats.

But Congress should also debate the overarching issue: Which military and security functions should be outsourced in the first place? And which pose the potential to harm the national interest if delegated to the private sector? The traditional standard was that “mission critical” functions — jobs that would lose the war if botched — shouldn’t be outsourced. What little is known about the Pentagon’s use of security contractors indicates that standard is obsolete. But what should the new criteria be?

The Blackwater debacle suggests that at the very least, outsourcing the protection of U.S. diplomats operating in war zones — a national security imperative — is a bad idea.

Does Barack Obama support these views? If not, why are they featured on his website? If so, how does he reconcile such statements with his recent adventures? Having found that the group is getting a “bad rap,” is he also willing to admit his culpability in making that so?

In a speech from October of 2007 featured on Obama’s campaign website (which curiously lacks a search function), he stated, “We cannot win a fight for hearts and minds when we outsource critical missions to unaccountable contractors.”  Does this mean that, by accepting the security of Blackwater, Obama has contributed to our supposed inability to “win a fight for hearts and minds?”

Federal minimum wage rises to $6.55 today

About 2 million Americans get a raise Thursday as the federal minimum wage rises 70 cents. The bad news: Higher gas and food prices are swallowing it up, and some small businesses will pass the cost of the wage hike to consumers.

You don’t say.

The increase, from $5.85 to $6.55 per hour, is the second of three annual increases required by a 2007 law. Next year’s boost will bring the federal minimum to $7.25 an hour.

Workers like Walter Jasper, who earns minimum wage at a car wash in Nashville, Tenn., are happy to take the raise, but will still struggle with the higher gas and food prices hammering Americans.

The worker whose potential job was lost to help pay for mandated, above-market rates to the Walter Jasper ’s of the country won’t be identified in this article, because his or her name will never be known. Those who pay the cost of such foolish polices like minimum wage laws are not as readily identifiable as those who benefit, even though that cost is significantly higher.

The surest way to create a surplus is to raise the price of something beyond its market rate. The question is, why does government insist on creating a surplus of labor (otherwise known as unemployment)? How many more people has the federal government just prevented from ever getting their foot in the door and from gaining valuable experience that would lead to much greater rewards in the future? We’ll never know, but at least Walter Jasper got his $0.70 raise.

Remember, this bill was signed by a man who was a featured speaker at the 2004 Republican National Convention.

California, a national trendsetter in all matters edible, became the first state to ban trans fats in restaurants when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill Friday to phase out their use.

Under the new law, trans fats, long linked to health problems, must be excised from restaurant products beginning in 2010, and from all retail baked goods by 2011. Packaged foods will be exempt.

New York City adopted a similar ban in 2006 — it became fully effective on July 1 — and Philadelphia, Stamford, Conn., and Montgomery County, Md., have done so as well.

Vocal do-gooders have once again conspired to deprave citizens of their freedom to choose.  You are simply not trusted to make the correct decisions in your own life, even if the weighting of risk versus reward is entirely subjective. That this charge was enabled, if not actually led by, a prominent republican illustrates the sad state of our national affairs.

That’s the attitude of the committee hosting the Democratic National Convention.

The committee hosting the Democratic National Convention has used the city’s gas pumps to fill up and apparently avoided paying state and federal fuel taxes.

The practice, which began four months ago, may have ended hours after its disclosure. An aide to Mayor John Hickenlooper released a statement Tuesday evening saying that Denver 2008 Host Committee members would pay market prices for fuel and would also be liable for all applicable taxes.

However, Public Works spokeswoman Christine Downs told City Council members just hours before that host committee members were fueling up at the city pumps. The city does not pay taxes on the fuel for its fleet, and Downs said the host committee would not either.

The disclosure brought immediate scrutiny. Colorado Attorney General John Suthers said the practice “would seem” to be illegal and referred the matter to the state Department of Revenue.

Nonprofits, such as the host committee, are subject to state and federal gasoline taxes, according to the Department of Revenue.

Who cares what the rules are for non-profits? We’re democrats, we don’t have to obey the rules.