The Opening for a Fresh ObamaCare Challenge

From Rivkin and Casey, at the Wall Street Journal:

The court's determination to preserve ObamaCare through "interpretation" has exacerbated the law's original flaws to the point that it has become palpably unworkable. By transforming the penalties for failing to comply with the law's requirements into a "tax," the court has given the public a green light to ignore ObamaCare's requirements when it is economically beneficial. Law-abiding individuals, who might otherwise have complied with the law's expensive purchase mandate to avoid being subjected to financial penalties, can simply now choose to pay a tax and not sign up for coverage. There is certainly no stigma attached to simply paying a tax, and noncompliance with the law's other requirements—such as those imposed on employers—is arguably made more attractive on the same basis. This effect fundamentally undercuts Congress's original purpose, which was to expand health-care coverage to the greatest number of people, not to improve federal revenues.

Similarly, having reviewed the likely costs and benefits, states are now taking advantage of the court-granted flexibility. Seven states, including Texas, Mississippi and Georgia, have so far opted out of the Medicaid-expansion provisions, and eight (with more certain to come) are refusing to create the insurance exchanges, leaving this to a federal bureaucracy unequipped to handle these new administrative burdens. As a result, a growing number of low-income Americans will be unable to obtain the free or cost-effective insurance that Congress originally meant them to have, although they remain subject to the mandate-tax.

Policy problems aside, by transforming the mandate into a tax to avoid one set of constitutional problems (Congress having exceeded its constitutionally enumerated powers), the court has created another problem. If the mandate is an indirect tax, as the Supreme Court held, then the Constitution's "Uniformity Clause" (Article I, Section 8, Clause 1) requires the tax to "be uniform throughout the United States." The Framers adopted this provision so that a group of dominant states could not shift the federal tax burden to the others. It was yet another constitutional device that was simultaneously designed to protect federalism and safeguard individual liberty.

The Supreme Court has rarely considered the Uniformity Clause's reach, but it cannot be ignored. The court also refused to impose meaningful limits on Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce for decades after the 1930s, until justices began to re-establish the constitutional balance in the 1990s with decisions leading up to the ObamaCare ruling this summer. And although the court has upheld as "uniform" taxes that affect states differently in practice, precedent makes clear that a permissible tax must "operate with the same force and effect in every place where the subject of it is found," as held in the Head Money Cases (1884). The ObamaCare tax arguably does not meet this standard.

ObamaCare provides that low-income taxpayers, who are nevertheless above the federal poverty line, can discharge their mandate-tax obligation by enrolling in the new, expanded Medicaid program, which serves as the functional equivalent of a tax credit. But that program will not now exist in every state because, as a matter of federal law, states can opt out. The actual tax burden will not be geographically uniform as the court's precedents require.

Thus, having transformed the individual mandate into a tax, the court may face renewed challenges to ObamaCare on uniformity grounds...

RTWT.

Actually, I think the Court will be faced with religious conscience violations before any new Art. I challenges come before it, but this is an interesting piece either way. The PPACA is a motherf-king abomination and should be consigned to the scrap-heap of history, sooner rather than later.

We'll see. Meanwhile, check the additional commentary at Memeorandum.

Dancing Around Genocide

From David Feith, at the Wall Street Journal:

Is promoting genocide a human-rights violation? You might think that's an easy question. But it isn't at Human Rights Watch, where a bitter debate is raging over how to describe Iran's calls for the destruction of Israel. The infighting reveals a peculiar standard regarding dictatorships and human rights and especially the Jewish state.

Human Rights Watch is the George Soros-funded operation that has outsize influence in governments, newsrooms and classrooms world-wide. Some at the nonprofit want to denounce Iran's regime for inciting genocide. "Sitting still while Iran claims a 'justification to kill all Jews and annihilate Israel' . . . is a position unworthy of our great organization," Sid Sheinberg, the group's vice chairman, wrote to colleagues in a recent email.

But Executive Director Kenneth Roth, who runs the nonprofit, strenuously disagrees.

Asked in 2010 about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's statement that Israel "must be wiped off the map," Mr. Roth suggested that the Iranian president has been misunderstood. "There was a real question as to whether he actually said that," Mr. Roth told The New Republic, because the Persian language lacks an idiom for wiping off the map. Then again, Mr. Ahmadinejad's own English-language website translated his words that way, and the main alternative translation—"eliminated from the pages of history"—is no more benign. Nor is Mr. Ahmadinejad an outlier in the regime. Iran's top military officer declared earlier this year that "the Iranian nation is standing for its cause that is the full annihilation of Israel."

Mr. Roth's main claim is legalistic: Iran's rhetoric doesn't qualify as "incitement"—which is illegal under the United Nations Genocide Convention of 1948—but amounts merely to "advocacy," which is legal.

"The theory" to which Human Rights Watch subscribes, he has written in internal emails, "is that in the case of advocacy, however hateful, there is time to dissuade—to rebut speech with speech—whereas in the case of incitement, the action being urged is so imminently connected to the speech in question that there is no time to dissuade. Incitement must be suppressed because it is tantamount to action."

Mr. Roth added in another email: "Many of [Iran's] statements are certainly reprehensible, but they are not incitement to genocide. No one has acted on them."

A ghoulish imitation of human being, that Kenneth Roth. But continue reading.

And human rights? Not if you're Jewish according to the left's human rights policeman. Just watch your back, Jewish or not. Progressives have their knives out.

'Although it's always crowded ... You still can find some room...'

From yesterday's drive-time at The Sound L.A.

They go way back sometimes, to 1956:

9:51am: Bang A Gong - T. Rex

9:38am: Ain`t Even Done With That - John Cougar Mellencamp

9:34am: Heartbreak Hotel - Elvis Presley

9:29am: Feel Like Makin' Love - Bad Company

9:24am: Magic Man - Heart

9:22am: Immigrant Song - Led Zeppelin

9:15am: You Really Got Me - The Kinks

Dems Ready to Push Americans Over Fiscal Cliff

At Business Week, "Geithner Says No Fiscal Deal Without Higher Tax Rates."

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said the Obama administration “absolutely” is willing to go over the fiscal cliff if Republicans don’t agree to raise tax rates on the highest-income earners.

“There’s no prospect to an agreement that doesn’t involve those rates going up on the top 2 percent of the wealthiest,” Geithner said in an interview on CNBC today.

Dick.

RELATED: At Hot Air, "Tapper to Carney: Back to “hostage” again, eh, champ?", and at Twitchy, "New tone: DCCC launches site branding GOP ‘hostage takers’."

Democrat dicks.

The Blue-State Suicide Pact

From Joel Kotkin, at New Geography:

With their enthusiastic backing of President Obama and the Democratic Party on Election Day, the bluest parts of America may have embraced a program utterly at odds with their economic self-interest. The almost uniform support of blue states’ congressional representatives for the administration’s campaign for tax “fairness” represents a kind of  bizarre economic suicide pact.

Any move to raise taxes on the rich — defined as households making over $250,000 annually — strikes directly at the economies of these states, which depend heavily on the earnings of high-income professionals, entrepreneurs and technical workers. In fact, when you examine which states, and metropolitan areas, have the highest concentrations of such people, it turns out they are overwhelmingly located in the bluest states and regions.

Ironically the new taxes will have relatively little effect on the detested Romney uber-class, who derive most of their income from capital gains,   taxed at a much lower rate. They also have access to all manner of offshore dodges. Nor will it have much impact on Silicon Valley millionaires and billionaires, or the Hollywood moguls and urban land speculators who constitute the Democratic Party’s “good rich,” and enjoy many of the same privileges as their wealthy conservative counterparts.

The people whose wallets will be drained in the new war on “the rich” are high-earning, but hardly plutocratic professionals like engineers, doctors, lawyers, small business owners and the like. Once seen as the bastion of the middle class, and exemplars of upward mobility, these people are emerging as the modern day “kulaks,” the affluent peasants ruthlessly targeted by Stalin in the early 1930s.

William Jacobson's getting a kick out of the kulak analogy: "Go kulak — more of nothing is nothing." (And be sure to follow the links there.)

But back to Kotkin's piece:

What would a big tax increase on the “rich” mean to the poor and working classes in these areas [big metro areas that supported Obama]? To be sure, they may gain via taxpayer-funded transfer payments, but it’s doubtful that higher taxes will make their prospects for escaping poverty much brighter. For the most part, the economies of the key blue regions are very dependent on the earnings of the mass affluent class, and their spending is critical to overall growth. Singling out the affluent may also reduce the discretionary spending that drives employment in the personal services sector, retail and in such key fields as construction.

This prospect is troubling since many of these areas are already among the most unequal in America. In the expensive blue areas, the lower-income middle class population that would benefit from the Administration’s plan of keeping the Bush rates for them is proportionally smaller, although the numbers of the poor, who already pay little or nothing in income taxes, generally greater. Indeed, according to a recent Census analysis, the two places with the highest proportions of poor people are Washington, D.C., and California. By far the highest level of inequality among the country’s 25 most populous counties is in Manhattan.

Finally we have to consider the impact of the new tax rates on the fiscal health of these states. Four of the five states in the poorest shape fiscally, according to a recent survey by 24/7 Wall Street, all have congressional delegations dominated by Democrats — California, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Illinois (the one red state is Arizona). Slower economic growth brought about by higher taxes — compounded by high state taxes — is unlikely to make their situation any better.

So what can we expect to happen if the fiscal cliff appears, or if the President and his party get their taxes on the rich? One can expect a proportionally greater impact on citizens and the budgets of the already expensive, high-tax states, where the new kulak class is concentrated. It may also spark a greater migration of people and companies to less expensive, lower-tax areas...

Progressive economics is not smart.

Seriously. We're talking retardo-maximo territory here (shaking head in pitiful yet resigned astonishment).

Led Zeppelin on Letterman

Well, isn't this something else?

Bill O'Reilly Interviews NBC's Bob Costas

Erika Johnsen and Ed Morrissey have the background at Hot Air, "Bob Costas: The timing of my gun comments was a mistake, but…", and "Video: Bob Costas on gun control … in the middle of an NFL game."

We Won't Build That: States Resist ObamaCare Insurance Exchanges

At IBD, "ObamaCare: 21 States Reject Exchanges On Cost, Rules":

ObamaCare's subsidized insurance exchanges are supposed to be up and running in little more than a year, putting a key piece of the federal health care law into action.

But it's unclear that will happen, especially with a growing number of states saying they don't want the cost and regulatory headaches.

The exchanges are where consumers without employer-based coverage will shop for insurance under ObamaCare and receive a tax credit toward its purchase if they are eligible. But 21 states have expressly declined to set up their own exchanges, with nine others still undecided ahead of the Dec. 14 deadline.

Federalism in action. Gee, is that racist?

More at that top link.

Duchess of Cambridge Pregnant

At Telegraph UK, "The Duchess of Cambridge's first pregnancy will dominate the headlines just as Princess Diana's did, says Telegraph Chief Reporter Gordon Rayner."

At at the Guardian, "A story is born - papers devote pages to the royal pregnancy."

BONUS: Back over at the Telegraph, "Duchess of Cambridge pregnant: hospital security blunder as Kate's nurse falls for hoax call," and "Hospital CEO: Duchess of Cambridge hoax 'deplorable'."

And from WaPo, "Australian radio hoaxers sorry for crank call to hospital treating Duchess of Cambridge."

Black Thug Caught on Camera Stealing Donation Jar Meant for 2-Year-Old Girl Battling Cancer (VIDEO)

Remember, let's be clear about this: It's not just a thug or a thief. It's a black thug. A black thief.

At KABC 7 Los Angeles, "Donation jar stolen from girl battling cancer."

Michelle Malkin Slams Ed Asner and California Federation of Teachers

Michelle's positively indignant:

And previously, "Teachers' Union Propaganda Video Shows 'Rich People' Urinating on the 'Poor'."

'Gangnam Style' Christmas Lights

Via Theo Spark:

Cheering U.N. Palestine Vote, Synagogue Tests Its Members

At the New York Times:

Congregation B’nai Jeshurun, a large synagogue on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, is known for its charismatic rabbis, its energetic and highly musical worship, and its liberal stances on social causes.

But on Friday, when its rabbis and lay leaders sent out an e-mail enthusiastically supporting the vote by the United Nations to upgrade Palestine to a nonmember observer state, the statement was more than even some of its famously liberal congregants could stomach.

“The vote at the U.N. yesterday is a great moment for us as citizens of the world,” said the e-mail, which was sent to all congregants. “This is an opportunity to celebrate the process that allows a nation to come forward and ask for recognition.”

The statement, at a time when the United Nations’ vote was opposed by the governments of the United States and Israel, as well as by the leadership of many American Jewish organizations, reflected a divide among American Jews and a willingness to publicly disagree with Israel.

Clergy at several Jewish congregations have, in various ways, spoken out sympathetically about the United Nations’ vote. But B’nai Jeshurun stood out because of its size and prominence, and reaction from congregants was swift. Allan Ripp, a member, said he and his wife were appalled.

“We are just sort of in a state of shock,” he said. “It’s not as if we don’t support a two-state solution, but to say with such a warm embrace — it is like a high-five to the P.L.O., and that has left us numb.”

Other congregants, however, said it was a bold move that they welcomed.

“I thought it was very courageous of them,” said Gil Kulick, a congregant. “I think as of late there has been a reluctance to speak out on this issue,” he added, “and that’s why I was really delighted that they chose to take a strong unequivocal stand.”

American Jews have long had a vigorous, and sometimes vitriolic, debate about the positions of the Israeli government and the peace process with the Palestinians. But the tendency has been to keep critical views within the fold.

“At most times we impose a kind of discipline upon ourselves — nobody imposes it on us — particularly on a matter that the Israeli government has asked for unanimous support from the Jewish community,” said Samuel Norich, the publisher of The Forward, a Jewish affairs weekly based in New York. “When they speak out, that is rare,” Mr. Norich said of mainstream congregations.

Gary Rosenblatt, the editor and publisher of The Jewish Week, the largest-circulation Jewish newspaper in the country, said, “I think the sense of a need for a unified front in the American Jewish community is breaking down.”

Well, the times they are a-changin'.

But RTWT, via Theo Spark, "USA Jews Don't Have Israel's Back..." (Actually, I think progressive Jews don't have Israel's back. Conservative Jews are at the ramparts of freedom for the West.)

Democrats Are Pathologically Unserious

Milton Wolf, at the Washington Times, "GOP should fear voters, not the ‘fiscal cliff’":

How many times does Lucy have to pull away the football before Charlie Brown finally wises up and quits playing her game?

Republicans don’t have to keep falling for the Democrats’ duplicity. The Democrats pretend the so-called “fiscal cliff” debate is about getting our financial house in order, so they propose a tax increase on people earning more than $200,000 a year (i.e., “millionaires and billionaires” in Democrat-speak), which will fund their leviathan government for all of — drumroll — four days.

These are pathologically unserious people. Their goal is not to solve the current fiscal crisis. Their goal is to use the crisis to grow government and further their statist agenda which, incidentally, created the crisis in the first place. Recall Democrat Rahm Emanuel’s unmasked moment of clarity: “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”

Now, in hopes of enacting their panacea of tax increases, Democrats offer spending cuts that everyone knows never will happen. What’s worse, the president calls for $255 billion in more spending. Only a Democrat would claim increased spending will reduce the deficit, and only a Republican would fall for it.

The Democrats’ lust for tax increases goes far beyond simple class warfare, as atrocious as that alone is. Democrats are fully aware that the rich already are paying more than their fair share. The wealthy (top 10 percent) may earn 50 percent of the income, but they pay 70 percent of the federal taxes. If that’s not fair, what is? Eighty percent? One hundred percent?

The Democrats’ long game is to push an ever-increasing tax burden onto fewer and fewer taxpayers. This grows a class of Americans who may or may not earn paychecks but certainly become beneficiaries of government largesse while remaining blissfully detached from its enormous cost. (What’s their fair share?) Economists would call this a recipe for disaster. Democrats would call it a voting base. Weak-kneed Republicans are poised to help them build it.

Continue reading.

Runway Inspiration

From Victoria's Secret:

Last's night's show was almost a blur.

You have to watch the videos to absorb it all, things happened so fast.

New York Post Subway Death Cover Controversy

From photographer R. Umar Abbasi, "Anguished fotog: Critics are unfair to condemn me":

(Post freelance photographer R. Umar Abbasi captured the dramatic moments before Ki Suk Han was struck by a downtown Q train. A day after the pictures were published, a flurry of criticism erupted — from other media and over social media like Twitter. He recounted the or deal to The Post yesterday.)

I was on an assignment, waiting for a train at the 49th Street subway platform, when I suddenly heard people gasping.

The announcement had come over the loudspeaker that the train was coming — and out of the periphery of my eye, I saw a body flying through the air and onto the track.

I just started running. I had my camera up — it wasn’t even set to the right settings — and I just kept shooting and flashing, hoping the train driver would see something and be able to stop.

I had no idea what I was shooting. I’m not even sure it was registering with me what was happening. I was just looking at that train coming.

It all went so quickly; from the time I heard the shouting until the time the train hit the man was about 22 seconds.

At the same time, the perp was running toward me. I was afraid he might push me onto the tracks.

The victim was so far away from me, I was already too far away to reach him when I started running.

The train hit the man before I could get to him, and nobody closer tried to pull him out.

Keep reading.

PREVIOUSLY: "Man Pushed to Death on Subway Tracks."

And the backlash at Mediagazer and Memeorandum.

60 Top Conservative Blogs 2012

At Right Wing News, "The 60 Best Conservative Blogs For 2012 (6th Annual)."

AmPower comes in at #38.

'Socialism' is Merriam-Webster's Top Word for 2012

A news clip from CBS News This Morning, "Merriam-Webster's top ten words of 2012."

We have a socialist president leading a morally bankrupt collectivist party that took 52 percent of the electorate last month, so it's no surprise folks are saying WTF's now blindsiding the country. Suck it up, idiot Americans. You voted for these Marxist monsters. The bills are just now starting to come due. It ain't gonna be pretty.

PREVIOUSLY:

* "Teachers' Union Propaganda Video Shows 'Rich People' Urinating on the 'Poor'."

* "Marxists Seek Destruction of the Individual, the Moral Foundation of Society."

* "Socialists Outline Democrats' Agenda for Next Two Years."

* "Rachel Maddow and the Left's Depraved Agenda of Unchecked Power Over the Individual."

* "Communist Party USA Pulls Out the Stops for Democrat Class Warfare."

* "Campaign for America's Future, Top Democrat Activist Group, Launches Class-Warfare Website."

The 'Joys' of 21st Century Multicultural Tribalism

From VDH, at PJ Media, "The Confessions of a Confused Misfit."

How Washington Fools the Public About Spending 'Cuts'

At the Wall Street Journal, "The Budget Baseline Con":

If the fiscal cliff talks make Lindsay Lohan look like a productive member of society, perhaps it's because President Obama and John Boehner are playing by the dysfunctional Beltway rules. The rules work if you like bigger government, but Republicans need a new strategy, which starts by exposing the rigged game of "baseline budgeting."

Both the White House and House Republicans are pretending that their goal is "reducing the deficit," which they suggest means making real spending choices. They are talking about a "$4 trillion plan," or something, regardless of how that number is reached.

Here's the reality: Those numbers have no real meaning because they are conjured in the wilderness of mirrors that is the federal budget process. Since 1974, Capitol Hill's "baseline" has automatically increased spending every year according to Congressional Budget Office projections, which means before anyone has submitted a budget or cast a single vote. Tax and spending changes are then measured off that inflated baseline, not in absolute terms...

Continue reading.

And at Gateway Pundit, "Boehner Purges Committees of Conservatives Voting on Principles."

Teachers' Union Propaganda Video Shows 'Rich People' Urinating on the 'Poor'

This is beyond stupid. It's pure evil, and indeed criminal if this clip's shown during public classroom hours at taxpayer expense.

At Exposing Liberal Lies, "Class Warfare Video from Teachers' Union."

Just when you think Big Labor could not sink any lower, they come out with something even more classless than you could imagine in your worst nightmares. Check out this latest teacher’s union video which features the ‘rich’ urinating on the ‘poor’.

The new video, produced by the California Federation of Teachers – which will actually be playing in some of California children’s classrooms, drums up the typical class warfare images we’ve come to expect from Big Labor.

“Tax the Rich: An Animated Fairy Tale,” written by CFT staffer Fred Glass and narrated by proud leftist actor (and 1 percenter) Ed Asner, advocates for higher taxes on the “rich” as the cure for government’s insatiable thirst for spending.

The video claims the rich got rich through tax cuts and tax loopholes and even tax evasion.

But when the 99 percent fought back, the “rich” apparently urinated on the “poor,” at least according to the video. What a classy way to frame an argument.

This indeed sinks to new levels. Outrageous isn't a strong enough word, but what's even more frustrating is how fundamentally stupid this is. Mindless. F-king. Drivel. But if there's been any doubt that American politics is now class warfare all the time, those have been blown to smithereens.

The world is a complicated place. A wide variety of factors is at play in any decent explanation of contemporary political economy, including changes in the industrial sector and the education system, as well as increasing instability in the housing and financial markets. To boil down the causal factors to a single variable ---- the rich seeking ever increasing profits ---- is to espouse a stupid fantasy world of extreme zero sum politics. This kind of propaganda that would be entirely at home among Soviet propagandists during the height of the cold war. It's even a bit frightening to consider how many young impressionable minds might be indoctrinated to these lies. And it's an historically sad commentary that this was produced by a California teachers' union, although not surprising, not surprising at all, considering the radicalization of the left during the Obama interregnum.

More at The Lonely Conservative, "Ed Asner Narrates Tax the Rich Propaganda Cartoon For California Teachers Union."

PREVIOUSLY:

* "Marxists Seek Destruction of the Individual, the Moral Foundation of Society."

* "Socialists Outline Democrats' Agenda for Next Two Years."

* "Rachel Maddow and the Left's Depraved Agenda of Unchecked Power Over the Individual."

* "Communist Party USA Pulls Out the Stops for Democrat Class Warfare."

* "Campaign for America's Future, Top Democrat Activist Group, Launches Class-Warfare Website."

Watching Victoria's Secret Fashion Show

We're getting it late on the West Coast, but it's worth it. Quite lovely.

The #VSFashionShow moment you’ve been waiting for: @angelalessandra in the @londonjewelers #VSFantasyBra: instagr.am/p/S1xuVxmlY-/
— Victoria's Secret (@VictoriasSecret) December 5, 2012

Expect updates...

More: GQ's got a slideshow, "The 2012 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show."

ObamaCare Threatens Sam Facchini's Las Vegas Metro Pizza

Following up on my previous entry, "Permanent Part-Time Is the New Normal."

Here's Greta Van Susteren's interview with Sam Facchini of Metro Pizza in Las Vegas, which aired last Friday:

I watched this when it ran originally and this guy Facchini just seemed like a genuinely socially responsible businessman. Here he's just contemplating how he'll be able to continue doing what he apparently loves to do --- run a pizza business in a dynamic labor environment with lots of young flexible and independent workers --- without bringing layoffs or going under. People often remarked back in 2009 when the national healthcare debate was raging that Obama had no clue about running a business. With that context it's just astonishing to hear this man tell the story that he indeed was invited to a small business roundtable at the White House so that administration officials could better determine how the law would impact the restaurant economy. He won't say that the White House ignored their concerns, but given the $100s of thousands in new bureaucratic regulations, it's almost sad. Facchini is too charitable in his comments. I personally know businesspeople who would like to personally rip this president a new one. ObamaCare's the biggest clusterf-k in modern American history. Staggering to think about sometimes, but so true.

Marxists Seek Destruction of the Individual, the Moral Foundation of Society

And not just any old Marxists, either, but the ones we're facing right here at home.

From Bruce Walker, at American Thinker, "What We Should Care About" (via Maggie's Farm):

The debates in post-election Washington and the exhortations of conservative punditry seem focused almost entirely on economics.  But if our politics is built around economic concerns alone, we see the world through the same lens as Marxists.  Politics, like everything else in life, must be grounded in moral principles, but Marxists believe that morality is simply a function of economics: wealth, or rather the proper distribution of wealth, is superior to bourgeois ideas of integrity, decency, faith, and love.

That is profoundly different from the foundational ideals of America.  The Founding Fathers did not risk their lives and their fortunes to get richer, although that is what Marxist professors teach our kids.  Men like Washington hoped our new land would prosper over time, but their purpose in creating a new nation was liberty.

This liberty tends over time and over a large group people to produce general prosperity, but this is a very inexact process -- more like the messy statistical laws of physics in areas like thermodynamics rather than the clean results of arithmetic.  Sometimes hardworking and thrifty people grow poor, and sometimes unsavory wastrels grow rich.

What is true of individuals in a free land like America is also true among the relatively free and unfree nations of the world.  Free nations tend to become prosperous, and slave empires tend to slide into grinding poverty.  But this is just a tendency, not an iron law of history.

Many cruel tyrannies from Rome to Nazi Germany have been prosperous and comfortable (though more often than not, slave regimes have been like the Soviet Union: poor and miserable).  Culture, as much as liberty, seems to influence the wealth or poverty of nations, which is why the statist and socialist economies of Northern Europe are holding up better in the Eurozone crisis than the more chaotic, and slightly freer, economies of the Mediterranean regime.  This also explains why East Germany, though much poorer than West Germany, was much richer than the Slavic Communist regimes.

When our interest in government is really an interest in prosperity, then we risk losing everything, including prosperity, although that is the slightest of the losses.  We really don't need more stuff.  Our greatest health problems today are not hunger or overwork, but rather overeating and boredom.  The aching emptiness in our body politic is not material poverty, but a poverty of honor and moral purpose.  Not only are we Americans not poor, but even relatively poor Americans live better today than affluent Americans did in 1950.

This does not mean that we are wrong for wanting the latest model car or the nicest home or the best new smartphone, but it does mean that the more we focus just on the financial impact of leftism, the more we will think like the very folks who are so horribly wrong.  The horror of socialism is not that it hurts the economy.  The horror of socialism is that it lusts for the wealth created by the productive and the demonization of these people as a prelude to confiscatory tax rates...

Boy, does that sound familiar. See also,"Rachel Maddow and the Left's Depraved Agenda of Unchecked Power Over the Individual."

Also, "Campaign for America's Future, Top Democrat Activist Group, Launches Class-Warfare Website," and "Communist Party USA Pulls Out the Stops for Democrat Class Warfare."

BONUS: "Socialists Outline Democrats' Agenda for Next Two Years."

And see the rest of Walker's essay the link.

Socialism Surges Under Obama

The demonization of private property is the signature feature of Marxist economics, and this president is the master of vicious anti-capitalist attacks in the name of "fairness." It's completely un-American, but as the Obama regime tightens its grip on the culture, more and more Americans are abandoning our founding principles. Conn Carroll reported on Gallup's recent survey findings to that effect, "Obama voters love socialism."

And Sean Hannity discussed Obama's socialist surge with Sarah Palin last night:

See also,"Rachel Maddow and the Left's Depraved Agenda of Unchecked Power Over the Individual."

Also, "Campaign for America's Future, Top Democrat Activist Group, Launches Class-Warfare Website," and "Communist Party USA Pulls Out the Stops for Democrat Class Warfare."

BONUS: "Socialists Outline Democrats' Agenda for Next Two Years."

Alanis Morissette in Israel

She's almost up there with Johnny Lydon, who basically told the "Palestinians" to f-ck off a couple of years ago.

At Twitchy, "Singer Alanis Morissette defies boycott, threats over Israel concert."

VIDEO: Via Legal Insurrection, "Alanis is Canadian for courage."

Mona Eltahawy Wants Hamas Justice

At Atlas Shrugs, "#Savage Mona Eltahawy in Court, Promises to Take Case to Trial Using Sharia Defense":

The savage wants Hamas justice.

"I acted out of principle and I did what I believe is right," Eltahawy said.

Yes, attacking people and destroying property is "right." That's rich. Speaking of rich, Mona's Hamas lawyer refers to Pamela Hall's standard eyeglasses that Mona destroyed as "Gucci" sunglasses...they are not Gucci, nor are they sunglasses. They are attempting to paint hardworking Pamela Hall as some dilettante, which is disgusting.

Mona Eltahawy attacked Hall, destroyed her glasses (that she sees out of) and her camera equipment that she works with, and now postures herself a hero instead of the big ugly bully that she is. Her lawyer with the war scarf (keffiyeh) is Stanley Cohen, who also represents the terrorist organization Hamas. “If I don’t support the politics of political clients, I don’t take the case.”

RTWT.

Man Pushed to Death on Subway Tracks

At the New York Times:

A 58-year-old subway passenger was killed on Monday after he was pushed onto the tracks of an onrushing train in Manhattan by a man who had been mumbling to himself as he walked along the platform, the police said.

The passenger, identified by the police as Ki-Suck Han of 52nd Avenue in Queens, tried to climb back onto the platform but did not make it; he was struck by a southbound R train in the 49th Street station. He was pronounced dead at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital, the police said.

The assailant fled and remained at large on Monday night, the police said. Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, described the attacker as a black man in his mid-20s in a tan shirt and black pants who was carrying a black jacket and wearing a woolen hat.

On Monday night, two police officials and a priest were seen escorting a woman believed to be the victim’s wife from a Queens apartment to a van. They made no comment to reporters outside.

The police released a brief video from a surveillance camera in which the attacker is seen and heard cursing at the victim and telling him to stand in line “and wait for the R train.”

And see London's Daily Mail, "Caught on video: The moment 58-year-old man argued with 'deranged' stranger before being 'pushed' to death on New York."

Magician Wayne Houchin Hair Set on Fire on Dominican TV Show

That had to hurt.

The dude's head lights up like a dried out Christmas tree.

At London's Daily Mail, "American magician hospitalized after his HEAD set on fire in 'criminal attack' on Dominican TV show."

Scary Snowman

Pretty scary:

Who's Not Bargaining in Good Faith?

From Robert Samuelson, at RCP:

WASHINGTON -- Put Social Security on the table -- clearly and irrevocably. Protecting retiree benefits is the left's political equivalent of the right's "no new taxes" pledge. Congressional Republicans are abandoning their untenable position. Now it is time for President Obama and congressional Democrats to do the same. As long as they don't, they aren't bargaining in good faith, or in the national interest.

Supporting retirees is now the federal government's main activity. There's a huge redistribution from young to old -- a redistribution that will be made worse if retiree programs are largely excluded from deficit reduction, as many liberal groups urge. Either taxes will rise steeply or other federal programs (defense, food stamps, environmental protection) will be cut sharply. The young will pay more and get less. Or, given these unpalatable choices, true deficit reduction won't happen.

Doubters should ponder the numbers. In fiscal 2012, non-interest federal spending totaled $3.251 trillion. Of that, $762 billion went for Social Security, $469 billion for Medicare (insurance for the 65 and over population) and $251 billion for Medicaid (insurance for the poor -- two-thirds goes for long-term care for the aged and disabled). Altogether, that's 46 percent of non-interest spending. Defense, $651 billion and declining, was 20 percent.

As baby boomers retire and health costs rise, this spending will mount. In 2010, there were 40 million Americans 65 and older. By 2020, that number is projected to be 55 million; by 2030, 72 million.

All these trends are old news; I have repeatedly written about them. If we had begun cutting benefits years ago, changes could have occurred slowly. People would have received ample notice. Now we lack the luxury of time. Benefit cuts will be unfair to retirees; but avoiding cuts will be unfair to the young. That we have arrived at this juncture indicts our democratic system and many Democratic politicians, who have obstructed constructive change in retiree programs. Obama continues this short-sighted tradition.

What could justify it?

Well, nothing justifies it. But Democrat moral bankruptcy explains it.

Continue reading.

IRS Comes After Lindsay Lohan!

Robert Stacy McCain reports, "Why Does the IRS Hate Redheaded Celebrities With Large Breasts?"

Well, Lohan's going to wind up behind bars one of these days, IRS hatred or not.

House GOP Counteroffer Includes Calls for $800 billion in Increased Tax Revenue

That Jake Tapper report at the video isn't too optimistic.

And at the Wall Street Journal, "GOP Makes Counteroffer In Cliff Talks: Proposal Calls for $800 Billion Increase In Revenue, Half What Obama Seeks":

House Republicans on Monday made a fresh deficit-reduction proposal to the White House that calls for $800 billion in increased tax revenue, half of what President Barack Obama has proposed.

The GOP offer was immediately rejected by the White House, but it provides the most detailed statement to date of what Republicans are willing to concede for now. It comes days after the White House put forward its opening bid in the high-stakes deficit talks. With both sides now having made preliminary offers, the parameters for future negotiations between Republicans and the White House are becoming clearer.

Monday's proposal would make $600 billion in cuts in Medicare and other health programs over 10 years, compared with the $350 billion the president proposed. It would also slow the growth of Social Security benefits, a move most Democrats oppose. The tax-revenue figure is one Republicans say could be achieved without increasing income-tax rates, one of their core objectives.

"What we are putting forth is a credible plan that deserves serious consideration by the White House," said House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio), in a briefing for reporters.

The proposal was made in a letter sent to the White House and signed by Mr. Boehner and other GOP leaders, notably including House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R., Wis.), who has been an opponent of any tax increase both in Congress and as Mitt Romney's vice-presidential running mate. His support will be vital to any final deal.

The offer's outlines are similar to a budget deal that was emerging in private talks between Mr. Obama and Mr. Boehner in mid-2011, when Mr. Boehner agreed to $800 billion in new revenues but Mr. Obama sought more. Those talks collapsed with each side blaming the other for the breakdown.

The immediate Democratic reaction was dismissive. White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer said the plan "includes nothing new and provides no details on which deductions they would eliminate, which loopholes they will close or which Medicare savings they would achieve."

He stuck with the president's insistence that the GOP agree to raising tax rates on upper-income Americans.

Administration officials were surprised by the GOP offer. They played down its potential to advance talks, saying Mr. Obama continues to wait for Republican leaders to soften on higher tax rates.

Still, officials said, congressional leaders and the president could meet by the end of this week. Their last meeting was nearly three weeks ago. Discussions between congressional and White House staff continued over the weekend, officials said.

Continue reading.

And at The Hill, "House GOP makes a $2.2 trillion debt counteroffer to Obama on cliff " (via Memeorandum).

Socialists Outline Democrats' Agenda for Next Two Years

At New Zeal:

Contrary to popular opinion, the U.S. Democratic Party does not set much of its own policy.

Democrat policy is actually dictated by the labor unions and radical think tanks, such as the Center for American Progress, and the Institute for Policy Studies.

The unions are dominated by the U.S.’s largest Marxist organization Democratic Socialists of America – which also works closely with the C.A.P. and I.P.S.

So, by a process of osmosis and deliberate orchestration, D.S.A., and their friends in the Communist Party USA, effectively dictate Democrat policy at state and national levels.

On November 16, the Democratic Socialists of America National Political Committee released After the Election: Keep Fighting, a blueprint for DSA action and priorities for the first segment of Obama’s second term.

It is basically a guide to action for long time DSA ally Barack Obama and the Democratic Party, over the next two years.

Diverting money from the military to social spending will be a huge part of the agenda. After all, a strong US military is the major block to world revolution.

The push will be towards universal socialist healthcare and an economy wrecking Financial Transactions Tax.

Ending poverty through massive re-distribution will be a big focus… capitalizing on the 50th anniversary of DSA founder Michael Harrington‘s famous book “The Other America,” which helped to launch Lyndon Johnson’s catastrophic and completely counter productive  “War on Poverty” in the mid-1960s...

So true. More at that top link.

I've been writing about this as well. See, "Campaign for America's Future, Top Democrat Activist Group, Launches Class-Warfare Website," and "Communist Party USA Pulls Out the Stops for Democrat Class Warfare."

BONUS: "Rachel Maddow and the Left's Depraved Agenda of Unchecked Power Over the Individual."

Where the Real Money Is

Taxes are going up. Even if a deal is reached to avoid the fiscal cliff, Democrats will continue to push for more revenue to finance their never-ending spending binge, and the middle class will take the hit.

This editorial's from June 2011 but still as timely as ever. At the Wall Street Journal, "Where the Tax Money Is":

Consider the Internal Revenue Service's income tax statistics for 2008, the latest year for which data are available. The top 1% of taxpayers—those with salaries, dividends and capital gains roughly above about $380,000—paid 38% of taxes. But assume that tax policy confiscated all the taxable income of all the "millionaires and billionaires" Mr. Obama singled out. That yields merely about $938 billion, which is sand on the beach amid the $4 trillion White House budget, a $1.65 trillion deficit, and spending at 25% as a share of the economy, a post-World War II record.

Say we take it up to the top 10%, or everyone with income over $114,000, including joint filers. That's five times Mr. Obama's 2% promise. The IRS data are broken down at $100,000, yet taxing all income above that level throws up only $3.4 trillion. And remember, the top 10% already pay 69% of all total income taxes, while the top 5% pay more than all of the other 95%.

We recognize that 2008 was a bad year for the economy and thus for tax receipts, as payments by the rich fell along with their income. So let's perform the same exercise in 2005, a boom year and among the best ever for federal revenue. (Ahem, 2005 comes after the Bush tax cuts that Mr. Obama holds responsible for all the world's problems.)

In 2005 the top 5% earned over $145,000. If you took all the income of people over $200,000, it would yield about $1.89 trillion, enough revenue to cover the 2012 bill for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security—but not the same bill in 2016, as the costs of those entitlements are expected to grow rapidly. The rich, in short, aren't nearly rich enough to finance Mr. Obama's entitlement state ambitions—even before his health-care plan kicks in.

So who else is there to tax? Well, in 2008, there was about $5.65 trillion in total taxable income from all individual taxpayers, and most of that came from middle income earners. The nearby chart shows the distribution, and the big hump in the center is where Democrats are inevitably headed for the same reason that Willie Sutton robbed banks.

This is politically risky, however, so Mr. Obama's game has always been to pretend not to increase taxes for middle class voters while looking for sneaky ways to do it.

Well, he's a sneaky f-ker, that's for sure. We've got $268 billion in ObamaCare taxes about to kick in, regardless of what happens with the fiscal cliff.

The left's appetite for ever-increasing revenue is insatiable.

'Summer breeze, makes me feel fine, blowing through the jasmine in my mind...'

Inspired by William Jacobson, who's been posting Seals and Crofts videos at his sidebar over the last few day

'I try to have as much sex as possible before I fight...'

Says mixed martial arts fighter Ronda Rousey, at USA Today (via Instapundit).

Republicans Have Leverage in Fiscal Cliff Standoff

From Keith Hennessey, at the Wall Street Journal, "Time to Call the President's Budget Bluff":

... While the president has a strong hand, he is overplaying it. Republicans have some leverage. They need to use it effectively.

• The president's veto threat is a bluff. Without a new law, tax increases and spending cuts will likely increase unemployment to 9% and might trigger a new recession. Even if he could shift all the political blame for such a legislative failure onto congressional Republicans, Mr. Obama cannot afford to risk a new recession that would irreparably damage his second term. He can neither veto a budget-deal bill that Congress sends to him, nor can he allow Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to tie a bill up in the Senate. He can, however, try to bluff Republicans into giving away the store.

• The president's proposal for more spending and taxation puts him to the left of many in his own party, and Democrats up for re-election are not lemmings looking to follow Sen. Patty Murray, who has welcomed a plunge over the fiscal cliff. Democratic Sens. Max Baucus and Mary Landrieu oppose the president's proposal to increase the estate tax. Sen. Chuck Schumer has defined "rich" at $1 million of income, much higher than the president's $250,000.

Many Democrats don't want to raise taxes on successful small business owners without Republican votes as political cover. Members of both parties are terrified at the prospect of subjecting 27 million additional tax filers to the Alternative Minimum Tax if there is no new legislative "patch," as Congress has annually passed for many years.

If exposed to the light of day, these intraparty Democratic divisions provide opportunities for Republicans to negotiate a centrist or center-right agreement. In the short run, this requires Republicans to publicly challenge their Democratic colleagues on these specific policy questions. In the long run, Republicans must refuse to engage in ad hoc summitry and insist upon a return to a regular, committee-based legislative process that includes annual budget resolutions and open-floor amendments.

I've been saying the same thing. Republicans are in good shape if they stand firm. It'll be Obama's recession if we go over the cliff. Fuck him.

More at the link.

Girl Bitten by Dolphin at Orlando SeaWorld

Wow, that hurt. Not the dophin's fault however.

At the Orlando Sentinel, "SeaWorld attack: Video captures dolphin biting little girl."

White House Data Debunk Myth Bush Cuts Built Deficit

A lovely chart, via Instapundit:

Also at Bizzy Blog, "Graphs of the Day: The Fiscal Mess Is Not the Fault of Bush’s Tax Cuts" (via Memeorandum).

Obama Digs In

At the New York Times, "Pushing GOP to Negotiate, Obama Ends Giving In":

WASHINGTON — Amid demands from Republicans that President Obama propose detailed new spending cuts to avert the year-end fiscal crisis, his answer boils down to this: you first.

Mr. Obama, scarred by failed negotiations in his first term and emboldened by a clear if close election to a second, has emerged as a different kind of negotiator in the past week or two, sticking to the liberal line and frustrating Republicans on the other side of the bargaining table.

Disciplined and unyielding, he argues for raising taxes on the wealthy while offering nothing new to rein in spending and overhaul entitlement programs beyond what was on the table last year. Until Republicans offer their own new plan, Mr. Obama will not alter his. In effect, he is trying to leverage what he claims as an election mandate to force Republicans to take ownership of the difficult choices ahead.

His approach is born of painful experience. In his first four years in office, Mr. Obama has repeatedly offered what he considered compromises on stimulus spending, health care and deficit reduction to Republicans, who either rejected them as inadequate or pocketed them and insisted on more. Republicans argued that Mr. Obama never made serious efforts at compromise and instead lectured them about what they ought to want rather than listening to what they did want.

Either way, the two sides were left at loggerheads over the weekend with less than a month until a series of painful tax increases and spending cuts automatically take effect, risking what economists say would be a new recession.

Mr. Obama refuses to propose more spending cuts until Republicans accept higher tax rates on the wealthy, and Republicans refuse to accept higher tax rates on the wealthy while asking for more spending cuts.

“I’m puzzled why Republicans are locking into a principle that’s not sustainable and why Democrats aren’t taking the moment to put forward their own vision of entitlement reform,” said Peter R. Orszag, a former White House budget director for Mr. Obama.

It's simple really. The GOP won't budge on taxes and Obama won't budge on cutting spending or reforming entitlements. I personally think Obama wants a cliff dive and everyone's taxes will go up, so he can blame it on the Republicans. That's not going to look good for him, however, as I've indicated previously. Go over the cliff and watch out for a double-dip. The public will blame both parties, especially the Democrat Socialists.

Hitchcock's Blondes

Here's MoDo, at NYT, "Spellbound by Blondes, Hot and Icy":

Certainly, the master of the dark side had “a murderous fascination with blondes,” as the British Film Institute once noted in a tribute.

And now comes Hollywood’s murderous fascination with Hitchcock’s murderous fascination.

HBO’s “The Girl” depicts the making of “The Birds” and “Marnie,” with Toby Jones playing Hitch and Sienna Miller playing Tippi Hedren, fighting off rapacious birds and rapacious director at the same time.

In theaters, “Hitchcock,” with Anthony Hopkins as the auteur and Helen Mirren as his wife and collaborator, Alma Reville, depicts the making of “Psycho,” with Scarlett Johansson taking Janet Leigh’s place in the shower to be stabbed by that crazed mama’s boy Norman Bates. (The long-suffering Alma at one point erupts at her husband about his glittering fixation, snapping that she is “not one of the contract blondes you badger and torment with your oh-so specific direction.”)

Next spring, A&E will run “Bates Motel,” a prequel series to “Psycho,” featuring a young, creepy Norman, with Vera Farmiga as his (blond) mother.

Why the fresh fascination with the man with the famous profile? Perhaps the more Hollywood churns out rancid movies, the more it appreciates Hitch, who never got an Oscar. (“They take sadistic pleasure in denying me that one little moment,” Hopkins’s Hitchcock says.)

When he was asked about plot construction, the martini-dry director would echo the advice of the 19th-century playwright Victorien Sardou: “Torture the women!” And the Brit would slyly observe: “Blondes make the best victims.”

Well, it's a nice start at the essay, but collapses after that in some post-modern cultural psycho-babble that's not very well related to Alfred Hitchcock. Keep reading at that top link if you're not bothered by Ms. Dowd.

What the heck? A good chance to post the video trailer. The movie looks good, in any case.

U.S. Coast Guard Officer Killed by Drug Smugglers Near Santa Cruz Island

This is off the coast of Santa Barbara.

The suspects have been captured. Something like this has apparently never happened, although I can't imagine proper protocol was in play. A smaller Coast Guard vessel being rammed by a smuggling boat? That sounds messed up.

See the Los Angeles Times, "Coast Guardsman is killed after suspected smugglers ram his boat."

GOP Takes Aim at Entitlements

At the Wall Street Journal, "Senate Minority Leader Calls for Bipartisan Support of Changes to Medicare, Social Security to Get Deal":

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell outlined potential changes to Medicare and Social Security in an interview Friday, providing fresh clarity on the concessions Republicans would like to see from Democrats on cutting the costs of the federal entitlement programs.

Mr. McConnell (R., Ky.) said bipartisan agreement on higher Medicare premiums for the wealthy, an increase in the Medicare eligibility age and slowing cost-of-living increases for Social Security could move both parties closer to a budget deal that averts the so-called fiscal cliff, the combination of spending cuts and tax increases that start in early January unless Washington acts.

In return for the support of Democrats, he said, Republicans would agree to include more tax revenue in a budget deal, though not from higher rates.

"Those are the kinds of things that would get Republicans interested in new revenue," Mr. McConnell said.

Democrats played down Mr. McConnell's comments and framed the debate from their own point of view: If Republicans instead agreed to raise income-tax rates for high earners, a deal to avoid the fiscal cliff could be quickly reached.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) said there was "nothing new" in Mr. McConnell's comments. A senior administration official said the White House would make no new offers until Republicans changed their opposition to raising top tax rates.

Democrats said they were still awaiting a formal GOP proposal. "Republicans are still choosing not to put forward an actual offer, and we can't respond to an interview," said Adam Jentleson, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.).

Mr. McConnell's cost-saving suggestions, however, mark a clearer articulation of the compromises his side was demanding.

Republicans have said they would agree to revenue increases if Democrats went along with proposals intended to put safety-net programs on sounder financial footing. Democrats have countered that Republicans have been vague about what they want.

Mr. McConnell on Friday resurrected suggestions that were on the table during deficit-cut talks between Mr. Obama and House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) in the summer of 2011, negotiations that broke down in finger-pointing on both sides.

Talks to avoid the fiscal cliff, which government economists say could throw the U.S. economy into recession, were at "stalemate," House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) said Friday. Still, he said, talks had not collapsed and added, "I'm willing to move forward in good faith."

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D., Mont.) said it was premature to expect major compromises. "It's too early," he said. "It's 31 days away."

Tensions between the two sides increased Thursday when Republicans dismissed a White House proposal that included $1.6 trillion in new taxes and $50 billion in infrastructure spending, among other things.

Mr. McConnell reiterated his rejection of that plan in Friday's interview, saying he laughed when Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner presented it. "He noticed that I laughed," Mr. McConnell said. "That pretty well summed up my view of what he was saying."

The White House defended its offer. "This is the approach that garnered the president a lot of support in the election," said White House spokesman Josh Earnest. He said the president's proposal shouldn't have come as a surprise to Republicans.

On taxes, Mr. McConnell repeated Friday the GOP's position that any new revenue should come from capping deductions, not raising rates. "It is revenue and it's from the group of people they want to get revenue from," he said, arguing for Democratic support.

Well, of course the Obama-Dems have no interest at all in cutting spending, much less compromising with the Republicans.

See the Heritage Foundation, "Chart of the Week: Obama’s Fiscal Cliff Plan Has $4 of Tax Hikes to $1 of Cuts."

And here's the latest at the Washington Post, "‘Fiscal cliff’ talks at a stalemate over tax hikes."

Sunday Cartoons

At Flopping Aces, "Sunday Funnies."

More at Jill Stanek's, "Stanek Sunday funnies 12-2-12," and Reaganite Republican, "Reaganite's Sunday Funnies."

Cartoon Credit: Legal Insurrection, "Branco Cartoon – Suckers’ Leap."

Obama Honors Rosa Parks Anniversary With Picture of Himself

Yeah, it's a bit much, like propaganda for the leadership cult.

At Twitchy, "Narcissist in chief: President Obama honors Rosa Parks anniversary with picture of himself; Update: Adam Baldwin with the win."

Today is the 57th Anniversary of the day Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat. Pic: President Obama on Rosa Parks bus twitter.com/whitehouse/sta…
— The White House (@whitehouse) December 1, 2012

Also at Gateway Pundit, "Figures. Obama Honors Rosa Parks Anniversary With Picture of Himself on a Bus."

Barack Obama: Worst. President. Ever.

I missed this clip when it came out in September, but William Jacobson's got it: "Disheartened Obamaphiles should just stop talking."

And following the links there takes us to Michael Goodwin, at the New York Post, "Emboldened Obama now even more reckless with America's future":

Again and again, the first term revealed Obama’s idea of bipartisanship: Dissenters are unpatriotic and must surrender. Compromise is a one-way street for him.

As polarizing and ineffective as that approach was, he was rewarded with four more years. A different man might see that as a mulligan — a second chance to get it right.

Not Obama. His behavior now is even more troubling.

That he’s willing to risk sending the economy back into recession and killing even more jobs leads me to believe his second term will be far more radical than the first. A stranger to humility, he thinks re-election confers a blank check.

His demand that spending cuts and entitlement reform be put off, while Republicans give him the tax hikes and the stimulus he wants, suggests he’s not serious about facing the mountain of debt. In that case, no progress is possible as the nation hurtles toward disaster.

The fear is reinforced with his sudden bid to have sole and permanent authority to raise the debt limit. As it stands, Congress’ power to set the ceiling serves as a practical check and balance.

His effort to eliminate it is something that happens in a banana republic. Is that where Obama wants to take America?

Sadly, many Americans believe the answer is yes. A friend wrote to express that view forcefully:

“Obama has deliberately destroyed the world’s best medical system. He is deliberately destroying the world’s strongest economy and currency. He has destroyed the world’s best political system by governing by executive order. He has started destroying the world’s best military.”

I don’t accept the idea that the president is intentionally trying to destroy America, but I do believe his policies are weakening it.

Well, I do.

Obama's deliberately perverting the Constitution and amassing enormous power at the expense of the public good. Most people on the left don't care. Even the so-called antiwar freaks that wanted Bush administration war crimes trials have hooked their wagon to this administration --- obediently falling in line in the service of raw power. It's disgusting. Folks like Kevin Gosztola are epic hypocrites even while make a living foisting themselves off as civil libertarians. What they want is progressive power, more damned power. I'm no longer a fan of Ralph Nader, but the guy's got creds. He's run presidential campaigns against both parties. He's consistently spoken out against abuses no matter whom the occupant in the White House. As for President Obama, he's the worst hypocrite of all, and now the biggest tyrant in American history.

Hugh Hefner Engaged to 26-Year-Old Playboy Centerfold Crystal Harris

Man, how old is this guy, 80?

No, he's 80-freakin'-6!

At DListed, "Hugh Hefner Is Going to Marry His Runaway Bride":

You know it's real love when your groom looks like a drunk trout making out with bait on a hook (or an old Popeye smoking an imaginary pipe) when he kisses you.

Sad excuse for a gold digger, 26-year-old Crystal Harris, was supposed to marry 324-year-old Hugh Hefner two summers ago, but she dumped him just days before the wedding. For the next year, Crystal spent her days gargling on the douche dick of Dr. Phil's son and when she wasn't doing that, she was talking shit about how Hef grossed her out. But because nothing will make a gold digger realize she's made a huge mistake like an eviction notice on her condo door or the repo man taking her Mercedes, Crystal ran back into Hef's wrinkly arms this past May. And now, the wedding is back on.

More at the link, and at TMZ, "Hugh Hefner & Crystal Harris — We're Getting Married!" (via WeSmirch).

More at New York Daily News, "Hugh Hefner, Crystal Harris engaged again: Playboy honcho, 86, set to wed 26-year-old ex on New Year's Eve."

Photo: Crystal Harris on Twitter. And more of the hottie at Centerfold.

Rachel Maddow and the Left's Depraved Agenda of Unchecked Power Over the Individual

You don't have to go much farther than Rachel Maddow's marquee MSNBC broadcast to understand how far America's fallen from the society's basic standards of decency and self-government. When AIDS protesters launched their disgusting bare-naked Capitol Hill protest last week, Maddow thought that was sweeter than a load of steaming hot-passion lesbo giz. Robert Stacy McCain had the perfect headline, "Naked Protesters: Unattractive People Demand Action to Protect Boondoggle":

In terms of newsworthiness, it might be a clever idea to have, say, Brad Pitt and Anne Hathaway stage a naked protest in Harry Reid’s office, demanding action to reduce out-of-control federal spending. On the other hand, it’s hard to see the logic of sending out a bunch of ugly freaks to harass John Boehner about their pet boondoggle...

Yes, ugly freaks. Very ugly, and f-king depraved. But there's more:

Exactly why the federal government has a program to provide housing for AIDS sufferers but not, say, people with herpes or chlyamida, can only be explained in terms of identity politics. Over the past 30 years, clever organizers have succeeded in making AIDS a propaganda sledgehammer with which to bludgeon politicians. “AIDS funding” includes a vast category of government spending, of which HOPWA is a classic example, that is considered sacrosanct because anyone who doesn’t support it will be slammed as a heartless homophobe.

Now that's where you're gonna get Rachel Maddow all lathered. Anything to expand the role of government over the individual, using tactics so depraved to make one vomit, and Maddow is totally down with it. She is the perfect representative of how far to the left the so-called establishment has shifted in recent years. Progressives want nothing less than the destruction of traditional values and the respectful nature of the individual, the decent, respectful nature of the individual. It must be destroyed to make way for far-left cultural values and the secular state enforcer.

For more on this check out Sheldon Richman's essay at Reason, "Rachel Maddow's Blind Deference to Government Power." I don't think the essay is introduced as well as it should be --- for example, the key quotation at the piece does not coincide with the video to which it links. But the fundamental argument is a good one: that Rachel Maddow is totally in the service of the expansion of government power over the individual. Indeed, Richman's offering a theory of Maddow's philosophy of the general will, in which the atomized individual is meaningless except to the extent that it fuels the social mass subservient to state power. Here's the key section:

Echoing President Obama and Senator-elect Elizabeth Warren, Maddow apparently believes that no private accomplishment is possible without government support through spending on infrastructure, education, and research. But that is wrong. All of those things can be and have been provided in the private market. Government has a way of crowding out private efforts and then asserting its own importance because of the lack of private alternatives. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy!

Government doesn't just crowd out private-sector activities; it also substitutes inferior ones in their place. No one is pleased with education—which has been under government control for close to 200 years. If the infrastructure is in disrepair, who's to blame for that? Politicians don't think about fixing things until they need a rationalization for "stimulus" spending. Why does it take a recession to make them think about the roads and bridges? American history is rife with examples of private roads and bridges, whose owners didn't wait for an economic crisis to fix them. Their incomes—their businesses—depended on satisfying customers. That goes for education and research too....

Maddow needs to be reminded that we live in a world of scarcity. That doesn't mean great things can't be accomplished, but it does mean that if politicians and bureaucrats decide what is to be built, the scarce labor and resources used in those projects will be unavailable for other projects—particularly those that private entrepreneurs are willing to take risks on. It's Bastiat's broken-window fallacy again. We readily see a government project being built. (Don't worry, the politicians will make sure of that.) What we don't see are all the things not being built because government preempted free enterprise.

But we must ask: Who is better qualified to determine how scarce labor and resources should be invested, politicians or private individuals? Politicians operate under a perverse set of incentives and lack critical information. They aim to please electoral constituencies and special-interest donors, while having no market feedback to guide them in choosing among the many alternative projects; they risk no capital of their own and acquire resources by force—taxation. Why would we expect them to make good decisions? They may call what they do "investment," but in economic terms, it is consumption not investment.

On the other hand, entrepreneurs—at least when government provides no safety net of bailouts, guarantees, subsidies, cheap credit, and the like—do risk their own capital or must raise it from investors who are free to say no. (Try saying that as a taxpayer.) It's not an infallible process, but if consumers are ultimately unhappy with what is produced, they are free to withhold their dollars and send the misguided entrepreneur into bankruptcy, a process that will transfer resources to more able hands. That's a kind of clout which political subjects can only wish they had....

Maybe that's why Maddow prefers government "greatness" to private "smallness." She doesn't want plain people calling the shots, which ultimately they would do in a freed market. She seems more at home with the governing elite and their court intellectuals, who promise to take care of the rest of us rather than let us look after ourselves through the vast mutual-aid society known as the free market.

Right.

Maddow wants the state bureaucrats and socialist political hacks to rule over all the private social and economic space of the individual and the family. It's totalitarian, for there is no end to what the left would like to do. Again, you have to get the context of Richman's essay, which isn't as well devoloped as it should be. The link at the post goes to one of those MSNBC "Lean Forward" promotional spots the network's been running for a year or so now. Maddow stands out in front of the Hoover Dam in one of the more classic ones, extolling the virtues of the gargantuan New Deal infrastructure projects put in place during the Franklin Roosevelt-era of progressive socialist government. Maddow pines for a revamped, steroid-fueled homosexualized New Deal. She and her cohorts at MSNBC ---- self-declared socialists like Lawrence O'Donnell --- are hell bent on eviscerating private initiative in the name of state power and secular values. I'm blown aways sometimes watching those shows, for example, Ed Schultz's recent Blitzkrieg broadcasting assault on Walmart.

These are bad people. They are, by definition, un-American, for what they propose for our governing future is the European model of an ever-enveloping state sector, with crushing bureaucratic power, economic stagnation, and a growing entitlement state with double-digit employment a permanent feature of economic life. Recall from yesterday, "Professor Harvey Mansfield: Obama Voters 'Are Voting for Dependency, for Lack of Ambition, for Insolvency...'"

This is the new reality. Polls are showing an even greater tendency toward socialism and socialist organization in the American polity. The voters ratified this vision of government when they reelected President Obama. But as I've been saying, nothing is permanent in politics. At some point the left's entitlement goody bag becomes so stuffed that even the most productive people in the world aren't able to fill it. We're seeing it happen in California, as the bills are coming due in this once great state. It's only a matter of time nationally. The left is preparing the grave for its own catastrophic fall from indulgent, decadent power.

Georgia Bulldogs QB Aaron Murray Hit by Quinton Dial (VIDEO)

I almost couldn't believe this yesterday:

And at Deadspin, "Quinton Dial Nearly Decapitated Aaron Murray, Got Away With It":

Alabama leads Georgia 10-7 at halftime of the SEC Championship, thanks to a late Crimson Tide field goal that might not have happened if they'd been flagged for this brutal hit on Bulldogs quarterback Aaron Murray. Quinton Dial went after Murray after the QB tossed an interception, blindsiding Murray with a helmet-to-helmet crash that somehow escaped on-field penalty. (The SEC office, having the benefit of replay, may choose to enact some punishments later.) [CBS]

My friend Em on Twitter, a big Bulldogs fan, was pissed. Check Em's timeline as well. Looks like some 'Bama fans were down with that cheap ass criminal shot.

This Tuesday: Victoria's Secret Fashion Show 2012

Did you forget?

December 5th is almost upon us. Some of the most beautiful women in the world, plus music and entertainment.

'Between super-efficient traditional vehicles on one side, and battery or plug-in hybrid technologies on vehicles such as the Nissan Leaf or Chevrolet Volt on the other, it’s possible the traditional hybrid is being squeezed...'

From Bill Howard, at Extreme Tech, "Why hybrids are dying: Gas engines are good enough on mpg, plug-ins are sexier":

The sporty five-passenger SUV that I’m whipping around country roads gets 35 mpg on the highway. And it’s not a hybrid. It’s the Mazda CX-5 Skyactiv with a host of high-efficiency technologies that gives the CX-5 hybrid-like fuel economy without the $2,000-$4,000 bump in price that comes with many hybrid vehicles. Between super-efficient traditional vehicles on one side, and battery or plug-in hybrid technologies on vehicles such as the Nissan Leaf or Chevrolet Volt on the other, it’s possible the traditional hybrid is being squeezed. Except Toyota, the 800 pound gorilla of hybrid nation.

RTWT at that top link.

The Latest Congressional Cliffhanger

From Mark Steyn, at the Orange County Register, "America not paying its fair share":

Previously on "The Perils of Pauline":

Last year, our plucky heroine, the wholesome apple-cheeked American republic, was trapped in an express elevator hurtling out of control toward the debt ceiling. Would she crash into it? Or would she make some miraculous escape?

Yes! At the very last minute of her white-knuckle thrill ride to her rendezvous with destiny, she was rescued by Congress' decision to set up... a Super Committee! Those who can, do. Those who can't, form a committee. Those who really can't, form a Super Committee – and then put John Kerry on it for good measure. The bipartisan Super Committee of Super Friends was supposed to find $1.2 trillion of deficit reduction by last Thanksgiving, or plucky little America would wind up trussed like a turkey and carved up by "automatic sequestration."

Sequestration sounds like castration, only more so: it would chop off everything in sight. It would be so savage in its dismemberment of poor helpless America that the Congressional Budget Office estimates that, over the course of a decade, the sequestration cuts would reduce the federal debt by $153 billion. Sorry, I meant to put on my Dr. Evil voice for that: ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY THREE BILLION DOLLARS!!! Which is about what the United States government currently borrows every month. No sane person could willingly countenance brutally saving a month's worth of debt over the course of a decade.

Continue reading.

'Nothing better illustrates the argument that the “left” hates Israel far more than they care about the Palestinians...'

At Augean Stables, "The “how would you like it if we said that about you?” meme: Reflections on Rudoren’s FB Page."

The strong empirical evidence from many independent sources (cited by a number of commenters at Rudoren’s page in this thread) including Gazan, is that Hamas uses their own people as human shields and tries to benefit from the misery they inflict on their own people by blaming Israel. They even brag about it.