That’s right, a liberal op-ed in the New York Times has called for the end of all taxes…to be replaced with “dues”. For of course no liberal would actually find anything negative in the idea of taxes, Richard Conniff merely wants to rename them to something less unpleasant to the ear.
THE word “tax” was never pretty. But it has lately become the ugliest word in the English language, right up there with its evil twin, “death.” Even in time of war, ostensibly patriotic politicians blithely pledge to slay any tax that rears its ghastly head. Public officials dodge work they know desperately needs doing because of the possibility that it may cause an increase in taxes.
It’s time to take a page from the conservative playbook, the one where they reframe the debate by changing the language — for instance, calling the “estate tax” a “death tax,” or making equal rights for same-sex partners a “protection of marriage” issue. I propose we stop saying “taxes” and start calling them “dues.”
The irony in talking about “taking a page from the conservative playbook” should not be lost on any informed readers. Conservatives aren’t so stupid as to believe you can take a pile of dog crap, wrap it in a pretty box and sell it to the public without them noticing; but that’s exactly what liberals try to do over and over again. No better example exists than their insistence that they be called progressives instead of liberals. After all, liberal now leaves a bad taste in many a mouth. Unfortunately for them, changing their name doesn’t make their ideas any better.
And let’s not forget the liberal educrats who want teachers to abandon red ink pens because they traumatize the poor children. These people are actually dumb enough not to realize that it’s not the color of the ink that frightens, but the fact that they must face the consequences of turning in poor work. If teachers start grading with other colors, they’ll just react the same to them eventually too. And if you start calling “taxes” “dues”, we’ll still tell the liberals, err progressives, to stop raising our damn dues.
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Not that the sentiment isn’t shared, but is this really the CHANGE™ we’ve have the AUDACITY™ to HOPE™ for?
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In a 7-2 decision, the Supreme Court today affirmed the ruling of lower courts finding that Kentucky’s lethal injection procedure does not violate the Eighth Amendment. The decision was highly fractured and only achieved the majority that it did by ruling on extremely narrow, technical grounds. Kennedy and Alito joined Roberts’ majority opinion, while Stevens, Scalia, Thomas and Breyer each concurred in judgment, but offered their own, sometimes divergent, reasoning.
Stevens used his concurrence to pontificate on the unconstitutionality of the death penalty as a whole (which was not before the court):
When we granted certiorari in this case, I assumed that our decision would bring the debate about lethal injection as a method of execution to a close. It now seems clear that it will not. The question whether a similar three-drug protocol may be used in other States remains open, and may well be answered differently in a future case on the basis of a more complete record. Instead of ending the controversy, I am now convinced that this case will generate debate not only about the constitutionality of the three-drug protocol, and specifically about the justification for the use of the paralytic agent, pancuronium bromide, but also about the justification for the death penalty itself.
…The thoughtful opinions written by The Chief Justice and by Justice Ginsburg have persuaded me that current decisions by state legislatures, by the Congress of the United States, and by this Court to retain the death penalty as a part of our law are the product of habit and inattention rather than an acceptable deliberative process that weighs the costs and risks of administering that penalty against its identifiable benefits, and rest in part on a faulty assumption about the retributive force of the death penalty.
In Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U. S. 153 (1976) , we explained that unless a criminal sanction serves a legitimate penological function, it constitutes “gratuitous infliction of suffering” in violation of the Eighth Amendment . We then identified three societal purposes for death as a sanction: incapacitation, deterrence, and retribution. See id., at 183, and n. 28 (joint opinion of Stewart, Powell, and Stevens, JJ.). In the past three decades, however, each of these rationales has been called into question.
In response, Scalia eviscerated Stevens’ various arguments:
[Justice Stevens'] conclusion is insupportable as an interpretation of the Constitution, which generally leaves it to democratically elected legislatures rather than courts to decide what makes significant contribution to social or public purposes. Besides that more general proposition, the very text of the document recognizes that the death penalty is a permissible legislative choice. The Fifth Amendment expressly requires a presentment or indictment of a grand jury to hold a person to answer for “a capital, or otherwise infamous crime,” and prohibits deprivation of “life” without due process of law.
…Justice Stevens concludes that the availability of alternatives, and what he describes as the unavailability of “reliable statistical evidence,” renders capital punishment unconstitutional. In his view, the benefits of capital punishment—as compared to other forms of punishment such as life imprisonment—are outweighed by the costs.
…Of course, it may well be that the empirical studies establishing that the death penalty has a powerful deterrent effect are incorrect, and some scholars have disputed its deterrent value. See ante, at 10, n. 13. But that is not the point. It is simply not our place to choose one set of responsible empirical studies over another in interpreting the Constitution. Nor is it our place to demand that state legislatures support their criminal sanctions with foolproof empirical studies, rather than commonsense predictions about human behavior.
…Justice Stevens’ final refuge in his cost-benefit analysis is a familiar one: There is a risk that an innocent person might be convicted and sentenced to death—though not a risk that Justice Stevens can quantify, because he lacks a single example of a person executed for a crime he did not commit in the current American system. See ante, at 15–17. His analysis of this risk is thus a series of sweeping condemnations that, if taken seriously, would prevent any punishment under any criminal justice system.
…But of all Justice Stevens’ criticisms of the death penalty, the hardest to take is his bemoaning of “the enormous costs that death penalty litigation imposes on society,” including the “burden on the courts and the lack of finality for victim’s families.” Ante, at 12, and n. 17. Those costs, those burdens, and that lack of finality are in large measure the creation of Justice Stevens and other Justices opposed to the death penalty, who have “encumber[ed] [it] … with unwarranted restrictions neither contained in the text of the Constitution nor reflected in two centuries of practice under it”—the product of their policy views “not shared by the vast majority of the American people.” Kansas v. Marsh, 548 U. S. 163, 186 (2006) (Scalia, J., concurring).
This section, in describing Stevens’ apparent elitism, was particularly (and deliciously) snarky:
Leave a commentBut actually none of this really matters. As Justice Stevens explains, “ ‘objective evidence, though of great importance, [does] not wholly determine the controversy, for the Constitution contemplates that in the end our own judgment will be brought to bear on the question of the acceptability of the death penalty under the Eighth Amendment.’ ” Ante, at 14 (quoting Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U. S. 304, 312 (2002) ; emphasis added; some internal quotation marks omitted). “I have relied on my own experience in reaching the conclusion that the imposition of the death penalty” is unconstitutional. Ante, at 17 (emphasis added).
Purer expression cannot be found of the principle of rule by judicial fiat. In the face of Justice Stevens’ experience, the experience of all others is, it appears, of little consequence. The experience of the state legislatures and the Congress—who retain the death penalty as a form of punishment—is dismissed as “the product of habit and inattention rather than an acceptable deliberative process.” Ante, at 8. The experience of social scientists whose studies indicate that the death penalty deters crime is relegated to a footnote. Ante, at 10, n. 13. The experience of fellow citizens who support the death penalty is described, with only the most thinly veiled condemnation, as stemming from a “thirst for vengeance.” Ante, at 11. It is Justice Stevens’ experience that reigns over all.
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While off making nice with Hamas, former Dhimmi-in-chief Jimmy Carter paid respects to dead terrorist Yasser Arafat by laying a wreath at his grave. The man Carter finds fit to mourn was directly tied to the assassination of two U.S. diplomats in the 70’s, and continued to obstruct peace efforts while encouraging terrorist activities against Israel throughout his political career. I have trouble imagining a more shameful and embarrassing former President than Jimmy Carter.
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Democrats are frantic, yet again. This time they are all up in a fuss over the refusal of the administration to bow to their political games and place polar bears on the endangered species list, despite observed growth in some polar bear populations.
The call by special interests to place the polar bear on the endangered species list is not based on any evidence of declining polar bear populations. It is based on projections of future polar bear populations. That would be fine, if those projections were made through a rigorous scientific process. Sadly, they are based on sloppy methodologies and spurious assumptions:
Calls to list polar bears as a threatened species under the U.S. Endangered Species Act are based on forecasts of substantial long-term declines in their population. Nine government reports were prepared to support the listing decision. We assessed these reports in light of evidence-based (scientific) forecasting principles. None referred to works on scientific forecasting methodology. Of the nine, Amstrup, Marcot and Douglas (2007) and Hunter et al. (2007) were the most relevant to the listing decision. Their forecasts were products of complex sets of assumptions. The first in both cases was the erroneous assumption that General Circulation Models provide valid forecasts of summer sea ice in the regions inhabited by polar bears. We nevertheless audited their conditional forecasts of what would happen to the polar bear population assuming, as the authors did, that the extent of summer sea ice would decrease substantially over the coming decades. We found that Amstrup et al. properly applied only 15% of relevant forecasting principles and Hunter et al. only 10%. We believe that their forecasts are unscientific and should therefore be of no consequence to decision makers. We recommend that all relevant principles be properly applied when important public policy decisions depend on accurate forecasts.
The report goes on to list the numerous scientific principles these reports violated. Contrary to the claims of the global warming fanatics, this process is not being driven by science. The call to put polar bears on the endangered species list is nothing more than an attempt to, in the minds of liberals, validate their belief in global warming. If they can’t prove a phenomenon is real, they just react to it as if it is real and then use their own reactions as proof of its existence. “Of course there’s global warming,” they’ll say in the near future, “its effects have put polar bears on the endangered species list!” Enough is enough of the polar bear politics.
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Writing in the New York Times, Yale University economics professor Robert Shiller says it’s time for the Fed to take on a new role: as overall economic watchdog and cheerleader.
The Fed Gets a New Job Description
THE plan of Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. to overhaul the financial system includes a crucial proposal: it would officially transform the Federal Reserve into a “market stability regulator” rather than merely a banker’s bank.
This aspect of the Treasury plan is a natural step in a historical trend. The Fed is no longer just a regulatory agency presiding over a narrow group of businesses called banks. Rather, its mission increasingly is to maintain macro confidence — confidence that the entire financial system is functioning well as part of the whole economy.
…Mr. Bernanke’s own analysis of history, as well as that of other economists, emphasizes the essential importance of confidence in financial institutions and the subtlety of the issues involved in promoting such confidence.
…CONFIDENCE is too complex for the consumer confidence indexes — which are based on surveys of ordinary people — to measure adequately. It has to do with confidence in specific institutions — confidence that they will behave properly and that the leaders who are trying to promote others’ confidence will act in a constructive way.
Formalizing the Fed’s transformation into a market stability regulator makes sense. The Fed has already begun to play this role. And by doing so, it is taking a significant step toward reducing the fundamental instability of our economy.
The professor correctly acknowledges the necessity of confidence for the proper functioning of a capitalist system, but he doesn’t provide much reasoning as to why expanded powers at the Fed is the best solution. The temptation to ease fears by promoting a new all-encompassing economic watchdog, and further supplanting the invisible hand, is always greatest when the economy takes a downturn. We barely fought off the worldwide march toward economic planning, which left numerous nations in ruin, at the beginning of the 20th century. Thus, it is at such times when we must be extra cautious of the choices we make and the changes we call for. Is it really good for the economy to hand over so much power to an independent and only quasi-accountable body? Is it good for democracy?
If increasing confidence is really the primary concern, perhaps we should start by looking at the political party whose members have spent the last seven years announcing that the sky is falling.
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Forced to bend over backwards to accommodate the ignorant protectionism of the Clinton campaign, Hillary’s chief strategist lost his firm’s $300,000 contract to promote a pending free-trade agreement with the Colombian government. Consider this further evidence that protectionism doesn’t pay.
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The misleading headline, obviously crafted for it’s shock value, would have you believe this is the most unnatural birth since Christ.
A transgender man who is six months pregnant said in an interview aired by Oprah Winfrey on Thursday that he always wanted to have a child and considers it a miracle.
“It’s not a male or female desire to have a child. It’s a human desire,” a thinly bearded Thomas Beatie said. “I have a very stable male identity,” he added, saying that pregnancy neither defines him nor makes him feel feminine.
Beatie, 34, who lives in Oregon, was born a woman but decided to become a man 10 years ago.
Dude. It’s not a miracle. Because you’re not a dude. Earth to psycho.
You still have hers parts, and they appear to be (unfortunately for your unborn child) still functioning properly, unlike your brain. And unlike the state of Oregon which insists on encouraging this nonsense by recognizing gender preferences.
I suppose this is news. Transgendered idiot bites dog, after all. Do I dedect something deeper though? It appears that Reuters, being completely deranged by liberalism, actually believes this person is a man. Ergo, in their progressive minds, a man actually is giving birth. It’s a miracle.
No, it’s a farce. And a shame. And but a taste of the crazy which liberalism has in store for us all.
The lactation consultant has her work cut out for her.
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The top headline on Drudge today:
And now it’s time for the word of the day: “embellishment” – to exaggerate, dress up with fiction.
I don’t suppose it’s necessary for me to explain to our readership the absurdity of this headline. Calling the current state of the economy a recession is inaccurate – without even a single quarter of shrinkage. Drawing comparisons to the Great Depression is downright shameless.
Don’t let that stop the Independent. What all-telling indicator do they use to support their proclamation of depression? Food stamps, of course.
Dismal projections by the Congressional Budget Office in Washington suggest that in the fiscal year starting in October, 28 million people in the US will be using government food stamps to buy essential groceries, the highest level since the food assistance programme was introduced in the 1960s.
The increase – from 26.5 million in 2007 – is due partly to recent efforts to increase public awareness of the programme and also a switch from paper coupons to electronic debit cards. But above all it is the pressures being exerted on ordinary Americans by an economy that is suddenly beset by troubles. Housing foreclosures, accelerating jobs losses and fast-rising prices all add to the squeeze.
The piece goes on to state that as “a barometer of the country’s economic health, food stamp usage may not be perfect, but since the economy is still growing and unemployment and inflation are historically low, we’ve got to come up with something to justify our U.S. election year economic fear mongering. Hope/Change.” I believe they’ve taken it a bit too far.
With print outlets worldwide suffering dramatically shrinking revenues, and proportionate job losses, it’s no mystery why newspaper editors might see these as depressing times. The reality of the matter – reality being something wholly alien and often unwelcome in the propaganda factories of the left media – is that most of us are doing just fine. Despite the high gas and food prices (both at least partly attributable to the ethanol boondoggle). The people falling on hard times in today’s economy, like Joe Toothless from the article, cashing in his food stamps for seventy cents on the dollar, got where they are the same way people always do in a plentiful, growing economy – through some combination of mental illness, idleness, substance abuse, sore luck and living without their means. Any and all of these are a call to action on the part of community support structures; none of them are cause for national alarm. And they certainly don’t justify government interference in the private sector.
B. Hussein Obama disagrees:
Now, as most experts agree, our economy is in a recession. To renew our economy and to ensure that we are not doomed to repeat a cycle of bubble and bust again and again and again, we need to address not only the immediate crisis in the housing market, we also need to create a 21st-century regulatory framework and we need to pursue a bold opportunity agenda for the American people.
Anyone who says we’re in a recession is NOT an expert. The economy is growing, not shrinking, albeit relatively slowly. And of course, to a leftist like B.O. the answer to this fictitious crisis, like all others, is bigger government. Democrats and their campaigners in the media need the economy to be in recession the same way they need the war in Iraq to be lost – to propel their idealogical allies to victory in the next election and facilitate massive socialist power grabs. How else to explain the relentless drumbeat of defeat, recession and depression despite all evidence to the contrary.
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I am a libertarian-conservative blogger living in the DC area. I have a Master's degree in Political Science, but please don't hold that against me.
