Woman who died at the hands of abortionist sought abortion because her child had “fetal abnormalities”

Not sure what those abnormalities were, knowing that could shed a lot of light on this case. But what we do know is this. This young woman died of a botched abortion. She died because she sought out an abortion from a man Bob Belvedere calls the Germantown Butcher. God help us!

Stacy McCain has more

Oh, this is heartbreaking: Jill Stanek reports that the woman who died at Dr. LeRoy Carhart’s Maryland clinic was a 29-year-old kindergarten teacher. Jennifer McKenna Morbelli of New Rochelle, N.Y., taught at Church Street Elementary in White Plains. She was married, and this was a wanted pregnancy — she had already named her daughter Madison Leigh — but about two weeks ago, “Jennifer learned her daughter suffered from fetal anomalies.”

Need more heartbreaking cruelty? Morbelli’s obituary states:

A Funeral Mass will be celebrated on Wednesday 10am at Holy Name of Jesus in New Rochelle.

Yes — she was Catholic.

New York Times to stop ignoring this story in 3, 2, 1 . . .

Stacy mentions, in the comments on his blog, that the baby was diagnosed with a disorder that causes seizures. That is all I know about that, but I would like to know what the abnormalities were.

 

 

Team Obama: Perpetual Campaign Mode!

Doug Powers has a short post up about this and has some fun with the Obama administration perpetual campaign

The campaign never ends.

Be on the lookout for subsequent launches of initiatives such as “Organizing for Organizing” and “Don’t Even Think About Stopping Organizing.”

The propaganda continues unabated folks.

 

Your Marxist Moron of the Day is…..

Comes to us Via Newsbusters

Eduardo Porter’s “Economic Scene” column for Wednesday’s New York Times Business Day was similarly titled: “Health Care And Profits, A Poor Mix.”

Porter, who previously covered economics as a reporter for the paper, showed his mistrust of the market to provide vital services like adequate health care and pensions, advancing his left-wing argument via a narrow 30-year-old study.

Thirty years ago, Bonnie Svarstad and Chester Bond of the School of Pharmacy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison discovered an interesting pattern in the use of sedatives at nursing homes in the south of the state.

Patients entering church-affiliated nonprofit homes were prescribed drugs roughly as often as those entering profit-making “proprietary” institutions. But patients in proprietary homes received, on average, more than four times the dose of patients at nonprofits.

Writing about his colleagues’ research in his 1988 book “The Nonprofit Economy,” the economist Burton Weisbrod provided a straightforward explanation: “differences in the pursuit of profit.” Sedatives are cheap, Mr. Weisbrod noted. “Less expensive than, say, giving special attention to more active patients who need to be kept busy.”

This behavior was hardly surprising. Hospitals run for profit are also less likely than nonprofit and government-run institutions to offer services like home health care and psychiatric emergency care, which are not as profitable as open-heart surgery.

….

These profit-maximizing tactics point to a troubling conflict of interest that goes beyond the private delivery of health care. They raise a broader, more important question: How much should we rely on the private sector to satisfy broad social needs?

Go read the rest, but the main point here, to me is that Porter has no understanding of free markets, or reality. Let me explain Mr. Porter. If those insurance companies did not make any profit, they would go OUT OF BUSINESS! Then, they could insure NO ONE! How would that help sir? Of course, if we had YOUR Utopian version of health care. The government would run health care, and then when they run out of money, who could get health care? How about all the medicines that help Americans Mr. Porter? Guess what THOSE drug companies have to make profits too. See without making MORE money than they spend, companies do not prosper. They go belly up, and who does that help again Mr. Porter? 

 

Excuse me, but what exactly DID Brent Musburger say that was so wrong?

Here is what Brent said, that, it seems, ESPN felt they had to apologize for.

Sorry I am confused here. Is complimenting someone’s looks now bad? Calling a girl who is lovely, lovely is bad? Sexist? What? Good grief! What has become of us? Are we all so sensitive and given to over reaction? Well, maybe many of us are, but me I say screw that! If calling a beautiful woman beautiful offends you, that is a YOU problem! Get over yourself! Because this woman is beautiful, lovely, hot, desirable, sexy, gorgeous, attractive, and there is not one damn thing wrong with noticing those facts!

UPDATED! Noted Tide fan stands up for Brent!

Why all the outrage? She is indeed Miss Alabama and, the last time I checked, that was what is known as a “beauty pageant.”

While Musberger’s comments may have been a bit gushy, it wasn’t as if he said anything salacious, rude or inappropriate. This involves something I’ve discussed before: Beauty is an objective fact.

Beauty exists independent of our recognition of it. However, in our sexualized “hook-up” culture, male acknowledgement of beauty is presumed to convey sexual interest, a de facto proposition. So when Brett Musberger says Katherine Webb is a “lovely lady” — which she most certainly is — many people hear that as, “I’d hit it.”

Feminism and the concern about workplace discrimination have imposed a new sort of puritanism, a kind of neo-Victorian repression in which even an entirely innocent comment can be portrayed as harassment, as an attempt to “hit on” someone. If all acknowledgements of beauty are viewed as expressions of sexual interest (“drooling,” as some have characterized Musberger’s comments), then a sort of taboo becomes embeded in our customs and habits, and thus has radical feminism triumphed by shaming people into silence. The question is, why?

Rush Limbaugh’s Undeniable Truth #24: “Feminism was established so as to permit unattractive women easier access to the mainstream.”

ESPN actually apologized for Brent Musberger’s comments, as if he were the one sending his digits to A.J. McCarron’s girlfriend. We don’t even know if Webb or McCarron were offended.

Rather — and this is what tells you that a powerful taboo is involved — critical thought is immediately suspended and everyone simply reactsaccording to a culturally normative script, with people saying things they know they’re supposed to say, and everyone is intimidated by fear of being attacked if they ask, “Why all this anger? What exactly did Brent Musberger say that deserves such a firestorm? Why does this ‘controversy’ require an article in the New York Times?”

“It’s extraordinarily inappropriate to focus on an individual’s looks,” said Sue Carter, a professor of journalism at Michigan State. “In this instance, the appearance of the quarterback’s girlfriend had no bearing on the outcome of the game. It’s a major personal violation, and it’s so retrograde that it’s embarrassing. I think there’s a generational issue, but it’s incumbent on people practicing in these eras to keep up and this is not a norm.”

MIchelle Malkin: The Left fears free thinking minorities

BINGO! The Left wants minorities to know their place!

Michelle Malkin was on with Megyn Kelly today to discuss the response of the New York Times and academic liberal Adolph L. Reed Jr., to the appointment of Tim Scott in the Senate to replace Jim DeMint, calling Scott a ‘cynical token’. Michelle Malkin points out that this is born out of the idea that minorities should be Democrats which is prominent in the “festering cesspools of academia” and it leads them to “denigrate, mock and insult minority conservatives.”

But she asks “who is doing the tokenizing here?” because it’s the left who preaches celebrating diversity, celebration that Malkin says is always just “skin deep.” She says that minority conservatives are really a threat to the left because “there is nothing more dangerous to liberals than the liberated mind of a minority conservative.”

This is part of the Left’s war on intellectual diversity, the only diversity that really matters frankly, folks. They want every minority to be brainwashed into the group think of identity politics.

 

I guess the Left would argue we need “evil control”

Since the Left deludes themselves into believing that a law will make violent criminals, of nut cases behave, why don’t they just demand a new bill banning evil? Which is exactly what caused the school shooting Friday, evil! Stacy McCain makes a great point

Meanwhile, the New York Times has a story about the shooter’s first victim, his mother. Something that crosses my mind: You start your murder spree by shooting your own mother in the face, and end it by killing yourself — why kill all 26 innocent women and children in between?

Evil.

Adam Lanza wasn’t “autistic” or suffering from an “illness.” He was evil.

 

 

The most galling thing about David Brooks?

Hmmm, tough one, there is his incredible ability to turn out bad columns on a regular basis. His willingness to bend over backwards to be the Republican the Left likes A.K.A. the Useful Idiot. Then there is his habit of bashing Conservatives that actually stand for something while Brooks stands for nothing. Smitty has a post up mocking Brooks, and there is one sentence from Brooks latest NY Times snoozer that struck a nerve.

Two things are constant, and there are three things rivaling the sunrise for invariance: death, taxes, and the codpiece-like dumbness of David Brooks:

Over the past month, the Republican Party has changed far more than I expected. First, the people at the ideological extremes of the party have begun to self-ghettoize. The Tea Party movement attracted many people who are drawn to black and white certainties and lock-step unity. People like that have a tendency to migrate from mainstream politics, which is inevitably messy and impure, to ever more marginal oases of purity.
Jim DeMint, for example, is leaving the Senate to go lead the Heritage Foundation. He is leaving the center of the action, where immigration, tax and other reforms will be crafted, for a political advocacy organization known more for ideological purity and fund-raising prowess than for creativity, curiosity or intellectual innovation.

Note that last highlighted portion. Especially the criticism of the Heritage Foundation. Brooks is mocking a group that actually HAS an ideological compass? Brooks, who has no ideological balls whatsoever? What we have is a little man with a little brain, a man who has done nothing of real note, a man who stands for whatever he thinks will ingratiate him to Liberals. And this man is mocking men and women who actually believe in fighting for their principles (which Brooks dismisses as ideological purity)? Damn that makes me angry! What bugs me most here is that it was ideological purity that gave birth to this nation. Our Founders were not like Brooks, they knew right from wrong, they knew what they stood for, and they risked their very lives to give birth to this nation. Of course, David Brooks would never take a stand, lest he not get invited to Beltway cocktail parties. Call me an ideological purist, but I resent men of honor being dismissed by walk-behinders like Brooks!

 

Figures, NY Slimes bashes Texas for, wait for it, creating jobs!

Oh my Goodness! How dare Texas Governor Rick Perry create a climate friendly to businesses. That is the basic message in this screed from the NY Times. Here is the key part to me. Note the business vs people nonsense the Times tries to play up.

Under Mr. Perry, Texas gives out more of the incentives than any other state, around $19 billion a year, an examination by The New York Times has found. Texas justifies its largess by pointing out that it is home to half of all the private sector jobs created over the last decade nationwide. As the invitation to the fund-raiser boasted: “Texas leads the nation in job creation.”

Yet the raw numbers mask a more complicated reality behind the flood of incentives, the examination shows, and raise questions about who benefits more, the businesses or the people of Texas.

Along with the huge job growth, the state has the third-highest proportion of hourly jobs paying at or below minimum wage. And despite its low level of unemployment, Texas has the 11th-highest poverty rate among states.

“While economic development is the mantra of most officials, there’s a question of when does economic development end and corporate welfare begin,” said Dale Craymer, the president of the Texas Taxpayers and Research Association, a group supported by business that favors incentives programs.

Those EVIL companies! Coming to Texas, employing thousands of people! How dare they? Those people would be better off depending on the government than their own labor! One might imagine the author of this piece might understand that companies coming in, hiring Texans, Texans who then buy goods and services helps Texas. But sadly, no.  I suppose California is more the model that the Times would support? You know a state flat broke, taxing the Hell out of its residents, driving businesses and jobs away with high taxes and regulations. But I guess that is OK because California is still spending money it does not have right? That is the Liberal way.

By the way, as you read the article, you find a common theme, that Texas is robing from schools to pay these businesses to come here. Here are the fact about what the State is spending in this fiscal year 34% of spending is on education. More than a third. California? They spend 24 % Note, this includes state and local spending. The state of Texas spends 24 % of its spending on education, California 17%

We might also note that the unemployment rate in Texas is, as of October this year 6.6%. California? 10.1%. And as long as we are talking about education spending, we must take careful notice that Liberals ALWAYS equate more spending with better education. Yet, in this country, we spend more, and more, and more, and get less and less, and less for our money spent. The Dallas Morning News did a story in January of last year on what Texas spent on education per student for fiscal year 2009-2010. Forget the rhetoric, and the Liberal gnashing of teeth, note the money PER student spent. 

Texas has dropped sharply below the national average in per-pupil spending over the past decade, a new comparison shows, and could plummet further as lawmakers consider changes that would deprive schools of up to $5 billion a year.

The comparison by the National Education Association, a teachers group — based on figures furnished by state education agencies — indicated that in the 2009-10 school year, Texas spent $9,227 per student, a figure that’s $1,359 below the national average.

That places Texas 37th in spending among the states and the District of Columbia. Ten years ago, Texas ranked 25th and was $281 below the national average.

Over $9,000 PER student? And this is not enough? 

Chris Wysocki: Why do Liberals hate science?

We know the Left loves to accuse Conservatives of denying science, it is untrue, but when did a Liberal ever let the truth stop them. Anyway, Over at Wyblog, Chris looks at the science behind the “better” greener light bulbs

Howard Brandston founded the Lighting Research Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He’s probably the world’s foremost authority on the science of electric light.

And what does Professor Brandston’s science tell us? Incandescent bulbs are superior to compact fluorescents in every way.

Renowned lighting designer Howard Brandston, a retired Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute adjunct professor associated with RPI’s Lighting Research Center, is leading a crusade to save the incandescent light bulb.

From his farmhouse in the Columbia County hamlet of Hollowville, Brandston is almost singlehandedly trying to preserve Thomas Edison’s iconic invention so it is not relegated to the dustbin of history.

Brandston calls it a misguided energy conservation effort by the federal government to phase out incandescent light bulbs and replace them with compact fluorescent lamps, known as CFLs.

He said CFLs are far more expensive, their energy savings is insignificant and they pose potential health and environmental problems because they contain mercury, a toxic heavy metal.

“The New York Times called me the Paul Revere of this cause, but I still feel like Don Quixote,” Brandston said. He has launched a Save the Bulb campaign on his website, testified against CFLs before the U.S. Energy Committee last year and encourages consumers to join the fight by writing letters to members of Congress and hoarding incandescent light bulbs.

“Edison created a time-tested light bulb that is still the best option for its price,” Brandston said. “Consumer choice is an all-American right. The government has created a light bulb cartel, has crammed the CFL down our throats and the citizens have no antitrust protection.”

Here comes the science.

Ever the professor, Brandston offered an experiment for a reporter and photographer set up in his garage that involved diagnostic testing equipment, including a spectrometer hooked up to a laptop computer. The tests confirmed that the light spectrum of the incandescent light bulb was full and complete and resembled natural daylight. By comparison, the thin, gap-filled light spectrum of the CFL did not come close to natural daylight.

“That’s a 50-cent bulb, an Edison bulb, and it’s beautiful,” Brandston said of the incandescent. “Now, look at the CFL. It costs nearly 10 times as much and it’s incomplete, dull and flat.”

All the government has done with their banishment of the evil incandescent bulbs is to prove that they are the dim bulbs. The fact is, and this is one the Left will never acknowledge, is that the market will do a better job deciding than any government mandate. The fact is the American people are not fools, Congress on the other hand…….

Before I go watch football, here is some much needed wisdom from Dennis Prager

Dennis Pragr is a wise man, and a national treasure. Here he sums up what I call the moral retardation that infects the Left

This war is as morally clear as wars get. Hamas is a terrorist organization dedicated to annihilating the Jewish state. It runs a theocratic totalitarian state in Gaza, with no individual liberty, and no freedom of speech or press. In a nutshell, Hamas is a violent, fascistic organization.

Israel, meanwhile, is one the world’s most humane states — not to mention a democracy that is so tolerant that Arab members of its parliament are free to express admiration for Hamas.

Over the past decade, Hamas had launched thousands of rockets into Israel with one aim: to kill and maim as many Israeli citizens as possible — Israelis at work, at play, asleep in their homes, in their cars. Finally, Israel responded by killing Ahmed al-Jabari, the chief organizer of Hamas’s violence — the Hamas “military commander” as he was known among Palestinians.

The next day, three more Israelis were killed by rockets.

Then Hamas targeted Tel Aviv, Israel’s most densely populated region, and Israel shelled Hamas rocket-launching sites.

In other words, an evil entity made war on a peaceful, decent entity, and the latter responded.

How has the New York Times reported this?

On Friday, on its front page, the Times featured two three-column-wide photos. The top one was of Gaza Muslim mourners alongside the dead body of al-Jabari. The photo below was of Israeli Jews mourning alongside the dead body of Mira Scharf, a 27-year-old mother of three.

Go read it all

 

What a shocker! Rachel Maddow forgets what started current Israel/Hama war

Via News Busters!

MADDOW (after referring to President Obama’s visit to Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar):  And of course the whole trip to Asia comes in the midst of a very scary flareup between Israel and Gaza. Now, we do not know exactly what started this most recent round of fighting, but we do know that an Israeli air strike killed the top commander of Hamas in Gaza on Wednesday. And we know then that that was followed by rocket attacks aimed at southern Israel and then Tel Aviv and then today, Jerusalem. Israel has been pounding Gaza with air strikes. The attacks appeared today to be rapidly escalating, including signs that Israel is preparing for a ground incursion into Gaza. The New York Times tonight citing reports of Israeli tanks massing on the border with Gaza.

Gee, if only Israel hadn’t inexplicably killed that poor misunderstood Hamas commander. Conspicuously absent from Maddow’s narrative is any mention of Israel’s rationale for the attack — Hamas targeting Israel with hundreds of rocket attacks from Gaza, as they’ve been doing every year for the last decade. Indiscriminate savagery that does not distinguish between military and civilian targets, in marked contrast to Israel’s response, which was to kill one of Hamas’s leading terrorists.

Remember this, Maddow is NOT stupid, she knows as well as anyone about those rockets fired at Israel necessitated Israel’s defending itself. She KNOWS! Yet, she chooses to spread terrorist propaganda? What would that make Maddow?

 

Hurricane Sandy set to pound Northeast, Nate Silver’s grip, on reality hardest hit

Team Obama is desperate, the sycophants are also desperate, and they are willing to cling to any port in a storm, even if that port IS an actual storm. Enter Nate Silver, who, again, seems to fellating Obama artificially inflating Obama’s chances of winning next Tuesday. Stacy McCain, who is in Ohio, has a lengthy report on the Romney campaign’s ground game there in the Buckeye State. Read that for sure, but note the very end of that post

UPDATE V: Thanks to Finrod in the comments for the news that Rasmussen’s latest Ohio poll has Romney 50, Obama 48.

Of course, Nate Silver has raised Obama’s re-election chances to 74.6%, because . . . Objectivity!

Nate, Nate , Nate.

What does a blogger have to do to get called a Nate Silver Truther anyway?

The Other McCain has just been called that, by some douche at Alternet, which I never read because no one should have to

We are looking at a very tight race right now, with a virtual tie in national polling. But we don’t elect presidents by popular vote, and Obama has enjoyed a lead in the race to get 270 votes in the Electoral College every single day of this campaign – Romney has never led in any of the Electoral College projections.

But in recent days, the Romney-Ryan campaign has claimed that it’s moving ahead. As Jonathan Chait noted, “This is a bluff. Romney is carefully attempting to project an atmosphere of momentum, in the hopes of winning positive media coverage and, thus, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.” Despite zero evidence that Romney has made any gains since receiving a healthy bounce from the first debate, reporters appear to be buying it, with a raft of lazy stories about Mitt Romney’s supposed “momentum.”

Well, the thing is, Joshua, Romney has been gaining in the swing states, he does have the momentum, that is pretty clear. The question is why are you so distressed? Maybe tour status as an Obama pom-pom Girl is being threatened? Whatever the case, Joshua decides to write this about Stacy, with no “E” Joshua, McCain

Robert Stacey McCain, a notably dense right-wing blogger who nonetheless holds some influence in conservative circles, framed it like this: “Nate Silver continues to lead the Democrat Graveyard Whistling Choir, raising Obama to a 70.3% likelihood of victory based on . . . what? I dunno. I’m not an expert with a New York Times column or anything, much less a Magical Forecasting Model™ that can divine future events with the precise scientific exactitude of 1/10 of one percent.”

Now Joshua, Mr. McCain is more than capable of defending himself from you and your pom-poms. My problem is not even that you are a pompous ass, who, like most pompous asses, is about half as smart as you think you are. My issue is not that you are a Left-Wing nutcase who has partaken heavily on the Obama flavored Kool-Aid. My issue, rather, is that you could at least have bothered to note that I, too, took Nate Silver to the woodshed for his unrealistic “predictions”. See, Joshua, I have an ego, and it is greatly pleased when a Leftist like you, attacks me. It reaffirms my belief that I am right on the issues. It is a badge of honor to be labelled by an Obambot like you.

And, by the way, I do not have a model for predicting, but, when I look at poll after poll showing Romney winning independents, and erasing gender gaps, and increased excitement among Republican voters and gaining, or leading in several key states, states that DO count in the Electoral College, well……let’s just say I put more stock in those than in a guy who uses outdated polls, as a commenter at The Other McCain noted

Back to the question, then: What the f–k is Nate Silver talking about? A commenter on yesterday’s post suggested it’s non-random ”weighting”:

I found out everything I needed to know about Silver’s “analysis” when I learned that he was overweighting a week-old PPP poll that showed Obama well ahead and underweighting a fresh poll *by the same pollster* that had Obama’s lead almost gone in his “model.” The adjustments were not small. So he was purposefully and consciously giving a large amount of additional weight to old data compared to new data despite the source of both being the same.
This statistical legerdemain is justified by an ipse dixit assertion that PPP’s Dem lean has diminished over the cycle (a change he would have us believe has significant, observable effects over a 7-day period). Then there’s the grotesquely Obama-positive Marist poll to which he gave a huge statistical bump compared to a slew of more recent data for almost two weeks. That poll had a D+11 sample–over twice Obama’s 2008 ID edge and therefore something no rational poll observer could possibly argue with a straight face was likely to be valid. Nate loved it, though, giving it massively outsized influence over his overall results long after it was stale data.

See what you could know Joshua, if you not so much “smarter” than those “ignorant” right wing bloggers!

Romney still has momentum, Nate Silver hardest hit

The first part of that headline is clearly the most pertinent, Romney is doing better and better, and you can feel the desperation in Team Obama’s tactics. 

If you are wondering just who Nate Silver is, don’t worry, not many folks know who he is. Sure, I know, but I know people like Silver so you do not have to, and The Other McCain certainly knows Silver, and his whistling in the graveyard act

Excuse me for my continued attention to Nate’s graveyard-whistling, but no matter how clear the evidence of a pro-Romney trend, the Grand Swami at the New York Times won’t stop. He’s now raised the likelihood of Obama’s re-election to 71.0%. (The one-tenth of a percentage point being necessary to the pretense of scientific exactitude.)

There is greater than a 71% chance that Nate Silver has an Obama poster above his bed

Is Nate Silver hustling an insider-trading scam with InTrade? Or is he merely acting as an Obama pompom girl? Either way, the poll-watcher at the nation’s most influential newspaper cannot be unaware of how his coverage functions to shape elite opinion, which is in turn reflected in other media coverage that then influences mass opinion, and believing that Nate Silver is acting as an honest neutral broker in this transaction requires a faith in human goodness that I lack.

Is it over for Obama?

If I was a betting man, then I would wager yes. Frankly there really is no viable reason to believe that Obama will triumph in two weeks. Every indicator points to a Romney romp frankly. Yet, some still cling to “hope” RS McCain, like me, is not an expert with a New York Times column, yet still…

Nate Silver continues to lead the Democrat Graveyard Whistling Choir, raising Obama to a 70.3% likelihood of victory based on . . . what?

I dunno. I’m not an expert with a New York Times column or anything, much less a Magical Forecasting Model™ that can divine future events with the precise scientific exactitude of 1/10 of one percent.

This morning, Silver told us that Ohio might be a crucial battleground, which might be news to a victim who just escaped from an underground rape-dungeon after nine months of being held hostage and tortured by a sociopathic sex offender. But to everyone else, it’s not news at all.

My apologies for the bizarre word-imagery. Debate-night aftermath, a shortage of sleep and other psychological stress sometimes have this effect on my prose. But don’t worry. After 24 debates in 16 months, I’m used to it by now. And speaking of bizarre word-imagery, Ace of Spades:

“It’s going to be a grim affair, grim and horrible and just sad, but there’ll be lots of alcohol.”

That’s in reaction to unmistakable evidence of doom and gloom inObama’s increasingly desperate fundraising e-mails. The plural of “anecdote” is data, as they say, and you don’t need a Magical Forecasting Model™ to see the dots in this emerging gestalt pattern, including the Gloria Allred “October surprise” gambit. Never heard a peep about this until after Obama got his ass kicked in the first debate, did ya?

Lots more at the link. We keep hearing rumors that Team Obama is examining ways to win that do not include Ohio, or that they have given up on North Carolina, maybe Virginia, and Colorado, we see the polls, we can sense the momentum, and again, I see no way Obama wins.

 

Just in case you forgot how intellectually bankrupt Maureen Dowd is……

 

…………………here is a reminder

Just Think No — Maureen Dowd, NYT

. . .Other Republicans are trying to cover up their true identity to get elected. Even as party leaders attempted to lock the crazy uncle in the attic in Missouri, they were doing their own crazy thing down in Tampa, Fla., by reiterating language in their platform calling for a no-exceptions Constitutional amendment outlawing abortion, even in cases of rape, incest and threat to the life of the mother.

Paul Ryan, who teamed up with Akin in the House to sponsor harsh anti-abortion bills, may look young and hip and new generation, with his iPod full of heavy metal jams and his cute kids. But he’s just a fresh face on a Taliban creed — the evermore antediluvian, anti-women, anti-immigrant, anti-gay conservative core. Amiable in khakis and polo shirts, Ryan is the perfect modern leader to rally medieval Republicans who believe that Adam and Eve cavorted with dinosaurs.

Egads, is the Left ever going to stop beating that dead horse? Well, of course they are, they have no ideas, well none that work any way, so, it is fear and smear, race baiting, gender baiting, and so on and so on.

 

Newsweek prints something that actually makes sense, Paul Krugman contracts Offendeditis!

 

Ed posted about the Newsweek “Hit the Road Barack” cover earlier today. Well, it seems that Newsweek has caused Paul Krugman to go off the deep end, as H/T I’m 41

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman took to his blog Sunday excoriating the article in a piece he called “Unethical Commentary, Newsweek Edition“:

There are multiple errors and misrepresentations in Niall Ferguson’s cover story in Newsweek — I guess they don’t do fact-checking — but this is the one that jumped out at me. Ferguson says:

The president pledged that health-care reform would not add a cent to the deficit. But the CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation now estimate that the insurance-coverage provisions of the ACA will have a net cost of close to $1.2 trillion over the 2012–22 period.

Readers are no doubt meant to interpret this as saying that CBO found that the Act will increase the deficit. But anyone who actually read, or even skimmed, the CBO report (pdf) knows that it found that the ACA would reduce, not increase, the deficit — because the insurance subsidies were fully paid for.

Nice try Krugman, but Noel Sheppard points out that, you LIED!

Please notice that the CBO report Krugman linked to is from March 30, 2011.

What he failed to inform his readers is the CBO revised these numbers in a March 13, 2012, report finding “the insurance coverage provisions of the ACA will have a net cost of just under $1.1 trillion over the 2012–2021 period.”

The new numbers predict that Obamacare will explode the deficit by $1,083 billion.

 

Same old media double standards, Mitt is evil for using tax shelters, Obama, not so much

Donald Douglas has a tremendous post up concerning how the media is covering the use of tax shelters by the two men vying for the presidency

Exhibit A this afternoon is the lead editorial at today’s New York Times, “Mr. Romney’s Financial Black Hole” via Memeorandum. Folks can read it all at the link. The editors really go off on Romney, attacking him for the alleged moral transgression of not releasing even more tax returns, and especially for his financial portfolio, which includes a number of offshore investments designed to reduce tax liability (a tax strategy that any good tax adviser would recommend). But for all the editorial’s outrage and bluster (which zeros in on Romney’s lingering ties to Bain), here’s the key passage:

Firms like Bain park money in the Caymans because the islands have no taxes on capital gains, profits or income for foreigners. But just because it’s legal doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do.

OK, if that is how they feel, fine. I disagree. I would ask why the United States does not follow the example of the Cayman Islands. Or, if the Times is so upset over these “loopholes” then why not take Obama to task for not trying to close them? But then again, I do not have an agenda like the Times does. I would love to see our tax laws simplified greatly. Flatten, and lower the rates, end the punitive rates that tax some Americans at a higher rate than others, and allow many Americans to pay nothing. End most of the deductions too. But until that happens, I will not blame anyone for using the deductions and loopholes as best they can, and that includes Romney and Obama, who BOTH use shelters!

President Obama and his wife, Michele, gave a total of $48,000 in tax-free gifts to their daughters, according to tax records made public on Friday.

The president and his wife separately gave each daughter a $12,000 gift under a section of the federal tax code that exempts such donations from federal taxes.

There is nothing illegal about the president’s taking advantage of this tax shelter, but it does raise eyebrows given that he has lamented the myriad tax exemptions used by the wealthy—“millionaires and billionaires” like himself—to pay less in taxes. He hasyet to propose a comprehensive plan to reform the byzantine tax code.

The Obama’s tax return indicates that the gifts, likely for their daughter’s college educations, began in 2007, when the maximum exemptible amount was $24,000 per couple. The maximum exemption has since increased to $26,000 per couple.

The Obamas paid a total federal tax rate of 20.5 percent on a gross adjusted income $789,674, which would typically fall within the top federal rate of 35 percent. According to an analysis of the president’s tax return, he may have paid a lower rate than his secretary despite making more than eight times as much money as she did.

Now, I would say here that 20.5% is TOO MUCH for any American, or any corporation to pay in income taxes! Do you hear that Liberals? I, and ALL Conservatives want EVERYONE that pays income tax to pay LESS! Liberals call this greedy. As if wanting all Americans to benefit from their hard work is greedy. Liberals, of course, are the truly greedy ones, seeking to get more and more of everyone else’s money.  As I said before, gut the exemptions and lower and flatten tax rates! Making the tax codes simpler, note not “fairer” as Democrats always call for. We all know that Democrats use the word fair to defend the Marxist vision of spreading the wealth around. 

An added benefit to simplifying the tax codes would be that the IRS could be shrunk. If you eliminate most of the ways for people to cheat on their taxes, you lessen the need for much of the spending on running the IRS. And, that, of course is the real issue here. It is not a lack of revenues that has America in a hole, it is the spending that far outpaces the inflow of revenues. Again, the Times might point this out, if they did not have re-electing Obama, rather than helping America to fiscal sanity, as their number one priority.

So, what can the government make you buy, or pay a tax, er penalty now?

That was the very first question in my mind when I heard about the SCOTUS ruling. J.E. Dyer, breaks the bad news to us.

1.  Congress can force you to buy an electric car.

2.  Congress can force you to buy solar panels.

3.  Congress can force you to buy and install a remote-control thermostat for your home.

4.  Congress can force you to buy internet service.

5.  Congress can force you to buy particular kinds of food.

6.  Congress can force you to buy contraceptives for yourself.

7.  Congress can force you to buy biofuels, even if you don’t have any use for them.

8.  Congress can force you to donate to political causes and “charities.”

9.  Congress can force you to pay union dues.

10. Congress can force you to buy the New York Times.

11. Congress can force you to buy “green travel” packages.

12. Congress can force you to buy a 3-bedroom, 2-bath townhome with a 1-car parking spot for your electric car.

Those are a few to ruminate on, But please, go read the whole thing.

Awwww, Liberty makes Transportation Secretary LaHood a sad clown

Via HotAir 

I love Red China! None of that freedom stuff to get in the way

It’s bad enough to have a columnist at one of America’s most prominent newspapers regularly singing the praises of Chinese authoritarianism.  It’s worse when high-ranking members of the American government do it.  Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood griped at the Aspen Ideas Festival about having to deal with political opposition, and yearned for the ease in which Beijing could impose solutions without having to deal with dissent:

Echoing the laments of pundits like Thomas Friedman of the New York Times, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood argued Saturday that China outpaces the United States in building major transportation infrastructure like high-speed rail because of its authoritarian system and because the Chinese don’t have the Republican Party holding up progress.

“The Chinese are more successful [in building infrastructure] because in their country, only three people make the decision. In our country, 3,000 people do, 3 million,” LaHood said in a short interview with The Cable on the sidelines of the 2012 Aspen Ideas Festival on June 30. “In a country where only three people make the decision, they can decide where to put their rail line, get the money, and do it. We don’t do it that way in America.” …

“Two years ago, between 50 to 60 Republicans were elected to the House of Representatives to come to Washington to do nothing, and that’s what they’ve done and they’ve stopped any progress. Those people don’t have any vision about what the government can do. That’s been a real inhibitor in our ability to think outside the box and think big,” he said.

Yet another revealing statement from a prominent “Progressive”. The Democrats love to scold Republicans for wanting no government, which is, of course, a completely fallacious argument to make. Republicans see the need for SOME, government, for SOME taxation, for SOME spending. Democrats, on the other hand see government spending, taxes, regulation and power as the ONLY solution to every problem.