Now that we're a few weeks into the new administration, how are we doing?
The good news is we have a Treasury Secretary who tax problems we're willing to ignore.
Better news is that we didn't ignore Tom Daschle's tax problems, so he's not at HHS.
The best news is that Judd Gregg figured out the game and got out in time. And got the word out about the White House's attempts to take over the Census. We'll see whether those plans are thwarted. Reportedly, they found a preliminary chart in Rahm Emmanuel's office with projected population totals: Salt Lake City: 0 Detroit: 2 million San Francisco: Like a bajillion, give 'em twenty reps. Chicago: $250,000,000
It's not clear why Chicago was given in dollars, rather than people.
A stimulus package has been passed which, in addition to wasting lots of money, has the seeds of putting back "Welfare As We Knew It" to paraphrase an earlier Democrat president. The stimulus bill was passed without a single Republican vote in the house. In the Senate, Democrats went beyond their own caucus to gain votes from two Republicans in Maine and a fuzzy headed little troll who was sometimes accused of being a Republican back when Clarence Thomas was being confirmed for the Supreme Court.
Leftists are upset that Guantanamo is still open and that we haven't surrendered in Iraq and Afghanistan. Rahm Emmanuel counseled them to be patient, noting that Obama had spent the previous two weeks surrendering the presidential cojones to Nancy Pelosi and was all surrendered out.
*** They appear to have found a meth lab in a rental in my old home town. They unquestionably found some folks wandering around with burns characteristic of people who don't know how to run a meth lab safely. When a new species of pusher shows up in town, is it reassuring if at least he's not very good at it?
They say the guy had a very profitable trade, taking crystal meth and resynthesizing it into cough tablets for people who didn't feel like waiting in line to show their ID at the drug store.
*** On the homefront, I had gnocchi alla marinara for dinner, homemade from Safeway ingredients. That is, I boiled the gnocchi and poured the marinara over them all on my own. It's a start at cooking from scratch, but the ingredients for four servings came out to $7.00. You can buy seven Banquet spaghetti dinners for that. Granted, the gnocchi were better, but speculation that the recession will drive people to home cooked meals with simple ingredients and away from highly processed, bad for you foods are likely overblown.
