On November 29, 2011,
in Uncategorized,
by magoo1310
It’s Wednesday, November 30th, 2011….and here’s The Gouge!
Leading off the last Gouge in November, Debra Saunders offers her observations on yet another reason we’ll leave a hanging chad with Newt’s name on it:
Newt Gingrich and His Box of Matches
As a Republican congressman, Newt Gingrich filed ethics charges that led Democratic House Speaker Jim Wright to resign in 1989. Later, the House elected Gingrich speaker. Then, in 1998, Gingrich resigned after his own close encounter with an ethics probe. Wright said he didn’t want to gloat, but he did compare Gingrich to “an arsonist who sets fire to his building without stopping to realize the flames are going to consume his own apartment.” (A blaze which we’re concerned Gingrich could well spread to the entire GOP….given the opportunity.)
Gingrich truly is, to use one of his favorite phrases, a “transformational figure.” He has this unsettling history of morphing into the very thing he once denounced.
Gingrich was right to challenge Wright for skirting ethics rules by peddling copies of his self-published book, “Reflections of a Public Man,” to get around a House cap on members’ speaking fees. So what did Gingrich do as he rose up the leadership ladder? Instead of a book, Gingrich developed a college course — “Renewing American Civilization” — that later became the title of a book.
Gingrich defenders have argued that unlike Wright’s book, the course was not about lining personal pockets. OK. But then Newt’s supersize ego led him astray. Course notes extolled the then-GOP whip’s role in creating an “American movement” with a GOP majority as an “advocate of civilization,” a “definer of civilization,” a “teacher of the rules of civilization” and — prepare to feel a thrill up your leg — an “arouser of those who form civilization.”
House Dems filed ethics complaints charging that the course illegally used tax-exempt entities to promote partisan politics. The Internal Revenue Service later ruled in Gingrich’s favor. But because Gingrich provided “inaccurate, incomplete and unreliable” information to the House Ethics Committee, members voted to fine Gingrich $300,000 (the cost of the investigation).
On its 2012 campaign website, Team Newt dismisses the ethics charges as “politically motivated.” The misleading documents were “prepared by Newt’s lawyer.” That handy explanation goes to the recklessness that makes the prospect of a Gingrich nomination so scary. Gingrich knew that Democrats were gunning for him; in his lust for self-aggrandizement, he handed his opponents ample ammunition.
The new John Adams couldn’t just teach a regular course on American history. No, he had to involve his political arm, GOPAC, and other elements of “Newt Inc.” The course burned through as much as $450,000 in 1994 and again in 1995. While under investigation, Gingrich signed documents that weren’t true.
The 1997 House vote to reprimand Gingrich was hardly partisan; it was 395-28. Republicans were beginning to see that Gingrich hurt them more than he helped them. When the GOP lost five House seats in 1998, Gingrich was forced to resign. He had lost his party’s trust.
I don’t want to think about the fact that Gingrich started dating his last two wives while married to the first two wives. Impossible, it’s like looking at Cyrano de Bergerac and not seeing his big nose.
Problem is, you cannot delineate between his personal life and his public life.The Newter won’t let you. He insists on parading third wife Callista, who had a role in his conversion to Catholicism, in a “Callista and I” tour to promote core American values and stave off secularism. Leave it to Gingrich to pump up his family values credentials by joining a church that does not recognize divorce.
Gingrich later explained his extramarital activities as “partially driven by how passionately” he “felt about this country.” He makes you roll your eyes. Listen to Gingrich long enough and you’ll feel like one of his ex-wives.
We have….and we do! As we often observe of other legends in their own minds, were Newt twice as smart as he is, he’d still remain only half as bright as he considers himself to be.
Besides, even if you commit, should you become the least bit unhappy, you can always look around for….a more perfect union!
Next up, as Alysia Finley notes in Political Diary, America’s urban equivalents of Neville Chamberlain are finally beginning to appreciate those who do not remember the past are indeed condemned to repeat it:
Appeasing the Occupiers
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa reportedly offered the occupiers a 10,000-square-foot office space, a patch of farmland to garden and housing for the homeless if the protesters vacated the City Hall lawn but the protesters rejected the offer.
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa thought he could control City Hall occupiers through appeasement. Well, that tact hasn’t worked out any better for him than it has for other leaders in the history books, as evidenced by Monday’s mayhem.
The mayor, a Democrat and former labor organizer, had patronized the group for months, offering them ponchos when it rained and vigorously supporting their message of “economic justice and restoration of balance to American society.” The city council also passed a resolution endorsing the movement, and the police commander ordered officers not to step on any protesters’ toes. But as the occupation continued with no end in sight — and health conditions grew, shall we say, odious — the mayor sought to negotiate with the group’s ostensible leaders. He seemed certain that both the occupiers and city government shared the same aim to peacefully co-exist.He was mistaken.
Mr. Villaraigosa reportedly offered the occupiers a 10,000-square-foot office space, a patch of farmland to garden and housing for the homeless if the protesters vacated the City Hall lawn. The protesters rejected the offer and its core assumption that they could be bought off. At his wit’s end, the mayor ordered occupiers to move out by midnight last Sunday or . . . well, he wouldn’t give an ultimatum. His goal, after all, was to maintain a façade of bonhomie that contrasted with the violent demonstrations and crackdowns in other cities like Oakland, Calif., and New York.
The mayor’s overtures, however, merely emboldened the protesters. Just before midnight, hundreds of protesters crowded the streets around City Hall in revelry and defiance. The street party continued for several hours until police declared the demonstration an unlawful assembly and ordered everyone to clear out, at which point a few protesters wearing masks threw bamboo sticks and water bottles at officers. Most of the others returned to their campgrounds on the City Hall lawn.
The mayor has since refused to specify when or whether police will force the campers out, saying only that he “will allow campers ample time to remove their belongings peacefully and without disruption.” The protesters meanwhile regrouped Monday morning and filed suit against the city for engaging in “arbitrary and capricious action in violation of the 1st and 14th Amendments by first approving the Occupy presence for 56 days before suddenly revoking permission through the unilateral action of defendants.” As evidence, they cite the city council’s resolution of support and a statement from the mayor’s aide that the city would not enforce a law prohibiting overnight public encampments.Far from earning him good will, Mr. Villaraigosa’s policy of appeasement has lent the occupiers ammunition to attack him. (Does any of this sound at all familiar?!?)
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg also tried appealing to the protesters’ supposed sensibilities by supporting their class warfare message. When Mr. Bloomberg finally resolved to clear out Zuccotti Park, occupiers sued the city for violating their First Amendment rights. Some rioted, and a large contingent picketed the mayor’s mansion on the Upper East Side. The lesson in all this for Mr. Villaraigosa and other mayors is that trying to appease radicals is a fool’s errand.
And, to borrow a phrase from Brother Bluto….
….Dimocrats are just the fools to do it!
Speaking of fools, in this forward from George Lawlor, Michael Barone details yet another fallacy in the foundation of modern Liberalism:
Entitlements, Not Tax Cuts, Widen the Wealth Gap
What should be done about income inequality? (Frankly….at least by the government….nothing!) That basic question underlies the arguments hashed out in the supercommittee and promises to be a central issue in the presidential campaign.
Supercommittee Democrats argue that income inequality has been increasing and can be at least partially reversed by higher tax rates on high earners. They refused to agree on any deal that didn’t include such tax increases.
Supercommittee Republicans offered a plan to eliminate tax preferences and reduce tax rates, as in the 1986 bipartisan tax reform. They argued that high tax rates would squelch economic growth.
They didn’t make the case that their proposals would also address income inequality.But House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, in a 17-page paper based largely on a Congressional Budget Office analysis of income trends between 1979 and 2007, has done so.
Ryan, a Republican from Wisconsin, makes the point that the government redistributes income not only through taxes but also through transfer payments, including Social Security, Medicare, food stamps and unemployment benefits. The CBO study helpfully measures income, adjusted for inflation, after taxes and after such transfer payments.
Many may find the results of the CBO study surprising. It turns out, Ryan reports, that federal income taxes (including the refundable Earned Income Tax Credit) actually decreased income inequality slightly between 1979 and 2007, while the federal payroll taxes that supposedly fund Social Security and Medicare slightly increased income inequality. That’s despite the fact that income tax rates are lower than in 1979 and payroll taxes higher.
Perhaps even more surprising, federal transfer payments have done much more to increase income inequality than federal taxes. That’s because, in Ryan’s words, “the distribution of government transfers has moved away from households in the lower part of the income scale. For instance, in 1979, households in the lowest income quintile received 54 percent of all transfer payments. In 2007, those households received just 36 percent of transfers.”
In effect, Social Security and Medicare have been transferring money from low-earning young people (who don’t pay income but are hit by the payroll tax) to increasingly affluent old people.
The Democrats, perhaps following the polls and focus groups, have been protecting these entitlement programs that have done more to increase income inequality than the Reagan and Bush tax cuts put together.
Ryan makes three more points that may strike many as counterintuitive.
First, reductions in some transfer payments haven’t hurt the living standards of most low-earners. The prime example is the welfare reform act of 1996, which reduced transfers to single mothers but induced many of them to find jobs that left them better off economically and, probably, psychologically.
Second, Americans aren’t trapped in one segment of the income distribution. A Tax Journal analysis of individual income tax returns found that 58 percent of those in the lowest income quintile in 1996 had moved to a higher income segment by 2005. This comports with common experience. We move up and down the income scale in the course of a lifetime.
Finally, the inflation adjustment used in the CBO analysis was the Consumer Price Index. But that tends to overstate inflation (as any indexes tends to do, since it measures the cost of a static market basket of goods and services). A study by Chicago economist Christian Broda found that prices for goods purchased by low-earners have been rapidly decreasing, while prices for goods of high-earners have increased. Kids’ school clothes may be cheaper at Walmart than they were years ago, while prices at Neiman Marcus keep increasing.
So if the question is how to compensate for increasing income inequality, higher tax rates on high-earners won’t do much — and could be counterproductive if they diminish economic growth.
A better way is suggested by the supercommittee Republicans: Limit future increases in transfer payments to affluent households, and cap deductions for home mortgage interest and state and local taxes, which are hugely lucrative for high-earners and worthless for low-earners who don’t pay income tax.
These proposals won’t reduce income inequality altogether. Much of the increased inequality comes from the huge increases for those in the top 1 percent of earners. But we wouldn’t be better off if Steve Jobs had never existed.
Keeping entitlements as they are and raising tax rates on high-earners is a recipe for Europe-style stagnation.Ryan and the supercommittee Republicans point toward a better way.
Which of course means none of what Ryan proposes will ever be considered, let alone enacted, by any Dimocrat.
Here’s the juice: many p0liticians, pundits, commentators and political cartoonists are repeating the fallacy the two political parties share the blame for gridlock in Washington. Chris Christie, to name but one, while accurately acknowledging The Obamao’s absolutely abysmal leadership, stated the GOP needed to “get in a room” with the Dims and hash out a “deal”. Christie’s comment unfortunately ignores the fact Republicans, both in the House and on the supercommittee, have in fact repeatedly offered commonsense budgets and proposals, all of which the Dims have dismissed out of hand….without EVER offering a single alternative or counter-proposal.
As of today, it’s been some 946 days since the Senate, controlled by the Dimocrats since 2006, passed a budget; and the Dims on the supercommittee never offered a single specific proposal….not ONE.
It takes two to tango, folks; and the Dims ain’t dancin’! Frankly, we grow tired of people, particularly Republicans, suggesting any GOP culpability for “gridlock”. Besides, given the path The Obamao has Amerika traveling, gridlock is good!
And since we’re on the subject of The Dear Leader, as the Pocono Record, courtesy of George Lawlor, records:
Only 225 show up for Obama tickets in Scranton
Not much demand for free tickets to speech
When Hillary Clinton was on the campaign trail in 2008 and spoke at Scranton High School, the line to get tickets a few days before her appearance stretched about 1,000 people long.
Monday’s line to grab the available free tickets to President Barack Obama’s speech Wednesday was noticeably shorter — about 225 people were waiting when the doors opened for the distribution. “It’s a little disappointing to see that,” said Cathy Kneeland, 64, of Scranton, who showed up more than three hours early to stand in line and found herself second. “You would think more people would want to see the president speak.” (Which begs the question on what planet Ms. Kneeland’s been residing for the last three years.)
Wednesday’s scheduled speech will be Obama’s first stop in northeastern Pennsylvania since he campaigned for president in 2008. Obama supporters, however, don’t seem to be wavering. George Childs, 61, of Scranton, is on the front lines of the jobs debate, having been unemployed since January when he lost his six-year job as a stockroom employee. Before that, he worked at a slaughterhouse for 10 years before it closed. “I would like to see what he has to say about jobs,” Childs said from his spot first in line. “I want to see what he has to offer someone like me.”(Translation: how much of other people’s money is The Obamao gonna give me?)
Barbara Yavuchak of Scranton said while she’s “very worried” about the country, she was, like many Obama supporters standing in line Monday, blaming Republicans for blocking much of what Obama has tried to get done. “I feel very sorry for (Obama),” she said. “He stepped into a terrible situation. But it hasn’t made me not support him. I know quite a few people who have (lost faith in Obama), but I know what he’s up against.”
Added Andy Musoleno of Scranton: “Everyone seems to think it’s his fault, but he’s not the one with the vote. The Senate, Congress; he can’t get anything done. He took on a lot of responsibility, but nothing ever happens overnight. Not with the Republicans in office.” (Evidently word the Dims have controlled the Senate during Tick-Tock’s entire term in office hasn’t reached Scranton.)
Meanwhile, back in the Nation’s Capitol, the Washington Examiner reports it’s business as usual:
Cab drivers cash in on support for Gray, expect D.C. fares to nearly double
Vincent Gray….where he belongs
A vote is set for Tuesday, led by the D.C. mayor’s hand-picked taxi commission chairman, that would nearly double cab fares for an industry that backed Vincent Gray’s mayoral bid and gave free rides to get his supporters to the polls. The proposal in front of the D.C. Taxicab Commission would raise the per-mile rate for cab rides from $1.50 to $2.75. In 2010, the industry lobbied hard for Gray.
One cabbie wondered Monday why it took so long for Gray to keep his campaign promise.” He was supposed to get us the fair increase,” said longtime cab driver Carolyn Robinson, who said she was one of the drivers the Gray campaign called for help during last year’s primary and general elections.” All we wanted him to do was to follow the law — the D.C. code and Taxicab Commission Establishment Act — [and] he said he would,” Robinson said.
She said Gray met with drivers during his campaign and had pledged to make the taxi commission “look at” fares. The commission is required to review rates every two years, but per-mile rates had not been raised since 2006. Other surcharges, such as one for high gas prices, have since been added.
Commission Chairman Ron Linton was nominated by Gray this summer and tasked with rolling out the mayor’s eight-point plan to improve service from the city’s 7,300 cabs. The plan includes a fare hike, credit card machines installed in every cab and new fuel efficiency standards for cabs.
Linton did not immediately return a phone call Monday, but at his confirmation hearing in September he said the rate hike would exclude the elderly and lower-income passengers while providing “drivers and owners with high-enough income to make it worthwhile to provide [a premium] level of service.”
So, with a surcharge already in place to offset higher gas prices, what possible reason could the taxi commission have to double the rates….other than of course direct political payback!
And in International News, it’s the “Haven’t We Seen This Before?!?” segment, courtesy of the guys The Obamao promised to “reach”:
Another Tehran Embassy Siege
The ‘students’ were the basij militia.
The scenes outside the British embassy in Iran yesterday evoked Tehran, 1979. Young, bearded men forced their way in and briefly held six British employees.
The attack was no impromptu happening. Police stood by, and Iranian state television broadcast events live.By some strange reflex, Western media insisted the attackers were “students.” To Iranians who know better, they were the basij militia, the regime’s first line of defense. These thugs were called out to brutally put down the 2009 Green Revolution, a genuine student-led uprising.
The assault was no doubt revenge for Britain’s decision to impose financial sanctions in the wake of the recent U.N. report on Iran’s nuclear-weapons program. Iran’s parliament voted Monday to expel the British ambassador, MPs chanted “Death to Britain” and issued threats against the U.K. embassy. Twenty-four hours later, the basij arrived.
The episode is one more reminder that Iran is not the “status quo power” that many in the West imagine. It is a regime that flouts civilized norms and seeks to dominate its region and terrorize the U.S. and its allies.
How ya like me NOW?!? And howz that diplomacy thing workin’ out for ya?!?
On the Lighter Side….
Turning to the pages of the Crime Blotter, we learn….
Philly Thief Swipes Disabled Boy’s Wheelchair
Philadelphia….it figures!
Finally, in the Wide, Wild World of Sports, this just in from the Great White North:
Elderly Canadian footballers in fist fight after reigniting 50-year-old rivalry at awards ceremony
Bad blood between two elderly Canadian Football League legends dating back almost 50 years spilled out onto the stage at an awards luncheon in Vancouver when Joe Kapp, 73, and Angelo Mosca, 74, engaged in an extraordinary fight involving an olive branch and a walking stick.
A video of the incident, which happened Friday, shows former British Columbia Lions quarterback Kapp attempt to give Mosca, a former Hamilton Tiger-Cats defensive lineman, an olive branch as a peace offering, although it is not clear whether he was being sincere.
Mosca responded by telling Kapp through the microphone: “Stick it up your ass.”
Kapp, who also played for the Minnesota Vikings, then poked Mosca – a longtime professional wrestler – in the face with the branch, prompting Mosca to swing his cane, striking Kapp in the head. As the stunned crowd looked on, Kapp landed a right fist on Mosca’s jaw and followed it with a left, flooring his old rival. Sportsmanship!” Kapp yelled to the audience. “That’s what it’s all about, folks, sportsmanship!”
The bad blood stems from a 1963 Grey Cup game in which Mosca controversially hit Lions running back Willie Fleming, forcing Fleming from the game, The Canadian Press reported.
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