Friday, May 29, 2009
Sotomayor, Ricci and White Male Privilege
It is now asked whether Sonia Sotomayor has empathy for Frank Ricci. It's a question larger than the first Latina nominated to the Supreme Court, larger than the first black president who selected her and larger than the case before the high court of a firefighter who did not get a promotion because he was white and male.
The first Latina nominee is now not the discriminated but the discriminator...
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NYT: Sonia Sotomayor Has a 'Compelling Life Story' -- Clarence Thomas Didn't
Sotomayor's rise from a housing project in the East Bronx to Supreme Court nominee was "a compelling life story" in Thursday's lead article by Peter Baker and Adam Nagourney.
And Scott Shane and Manny Fernandez even celebrated the life history of Sotomayor's mother, in Thursday's "A Judge's Own Story Highlights Her Mother's -- A Tale of Rising Out of Hardship."
And Sheryl Gay Stolberg's gushing 5,000-word "Woman in the News" profile of Sotomayor Wednesday positioned the judge's rise as "Her up-by-the-bootstraps tale, an only-in-America story...."
By contrast, the lead July 2, 1991 story by Maureen Dowd, then a White House reporter, was rather curt when it came to extolling the conservative Thomas's riveting life history. Dowd dispensed with Thomas's inspiring rise from poverty in Pin Point, Ga., where he was raised by his grandparents, in two and a half paragraphs, and suggested a cynical political motivation on the part of President George H.W. Bush. Thomas's life wasn't necessarily inspiring but was merely "offered as inspiring" by the president:
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Sotomayor Ruled That States Do Not Have to Obey Second Amendment
Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor ruled in January 2009 that states do not have to obey the Second Amendment’s commandment that the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
In Maloney v. Cuomo, Sotomayor signed an opinion of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit that said the Second Amendment does not protect individuals from having their right to keep and bear arms restricted by state governments....
[Just like states can add restrictions to federal abortion laws? Inane. Activist. Wrong.]
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Gibbs on 'burgeoning...controversy'
The issue didn’t go away with the campaign, and now it’s found its way into the West Wing. At Robert Gibbs’ Wednesday briefing, radio host Lester Kinsolving asked whether the White House would satisfy several hundred thousand petitioners by releasing “a certified copy of [Obama’s] long-form birth certificate.”
Gibbs appeared incredulous."It’s on the Internet, Lester.”
“Long-form, listing his hospital and physician,” Kinsolving clarified...
[This entire 'controversy', 100% of it, is due to Obama's abject refusal to release his full {many say 'actual', with some cause} birth certificate to the people that hired him on condition he was a US citizen.
Why?]
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Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid of the Obama Administration’s Scary Trial Balloon
In yesterday's Washington Post, the White House floats a really scary trial balloon—a new national Value-Added Tax (VAT) to pay for out-of-control spending and a Washington take over of health care.
We need to draw a clear line in the sand that no new national taxes will be put in place without eliminating—not cutting, but permanently eliminating—our existing income tax...
[Correct, and actually preferable as it puts all consumers on the same side of the tax table vs. the class warfare being waged now, and allows citizens to choose to save their money tax free (by not consuming) rather than having it taken from us by force.
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Then>
"VAT -OR- INCOME TAX - NOT BOTH"
Whitehouse: mailto:president@whitehouse.gov
Senate-Reid: http://reid.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm
House-Pelosi: http://speaker.house.gov/contact/
YOUR Senator: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
YOUR Congressman: https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml
or: Speed Message them with your personal distribution list...
and as always, pass it on...
..
The Silence of MoveOn
The most powerful grassroots organization of the peace movement, MoveOn, remains silent as the American wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan simmer or escalate
What was MoveOn's explanation for abandoning the peace movement in a meeting with a president the peace movement was key to electing? According to Ruben and MoveOn, it was the preference of its millions of members, as ascertained by house meetings and polls.
But on none of these 'polls' were Afghanistan and Pakistan even listed as options which members could vote on. Nor was Guantánamo nor the administration's torture policies. ("Investigate the Bush Administration" was the first option.)
MoveOn is supposed to be an Internet version of participatory democracy, but the organization's decision-making structure apparently assures that the membership is voiceless on the question of these long wars - at least not while a Democrat is President...
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Hamas funder jailed in Texas
A founding member of what was once the biggest Muslim funding organization in the US has been given a 65-year jail sentence. Shukri Abu Baker, 50, was convicted of assisting the Palestinian militant group, Hamas, which the US lists as a terrorist organisation. He is the first of five people from the Holy Land Foundation to be sentenced.
[GWOT]
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AP Calls Terrorism Financier a 'Muslim Charity Member'
If you saw the headline "Muslim Charity Member Gets 65 Years In Prison," would you assume his crime was funding terrorist activities, or possibly something totally unrelated?
Given that this "charity member" was convicted last November on 108 charges surrounding the transfer of more than $12 million to the terrorist group Hamas, one would think a stronger, more direct and informative headline would be in order.
Apparently not to the Associated Press...
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CBS Reports Islamic Extremism in U.S. Prisons, No Mention of Gitmo Detainees
At the top of Friday’s CBS Early Show co-host Julie Chen declared: "New details about that foiled terrorist plot in New York. Are American jails becoming breeding grounds for home-grown terrorists?"
In the report that followed, correspondent Kelly Wallace explained:
"Three of the suspects are U.S. citizens, all are Muslim. Three of the four are said to be jailhouse converts...One study estimates that as many as 175,000 inmates of American prisons converted to Islam since September 11th."Despite such a shocking statistic, from a 2007 Indiana State University study, Wallace made no mention of President Obama’s plan to release Islamic fundamentalists from Guantanamo into American prisons...
[Oh c'mon; a simple oversight - it's not like a professional journalist can be expected to connect (the-most-glaringly-obvious) of dots...]
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Pelosi appeals for China's help on climate change
BEIJING — U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged Beijing on Thursday to cooperate on climate change, calling a safe environment a basic human right. "We have so much room for improvement," ... "Every aspect of our lives must be subjected to an inventory ... of how we are taking responsibility."
[Scarier and scarier.]
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New U.N. Climate Treaty Expected to Restrict U.S. While Exempting United Arab Emirates and China
A new Uni
ted Nation's global warming treaty is expected to give some of the world's worst polluters--such as the communist People's Republic of China--and some of the world's wealthiest nations--such as the oil-rich United Arab Emirates--a license to continue freely pumping carbon into the atmosphere while restricting the emissions of the United States
Countries categorized by the United Nations as Annex 1 Parties, including the United States and much of the industrialized world, are considered developed nations that will not be harmed by controlling carbon emissions. Non-annex I Parties, on the other hand, are countries considered to be “developing” or have “economies in transition.”
These Non-annex 1 countries such as China – which emits the most carbon emissions of any country in the world, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Top 20 Countries for CO2 Emissions--will be able “sign on” to the treaty but will not be legally bound by it. And some of the world’s wealthiest nations, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, are on the Non-annex 1 Parties list.
"It's very political. ... It has as much to do with what nations are willing to accept than per capita wealth or per capita usage of fossil fuels"
said Ben Lieberman, senior policy analyst on energy and the environment at the Heritage Foundation.
Lieberman said allowing some countries to sign the treaty gives it clout without requiring those countries to actually cut emissions. He also said without some of the worst polluters being held accountable--like China (No. 1), India, (No. 4), South Korea (No. 9), Mexico (No. 13) and Saudi Arabia (No. 14)--an international treaty will not have any impact...
[a) it's not really about the enviornment (and never was), b) no harm or impact are untrue: it will have severe impact on America's global competitivness - and ability to keep companies here...]
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As Dollars Pile Up, Uneasy Traders Lower the Currency’s Value
The dollar was on a roll just a few months ago, bounding higher against foreign currencies as investors sought a safe hiding place for their money amid a global downturn.
But now, many are rethinking their decision to buy American. The dollar skidded to its lowest point in five months this week, battered by creeping fears that Washington’s costly efforts to stimulate the economy are growing harder to finance...
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Demand doesn’t justify oil runup, Exxon chief says
DALLAS— The recent run-up in crude prices to $60-plus from under $40 earlier this year isn’t necessarily evidence that the economy is recovering, Exxon Mobil Chairman and CEO Rex Tillerson said Wednesday. Oil demand remains down while supply is robust amid the lingering global recession, so those fundamentals don’t support crude’s slow uptick.
No, it's more a function of OPEC communications and our weakening dollar...
[I.e., spending like drunken sailors on everything but our own oil reserves.]
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Banks find ways to boost fees; checking accounts latest target
For the past year, banks have raised credit card rates to levels that sparked consumer outcry, regulatory scrutiny and congressional action. (snip) For example, banks are making it easier and more punitive for consumers to spend more than they have in their checking accounts, just as they allow consumers to spend past their card limits and charge them a steep fee for doing so.
[SHEEPLE. Vote with your feet like a responsible consumer and they won't do anything we don't let them do.]
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What Happened to the Right of the Patient to Choose?
The parents of a 13 year old Minnesota boy, Daniel Hauser, who with their support refused chemotherapy for Hodgkin's Lymphoma, have now told Judge John Rodenberg that they will agree to the treatment. Previously, they had missed a court date and fled the state in order to avoid judicially imposed chemotherapy.
Their recent reversal came after they were given a choice; agree to chemotherapy for their son or lose custody of him...
[A: it was stripped from us years ago, and will require sustained action at the poles to reverse.]
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The new GM: Government Motors?
A new name for Detroit's weakened auto giant GM is making the rounds, sometimes with irony, sometimes with dread, suggested by the deepest Washington industrial intervention in a half-century.
The Obama administration is planting itself at the wheel of General Motors with a major ownership stake -- and all that goes with it for the U.S. taxpayer...
[That's right, when we complain about the costs of union benefits, we'll now be talking about your money whether you ever bought a chevy or not.]
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The Guideline of Law
The President mentioned the Rule of Law in a speech last week. At the National Archives about his policies on terrorism, he said:"From Europe to the Pacific, we've been the nation that has shut down torture chambers and replaced tyranny with the rule of law."
But the previous week the administration blew off the Rule of Law in the Chrysler bankruptcy.
It stiffed the senior secured creditors in favor of a junior creditor, a labor union. That's probably unconstitutional, because the US Constitution calls for "uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States." You can see why the founding fathers might think uniform bankruptcy laws were a good thing. It would provide protection for creditors, never the most popular people in society, against a politically favored special interest like a labor union.
If you are not going to favor secured creditors over a politically powerful interest, why bother having laws, or a Rule of Law at all? Just let the unpopular people go to the wall. Tell them to hire a politician next time.
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Stimulus Overhype?
The Obama administration on Wednesday issued a booklet heralding the accomplishments of the $787 billion stimulus act 100 days after it was signed into law. Without question the book lists many projects that are having an impact of one way or another on the economy.
But the first one of the projects featured in "100 Days, 100 Projects" doesn't seem to withstand the scrutiny of its description. The project is described by the Obama administration this way:"Using $27 million of Recovery Act funding, a public housing development in Washington, D.C., the Regency House, has undergone a green retrofit. As part of this upgrade, the building installed solar panels, a 'green' roof, a rainwater collection system, energy-efficient lighting as well as water conserving toilets, showerheads, and faucets. The greening of this building will allow the Regency House to save money in energy costs, while lessening their impact on the environment."
In reality, the work done on the Regency House that was funded by the stimulus package amounted to $59,000 in parts and labor, according to Dena Michaelson, director of public affairs for the Washington DC Housing Authority... [snip]
The response of the White House to questions about the claim in the book evoked a critique of journalists...
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WHAT IS NOT WRONG WITH U.S. HEALTH CARE
Barack Obama says he wants to make reforming health care one of his administration's top priorities. Change in health care is certainly needed. There is a danger, though, that the new president will be unduly influenced by political advocates peddling the same tired myths that have dogged the health care debate since the Clinton years.
These myths are founded on selective data, doubtful sources and faulty science. For anyone with an open mind and a passion for accuracy, they are easily dispelled, says Dr. Roger Stark, a health care policy analyst at Washington Policy Center.
We hear a lot about how terrible the infant mortality rate is in the United States, supposedly the worst in the civilized world. Is this true? Not really:
- U.S. health officials count all live births, while many other countries only count full-term births or infants who live at least 28 days.
- Obviously, premature infants, who are counted in the United States but not in other countries, have a much higher risk of mortality.
- A panel of doctors reviewed the hospital data and found the great majority of these deaths occur at the end of the patient's natural life, when the outcome would have been the same regardless of what hospital staff did or did not do.
- In other countries, these older, desperately ill people often are not even sent to a hospital, dying at home instead, and are not included in national medical statistics.
- A comparable, population-adjusted study in Canada found 200,000 "unnecessary" hospital deaths, even though political activists regularly push Canadian-style health care as the model for the United States.
- Three of the five criteria used to rate nations were biased in a favor of nationalized, single-payer systems, and U.N. officials admit they have an 80 percent uncertainty level in their data.
- Amazingly, none of the five criteria included actual health outcomes, such as cancer or heart attack survival rates.
- The United States tops all countries in favorable health outcomes.
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The era of state-controlled media commeth
Another line has been crossed by the Obama administration: state-controlled television reports only of a news event at the White House. ABC's invaluable Jake Tapper writes at the Political Punch:
On April 27, President Obama welcomed the University of Connecticut Lady Huskies, who had just won the NCAA women's basketball championship.
After the event, President Obama went to the White House basketball court to shoot hoop with the Lady Huskies. The White House press corps was not allowed to attend.
Instead of a pesky free press, who photograph whatever they want and ask whatever they want, the American people will see only what the President wishes them to see. Should his vaunted reputation as a basketball whiz not be supported by his shooting with the ladies, he will have no embarrassing bowling moments.
It is true that in the past some events have been kept private, with only White House photographers present. But, as Tapper notes, this new video production operation has its own broadcast TV-like logo and other accessories of a major media operation.
Starting out with a sports team visit makes the whole enterprise seem non-threatening. But make no mistake, a line has been crossed.
Even the nearly universal adulation of the press is not enough for The One. Keep a sharp eye open for other events excluding the press, but open only to state-controlled media.
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Voters Triumph in California; Nets Cover Protesters
Nobody can accuse the broadcast networks of objectivity when it comes to gay "rights."
ABC, CBS and NBC combined devoted nearly 11 minutes of air time during their evening and morning news shows to the May 26 California Supreme Court ruling that upheld Proposition 8, the 2008 state constitutional amendment that banned same-sex marriage.
The networks gave gay rights activists more than seven minutes of air time, through interviews and footage of their protests, while they gave Prop 8 supporters less than one minute to talk about their victory.
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Palin Campaign Clothes Complaint Dismissed: Little Coverage in Old Media
Remember how everyone in the Old Media delighted in lambasting Governor Sarah Palin when the GOP bought all those clothes for her use during the McCain campaign? Remember how it was reported as nearly a foregone conclusion that these purchases must have somehow been illegal? It was even bigger news when the left-wing group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed an ethics complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) against the GOP. The whole thing was the talk of the Old Media, as you may recall.
Well, as of May 15, the FEC ruled that there was no ethics violation and the clothing spending was deemed legal. One would think that this news concluding the story would make as big of a splash with the Old Media as the beginning of the tale did. Naturally, crickets have been heard throughout the media establishment as little notice has been paid to this story.
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Rahm's threat
New York's City Hall News reports that President Obama's request that Steve Israel stand down from a New York Senate primary was accompanied by blunter words from Rahm:
According to several sources familiar with the conversation, the White House chief of staff made it very clear to Israel that the administration didn't want him to run and that they would use their considerable political might to ensure his defeat if he did...
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The Polls Show That Reaganism Is Not Dead
Barack Obama won the White House by campaigning against an unpopular incumbent in a time of economic anxiety and lingering foreign policy concerns. He offered voters an upbeat message, praised the nation as a land of opportunity, promised tax cuts to just about everyone, and overcame doubts about his experience with a strong performance in the presidential debates.
Does this sound familiar?
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So Where Are the NCOs in Star Trek?
I just cannot get behind this Star Trek rebirth. The whole thing is just so unrealistic. Not the warp speed or phasers or beaming about the universe - those are at least remotely plausible. I am talking about the fact that the starship Enterprise is composed entirely of officers and yet it still seems to function. Where are the non-commissioned officers (NCO), the petty officers and sergeants who actually make any military organization run? No, I can suspend disbelief over Klingons and tribbles, and I actively support the notion of green alien hotties.
But the idea of a functioning military unit without sergeants is just a wormhole too far...
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Thursday, May 28, 2009
The case against Sotomayor's confirmation
[HT:NE]
As she accepted President Obama's offer to ascend to the United States Supreme Court, Judge Sonia Sotomayor's compelling life story was on proper display.
President Obama has, unfortunately, given us exactly what he promised, a nominee who allows feelings and personal agendas to color her judicial temperament...
[We know this because she's {repeatedly} told us so.]
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Sotomayor Prompts More 'Conservative' Than 'Liberal' Labels
Amazingly, after showing no reluctance in 2005 to describe John Roberts and Sam Alito as “conservative” or worse, the Tuesday network evening newscasts, particularly ABC and NBC, applied more “conservative” tags to Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's critics than “liberal” labels to her, as the coverage suggested calling her a liberal was a hasty judgment from accusatory partisans.
In total, ABC's World News and the NBC Nightly News combined for a piddling two uses of the “liberal” term while issuing a “conservative” tag eight times.
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Defeating a Hitler with nukes: Nothing else matters
.
May 25, 2009: Kim Jong-Il explodes his first full-sized nuclear bomb . This day shall live in infamy.
North Korea helped build a secret nuclear power plant in Syria, which was destroyed by the Israeli Air Force in 2007 while the CIA was still asleep. North Korea sells nuclear and missile technology to Iran and Pakistan. Kim can easily sell his nuclear Bomb in the Middle East; today his bomb also threatens Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and China.
Four days ago, Admiral Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, told the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee:"I'm one who believes that Iran getting a nuclear weapon is calamitous for the region and for the world ... neighbors ... (who) feel exposed, deficient (will) then develop or buy the capability themselves ... (it) is absolutely disastrous."
Like it or not, we are being dragged into the Second Age of Nuclear Terror.
Nothing else matters now.
All of Obama's foreign policy advisers believe in cringing to tyrants. They think we just haven't been nice enough to malignant regimes in Tehran and Pyongyang. That isn't even for grown-ups; it should have been left behind long ago in summer camp. But Bill Clinton's SecState Madeleine Albright 
was photographed toasting Kim Jong Il, the pudgy tyrant of North Korea, who starved a million of his own people to death to divert resources to a gigantic army and nuclear program. For his part, Obama has already bowed down abjectly, in public, to the medieval King of Saudi Arabia. The symbolism is unmistakable.
Those two iconic photos capture the Left's understanding of international danger. Nobody who is so completely ignorant can ever be charged with protecting our national welfare. But here they are again.
The current administration has pretty much ruled out preemption: The Iraq War was too costly. What else can we do?
The second rational strategy is anti-missile defense.
But the SecDef just announced 1.4 billion dollars in cutbacks to our missile defense program...
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North Korea Issues Heated Warning to South
North Korea announced Wednesday that it is no longer bound by the 1953 armistice that halted the Korean War, the latest and most profound diplomatic aftershock from the country's latest nuclear test two days earlier.
North Korea also warned that it would respond "with a powerful military strike" should its ships be stopped by international forces trying to stop the export of missiles and weapons of mass destruction.
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Obama N. Korea Options May Be Limited by Regime Shift
.
[Really. Idea; aggressively fund and deploy our BMD technology in the region, and assist Japan in developing counter nuclear capability.
The former will get NKorea's attention, and the latter China's {which is how NKorea's controlled}]
OR we can work toward another strongly worded UN resolution. How have they been working?]
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Calling World Police
I know Iraq was supposed to have compromised America’s standing as a formidable global power, but it sure doesn’t look that way:“If North Korea stages a provocation, we will respond resolutely,” the South Korean military said in a statement, reacting to the North’s threats. Citing a “strong” military alliance with the United States, it said, “We advise our people to trust our military’s solid readiness and feel safe.”
Does citing a strong military alliance with the Unites States still put one’s enemies on notice or is it a nostalgic reference (Mikheil Saakashvili is ready with an answer right about now)? That’s up to Barack Obama. South Korea just grabbed a number and got in line behind all of Eastern Europe, India, Israel, and Japan."It’s been a fun four months, but it sure is starting to look like the planet needs the U.S. to police the world.”
[Actually, it's not as if no one would fill the void - it's who: Russia and China.]
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What's Wrong With These Pictures?
President Obama met the Saudi King, the President of Venezuela and the Prime Minister of Israel, with pictures provided below. The three countries represented in the pictures agreed with the US in UN votes 86.4% of the time, 9.0% and 6.3%. Can you match these percentages to the countries represented?
- Obama meets Saudi King.
- Obama meets Hugo Chavez
- Obama meets Bibi
Answers: Israel voted with the US 86.4% of the time in the UN in 2007. Saudi Arabia agreed 9% of the time. Venezuela agreed 6.3% of the time.
Israel's agreement percentage is the highest of all countries voting in the UN.
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Barak urges US for Arrow 3 funding
Defense Minister Ehud Barak met Thursday with a US congressional delegation and urged them to help Israel secure funding for the development and production of the Arrow 3 ballistic missile defense system.
Israel is concerned that the US administration will cut the funding for the Arrow 3 in the context of the cuts Secretary of Defense Robert Gates made to the US defense budget...
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Geithner Calls for ‘Very Substantial’ Change in Wall Street Pay
-- Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner called for an overhaul of compensation practices at [private] financial companies and said the Obama administration’s plan to help realign pay with performance will be rolled out by mid-June.“I don’t think we can go back to the way it was ... We’re going to need to see very, very substantial change.”
He said that Wall Street’s pay practices encouraged taking on short-term risk, and helped precipitate the financial crisis. What’s needed is a set of broad standards that federal regulators can use to make sure that doesn’t happen again...
[Chilling: they're talking about government regulating the pay practices of private business - and later in the piece, rules that will have the government "police risk".
Credit markets are in the business, globally competitive business, of managing risk. Does anyone really think the government will do a better job than private sector professional actuaries?
The only way to get an answer other than 'of course not', is to buy into the first misdirection on which their canard is based that it was the current pay practices that 'helped precipitate' the crisis.
They likely had a minor role, but one which pales in comparison to the government's interference in mortgage lending that was the primary progenitor and what truly caused the first and largest domino to fall.
And once the government successfully sets its 'pay for performance' standards in the financial sector, can any (every) other sector be far behind? {think: health care}.
This is dread, it should be refused.]
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Corporatism comes to America
With each passing day of the Obama administration, the battle of individualism versus collectivism is further engaged. Many of us pushing back against the trend are finding it hard to label where we're headed as a nation. Here's why.
Obama is borrowing the worst elements from the two greatest economic catastrophes of the 20th Century: fascism and socialism. Consequently, we're moving further away, every day, from the most successful economic system in the history of humankind: capitalism.
Meanwhile, a widely economically illiterate population, lulled into complacency by the affluence brought by capitalism, has forgotten the lessons of the past as the fall of the Berlin Wall fades away in our collective rearview mirror. Slow to awakening to the change underway, it will be a fait accompli by the time our alarms go off...
[Recommended > ]
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MILLIONAIRES GO MISSING
In 2008, Maryland was unable to balance its budget, so the state tried to close the shortfall by fleecing the wealthy. Politicians in Annapolis created a millionaire tax bracket, raising the top marginal income-tax rate to 6.25 percent. And because cities such as Baltimore and Bethesda also impose income taxes, the state-local tax rate can go as high as 9.45 percent. Gov. Martin O'Malley declared that these richest 0.3 percent of filers were "willing and able to pay their fair share."
A year later, nobody's grinning, says the Wall Street Journal:
- One-third of the millionaires have disappeared from Maryland tax rolls.
- In 2008 roughly 3,000 million-dollar income tax returns were filed by the end of April; this year there were 2,000, which the state comptroller's office concedes is a "substantial decline."
- On those missing returns, the government collects 6.25 percent of nothing.
- Instead of the state coffers gaining the extra $106 million the politicians predicted, millionaires paid $100 million less in taxes than they did last year -- even at higher rates.
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SECRET ASSAULT
.
Everyone should closely read today’s Washington Post story on the value-added tax, or VAT.
The cat is now out of the bag.
For months I have argued that Team Obama and the Democratic Congress were going to be forced to consider a VAT in order to pay for their extravagant spending.
Now borrowing almost 50 cents on every new dollar spent, the Democrats will at some point begin to deal with the politics of deficit reduction as a way of countering Republican criticisms about deficit expansion.
And the VAT’s part of their answer.
Senate Budget Committee chair Kent Conrad calls the VAT “fundamental tax reform,” and he argues for a VAT plus high-end income-tax hikes.
Now remember, this VAT tax would come on top of existing income, payroll, and business taxes. This is how the European countries and many others do it. And the VAT is a tax imposed more than once: again and again throughout the economic food chain, at all levels of production.
Most of the cumulative total finally ending up inside the consumer pocketbook, of course.
[A very, very bad idea, not only because of its ruineous costs but because, being a federal tax, all but eliminates tax competition by being a tax you can't move to another state to escape. We really don't want this - but as always, silence will be interpreted as consent - so... ]
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Then >
"OPPOSE ALL 'VAT' TAXES"
Whitehouse: mailto:president@whitehouse.gov
Senate-Reid: http://reid.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm
House-Pelosi: http://speaker.house.gov/contact/
YOUR Senator: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
YOUR Congressman: https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml
or: Speed Message them with your personal distribution list...
and as always, pass it on...
.
THE COMING FINANCIAL STORM
As of 2008:
- Social Security's unfunded liabilities stood at $13.6 trillion.
- Medicare's unfunded liabilities are more than $30 trillion.
- Medicaid, another severely underfunded and politically untouchable entitlement program, only adds to the total.
- The federal government's current entitlement bill, including future obligations-based only on promises it has made in the past -- is greater than $57 trillion.
"78 million people are going to stop working, stop paying taxes, stop paying into retirement programs and start drawing benefits. The problem is neither Social Security nor Medicare is ready for them. The federal government has made explicit and implicit promises to millions of people, but has put no money aside in order to keep those promises."
According to a recent forecast by the Congressional Budget Office -- an economic forecasting agency that is controlled by the Democrats in Congress -- shows that Medicare and Medicaid alone are going to crowd out everything else the federal government is doing by mid-century.
And that means everything-national defense, energy, education, the whole works. We'll only have health care, says Kinnaman.
[And this without Obamacare - add that in and everything accelerates. Brilliant.]
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Exploding debt threatens America
Standard and Poor’s decision to downgrade its outlook for British sovereign debt from “stable” to “negative” should be a wake-up call for the US Congress and administration. Let us hope they wake up.
Under President Barack Obama’s budget plan, the federal debt is exploding. To be precise, it is rising – and will continue to rise – much faster than gross domestic product, a measure of America’s ability to service it...
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Taxing Benefits For the First Time Ever
The New York Times reports that the Obama administration is considering taxing health care benefits. To the paper's credit, the lede notes just how thick the hypocrisy is on this:
Obama attacked McCain relentlessly during the campaign for proposing a health care reform that would have done the same thing, only it would have included a $5,000 tax credit to offset the change in policy...
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Obama’s Budget Chief Doesn't Know Total Cost of Obama's
Washington - Even President Obama’s budget chief doesn’t know how much it will eventually cost to enact the president’s vision of health-care reform. (Snip) Orszag described the $634 billion the administration built into the new budget over the next 10 years -- as a ''down payment'' for health reform. The former head of the Congressional Budget Office would only say that ''more'' money will be necessary as the administration works with Congress...
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NOT ENOUGH JOBS AND FAR TOO MANY UNIVERSITY PLACES
EDUCATION policy now amounts to a betrayal of young people.
For years the Governmentfed them the line that Britain needed ever increasing numbers of university graduates to meet the demands of a competitive new global market. In return for piling up massive debts they were promised well- paid, rewarding jobs that would reflect their qualifications.
But economic reality has dash ed such hope. The remorse less expansion in the number of university graduates over the last decade has not been matched by a commen surate growth in the number of graduate jobs - and that before the problem was compounded by storms of recession sweeping through the economy.
It was in 1999 that Tony Blair formally declared that the Government’s aim was for 50 per cent of all young people to go to university, But in many respects it has turned into a typically socialist measure that represents the worst of all worlds: subsidy and exploitation.
To meet the Government’s 50 per cent target, universities and colleges have undergone phenomenal expansion. The system now costs more than £20billion but the growth in quantity has been met by a decline in quality.
As one recent student with debts of £16,000 put it bitterly:
“All the companies I applied for didn’t even look at my degree grade but rather my experience. I despair at the money and time spent on my degree when it has got me absolutely nowhere." [snip]
A recent survey found that 53 per cent of employers have difficulty in finding applicants with the right skills for theirvacancies. That is why we have ended up in the absurd situation of having to import large numbers of skilled migrants, despite the unprecedented fortune lavished on tertiary education.
Only in the madhouse created by government would we have mass immigration combined with mass studentships. Instead of pursuing its fatuous 50 per cent target the Government would have done far better to concentrate on improving training and apprenticeships...
[Anyone familiar with our coming 'trades' situation (with legions of plumbers, elections etc. retiring and very few trained to replace them) knows, we're but a few years behind a parallel 'higher-education' boondoggle. Sure we need sufficient education to let America work - but for a vast majority of our jobs it's not required and we're making a mistake by suggesting it is.
Our continuing push to increase college education is good for the education industry far more than any other sector.]
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80% Say Life Experiences Teach More Than College
Eighty-percent (80%) of Americans believe that individuals learn more practical skills through life experience and work rather than through college. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 9% disagree and say more is learned in college.
Democrats are more likely than Republicans to say college teaches more. Those not affiliated with either major party are more likely to say that life experience matters more.
Twenty-two percent (22%) of government employees see college as providing more skills. That view is shared by just 8% of those who work in the private sector.
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A Bill Of Federalism
[HT:KL]
A detailed proposal to redress the imbalance between state and federal power.
Lately some state legislatures have been considering so-called "sovereignty resolutions." Rather than pass strictly symbolic measures, however, I recommended--in an op-ed last month in The Wall Street Journal--that state legislatures exercise the power given them under Article V of the Constitution to petition Congress to call a convention to propose a "Federalism Amendment."
I decided to draft a Bill of Federalism consisting of 10 amendments devised to restore the balance between state and federal power as well as the original meaning of the Constitution. By identifying 10 separate amendments, a coalition can be formed from people who support different constitutional reform measures that could not be combined into a single amendment. At the same time, opposition to any one provision cannot be used to sink the whole proposal.
It will become the rallying cry of Tea Parties and other citizen groups across the nation and, like the Contract with America, can provide an organizing document for candidates seeking state and federal office. Candidates to state legislatures can campaign on proposing it to Congress, and candidates for Congress can campaign on proposing it for approval by the states.
Randy Barnett teaches constitutional law at the Georgetown Law Center and is author of Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty (Princeton 2005).
[And he's serious - MUST READ and pass on to your friends >>> ]
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Obama's strawmen finally noticed by the press
How many times have we heard the president set up a strawman only to knock it down with ease in order to sell one of his policies?
Too often to count. The president has populated a virtual field of scarecrows with his rhetoric and finally, someone is calling him out on it.
Surprisingly, that someone is Helene Cooper of the New York Times:
To listen to President Obama, a veritable army of naysayers has invaded Washington, urging him to sit on his hands at the White House and do nothing to address any of the economic or national security problems facing the country."There are those who say these plans are too ambitious, that we should be trying to do less, not more," Mr. Obama told a town-hall-style meeting in Costa Mesa, Calif., on March 18. "Well, I say our challenges are too large to ignore."
Mr. Obama did not specify who, exactly, was saying America should ignore its challenges.
Similarly, the next day in Los Angeles, Mr. Obama took on Wall Street and Washington, two of his favorite straw men. "I know some folks in Washington and on Wall Street are saying we should just focus on their problems," Mr. Obama said. "It would be nice if I could just pick and choose what problems to face, when to face them. So I could say, well, no, I don't want to deal with the war in Afghanistan right now; I'd prefer not having to deal with climate change right now. And if you could just hold on, even though you don't have health care, just please wait, because I've got other things to do."
Former Nixon speechwriter Bill Safire is familiar with the practice and identifies the rhetorical trick;
"Take your opponent's argument to a ridiculous extreme, and then attack the extremists." He added, "That leaves the opponent to sputter defensively, ‘But I never said that.'
Safire also gave some clues on how to identify when a strawman argument was on the way:
The telltale indicators that a straw man trick is on the way are the introductory words "there are those who say" or "some say."
"In strawmanese, you never specify who ‘those who' are," Mr. Safire said. "They are the hollow scarecrows you set up to knock down."
It is maddening to listen to Obama set these scarecrows up one after another and knock them down, only to be praised by the MSM for his courage for making "the tough choices."
Let's see if some other media outlets pick up the theme of Obama's strawmen and run with it.
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More ironic juxtapositioning from Obama
The latest evidence that Obama's overheated, exaggerated rhetoric about how Bush was fighting the War on Terror revealed a naivete and stupidity about the nature of that war and our enemies comes to us via the New York Times and an article by Eric Schmitt and Mark Mazzetti:
The United States is now relying heavily on foreign intelligence services to capture, interrogate and detain all but the highest-level terrorist suspects seized outside the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan... [snip]
Taken with all the other Bush-era policies that are still in place, this news only serves to highlight the fact that their bluster and hand wringing about Bush destroying our reputation in the world and violating the rule of law was political and designed to defeat the GOP - not do what's best for the country.
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Brokaw Calls for 'Economic Justice,' 'Mother Earth Taken Turn for the Worse'
During his Saturday, May 16, commencement speech at Fordham University, former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw fretted that the "vital signs" of "Mother Earth" have "taken a turn for the worse," as he cited global warming as a problem this year's graduating class would need to help solve.
He also used the term "economic justice," a term commonly invoked by the Left, as he called on graduates to "restore [?] economic justice."
[But none of that bleeds into his 'reporting' - he's a professional, after all.
Sad joke.]
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Wednesday, May 27, 2009
New video has surfaced of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor remarking that the courts are the place "where policy is made."
Lady Justice's blindfold
JUDICIAL DISPASSION -- the ability to decide cases without being influenced by personal feelings or political preferences -- is indispensable to the rule of law. So indispensable, in fact, that the one-sentence judicial oath required of every federal judge and justice contains no fewer than three expressions of it:
"I . . . do solemnly swear that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me . . . under the Constitution and laws of the United States, so help me God."
There are biblical echoes in the wording of that oath -- a reminder that the judge's obligation to decide cases on the basis of fact and law, without regard to the litigants' wealth or fame or social status, is a venerable moral principle.
Source
A Bad Day for Impartiality
Obama uses empathy as a code word for judicial liberalism.
It was a historic day when Pres. Barack Obama announced his nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. No president had ever nominated a Hispanic woman. Nor had a recent president — or his nominee — expressed less genuine interest in the traditional craft of judging.
Impartiality has been supplanted by empathy. The old-fashioned virtue of objectivity — redolent of dusty law books and the unromantic task of parsing the law and facts — is giving way to an inherently politicized notion of judging based on feelings. Lady Justice is to slip her blindfold and let her decisions be influenced by her life experiences and personal predilections.
Obama and Sotomayor embrace this method of judging with gusto, even though it is deeply antithetical to justice properly understood. This is why Sotomayor is such a radical choice. Not only will she define the court’s left flank, she represents a judicial philosophy that is neither truly judicial nor a philosophy. The political outcome — and the personal biases that drive it — is paramount... [snip]
Sotomayor’s nomination represents an extraordinary personal accomplishment [!] and an important symbolic affirmation for Latinos. Her confirmation, though, would be another step toward eviscerating the constitutional function of the Supreme Court, as empathy trumps impartiality.
[Recommended > ]
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Advice on Consent
Sotomayor’s liberalism would not constitute a reason for denying her a seat on the Supreme Court if it merely consisted of a set of policy positions identical to those of the Senate’s 15 most liberal members. Unfortunately, liberalism has for some time now incorporated a tacit judicial philosophy in which the goal is to impose policies as left-wing as a judge can get away with. Sotomayor seems to march to that beat. More to the point, perhaps, she has shown no signs of marching to any other one.
Judges who decide cases in this manner abuse their office and undermine the rule of law.
They also generate policies that are harmful to our economy, dangerous to our national security, and destructive to our social fabric. Liberal activism on the bench has these effects even when the offending judges are geniuses. The nominee’s approach to judging is more important than her IQ, and it is on that subject that senators ought to be trying to shed light. And they should take their time doing it. Thanks to years of activism, Supreme Court justices have more power than most senators. We should spend at least as much time learning how they would exercise it as we do for Senate candidates.
Barring some shocking revelation, we know the outcome of these hearings. Some Republicans say that we could have done worse: Given what we know of her judicial craftsmanship and temperament, she is unlikely to have influence on the Court beyond her vote. But such musings are neither here nor there.
The choice for Republican senators is not between Sotomayor and some hypothetical more dangerous Obama nominee; it is between her being confirmed with their consent and her being confirmed without it...
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Meanwhile, in the MSM...
.
Flashback: Nets Were Quick to Tag Alito and Roberts as 'Ultra' and 'Hardline' 'Conservatives'
ABC Minimizes 'Liberal' Label For Sotomayor; Used 'Conservative' For Alito Frequently
Matthews: Nevermind 'Crazies' Like Limbaugh, Obama 'Wowed Us' with Sotomayor
NBC's Lauer Advances WaPo Angle That Sotomayor Won't Be 'Reflexively Liberal'
Couric and Schieffer Gush Over Sotomayor's 'Very, Very Compelling' Bio
In 2003, Miguel Estrada Was Dismissed As Bush 'Affirmative Action Candidate'
MSNBC's Maddow: Sotomayor Isn't An Affirmative Action Nominee
[WHAT bias? And my personal favorite...
FLASHBACK > Wednesday, May 13, 2009
ABC's defines 'centrist'
New video has surfaced of possible Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor remarking that the courts are the place "where policy is made."
Sotomayor, who is a federal judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, was giving a speech at Duke University in 2005 when the footage was shot. She quickly added, "And I know this is on tape and I should never say that, because we don't make law. I know."
This is the same person that ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos touted on last Friday's "Good Morning America." The "This Week" host spun,"She would be not only a woman, but the first Hispanic on the court. She's built up a strong centrist record on the court."
[First: control the language.]
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