Detroit

The sad fall of a once great city can blame no one but itself.  For the last several years, it has spent $100 million more per year than it brought in.  The city has a long term debt of $14 billion.  All the projects meant to reinvigorate the city instead left it further in debt without spurring the economy.  The city is now in bankruptcy (there is some dispute on that).  One lesson is that the city could not spend its way out of an economic downturn.  Perhaps this could be noted by other politicians.

Of greater note, Detroit is rated as the most liberal big city in the United States.  It's last Republican mayor left office in 1961, when the population was 1.6 million.  Today, 52 years of Democratic rule, the population is 710 thousand, crime is the worst in the nation, the economy has collapsed, 40% of the street lights don't work, the city can't afford to demolish condemned buildings, and it takes nearly an hour for the police to respond to a call vs. the 11 minute national average.  There should be another lesson in this: Democratic policies lead to bankruptcy and ruin.  We are on the same path as Detroit on a national level.  This is where it leads.

The Rule of Waiver

At one time, the United States proudly proclaimed itself a Nation of Laws.  The laws were to be enforced by Lady Justice, who wore a blindfold.    Now, obviously that has always been idealistic and the country has never met that goal but it was always something to strive for.  No longer.  Now, in lieu of the Rule of Law, we have the Rule of Waiver.  Though I don't recall reading it anywhere in Section II of the Constitution, it seems the President now has the power to suspend law.  He was unable to get the Dream Act through Congress so he simply implemented it through executive order.  Now he has, without the overt consent of Congress (its silence speaks volumes), President Obama has delayed the implementation of the Employer Mandate in the Affordable Care Act for a year.  Pay no attention to the fact that that delays implementation until AFTER the 2014 election (I'm sure that was not a consideration).  Regardless of the politics of it, does the President have the power to delay law?  Could a Republican President decide to delay a tax increase that Congress passed?  Can the governor of a state give me a waiver for the speed limit?  That would be cool.  If the executive can offer waivers for certain people while not offering them to others, the rule of law is dead.  Is this not exactly what the IRS scandal is about?  Some (coincidentally political allies of the administration) get the tax break while others (all too often at odds with the administration) don't.  We are moving further along the path to tyranny.

The Raven

The movie opens with text stating when Edgar Allan Poe (EAP) died and that the last few days of his life were a mystery.  That is true.  The movie is going to fill in this gap.  The big problem is that there is no gap whatsoever.  Poe finds himself working hand in glove with Detective Fields of the Baltimore Police Department.  Moreover, he is forced by the serial killer to write a new horror story based on the killer's crimes and have it published in the daily paper.  Thus, there is virtual nothing that happens in which there isn't vast documentary evidence as to what Poe was doing.  And it isn't even as if the police kept his involvement secret.  The final chapter of his daily concludes with Poe offering his life for that of Emily's.

As far as the story, the villain is superhuman and/or beyond brilliant.  His plan is ludicrous and yet it works.  One wonders how he managed to afford all the equipment for the elaborate murders once he is revealed.  How did he snatch a woman from a masked ball that was crowded with police?  Why was he on the church roof so he could jump down on the unsuspecting officer?  Why was he there at all when the sole point was to find an empty grave with a threatening headstone?  On several occasions, he is known to be in a building that is surrounded by police but he escapes each time.

To my knowledge, EAP never had a goatee but John Cusack sports one.  Though Poe did serve in the army and later was kicked out of West Point, he didn't admit to it in his later years.  Instead he had a tale of going to France.  Thus, if this was going to be revealed, it should have been done by another character - perhaps the detective who initially suspected Poe - so as to be true to the man.  Among his accolades, Poe is credited as the Father of the Detective Story with his character Auguste Dupin.  However, Poe proves entirely inferior to the villain since every deduction he makes only leads him where the villain intends him to go.  Basically, Poe is portrayed as a has-been writer who is a complete jerk, a drunkard, and generally anti-social.  Though I like Cusack, he missed the mark here.

 

Detective Fields (Luke Evans) plays Watson to Cusack's Holmes.  For a detective, he proves to be not particularly good at detecting.  Nor is he a particularly good shot, having had several opportunities at the villain who always escaped unscathed.

 

Edgar Allan Poe would not look kindly on this.  I suspect his critique would be less kind than mine and filled with vitriol and contempt.  Obviously, his review would have been much better than this and more fun to read too.

Insanity in Government

Imagine you own a business.  Everything seems to be humming along fine but you start getting complaints about one of your employees.  Being a responsible business owner, you call the employee in and ask about it:

"I've been getting a lot of complaints about you.  Tell me your side of the story."

"I did nothing wrong but I'm going to invoke my 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination."

"Oh?  Well, I'm going to have to put you on administrative leave - with full pay, of course - until I get to the bottom of all these complaints."

Employee whistles a happy tune as he heads home for an extended paid vacation.

Not how you would react to an employee who essentially admitted criminal wrongdoing?  That is how the Federal government reacted to Lois Lerner of the IRS.  She declared her innocence and then pleaded the 5th.  Greg Roseman, a Deputy Director of the IRS, also invoked the 5th.

Maybe I'm missing something, but any employee who refuses to report to the boss on what is happening in his department by saying it might be self-incriminating should be fired on the spot.  The original purpose of that clause in the 5th Amendment was to disallow law enforcement from wringing confessions via torture.  There is no threat of torture by Congress, unless one considers droning self-aggrandizing speeches to be torture.  These folks either did something that may be criminal or they are protecting someone else.

 

The original story was that 'rogue agents' were being overzealous but that doesn't jibe with the deputy director invoking the 5th.  Something stinks at the IRS.  As I have long suggested, we should repeal the 16th Amendment (Income Tax) and thus rid ourselves of the IRS and starve an increasingly tyrannical government of funds.

Death of the Initiative

The recent Supreme Court ruling on California's Prop 8 (that amended the state constitution to declare that marriage was between 1 man and 1 woman) has just emasculated the initiative process.  The initiative process is a way for the People to directly legislate.  This is often at odds with what the elected legislators want.  Certainly, the majority Democrat legislature of California didn't want Prop 8 to pass.  The current governor doesn't want to enforce it.  But the people, by a statewide vote, wanted it.  Democracy, don't you know.  But, as one would expect, those who lost the vote went to court.  And won.  This in and of itself is a problem.  Do the people have the right to rule themselves or not?  But that's another issue.  What happened after that first court case is at issue.  The state government refused to defend the constitution of the state before the Supreme Court.  Yes, it is a duly passed amendment and the state government is, in theory, required to adhere to it but refused to defend it in court.  Well, it's a court case and someone must speak up.  Someone did.  And the court ruled that they didn't have standing to defend Prop 8.  Therefore, the lower court ruling stands.

What does this mean in the long run?  What if the People of California pass an initiative to limit the terms of government service?  A few 'public servants' sue and the state refuses to defend the proposition.  Voila!  It is overturned.  The vote of the People can be dismissed and the People don't have standing to appeal.  This is going to be a lesson learned by those who oppose the initiative process.  Do a bit of judge shopping to get the right ruling and then count on the government - that is never thrilled by uppity citizens trying to limit its power - to not defend citizen initiatives.

Oh, but these legislators will be voted out, right?  Unlikely.  The legislators will blame the governor, the governor will blame the judge, and the judge is untouchable.  The People are no longer citizens, they are subjects.  Government is too big to control and it is now on a permanent spiral to more and more power.  This is just the latest sign that the People have far less say than they think.

Fool Me Twice, Shame on Me

Back in 1986, the Immigration Reform and Control Act (also called the Simpson-Mazzoli Act) was passed into law and signed by President Reagan.  It granted amnesty to 3 million illegal immigrants while also enacting measures to prevent future illegal immigrants.  Voila!  The immigration issue was solved!

Today, we are talking about a new plan to resolve the vastly worse (11 million illegal immigrants) problem with a 'Path to Citizenship' combined with stronger border enforcement.  Hmm, this is sounding familiar.  In 1986, we got the Amnesty but didn't get the enforcement to prevent a huge flood of new immigrants.  Now Congress is assuring us that this time it will work.  Trust us just one more time.  Oh, and ignore that report from the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) that says the bill will only cut illegal immigration by 25%.

I've had a lot of good will toward Marco Rubio, the putative architect of this current immigration reform but he's lost me on this.  When he first started pushing for this, he was adamant that border security would happen before any path to citizenship could kick in.  That is no longer the case.  Border security is secondary while amnesty (euphemistically call 'legal status') is instantaneous.  Sounds like a replay of 1986.

 

Why is this so urgent now?  Republicans seem to think that Hispanics hate them and that passing Amnesty will perhaps win some to the cause.  Really?  Why didn't the last Amnesty - signed into law by a Republican - give the Republicans a larger share of their vote?  The history is not favorable but they're going to try it again.  I see why Pat Caddell calls Republicans the Stupid Party.  Hispanics vote Democrat and the Republicans are trying to get millions of more voters for the other party.  Stupid.

 

But the new law will stop the flow, right?  No.  Congress passed a law to build a border fence.  The law of the land says there is to be 700 miles of fence.  Law!  Passed by Congress and signed by the president in 2006.  Only 37 miles were built and the project abandoned.  If that law can be so readily ignored, what makes anyone think that a new law promising border enforcement will be obeyed?  Recall Simpson-Mazzoli?  We already have laws on the books that aren't enforced.  The Federal Government sued the state of Arizona for attempting to enforce some of those laws!

 

Actions speak louder than words.  Every action shows that the Feds don't want the border secure.  The only purpose of this bill is Amnesty.  Everything else will be ignored after the fact, just like Simpson-Mazzoli, just like the border fence.  And 30 years hence, we'll do it again.

Man of Steel

The movie opens with a woman in labor.  Jor-El (Russell Crowe) is the only person with his wife during the delivery of Kal-El.  As we later learn, this is the first natural birth in centuries.  Next we find Jor-El trying to convince the ruling council to make plans to abandon Krypton.  The planet's core is unstable and it will implode in weeks.  The council ignores him and, moments later, General Zod bursts into the chamber and takes over.  Jor-El escapes and manages to send Kal-El on his way to earth before the inevitable destruction of Krypton.  As luck would have it, Zod and his followers survived the destruction thanks to their imprisonment after the failure of the coup.  Moreover, the destruction released them from prison.

Fast forward 30 years or so and we find a bearded Clark Kent (Henry Cavill) on a fishing boat.  This is not the Clark Kent of the comics.  In flashbacks, we discover that Clark is a lost and confused soul.  He knows he is not of this world but that is all he knows.  He is searching for answers to his origins and an overheard conversation (love the super hearing), he eventually ends up at a military compound in the arctic where an ancient ship has been discovered beneath the ice.  The ship and an odd token that was with him as a baby lead to the answers he seeks.  However, activating the ancient ship also alerts General Zod.

Henry Cavill does a very good job with the role.  He is brawnier than any previous Superman.  At one point, he has a Hulk scene.  After having his clothes destroyed in a fire, the nearly naked Clark (reminiscent of Bill Bixby back in the day) steals some clothes.  Steals?  Superman?  What have they done!  At another point, a trucker pours a beer on his head and he meekly walks away but we learn he destroyed the trucker's truck.  Kind of petty, Superman.  Yeah, the audience loved it but it's beneath Superman.  Or it should be.

Moreover, Lois Lane (Amy Adams) is present when Clark enters the long lost Kryptonian ship beneath the ice.  To my horror, she discovers all of Clark's secrets before he first dons his Superman costume.  Wow, talk about turning things on their head.  And there is no Jimmy Olsen!  Lois takes her own pictures.  I thought Lois was a little too squishy for an ace reporter.  It might just be that Amy Adams has a girlish voice that doesn't have much of an edge to it.  She does sweet just fine (see Enchanted) but a reporter who had been embedded in Iraq she is not.

The big failing was Krypton.  How is it that this spacefaring race of 100 centuries is utterly destroyed by the loss of the home planet?  Jor-El explained how other worlds had been visited and that stations were posted.  Zod later proves to have a vessel for terraforming to make worlds more hospitable for Kryptonians.  So, with all this technology, nothing survives except Zod and his band of criminals.  And speaking of Zod, he was bred to be the leader of Krypton's military like Jor-El was bred to be the lead scientist and yet, when the two meet in combat, Jor-El stomps Zod.  Huh?  Well, it is Russell Crowe.

As is apparent, this is a reimaging of the character.  It is an effort to see how Kal-El's life might have played out in a real - rather than comic - world.  Well, mostly.  The big city is still Metropolis and Lois works for the Daily Planet.  Anyway, Clark would not just come out and start flying around in the super suit as the comic depicts.  Once he does in response to the arrival of General Zod, the military is as wary of him as of Zod.  Though initially doubtful, I was won over by this telling.