The Chart Obama Does NOT Want You To See

The MSM will be pointing at a fractional reduction in one measure of "unemployment" that conveniently doesn't count the people who have been out of work so long they no longer qualify for unemployment insurance payments. This is the Bureau of Labor Statistics' chart showing the percentage of people over 16 who have a job:

The Platform: Ramrod Repair

So they put the planks back in:

... by blatantly ignoring the vote and "deeming" the amendment passed.

Folks, we have to have such a landslide that it's beyond the Margin of Fraud, or they'll do the same thing in election offices this November.

The Platform

Letters from Democrats: Pre-emptive "Interpretation".

I somehow got on a mailing list and get these from time to time. Apparently, Donna Brazile wants me to think I'm on a first-name basis with her:

The — Don’t watch Paul Ryan’s convention speech tonight. I’ll tell you what he’ll say right here, right now:

He’ll honor the Republican Party, which just adopted Todd Akin’s ban on abortion with no exceptions for rape as part of its official platform. He’ll promise to restore our country’s “traditional values,” like denying same-sex couples the right to enter into marriage. And he’s going to tell a roaring crowd that Mitt Romney will be the next president.

He'll do it knowing this race is a dead heat after bombarding President Obama day after day with secret, special-interest money from billionaire financiers.

Ryan understands how high the stakes are right now, and I know you do too. The most important deadline of this election hits in 48 hours, so let’s condemn Ryan by raising $500,000 before his speech at 10 PM. Can you contribute $5?

If Democrats can’t respond right now, Ryan and Romney will win the key swing states they need to take over the White House and Senate.

Please contribute here: http://dscc.org/stopryan

Thanks,
Donna

Donna,

I know you leftists are used to telling us what people "really meant" after they say something, but you could at least have the decency to let the man actually speak before you start putting words in his mouth.

"Don't Redefine Rape" is Stupid.

One of the most ridiculous of the kneejerk reactions to Todd Akins' comments about rape and abortion has been the hysterical assertion that "Rape is rape!". Even otherwise intelligent people like Paul Ryan are saying it. Well, someone needs to deconstruct this inanity.

(For what it's worth, my own position on abortion manages to make everyone mad at me, but when it comes to government funding, I agree completely with the idea that it's wrong to force people to pay taxes that go to abortions, so the general idea of the law in question makes sense to me.)

I understand why Ryan's saying what he's saying; the hard-core pro-choice crowd has gone full-court press on the notion that in trying to legislate against spending our tax money on abortions other than in the case of rape, the pro-life side has tried to "redefine rape". Well, it sure seems like it's been defined to be a form of rape itself, based on the hysterical comments I keep reading and hearing.

But those who wish to participate in the political process need to be doing so as competent adults, and be willing to set aside childish emotional arguments to discuss the circumstances under which we're willing to use the power of the state, and incarcerate lawbreakers. There are clearly different kinds of "rape". Merriam-Webster has three nouns and a verb listed for the single word "rape", as well as compounds including other words. Let's take the one that seems to fit best:

1 : an act or instance of robbing or despoiling or carrying away a person by force
2 : unlawful sexual activity and usually sexual intercourse carried out forcibly or under threat of injury against the will usually of a female or with a person who is beneath a certain age or incapable of valid consent — compare sexual assault, statutory rape
3 : an outrageous violation

Compare to the Oxford dictionary definition:

verb
[with object]

1 (especially of a man) force (another person) to have sexual intercourse with the offender against their will: the woman was raped at knifepoint

[no object]: he pleaded not guilty to burglary with intent to rape

2 spoil or destroy (a place): timber men doubt the government’s ability to ensure the forests are not raped

Notice the difference? The Oxford definition of the sex-crime sense of the unadorned verb "rape" is quite explicit about the element of force, while Merriam-Webster allows two different senses, and goes so far as to point out that the sense where consent cannot legally exist is "statutory rape". Sounds to me like some redefining's already been done.

And of course, with 50 different state (and DC/PR/VI/GU/AS) legislatures, at work, it's unlikely that the language defining "(forcible) rape" and "statutory rape" in any two of them are exactly identical. In recent years, we've added "acquaintence rape" and "date rape", as opposed to "stranger rape", and some states have seen fit to explicitly define a woman under the influence of certain drugs as no longer capable of legally forming consent. Under some legal codes, mentally-handicapped people, regardless of age, are considered incapable of consent. The definition of exactly who should be thus protected is, of course, another element to these laws.

These varying definitions of the capacity to form consent mean that two people who voluntarily engage in a sex act in one state may not be breaking any laws, but the same two people in another state might both be technically guilty of "statutorily raping" each other, if a judge rules they can be tried as adults. Even this depends on whether the legislators in any given state recognized how ridiculous it is to describe consensual acts between teens as them having raped each other.

So we have more than 50 different definitions of "forcible rape" and just as many definitions of "statutory rape" in the US alone. Congress couldn't write a law to restrict Federal funding of abortions to cases of rape while leaving the word undefined for the purposes of the law. Nor could it allow the word to be defined based on the state/territory jurisdiction in which the impregnation occurred, as that would apply non-uniform standards under which two women who became pregnant under identical situations, save for the location of the sexual congress, would be treated differently under the law. Any such law would immediately be challenged because it would pay for certain abortions in some states/territories but not others.

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If Congress is going to pass a law saying that we taxpayers aren't paying for abortions except in cases of rape, it must "(re)define rape" to do so. And every one of those state/territorial legislatures has defined, redefined, and re-redefined rape countless times over the decades.

It's a legislature's job to (re)define crimes.

Firewall: Fast and Furious

In the latest Firewall, Bill is furious about Fast and Furious. As always, it's recommended viewing.

Capital Games: Buffet BS.

The new proposal to "close loopholes" that allow "rich people" like Warren Buffet to pay a lower (capital gains) tax rate than his secretary pays (on current earned income) offers an enlightened Republican response that is not only reasonable, but ought to be supported by a broad base of the electorate.

The problem with comparing long-term capital gains apples to other income oranges is that the former treats purely paper "gains" as if they were real. Let's try a hypothetical example to flesh this out:

Suppose that ten years ago, I bought shares in a European company at €100/share. On the exact same day, a German citizen also bought shares at that same price. (Over the intervening years, we may or may not have gotten dividends from the company, in which case we'd have paid taxes on those dividends. Whether we did or not has no real bearing on the rest of this.) Today, we each sell our shares, at exactly €100/share. We didn't make any long-term capital gain on our shares, but we didn't lose any either.

But wait. In the intervening decade, the US Dollar lost value against the Euro. My broker puts $150 into my account for every share I sold. (A "low" inflation rate of just over 4% is all it takes to erode 50% of the purchasing power of a unit of currency in just ten years.) And now the IRS tells me I have to pay tax on that $50/share "profit". Never mind that $150 today isn't worth any more than $100 ten years ago.

Why should I be taxed for my $50/share "profit" when I have not really profited at all. My German counterpart pays no tax for two reasons: First, the Bundeszentralamt für Steuern (Federal Central Tax Office) would not consider him to have made a profit by selling for precisely what he'd originally paid for the asset. Secondly, Germany taxes capital gains at the rate of ZERO.

Now, my proposal is not to calculate capital gains in Euros or any other currency that gains and loses value. Instead, I propose that real capital gains on assets held over a year be taxed at the same rate as any other income, but that the calculation of what actually constitutes a "gain" in the first place.

A slight increase in complexity of calculating the profit/loss for an asset held over a year is required: The taxpayer should be allowed to refer to a published table of an appropriate inflation index (such as CPI) to calculate what tax codes call a "stepped-up basis" in the asset: The taxpayer would be allowed to subtract the value in current dollars of their original investment.

What would the effect be of this proposal? For assets held just a few years that appreciate very quickly, the effective tax rate could actually go up a bit from what people are currently paying, but for assets held for a longer time, it will go down or even be eliminated in the case of assets that do not gain any real value. I don't know whether it would be revenue-neutral, but it would be a fairer way to tax capital gains, and it would encourage people to make long-term investments, which should be good for the economy.

I do know this: it would deprive the Left of one of their big class-warfare weapons. They could no longer point to "special loopholes for rich people" to gain votes. It would also deprive the government of the perverse incentive to print too much money, debase the currency, and get to collect tax on inflationary "gains".

And because Warren Buffet makes a lot of money on capital gains, he ought to get his wish, and pay a higher rate.
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Sarah Palin's Mystical Magery Tour

Firewall 10: SOTU Response

Bill is back with another Firewall:


Threely for this post: http://3.ly/Firewall10

See the Ad Mysteriously "Forgotten" by New Castle County Cable

Even though Christine O'Donnell's campaign bought the airtime last week, somehow the cable company in New Castle County, DE (whose county executive, coincidentally, is her opponent in the Senate race) "forgot" to run it. Never fear; you can see it right here:

We the People of the First State from Friends of Christine O'Donnell on Vimeo.

Michael Steele groks Palin and the Tea Party Movement

I've had my differences with some of the things Michael Steele has said and done during his tenure as GOP Chairman, but this Politico interview shows me he gets it now. He has been listening to the hoi polloi and communicates their message to the party elites:

Threely: http://3.ly/SteelePalinTP

Miller Time

I really don't think Bob Schieffer understands what Joe is saying. But until Cubachi provides some more Christie clips, consider this your Commonsense Conservative Porn fix:

Chris Christie Contrasts Common Sense vs. Government Drones

Some fresh Chris Christie awesomeness [Hat Tip: Cubachi]

Another reason to decentralize government. Why should states have to fill out a thousand-page application to get money from the US government? Let the feds tax us less, and each state can raise that revenue instead.

This is the difference between us and them.

From an email going around the web:


TO MY CONSERVATIVE PALS and Liberal friends that are somewhat conservative

This pretty much describes our Country today.

If a conservative doesn't like guns, he doesn't buy one.
If a liberal doesn't like guns, he wants all guns outlawed.

If a conservative is a vegetarian, he doesn't eat meat.
If a liberal is a vegetarian, he wants all meat products banned for everyone.

If a conservative sees a foreign threat, he thinks about how to defeat his enemy.
A liberal wonders how to surrender gracefully and still look good.

If a conservative is homosexual, he quietly leads his life.
If a liberal is homosexual, he demands legislated respect.

If a black man or Hispanic are conservative, they see themselves as independently successful.
Their liberal counterparts see themselves as victims in need of government protection.

If a conservative is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation.
A liberal wonders who is going to take care of him.

If a conservative doesn't like a talk show host, he switches channels.
Liberals demand that those they don't like be shut down.

If a conservative is a non-believer, he doesn't go to church.
A liberal non-believer wants any mention of God and religion silenced. (Unless it's a foreign religion, of course!)

If a conservative decides he needs health care, he goes about shopping for it, or may choose a job that provides it.
A liberal demands that the rest of us pay for his.

If a conservative slips and falls in a store, he gets up, laughs and is embarrassed.
If a liberal slips and falls, he grabs his neck, moans like he's in labor and then sues.

If a conservative reads this, he'll forward it so his friends can have a good laugh.
A liberal will delete it because he's "offended".

Whittle vs. The Narrative

I don't normally bother to comment on just every "Afterburner" episode Bill does on PJTV. The link is over there in the sidebar, and I figure most people who come here go there. Insty links to most of them too.

But this one is a must see. Bill eviscerates MSNBC and the rest of the MainScream Media as the dishonest scum that they are. Set aside 15 minutes, pop yourself some popcorn, and enjoy a good old-fashioned ass-whoopin'. (Bill is the one doing the whoopin'.)

So why are we here......again?

Got this from a friend. Don't know who sent it to him but I do know it's worthwhile...


OK, as we all know I'm not the big history buff type person, but... with the homeschool thing I have to learn this stuff, so... we're reading about the Declaration of Independence. We bought reproductions of the Declaration as well as some other historical documents when we were in DC last year. I went outside to smoke and brought the Declaration with me to read it. OMG folks! OK, I had a fairly decent education as a child but chose NOT to pay any attention to history, so I was essentially reading this for the first time...

As we all know, (even I knew this) it starts:
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

Then the often quoted:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Then... the part that we have obviously forgotten all about in the past 233 years.
That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

This is so true! We sit in our own shit because it's warm and soft even though it stinks... (I know that was kinda crude, but true)
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

So, what we have to do is....
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

The rest of the document goes on to detail the abuses by the King, then to declare the independence of the states as I'm sure everyone else knows about the document, but it was all news to me!!! So this is why we study history, so we're not doomed to repeat it, right?? Then WHY IN THE HELL ARE WE HERE AGAIN!!!!!!!

Am I insane, or is today a time in the course of human events that it is necessary for us to dissolve the political bonds that have connected us to another???

Why I voted Democrat...

I voted Democrat because I love the fact that I can now marry whatever
I want. I've decided to marry my boat.

I voted Democrat because I believe oil companies' profits of 4% on a
gallon of gas are obscene but the government taxing the same gallon of gas at 15% isn't.

I voted Democrat because I believe the government will do a better job
of spending the money I earn than I ever would.

I voted Democrat because freedom of speech is fine as long as nobody is
offended by it.

I voted Democrat because when we pull out of Iraq I trust that the bad
guys will stop what they're doing because they now think we're good people.

I voted Democrat because I'm way too irresponsible to own a gun, and I
know that my local police are all I need to protect me from murderers and
thieves.

I voted Democrat because I believe that people who can't tell us if it
will rain on Friday can tell us that the polar ice caps will melt away in
ten years if I don't start driving a Prius.

I voted Democrat because I'm not concerned about the slaughter of
millions of babies so long as we keep all death row inmates alive.

I voted Democrat because I believe that business should not be allowed
to make profits for themselves. They need to break even and give the rest
away to the government for redistribution as IT sees fit.

I voted Democrat because I believe liberal judges need to rewrite The
Constitution every few days to suit some fringe kooks who would
never get their agendas past the voters.

I voted Democrat because my head is so firmly planted up my rear that it
is unlikely that I'll ever have another point of view.


A Liberal is a person who will give away everything they don't own.

And no, I did NOT really vote Democrat!

Quitter!

Imagine a politician who is elected to one office, then two years later loses in the Electoral College. Two years and seven months into the term of the first office, months after the loss, this politician resigns! Can you imagine such a "quitter" being elected POTUS in the next election? I'll bet you $20 it can happen.


You'd lose the bet.

Andrew Jackson resigned his US Senate seat on October 14, 1825, after two years, seven months, and ten days in that six-year term. For those keeping score, that’s a dozen days fewer than Sarah Palin served of her four-year term as Governor of Alaska. He won the 1828 election for President, the first to do so in the “Democratic Party” faction he formed from the “Democratic-Republican Party”. So the next time you hear a Democrat talk about a "quitter", remind them about Old Hickory.
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Has anyone see Alice lately?

'Cause I swear I've fallen down the rabbit hole....

Somehow I've gotten on the mailing list of the John W. Pope Civitas Institute, a North Carolina conservative organization who's vision is "of a North Carolina whose citizens enjoy liberty and prosperity derived from limited government, personal responsibility and civic engagement." I just got an email with the results of the June polling done by the Civitas Institute. Let's take a look, shall we?

The results fall fully in the "you can't make this stuff up" category. Question 1 asks "Do you feel things in North Carolina are generally headed in the right direction or have gotten off on the wrong track?" 54% of the respondents say "Wrong Track" vs. 33% for "Right Direction" and 13% "Not sure".

So the response to question 3 blows my mind. "If the election for state legislature were held today, would you be voting: Democrat, Republican, Neither, Not Sure". 41% said that they would vote Democrat! Hello?!? Who do you think is (and has been for way too long!) running the legislature in Raleigh? Santa Claus?

And it goes down hill from there. Question 4 asks "Opinion of Barack Obama: Favorable, Unfavorable, No Opinion". 61% said that they had a favorable opinion. Question 9: "Which party would do a better job of holding down taxes?" 45% said Republicans vs 31% Democrats. Question 10: "Which party would do a better job of creating jobs and growing the economy?" Hold on to your hats folks. 48% said the Democrats would do a better job vs 33% for the Republicans. How can you possibly reconcile the results of those two questions?

Questions 11,12 and 13: "Which party would do a better job of fighting corruption in government; improving public education and reducing health cost." The Demos win all three 48% to 38%, 41% to 25% and 46% to 30%. Oh, but look! The Republicans win "Which party will do a better job controlling illegal immigration by 42% to 31%. Wowsie Woo!

But what really frosts my cookies is the response to question 15: "Which political party, Democrat or Republican, does former governor Mike Easley belong to?" A full 19% of these (Hang on Don! Don't say anything rash!)...ahem...respondents say Easley was a Republican!! We haven't had a Republican governor in North Carolina since Jim Martin's term ended in 1993!!! WTF!!

Questions 18 through 25 ask about taxes and everyone thinks taxes are too high (Well that's a relief! I was beginning to wonder...). Question 26 asks "Do you think the public education system in NC is better or worse than other states?" 54% say worse (but we think the same bozos who've been running the show will do a better job of improving education???) I repeat: WTF?.

But as I dig deeper into the poll I began to understand. 43% say that they get their information about the NC legislature from........TV. A whopping 33% classify themselves as "Moderate". 47% of the respondents are......you guessed it: Democrat vs 36% Republican. The geographical area is telling as well: 22% are from Charlotte vs 19% from the Triad (Greensboro/High Point/Winston Salem), 19% from the Triangle (Raleigh/Durham/Hippy H......uh Chapel Hill), 14% from Western NC, 14% from the Northeast and 13% from the Southeast.

So let's review: a majority of the poll respondents get their news from TV; view themselves as moderates; are Democrats and live in the Charlotte area (major metropolitan = liberal). Well shucks! That explains everything. This is the same bunch of know-nothing boobs that give us the "Hope and Change" guy that's currently getting himself bulldozed in Russia. BTW: hows that "Hope and Change" thing working out for you anyway?
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Edit: After some thought it appears to me that a line from "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" is a better fit: "Morons! I've got Morons on my team!"

"I Still Hate You, Sarah Palin"

Over at NRO, David Kahane explains all we need to know about why..."I Still Hate You, Sarah Palin"

A taste:

Not only were we offended at the sheer effrontery of McCain’s pick: How dare the Republicans proffer this déclassée piece of Wasilla trailer trash whose only claim to fame was that she didn’t exercise her right to choose? Where were her degrees from Smith or Barnard, her internships at PETA, the Brookings Institution, or the Young Pioneers? We were also outraged that the Stupid Party had just nominated a completely unqualified candidate nobody had ever heard of, a first-term governor of Alaska whose previous experience consisted of a small-town mayoralty. As opposed to our guy, Barry Soetoro of Mombasa, Djakarta, and Honolulu, a first-term senator nobody had ever heard of, whose previous experience had been as a state senator (D., Daley Machine) in Illinois. After eight long, illegitimate, lawless years of &*^%BUSH$#@! tyranny, how dare you contest this election?

Go read the whole thing. You'll laugh. You'll cry. You may even get angry.

Brian Lundmark captured it in Rockwood's standard three panels, nearly a year ago: