Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Cronkite, the 'Patron Saint of Objectivity' -- Well, Actually, No
Most Americans who were born before 1970 remember Walter Cronkite as a towering figure of TV news. I remember being riveted to the set during his final newscast in 1981.
But one grand claim about Cronkite should not stand: that he was "TV’s patron saint of objectivity," as Time TV writer Jim Poniewozik wrote in a tribute. Even Poniewozik can’t stick with that claim. He went on to honor Cronkite for trusting his audience enough to abandon a"false even-handedness that flies in the face of reality."
If writers want to appreciate Cronkite’s biases, that’s much more honest than claiming he wasn’t part of the historic CBS effort to paint the world in liberal hues.
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A Reckless Congress
Say this about the 1,018-page health-care bill that House Democrats unveiled this week and that President Obama heartily endorsed: It finally reveals at least some of the price of the reckless ambitions of our current government.
With huge majorities and a President in a rush to outrun the declining popularity of his agenda, Democrats are bidding to impose an unrepealable European-style welfare state in a matter of weeks...
Mr. Obama's February budget provided the outline, but the House bill now fills in the details. To wit, tax increases that would take U.S. rates higher even than most of Europe. Yet even those increases aren't nearly enough to finance the $1 trillion in new spending, which itself is surely a low-ball estimate. Meanwhile, the bill would create a new government health entitlement that will kill private insurance and lead to a government-run system.
Hyperbole? That's what people said when we warned about this last fall in "A Liberal Supermajority," but even we underestimated the ideological willfulness of today's national Democrats. Consider only a few of the details:
This would raise the top marginal federal tax rate back to roughly 47% or 48%, if you include the Medicare tax and the phase-out of certain deductions and exemptions. With the current top rate at 35%, this would be the largest rate increase outside the Great Depression or world wars.
The average U.S. top combined state-federal marginal tax rate would hit about 52%. [I.e., most of their money being confiscated by government. Home of the free?]
This would be higher than in all but three (Denmark, Sweden, Belgium) of the 30 countries measured by the OECD. According to the nearby table compiled by the Heritage Foundation, taxpayers in at least five U.S. states would pay higher marginal rates even than Sweden. We could go on, and we will in coming days... [snip]
But the most remarkable quality of this health-care exercise is its reckless disregard for economic and fiscal reality. With the economy still far from a healthy recovery, and the federal fisc already nearly $2 trillion in deficit, Democrats want to ram through one of the greatest raids on private income and business in American history.
The world is looking on, agog, and wondering why the United States seems intent on jumping off this cliff...
[A: delusional ideology ignoring reality, and enough Americans duped by a complicit media to allow it.
More, Highly Recommended > ]
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AN IVY-COVERED PATH TO THE SUPREME COURT
President Obama may have broken with history by nominating a Latina to the Supreme Court, but he's still followed the path of almost every president in modern times: he chose a nominee groomed in an Ivy League university.
If confirmed, Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who attended Princeton University and Yale Law School, would sit alongside seven other Ivy League graduates on the court. Only Justice John Paul Stevens provides a measure of non-Ivy diversity, having graduated from the University of Chicago and the Northwestern University School of Law.
- In the history of the court, half of the 110 justices were undergraduates, graduate students or law students in the Ivy League; since 1950, the percentage is 70.
However, limiting the universe of nominees largely to Ivy League graduates is not good for the court or the country....
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White House's $50B foreclosure plan a bust so far
The Obama administration’s $50 billion program to curb foreclosures isn’t working, and the White House knows it. Administration officials blame the mortgage servicers charged with carrying out the mortgage modifications and refinancing under the federal program.
Many of their Democratic allies on Capitol Hill back them up, but others are criticizing the White House for fumbling the execution...
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FISCAL POLICY AND ECONOMIC RECOVERY
The effectiveness of President Obama's $787 billion economic stimulus depends on the "multiplier effect," which holds that an increase in government spending will yield a multiple increase in aggregate spending by the individuals and businesses that receive the money.
For its stimulus package, the Obama administration is assuming a multiplier of 1.5; that is, for every $1 of additional government spending, gross domestic product (GDP) will increase $1.50.
However, an analysis of data on federal outlays and GDP for fiscal years 1947-2007 shows that the multiplier coefficient is 0.46, meaning that a dollar's worth of additional federal government spending yields about 50 cents worth of additional GDP.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) asserts that government borrowing to service the debt the government has run up will tend to reduce the stock of productive capital.
In their judgment, the stimulus bill actually will lead to a lower rate of growth in 2012 and subsequent years. After a decade, according to the CBO, national output will be lower than if NO stimulus bill had been passed...
[The goal was never really stimulating the economy, economists know this approach doesn't work - it's about using this 'crisis' to expand the power of government, period.]
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THE BEST SIDES OF FISCAL POLICY IN TEXAS
The Texas model of government has weathered the recession well, indicating that it should be considered when federal lawmakers decide how best to govern the United States. One of the state's many advantages is its low tax burden (second-lowest in America), says the Economist.
One of the most important determinants of whether a state does well or badly, says economist Arthur Laffer, is not just the overall level of taxes but their structure too. A high, progressive personal income tax, he says, is about the worst incentive-killer you could devise. Americans are highly mobile, so the most able will simply leave for another state.
According to Laffer:
- The nine states with a personal-income-tax rate of zero had net domestic immigration of 4.5 percent of their population in the ten years to 2007.
- The nine with the highest marginal tax rates saw outflows averaging 2.2 percent.
- A high state tax on capital gains is also bad, because it tends to be volatile, causing big budgetary problems.
- Texas doesn't have a state capital gains tax either.
- Texas, like 21 others, mostly in the South, is a "right to work" state, so no one can be compelled to join a trade union.
- Only 4.5 percent of its workforce is unionized, against 12.4 percent nationally.
- And even where unions are well represented, as at the port of Houston, the management says they behave sensibly. [due to the competition with free-shops]
- In the landmark legislative session of 2003 (Texas's legislature meets only every other year, for 140 days) Texas eliminated a budget deficit of close to $10 billion and has not looked back.
- Since 1988 the state has maintained a "rainy-day fund," paid for by taxes on oil and gas companies, which is now worth $6.7 billion.
- This fund can be raided only if two-thirds of both houses of the state legislature agree.
[The 'answers' to our challenges are know - they just need get past the special-interest gatekeepers, none larger than our public [government] employee unions. Until we 'fix' them, nothing else can be.]
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CBS Doesn't Mention Obama as Unemployment Hits 26-Year High
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The unemployment rate in June jumped to 9.5 percent, the highest since 1983, as 467,000 jobs were lost, yet the CBS Evening News managed to air a story that didn't mention President Barack Obama or his “stimulus” bill while the NBC story only touched Obama's policies by running a soundbite of the President defending the lack of positive impact so far from his policies: “It took years for us to get into this mess and it will take us more than a few months to turn it around.” CBS reporter Anthony Mason remarked: “Hopefully it's a one-month blip.”
In contrast, ABC anchor Charles Gibson teased Thursday's World News:“Tonight, job jolt. Unemployment reaches a 26-year high. Where are all those jobs the economic stimulus was supposed to produce?” Setting up ABC's lead (CBS and NBC began with Michael Jackson), Gibson proposed: “The rising unemployment raises questions about the economic stimulus, which was supposed to create jobs.”
[Recall: justification for the 787 BILLION 'stimulus' debt was that it would keep unemployment under 8%.]
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Cap and confuse
HERE'S HOW to get a dubious bill into law, or at least past the U.S. House of Representatives, which last week deserved to be called the lower chamber:
First, make the bill long. Very long. So long no one may actually read it, supporters or opponents. Make even a key amendment 310 pages long. Introduce this horse-choker of an amendment at 3 in the morning of the day of the roll-call vote. So it can't be examined too closely or too long. Only after the bill passes may its true costs emerge.
To cite an old proverb we just made up: Pass in haste, repent at leisure.
Make sure the bill itself, which already was 1,200 pages long before this super-sized amendment was added, surpasseth all understanding. No sense risking a reasoned debate. Just round up enough party-line votes and give the majority its orders...
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U.S. Will Suffer So Dems Can 'Save the Planet'
The recently passed House bill on global warming is a 1,500-page political sucker punch that could give family finances a bloody nose and ultimately flatten the economy while proponents pretend it will save the planet.
In and of itself, it won't do an inch of good...
[Because its never really been about climate - another 'crisis' to expand government.]
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SO MUCH FOR 'ENERGY INDEPENDENCE'
Removing drilling incentives will mean less drilling, which will mean less domestic production and more imports of both oil and natural gas...
Democrats are calling to eliminate drilling subsidies that have encouraged advances in technology and have opened vast new U.S. energy sources.
In May, President Obama called the tax breaks for the oil and gas industry "unjustifiable loopholes" that do "little to incentivize production or reduce energy prices." That's flat not true. Subsidies encourage energy companies to plow huge amounts of capital into more drilling. And that drilling has resulted in unprecedented increases in natural gas production and potential.
An April Department of Energy report estimated that the newly available shale resources total 649 trillion cubic feet of gas. That's the energy equivalent of 118.3 billion barrels of oil, or more than the proven oil reserves of Iraq.
Nonetheless, president Obama's 2010 budget calls for the elimination of two tax breaks:
- One permits energy companies to deduct the bulk of their expenses for drilling new wells;
- The other allows well owners a tax break based on the value of production from their wells.
- Ethanol and biofuels are getting subsidies of $5.72 per million British Thermal Units (BTUs); that equals about $33.25 in government subsidies for the energy contained in one barrel of oil.
- Natural gas and petroleum liquids, by comparison, only get $0.03 per million BTUs (about $0.17 for the energy contained in one barrel of oil).
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FLASHBACKs >
OBAMA BLOCKS NEW ENERGY EXPLORATION
Obama's energy policy will INCREASE dependence on foreign oil
Obama and Clinton Vote Against Oil Independence – Again
MORE >>>
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White House wants more power to set Medicare rates
The White House is asking Congress to give the executive branch more power to limit Medicare's rising costs. A White House letter to top lawmakers on Friday said the move would be "a critical step forward" in controlling health care costs and providing better care.
The proposal would allow an 'independent advisory board' to recommend changes in Medicare reimbursement rates for doctors, hospitals and other providers...
[Independent. In the White House.]
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Obama QAHCAA Health Care Plan 'Almost Laughable'
It is one thing for conservatives to criticize President Obama's QAHCAA (Quality, Affordable Health Coverage for All Americans) health care plan but now even a number of liberals are attacking it as unworkable.
We recently saw skepticism emanating from Morning Joe's Mika Brzezinski and now fellow liberal Susan Estrich is expressing deep doubt that any such plan is economically feasable.
"What other explanation could there be for my friends in Congress and the administration thinking that what the country wants them to do right now is raise taxes and spend a trillion dollars to overhaul health care, much less to push it through in a month in a 1,000-page bill being rewritten every day?"Keep going Susan, you're on a common sense roll:
The idea that somehow you're going to tax the "rich" enough to pay for quality health care for every American, not to mention for all of the undocumented aliens who receive it for free now and will continue to in Obama health land, is almost laughable.
It's one of those things candidates say in campaigns, ignoring the fact that it doesn't add up. But in a bill that might pass? Add a 5 percent surtax on every small business in the country that makes $250,000 or more? This is going to create jobs? [Mac x3 indent red bold]
No one is explaining to people how the big changes in the bill will affect people who have insurance now, which happens to be the overwhelming majority of all Americans (and an even higher percentage of all voters). [ditto above, but r2l posting][I.e., the "horribly broken system" Democrats and the MSM are daily reminding us we're demanding [?] they 'fix' is felt, in survey after survey, to be good to very good by nearly 80% of those polled.
Again, how is a system liked by 4 out of 5 Americans 'broken'? Can you name any other system with an equally high rating?
A: The whole effort has nothing to do with improving care and everything to do with transferring control of it from the market to the government. We will regret it should we allow it to happen.]
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Study: Government run health care more expensive than private sector care
What we knew to be true proven in a new report.
Barack Obama claims - incredibly - that spending more on health care via his "public option" health care plan will lower costs.
Not only has the Congressional Budget Office found this assertion to be wrong, a new study points out that government run health care is actually more expensive than private-sector care. Jeffrey Anderson, the author of that study, says in a New York Post Op-ed that Obama's rhetoric doesn't match reality:...study shows that -- across four decades -- the costs of government-run health care have risen far more than the costs of private care. The key finding: Since 1970, Medicare and Medicaid's costs have risen one-third more, per patient, than the combined costs of all other health care in America -- the vast majority of which is purchased privately. [Mac indent, l2r post]
In fact, if the costs of Medicare and Medicaid had risen only as much as the costs of all other health care in America, instead of costing a combined $807 billion last year they would've cost a combined $606 billion. That savings of $201 billion would have amounted to more than $1,750 per American household last year alone. [conversely, can it not be said that the programs' inefficiencies have cost each household ~1750$ a year?] [mac x3 indent r2l post]We should also keep in mind that doctors who accept Medicare and Medicaid patients often complain about the small reimbursements the government provides them. Yet the total cost for treating those patients is higher than it is for private sector patients...
[Well, all the government 'administrators' - union members all - need to be paid too don't they?
I.e., it's insulting to be asked to believe we can add another entire layer of bureaucracy to the system and not increase costs - but the last election has taught them they can sell anything with the MSMs help. ]
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image toon - hcare = New plan = ambulance within ambulance
MASSACHUSETTS: STATE BUDGET CUTS COVERAGE FOR 30,000 DOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS
About 30,000 documented immigrants will lose their health care coverage under Massachusetts' new state budget as policymakers attempt to close a growing state deficit, according to the New York Times.
The cuts are estimated to save the state $130 million and would affect permanent residents who have had green cards for less than five years and are covered under Commonwealth Care, the subsidized insurance program for low-income residents.
The program will save an additional $63 million by no longer automatically enrolling low-income residents in Commonwealth Care.
[Yet in California, our 'undocumented' aliens {they haven't 'immigrated'} continue to cost the state ~4 Billion $ a year, mostly for health care and education.]
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UFT'S ARROGANT 'PUPPET' STATE
IF ANYONE ever wondered whether the teachers union views the City Council as a wholly owned subsidiary, they certainly don't anymore.
In an act of unbridled arrogance, lobbyists for the United Federation of Teachers took control of Monday's council hearing on charter schools by distributing printed questions on index cards for legislators to ask of school officials."You couldn't get by without them handing you a card," ... "It was almost like an admission ticket to the hearing." [PC indent, no color, l2r post]
recalled Councilman Simcha Felder (D-Brooklyn).
The questions for the Department of Education were sharp and confrontational.
The questions for the union were softballs.
UFT officials sat in the front row of the ornate council hearing room to insure their script was being followed.
If that wasn't outrageous enough, legislators were told which question to direct to which official...
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Enough Is Enough
President Bush was often brash and improper in his use of certain mechanisms, but President Obama has moved quickly far beyond the realm of comparatively benign Presidential Signing Statements.
When our new President can appoint "Czars" to rule entire sections of American life without electoral accountability or even Congressional confirmation, we have entered the unholy realm of Dictatorship. [snip]
But for a true outrage, consider new Czar of Science, John P. Holdren, who, in a stunning display of unabashed evil, has actively advocated "compulsory abortion":
"All the children who are born, beyond what would be required to keep up the population to a desired level, must necessarily perish, unless room be made for them by the death of grown persons." [PC indent, red, r2l post]
Let that sink in: an American official [Czar] supports forced abortion and the death of "grown persons." We know what that looks like. It has been official policy for years in Communist China... [snip]
All totalitarian regimes in history have one thing in common: population control. Holdren has elsewhere stated his goal of "de-developing" America. Obama's appointment of this Marxist militant says much about his true agenda.
Wake up America. Now is not the time to pat ourselves on the back for our racial sensitivity. We have proven that we are not a racist country, several times over. Now is the time to rise up against tyranny, before it consumes what is still left of the America we all know and love.
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ENOUGH with the Race Thing
Race! Race! Race! As the kids say, "Gag me with Race!" I just read my Republican Senator Mel Martinez's statement on why he is voting to confirm Sonia Sotomayor: [snip]
Excuse me Mel, but the woman is a leftist who will make decisions based on her "feelings" rather than the law. So as a supposed Republican, why the heck would you vote for her? Is it because she is Hispanic? When will we ever get past race in this country?
Voting for Sotomayor simply because she will be the first Hispanic is the same racist reason many voted for Barack Obama. Annoyingly, even conservatives kept congratulating me on our first black president. I know they meant well. But what I was hearing is
"This man is going the destroy our country, but you should be proud Lloyd because he is black like you". [snip]
While proclaiming race should not matter, the Democrats are notorious for making everything about race. Everywhere Democrats go, they immediately count black faces. If the ratio to whites is not high enough, they break out their "racist" rubber stamp. It makes me crazy that Republicans are so successfully branded as racists, while in reality, the party built on exploiting race and minorities is the Democrats.
We must stop allowing race to trump reason and common sense. The stakes are far too high. I am talking about the future of America and our children. Do we want them living in a world with racial quotas. Or, a world similar to the TV show Star Trek, where all that matters is integrity and excellence in what you do?
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NYT Misleads in Editorial on Census and ACORN
The New York Times was less than truthful in an editorial yesterday on ACORN's involvement in the 2010 census and implied that Republicans and Obama administration critics were paranoid.
After pontificating that Republicans' fears were overblown about Robert M. Groves, the statistical voodoo practitioner who was recently confirmed by the U.S. Senate as census director.
An entirely justified concern that some Americans have is that ACORN is actively involved in the 2010 census planning process (including hiring decisions) and that the Obama administration lied about it. This was proven in the document dump ably engineered by Tegan Millspaw of Judicial Watch.
Of course the NYT ignores this issue altogether.
The Times hasn't even bothered to report on the fact that authorities in Ohio, are investigating ACORN --the organization itself-- in connection with actual voter fraud (as opposed to voter registration fraud) after a man named Darnell Nash who was registered to vote multiple times by ACORN was indicted by a grand jury for casting a fraudulent vote in an election.
It's common sense that ACORN shouldn't be anywhere near the census - assuming the onus for such prudence lies with protecting the integrity of our democratic institutions and not with the interests of large party contributors...
[Wrong assumption.]
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For Mature Audiences Only
Almost four decades ago, the 26th Amendment lowered the US voting age to 18. At the time, most neurologists believed that the human brain was fully developed by about age 12.
Now we know better.
[Interesting science. Politically poignant.]
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Tax increases costing vital local jobs
California
Four months ago Californians were hit with the biggest tax increase in our state's history – more than $12 billion in new taxes on everything from income and sales to vehicle license fees. Since then, tax proponents have proposed another 31 new taxes that they predict will generate more than $40 billion in the first year. On top of that, legislators have singled out oil and tobacco products for massive new tax hikes.
It's time tax proponents in the Legislature heard from California's retailers. In this economy, many retailers have folded, and others are fast approaching their breaking point. Asking retailers to absorb the impact of more tax increases is a perilous proposition. New taxes have the clear potential to drive down retail sales, further eliminate retail jobs and heighten our state's budget crisis.
“I have been forced to lay off 37 percent of my work force, including an employee who has been with me since 1981,” said Amir Oram, of the Market Place in City Heights. “No doubt about it, the economy is bad, but tax increases and the added cost of doing business are what worry me. Business as usual tax increases could very well put us out of business." [PC index, blk, l2r post]
The answer to this state's budget woes must be found elsewhere – in systemic changes that reduce expenses and eliminate waste, inefficiency and fraud.
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The Emmys Sink to a New Low
Family Guy has been nominated for Outstanding Comedy Series by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Continuing with the Emmy tradition of validating shows that bash family, religion, and moral values, the Academy put the icing on the cake with "Family Guy." It's based on jokes that are meant to offend and entertain the lowest common denominator.
It's a show that had one character wear a “McCain/Palin” pin on a Nazi uniform lapel; that, shortly after his passing from Alzheimer’s, joked that former president Ronald Reagan was gay; that included a scene about horse semen and bestiality. When creator Seth MacFarlane has been at a loss for quality material (often) he’s reached for the quick Jesus joke.
Now he’s got an Emmy nod for it.
With this nomination, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences has completely given up trying for credibility, and instead focused on perpetuating morality-free television by recognizing "Family Guy" as "outstanding."
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Anti-Tea Party Correspondent's Contract Not Renewed by CNN 
The last time we saw CNN correspondent Susan Roesgen, she was arguing with folks at the April 15 Tea Party in Chicago claiming the event was "anti-government, anti-CNN [and] highly promoted by the right-wing conservative network Fox."
Although CNN officials won't blame the decision specifically on this event, the network has decided not to renew her contract.
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FLASHBACK > THURSDAY, APRIL 16, 2009
CNN Correspondent Claims Tea Parties 'Anti-Government,' 'Anti-CNN'
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Unsafe at any screed
If like me you have found some hybrid owners to be a bit in your face with their left wing self righteousness, a new insurance industry survey shows some other labels may also fit.
Hypocrite, road hog, speed demon and accident prone come to mind after reading the analysis of the driving habits of 360,000 vehicle owners prepared by San Francisco based Quality Planning Corporation.The result: Hybrid drivers typically drive farther, get more tickets, and have significantly more expensive insurance claims. [PC index, blk to blu, l2r post]
Owning a supposedly environmentally friendly hybrid may actually help increase the number of nonessential trips drivers take, offsetting all the supposed ecological benefits of owning a hybrid.
What makes this even more ironic is that many insurance companies offer discounts to hybrid owners. That is likely to change.
Quality Planning Corporation provides data to insurance companies to help them adjust their rating structures...
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