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Luis Palau
Above My Pay Grade
If you watched the Rick Warren interviews of both Obama and McCain you may recall interesting while divergent answers to a legitimate question. The question was…..”when does life begin?” This is not a flippant remark but an age old question that has shaped the debate over abortion from its inception.
The original position of the so called “pro choice” crowd was that “viability” constituted when life actually began. Ok that is an understandable position even though the dating of viability was difficult for us to determine, especially since there have been many instants of preemies living when the “authorities” would have given it no chance, but at least during this early era the pro choice adherents believed that there was a pre-natal time when our concept of “life” (not merely Biological) began and that they didn’t believe it began at conception.
This was important to them because to have any other position would have been a moral violation even in their own minds. Over the years the position of the hard core “pro choicers” migrated to literally being there is no pre birth point where you are committing a moral violation. For some (and we’ll discuss who some of these are at another time) have degenerated to believe it is appropriate to allow a live birth of a child to die without care if such live birth is the result of a “botched” abortion effort (yes, it happens).
You might find it interesting know that both McCain and Obama gave clear and revealing answers to this question. In McCain’s response he jumped right out and stated “at birth.” In Obama’s case he stammered a moment and then stated that such an answer was “above his pay grade.” If there is anyone that is reading this post that didn’t understand that answer please comment here, but I’ll say that what he said meant that he didn’t know (i.e. only God knows).
Mr. Obama has failed the most basic of morality tests, one that has resulted in 48.5 million abortions since 1973 (Roe v Wade), almost as many as WWII’s 55 million. If Mr. Obama is elected and he appoints judges that affirm this decision it won’t be long at all until there is more blood on his hand than the left likes to charge George W. Bush.
Sheesh………………If this isn’t a deal breaker for you I’d say you have to reorder your priorities.
There You Go Again………..
In borrowing a phrase from Ronald Reagan in the second presidential debate with Jimmy Carter on 10/28/80 (corrected) I will apply it this time to the tired strategy of the Democrats proclivity to raise taxes every time they get in control. You may also recall that at least partial credit has been given for Reagan’s win during the second presidential campaign to the debate with Walter Mondale where Mondale stated that he would raise taxes on Americans if he won, he lost big time.
Now the Democratic Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Charles Rangel, is planning broad and sweeping changes to the tax system with the centerpiece being a 4% to 4.6% surtax on earning in excess of $150,000-$200,000. You know the “rich” that they keep talking about that are not paying their “fair” share. [I am not going to debunk this here again today with that endless stream of statistics that demonstrate that this is a lie.] This tax increase will also have the impact of raising taxes on investments. Now that is a real smart move and all this is just a test for an additional slew of taxes that they will propose after they win the Presidential Election of 2008. The scariest thing is that they will probably start spending that post election money now since they are so sure they will win it.
Another thing is that this is being falsely touted as a Surtax (which would be a percentage increase to the normal tax). What this amounts to is an additional two tax brackets in the existing tax structure. It also has the negative effect of further increasing the “marriage penalty” built into our tax structure.
But let me say this. I believe that Economists and Statisticians (at least the honest ones) understand that raising taxes doesn’t always produce more income. It is a more reliable precursor for provoking a recession.
I want to shout this from the rooftops once again……….You don’t establish income tax policy in order to fund what ever projects you are desirous of. You establish tax rates to maximize federal revenue without regards to spending preferences. After you establish the rate that will optimize economic growth and consequently revenues you can turn to the budget side of the matter and debate spending priorities with the income that tax policy will produce, again understanding that not all spending is equal in terms of its simulative effect on the economy.
I really think it is time for the Democrats retreat from this age old political strategy that only serves to insure the “economic cycle” of boom and bust and cause greater deficits in the long run turn to a consistent and simulative tax philosophy. Even their constituency would be much better off if that were to happen, but the Democrats ace in the hole is that their constituency really doesn’t understand this. This is all about protecting their incumbency. Hence they again turn to divisive political rhetoric and wrong headed tax policy. For a deeper explanation of this overall tax proposal by Rangel go HERE.
As it turns out the Daily KOS is “the man”
File this in your “do as I say………..file.” From the Drudge Report HERE referencing the New York Times we come to find some shady illegal stock insider activity by one of the founders of the Daily KOS. This is activity that is only suitable for Republicans don’t you remember? He neither denies nor admits the charges, but apparently was willing to pay $30,000 to settle the problem. I guess sort of a Nolo Contendere on the order of Spiro Agnew. At least Spiro had the decency to step down as Vice President. Wonder if he will do the same with the KOS or MYDD.com? This is in addition to last years scandal involving KOS in an alleged Pay to Play scheme with Democratic Candidate hiring the KOS boys as political consultants HERE for KOS support of candidacies.
DAILY KOS CO-AUTHOR FINED $30,000 FOR UNETHICAL STOCK TOUT.
Prominent liberal blogger Jerome Armstrong has agreed to pay nearly $30,000 in fines in a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission over allegations that Armstrong touted the stock of a software company, without disclosing that he was being paid to do so, the New York Times reports.
Armstrong is the co-author of Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics, with Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos. He is also the founder of the Democratic activist site MyDD.com.
Under the agreement, Armstrong neither denies nor admits to the allegations. “It is good to see the matter finally end,” Armstrong said in an e-mail message to the TIMES.
The Fairness Doctrine
To bring you up to speed on this controversial issue that the Democrats so artfully call the “Fairness Doctrine” (an interesting title much like the serpent in the Garden so subtly misrepresented the mandate of God to Eve). This is a policy that had been in force throughout most of the era of the FCC which was established in 1934 by an act of Congress. The Fairness Doctrine was a “regulation” of the FCC to require Broadcast licensees to present controversial issues of public importance in an a) honest, b) equal, and c) balanced manner. Let me pause here to state that the FCC like the IRS establishes “regulations” in order to effectuate their interpretation of the law and good public policy. Regulations are not laws and can be challenged on the basis that they are not in conformity with the law. I have done this myself in the context of the IRS only to initially lose but eventually be vindicated in the Federal Court of Appeals that the particular IRS regulation did not serve the purpose of the IRS Code but hindered it.
In the same matter the FCC voted in 1987 on a 4-0 ruling to overturn the long standing “Fairness Doctrine” on the basis that the regulation had grown to inhibit rather than enhance debate. This position of the FCC followed a 1986 DC Appeals Court ruling that stated that Congress never made the so called doctrine a “binding requirement” of the FCC. This decision is understood to be operative and accepted by all sides of this issue.
The Conservatives considered this FCC ruling a victory and opening in the otherwise Liberal Domination of other media outlets such as Newspapers, Cable New, Network News and Read more
Those Pesky Clinton Profits (what a country)
Oops, Hillary Clinton sold some stock recently that could cause her problems during the campaign if she had continued to hold those shares. Wow, only in America is it a crime to own a particular stock when you are running for President but not to own that stock when you have merely declared your intentions to run for the nomination. Lets see what she owned in part:
NewsCorp (Fox News) Satan Himself
Biogen Big Pharmaceutical
Johnson & Johnson Big Pharmaceutical
Amgen Big Pharmaceutical
Pfizer Big Pharmaceutical
Glaxo Smith Kline Big Pharmaceutical
Wall Mart The Anti-Christ with Employee Abuses
These are creating millions in Capital Gains that will carry substantial Capital Gains Taxes that she has been able to avoid Read more
War On Terror - Bumper Sticker
John Edwards like Joe Biden here has had a lot to say about the war on terror. Most recently it has been about how the War on Terror of George Bush is really a sham and designed for political purposes and NOT to make America safer (see below). So John Edwards can vote for and claim repeatedly that he will be behind the “War on Terror” until the end and suddenly Read more
Joe Biden Wants War (again)
So, Senator Joe Biden (D-Del) calls for the use of troops in Darfur here and doing so without checking with Jimmy Carter relative to what Jimmy calls a “pre-emptive war” here meaning that the security of the United States is not directly threatened. This is the same Joe Biden that is against the troop surge in Iraq even though he spent most of the past few years complaining that we need more troops in Iraq here. There’s nothing like the administration saying that it was going to actually do something to cause a Democrat to change his mind about Read more
The Misery Index
From the man that brought us the “real life” understanding of the Misery Index (as first articulated by economist Arthur Okun), Jimmy Carter has now declared that George Bush is the “worst President ever”…….whewww! He has been waiting for 25 years with hopes to transfer that title to some Republican. His only options have been Ronald Reagan, Bush the 1st and Bush the 2nd. For those of you that don’t know, Okun came up with a term that first took on popular meaning during the Carter Administration. It was called the “Misery Index.” This is an economic indicator that measures how badly Americans are suffering economically. Carter blew this index off the chart. The index was formulated by Read more
Freedom of Speech (only for the Left)
If you live in Baltimore and you engage in vandalism and defacement of property you might receive praise from Robert Murrow, a spokesman for the city’s Department of Public Works. Gee I remember when city officials were the first to condemn the defacement of private property. But I guess it is ok now so long as it is related to the destruction of Conservative matters. You see this praise came after a vandal threw a can of paint on a billboard advertising the Rush Limbaugh show. Just what did Mr. Murrow say about the antic? He said, “It looks like they took globs of paint and threw it on his face. It looks great. It did my heart good,” Well if you are the advertising agency that owns the Billboard you can’t expect to receive “equal protection under the law” in Baltimore now can you?
My opinion is that the left have become the defacers of society in general and this is just another piece of their work and city officials approval thereof. Don’t look for any arrests due to this vandalism, but maybe they will issue a civic award. On the other hand maybe this is approved behavior now, so I encourage you to forward this post to your friends in Baltimore urging them to deface property of the Baltimore Department of Public Works. Apparently they won’t mind. But maybe on the other hand freedom of speech is only for the liberals and their pets that they like to protect such as the Jihadists.
MORE: Baltimore Sun