www.iowntheworld.com is trying to figure out the creator of this picture. This is one of the funniest things I've seen in a LONG time.
Powerline did a "Chappaquiddick at 40" post recently. A woman commented on the post that "Ted Kennedy has worked tirelessly for his country." Yes, he sure has.
Lets pretend that Hell has frozen over: The Cubs win the 2009 NL Pennant and find themselves locked in a Game 7 of this year's World Series. You finally pick yourself up off the floor and tune in.
Its the bottom of the ninth, two outs and the game is tied. Bases are full of Cubs at Wrigley. History can be made here, as Derrick Lee stands in against Mariano Rivera. Rivera, gambling that Lee is looking for breaking balls and off-speed pitches, throws four beautiful fastballs straight down the pike. To anyone in the ballpark, even teary eyed Cubs fans, its obvious all four pitches were straight down the pike, strikes.
But something weird has happened. The Umpire behind the plate called all four pitches "balls".
Yankee's Manager Joe Girardi is LIVID, and understandably so. Even the normally mild mannered Rivera is converging on the Umpire, trying to figure out what in the hell he was looking at. The crowd should be cheering insanely, but there is a weird lull upon the celebration.
What was this guy looking at, Girardi and Rivera wonder.
"Look," the Umpire said, "how many World Championships have you guys won, huh? The Cubs have fought year after year, choked year after year, granted, but they've fought hard. Its their turn to win a World Championship. I've decided it to be so, so that's the way I'm calling those four pitches."
Girardi, at this point, needs to be restrained.... by Cubs players and managers, because the entire Yankee line up as clearing the bench to come after the Umpire as well.
How does this play in the trendy coffee shops of Manhattan? The liberal Yankee fans are beside themselves, rightfully so.
Or picture, this: I'm not 100% sure who interviews or hires Major League Baseball's Umpires, but for simplicity's sake lets say Commissioner Bud Selig does. An umpire of hispanic descent is in Selig's office, listing his qualifications.
"My life experiences as a Latino man will make me a better Umpire than the average white guy in the same situation," the interviewee says.
"What?," Selig responds, "how is that possible?"
"I'm in a much better position to empathize with the batter. What kind of life did he have before coming to the bigs? Does he stand a chance against that white male with the nasty stuff? Doesn't he deserve a fair shot?"
Selig should be (should be, don't know his politics) stunned at this comment.
"That has absolutely NOTHING to do with calling balls and strikes. A ball is a ball, a strike is a strike, no matter what the background of the players involved. The rules don't change because you have empathy for one player or another."
Again, smoke free coffee shop Liberal Yankee fan, do you agree or disagree?
If you agree with my conclusions above, then explain to me how Sonia Sotomayor's statements below (made to UC Berkeley Law Students in 2001):
“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion [as a judge] than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”
... then hit the big "play" button in the middle of the feed above.
You know, I used to think how proud I'd be if I were to ever run for, and win, a federal election. This really tarnishes that fantasy.
Obviously, the correct response to this is, we are GOING BANKRUPT because you don't know when to STOP spending money.
Yes, kids, study hard, keep your finger out of your nose and eat your vegetables and you too, can be Vice President of the United States. I think about the great HBO series "John Adams", the episode where Adams announces to Abigail that he's just been elected Vice President of the United States. The pride he beamed with (which I certainly don't doubt was an accurate portrayal). Can you imagine John Adams rolling in his grave now?
...And very accurate, I might add. Hat tip to Andy Roth of the Club for Growth, and blogger Ben Cunningham. Not sure who put this together but it is a beautiful illustration of what will happen once the "public option" undercuts and wipes out the private sector in health care.
Remember Bill Clinton, in early 1993? Regarding your middle class tax cut and the fact that he "would not raise taxes on the middle class to pay for (his) programs"? He said:
"I had hoped to invest in your future by creating jobs, expanding education, reforming health care, and reducing the deficit without asking more of you. And I’ve worked harder than I’ve ever worked in my life to meet that goal. But I can’t because the deficit has increased so much beyond even the worst Government estimates from last year. We just have to face the fact that to make the changes our country needs, more Americans must contribute today so that all Americans can do better tomorrow."
Remember Barack Obama, all throughout the 2008 campaign, pledging not raise a single dime of taxes on anyone making less than $250K a year?
From George Will's Column via IBD Editorials, today:
"At the June 29 White House briefing, press secretary Robert Gibbs was asked, with reference to health care legislation, if the president's pledge not to raise taxes on couples making less than $250,000 is 'still active.' Gibbs answered:
'We are going to let the process work its way through.'"
A Chicagoland bank is running a radio commercial during Cubs broadcasts asking "What's your definition of Financial Security", with different people in the spot responding with things such as "my son's college education paid for" or "enough money to retire comfortably."
My definition? $5 million in the bank and Larry Kudlow in the White House. Read the analysis below from his post at National Review's "The Corner" and you'll understand what I mean. Bold emphasis mine.
Washington Needs to Help Businesses for a Change [Larry Kudlow]
Are the stock market and economy taking turns for the worse? Do we really need a new stimulus plan from Washington?
Let’s begin by rolling back the clock to last Thursday’s June jobs report. It was not a good report. Stocks have fallen over 4 percent since then. And here’s one reason why: plunging wages.
Private hours worked continue to free-fall. Hourly wages have flattened. It was a nasty report. Job losses are still substantial. It’s a powerful and nasty combination. While I am an optimist by nature, this does worry me. It suggests a later, and weaker, economic recovery.
So here’s a novel thought for all the geniuses down in Washington. Help businesses for a change.
You can begin by stopping the taxing of overseas corporate profits. Do not hike the minimum wage. Back off cap-and-trade. Do not nationalize health care. Stop the anti-trust assault on phone companies, pharmas, Google, airlines, and multi-nationals.
And how about a six-to-twelve-month payroll-tax holiday? That would make it cheaper to hire new workers. What about a corporate tax cut? And immediate cash expensing for business-investment write-offs? In other words, cut the tax cost of hiring, investing, and doing business. Because it’s businesses that create the jobs and the incomes for families all throughout America.
And if you are still worried about the housing story or bank toxic assets, how about a capital-gains tax holiday?
Does anyone in Washington understand the way the world really works? It’s called incentives. That’s what this is all about. And we’re going to need many more of them if businesses, investors, and families are to start prospering once again.
Tip of the hat to Michael Berry of KTRH in Houston, TX. Berry on occasion fills in for Mark Levin and I heard this soundbite above on his show recently.
You can't really blame Obama for his absolute ignorance of the basics of how wealth is grown in Free Market Economies. He's spent his entire life surrounding himself with losers and people who live in the most opportune country on the face of this earth and have come up short personally and professionally. And he's decided to give into emotion and make excuses for them. Millionaires and Billionaires, he tells us through inference, have their wealth by taking it from others who deserve it, i.e, the poor and middle class.
Time to tell the truth, Mr. President. The people that you so desperately want to have "paaa" don't have "paaa" because they haven't educated themselves. They have sought the easy way out. They haven't held their families together. They haven't finished school, saved money, delayed gratification, worked 60+ hours a week, playing by the rules, and have not resisted any and all obstacles to their success. The people who don't have "paaa" don't have it because of DECISIONS THEY HAVE MADE in their lives. You want "paaa" for those who are poor, Mr. President?
Then encourage your followers, mindless as they are, to do the things I prescribe above. Take responsibility for decisions they have made in their lives, and work hard. Deny themselves now to keep their eyes on the prize. Stand by their spouses. Encourage their children to do the same.... and watch the "paaaa" grow. This will happen without turning them into bitter, hateful people that rob from those who succeed by following the correct and prosperous path.
And most importantly, stop exploiting the ignorance of your base on the creation of wealth. Wealth is not a fixed pie that must be shared equally. Wealth is created, and just because one person has wealth doesn't mean someone else is starving. Of all the annoying tactics employed by your party, Mr. President, the zero sum based class warfare employed by you and your base is the most annoying, destructive and dangerous of them.
Wealth is best grown, you idiot. Not transfered. I didn't go to Columbia/Harvard, and I have enough sense to know that.
Haven't checked in on my friend Yogi Love at Red Planet Cartoons in a while... shame on me. This one is one of his best. Sung to the tune of the Free Credit Report.com song "married my dream girl". Check out Yogi's work, great stuff.
Here's the testimony of Ben Lieberman of The Heritage Foundation before the Senate Republican Committee. Bold Emphasis Mine. My name is Ben Lieberman, and I am the Senior Policy Analyst for Energy and Environment in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation. The views I express in this testimony are my own, and should not be construed as representing any official position of The Heritage Foundation. I would like to thank the Senate Republican Conference for extending me the privilege of participating in today's hearing. I'll be discussing the costs of the cap-and-trade approach to addressing global warming and The Heritage Foundation's economic analysis of H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (Waxman-Markey). As you know, the House is currently considering this bill, which is similar to but has more stringent targets and timetables than the Lieberman-Warner cap-and-trade bill that was rejected by the Senate last June. It is clear that cap-and-trade is very expensive and amounts to nothing more than an energy tax in disguise. After all, when you sweep aside all the complexities of how cap and trade operates--and make no mistake, this is the most convoluted attempt at economic central planning this nation has ever attempted--the bottom line is that cap and trade works by raising the cost of energy high enough so that individuals and businesses are forced to use less of it. Inflicting economic pain is what this is all about. That is how the ever-tightening emissions targets will be met. The only entities directly regulated by Waxman-Markey would be the electric utilities, oil refiners, natural gas producers, and some manufacturers that produce energy on site. So, the good news for the rest of us--homeowners, car owners, small-business owners, farmers--is that we won't be directly regulated under this bill. The bad news is that nearly all the costs will get passed on to us anyway. What are those costs? According to the analysis we conducted at The Heritage Foundation, which is attached to my written statement, the higher energy costs kick in as soon as the bill's provisions take effect in 2012. For a household of four, energy costs go up $436 that year, and they eventually reach $1,241 in 2035 and average $829 annually over that span. Electricity costs go up 90 percent by 2035, gasoline by 58 percent, and natural gas by 55 percent by 2035. The cumulative higher energy costs for a family of four by then will be nearly $20,000. But direct energy costs are only part of the consumer impact. Nearly everything goes up, since higher energy costs raise production costs. If you look at the total cost of Waxman-Markey, it works out to an average of $2,979 annually from 2012-2035 for a household of four. By 2035 alone, the total cost is over $4,600. Beyond the cost impact on individuals and households, Waxman-Markey also affects employment, and especially employment in the manufacturing sector. We estimate job losses averaging 1,145,000 at any given time from 2012-2035. And note that those are net job losses, after the much-hyped green jobs are taken into account. Some of the lost jobs will be destroyed entirely, while others will be outsourced to nations like China and India that have repeatedly stated that they'll never hamper their own economic growth with energy-cost boosting global warming measures like Waxman-Markey. Since farming is energy intensive, that sector will be particularly hard-hit. Higher gasoline and diesel fuel costs, higher electricity costs, and higher natural gas-derived fertilizer costs all erode farm profits, which are expected to drop by 28 percent in 2012 and average 57 percent lower through 2035. As with American manufacturers, Waxman-Markey also puts American farmers at a global disadvantage, as other food-exporting nations would have no comparable energy-price raising measures in place. Overall, Waxman-Markey reduces gross domestic product by an average of $393 billion annually between 2012 and 2035, and cumulatively by $9.4 trillion. In other words, the nation will be $9.4 trillion poorer with Waxman-Markey than without it. It should also be noted that the costs are not distributed evenly. Low-income households spend a disproportionate share of their incomes on energy, and thus would be hit harder than average by Waxman-Markey. Of course, the bill has provisions to give back some revenues to low-income households, but it is likely that these rebates will amount only to some portion of each dollar that was taken away from them in the first place in the form of higher energy costs and higher costs for other goods and services. Waxman-Markey also disproportionately burdens those states, especially in the Midwest and South, that still have a substantial number of manufacturing jobs to lose, as well as those that rely more heavily than others on coal for electric generation. In addition, because the bill raises energy costs, it hurts rural America much more than urban America. Rural Americans, farmers and non-farmers, spend an average of 58 percent more on energy as a percentage of income than their urban counterparts, and those costs would go up. In conclusion, it's not surprising that support for Waxman-Markey is heaviest in those parts of the country, the urban centers in the West Coast and Northeast, that are least harmed by it. Even there, the economic damage would be bad enough, but the citizens in the rest of the country and their representatives should really be asking many tough questions about the economic impact of cap and trade. Thank you.
