Tuesday, March 24, 2009
'Are we a banana republic?'
I'm stupefied to find that some people are defending the constitutionality of the discriminatory, confiscatory and retroactive tax on people who receive bonus income from companies that got TARP money. I would have considered it a bright line rule that the government can't identify a class of unpopular people and impose a special tax on them. [unless, of course, you smoke]
What's next? A 100% income tax on registered Republicans, retroactive to last year? If Pelosi's bill passes muster, why not? [snip]
A banana republic features governments that arbitrarily change the law to suit their interests or the interests of their cronies. Peter Robinson of NRO added this to John's missive:
As it happens, just a couple of weeks ago I found myself having this very conversation with a Cuban and a Colombian. Both were close and longtime observers of Latin American politics and experts, therefore, on banana republicdom. They insisted—just insisted—that Barack Obama was moving us in that direction, and fast.
I had a much harder time refuting their argument than I'd have liked.
The fact is, the Democrats are doing things in Congress and the White House that are far beyond what Bush and the Republicans ever even contemplated.
But setting up a "tyranny of the majority" is easy when no one calls you out for it.
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57% Support 90% Tax on AIG Post-Bailout Bonuses
Fifty-seven percent (57%) of U.S. voters favor imposing a 90% tax on bonuses paid by American International Group (AIG) and other firms that receive government bailout money, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.
Thirty-five percent (35%) oppose such a tax, which already has been approved by the House and is now under discussion in the Senate.
Three-out-of-four Americans (76%) want the executives involved to give the bonuses back. Sixty-eight percent (68%) have come to believe that most bailout money is going to those who caused the economic crisis to begin with.
Seventy-three percent (73%) of voters say Congress and President Obama should have acted to prevent the AIG bonuses before the company received its bailout money. Only 10% disagree,and 17% are not sure.
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We've legalized theft in America
I have been looking through a new study, released by an organization called the Property Rights Alliance, called the International Property Rights Index. The study examines 115 nations worldwide and examines the correspondence between prosperity in a country and how secure private property is there.
It shows a practically perfect correlation. The more secure private property is in a given country, the more prosperous it is. Countries rated in the top 25 percent in secure and safe private property have on average nine times more income per person than those in the bottom 25 percent.
It's one of those things that makes so much sense that you wonder why you have to do a study to show it. The easier it is to steal in any given country the less likely the economy will function well there.
Yet, basic truths such as this are becoming increasingly lost in our country and this is what should be driving our outrage. That we now live in a country where our private property is no longer safe and the very government that supposedly exists to protect it has become the thief we have to worry about.
President Obama went on Jay Leno's popular Tonight Show and talked about the current crisis. Listening to him, there seems little doubt that everything started on Wall Street."The problem is ... people were able to take huge, excessive risks with other people's money."
But, Mr. President, half the mortgages in this country are owned or guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- which were and are backed up with the money of us taxpayers. An easy flowing mortgage credit market built by politicians, by setting us taxpayers up to guarantee it all, which is what we wound up doing, is what started this whole thing... [snip]
Or we can re-direct our attention from symptoms to causes.
We can recall that the founders of our country intended the role of government to protect our lives and property, not violate them. And that in times when we have respected that proper use of government, our country has prospered.
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Poll: Nearly half place most of blame for bonuses on AIG anagement; one in five point at Congress
[HT:AD]
There's a lot of blame to go around when it comes to the $165 million in bonuses paid to executives at AIG, the insurance giant that has gotten $170 billion in federal aid.
A new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll shows that Americans hold AIG management itself most responsible.
[Propaganda works.]
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Poland hopes U.S. will not let it down on shield
- Poland said on Sunday it hoped the new U.S. administration would not abandon plans to station a missile defence system on its territory.
President Barack Obama's administration is reviewing U.S. security policy, including the missile shield plan. This has prompted speculation he might shelve a project that has angered Moscow, with which Washington wants to mend ties.
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said Poland had taken "something of a political risk" in signing an agreement with the Bush administration to host the system.
NATO member Poland has said it expects the shield project, designed to counter possible threats from what Washington calls rogue states such as Iran, to go ahead eventually after the review and hopes to complete technical talks next month.
Under the deal agreed last year, Poland would host 10 ground-based interceptors, and in return Washington promised to station a Patriot missile battery on Polish territory for a period before the end of 2009.
[Reneging on a non-NATO member would be dishonorable - but on a fellow member?]
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FLASHBACK > No Offense :
On December 3, every last one of them signed a statement saying that missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic would make a "substantial contribution" to keeping them alive, roughly speaking..
Why in the world is Obama dithering?
Robbing the Pentagon to Pay Foggy Bottom
The administration’s plan to get us to European levels of defense spending by 2016 comes at the same time as reports that the Chinese government stated that its official defense budget will jump by 14.9 percent this year (who knows how high the actual amounts are) and an announcement by Russian President Medvedev that Russia will undertake a “large-scale rearming” by 2011 given that “there are a range of regions where there remains serious potential for conflicts.”
There are a multitude of reasons that cutting defense at this juncture is a bad idea.
The systems reportedly on the chopping block include a new Navy destroyer, the Air Force’s F-22, Army ground-combat vehicles, and possibly aircraft carriers, all integral elements of our ability to project power and defend our allies. Missile defense, now out of favor because it is unpopular in Moscow, is expected to take a significant hit as well.
But beyond the programs and systems, the administration’s budget offers insight into its mentality about national security. Listen to some Democratic budget experts and you hear phrases like a “return to normalcy” used to describe the administration’s plans for defense spending.
In this “normal” world, there is no mention of 9/11, or of the fact that countries such as Russia and China still threaten our allies and our interests...
['get us to European levels of defense spending' ? Europe cannot defend itself. Highly Recommended > ]
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Obama Diverting Money From Armed Pilots Program
In an editorial on Tuesday, The Washington Times noted that the administration recently diverted some $2 million from the pilot training program. Instead, the money will be used to hired more supervisors to conduct field inspections of pilots, the Times reported.
The move will make air travel more vulnerable to terrorist attacks, something that should outrage travelers, said the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA) said.“This looks like completely unnecessary harassment of the pilots,”
the newspaper opined. CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb agreed that the Obama administration is“risking public safety, as the newspaper put it, 'in the name of an anti-gun ideology.'"
According to the Air Line Pilots Association, the government – since April 2003 -- has trained thousands of volunteer airline pilots as federal flight deck officers to protect passenger and cargo aircraft flying throughout the United States.“The FFDO program has evolved from a small program that armed airline pilots to protect the flight deck into a substantial, cost-effective security institution,”
Gottlieb noted that some politicians and bureaucrats have never liked the armed pilot program:"These anti-gun, anti-self-defense bureaucrats seem more interested in their own power, and protecting their little empires, than they are in protecting the public. And now Obama is catering to their anti-gun bigotry."
The pilots’ union repeatedly has urged Congress to adequately fund the program, and its priorities for 2009 include bolstering the program.
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How Will Media Report Chavez Calling Obama 'A Poor Ignoramus'?
Barack Obama is hailed by sycophantic media members as one of the brightest men to ever be President, and was supposed to improve America's standing around the world.
Yet, on Sunday, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez called Obama"a poor ignoramus" who "should read and study a little to understand reality."
Given how impressed news members are with our new President, and how they regularly disparaged the intellectual capacity of George W. Bush, it is going to be very interesting to see how Chavez's comments get covered in the coming days.
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U.N. panel says world should ditch dollar
A U.N. panel will next week recommend that the world ditch the dollar as its reserve currency in favor of a shared basket of currencies, a member of the panel said on Wednesday, adding to pressure on the dollar.
Currency specialist Avinash Persaud, a member of the panel of experts, told a Reuters Funds Summit in Luxembourg that the proposal was to create something like the old Ecu, or European currency unit, that was a hard-traded, weighted basket.
Some analysts said news of the U.N. panel's recommendation extended dollar losses because it fed into concerns about the future of the greenback as the main global reserve currency, raising the chances of central bank sales of dollar holdings."Speculation that major central banks would begin rebalancing their FX reserves has risen since the intensification of the dollar's slide between 2002 and mid-2008,"
Russia is also planning to propose the creation of a new reserve currency, to be issued by international financial institutions, at the April G20 meeting, according to the text of its proposals published on Monday.
It has significantly reduced the dollar's share in its own reserves in recent years.
[I.e., we cannot just print money, which is what our spending frenzy is requiring, and expect the rest of the world to simply eat the devaluation which follows.]
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Thank God America Isn't Like Europe -- Yet
.
The stuff of life -- the elemental events surrounding birth, death, raising children, fulfilling one's personal potential, dealing with adversity, intimate relationships -- occurs within just four institutions: family, community, vocation and faith.
Seen in this light, the goal of social policy is to ensure that those institutions are robust and vital. The European model doesn't do that. It enfeebles every single one of them.
Drive through rural Sweden, as I did a few years ago. In every town was a beautiful Lutheran church, freshly painted, on meticulously tended grounds, all subsidized by the Swedish government. And the churches are empty. Including on Sundays.
The nations of Scandinavia and Western Europe pride themselves on their "child-friendly" policies, providing generous child allowances, free day-care centers and long maternity leaves. Those same countries have fertility rates far below replacement and plunging marriage rates.
They are countries where jobs are most carefully protected by government regulation and mandated benefits are most lavish. And with only a few exceptions, they are countries where work is most often seen as a necessary evil, and where the proportions of people who say they love their jobs are the lowest.
Call it the Europe Syndrome, which goes something like this: Human beings are a collection of chemicals that activate and, after a period of time, deactivate. The purpose of life is to while away the intervening time as pleasantly as possible.
If that's the purpose of life, then work is not a vocation, but something that interferes with the higher good of leisure. If that's the purpose of life, why have a child, when children are so much trouble? If that's the purpose of life, why spend it worrying about neighbors? If that's the purpose of life, what could possibly be the attraction of a religion that says otherwise?
[I.e., Europe, as a union and a people, is retiring. You know, that time in life when you get your just rewards and do for you. That's great for individuals - but it does beg the question when speaking of societies: what follows retirement?
Highly Recommended > ]
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54% Say Allies Should Follow America's Lead
More U.S. voters than ever (54%) think the nation’s allies should do what the United States wants them to do.
Only 14% think America should do what its allies want when it comes to foreign policy, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.
Twenty-six percent (26%) think neither side has the answer.READ MORE
Your 'duh' moment for today
The headline says it all:
New deficit estimates much worse than W. House predicted
How much worse?
President Barack Obama's budget would generate deficits averaging almost $1 trillion a year over the next decade, according to the latest congressional estimates, significantly worse than predicted by the White House just last month.
The Congressional Budget Office figures, obtained by The Associated Press Friday, predict Obama's budget will produce $9.3 trillion worth of red ink over 2010-2019. Worst of all, CBO says the deficit under Obama's policies would never go below 4 percent of the size of the economy, figures that economists agree are unsustainable.
By the end of the decade, the deficit would exceed 5 percent of gross domestic product, a dangerously high level.
"Unsustainable" deficits means that we are going to have to do something drastic like raise everyone's taxes beyond belief while gutting our military and reducing discretionary spending to as close to zero as we can get. And this will have to be done in an economy that is being ruined by the president's actions.
It won't [just] be our children or grandchildren who will be living in the wreckage of a ruined economy. It will be us and it will happen much quicker than we are being told.
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Obama links budget to environment
President Barack Obama's aides say the administration will work with Congress on his budget proposal, but energy independence is not subject to wheeling and dealing. Obama planned to make the case Monday for a budget proposal that invests billions in research designed to reduce climate change and guarantees loans for companies that develop clean energy technologies.
[I.e., all the things that don't work, at the expense of abandoning all the things that do.]
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Lord Monckton Spring Cleans Global Warming Hysteria
Following a wonderfully droll refresher on archaic royal manners, Monckton shredded Al Gore’s “consensus” claims and offered Liddy a history lesson in previous – and significantly warmer -- warming periods. And then explained how a combination of “very powerful naked vested interests” drives the warming alarmist misinformation campaign.
Here’s his formula: Combine media “world to end” sensationalist marketing ploys with “rent-seeking” scientists and the political left’s need to appear to be relevant and concerned. Add teachers wanting to appeal to the idealism of students – for them the Al Gore message of apocalyptic imminent doom is magnetically attractive -- and U.N world government wannabes and -- voila!
Monckton repeated verbatim the magnificent 428-word cap-and-trade dragon beheading sentence he befuddled the clowns in the House Ways and Means subcommittee with earlier this month, and that alone is well worth your listening time. And, as always, his Lordship was as charming and entertaining as he was enlightening. Hear the entire segment here.
Thomas Lifson adds: Give yourself a treat and listen. It is obvious why Al Gore is scared to death of debating Lord Monckton. He is eloquent, witty, and effortlessly eloquent. Gore is ponderous at best, and would sound like a dummy paired with him.
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British Minister calls for 50% reduction in population
The "sustainable development" crew is at it again. This time, it's a British Minister who will recommend at a population conference this week that the United Kingdom reduce its population from 60 million to 30 million in order to build a "sustainable society:"
This is beyond insidious. In order to achieve a 50% reduction in population, Great Britain would have to mandate family size and even take control of family planning completely, making the decisions regarding which parents will be able to have children and which won't. And there is absolutely no scientific evidence whatsoever that reducing the population of a developed country will impact climate change one iota. They are just making stuff up as they go along.
And people wonder why many of us point to the real agenda of global warming fanatics as a reason to oppose them.
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Offshore Oil Drilling Ban Will Be Restored ‘By Any Means Necessary,’ Democratic Congressman Says
The ban on offshore oil drilling that expired last September will be restored by “any means necessary,” Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.), who serves on both the House Committee on Natural Resources and the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, told CNSNews.com on Friday.
Inslee, who participated in a conference entitled "Planning for a Secure Energy Future” sponsored by the Washington Post, also recommended a ban on future drilling in the arctic, where he says there is a “gold rush” for oil by [every nation but the U.S.].
But Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.), who serves on the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming and also attended the conference, told CNSNews.com that offshore oil drilling should provide an integral part of American energy and recommended the Interior Department begin distributing offshore oil drilling leases.“We have to have natural gas,” ... “We have to have U.S. oil production. There may be as much as 75 percent of our proven reserves that are on federal lands or in the ocean combined. It’s a huge opportunity for this country to become energy independent.”
Walden added that he thinks the process of offshore oil drilling could also provide an excellent stimulus to the U.S. economy.
[Which are you for? If continued inslavement to OPEC, you're in good hands, the Dems are in charge. But if you'd rather we used our own oil, you'll need speak up: silence will be interpreted as consent.]
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College scholarship for illegals only
CALIFORNIA
The San Mateo Community College District, on the San Francisco Peninsula, has sent a mass email announcing a scholarship for "undocumented" students of "Chicano / Latino descent" only.CORE (Chicano Organizing & Research in Education) is pleased to announce its first annual "Que Llueva Café" scholarship. Applicants must be undocumented, Chicano/Latino, high school students entering college this fall. The postmark deadline is April 10, 2009. [snip]
Here is the full text of an ungrammatical email sent yesterday, proudly announcing the boon solely for those who do not follow the immigration laws of our country. Oddly enough, they see nothing wrong with requiring their own documentation.
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Kids Are Being Taught That Carbon Kills Polar Bears
CALIFORNIA
California’s KQED has a story about elementary school children being taught that manmade “Mr. Carbon” is giving the Earth a global warming “fever” and killing “lovable” polar bears. Of course, the San Francisco-based PBS station thinks that’s just swell.
Cool The Earth, the group behind this blatant indoctrination program, is the brainchild of two Marin County parents who say they were inspired by watching Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. That’s probably all you need to know, but bear with me – it gets better.
According to their website, “Cool The Earth is a ready-to-run program that educates K-8 students and their families. Here’s how they describe the program’s kick-off assembly:The Cool the Earth program launches with an all-school assembly in which an original, play is performed by teachers, parents and students. Characters such as Koda the polar bear, Earth and Mother Nature act out scenarios about how human activities are contributing to raising levels of carbon dioxide and giving the earth a global warming “fever.”
It’s broken record time again, folks. As global temperatures continue to cool, alarmists are picking up both the tempo and intensity of their disinformation campaign. And public schools are a high value target. Please monitor the “science” being fed to your kids in school. And be prepared to remove any green mush that finds itself between their ears. Sit your kids down to watch and discuss the fabulous video AT’s Gregory Young features today.
And should your 7-year-old return home from school one day, upset that your “carbon footprint” is killing poor Koda the polar bear, explain to the little tyke that what he or she saw in school wasn’t real, but only make-believe.
Just like manmade global warming itself.
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Judge Orders FDA to Reconsider Limits on Morning-After Pill for Minors
A federal court today ordered the Food and Drug Administration to reconsider the agency's controversial decision limiting non-prescription access to the morning-after pill Plan B to women age 18 and older.
U.S. District Judge Edward R. Korman ordered the FDA to make Plan B available to women age 17 and older within 30 days and to reconsider whether to make the drug available to women of all ages without a prescription.
[Excuse me, but did the FDA break a law in exercising the authority given it by United States Code? No? Then who the heck is this (or any) judge to arbitrarily 'order' it what to do?
We've a serious problem with our run-away judiciary - it needs be reigned in.]
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We've a serious problem with our run-away judiciary - it needs be reigned in.]
San Francisco Democrat In House Seeks Lower Taxes -- By Claiming Maryland Residency
The Washington Post's Miranda Spivack downplayed all the irony in her report Friday on a top House Democrat on the tax-law-writing Ways and Means Committee trying to lower his taxes in Maryland by claiming the state as his residence – even as he represents a district in San Francisco. The congressman is long-time liberal Pete Stark.
Stark's homestead exemption was first reported yesterday by Bloomberg News. The congressman is the second-ranking member of the House Ways and Means Committee and chairs its health subcommittee, which writes tax legislation.
Stark said yesterday that he expected Maryland to reject his application for a homestead exemption. "From what I hear from everybody, it will be denied and my taxes will go up," he said. He said he expects his $12,500 annual property tax bill to increase by about $3,000.
Will this story be reported in San Francisco and New York? Neither of these liberals are in much danger of being unseated, but it should be highly embarrassing for them to call themselves residents of Maryland just for a tax break.
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Biden bashes Obama?
.“Axelrod really wanted me to do this on teleprompter -- but I told him I’m much better when I wing it. … I know these evenings run long, so I’m going to be brief. Talk about the audacity of hope. … President Obama does send his greetings, though. He can’t be here tonight -- because he’s busy getting ready for Easter. (Whisper) He thinks it’s about him. …"
[Prepare for 24/7 media blitz.]
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NYT Columnist: People Only Want Info That Confirms Prejudices
"[T]here’s pretty good evidence that we generally don’t truly want good information — but rather information that confirms our prejudices. We may believe intellectually in the clash of opinions, but in practice we like to embed ourselves in the reassuring womb of an echo chamber."
I hardly ever agree with anything New York Times columnist Nicolas Kristof writes, but his piece on Wednesday was astoundingly provocative and an absolute must-read.
His basic premise is that with the demise of print media and our reliance on the Internet as an information source, we Americans are mostly surrounding ourselves with folks that think like us and, therefore, aren't really being challenged to defend our views on the important issues of the day.
Before casting this aside as so much liberal elite twaddle, consider the following:
One 12-nation study found Americans the least likely to discuss politics with people of different views, and this was particularly true of the well educated. High school dropouts had the most diverse group of discussion-mates, while college graduates managed to shelter themselves from uncomfortable perspectives.
The result is polarization and intolerance. Cass Sunstein, a Harvard law professor now working for President Obama, has conducted research showing that when liberals or conservatives discuss issues such as affirmative action or climate change with like-minded people, their views quickly become more homogeneous and more extreme than before the discussion.
For example, some liberals in one study initially worried that action on climate change might hurt the poor, while some conservatives were sympathetic to affirmative action. But after discussing the issue with like-minded people for only 15 minutes, liberals became more liberal and conservatives more conservative. [snip]
Interesting. Does that mean the information superhighway is actually narrowing our horizons rather than broadening them?
Before dismissing this notion offhand, ask yourself how many liberal websites you surfed today, and how many people you have in your inner circle that don't share your political point of view.
So do yourself a favor: go find a liberal [or conservative, or 'other'] to argue with! [ahem: debate]
[Shortish and quite good, and gratifying to see. Those of you who know me have likely heard my {self aggrandizing} speech re: my 'discipline' to read a number of left-blogs every day (kos, huff, media matters etc. - I've even posted from the latter).
Point is; this is the dark side of the new media. As empowering as being able to select our own 'news' is, we're also self-filtering - with the exact effects described above, so...
I re (re-re) offer free advice: try to spend half your news browsing time reading those articles that don't sound agreeable or 'right' per the title. It's surprisingly tough (dumbness can be painful) - but what exactly are we learning by reading only what we already agree with?
Highly Recommend (from the New York Times, mind) > ]
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