.

Sen. Schumer Fights Airline Carry-On Bag Fee

Subject: txt lbrty mny sclm bbro libs - 1st -
U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer said Sunday he's trying to get the federal government to prohibit airlines from charging a fee for carry-on baggage, calling it a "slap in the face to travelers."

The New York Democrat is making a personal plea to the Treasury Department to rule that carry-on bags are a right...

[Last I checked any consumer who felt 'slapped' could vote with their feet...

Pay attention America: if we leave these self-appointed demigods with the impression they're free to meddle in FREE (?) markets there will be no limit to their doing so - all at the expense of your powers of choice.]

READ MORE

Happy Tax Freedom Day

Subject: txt 1st mny lbrty -
Good morning America! Wherever you are it is a beautiful day because for the first time in 2010 you are truly free! According to the Tax Foundation from January 1, 2010 until April 9, 2010 you were working for the government--federal, state, county, school district, city, park district, arts district...

Yep, all the money you earned during this time--over a quarter of your income--was turned over to the government in the form of taxes."Americans will pay more taxes in 2010 than they will spend on food, clothing and shelter combined," according to the Tax Foundation.

And by the way, if you are among the half of Americans who pay any income taxes, your 2009 income taxes are due in a few days.

READ MORE

POLL: 66% Say America Is Overtaxed

Subject: txt mny -
Sixty-six percent (66%) believe that America is overtaxed. Only 25% disagree.

Amazingly, lower income voters are more likely than others to believe the nation is overtaxed.

When thinking about all the services provided by federal, state and local governments, 75% of voters nationwide say the average American should pay no more than 20% of their income in taxes. [Perfect: the amount Americans end up paying relative to the GDP regardless of the government's intentions: when raised by the our product production contracts until the 20% equilibrium is again attained. I.e., grow the pie - not the size of slices from it.]

[Note that the largest positive gap between the red line of revenues and the diagonal gray line representing linear taxation rate increase is right at 20%.

I.e., even internationally, the greatest rate of return on taxation shows time and again to be around 20% -- anything over that is retarding the economic growth that's being taxed.

If prosperity were truly the goal of our government it wouldn't tax above 20% - yet it does. Conclusion?]

READ MORE

Agent Provocateur want to crash your Tea Party

[HT:TG]

“WHO WE ARE, Crash The Tea Party style, is a lesson in Marxism 101: “A nationwide network of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents who are sick and tired of that loose affiliation of racists, homophobes, and morons; who constitute the fake grass-roots movement which calls itself “The Tea Party.”

But the game-plan is Crash the Tea Party’s most ominous part:

“We will act on behalf of the Tea Party in ways which exaggerate their least appealing qualities (misspelled protest signs, wild claims in TV interviews, etc.) to further distance them from mainstream America and damage the public’s opinion of them. We will also use the inside information that we have gained in order to disrupt and derail their plans.”

READ MORE

[Then >

.

U.S. eyes sales tax

Subject: txt mny lbrty sclm - 1st 2010 lbrty -
U.S. Sen. John Kerry said yesterday he favors implementation of a new nationwide sales tax similar to ones now imposed throughout Europe. The issue of a new “value added tax” in the United States emerged earlier this week when Paul Volcker, an economic adviser to President Obama, said the U.S. may need such a tax to close the nation’s long-term budget deficits.

Yesterday, the Congressional Budget Office acknowledged it’s 'studying' a value-added tax, also known as VAT...

I.e., it's not the spending - we don't tax enough...]

READ MORE

Beware of a Value Added Tax

Subject: txt mny lbrty sclm bdd -
White House economic adviser Paul Volcker’s suggestion that Congress enact a “value added tax” (VAT) has furthered speculation that a VAT may well be in the cards as soon as this fall. The Heritage Foundation describes the VAT, already used in the European Union, as

“similar to a national retail sales tax but is collected at every stage of business production until its entire burden ultimately falls on the consumer.”

READ MORE

Reality Check Re: 'Spending Freeze"

Subject: txt mny -

"I've proposed a freeze in government spending for three years. This won't apply to the benefits folks get through Social Security, Medicaid, or Medicare. And it won't apply to our national security -- including benefits for veterans. But it will apply to all other discretionary government programs. And we're not simply photocopying last year's budget; freezing spending does not mean we won't cut what doesn't work to pay for what does. We have gone through every department's spending line by line, item by item, looking for inefficiency, duplication, and programs that have outlived their usefulness."

President Obama, February 1, 2010.

Source: The CBO's Monthly Budget Review, March 2010, and US Statistical Abstract, Table 457.
.

AP Applauds Obama's 'Tax Cuts' Even Though Fewer People Taxed Under Bush

[Meanwhile, in our professional media...]

Pop quiz: how do you cut taxes on low and middle-income wage earners and end up with a greater percentage of people paying taxes?

Such is a question the folks at the Associated Press should be asking themselves concerning a piece the wire service published Wednesday entitled

"Nearly Half of US Households Escape Fed Income Tax: Recession, new tax credits have nearly half of US households paying no federal income tax."

In the same paragraph, author Stephen Ohlemacher predictably bashed former President George W. Bush's tax cuts that were "generous to wealthy taxpayers" while he applauded "tax cuts for low- and middle-income families, which were expanded when Obama signed the massive economic recovery package last year."

There's only one problem with this premise - the net result was that a higher percentage of people paid federal income taxes in Obama's first year in office than in Bush's last:

READ MORE

Our American Catharsis

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON
[A+ stuff as usual from VDH...]


... Now, however, for the first time in my memory, the United States has an authentic leftist as president — one who unabashedly believes that the role of the U.S. government at home is to redistribute income in order to ensure equality of results through high taxes on a few and increased entitlements for many, while redefining America abroad as a sort of revolutionary state that sees nothing much exceptional in either its past role or its present alliances — other than something that should be “reset” to the norms embraced by the United Nations...

[snip]

Politics is high-stakes poker with real losers and winners, not a mere parlor game. The country voted for the party of Pelosi, Reid, and Obama, and for once such statists are governing in the manner of their rhetoric. Time will soon tell whether this strange American experience is transitory and so becomes a needed catharsis, or whether it will be institutionalized and thus result in an enduring tragedy — this rare moment when the dreams of a zealous few are at last becoming the nightmares of a complacent many.

[HIGHLY RECOMMENDED >> ]

READ MORE

.

UK conservatives promote Politician recall, a step in right direction

[HT:LH]

Today the UK Conservative Party will be announcing proposals to give people the power to "recall" MPs mid-term, if a certain proportion of the electorate in any given constituency sign a petition demanding such a ballot.

Obviously making sure that politicians remember who they serve is a leading issue with UK elections looming...

READ MORE

Hate speech, hypocrisy from AFL-CIO chief

Subject: txt crpt -
Talk about street cred. I just got called “dangerous” by the head of a labor union.AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka was at Harvard Wednesday night, denouncing talk show hosts like yours truly as “apostles of hatred.” He accused Glenn Beck (the only host he called out by name) and the rest of us supporting the Tea Party crowd of being a “similar movement” to the “Nazi-style” fascism of the 1930s with its “racial hatred and political violence.”

A labor leader disturbed by possible “political violence”?

That’s a switch...

READ MORE

Look For The Union Libel

Subject: txt crpt -

Virginia Circuit Court Judge Donald McGlothlin Jr. declared that "the evidence show beyond any shadow of a doubt that violent activities are being organized, orchestrated and encouraged by the leadership of this union."


Unanimous Virginia Supreme Court reinforced Judge McGlothlin's findings: "Union officials took active roles in these unlawful activities. Notwithstanding the large fines, the Union never represented to the court that it regretted or intended to cease its lawless actions. To the contrary, the utter defiance of the rule of law continued unabated."

[...]

... strike against Peabody Coal--Eddie York, a 39 year old non-union worker, "was shot in the back of the head and killed" leaving a job in Logan County, West Virginia.

[...]

In a detailed account of the York murder and subsequent investigation, Reader's Digest noted that "UMW President Richard Trumka did not publicly discipline or reprimand a single striker present when York was killed. In fact, all eight were helped out financially by the local."

READ MORE

.

Obama Plots Assault on Non-Union Businesses

Subject: txt crpt bbro sclm - mny -
The Obama Administration, in one of its most sweeping socio-economic reforms to date, now plans to use the federal contracting system to reward higher-paying unionized firms that give workers bigger healthcare and pension benefits.

If this scheme is put into effect, very possibly through an executive order signed by President Obama, it would shatter decades-old, competitive contract rules that seek the best quality work at the lowest price...

READ MORE

California pension liability tops $500 billion, Stanford study finds

Subject: txt cali mny crpt - State's

"In post-recession, post-stimulus-program America, we've gotten used to some frighteningly big numbers being thrown around in the discussion of public finance.

Nevertheless, it was difficult not to be alarmed at the bottom line in a study of California's pension obligations conducted by Stanford graduate students and touted Monday by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger."

READ MORE

California's Half-Trillion-Dollar Pension Fund Mess: Blame Jerry Brown

Subject: txt crpt cali - 2010 -
California is the nation's shameful example of what happens when Democrats influenced by big-government labor rule the statehouse for forty years...

READ MORE

.

POLL: 55% Oppose Limits On U.S. Nuclear Response To Attacks

.
...just 25% of voters agree with the president’s decision to rule out a nuclear response if a non-nuclear country attacks America with chemical or biological weapons...

Only 31% favor any reduction in the number of nuclear weapons in the U.S. arsenal. Fifty-three percent (53%) oppose any such reduction...

Only 38% think it is even somewhat likely that other countries will reduce their nuclear weapons arsenals and development in response to the actions taken by the United States...

[To summrize: it was and is a very bad idea, it should be undone.]

READ MORE

.

Somalis with terrorist links feared headed to U.S. border

Subject: txt gwot immig -
Somalis with ties to a terrorist organization are believed to be plotting to illegally enter the United States after being mistakenly released from custody in Mexico, a confidential federal law enforcement report said...

READ MORE

GOP Lawmaker Calls for Hearing Into Border Security After Rancher's Murder

Subject: txt immig nsec -
A Republican lawmaker is calling for a hearing into border security following the murder of a prominent Arizona rancher by an assailant authorities believe was an illegal immigrant. Rep. Kay Granger of Texas, the top Republican on the House Foreign Operations subcommittee, told Fox News on Thursday that she would like to have a hearing as soon as Congress returns from its Easter recess to help border states whose pleas for federal assistance have so far gone unmet...

[Obama's remarks on this assault? None.]

READ MORE

Obama Should Turn His Focus to Border Security -- Now

Subject: txt immig -
President Obama pledged during the campaign, and after taking office, that he would work on immigration reform during his first year. Well, a year has come and gone and he has nothing to show for any accomplishment on immigration and specifically border security.

Over 1,000 illegal immigrants flood across our southern border with Mexico every day.

When President Bush tried to advance comprehensive immigration reform in his second term in office, he was soundly rebuffed because the American people wanted our borders secured first and foremost before any broad reforms were tackled...

READ MORE

Missing from AP Story on EPA's CAFE Mileage Move-Up: 'General Motors, Chrysler Likely Hardest Hit'

Subject: txt auto grn - msm -
One would think that in a story about how a four-year move-up of higher fleet gas mileage requirements being imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency would at least look at which manufacturers might be more or less affected by them based on what they currently sell, and how those sales are trending.

Well, most readers here don't think like writers at the Associated Press. Heck, in his report last Friday, the AP's Ken Thomas didn't even mention the fact that the EPA's regs represented a four-year move-up, and to a slightly higher standard -- apparently because doing so would have required him to mention the B-word (Bush) in connection with something seen as environmentally positive. Thomas also allowed "global warming" advocacy support to go unchallenged, as if the ClimateGate scandal that has wrecked the alarmists' entire case didn't exist.

Here are selected paragraphs from the AP report:

READ MORE

75%Say They’reUnlikely To Buy An Electric Car

Subject: txt grn engry - auto =
Despite major announcements in recent days from both GM and Nissan about stepped-up development of electric cars, just 17% of Americans say it is at least somewhat likely that the next car they buy will be all-electric, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

That’s down four points from August...

READ MORE

Shhh: Ford’s Worldwide Revenues Top GM’s for Full Year; AP Implies Ford Is Smaller Firm

Subject: txt auto grn msm -
Government/General Motors announced today that it lost $4.3 billion during the second half of 2009 (actually from July 10 through the end of the year). A further look at that result will come later after yours truly has time to digest GM's 10K Report to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

What stood out even further for me about the announcement was GM's top line, i.e., global revenues. That figure came in at $57.5 billion.

Ford's revenues during the final two quarters of 2009 were $66.3 billion, or roughly 15% higher. GM's ten missing days in July would only explain about one-third of that difference.

It may be out there, but I haven't seen a lot of establishment media recognition that Ford is a bigger company worldwide than General Motors, and has been since the first quarter of last year. Given that GM was larger than Ford for about the previous 80 years, Ford's ascension to the top spot among US-based companies in worldwide revenues would ordinarily be what is known as "news."

[Ah, but they didn't line up at the public control trough, meaning their still subscribing to the evil private business model...]

READ MORE

.