Brave, Unfortunately This Person’s Life is Now in Danger

Can you imagine living in a country dominated by idiot clerics like the person this brave women goes off on?

Frankfurt, No Terrorism to See Here

I am in travel today and the next few days, so do not have much time to post so will just point you to a good article or two.  It has been while since Mark Steyn has been publishing his wisdom and wit for us.  I see that National Review has a new article from him, which has all the sharp truth, humor and excellent writing one gets used to with Steyn.  He writes about the latest “Allahu akbar!” incident, in which a German  Muslim of Kosovo parents shot and killed two American servicemen at the Frankfurt airport last weekend.

Steyn writes:

Men and women “in uniform” (which it’s not clear these airmen were even wearing) understand they may be called upon to make “extraordinary sacrifices” in battle. They do not expect to be “lost” on the shuttle bus at the hands of a civilian employee at a passenger air terminal in an allied nation. But then I don’t suppose their comrades expected to be “lost” at the hands of an army major at Fort Hood, to cite the last “tragic event” that “took place” — which seems to be the president’s preferred euphemism for a guy opening fire while screaming “Allahu akbar!” But relax, this fellow in Frankfurt was most likely a “lone wolf” (as Sen. Chuck Schumer described the Times Square bomber) or an “isolated extremist” (as the president described the Christmas Day Pantybomber). There are so many of these “lone wolves” and “isolated extremists” you may occasionally wonder whether they’ve all gotten together and joined Local 473 of the Amalgamated Union of Lone Wolves and Isolated Extremists, but don’t worry about it: As any Homeland Security official can tell you, “Allahu akbar” is Arabic for “Nothing to see here.”

Steyn goes on to his sad but true demographic analysis of where things are heading.  It is worth reading as a whole.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

You have seen me before say how much I like Il Divo, here is their version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow, with violinist Venessa Mae.  Sure, not the greatest recording since it is clearly off someone’s cell or low end video camera, but still the song is just pretty damn good.

For those that have known me for 25 years, you know I also still like something a bit more raw, punkish and loud.   Just watched the movie The Runaways a few days back, reminded me of a band (The Runaways) that I had not listened to for at least twenty years.  Great stuff, early punk, first all female band in that genre.  The band included Joan Jett.  Here is Cherry Bomb, their best song.

Eisenhower’s Relevance to Today

Having just completed reading a one thousand plus page, two volume biography of Dwight Eisenhower by Stephen Ambrose, my view of his presidency and importance to the twentieth century is greatly enhanced.  For twenty years he dominated American life, first in his role as Supreme Commander in World War II, followed by his presidency from 1952-1960.  Because of his role in WWII he towered over his contemporaries like no President has since.

Despite being a Republican, the right wing of the party, while respecting Eisenhower, never really embraced him.  In many ways, the reason is summed up best by Eisenhower in his farewell address when he warned about the power of the military industrial complex.   Simplifying greatly, the right (and Democrats for that matter, hard to believe in today’s world where Democrats support next to nothing defense related) criticized Eisenhower’s unwillingness to blow out the budget for uncontrolled defense spending.   Defense spending, especially on nuclear weapons, grew exponentially during these cold war years, but enough was never enough for Congress or the Department of Defense.  Only Eisenhower’s stature as the man who won WWII, which put him out of all reach to be criticized as weak on defense, allowed him to win enough of these defense versus budget battles to actually achieve a balanced budget.

His warning against the power of the military industrial complex is the most famous aspect of his farewell speech.  He was genuinely and rightly concerned that, to paraphrase Ambrose, the total influence of the military establishment and the arms industry permeated all levels of government and such influence presented enormous potential for misplaced power and corruption, not to mention endangering our liberties.  While conservatives today have a knee jerk response to always support anything labeled defense, they have lost connection to an American tradition stretching from Washington to Eisenhower, a belief that liberty itself could not survive in a state dominated by military focus, nor could a country survive long term economically if too much of its resources were devoted to military rather than more productive economic utilities.

Modern Democrats, on the other hand, interpret Eisenhower’s warnings in a vacuum.  They conveniently forget he was a military man, who believed deeply in having a strong military to protect our interests.  He knew personally what it meant to fight the most horrific battles and understood the importance of troops having what it takes to win.  He understood and believed greatly in deterrence, in what Reagan would later call peace through strength (he would fit into Teddy Roosevelt’s “talk softly and carry a big stick” where as today’s left speaks loudly usually against their own country and carries no stick).  In a simplistic summary, Eisenhower simply believed that having enough weapons to destroy the world 25 times over was 24 times more than what was needed and understood to his core that it would do no good to have massive stockpiles of weapons and huge standing armies stationed around the world if the country went bankrupt in doing so.  To be strong militarily, you must be strong economically.  If you let the one destroy the other, you lose both.

He was an absolute budget hawk.  A successful GOP or Tea Party candidate has a tall order to accomplish what Eisenhower did on the budget.  Entitlements today are a whole different world than in Eisenhower’s years.  Anyone who understands Eisenhower could have no doubt that he would be warning about a government entitlement complex as being the biggest danger to the future of this country as it is breaking us, without even the side benefit of making us militarily stronger.  Tackling that problem is much more complicated than the defense budget as not only is the other party against all reform, so is the mainstream media and short term self interest of all those who now receive such entitlements.  Besides tackling entitlements, there is no question that defense spending needs to be reigned in and controlled also.  This requires going against the very complex Eisenhower warned against, which now includes most Republicans as well as every Democrat from districts that get millions, if not billions, in defense dollars.

Yes, we have huge responsibilities and a war going on.  A war that I believe we are not fighting aggressively enough.  Still I believe there are billions and billions of dollars that can be saved yearly from defense, both from overlap and waste, but more importantly from us recognizing that we have military objectives far beyond what we should.   For instance, we have troops throughout Europe, in South Korea, and many other nook and crannies of the world.   There are always reasons why we are in these places, but ultimately it comes down to trying to be the world’s sheriff, the world’s disaster preparedness coordinator, and ultimately due to a belief in a domino theory that if we do not controls events everywhere, we will eventually be controlled by events.  History has shown all such attempts by any world power to dominate all aspects of the world to be doomed to failure.  The money needed to support such a role will break us, as surely as the money needed for out of control entitlements will.  Entitlements are the bigger problem, but both need to be slashed and controlled.  To quote Eisenhower:

We — you and I, and our government–must avoid…plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow.  We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come.

With a national debt larger than our economy, and growing by well over a trillion dollars a year, we have mortgaged our kids future and time is quickly running out to have any chance to salvage it.  In short, this country needs a leader brave enough, or with Eisenhower/Washington type stature, to tackle spending across the board, with no pet areas protected.  Certainly the left has no such leader, and it is sadly but quite likely true that the right does not either (don’t give me this Ron Paul crap, he is a lunatic).  Maybe, just maybe, the Tea Party will sprout such a leader, or force someone in the other parties that would otherwise not tackle this issue holistically, to do so.

What is forgotten about Eisenhower’s farewell speech is another warning that we all should remember, especially those on the left.  It is prophetic when one thinks in terms of the “science” of global warming, to give just one example.   I will use Eisenhower’s own word’s.  Solitary inventors of yesteryear have been replaced “by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields” so that while in the past individuals and universities “were the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery” using private funding and being driven by private sector motivations, that today “a government contract becomes virtually a substitute  for intellectual curiosity“.  Therefore, “the prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present..and is gravely to be regarded.”  You want money for that climate (or other) research you are doing, well then you better stick to the government line.  Eisenhower knew that instinctively and it rightly made him shudder.  Meanwhile Obama embraces that very culture.

We could use an Eisenhower today when it comes to sanity on budgets, spending, entitlements, defense and the role of government.  He was grounded in reality, infuriatingly moderate for many like myself, but his very moderation in general allowed him to successfully be a hawk on spending and budget issues as his political give and take to accomplish a balanced budget required members from both aisles, which in our system, is a reality.  Aspiring politicians everywhere would serve themselves well to study his methods, picking what worked and ditching that which did not (like his lack of leadership on civil rights, for one example).

Here is Eisenhower’s Farewell Address in it’s entirety.  It is one of the more important speeches of the twentieth century.  It is really worth watching.

One Amazing Wine Tasting

You have suffered through many wine reviews of mine, just as I had to suffer through actually tasting all of those wines.  :-)   A couple weeks ago, however, we had one fantastic wine tasting which included a couple of the best wines I have ever had in my life.  This tasting was not everyday wines, and many would shudder at the cost of these wines, especially in these economic times.  Many generous people brought many generous wines, most that they have been sitting on for years.  To celebrate the return to health of a friend that had a serious illness, we decided now or never.  Notes follow.

Flight 1 - Bordeaux

1982 Château Gruaud Larose (France, Bordeaux, Médoc, St. Julien): This vintage of this wine is a modern bordeaux legend. This wine was simply amazing. Phenomenal. Unreal. Get some. Drink it. Or, hold for another 30 years. It is amazingly youthful, vibrant, fresh. Dark purple hue, nice fruit/cedar and floral nose, but the palate just knocks it out of the ballpark. Different notes every sip, an uber long finish. An unreal experience.  Among the greatest 2-3 wines I have had in my life.  Wine Advocate gave this a 98, Wine Spectator a 94.  I would give this bottle a 99+.   These cost around $150 A CASE (12 bottles) when it was released.  Now, it will cost you at least $325 a bottle ($3900 a case), a 26x gain!    Anyway, well worth $325, if you can find a well stored one, to celebrate a big occasion with friends.

1999 Château Haut-Brion (France, Bordeaux, Graves, Pessac-Léognan): Everyone is under-rating this IMO. What a great off-vintage first growth. Deep purple color, with a fantastic nose. Tobacco, earth, fruit, maybe even some licorice…a beguiling nose. Fresh and very enjoyable on the palate. Very young, but certainly within the window of great drinking. Was tough for this to follow the 82 Larose, but it sure held its own. Very nice.  Wine Advocate gave it a 93, Wine Spectator a 91.  They underrated this.  It is a 95+, with possible improvement ahead. Probably would have cost you $160 or so on release, but now running $400.  Certainly recommended at the release price!

1982 Château Ausone (France, Bordeaux, Libournais, St. Émilion Grand Cru): One of St. Émilion’s most prestigous and expensive wines.  Initially a lot of funk on the nose, eventually mostly blowing off leaving floral and cherry notes. Very brickish. Very nice on the palate, with lots of fruit and acidity left. Very old school, very nice.  Wine Spectator have a 93, Wine Advocate a 90.  I would give it a 92.  These days this would cost around $500 a bottle.  I would not recommend at this price.

Flight 2 – Châteauneuf-du-Pape

1995 Domaine du Pégaü Châteauneuf-du-Pape Cuvée Maxim (France, Rhône, Southern Rhône, Châteauneuf-du-Pape): Two ethereal experiences in one night, the Maxim (like the 82 Larose) is amongst the best wines I have ever experienced – literally within the top 2 or 3 ever. This was singing on every possible level you can imagine. The nose was out of this world, and old school mix of classic CdP provencal herbs, leather, barnyard and dark red cherry, combined with some slight modern elements of dark fruit, licorice and sappy cocoa. The palate is beyond description, so will not try beyond saying the finish lasted for minutes. This is in exactly the right spot, I do not see how things can improve…having said that, no rush, this has oodles of structure left. Too bad these are impossible to find.  Probably would cost you $300-500 if you could find it, but you will not.  I would give this a 99+ (only because I am not sure what a 100 would really mean!).

1998 Domaine du Pégaü Châteauneuf-du-Pape Cuvée Laurence (France, Rhône, Southern Rhône, Châteauneuf-du-Pape): Very similar to three and a half years ago, with lots of game, pepper, tar and lots of dark fruit. An outstanding wine that still will get better with more years. The only thing bad I can say about it is that it had the misfortune of following the 95 Pegau Maxim. Great wine, drink or hold.  Wine Advocate gave this a 96, which I would agree with.  Hard to find, but occasionally around for $100-150, which compared to a lot of wines this night it a relative bargain.  Recommended.

2007 Domaine Pierre Usseglio & Fils Châteauneuf-du-Pape Cuvée de mon Aïeul (France, Rhône, Southern Rhône, Châteauneuf-du-Pape): So modern it hurts (the 2000 from a month or two ago was a completely different style). Liqueur. Meat, roasted game. Licorice. Lots of malo type butter on the nose which was hard for me to get past. Great mouthfeel…an absolutely fantastic 2007 Napa Cult Cab. Oops, this was a CdP? C’mon folks, I will give my half case years in the hope that it develops some CdP nuances. It is a very nice tasting wine, hence the score (despite the malo), but unless it develops typicity the next time the score will suffer.  Wine Advocate gave this the big 100, Wine Spectator a 94.  I would give it a 94. This now runs over $200.  Not recommended at this point anyway.  We’ll see how it evolves 10-20 years from now.

Flight 3 – Sine Qua Non’s

It is always a treat drinking Sine Qua Non’s, America’s most prestigous, difficult to get, 10 year waiting list wines from the mad genious Manfred Krankl.  See this article in Forbes for a profile of Krankl.  Having three bottles in one go is especially fun.

2001 Sine Qua Non Midnight Oil (USA, California, Central Coast): Very nice wine. Dark purple/black with a big nose of flowers, blue fruits and spice. Much lighter mouthfeel then I expected (not to say it was light, but it was not motor oil either). Great mid-palate, really fills out the mouth and finish. A very enjoyable wine, everything in the right place, just not as complex as it could be, but I am being picky because of the reputation of this wine.  Wine Advocate gave this a 96.  I would say 95+.  This would cost you, gulp, $450 or so at this point.  I would never recommend anything at this cost, but if you have some friends, splurge and see what SQN is all about.

2006 Sine Qua Non Grenache Raven Series (USA, California): This is a monster of a wine, simply huge. Black, massive nose of black fruit and spicy oak, perhaps some pepper and meaty notes lurking under the surface. Enjoyable, and impressive for coming together on the palate for how large it is (no heat, good acidity), but it needs to settle down and say something about itself..right now it is just a big wine like many, could have been from anywhere. Wine Spectator gave this a 97, Wine Advocate a 96.  I would go 92+, with upside.  It will set up back $230 or so.  There are other SQN’s I would gradb at that price before this.

2005 Sine Qua Non Grenache Atlantis Fe2O3~2a, b & c (USA, California): Pretty similar to the bottle from a week ago. Liqueur, black fruits, a bit too much unresolved wood. Bigger than the midnight oil, hopefully just needing some time to better integrate and calm down a bit.  Wine Advocate gave this a 98, WIne Spectator a 90. I give it a 93.    This is now running about $275.  Again, right now anyway, not worth the price.

Flight 4 – Napa Cabs

2002 Araujo Estate Cabernet Sauvignon Eisele Vineyard (USA, California, Napa Valley): One of Napa’s premier vineyards and wines.  This was very enjoyable to me. Extremely young, brooding, but with enough elements beyond just screaming “I am Huge” to make it interesting. Minerality is easy to get on this wine, making the vanilla laden black fruit more complex. Tons of structure, this thing has the chance to be amazing in another decade or so. Very impressive to someone who often is frustrated by Napa cabs.  Wine Advocate gave this a 98-100, Wine Spectator a 95.  I would give it a 95.  It will set you back about $300, so hard to recommend, though if you are into cult/premier Napa cabs and need a special bottle to open 10 – 20 years from now, this would not be a bad choice.

2001 Peter Michael Les Pavots (USA, California, Sonoma County, Knights Valley): Very full bodied, almost thick on the palate. Yet, there is a complexity on the palate though more in the range of cocoa and tar to complement the dark fruits. I have no idea where this is heading, but despite a profile I usually shy away from, this one was enjoyable and interesting. Nice.  Wine Spectator gave it a 98, Wine Advocate a 95, I would go 93+.  Currently running about $175.  Hard to recommend at that price, so will not.  Has years of life ahead of it.

The Games (Pakistani) Children Play

People, watch this.  You must realize what we are up against if we are to actually win the long term battle against radical Islam and what it stands for.

According to London’s Mail Online, Ahsan Masood, a Pashtun from Waziristan in Pakistan, posted the video on Facebook because he ‘thought it was funny’.  Kids will be kids, what fun huh?  We are talking a society teaching children that blowing up innocent people, otherwise known as mass murder, is not only okay, but fun.

The article continues with:

It has been described as ‘horrifying’ by a children’s charity in Pakistan, but others have said it could be seen in a positive light as children role-play to deal with the violent circumstances they see in their everyday lives.

Pakistani media commentator Fasi Zaka called clip ‘the most amazing amateur video I’ve ever seen’. ’It’s disturbing but also sophisticated and creative – a one-camera shot that captures it all. They are reproducing what they see in their lives around them.’

Yes, so positive, so creative.  Those radicalized Muslims are teaching their kids to be such wonderful little suicide bombers.  Meanwhile, in the West, our heads bury deeper and deeper into the sand, leaving it  to our children to eventually have to deal with the barbarians growing stronger by the day.

Libya, Human Rights only the UN Could Love

James Taranto brings up a good point today about our UN loving elites and their complete hypocrisy.  Libya’s ever so civilized 40+ year totalitarian government of Colonel Muammar Gadhafi, is a current standing member of the U.N. Human Rights Council, a council whose purpose is to tell the rest of the world they must protect human rights.  This council that spends most of its time criticizing Israel and the U.S., funded (like the rest of the UN) with billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars.  So while Gadhafi and other dictators throughout the Arab world mow down protesters with tanks, jets and guns, we pay for those same dictators to sit in the UN in judgement of us.

As for the U.N. Human Rights Council, Taranto quotes U.N. Watch on the words of praise for Libya from the council’s member nations, a rogue’s gallery of tyrannies:

Sudan noted the country’s positive experience in achieving a high school enrolment rate and improvements in the education of women. The Syrian Arab Republic praised the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya for its serious commitment to and interaction with the Human Rights Council and its mechanisms. . . . North Korea praised the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya for its achievements in the protection of human rights. . . . Palestine [sic] commended the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya for the consultations held with civil society in the preparation of the national report. . . . Saudi Arabiacommended the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya’s achievements in its constitutional, legislative and institutional frameworks. . . . Venezuelaacknowledged the efforts of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya to promote economic, social and cultural rights, especially those of children. . . .Cuba commended the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya for the progress made. . . .Myanmarcommended the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya for its economic and social progress.

Yes, these are the countries that sit on U.N. Human Rights Council, funded in no small part by the U.S. taxpayer (or via borrowed money from China!).  It amazes me the contortions kool-aid drinking, kumbaya singing, UN hugging leftists in the U.S. who still cling to a Wilsonian/Rooseveltian belief in one world government utopia find themselves in trying to justify more power and money to the U.N.  A simple and popular plank for a 2012 platform is no more money for the U.N. unless radical reform (which effectively prevents such jokes as the Human Rights Council and the myriad of other programs and groups that exists solely to poke the U.S. in the eye) and massive budget cutting is done.

Food Shortages, Inflation and Ethanol

You must read this excellent article by Robert Bryce.  Most of us who pay attention have long known that making biofuels from corn is more about government handouts to big agribusiness than it is about environmentalism, but the rest of you need to understand this so we can start pushing back on this just as various governors are pushing back on the bankrupting of America by various public sector unions.

This year, the US corn ethanol sector will consume 40 percent of all US corn – that’s about 15 percent of global corn production or 5 percent of all global grain – in order to produce a volume of motor fuel with the energy equivalent of about 0.6 percent of global oil needs….The quantity of grain to be consumed this year for US ethanol production – 4.9 billion bushels – boggles the mind. That’s more than twice as much as all the corn produced in Brazil and more than six times as much as is grown in India. Put another way, that’s more corn than the output of the European Union, Mexico, Argentina, and India combined.

Don’t expect the president or Congress to reverse this craziness, with both parties being so in the pockets of big agriculture and their lobbyists that hell will freeze over when this stupidity is ended.  Literally, this will only end when food shortages start to hit the U.S. like it is in other areas of the world, and/or when food prices are driven so high that spineless politicians will recognize that such prices are a bigger danger to their career than standing up against agribusiness.

As Bryce states, “Congress not only lavishes subsidies on the corn ethanol scam, it has mandated the use of corn ethanol, and provided tariff protections to an industry that is helping push global food prices to all-time highs and shrink grain reserves at the very same time that global grain production is faltering and protests over food prices are commonplace.” Just last month, Obama President Obama, in his State of the Union speech, said “we can break our dependence on oil with biofuels.”  In the last two weeks, presumptive Republican 2012 candidates Newt Gingrich and Haley Barbour both spoke up defending such subsidies (since Iowa is so critical in the early primaries).  Only the Tea Party has the power to focus the power of great masses of people on this, and look for the candidate who does so to benefit nationally from their break from the pack of spineless 2012 candidates.

Such a candidate can put it simply to the electorate.  1) We cannot afford the billions in subsidies, essentially paid for by getting loans from China; 2) This handout to these special interests is causing their food prices to raise by 5+ percent year on year 3) This is clobbering the poor, essentially acting as a massively regressive tax on those who can least afford it; and 4) hurts our national security by causing instability around the world, while literally doing next to nothing to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

In December, a study by two US agriculture economists, Thomas Elam and Steve Meyer, found that corn prices are being pushed dramatically higher by demand from the ethanol sector. Elam and Meyer, who have done consulting work for the meat industry, found that without the ethanol mandates, the average price of corn would now be lower by more than $2 per bushel. And they conclude that “biofuels policy has caused significant cost increases for all users of feedgrains.” Note as the author later states, largely due to this, over the past year, beef prices have risen more than 6 percent and pork prices are up 11 percent. Economists are expecting overall grocery prices in the US to rise by about 5 percent this year.

There are many unfortunate aspects to America’s corn ethanol insanity. But among the most unfortunate is that US policymakers were warned, and they were warned by the Rand Corporation, one of the most conservative defense-oriented think tanks in America. In May 2008, Rand Corporation issued a report which said that diverting corn to the ethanol sector was not only bad economics, but a security threat: “Using corn for ethanol is economically inefficient and has harmed US national security. Diverting corn from food to ethanol production has pushed up world market prices for grains and other foods, which, in 2008, resulted in riots in a number of developing countries.”

Who gets hurt most by this?  The poor, of course.  Once again, liberal policies hurt the very people they are claiming to want to help.  Last year, the OECD projected that global grain prices are likely to be as much as 40 percent higher by 2020, and a London-based non-profit entity, ActionAid, predicted that some 600 million more people could be left hungry by 2020 due to increased production of biofuels.

The chairman of the world’s largest food company (Nestle) says that using food crops to make biofuels is “absolute madness”.  With food shortages and prices going through the roof, his answer “No food for fuel” should be a rallying cry for the Tea Party and others who care about national interest, not self interest.

Random Thoughts

Speaking as a divorced person, I always thought that getting a divorce is a bit too easy.  By that, I do not mean on the family itself, which is very tough.  I mean the mechanics of doing so.  Fill out some papers, pay a couple hundred bucks, a judge stamps it and you are done. The mechanical easiness of divorce makes the act of getting married too easy and thought-free, since people can go into it thinking, if it does not work out, well then….  Worse yet, many divorced people get re-married within months, immediately jumping into something, usually for not the greatest long term reasons.  This just hurts kids even more, and usually, inevitably results in a further divorce down the road.  Anyway, my proposal would make consequences of a divorce sort of like being foreclosed on!   You get foreclosed on, your credit is shot for seven years, during which time getting credit is next to impossible.  You get divorced, you should have your ability to marry foreclosed on for seven years, during which no marriage license for you.  Thoughts?

Is it hard raising kids sometimes or what?   I love my kids more than anything in the world.  In the scheme of things, I do not have much to complain about.  They are pretty well behaved, do well and are trustworthy.  Still, as they are all now about in the teenager years, wow, every day is excitement, or sadness.  It is particularly sad when they all of a sudden don’t want to hang with you anymore, conversation becomes one word sentences and getting time with them requires setting up calendar entries a month in advance.  Daily my computer screen or apple tv flashes hundreds of pictures to my eyes of times past when the kids were small, silly and wanted nothing else other than to hang out with their dad.  These images seer into me that they are growing up, that I am getting much older and the day is around the corner when this privilege of mine will be over.  Raising these children and watching them grow is the single greatest experience in my life.  I am sad that the clock moves as fast as it does.

Follow the Money, unlike the NY Times

I am glad Powerline wrote about this today, as it had been bothering me.  The mouthpiece of the American Left, the New York Times, had a typical hit piece out yesterday implying nefarious undertakings by the billionaire Koch brothers when it comes to Gov. Walkers actions against the public sector unions in Wisconsin.  If you do not know the Koch brothers, they are a major enemy of the far left since they help fund various conservative causes.  Times readers eat this type of anti conservative slop up, which just adds to their ignorance of facts since a reliance on the Times for factual news is a recipe for stupidity.

The Times breathlessly reports that “State records also show that Koch Industries, their energy and consumer products conglomerate based in Wichita, Kan., was one of the biggest contributors to the election campaign of Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, a Republican who has championed the proposed cuts.” The Times continues with “Campaign finance records in Washington show that donations by Koch Industries and its employees climbed to a total of $2 million in the last election cycle, twice as much as a decade ago, with 92 percent of that money going to Republicans. Donations in state government races — like in Wisconsin — have also surged in recent years, records show.”

The Times closes with “Bob Edgar, a former House Democrat who is now president of Common Cause, a liberal group that has been critical of what it sees as the rising influence of corporate interests in American politics, the Koch brothers are using their money to create a façade of grass-roots support for their favorite causes. ”But they are moving democracy into the control of more wealthy corporate hands.””

It is hard to know where to start with this as the story is so filled with innuendo, falsities and sins by omission.  Let’s just state some facts.  According to Wisconsin campaign finance filings, Walker’s gubernatorial campaign received $43,000 from the Koch Industries PAC during the 2010 election.  The Koch PAC also gave $1 million to the Republican Governors Association, which in turn spent $65,000 on independent expenditures to support Walker.  So, one could say that Koch money in the Walker campaign was about $108,000 total.

The Times does not tell the reader that amount, nor do they inform the reader, as Powerline does today,  that this donated amount was out of more than $11 million that Walker raised, and $37.4 million that was spent, altogether, on the 2010 race for Governor of Wisconsin. Which means that people associated with Koch Industries contributed a whopping one-tenth of one percent of what was spent on last year’s election.  Nor does the Times tell the reader that all such Koch donations were done in a completely legal manner, and that no questions exist on that.

Let’s next tackle the Times statement of “donations by Koch Industries and its employees climbed to a total of $2 million in the last election cycle, twice as much as a decade ago, with 92 percent of that money going to Republicans.” Sounds horrible, huh? What are the facts that the Times does not enlighten its readers with?  Here is a very informative list, from OpenSecrets.org, showing what organizations have given the most money for election cycles during the last twenty years.  Koch Industries is #84 on the list, giving nearly 11 million dollars in that time period, about 89% to Republicans.  Guess what, of top 20 donors only 1 leaned Republican. Of those top 20, most gave $25-50 million each, many with 98% or more going to Democrats.

12 of the top 20 are unions, all of which gave a huge majority to Democrats.  This includes the National Education Association who sent 93% of its $32 million dollar contributions to Democrats, and the American Federation of Teachers, who sent 98% of its $29 million in contributions to Democrats.  Only in the mind of the Time’s could the Koch donations be considered suspect of influencing the Wisconsin/Public Sector Union debate, while the union donations themselves, at many times the amount of the Koch donations, be considered not the more important story worthy of investigation. Michael Barone sums up the real scandal nicely:

Everyone has priorities. During the past week Barack Obama has found no time to condemn the attacks that Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi has launched on the Libyan people.

But he did find time to be interviewed by a Wisconsin television station and weigh in on the dispute between Republican Gov. Scott Walker and the state’s public employee unions. Walker was staging “an assault on unions,” he said, and added that “public employee unions make enormous contributions to our states and our citizens.”

Enormous contributions, yes — to the Democratic Party and the Obama campaign. Unions, most of whose members are public employees, gave Democrats some $400 million in the 2008 election cycle. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the biggest public employee union, gave Democrats $90 million in the 2010 cycle.

Follow the money, Washington reporters like to say. The money in this case comes from taxpayers, present and future, who are the source of every penny of dues paid to public employee unions, who in turn spend much of that money on politics, almost all of it for Democrats. In effect, public employee unions are a mechanism by which every taxpayer is forced to fund the Democratic Party.

Next, the funniest in this entire story, is quoting Common Cause as being  critical of what it sees as the rising influence of corporate interests and of Koch contributing to “moving democracy into the control of more wealthy corporate hands.” Common Cause itself is funded by a bunch of rich leftists.  Do we see the Times pointing that out; or having front page stories of how George Soros, a rich non-American, is pretty much the major funder/puppet string master of much of the American left?  Of course not.

The left is being clobbered in this debate on the role of public sector unions in our current financial crisis.  The public is realizing the wicked cycle in which Unions support the left and fund their campaigns, then the left in power give away the store in subsequent collective bargaining with those same unions that funded them…with the taxpayers holding the bag.    If this is the best the Times can do to distract people from the real issue of public sector unions bankrupting us, this battle is over.  Walker will get his way, and other states will start following like dominos.  This is a major story with significant political and economic implications.  The Times is on the wrong side of it, and once again shows its bias and lack of truthfulness for all to see.

Taking the Blame

Watch a master show how it is done.  Very funny.

Zombies Defined

What do Zombies have to do with politics?  Let Bob Hope explain!

Some Math and History Lessons for Wisconsin Teachers

Keep in mind that, per the Department of Commerce, in 2009, the average personal income for all Wisconsin workers was $37,398.  Now read this about Wisconsin teachers.  Also keep in mind that these teachers also get vacation time during the student breaks, like during Christmas, fall vacation and spring vacation. Year-round, teachers in the state are out of the classroom for about 13 or 14 weeks.

George Will responded to the left claiming how grassroots the protests in Wisconsin are with “what you call the grassroots is a tiny minority of this tiny minority of Wisconsin people who work for the government. Three hundred thousand public employees in Wisconsin went to work — while the teachers were clutching their little signs that say it’s all about the kids, they’re abandoning their classrooms, lying to their supervisors, saying they were sick, and going off to protest in defense of perquisites, which if the governor cuts them as much as he plans to do, would still leave them better off than their private sector counterparts.”

In 1962, President Kennedy lifted, by executive order, the federal ban on government unions (the ban of which had been long standing exactly because of how nefarious allowing such unionization is to the political process itself, more on this below).  This was not because of poor working conditions for government workers (which had been the case when unions first formed in the private sector).  As Jonah Goldberg points out, “civil service regulations and similar laws had guaranteed good working conditions for generations.”

The argument for public unionization wasn’t moral, economic or intellectual. It was rankly political (ed note: to shore up the Democratic Party, which traditionally  benefited from Union support)….The plan worked. Public union membership skyrocketed and government union support for the party of government skyrocketed with it. From 1989 to 2004, AFSCME — the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees — gave nearly $40 million to candidates in federal elections, with 98.5% going to Democrats, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Why would local government unions give so much in federal elections? Because government workers have an inherent interest in boosting the amount of federal tax dollars their local governments get. Put simply, people in the government business support the party of government.

Government unions negotiate with politicians over taxpayer money, putting the public interest at odds with union interests and, as we’ve seen in states such as California and Wisconsin, exploding the cost of government. The labor-politician negotiations can’t be fair when the unions can put so much money into campaign spending. Victor Gotbaum, a leader in the New York City chapter of AFSCME, summed up the problem in 1975 when he boasted, “We have the ability, in a sense, to elect our own boss.”

Even the icon of leftism, FDR, was against public sector unionization, saying “the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service.”   As Goldberg states, and FDR realized, “public sector unionization creates a dysfunctional system where for some, growing government becomes its own reward.”  So yes, for the financial sake of our country, but also for the sake of an unbiased government, Gov. Walker needs to win this battle.

This is not a working class versus the rich situation.   I think one would be hard pressed to call unionized government employees with better salary and benefits than their counterparts in the private sector, without any of the job insecurity or actual need to perform to keep your job, as a group down and out needing protection.  In reality, we the taxpayer are the one’s that need the protection against this evil axis of teachers unions and governments who extort from us in order to enrich themselves.  It is time to elect a President who will reverse Kennedy’s 40 year old mistake.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

Obama’s 2012 Budget, Spend and Tax

Worth reading as a whole, Americans for Tax Reform produced an analysis of Obama’s just released budget.

President Obama released his budget this morning.  Rather than focusing on Washington’s over-spending problem, the budget calls for higher taxes on families and small businesses to pay for even more government spending.  Under the Obama budget, tax revenues will grow from 14.4% of GDP in 2011 to 20% of GDP in 2021.  By comparison, the historical average is only 18% of GDP.

Tax hike lowlights include:

• Raising the top marginal income tax rate (at which a majority of small business profits face taxation) from 35% to 39.6%.  This is a $709 billion/10 year tax hike
• Raising the capital gains and dividends rate from 15% to 20%
• Raising the death tax rate from 35% to 45% and lowering the death tax exemption amount from $5 million ($10 million for couples) to $3.5 million.  This is a $98 billion/ten year tax hike
• Capping the value of itemized deductions at the 28% bracket rate.  This will effectively cut tax deductions for mortgage interest, charitable contributions, property taxes, state and local income or sales taxes, out-of-pocket medical expenses, and unreimbursed employee business expenses.  A new means-tested phaseout of itemized deductions limits them even more.  This is a $321 billion/ten year tax hike
• New bank taxes totaling $33 billion over ten years
• New international corporate tax hikes totaling $129 billion over ten years
• New life insurance company taxes totaling $14 billion over ten years
• Massive new taxes on energy, including LIFO repeal, Superfund, domestic energy manufacturing, and many others totaling $120 billion over ten years
• Increasing unemployment payroll taxes by $15 billion over ten years
• Taxing management capital gains in an investment partnership (“carried interest”) as ordinary income.  This is a tax hike of $15 billion over ten years
• A giveaway to the trial lawyers—not letting companies deduct the cost of punitive damages from a lawsuit settlement.  This is a tax hike of $300 million over ten years
• Increasing tax penalties, information reporting, and IRS information sharing.  This is a ten-year tax hike of $20 billion.

Add it all together, and this budget is a ten-year, $1.5 trillion tax hike over present law. That’s $1.5 trillion taken out of the economy and spent on government instead of being used to create jobs.

The “tax relief” in the budget is mostly just an extension of present law, and also some refundable credit outlay spending in the tax code.  There is virtually no new tax relief relative to present law in the President’s budget.

Obama proudly claims his budget will include deficit reductions of $1 trillion over ten years.   As one would expect, this is 1) paltry, not even close to making a dent in the debt we are in (his own deficit commission recommended reducing the deficit $4 trillion dollars over the next ten years to avoid financial catastrophe); and 2) even this paltry figure is attained by smoke and mirrors.   As Red State points out, team Obama inflates projected spending over the next 10 years then increase spending at a lower rate than the baseline, thereby creating a “cut”, even though spending will be 50% higher at the end of those years.

Once again, it is clear that Obama does not get the mood of the country.  That being government is too big and needs to be cut.  His budget completely ignores this, though you will, in typical Obama fashion, hear him talk as if he is the greatest cutter of the deficit in the history of the world.   As I always used to say about Obama, watch what he does, not what he says.  This budget ensures that the Tea Party will grow in power and influence.  Just look at these lowlights at The Corner, you will be angry.

The following chart from Powerline should help eliminate any possibility of you being fooled by Obama’s rhetoric.

Obama’s idea of cutting government spending is to to hold things reasonably steady for the next year or so, to get through the next election, and then let the growth explode again (these numbers are from his own budget).   I hate to quote Andrew Sullivan, who is about as wacko left as one can get these days, but even he had the following to say:

The core challenge of this time is not the cost of discretionary spending. Obama knows this; everyone knows this. The crisis is the cost of future entitlements and defense, about which Obama proposes nothing…..Like his State of the Union, this budget is good short term politics but such a massive pile of fiscal bullshit it makes it perfectly clear that Obama is kicking this vital issue down the road….To all those under 30 who worked so hard to get this man elected, know this: he just screwed you over. He thinks you’re fools.

Obama’s plans lead to $26.3 trillion in new debt alone over the next decade. Nowhere in the ten year plan is there a single year where the government spends less than it takes in.  Hot Air sums it up nicely, “On the seminal issue of his time, the long-term fiscal sustainability of the United States, this guy has completely abdicated.”

Powerline sums up the situation with:

Obama’s game is transparent, isn’t it? He is playing a game of chicken. He puts forward a series of proposals that he knows are more or less insane; but he also believes that Republicans will come to his rescue. They, not being wholly irresponsible, will come up with plans to reform entitlements–like, for example, the Ryan Roadmap. Ultimately, some combination of those plans will be implemented because the alternative is the collapse, not just of the government of the United States, but of the country itself. But Obama thinks the GOP’s reforms will be unpopular, and he will be able to demagogue them, thus having his cake and eating it too. Is that leadership? Of course not. But it is the very essence of Barack Obama.

Yuval Levin remarks that

This is, above all, an appalling failure of leadership. When we look back on this period a decade or two from now, I think we’ll identify this moment — the president’s decision about how to approach the budget battle of 2012 — as the last real opportunity we had for a gradual bipartisan course correction. That option now seems closed off, and it is up to Republicans to decide if the alternative is to march off the fiscal cliff in order to avoid political risks or to propose a gradual course correction to voters and make the case for why it is sensible, responsible, and essential.

Obama is a train wreck.  He is literally destroying the economic foundations of the country.  It is unbelievable to me that people ignore facts, ignore what he does, and fall prey to his rhetoric.   It is unfortunate that we have to depend on Republicans to solve this problem.   First of all, they only hold power in the house so are limited in what they can do.  Second, most of the establishment Republicans are just about as bad at spending as the Democrats.  The drastic reformation needed will only occur with 2012 extending on 2010, with a huge influx of people like Marco Rubio and Rand Paul (people who actually get it) replacing the old guard.  It cannot come soon enough.