Paying Their Fair Share

When it comes to taxes, liberals don't think "the rich" have ever paid enough. And even though the rich pay far more in taxes now than when President Bush took office, that doesn't stop them from screaming about "Bush's tax cuts for the rich." It's too bad they don't let a little thing like facts get in the way of a good jealous rage.

(T)he top 1% of taxpayers, those who earn above $388,806, paid 40% of all income taxes in 2006, the highest share in at least 40 years. The top 10% in income, those earning more than $108,904, paid 71%. Barack Obama says he's going to cut taxes for those at the bottom, but that's also going to be a challenge because Americans with an income below the median paid a record low 2.9% of all income taxes, while the top 50% paid 97.1%.

Whenever taxes come up in a discussion with a liberal, I always ask what they think would be an acceptable level of taxation. 40%? 50%? 90%? These days, I'm coming to the conclusion that liberals think "the rich" should just hand over everything and get it over with. Because until "the rich" have to budget for gasoline and groceries like the cart wrangler at Albertson's, these people will not be satisfied.

Releasing Their Inner Adolescents or Why Nobody Can Take the Nutroots Seriously

One of the things you are supposed to learn on the way to adulthood is how to speak. This includes excluding grammatically incorrect speech such as "me and my brother," but also the use of expletives in everyday life. Unfortunately, the Nutroots Nation crowd hasn't gotten past the id stage yet. Hence, you get panels like this one, featuring Amanda Marcotte, who certainly knows all about not being able to control her id:

One of the great debates of blogging is the general rudeness and shrillness acceptable within the discourse. Does profanity exempt you from being taken seriously? Are you necessarily “calmer” because you don’t drop a few four-letter words? We’ll discuss the tone and attitude of various pockets of bloggers, and also why, no matter what, Michelle Malkin is still worse.

PANELISTS: Jesse Taylor, Amanda Marcotte, Lee Papa, Duncan Black, Kevin Drum, “Digby” Parton

I like the fact that liberals actually need a panel to discuss why vulgarity tends to make adults dismiss what you are saying. I mean, if they want to sit around their beer can-strewn apartments eating Fritos, playing Rock Band and dropping f-bombs all over, that's their business. But adults recognize that social discourse means not letting language get in the way of what you are trying to say. It also means that being rude, a mandatory behavior on Pandagon, tends to prevent people from agreeing with you or coming to your way of thinking.

But let's be honest about the level of discourse available on such sites. These aren't world-class thinkers we're talking about and they aren't directing their verbage at readers interested in thought-provoking comment. It's the equivalent of the spit pit from middle school. Which explains why they need a panel discussion on vulgarities.

UPDATE: The staid New York Times actually tried to cover this thing seriously.

UPDATEx2: Dana has a terrific post on the whole kerfuffle.

UPDATEx3: So much for those evil rightwingers controlling the traditional media.

And Now For Something Lighter

I started to title that "And now for something completely different," but that had too much of a Monty Python connotation.

Politics is depressing me and real life has been terribly sad the last month or so, so I wanted something lighter.

Yesterday, for some reason, Hee Haw of all things was running through my head. Like a lot of families--particularly of hillbilly origin, we watched a lot of Hee Haw in my youth. So, in honor of my dad, who loved Hee Haw, and a friend of mine who was born the day Hee Haw debuted, here it is:

Media Covering Obama As If He Were Already President

That's what Howard Kurtz said on Sunday's Reliable Sources on CNN. NewsBusters has the transcript of this incredible discussion, which included quotes like these:

KURTZ: But by dangling the offer of exclusive interviews with the candidate, exclusive for one night a piece, that is, the Obama team persuaded Katie Couric, Charlie Gibson and Brian Williams to trek halfway around the world to cover this trip. What that means, of course, is that the "CBS Evening News," "NBC Nightly News" and ABC's "World News" will be broadcast from Europe and the Middle East this week, throwing an even brighter spotlight on Barack's excellent adventure.

John McCain, meanwhile, was accompanied by zero anchors on his three foreign trips since wrapping up the Republican nomination in March...

BERNARD GOLDMERG: If needed any more proof, Bill, that the networks were on the Barack Obama campaign team, this is it.

MIKE BARNICLE: And the Obama campaign coverage is going to be 5-1 to what McCain gets.

MICHAEL CROWLEY: I think this is just a great story.

When McCain goes overseas, it's sort of dog bites man. There's not really that much of an interesting angle to it. This is an incredible story, the first African-American nominee going abroad after a long period of anti-Americanism, promising a new start and a new direction for the country. There's so many fascinating angles, whereas McCain is sort of offering somewhat more of a continuation of what we already know.
DAVID FRUM: Here you have one of the -- the oldest men ever to run for president, winning his party's nomination against the odds through sheer hard work and tenacity, and getting up earlier and campaigning harder than men 20 years his junior? That's a pretty exciting story.

We've seen this scenario before. It played out in the 1992 presidential election where Bill Clinton could do no wrong, even with the various leaked scandals surrounding him. Journalists mostly lean left, but pretend they are playing it down the middle. Now, there isn't even a pretense of objectivity.

Trying to Elect Obama?

The headline from this post at The Raw Story says it all: McCain adviser on Iraqi PM's Obama endorsement: 'We're f**ked'

Senator John McCain ridiculed Senator Obama's timetable for Iraq withdrawal as a tactic aimed only at getting votes.

For the Iraqi Prime minister, it apparently worked.

The clear endorsement of Senator Barack Obama by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki Saturday morning came as a strong blow to the McCain campaign.

It doesn't matter that others have said 16 months is too little time to withdraw troops. Or that Obama was calling for troop withdrawals when such would have been retreat. And the Left doesn't care that withdrawing once Iraq has stabilized makes more sense than withdrawing a year ago when Al Qaeda could claim victory.

Personally, I don't see how the McCain camp can come out with any positive spin on these events. Perhaps Al-Maliki thinks an Obama presidency, while disasterous for us, would be a good thing for him.

Right Wing Nut House has a nice post on what geniuses the Democrats are.

Al-Maliki Approves Obama's Retreat Plan?

Well, sorta. Read this Hot Air post for the analysis.

"We Have Succeeded in Iraq"

John McCain says it bluntly.

H/T to Red State.

There's way too much stupidity from the Left about the war. John McCain needs to keep reminding them of it.

Pay Your Share of Taxes, Dammit!

I love the liberal take on taxes. Taking more than a third of your wages isn't enough for them. It's not "fair" for a wealthy person not to have even higher rates. So, what's the reaction to this article that says taxes for high-earning New Yorkers could go over 50%? Why, they're just a bunch of whiners.

Goodness, the poor, poor rich people. Years of living in fat city with ridiculous (sic) low tax rates are their entitlement, you see, and those nasty Democrats are going to confiscate all the wealth in the land and give it to welfare queens, of course.

Emphasis mine.

You get that? If the government isn't taking half of what you earn, you've been "living in fat city." Gotta love that logic!

Don Surber explains why this system didn't work in the 1970s and won't work now.

Do We Pay Too Much Attention to Gas Prices?

Dan Ariely has an interesting New York Times op-ed piece in which he argues that we pay too much attention to gas prices and not enough to the rising costs of electricity, food, and health care.

Looking back at my family’s expenses over the past few years, I see big increases in our health care costs and in how much we pay for food. The rise in what we spend on gas is not nearly as extreme as our increases in categories like electricity and telephone. So why does the amount we spend on gasoline feel so enormous? I think it is because of the way we buy gas.

Putting aside, for the moment, that throwing health insurance into the same mix with food is a red herring--you can live without health insurance (I have until recently) but not without food. What world does this man inhabit that he hasn't paid attention to his electric bill or phone bill?

I've lived in all manner of economic circumstances in my adult life, from near poverty to pretty well-off. Yet I've always paid attention to how much things cost and why the prices go up and down. And if Ariely doesn't think his electric or food bills get tied to the price of gasoline, then he really hasn't been paying attention.

I have no idea how much milk was six years ago, how much bread was three years ago or how much yogurt was a week ago. But I suspect that if I stood next to the yogurt case in the supermarket for five minutes every week with nothing to do but stare at the price, I would also know how much it has gone up — and I might become outraged when yogurt passed the $2 mark.

Milk is $3.08 for a gallon of 2%. Cucumbers cost 86 cents. A loaf of bread is $2.08. About four years ago, milk was around 2 bucks and cucumbers were 50 cents each. Bread was about $1.50. Why do I know these things? Because I budget, meaning I make decisions about what I feed to my family. Do we want cucumbers this week? (I love cucumbers, btw). What about bananas? And we buy milk and bread every week.

Maybe those are the sorts of things you know when you pay the bills. My husband does the household bills, so I haven't a clue what the electricity costs every month. But I can tell you how many groceries I can buy with $100 (answer: about a week's worth for four people).

And let's go to the health insurance red herring while we're at it. My husband just got on full-time at a large local company. We now have medical, dental and vision insurance, long-term disability, life insurance and so on. The price is the same as when I was purchasing health insurance for just my children and me (not my uninsurable husband). The problem with health insurance isn't just the price but that insurance companies really don't want to deal with individuals, which is why they will dump you as quickly as possible.

But seriously: our insurance in 2008 is less than it was five years ago when my husband worked for a different large company. This is why when Democrats throw health insurance into the same pot with gasoline and food purchases, it's a red herring. What you pay for health insurance is governed by a lot of other forces.

So, do we pay too much attention to gas prices? I doubt it. Gasoline prices had been fairly stable for most of the last couple of decades. Then the price spiked (and, Mike, the prices are going back down!) and so people noticed. It's not that we pay too much attention to gas prices. It's that most people are too lackadaisical about their other bills.

N-Word for Thee but Not for Me

I came very close to titling this post "Nigger for Thee, but Not for Me" but I couldn't do it. You see, I was raised not to use that word. Ever. And I don't think it's just because I'm white, but because that word was supposedly so offensive regardless of who used it.

But, alas, I didn't have Whoopi Goldberg and Sherri Shepherd to tell me that that word was really only off limits for me because of my race.

Well, I'll tell Sherri Shepherd she can't use that word. Not because there's anything illegal in it, but in using this "it means what I want it to mean" argument, it leaves that word open to its original, offensive meaning and usage. This is why I don't buy the same arguments used by a lot of feminists regarding all the offensive terms for women and their anatomy. Such terms are offensive and demeaning. They are still offensive and demeaning if I use them.

I couldn't help but wonder where this "black people can use that word" argument can lead. What if you have a mixed race couple who have children? Does the black spouse get to use the word but not the white one? What about the children? Are they "black enough" to use that word? Do they get to use it only half the time to acknowledge their whiteness?

When someone says we don't all "live in the same world" because we haven't all had the same experiences, it's a viewpoint that bars commonality. No, we aren't all descended from slaves. No, we weren't all denied the vote because we were female or didn't own property. No, we haven't all been barred from office because of religion. We haven't all had to deal with physical impairments or mental illness. But just because we haven't all had the same lives doesn't mean we don't inhabit the same world. What it does mean is that we need to respect that we have different experiences but accept that such differences shouldn't bar us from sharing a common history and language.

Unemployment? Move

Unlike other bloggers who used this story to mock the people involved, I have a different angle.

Now, granted, there's a lot to mock about morbidly obese people who are complaining that they have to cut their food budget because food stamps just aren't stretching as far these days, but the, er, meat of the story is far beyond just fat people on food stamps.

Gloria Nunez and her family (unspecified number and no husband for Gloria is mentioned) are

unemployed and rely on government assistance and food stamps. Some have part-time jobs, but working is made more difficult with no car or public transportation.

Well, not having any transportation does make it difficult to get a job most of the time.

Nunez, 40, has never worked and has no high school degree. She says a car accident 17 years ago left her depressed and disabled, incapable of getting a job. Instead, she and her daughter, Angelica Hernandez, survive on a $637 Social Security check and $102 in food stamps.

Hernandez received her high school diploma and has had several jobs in recent years. But now, because fewer restaurants and stores are hiring, she says she finds it hard to find a job.

Here's what bothers me about this story: Nunez and (evidently) other family members don't seem to have planned very well to have a better life than living on government aid. Surely, Nunez heard all throughout school that people who graduate from high school, delay having children until after marriage, and stay at a job almost never stay in poverty. Yet, apparently Nunez didn't want to believe the experts. And it sounds like much of her adult family is in the same boat.

So, here's what left me scratching my head: why doesn't the family move? Fostoria is a rather small community (population 14,000), and, from the NPR story, the economy is really bad there. But Fostoria is 40 miles from Toledo. Couldn't at least some of the family get to Toledo and get a job?

I'm not being heartless here. But when you can't find a job where you are, you either (a) get a job in a different place or (b) move to where you can find a job. I know that that can be unpleasant for people who don't want to move, but complaining that your $637 Social Security check and $102 in food stamps isn't enough is worse. You can, after all, get Social Security and food stamps anywhere in the U.S.

More on Oil Prices

Lots of reasons for lower oil prices in this article. No studies, though.

What Is Obama's Position on Iraq

Not even Obama knows.

Nice video from the John McCain campaign outlining Obama's many positions.

Moonbats: Why We Laugh at Them

Serious discussions about eliminating state borders and the U.S. Senate.

About That Global Warming Consensus

There is none.

The American Physical Society, an organization representing nearly 50,000 physicists, has reversed its stance on climate change and is now proclaiming that many of its members disbelieve in human-induced global warming. The APS is also sponsoring public debate on the validity of global warming science. The leadership of the society had previously called the evidence for global warming "incontrovertible."

In a posting to the APS forum, editor Jeffrey Marque explains,"There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution."

I tend to agree with Patterico's take on this.

We don’t really know how likely it is that we are throwing off the balance on our planet and causing it to become overheated. People on either side like to pretend that they can tell you, but they really can’t. But if it happens, it will be catastrophic, so we should do everything within our power, within reason, to prevent it.

I don't want to trash the economy in pursuit of a greener planet, but I don't think we need to, either. And, as Patterico points out, you don't have to believe in global warming to notice the nastiness of smog, landfills, and water pollution. Anybody who thinks ozone action days are just a normal part of summer is delusional. I'd like to have a clear view of the Fort Worth skyline, thank you.

The Party of Death

I'm guessing Democrats are determined to be the Party of Death. The no-holds-barred embrace of abortion has been obvious for decades, but now they're upset because President Bush proposed a conscience clause that would allow doctors and nurses to refuse to perform abortions.

The draft rule, first reported by The New York Times, is known as a "conscience clause" because it would allow nurses and doctors who have ethical or moral objections to abortion or birth control to refuse to prescribe or provide those services to patients. The rule proposes to cut off money to any grant recipient or hospital that refuses to hire doctors and nurses who object to abortion.

The problem, according to reproductive rights advocates, is that the definition of "abortion" by the Bush administration is so broad that it could extend to other forms of contraception. HHS is proposing that abortion be defined as any drug or procedure that "that results in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation,” the Times reported. The last part of the definition could include birth control pills or emergency contraception, which prevents a fertilized egg from implanting in the womb.

Feminists are all over this (see here, here and here for some examples of the hysteria. But, as Orrin Judd says,

In what parallel universe...is there a political advantage for Democrats in defending the idea that your tax dollars should be used to discriminate against Christians? The reality is that in large swathes of the country there are no doctors who perform abortions, not just because they have to live with themselves but because they have to face their neighbors.

It's unfortunate for the pro-choice types that virtually no one is ignorant about abortion these days. Ranting that doctors and nurses shouldn't have the freedom to say no shows desperation. And, farther down in the Politico article, it states,

To be clear, this proposed rule will not prohibit any reproductive services from being offered at clinics, hospitals or facilities that receive federal grants.

But don't expect the abortion shills to point that out.

Gun Ownership = Idiots and Illegal Sales

That's the argument made by Jason at this Delaware Liberal post.

What on earth gives anybody the right to buy 20 guns per month?

You are a bunch of dnagerous morons who I am done dealing with.

and

Yes. Because they are selling them to criminals stupid.

I've got to say that DL is fast becoming my favorite moonbat site, not only because of the nutty and juvenile arguments (such as those above) often found there, but also because the regulars don't seem to be the usual fit-us-all-in-a-phonebooth-and-still-have-room crowd you can find at other leftwing sites. There's actually some decent debates and a wide variety of opinions expressed (the thread that the above comments were taken from actually contained some interesting arguments for and against gun ownership).

Admittedly, Jason did offer a nonapology yesterday for his churlish behavior. But that just made the whole reading more entertaining.

For the record, I don't care how many guns you wanna own as long as you use common sense when using or storing them. You know, lock 'em up so 3-year-olds aren't going to find one under the bed and shoot Grandma with it. But other than that, if you want to own 50 guns, that's fine with me.

LOL of the Day

why do you bother responding to blog posts when you do not read them?

The funny is that the poster of that comment (a) hadn't read the book under discussion and (b) has a history of not reading posts or comments before going into off-topic rants.

"It is my contention that drilling offshore will not reduce the price of oil."

That's the meme from those "smart" guys at Iowa Liberal.

Unfortunately for them, President Bush ends the executive order on offshore drilling and the price of oil drops 7 percent.

Heh.

Darn those pesky facts!

The New Face of Political Pandering

Salon has an article on the marketing of Barack Obama, the "different kind of president."

Well, it may be different in some nebulous, indefinable way, but Obama is just an old-fashioned politician in other ways. First, there's the ever-growing list of flip-flops, and now, there's evidence that Obama's camp is collecting information about voters and potential voters as a way to pander--er, tailor the message to those most likely to respond.

You know, of course, that Obama has your e-mail address. You may not have realized that he probably also has your phone number and knows where you're registered to vote -- including whether that's a house or an apartment building, and whether you rent or own. He's got a decent estimate of your household income and whether you opened a credit card recently. He knows how many kids you're likely to have and what you do for a living. He knows what magazines and catalogs you get and whether you're more apt to get your news from cable TV, the local newspaper or online. And he knows what time of day you tend to get around to plowing through your in box and responding to messages.

The 5 million people on Obama's e-mail list are just the start of what political strategists say is one of the most sophisticated voter databases ever built. Using a combination of the information that supporters are volunteering, data the campaign is digging up on its own and powerful market research tools first developed for corporations, Obama's staff has combined new online organizing with old-school methods of voter outreach to assemble a central database for hitting people with messages tailored as closely as possible to what they're likely to want to hear. It's an ambitious melding of corporate marketing and grassroots organizing that the Obama campaign sees as a key to winning this fall.

Emphasis mine.

Now, I know that as long as we've had campaigns, politicians have told people what they want to hear (and when they didn't, they lost like Walter Mondale). And it doesn't really surprise me to read that Obama is just using high-tech to do some old-fashioned lying.

But I guess this goes back to the same ol' paranoia that prevents me from using grocery store cards or filling out surveys for cash: I just don't want anyone to know any more about me than I have to allow. This doesn't mean I'm naive enough to think lots of groups--including the government--aren't snooping through my records all the time. I just don't volunteer for that sort of exam.

I just found it a bit creepy, that's all.

Some very specific tidbits are available from consumer marketing firms; if you've ever registered a product -- a TV, a computer or a microwave, for example -- chances are the campaign knows you own it. Likewise, they know if you've signed up for the frequent customer club at your local Whole Foods, or if you've joined the American Civil Liberties Union. (Yes, those last two probably make you an Obama supporter). Or whether you own a gun and have a current hunting license. (An indicator you're less likely to pull the lever for him in November.)

There is a part of me that's always curious about what they know about me from my purchases. Does buying organic make me look more liberal? What about the organic lettuce nestled next to a box of Twinkies? Do they balance out?

More than anything, this article points out that Obama isn't any sort of "new politician." He's got new equipment to help him lie better, but he's still a politician.