Free kibbles

TAX AND SPEND:

Analysis shows that millionaires in general pay a higher income tax rate than the middle class. All that talk about millionaires paying a lower rate is baloney designed to inspire class warfare.

"...according to Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid's office, 22,000 people who make over $1 million a year pay taxes at a rate of less than 15 percent. According to the IRS, nearly 1,500 households reporting more than $1 million in income paid no federal income taxes in 2009. That's out of about 236,000 returns for income above $1 million, most of which belong to households paying taxes at a higher rate. And, as would be expected, they contribute a disproportionate share of tax toward federal coffers."

How much you want to bet that that 22,000 are disproportionally Democrats like tax cheats Tim Geithner and Tom Daschle? And remember Rahm Emanuel's tax tricks? Democrats love to raise our taxes because they don't pay them. Another analysis of the so-called Buffet rule:

"But the Congressional Budget Office shows that Buffett Rule is already in effect. The highest earners pay more than double the amount of taxes as a share of their income than middle income earners. The top 1 percent of earners currently pays 29.5 percent of their income in all federal taxes while middle income families pay 14.3 percent."

Of course Buffet doesn't pay his taxes either. Obama's plan would create more czars.

Here are the details in Obama's newest tax and spend plan. Needless to say, pretty much everybody will pay more directly or through higher energy prices. Obama prefers the word fees to taxes. Karl Marx thinks Obama is engaged in class warfare.

Americans believe that over half of all government spending is wasted. How about all of it?

Government paying over $16 for a muffin might inspire the same kind of political backlash as the Pentagon's $50 hammer did decades ago, but anybody who believes government is going to police itself on these issues is a fool.

REGULATION:

How Obama's regulatory binge is dragging our economy down further.

"Specifically, the panel found at least 219 "economically significant regulations in the pipeline, which if finalized, will impose costs of $100 million or more annually on the economy." That's a minimum of $219 billion in added costs to do business in this country over the next decade. Even worse, the panel found the Obama bureaucrats have already imposed 75 major new regulations that are projected to add another $380 billion in costs."

The cost of regulation.

HEALTH CARE:

Obama's deficit reduction plan calls for rationing Medicare.

"The IPAB is the Independent Payment Advisory Board, which is a 15-member panel of “experts” that was created by the Obamacare legislation to make determinations on what sort of care Americans can and cannot get.Keep in mind that Obamacare also allows the federal government to control what health insurance policies we’re allowed to purchase, and thus what those policies cover. The law also requires that we only buy health insurance through government-created health care exchanges. Which means that the IPAB is, essentially, the technocratic board of unelected bureaucrats who will be deciding what sort of health care you can and cannot access.
And deciphering the bureaucratic language above, Obama’s deficit reduction plan gives the IPABmore power to control and ration your health care."

But this is inevitable as long as government dominates our health care system.

I love this argument. Imagine if the government had controlled a monopoly on supplying shoes for generations. Further, suppose that libertarians opposed that monopoly and said that the government should no longer supply shoes; producers in a free market should supply shoes. What do you think critics, or should I say statists would say?

"If everyone had always gotten their shoes from the government, writes Rothbard, the proponent of shoe privatization would be greeted as a kind of lunatic. "How could you?" defenders of the status quo would squeal. "You are opposed to the public, and to poor people, wearing shoes! And who would supply shoes … if the government got out of the business? Tell us that! Be constructive! It's easy to be negative and smart-alecky about government; but tell us who would supply shoes? Which people? How many shoe stores would be available in each city and town? … What material would they use? … Suppose a poor person didn't have the money to buy a pair?""

Sound familiar? Of course government shoes would be grotesquely inferior to the shoes we enjoy today, and they would cost five or ten times as much as shoes do today. But once government took over their supply, it would be practically impossible to convince people that everybody would be better off if private sector suppliers supplied them. The same is true for health care, as Ron Paul pointed out, starting a leftist fervor. Paul gave a great answer under pressure, but the point he failed to make, and it's an important point, is that after his family, friends, church and charities had taken care of the irresponsible man who didn't have insurance, they would have held him accountable. They would have pressured him to buy insurance, and they would have pressured him to pay them back in some way. The ultimate result would be almost nobody would go without insurance. Another point he didn't have a chance to make is insurance and health care would cost a small fraction of what it costs today, and it would be higher quality.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Another peer reviewed paper shows clouds have a large, negative feedback effect on global warming. It had to be true. If this wasn't true, the earth would have succumbed to runaway global warming millions or billions of years ago.

This attack on Gibson Guitars is just ludicrous.

Global warming frauds caught rewriting an article to fix errors pointed out by commenters then inserting comments claiming that commenters hadn't read the article correctly. That's the thing about frauds. It's a matter of character. People who lie about global warming will lie about anything. We see it over and over.

WAR ON DRUGS:

Drug tests now detect bath salts. I'm at a loss for words. Like this is a good thing.

POLITICS:

The problem with this blame Bush approach is that there's a lot of truth to it. Government made things bad before Bush. Bush made them worse. Obama made them much worse. There's plenty of blame to go around.

Chicago Tribune columnist advises Obama to withdraw from the 2012 election.

"When Ronald Reagan ran for re-election in 1984, his slogan was "Morning in America." For Barack Obama, it's more like midnight in a coal mine."

That's Obama's hometown newspaper, but to be fair, Steve Chapman just left Reason magazine to join the Tribune. Liberals vow to run a primary challenge against Obama. I would love to see this, but I doubt it will happen.

The public has rejected the Democrat agenda. Again. Like they have every time since FDR. This is a pretty damning expose of Obama's policies, including many that pass under the radar. The problem is Republicans are only slightly less bad than Democrats. But Obama is arguably the worst Democrat. He was the most leftist Senator for the short time he was in the Senate.

Congressional Black Caucus chairman admits the CBC would march on the White House if the president wasn't black.

I see no mystery here. Obama keeps pushing to the left despite the will of the people because his goal is to collapse our economy and make everybody dependent on government so he can implement communism here. If he can do that before the 2012 election, he believes he'll win like FDR. But he's wrong. FDR ran on a platform of reducing the burden of government. Obama didn't. And FDR repealed prohibition. Obama didn't.

I think this is a perfectly accurate statement, unfortunately:

"I’m starting to feel like a broken record about Paul, but it’s still true: his followers are loyal and will turn out for him, but he’s not expanding his support to the broader Republican base."

He still polls in single digits or occasionally the lower teens. Iowa is less than four months away. Granted, Rick Perry will probably come back to the pack, but Paul has to get into the 20s at least to have any chance. He has yet to show any sign he can do that. Gallop has him at 13 percent, in third.

""The survey, taken Thursday through Sunday, charts a GOP field that seems headed toward a showdown between Perry, with 31% backing, and Romney, at 24%."The only other candidate in double digits is Texas Rep.Ron Paul, at 13%. Support for Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann has plummetted to 5%.""

Heck, if he starts polling above 15, I'll be excited.  That might produce some momentum.

Here's a good reminder that we're ruled by a class of rulers.

MEDIA:

First Obama was the first black president because one of his parents was black. Not too long ago he was Irish. Now he's the first Jewish president. And the mainstream media wonders why it's going out of business.

LOCAL:

Obama speech open to the public. Apparently he doesn't have enough supporters to fill the venue.

MISC:

Microsoft is losing billions on online services including Bing, and the losses are growing.

Verner Vinge becomes reality.

Microbe powered fuel cells.

Lady Gaga kills it in this duet with Tony Bennett.