Installment II: From the Human Events calendar

No. 304 of 365

Agree that JFK was one of our greatest presidents, part two. Ask your liberal friend which part of JFK's agenda he liked most: JFK's pledge to increase defense spending to close the "missile gap" with the Soviets, his supply-side tax cuts, his commitment to halt communism in Indochina, or his rousing anti-welfarist line, "Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country."

No. 307 of 365

Tell a joke: An elderly senator, exhausted and ill from enacting Obama's health-care plans, goes to the doctor. Doctor says: "I have bad news, good news, and bad news, Senator. The bad news is that you only have six months to live. But the good news is that there's an operation that is 100 percent successful in curing this illness." "That sounds great. So what's the other bad news?" asks the senator. Replies the doctor: "The Department of Health and Human Services says the first available slot is seven months from today."


No. 308 of 365

Tell them they're WRONG. Liberals hate being told they're wrong: a) because the truth is always painful; and b) because in their warped, liberal world, "right" and "wrong" are alien, almost forbidden concepts. That's why liberals prefer terms like "appropriate" and "inappropriate," because they're non-judgmental. So go ahead. Judge them. Because they're WRONG.


No. 312 of 365

Patiently explain to a liberal why their hero Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story depends on an entirely false premise—that capitalism is the same as corporatism. Most of Moore's targets in the movie are the unwieldy, corrupt corporations that his hero Obama has spent so much taxpayer money bribing and bailing out. They've got about as much to do with the free markets that conservatives favor as Michael Moore has with charm, wit, or healthy salads. And if he really has such a problem with capitalism, what was he doing allowing movie theaters to charge audiences eight bucks a ticket? Shouldn't he have used some of the vast fortune he has earned from books and movies railing against capitalism so that his vital public service announcement could be put out for free?

No. 313 of 365

Pick a fight with a liberal on: SELF-ESTEEM.
One of the great excuses made for the poorer performances by certain ethnic groups is their "lack of self-esteem"—which comes, of course, from the sense of inferiority imposed on them either consciously or unconsciously by the white, elitist, capitalist, male hegemony. Much of this stems from research conducted by black socialist Kenneth B. Clark using his infamous "doll" tests. He showed black children in segregated schools a black doll and a white doll and asked which they preferred. When a majority chose the white doll, he argued that segregated schooling lowered black self-esteem. But Clark was a professional grievance-monger and a fraud. What he did not mention was that in research he had conducted in integrated schools, black children were shown to be even more likely to choose the white doll over the black doll. Clark's junk sociology was the basis for sweeping legislation forcing integration in schools through wildly unpopular school busing programs that tore communities apart; and it's also responsible for more recent findings that American kids do worse than many of their international counterparts on academic tests—but think of themselves as being great, and much smarter than they really are. What self-esteem really is, is another liberal assault on a Christian virtue: namely, humility. We could all use a lot more of that.

No. 314 of 365

Pick a fight with a liberal on: LIBERAL MEDIA BIAS.
Quote the "great"—and remember to use the air quotes—Walter Cronkite: "I think most newspaper men by definition have to be liberal; if they're not liberal, by my definition of it, they can hardly be good newspapermen."

No. 316 of 365

Tell a joke: Q. Why should liberals be buried 100 feet below the ground?

A. Because deep down they are really good people.

No. 318 of 365

Quote Competitive Enterprise Institute Founder Fred Smith Jr. "The threat posed by humans to the natural environment is nothing compared to the threat to humans posed by global environmental policy."

No. 319 of 365

Settle down your liberal friends for a festive game that will provide hours of fun. Give each of them a copy of the Obama administration's 86-page report (produced by Clinton-era appointees Togo West and Admiral Vernon Clark) on the Fort Hood massacre committed by an Islamist terrorist and see who can be the first to find a reference to Islam.

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The grand fallacy of the administration’s green energy compulsion

In the Obama administration’s great green energy scam the president has ignored or tried to over-power two economic factors. First, green energy is a luxury in an economic downturn, and second – and the more relevant factor – there is no significant free market demand for green energy.

Writing on Forbes.com, Patrick Michaels, a senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute, notes the near manic devotion to all things green in the UK and Europe, documents what the economic downturn has done there, and notes that the green mania, in fact, contributed to their economic problems.

The first glimmers showed up a couple of years ago in Spain, he said. “The government — which [President Obama] cited as his environmental role model in his last presidential bid — sought to buy support with outrageous subsidies, in the form of power purchases, to anyone who put a solar panel on his roof in sunny Seville. The government spent much more than it took in [and] sold bonds it couldn’t back,” Mr. Michaels wrote, producing costs and debts far greater than the economic benefit obtained from the solar panels.

Then, in the United Kingdom a similar program produced the installation of tens of thousands of solar projects, since the Brits also appreciate a freebie when government offers it, even though the UK is one of the cloudiest places on the planet.

The wastefulness of these programs became apparent, Mr. Michaels wrote, when the economy turned downward, and Spain announced a 40 percent reduction in wind power subsidies; the European Commission is questioning the wisdom of its go-it-alone global warming policies, citing loss of economic competitiveness; the British government gave up on its expensive carbon capture and storage facility; and Japan is reconsidering cutting carbon dioxide by 25 percent in the next 8 years, because of the wealth drain the plan produced.

Meanwhile, President Obama threw away a half-billion of your dollars supporting a failing solar panel company he called the “true engine of economic growth,” and executives of which just happened to be some of his financial supporters. The Solyndra debacle put thousands of people out of work, and wasted $535 million. It was the second time in his two and one-half years in office that Mr. Obama put job creation behind his statist ideological goals.

However, to be fair, it is not accurate to say that the administration completely ignored job creation. Diana Furchtgott-Roth is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and contributed an article to RealClearMarkets.com discussing green jobs training sponsored by the US Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration. She writes: “As of June 30, ETA had awarded $490 million of the $500 million provided by Congress for the program. The funds were awarded to state workforce agencies, community colleges, and nonprofits. Green jobs were defined as those ‘associated with products and services that use renewable energy resources, reduce pollution, and conserve natural resources.’"

She explained that some workers had been trained in green jobs such as “hybrid- and electric-car auto mechanics, weatherization of buildings, and solar panel installation,” while others “received job referrals, training in basic workforce readiness skills, and credentials and support services to overcome employment barriers.”

However, the grantees had spent only $163 million, about one-third of available funds. And what do we have to show for that? After six months, Ms. Furchtgott-Roth stated, only 1,336 trainees were still employed, at a cost of $121,257 per job.

Anyone thinking about forcing the United States to abandon its reliance on traditional energy production methods using fossil fuels and to instead adopt green energy technology ought to first be aware of some fundamental conditions. In typical liberal fashion, however, the administration neglected to indulge in thinking past the most fundamental questions to see the difficulties of pushing Mr. Obama’s dream on the American people.

H. Sterling Burnett, senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis, and policy intern Wesley Dwyer, explain the things the doctrinaire Mr. Obama and his fellow travelers either neglected to investigate, or simply ignored.

First, they tell us that green technologies come with strings attached. While the administration thinks the answer to our energy problems is solar and wind power, both rely on rare earth elements, solar on tellurium and wind on neodymium. As it turns out, these elements are scarce everywhere on Earth.

Except in China. Consequently, China has a near monopoly on tellurium, and that makes it virtually impossible for American solar manufacturers to compete with Chinese firms. (See Solyndra, above)

And, as it turns out, the magnets used in turbines use the rare earth element neodymium. General Electric is one of the leaders developing wind energy technologies, and has to purchase all of its neodymium from China.

In addition to being “luxury” energy and being so expensive and inefficient that it cannot develop market demand, green energy is dependent upon materials available to a very high degree from only one country. Contrast that with oil, natural gas and coal, all of which are fairly abundant in domestic reserves, which makes it both easier and less expensive to acquire them, and protects us from being held hostage by China.

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Crazy stuff

The city of Jacksonville, NC has passed an ordinance requiring pro-lifers in groups as small as 2 people to obtain a permit in order to pray outside the local abortion clinic. When pro-lifers gathered on the public sidewalk in front of the abortion clinic, the police asked them to move and sited the ordinance. When asked to justify the ordinance, the police chief cited safety concerns in case a car ran off the street, jumped the curb and hit one of the protesters.

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A Minnesota congressman has proposed federal legislation that would impose his state’s type of voter registration – which leads the nation in voter fraud cases – on the other 49 states, according to critics who have launched online campaigns to make people aware of the dangers of Rep. Keith Ellison’s H.R. 3316 and its companion H.R. 3317.

In a commentary promoting his H.R. 3316, which would banish all photo identification requirements, and H.R. 3317, which would allow people to walk into a polling location, register and vote immediately, Ellison said his intent is to curb “voter suppression.”

“The Same Day Registration Act would require states to provide for same day voter registration for a federal election. The Voter Access Protection Act would make sure election officials cannot require photo identification in order to cast a vote or register to vote,” he said.

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A couple discovered a thief in their home recently after a man told a joke and heard a laugh upstairs.

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Occupy Oakland has voted to deposit $20,000 with Wells Fargo & Co., just days after Occupy protesters shattered windows of one of the bank's downtown Oakland branches during the group's attempt to stage a general strike in the city.

The decision was posted at Occupy Oakland's website for its general assembly. According to the link, the group made the decision to deposit the $20,000 with Wells at a meeting Monday night.
Wells Fargo quickly trumpeted the decision.

"If this report is true, it demonstrates that even Occupy Oakland understands -- first-hand – the value and service that Wells Fargo provides its customers," Wells Fargo spokesman Ruben Pulido said in an email to the Oakland Tribune.

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Crazy stuff emanates from all over, including from people who live and work in the White House (who ought to know better).

For example, Vice President Joe Biden said the following at an event in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. “The other thing I’ve heard from my friends who oppose this – this whole jobs bill and this – that this is just temporary," Biden said. "Well let me tell you, it’s not temporary when that 911 call comes in and a woman’s being raped if a cop shows up in time to prevent the rape, it’s not temporary to that woman. It’s not temporary to the guy whose store is being held up and a gun is being pointed to his head. If a cop shows up and he’s not killed, that’s not temporary to that store owner. Give me a break, temporary! I wish these guys that thought it was temporary, I wish they had some notion what it’s like to be on the other side of a gun or a 200 pound man standing over you telling you to submit. Folks, it matters. It matters!”

Not exactly, Joe. When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.

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One of Barack Obama’s great gifts is the ability to say things that are absolutely absurd and make them sound not only plausible, but inspiring. – Dr. Thomas Sowell

“The Republican plan says that what’s been standing in the way between us and full employment are laws that keep companies from polluting as much as they want,” President Obama said in a speech at the regional airport in Asheville, NC. “On the other hand, our plan [Obama’s plan] puts teachers, construction workers, firefighters and police officers back on the job.”

“That’s my plan. Then you’ve got their plan, which is, let’s have dirtier air, dirtier water, less people with health insurance. So far at least, I feel better about my plan.”

Yes, that’s right. Republicans and conservatives want dirtier air and dirtier water for their children and spouses, and fewer people with health insurance, so that they will suffer and die sooner.

It is terribly disturbing that a President of the United States would stoop to such idiotic rhetoric. But it is downright scary that so many Americans believe that crap.


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Cain studies harassment options

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The ups and downs of Herman Cain’s campaign for the presidency

Editor's Note: This column was written for a daily newspaper and was filed a few hours prior to the public statement of Sharon Bialek accusing Herman Cain of inappropriate and unwanted sexual advances, and therefore is based upon the circumstances existing before those accusations were made public.
The circumstances surrounding these new charges are still developing, and these charges are disputed by Mr. Cain.
We will see what develops as time passes.

Herman Cain, one of several candidates for the Republican presidential nomination, is an interesting political character. Mr. Cain has achieved the American dream, rising from humble beginnings as the son of a domestic worker mother and a father who worked as a janitor and chauffer. After that modest start he has achieved great success, working as a civilian mathematician for the U.S. Navy, chosen as CEO of Godfather’s Pizza, chairman of the board of directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, and CEO of the National Restaurant Association. He also has been a syndicated columnist and radio host.

As a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination who has never held elective office, Mr. Cain rose from relative obscurity to sit atop Republican polls ahead of better-known candidates like Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Michelle Bachman, and Rick Perry, all of whom are experienced in the fine art of politics.

Despite the large number of Americans upset with careerism in politics, that rare individual who dares to enter national politics without first paying dues or learning the ropes in some lower office is often the object of disdain.

However, Mr. Cain’s lack of political experience is one thing people like about him. A frequent complaint about American politics focuses on how many elected officials make a career of holding elective office, many spending decades in elected positions, and more than a few tending to focus on being re-elected more than on serving the people who put them in office.

Another thing they like is his clear thinking, learned as a successful businessman running a large corporation, which also taught him to identify problems and cut through the fog to find practical solutions to them.

Whether it is Mr. Cain’s experience in the private sector rather than in government, or his no-nonsense approach to problems, the Republican rank and file seems to like it, and that has the other Republican candidates on edge. It also has gotten the Democrats’ attention, and the way they have reacted tells us just how nervous they are.

“I can’t imagine that he wasn’t given a hand—whether it was through state policy or affirmative action,” says Stacey Abrams, the Democratic leader of the Georgia House, downplaying Mr. Cain’s success. Harry Belafonte, who was a popular calypso singer forty years ago, said on the Joy Behar show that Mr. Cain was a “bad apple,” a “false Negro,” someone “denied intelligence,” and then praised Fidel Castro as a supporter of democracy and people’s rights.

And then there is the week-old story of 12 year-old sexual harassment allegations by former employees of the restaurant association.

As things stand now, this story is an indictment of the news media more than of Mr. Cain. The lack of detail and real information in this story is breath-taking; a textbook case of what not to do in journalism, but it is nonetheless being used by Democrats and the media to attempt to destroy a political enemy.

First published by the left-wing news organization Politico as a story of a formal complaint filed with the restaurant association, the story was based on anonymous sources and furnished virtually no detail. Cases of this nature involve confidentiality provisions that protect the parties, so information about the claims is not available. Responsible journalists would not have published a story with so little factual information available, and it is shoddy journalism like this that produced the terms “lame-stream media” and “drive-by media.”

Then there are the allegations themselves, which may represent actual cases of sexual harassment, or they may not. Right now no one really knows. An allegation is just an allegation, and settlement agreements keep the details of the claims private.

But even a settled claim does not mean that sexual harassment occurred. Any attorney can tell you that legal settlements result because settling is frequently less expensive than the cost of going to court, and amounts of $35,000 to $45,000 are considered “nuisance value.”

Sexual harassment is a very real problem, but not every charge is true sexual harassment. A female employee may complain that a male co-worker stood too close to her and made her feel “uncomfortable.” But just because she was uncomfortable doesn’t mean she was “harassed.” A casual comment intended as a compliment can be misinterpreted, and a harassment charge may result. The definition is foggy, but the legal standard is that the alleged conduct be “severe or pervasive.”

Mr. Cain, who denies that he has ever harassed anyone, handled this situation very poorly, perhaps due to his lack of political experience. However, under the standards of American justice he is innocent until proven guilty. Until some actual proof of true sexual harassment comes out, this firestorm is a tempest in a tea pot, and is best ignored by everyone.

Whether Herman Cain is the best of the Republican candidates will be determined over the next several months. He has some very good ideas, a refreshing non-political perspective, and the insight of a successful private sector performer.

If he does not prevail in the nomination process it must not be because of this shameful journalistic misadventure.

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Six-and-a-half minutes of hard economic reality

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Life begins ... when?

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Herman Cain commits sexual harassment

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Idiocy often reigns in pursuit of non-discrimination and tolerance

The United States has been under assault for years by the Political Correctness nannies, who regularly complain about what they see as intolerance and discrimination. And good Americans, being the fair-minded souls that they are, have given in to this onslaught to a far more than reasonable degree, accepting “solutions” that are themselves intolerant and discriminatory in response. And as a result, the country is awash in senseless policies and practices that frequently trample on common sense and individual freedoms in order to make a relative few people feel better.

Case-in-point number 1: Vanderbilt University has notified four Christian student groups that they are on “provisional status” and are in danger of being thrown off campus. What horrible wrong have these young Christians committed? Fighting or drunkenness? No. Cheating on tests? No. What, then?

Vanderbilt charges the groups are out of compliance with the school’s nondiscrimination policy. Those organizations logically want leaders that share the group’s beliefs, goals and values, but the university says that is intolerant and discriminatory. Presumably, the school’s administration thinks that a Christian group should be led by a Jew, Buddhist, Muslim or atheist, or that a women’s group should be led by a man, or a Democrat group should be led by a Republican, or a Muslim group should be led by a Christian or a Jew.

The idiocy of such a policy ought to be self-evident, but in today’s upside-down world, apparently it is not.

Case-in-point number 2: Muslim students at Catholic University of America (CU) claim that their human rights have been violated by the school because it did not provide them rooms without Christian symbols for their daily prayers, and this allegation is now being investigated by the Office of Human Rights. The complaint alleges that Muslim students “must perform their prayers surrounded by symbols of Catholicism … which many Muslim students find inappropriate.” How could a Catholic institution be so intolerant of others and so arrogant as to fill its campus with Catholic symbols?

The attorney who filed the complaint said not providing special prayer rooms “may not be illegal, but it suggests they are acting improperly and probably with malice.” Muslims “do have to pray five times a day, they have to look around for empty classrooms and to be sitting there trying to do Muslim prayers with a big cross looking down or a picture of Jesus or a picture of the Pope is not very conducive to their religion.” But isn’t religion about one’s relationship to a supreme entity and religious beliefs? Isn’t the prayer itself more important than the surroundings in which it is offered?

The president of an organization that promotes Catholic identity responded that “one wouldn’t expect a Jewish institution to be responsible for providing liturgical opportunities for other faiths and I wouldn’t expect a Catholic institution to do that,” he said.

That sounds sensible, doesn’t it?

The attorney’s admission that CU is not breaking the law tells us something about his motives. We may presume that the Muslim students want to attend a university based in Catholicism, a religion about as different from theirs as one could be, because of its high educational quality. But they apparently expect the institution to accede to their desires to change it to their liking.

More pertinent is why the federal government should have anything to say about how a successful and respected private institution adorns its rooms, and why it should potentially be able to alter how it operates.

Another complaint filed by this attorney charges that “eliminating all mixed-gender dormitories on campus, and henceforth forcing students who live on campus to reside in single-sex segregated residences, constitutes discrimination on the basis of sex against female students, since students will be assigned to dormitories solely on the basis of their sex, and many will be denied their residence of choice solely because of, and on the basis of, their sex." Does the attorney believe this policy discriminates only against female students? Is that position itself also discriminatory, and should that attorney therefore be sanctioned?

Case-in-point number 3: An Illinois middle school math lab instructor in her first year on the job asked for a three-week unpaid leave to take a religious trip just before exam time. The school district denied the request because the teacher was the department’s only instructor, and also stated that the contract under which she was employed did not provide for such leave. The instructor, a Muslim, filed a complaint against her employer claiming religious discrimination for refusing her time off for a trip to Mecca.

The Justice Department has forced the school district to pay the teacher $75,000 and implement a sensitivity training course throughout the district.

These examples illustrate that the inmates have taken over the asylum. Government and other nannies labor mightily to alter the realities of life to assuage the easily offended who expect everything to suit them, always. People must learn that despite the efforts of the nannies, life isn’t perfect and no one can make it so. They need to adjust to reality and figure out how to succeed despite the occasional bumps in the road.

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Human Events sends out an email on this theme each day, and each one has the number of the day of the year it represents.

Some of them are very good, and I've selected a few to share.


No. 301 - Pick a fight with a liberal on: IMPERIALISM.

Liberals hate imperialism because in their mind it's all about the big bad West holding its big bad sway over the rest of the world. Liberals are much more comfortable with Western retreat and "multiculturalism" than with Western dominance and triumphalism. But America, Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, India, and Australia did pretty well out of imperialism, didn't they, inheriting the ideas of English liberty and law, free market economics, representative government, the English language, etc.? And if you think some people wouldn't welcome a return of imperialism, you might take a trip to Zimbabwe and see what the starving folks there have to say.


No. 298 - Blame the BP oil spill on the green movement.

Because BP spent all those millions re-branding itself as "Beyond Petroleum" and trying to "greenwash" its image by buying into renewable energy, it forgot how to run its core business—drilling for the sticky black stuff the world needs far more than it needs solar power or bird-chomping wind farms.

Teach a liberal a little science: the sea is full of microorganisms that eat petroleum (which is leaking from the seabed all the time).

The BP oil spill in the Gulf, which was supposed to have despoiled the region for decades, will likely have little long-term effect on the fishing industry or the ecological health of the region. Yes, the oil spill was a "disaster," but the idea that we would never again be eating Gulf shrimp or oysters or be able to enjoy the region's beaches was pure eco-hysteria and fear-mongering. Liberals, like little bratty children, are very good at screaming and pointing fingers and passing blame ("It's his fault!") or issuing threats (like Obama's joke of an Interior Secretary Ken Salazar saying he was going to keep his boot on the neck of BP—that really helped)—or Obama haplessly asking whose ass he should kick—(ditto); but it's conservatives who generally keep their heads and get on with the job of fixing the problem. All the liberal hypocrites did was cripple the tourist industry along the Gulf Coast—in typical liberal fashion making a "disaster" worse.


No. 295 of 365 - Quote P. J. O'Rourke:

"The good news is that, according to the Obama administration, the rich will pay for everything. The bad news is that, according to the Obama administration, you're rich.


No. 284 - Conservative history:

Never let liberals forget that the sub-prime mortgage disaster was Bill Clinton's fault. In 1995 President Clinton's changes to the Community Reinvestment Act enabled ACORN to run a politically correct extortion campaign against mortgage lenders, compelling them by force of law to make unsound (sub-prime) loans to poor minorities who never stood a hope of repaying them.


No. 276 - Quote Thomas Sowell:

"Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it."


No. 267 - Start a rumor:

President Obama is indeed a Manchurian Candidate—but not in the way you might think. In June 1999, a shadowy cabal of right-wing business interests found themselves feeling so utterly nauseated by the Clinton regime that they devised a plan to ensure that by 2012, no Democrat candidate would ever be elected president again. First they needed a Manchurian Candidate: someone so hatefully leftwing and disgracefully incompetent that he would bring the American economy to its knees, while rendering it an international laughing stock. In this way "liberal values" would be tarnished forever in the eyes of American voters. So far, the plan is working brilliantly.


No 258 - Tell a joke.

Q. What's the difference between Obamacare and a car battery?

A. The car battery has a positive side.


No. 256 - Define multiculturalism:

State-sanctioned grievance industry that stokes division and resentment, while always under the delusion that it is doing something positive called "celebrating diversity."


No. 253 - Conservative party game:

Liberals always like to consider themselves bastions of tolerance. So push the boundaries with this little game, as personally tested with enormous success by your author. Buy your kids a pack of those realistic fake cigarettes which puff out dust at the end so it looks like your kid is really smoking. Tell them not to be too obvious about it, but next time you find yourself at a social engagement where kids mix with grown ups, get them to wander around "smoking" nonchalantly as if it's something they do all the time. For maximum impact, you could even have them come up to you and say, "Dad/Mom. You got a cigarette?" "Sure son," you can reply, retrieving a fake cigarette from a real pack and "lighting" it for them. The important thing is to make absolutely no comment and act as if this is all the most normal behavior in the world. Relish the liberals' tension and discomfort as they agonize over how best to confront you over your disgracefully lax parenting. It really is about as fun as fun gets.


No. 247 - Quote Ludwig von Mises:

"Whoever prefers life to death, happiness to suffering, well-being to misery must defend without compromise private ownership in the means of production."


No. 245 - Affect puzzlement at the curious fact that the 2002 Beltway sniper murders were initially blamed by investigators on an "angry white man."

Then wonder why, after the perpetrators were discovered to be inconveniently black and Muslim, the liberal media persistently referred to killer John Muhammad by his pre-conversion name John Williams; and why authorities chose to play down the possibility that the cold blooded assassination of ten Americans by two Islamic converts rambling about jihad had anything to do with terrorism or the "Religion of Peace."


No. 239 - Pick a fight with a liberal on: SOCIAL STIGMA.

Liberals are forever congratulating themselves on having all but eliminated the "stifling" codes of disapproval by which the pre-1960s generations dictated socially acceptable norms. But "stigma" was good. While stigma existed, poor people were too proud to beg or rely on welfare; girls were too ashamed to be thought "loose" or to seek single motherhood as a lifestyle choice; men were more chivalrous because there was a stigma against treating women without deference and special consideration; and people were more polite and even dressed properly as a sign of respect for others and themselves. "Stigma" was the means by which free citizens could agree on a mutually satisfactory code of behavior, without the agents of the state having to poke their noses into anyone's private business. Liberals, however, utterly reverse the equation—they're all for obliterating taboos, knocking down stigmas, shocking the middle class, and preaching tolerance for the most anti-social behavior; and then they turn around and act as the biggest advocates of the government dictating private behavior with the nanny state. The consequences? Greater government intrusion; much worse behavior.

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Occupy Wall Street: A generation of cry babies?

This is an excellent video, by Bill Whittle

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Punishing productive Americans with higher taxes is foolish

By now nearly every American who pays attention to the news has heard about the enormous national debt and the annual $1.5 trillion budget deficits, and realizes that the US has a serious spending and debt problem. We owe $14 trillion and routinely spend 40 percent more each year than we take in, which increases the debt even more. To sensible people, that signals a strong need to make substantial changes.

But not Washington Democrats. They see the solution to our unsustainable national spending addiction as essentially maintaining the current level of spending, with maybe a little trimming here and there, then increasing taxes on the rich. They don’t want to reduce support payments or services to their constituents and risk losing votes, and they believe that increasing government revenue through tax increases on the wealthiest Americans is the way to fix the problem without reducing government handouts.

This supposed solution is based in fantasy, and is not what sensible people that find themselves in a similar situation would do. Smart folks would realize they had created a financial crisis through foolish spending practices and they would reduce spending to cover just the necessities; try to find ways to increase income, perhaps through working an additional job or trying to get a better-paying job; or sell some things they don’t really need. In short, they would make the necessary sacrifices and endure the pain until things smoothed out.If they weren’t smart, they would probably just keep spending too much and tell their employers they need more money, which parallels what the Democrats want to do. Those folks would soon declare bankruptcy.

And so, instead of spurring private sector expansion to broaden the tax base and increase tax revenue, and paring down spending to match income, the president and congressional Democrats prefer to simply make the rich pay more by increasing their tax rate by 13 percent.

What does that mean to a person at this income level? A married person, earning $1,000,000, with two deductions, and taxable income of $986,800 pays almost $323,000 just in federal income taxes. If President Obama succeeds in raising the top tax rate of 35% to the pre-Bush tax cut level of 39.6 percent, this person will pay an additional $45,000 in income taxes each year.

Democrats reason that folks in this income range have more money than they need, and won’t notice a few tens of thousands of dollars more in tax payments. But that analysis defies common sense. People routinely use the money they have available, regardless of how much that might be. Perhaps the wealthy are like everyone else in that regard.

So, what would the person who earns a million bucks do with that $45,000 if the government didn’t take it? Would they stuff it in their mattress, bury it in the yard, or hide it in their freezer? No, they would invest it in business, or securities. They would donate some or all of it to charity, or purchase things they want and need, like household goods, a car, a boat, or a house. They would put it to some productive economic use, which is far more beneficial than having Uncle Sam confiscate that $45,000, and much of it be used to pay bureaucrats to disburse it through government spending, which is highly inefficient and often wasteful.

The tax hike so cherished by the president and fellow Democrats is a response to the impulse to punish the wealthy for being successful. But doing away with the Bush tax rates for high income earners would produce only $500 - $600 billion over 10 years, a meaningless sum when compared to budgetary spending of more than $3 trillion a year.

Even if the government confiscated every cent millionaires and billionaires made this year – about $685 billion – it would be less than half this year’s budget deficit, and just one-fifth of annual spending.

Furthermore, says economist Thomas Sowell, “history has shown repeatedly, under administrations of both political parties, that there is no automatic correlation between tax rates and tax revenues. When the tax rate on the highest incomes was 73 percent in 1921, that brought in less tax revenue than after the tax rate was cut to 24 percent in 1925. Why?”

And here is the part of Dr. Sowell’s statement that people need to pay attention to: “Because high tax rates that people don't actually pay do not bring in as much hard cash as lower tax rates that they do pay. That's not rocket science.”

Raising their tax rate will encourage the wealthy to look for ways to shelter that money from taxation. This obvious reality escapes those on the left, who do not understand the capitalist system, but think they know how to change it to make it better. Their past efforts to improve capitalism are responsible for all of our current problems.

But just because raising taxes on the rich makes no sense economically doesn’t mean it has no value at all. Which is why President Obama is busy trying to foster envy of the wealthy among those who aren’t wealthy: it pays off at the ballot box.

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Everyone dissing, trashing or generally dismissing Cain’s 9-9-9 proposal

Commentary by CKA in Redstate USA




I want to scream.

To me, Cain and Paul Ryan are the only two real leaders who have surfaced in the past year. They have the intelligence and apparent genuine desire to solve our country’s fiscal problems.

But what do we get from others?

From Obama and the Demobocrat/progressive/liberal/leftist Party and their shills in the pimpstream media: mockery, nit-picking, patronizing, dismissal, scorn, more.

From what seems to be most of the so-called conservative news media: same as from Obama and the DPLLs.

From the current gaggle of wannabe Republican/conservative presidential hopefuls: same as from Obama and the DPLLs.

I find all of their behavior petty, execrable and despicable.

Waiting for Cain or some conservative pundit to throw down this gauntlet: “So where’s your detailed plan so that we can analyze and comment on it?”

And given that Obama’s almost three years into having nothing more than hot air on his purported plan, where is the cry from anyone that he produce such plan—and do it now?

What I see occurring—and this really annoys me—is that just like Ryan, Cain is being used by his lessers who apparently are afraid to, not capable of, will not produce a plan that can be discussed publicly.

But, oh, how they pull out their smugness and mud-slinging.

More and more, I find that Cain is the most authentic and deserving potential candidate for any non-Demobocrat ticket.

Shoot, Cain-Gingrich would be hard to beat, I believe.

But more and more, just by what I read about Romney, I am repulsed by this very clearly Democrat who calls himself a Republican.

Perry and Bachman seem lost and, already this early, shrill, as well as caricatures of themselves.

I also see how very much the Republican establishment, including their shills in the so-called conservative news media, pitches for Romney and dismisses, almost literally, Cain and others.

I have this gut feeling that Romney will be only marginally better than Obama, should Romney be anointed to run.

I think all this pre-election election will do is further alienate voters who could and would rally behind a sane, clear, conservative voice.

And I think that the Republicans are allowing the Demobocrats and the pimpstream media to help set Romney as the contender for the throne.

As for the behavior of the so-called conservative media, I’ve reassessed how I consider them to be hindrance or facilitator of a genuine candidate. I’m not enthusiastic or thrilled by what I see.

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Phil Donahue and Milton Friedman debatethe greed of American capitalism

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Despite trillions in welfare spending, poverty increases in America

The U.S. Census Bureau’s annual poverty report states that 46.2 million persons, or roughly one of seven Americans, were poor in 2010. That’s a shocking statistic.

Currently, poverty earnings levels in the contiguous 48 states are $10,890 for individuals, $14,710 for couples and $22,350 for a family of four. The thresholds are higher for residents of Hawaii and Alaska.

Obviously, those annual earnings figures are pretty low, and people living at those income levels certainly face challenges. But understand that meeting a poverty threshold makes you eligible for federal and state assistance, like welfare, Medicaid, Aid to Dependent Children, food stamps, housing subsidies, student loans, etc., that help those who are classified as poor. In all, there are 71 federal means-tested welfare programs.

Unfortunately, poverty has political implications. For example, if you raise or lower those thresholds, you immediately change the number of poor in America. That is not to suggest that those thresholds are too low, only that you can create or eliminate a lot of poverty simply by changing the poverty thresholds. And there are political advantages to increased numbers of people in poverty.

When you look beneath the surface of the poverty issue it becomes quickly evident that some of those classified as poor – emphasis on “some” – aren’t as bad off as we might think.

Yes, some, perhaps many, Americans truly are poor, and they need help. But it is a piece of conventional wisdom that America’s poor are substantially better off than the poor of other countries, who frequently are homeless and starving. That conventional wisdom is borne out by what the Census Bureau tells us about Americans living in poverty:
• 80 percent of poor households have air conditioning
• Nearly three-fourths have a car or truck, and 31 percent have two or more cars or trucks
• Nearly two-thirds have cable or satellite television, one-third have a wide-screen plasma or LCD television, one-fourth have a digital video recorder system, and two-thirds have at least one DVD player
• Half have a personal computer, one in seven have two or more computers, and 43 percent have Internet access
• More than half of poor families with children have a video game system, such as an Xbox or PlayStation

You can make a persuasive argument that at least some of those classified as poor, those who fall into the categories listed above, aren’t really poor in the true sense of the word.

This is the state of poverty in America 47 years after President Lyndon Johnson declared war on it. In a message to Congress on March 16, 1964, Mr. Johnson declared: “Because it is right, because it is wise, and because, for the first time in our history, it is possible to conquer poverty, I submit, for the consideration of the Congress and the country, the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964.

“The Act does not merely expand old programs or improve what is already being done. It charts a new course. It strikes at the causes, not just the consequences of poverty. It can be a milestone in our one-hundred eighty year search for a better life for our people.”

No doubt President Johnson and those who supported the War on Poverty believed this action would eliminate poverty. But despite spending almost $16 trillion since declaring war on poverty – which is more than the National Debt that has accumulated throughout our 235 year history – welfare programs have failed to reduce poverty.

And spending for these programs is projected to cost taxpayers $10.3 trillion over the next decade. President Barack Obama’s FY 2011 budget request, for example, increased total welfare spending to $953 billion, a 42 percent increase over welfare spending in FY 2008.

Even if welfare programs were working, given the current budget and debt crises, this kind of spending cannot be sustained; it will drive the United States into bankruptcy if allowed to continue unreformed. A lesson we never seem to learn is that throwing money at a problem rarely fixes it. Think stimulus 2009. President Obama’s advisers told us that if we passed the $767 billion stimulus bill, that ultimately cost taxpayers $862 billion, unemployment would not exceed 8 percent and the economy would get a big boost. Guess what?

Throwing $16 trillion at poverty has not ended poverty; in fact, poverty has grown. And evidence strongly suggests that efforts to end it have actually hurt many of the people it was intended to help. A recent report by the Heritage Foundation notes that “poverty in America is overwhelmingly linked to the absence of fathers and a lack of work, but welfare payments have had the destructive effects of eroding marriage and the work ethic in low-income communities. … When the War on Poverty began, 7 percent of children were born out of wedlock; today, the figure is over 40 percent.”

Poverty will never be completely eliminated, but we can reduce it substantially if we stop punishing marriage, foster job creation and stop rewarding people for not working. Continuing to throw money at it will not solve the problem.

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Random thoughts on the passing scene

So, the government interferes in efforts to drill for our own oil and natural gas, and reverses permits on coal mining projects that have already been approved, sacrificing billions in federal tax and lease revenue, and millions of jobs. And then it throws billions of our tax dollars away trying to make non-viable “green” energy companies successful. Note to President Obama: Billions of tax dollars cannot make a failing industry viable. It’s time to abandon that strategy and let the market decide.

* * * * *

Agents of the federal government sent thousands of firearms over the Mexican border directly into the hands of criminals, without telling the Mexican government. Allegedly, this foolhardy international escapade was to track down, prosecute, disarm and break the drug cartels. As a result, approximately 200 people died, including an American Border Patrol Agent, and the Attorney General of the United States says he did not know anything about it. Seriously? What other similar adventures is the Justice Department involved in that the AG does not know about?

* * * * *

The U.S. Census Bureau’s annual poverty report states that 46.2 million persons, or roughly one in seven Americans, were poor in 2010. For a family of four, poverty means earning up to $22,350 in the contiguous 48 states, and up to $27,940 in Hawaii. What the Census Bureau didn’t report is what it is really like to be poor in America.

Some Americans truly are poor, but it is a piece of conventional wisdom that America’s poor are substantially better off than the poor of other countries, who frequently are homeless and starving.

That wisdom is borne out by what the Census Bureau tells us about those Americans living in poverty:
• 80 percent of poor households have air conditioning
• Nearly three-fourths have a car or truck, and 31 percent have two or more cars or trucks
• Nearly two-thirds have cable or satellite television, one-third have a wide-screen plasma or LCD television, one-fourth have a digital video recorder system, and two-thirds have at least one DVD player
• Half have a personal computer, one in seven have two or more computers, and 43 percent have Internet access
• More than half of poor families with children have a video game system, such as an Xbox or PlayStation.

* * * * *

The Obama job plan failed to get the votes necessary in the Senate to move the bill forward, and the president and the Democrats tried desperately to blame Republicans for it. The president’s bill didn’t even get the support of all 51 of Senate Democrats. Even though he said the words “pass the bill” forty-thousand times, Mr. Obama never expected the badly flawed bill that would raise taxes and costs on job creators to pass; it was merely a political tactic to get people all fired up against Republicans.

* * * * *

Liberals, particularly black liberals, are busy trying to convince themselves and everyone else that Republican Herman Cain isn’t a “real” candidate for the presidential nomination. One of them even suggested, with a straight face, that Republicans are just trying to cover up their racism by supporting Mr. Cain. Another said that Mr. Cain is a pawn, and that Republicans would never nominate a black man. But that ignores the fact that Republicans have often supported blacks. Remember Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas; UN Ambassador and presidential hopeful Allan Keyes; Secretary of State Colin Powell; and National Security Advisor and then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice? Mr. Cain has committed the ultimate liberal sin: he’s an accomplished, successful, conservative black man. That isn’t allowed, and it scares them to death.

* * * * *

The media focuses on irrelevancies to distract from President Obama’s poor performance. First, it was a Texas Baptist minister who introduced Texas Republican Rick Perry to a Texas audience. After making the introduction, as the minister exited the stage, a member of the media asked him a religious question on Mormanism, and he gave a religious, not a political, answer. The resulting firestorm was totally out of proportion. What that minister thinks about Mormanism isn’t relevant to anything having to do with Rick Perry, since the minister is not connected to Rick Perry, was not invited by Mr. Perry to introduce him, and doesn’t speak for Mr. Perry. What was the point of asking that question?

Then, country singer Hank Williams, Jr., appearing on a Fox News program, commented that when House Speaker John Boehner and President Barack Obama played golf together, and also when Vice President Joe Biden and Ohio Governor John Kasich played golf together, these events were as unlikely to produce something positive as Adolph Hitler playing golf with Benjamin Netanyahu. Immediately, Mr. Williams was accused of equating Obama with Hitler. But if you actually listen to what he said and how he said it, he didn’t equate any of the four people with Hitler. But distractions seem to work, so we should expect more of them. What will the media not do to protect their president?

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