Global Tax Bill Coming Soon

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The Global Poverty Act of 2007 (S.2433) is coming up for a Senate vote sometime after the July 4 recess, according the office of Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison. Once Harry Reid and the Democrat leadership put it on the calendar, we could have as little as a week to prepare for the vote.

If passed, it will cost taxpayers $845,000,000,000 over the next 13 years, in addition to our current foreign aid expenditures.

And the best part is that it will be administered in conjunction with...brace yourselves...the United Nations. The same one of "Food-for-Oil" fame.

Here's an abstract of the proposed legislation:

"To require the President to develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to further the United States foreign policy objective of promoting the reduction of global poverty, the elimination [?] of extreme global poverty, and the achievement of the U.N. Millennium Development Goal of reducing by one-half the proportion of people worldwide, between 1990 and 2015, who live on less than $1 per day."

The House passed it (H.R. 1302) earlier this year by a unanimous voice vote.

It's about global income redistribution. Their distribution - our income.

Heard much debate about it? The bill is sponsored in the Senate by Barack Obama. Read about it here.

[heaven forbid the media inform us of it before it's passed into law]

READ MORE , Then >

Global Poverty Act of 2007 (S.2433)
YOUR Senator > http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
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Why Do We Call Them 'Democrats'?

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Apparently, the camouflage is no longer needed. The masks are off. They now openly call for the nationalization of private business, the establishment of universal entitlements and increased taxation to pay for them. Why worry about socialist labels? The electorate is complacent, prosperity has numbed our senses and the left has worked diligently for many years to sap our national pride and deface our self-image.

"The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of "liberalism," they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened." - Norman Thomas, U.S. Socialist Party presidential candidate 1940, 1944 and 1948

Eight years into the twenty-first century, Mr. Thomas' prediction is coming perilously close to fruition; the presidential elections of 2008 may well validate his faith in "liberalism" and its Trojan horse delivery of Socialism. After decades of slow yet persistent desensitization to Socialism in our schools, in our media and in government policy, [many] Americans are blind to its ramifications for our prosperity, our individual freedoms and our national identity. Political candidates and legislators espouse openly socialist policies without eliciting the slightest outrage or significant comment, so successfully have the philosophies of Marx and Lenin permeated the national psyche.

House Democrats, loudly shifting blame from the consequences of their energy policies, threaten nationalization of American oil companies. Mimicking Marxist Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, their answer to the energy crisis is eliminating free markets.

"Should the people of the United States own refineries? Maybe so. Frankly, I think that's a good idea. Then we could control the amount of refined product much more capably that gets out on the market..." Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) 18 June Press Conference with Democratic leadership.

Representative Hinchey is on the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee and the Natural Resources Committee, committees with enormous influence on energy matters. He went on as he stood next to House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (D-IL):

"then maybe they'd be willing to have these refineries owned publicly[*], owned by the people of the United States, so that the people of the United States can determine how much of the product is refined and put out on the market. To me, that sounds like a very good idea."

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) once considered one of congress's fringe leftists apparently let the Democrat party policy slip during show hearings with oil company executives earlier in the month:

"This liberal will be all about socializing, uh, uh . . . would be about . . . basically taking over and the government running all of your companies."

The Socialist Party of America has arrived, wearing Democrat clothing. Socialist control of the presidency and congress would knock America to its knees as nothing has before. What was inconceivable five years ago becomes a frightening possibility with Obama, Pelosi, Boxer and Reid.

If you think gas is expensive now, wait until the socialists in congress run the oil business.

"The past shows unvaryingly that when a people's freedom disappears, it goes not with a bang, but in silence amid the comfort of being cared for. That is the dire peril in the present trend toward statism. If freedom is not found accompanied by a willingness to resist, and to reject favors, rather than to give up what is intangible but precarious, it will not long be found at all." - Richard Weaver, 1962

[oil companies already are owned by the people, publicly; they're called shareholders and 401K participants. What Democrats mean by 'the People' is government. Them. Socialist programs are doubly dangerous because, even more than most government programs {and that's saying something}, they're permanent: name a major government program that's ever been meaningfully reduced or eliminated. They only grow; witness all of our entitlement programs, known to be unsustainable, which receive ever greater funding regardless. Once enacted, we'll be yoked with these programs forever, and socialism begets more socialism. Think of our grandchildren...]

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We're winning this War on Terror

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In America, large swaths of the political class continues to insist Iraq is a lost cause. The consensus in much of the West is that the War on Terror is unwinnable.

And yet the evidence is now overwhelming that on all fronts, despite inevitable losses from time to time, it is we who are advancing and the enemy who is in retreat. The current mood on both sides of the Atlantic, in fact, represents a kind of curious inversion of the great French soldier's dictum: “Success against the Taleban. Enemy giving way in Iraq. Al-Qaeda on the run. Situation dire. Let's retreat!”

Since it is remarkable how pervasive this pessimism is, it's worth recapping what has been achieved in the past few years... [much, impressive, Recommended > snip]

Next time you hear someone say that the war in Afghanistan is an exercise in futility ask them this: do they seriously think that if the US and its allies had not ousted the Taleban and sustained an offensive against them for six years that there would have been no more terrorist attacks in the West? [snip]

The third and perhaps most significant advance of all in the War on Terror is the discrediting of the Islamist creed and its appeal.

This was first of all evident in Iraq, but it has spread way beyond Iraq. As Lawrence Wright described in an important piece in The New Yorker last month, there is growing disgust not just among moderate Muslims but even among other jihadists at the extremism of the terrorists... [snip]

The right response to the loss of brave souls is not an immediate call for retreat. It is, first of all, pride; a great, deep conviction that it is on such sacrifice that our own freedoms have always rested. Then, defiance. How foolish is the enemy that it might think our grief is really some prelude to their victory?

Finally, confidence. We are prevailing in this struggle. We know it. And everywhere: in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and among Muslims around the world, the enemy knows it too.

[ Recommended >]

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Know your enemy

.[HT:MD]
... For instance, based on the words and deeds of Muhammad, most schools of Islamic jurisprudence agree that the following are all legitimate during war against the infidel:

- the indiscriminate use of missile weaponry, even if women and children are present (catapults in Muhammad's 7th century, hijacked planes or rockets today);

- the need to always deceive the enemy and even break formal treatises whenever possible [see Sahih Muslim 15: 4057];

- and that the only function of the peace treaty, or "hudna," is to give the Islamic armies time to regroup for a renewed offensive, and should, in theory, last no more than ten years.

- the most notorious among them being the doctrine of "Taqiyya," which permits Muslims to lie and dissemble to infidels.

Deception has such a prominent role that renowned Muslim scholar Ibn al-Arabi declares: "[I]n the Hadith, practicing deceit in war is well demonstrated. Indeed, its need is more stressed than [the need for] courage" (The Al Qaeda Reader, 142).

Then there's Islam's more "eternal" doctrines, such as the Abode of War versus the Abode of Islam dichotomy, which in essence maintains that Islam must always be in a state of animosity vis-à-vis the infidel world and, whenever possible, must wage wars until all infidel territory has been brought under Islamic rule.

In fact, this dichotomy of hostility is unambiguously codified under Islam's worldview and is deemed a fard kifaya-that is, an obligation on the entire Muslim body that can only be fulfilled as long as some Muslims actively uphold it... [snip]

Alas, far from taking the most basic and simple advice regarding warfare-Sun Tzu's ancient dictum, "Know thy enemy"- the U.S. government is having difficulties even acknowledging its enemy.

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Protecting the Oil Supply

What if the Chinese were to apply the Carter Doctrine?

"Let our position be absolutely clear," Jimmy Carter declared. It was January 1980, and a year later he would no longer be president. But the doctrine he espoused in his final State of the Union address was, arguably, one of the few policies that outlasted his tenure. The Carter Doctrine:

"An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America." [snip]

Every couple of years, oil becomes Topic 1 for a while. Every couple of years, attention is paid—and then it fades. The 1970s brought the Arab embargo and the energy crisis. The early 1980s brought the Carter Doctrine and the Iran-Iraq War. In the early 1990s, Iraq invaded oil-rich Kuwait. In 2003, some claimed the United States had launched a war in Iraq because of oil. [snip]

As its needs and dependence on Middle East oil grow, China is more likely to challenge some of the policies the United States is pursuing in oil-rich regions. Using sanctions to help stop the genocide in Darfur appeals to Washington but is disruptive to relations between China and Sudan. Preventing Iran from interfering in Iraq or from building nuclear capabilities is crucial for the United States, but China is becoming more and more nervous that a confrontation will upset its access to oil.

In 2006, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told the Senate foreign relations committee:

"We do have to do something about the energy problem. … It has given extraordinary power to some states that are using that power in not very good ways."

She was talking about Iran, Venezuela, and Sudan. But from Beijing, the picture might look much different: Iran, Venezuela, and Sudan are all more than willing to supply China—but the U.S. is making oil more expensive and less available.

We have to do something about our energy problem.

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[if we don't become energy independent]

Study finds Arctic seabed afire with lava-spewing volcanoes

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The Arctic seabed is as explosive geologically as it is politically judging by the "fountains" of gas and molten lava that have been blasting out of underwater volcanoes near the North Pole.

"Explosive volatile discharge has clearly been a widespread, and ongoing, process,"

according to an international team that sent unmanned probes to the strange fiery world beneath the Arctic ice.

They returned with images and data showing that red-hot magma has been rising from deep inside the earth and blown the tops off dozens of submarine volcanoes, four kilometres below the ice.

"Jets or fountains of material were probably blasted one, maybe even two, kilometres up into the water,"

says geophysicist Robert Sohn of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, who led the expedition.

"The scale and magnitude of the explosive activity that we're seeing here dwarfs anything we've seen on other mid-ocean ridges,"

says Sohn, who studies ridges around the world. The volume of gas and lava that appears to have blasted out of the Gakkel volcanoes is "much, much higher" than that seen at other ridges.

The scientists say they have explored just one small stretch of the Gakkel Ridge and hope to return in a few years.

[widespread, ongoing process of dozens of submarine volcanoes discharging magma on a scale that dwarfs anything else they've seen, under the ice near the North Pole - and that from the one small stretch they visited. -- So when the Arctic enters its next melt cycle, remember: it's because of your light bulbs.]

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Massachusetts Lawmaker's Pledge to 'Rip Apart' Child Rape Victims

A Massachusetts politician and defense attorney has touched off a firestorm with his shocking public vow to torment and "rip apart" child rape victims who take the witness stand if the state legislature passed stiff mandatory sentences for child sex offenders. Rep. James Fagan, a Democrat, made the comments during debate last month on the state House floor...

[criminals before victims]

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THE AMERICAN DREAM GOES ON

Mortimer Zuckerman, editor-in-chief of U.S. News and World Report, says income inequality has had little traction thus far as a political issue, partly because many middle-class Americans have moved up:

• There are 12 percent more households earning in excess of $100,000 than 20 or so years ago.
• Those making less than $30,000 have not increased.
• So virtually the entire "decline" of the middle-class group has come from people moving up the income ladder, not down.
• Some 82 percent of those born into poverty are much better off than their parents and more than a third of them have made it into the middle class - or higher.

The attitude of Americans also contributes to the low combustibility of income inequality, says Zuckerman. Americans, quite simply, believe that plenty of opportunities exist to get ahead: more than two thirds of Americans concur with the statement that people are rewarded for intelligence and skill -- the largest percentage across 27 countries taking part in an international survey of social attitudes.

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