The Tea Party Movement Has Changed The Rules in Politics
A month before the GOP Senate primary in Alaska, in which challenger Joe Miller upset incumbent Lisa Murkowski, the Anchorage Daily News reported a poll showing Murkowski leading Miller 61% to 29%. Murkowski raised at least 12 times more money than Miller in the campaign. Miller had the endorsement of Sarah Palin but the same poll reported by the Anchorage Daily News claimed that most Alaskans have an unfavorable view of Palin.
That poll seems suspect but even if wildly off base it is certain that Murkowski was favored to win. Murkowski was well-known with massive support from big industries, labor unions and trade associations. She had the endorsement of all the movers and shakers, and she was swimming in campaign cash. Miller had Sarah Palin. And the Tea Party Express. It dumped most of its money into the campaign in the last two weeks, blanketed the airwaves with ads for Miller, and Sarah and Todd Palin robo calls were singing in the phone lines.
Under the old rule of politics a candidate underwater in the polls, with little money and no big endorsements cannot recover at the last minute. Rule change, at least for now.
Will Tax Increases Reduce The Debt — Or Make It Even Larger?
On March 10, 2000, roughly seven months before the Presidential election and even longer before it would be known whether Al Gore or George Bush were to be the next President, Peter Robinson interviewed Milton Friedman on his internet video production Uncommon Knowledge. Robinson asked Milton Friedman to offer advice to the next President by answering five questions:
How can the President keep the economy growing?
What should the next President do about the federal surplus? [There actually was a surplus then]
How should the next President attempt to fix Social Security?
How can the next President improve education?
What should be done about health care?
Milton Friedman answered each question. His answer to what to do about the surplus is instructive for its insight into what should now be done about the massive government debt that has replaced the surplus of ten years ago. Obama wants new taxes and increases in existing taxes. Conservatives want the Bush tax cuts made permanent, and other taxes to be cut, such as the corporate tax rate which is the second highest in the free world. What would Milton Friedman say? Here is what he said then:
Peter Robinson: Now let me ask you, I want to back up to this question of, cut taxes versus pay down the debt. So what you’re saying is, cut taxes, because Congress will never be able to resist the temptation to spend it. Paying down the debt may be a good idea, but it’ll never happen.
But let me ask you as an economic matter, if Congress could find the willpower to pay down the debt, should it? In other words, what would be better at this point purely on an economic analysis: paying down the debt or cutting taxes?
Milton Friedman: Well, let me talk about paying down the debt, because that ties in with your Social Security problem. They’re not really paying down the debt. They’re converting funded debt to unfunded debt, because of the coming problem in Social Security.
Let’s look at it this way: they pay down the debt. They buy up government bonds. What do they do with those government bonds? They put them over here in a box labeled: trust fund for Social Security. Now you come to the period when current receipts from wage tax are too sparse to pay benefits.
Peter Robinson: Right, into the Social Security fund.
Milton Friedman: So they take these bonds out and sell them again to the public. How else are they going to pay for it? So what you are doing is simply changing the form of the debt, but you’re not really reducing the debt–
Peter Robinson: Because these obligations are going to be there no matter–
Milton Friedman: And their present value is a debt. And that debt is all recorded in this fake trust fund, which is pure paper artifice; has no real role.
Peter Robinson: But if you cut taxes, what does that do to help the government meet its unfunded obligations.
Milton Friedman: It doesn’t do a thing, but let’s go back. To meet the unfunded obligations, you really need a change in Social Security. All the rest of this talking about paying down the debt as a way of solving the Social Security problem–
Peter Robinson: Is nonsense?
Milton Friedman: –is an evasion. In the long run government will spend whatever the tax system will raise, plus as much more as it can get away with. That’s what history tells us, I think. So my view has always been: cut taxes on any occasion, for any reason, in any way, that’s politically feasible. That’s the only way to keep down the size of government.
Friedman’s answers to the remaining questions can be found here.
One of the new taxes Obama would love to saddle us with is the Value Added Tax (VAT). Here are Dan Mitchell’s thoughts on what a VAT would do to the United States:
If Truth Will Out, Sharron Angle Wins
Those interested in the Harry Reid — Sharron Angle race for Senate can find plenty of info at William Jacobson’s Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion blog. He points that all Sharron Angle need do to win is tell the truth about Harry Reid; but Harry Reid must lie about Sharron Angle in order to win. So Harry Reid has resorted to every sort of mudslinging and trying to brand Sharron Angle as an extremist. Sharron Angle now has a good response in this campaign ad:
Two weeks ago Rasmussen showed Reid and Angle tied at 47%, which represented a recent uptick for Angle. When leaners were included in the poll Angle led by 2 points. Rasmussen has changed its designation of the Nevada race for U.S. Senate from “leans Democrat” to “toss up.”
Leaners are those who initially indicate no preference for either of the candidates but answer a follow-up question and say they are leaning towards a particular candidate. Rasmussen has never before included leaners in its poll results, and still separates which results include leaners and which do not.
The guys at Powerline suggest that “Leans Democrat” is the new “Toss Up” and “Toss Up” is the new “Leans Republican.”
All this sort of reminds me of the lyrics from Buffalo Springfield in “For What It’s Worth”:
There’s something happening here
What it is ain’t exactly clear
I think it’s time we stop, children, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
There’s battle lines being drawn
Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind
I think it’s time we stop, hey, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
What a field-day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our side
It’s time we stop, hey, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down…
Busybodies Minding Your Own Business
Remember those asshole jerks that were on student council when you were in high school? They’re grown up now and they’re still assholes.
You can watch more Nanny of the Month videos here.
The Alaska Recount in GOP Senate Primary — UPDATE
The close Republican U.S. Senate primary pits the GOP establishment against the Tea Party Movement. Tea Party favorite and Palin-endorsed Joe Miller is ahead of establishment-backed Lisa Murkowski by 1,668 votes. But 23,000 absentee ballots have not been counted. For Murkowski to wipe out Miller’s lead and win the election she needs 12,335 of those 23,000 votes, or 53.63% of the total.
There were 92,386 total votes cast in the Republican primary between Murkowski and Miller, with Miller receiving 50.9% and Murkowski 49.1%. For her to get 53.63% of the remaining 23,000 votes would seem to be a statistical improbability bordering on an impossibility. The first 92,000 votes constitutes a poll with a margin or error near zero given the size of the sample. Murkowski will have to cheat in order to win.
On the other hand, it is said that Miller gained momentum in the last two weeks of the election, and it is presumed that the absentee ballots were cast before that. The number of absentee ballots is already becoming a comic joke. It started at 7500, then it was 15,000, now the 23,000 figure I used, but some accounts have it at close to 26,000. At this rate the absentee ballots will soon exceed the polling booth ballots.
The constantly changing number of absentee ballots brings to mind the constantly changing number of newly-discovered ballots in the Al Franken-Norm Coleman debacle during the recount of the Minnesota Senate election in 2008, and may signal that election shenanigans have already begun. Assuming a Republican win over Democrat Scott MacAdams, which seems likely, will Lisa Murkowski become the Republican version of Al Franken in the U.S. Senate? Would that suit the GOP establishment who, apparently, badly misses Ted Stevens?
UPDATE: Murkowski threw in the towel after the first 9500 absentee ballots were counted without significantly reducing Miller’s lead. This his how an honest recount would be expected to go, even in a close race a recount seldom changes the outcome unless it’s done by Democrats in Minnesota, Washington state or Florida (Democrats came close in Florida but didn’t cheat quite enough).
Murkowski is to be commended for doing the right thing.
Bear Attack In Alaska
Email received from a reader, about a brown bear (Alaska’s version of the grizzly) attack near Soldotna, Alaska:
King season is over, and since I had a day off before silvers start, I thought I would go for a walk! This occurred at 11:16 am this morning (Sunday), just 2/10 of a mile from my house.
ON OUR ROAD while walking my dogs (ironically trying to get in shape for hunting season!) for the record. This is in a residential area-not back in the woods. No bow hunting. No stealth occurring.
I heard a twig snap. And looked back. Full on charge-a huge brownie, ears back, head low and motorin’ full speed! Came with zero warning; no Woof, no popping of the teeth, no standing up, nothing like what you think or see on TV! It charged from less than 20 yards and was on me in about one-second! Totally surreal. I just started shooting in the general direction. And praise God that my second shot (or was it my third?) rolled him at 5 feet and he skidded to a stop 10 feet BEYOND where I was shooting from. I actually sidestepped him and fell over backwards on the last shot. And his momentum carried him to a stop past where I fired my first shot!
It was a prehistoric old boar. No teeth. No fat. Weighed between 900-1000 Lb. and took five men to DRAG it onto a tilt-bed trailer! Big bear. Its Paw measured out at about a 9-1/2 footer!
Never-ever-thought ‘it’ would happen to me! It’s always some other
smuck….. Right?
Well, no bull. I am still high on adrenaline. With my gut in a Knot (felt like I did 10000 crunches without stopping)! Almost puked for an hour after. Had the burps and couldn’t even stand up as the troopers conducted their investigation! Totally wiped me out. Can’t even put that feeling into words.
By far the most emotion I have ever felt at once!
No doubt that God was with me, as I brought my Ruger .454 Casull (and some “hot” 350 grain solids) just for the heck of it. And managed to draw and snap shoot (pointed, never even aimed!) from the hip! Total luck shot!
All I can say is Praise God for my safety and for choosing to leave the wife and kids at home on this walk!
Now, if either Hillary, or Obama or anyone else in this administration starts making noises about taking away your right to protect yourself with a gun, we need to let them know where we stand.
Very Quickly!!!
Looks like this was an old bear no longer able to feed itself and desperately hungry. That made him very dangerous.
This is the Ruger Super Redhawk Alaskan 6-shot, 2.5 inch barrel revolver that appears to have been used. It’s available in .44 Magnum or .454 Casull, holds six in the cylinder. Bullets vary from 300 grain to 360 grain in .454 Casull load, and usually loaded to make about 1100 feet per second at the muzzle which is awesome out of a 2.5 inch barrel. With hard cast lead bullets (recommended for bear defense) the recoil of the .454 Casull in this revolver is stout but manageable. With copper jacketed bullets the recoil is miserable.
Would bear spray have worked in this case? If it had worked would it have better for this old bear? Would it have been better for the people of this community? Does it make sense to place your life on the line in hopes that some pepper under pressure will save you?
You decide.
Hayworth To the Slaughter
John McCain won a landslide victory over J.D. Hayworth in the Arizona primary. Arizona Republicans soundly rejected Hayworth and maybe he deserved it. But I don’t think 6 more years of John McCain, the real one that will surely return now that it’s safe, will be good for the Republican party.
UPDATE: Mr. Campaign Finance Reform spent $21 Million to defeat J.D. Hayworth.
The Iraq War is NOT Responsible For The Exploding Deficit
Using the Government’s own numbers compiled by the Congressional Budget Office for 2009 and later and from the U.S. Statistical Abstract for 2008 and earlier, Randall Hoven soundly demolishes the myth promulgated by Democrats that the Iraq War is responsible for exploding deficits. See the note at the end of Hoven’s article at The American Thinker for reference to the exact location in each source for the numbers represented in the following table:
Hoven quotes several Democrats and their sympathizers in the partisan media who categorically blame the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the Bush Tax cuts, and the recession for “nearly the entire deficit.” Here’s just one:
“First, the facts. Nearly the entire deficit for this year and those projected into the near and medium terms are the result of three things: the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Bush tax cuts and the recession. The solution to our fiscal situation is: end the wars…”
– Christopher Hayes, The Nation.
The table above succinctly shows Hayes statement to be nonsense. Says Hoven:
Just for grins, use the above chart to dissect Christopher Hayes’ statement that our current and future deficits are caused by “three things: the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Bush tax cuts and the recession.”
Two of those three things — the wars and tax cuts — were in effect from 2003 through 2007. Do you see alarming deficits or trends from 2003 through 2007 in the above chart? No. In fact, the trend through 2007 is shrinking deficits. What you see is a significant upward tick in 2008, and then an explosion in 2009. Now, what might have happened between 2007 and 2008, and then 2009?
Democrats taking over both houses of Congress, and then the presidency, was what happened. Republicans wrote the budgets for the fiscal years through 2007. Congressional Democrats wrote the budgets for FY 2008 and on. When the Democrats also took over the White House, they immediately passed an $814-billion “stimulus.” (The $814 billion figure is from the same CBO report as the Iraq War costs. See sources at end of article.)
The sum of all the deficits from 2003 through 2010 is $4.73 trillion. Subtract the entire Iraq War cost and you still have a sum of $4.02 trillion.
On the Bush Tax cuts being responsible for any of the deficit, even the New York Times doesn’t believe that. In a story from July 9, 2006 the Times said this:
An unexpectedly steep rise in tax revenues from corporations and the wealthy is driving down the projected budget deficit this year, even though spending has climbed sharply because of the war in Iraq and the cost of hurricane relief.
Clearly, a steep rise in tax revenues resulting from the Bush Tax cuts could not also be causing part of the rising deficit.
Hoven finds, from all this, some salient facts:
So the following are facts, based on the government’s own figures.
Obama’s stimulus, passed in his first month in office, will cost more than the entire Iraq War — more than $100 billion (15%) more. Just the first two years of Obama’s stimulus cost more than the entire cost of the Iraq War under President Bush, or six years of that war. Iraq War spending accounted for just 3.2% of all federal spending while it lasted. Iraq War spending was not even one quarter of what we spent on Medicare in the same time frame Iraq War spending was not even 15% of the total deficit spending in that time frame. The cumulative deficit, 2003-2010, would have been four-point-something trillion dollars with or without the Iraq War. The Iraq War accounts for less than 8% of the federal debt held by the public at the end of 2010 ($9.031 trillion).
During Bush’s Iraq years, 2003-2008, the federal government spent more on education that it did on the Iraq War. (State and local governments spent about ten times more.)
Read the whole thing.
UPDATE: Obama’s failed stimulus cost more than the Iraq War.
What Can Brown Do For You Today?
Back in 1776 Adam Smith warned us about this sort of thing:
I Want Your Money
This video contrasts two views of the role that the federal government should play in our daily lives using the words and actions of Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama. Two versions of the American dream now stand in sharp contrast. One (the dream) views the money you earned as yours and best allocated by you; the other believes that the elite in Washington know how to best allocate your wealth. The other (the nightmare) champions the traditional American dream, which has played out millions of times through generations of Americans, of improving one’s lot in life and even daring to dream and build big. The other holds that there is no end to the “good” the government can do by taking and spending other peoples’ money in an ever-burgeoning list of programs. The documentary film I Want Your Money exposes the high cost in lost freedom and in lost opportunity to support a Leviathan-like bureaucratic state.
Obama’s Point Of No Return
J.R. Dunn thinks Obama has jumped the shark with his ringing endorsement of the ground zero mosque, which Rush Limbaugh calls the “Hamasque” because of the strong backing by Hamas. Dunn opens his American Thinker essay this way:
There comes a moment in a failing presidency where the incumbent, through some single gesture, action, or statement, crosses a certain line from beyond which there is no return. Through his own will and behavior, he so underlines his failings, so frames his negative image, that no further action can ever erase it. Fate, accident, and circumstance have nothing to do with it. It is the president himself who puts the period at the end of his own sentence.
Read the whole thing.
Just Say No
Democrats want our freedom and our money. President Ronald Reagan had a simple answer to that sort of thing. Tell them, “NO, you can’t have it.”
Do we still believe in our capacity for self government? I hope so. Freedoms are slipping away and if Americans don’t halt the process they will wake up someday and it will all be gone. As usual, Ronald Reagan was prescient.
What Do Women Really Want?
There is always something happening when I’m not looking. Usually I’m not surprised. Mostly the strange goings on just reflect an aspect of human nature with which I’m already familiar. But this one took me by surprise, assuming it’s true:
From the Dallas Morning News appears this essay by Christine Wicker,
A lot of midlife women in my acquaintance are leaving what appear to be perfectly good and loving husbands. Or thinking about it. Or cheating on them. Or wanting to. Or staying married and faithful but buying their own houses, which they either live in or keep as a bolt hole.
This astonishes me. I grew up believing it was men who had midlife crises that threatened marriage.
I decided one recent morning to list women I knew who fit the profile. In 15 minutes, I came up with 30 names. Some families on my list have more than one walk-away wife.
All this may be an anomaly signifying nothing. But if is a real phenomenon and large enough to constitute a trend, to what will it lead? What will be the larger consequences? Will these women find the good life? Or will they just find life to be not much better, and maybe even a bit worse?
Stuart Schniederman weighs in:
What is it all about? Are these women getting their second wind? Are they thinking that they can now find the love they have been missing in their marriages? If they are in their mid-forties, they may think that it is their last chance at true romance.
Or perhaps they are anticipating the possibility of being dumped for younger women and are trying to pre-empt the pain of rejection. After their husbands get over the shock of a broken home, many of them, as Dr. Helen points out, are going to do just fine out there.
Just as college girl hooking up, supported by feminists as a step toward liberation, is a boon for teenage boys, so perhaps is this new trend among their mothers a boon for middle aged men.
If middle-aged hooking up becomes as common as college girl hooking up, I have no doubt that the chief beneficiaries will be middle aged men.
Will women ever learn?
Appeasement Never Works — Backfires and Results in Violence
Policies of appeasement have always been a cause of the very thing those who engage in the practice think they are preventing. Appeasement of Hitler backfired in WW II and America’s appeasement of Islamic terrorism led the World Trade Center hijackers to believe America was a paper tiger and encouraged them to carry out their bloody attack.
CNN Opinion Research Poll — 68% Oppose Ground Zero Mosque
Question 41 of this CNN Opinion Research Poll:
41. As you may know, a group of Muslims in the U.S. plan to build a mosque two blocks from the site in New York City where the World Trade Center used to stand. Do you favor or oppose this plan?
Aug. 6-10 2010
Favor 29%
Oppose 68%
No opinion 3%
CNN polls are not always reliable but if the number who oppose were significantly lower than this we can be sure CNN would have found them. It’s likely the number who oppose is even greater. The poll is of 935 registered voters and the margin of error is plus or minus 3 points. Rasmussen polls likely voters as opposed to merely registered voters so are better at predicting how a particular poll result may translate into election results.
The CNN poll raises suspicion because it finds that 51% of respondents believe there is a Constitutional right to same sex marriage. It’s certainly believable that 51% of the country is ignorant of the Constitution but not that it supports gay marriage. After all, gay marriage has been defeated by comfortable margins either in direct election or by the state legislatures in the very blue states of New York, New Jersey and California. In New York and New Jersey it was the state legislature that defeated it. No one who pays attention to politics in those states can believe those state politicians defeated it because they are personally against it. They would approve it in a heartbeat except they know they’d lose the next election if they did. UPDATE: 9th Circuit has halted California gay marriages pending appeal of the District Court “ruling” by Judge Vaughn Walker striking down California’s Proposition 8. [Federal courts holding forth on marriage under state law, overturning a political decision made by popular vote — The world is upside down.]
If a CNN poll says 68% of the public is opposed to the ground zero mosque the number is likely even greater and Obama is further out of touch with the American people than Jimma ever was.
VJ Day August 14, 1945
Richard Sullivan says, of this video:
65 Years Ago my Dad shot this film along Kalakaua Ave. in Waikiki capturing spontaneous celebrations that broke out upon first hearing news of the Japanese surrender. Kodachrome 16mm film: God Bless Kodachrome, right? I was able to find an outfit (mymovietransfer.com) to do a much superior scan of this footage to what I had previously posted, so I re-did this film and replaced the older version There are more still images from this amazing day, in color, at discoveringhawaii.com
Video Of Denver Police Brutal Treatment Of Man Talking On Cell Phone
Man on ground was arrested for using women’s restroom in a night club. His friend standing on the sidewalk is talking on his cell phone to his father, a Pueblo Sheriff’s deputy. Denver cop slams him to the ground, beats him with a sap, brutally yanks him from the ground, throws him into police car, slamming door against his ankle. See the full story from The Denver Post here.
Obama Shows His Stuff At Mosque Announcement
It was at a Ramadan dinner at the White House where Obama gave his announcement of support for building a trophy mosque at ground zero while flanked by radical muslims with connections to terrorist organizations. Just to take three of Obama’s friends from the official guest list reproduced by the Washington Post:
Ingrid Mattson, the head of a Muslim Brotherhood satellite organization, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), that was identified by the Justice Department as an unindicted coconspirator in a terrorism financing case (and was proved, in fact, to have sent money to Hamas);
Salam al-Marayati, a self-described supporter of Hezbollah (and one Steve Emerson aptly describes as an anti-anti-terrorist); and
Dalia Mogahed, an apologist for sharia’s subjugation of women who has embraced ISNA, CAIR and other Islamist groups in her role as an Obama appointee to the President’s Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.
The list of invited guests is long. Mining the list would likely reveal many others who have voiced support or given money to Islamic terrorist organizations. The idea that the ground zero mosque will merely allow muslims to practice their religion is a farce. It will be a testament to the triumph of Islamic terrorism and murder.
Apparently, Obama is just fine with that.
H/T Coalition to Honor Ground Zero
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