Pauperizing America: Part Two

Bonnie Erbe sees this as the rebirth of the Republican party:

Yes, too many Americans (unfortunately, in my view) want nationalized healthcare. Yes, they want Social Security to be made fiscally sound. But do they want Daddy Government to reach this far into their beloved 401(k) retirement plans and wreak fiscal havoc? Methinks not.
...

Puh-leeze, just how stupid do Democrats think each one of us is? I can see it now, President Obama and the "tax and spenders" in Congress will seize victory and turn it immediately into disaster by raising taxes, reinstating the inheritance tax, and nationalizing healthcare. (OK, I won't call it "socialized" healthcare.) Thereby they will catapult middle-income Americans and independent voters into a speed run back into the GOP camp—a re-creation of the so-called Reagan Democrats of the 1980s. Didn't they learn from their congressional losses in 1994? Didn't they learn from having to swallow eight years of the most incompetent White House governance we've ever seen (George W., that is.) Apparently not. In fact, apparently not at all.

The Democrats zeal for power will be their undoing. And it will be sickening to see all those dolts who complained about the Patriot Act (while being unable to point to a single instance of its misuse), who will sit back and applaud while the Democrats attempt to get their greedy little paws on the billions hard working Americans have managed to save for their retirement.

The most amazing thing is they are so drunk with the prospect of success next Tuesday that they don't even bother to hide it anymore.

Funny (And True)

The real Chris Buckley takes rather a suave beat-down courtesy of Iowahawk: As a Conservative, I Must Say I Do Quite Like the Cut of this Obama Fellow's Jib

By T. Coddington Van Voorhees VII
Columnist, The National Topsider
Membership Chairman, The Newport Club


When my late father T. Coddington Van Voorhees VI founded the iconoclastic conservative journal National Topsider in 1948, he famously declared that "Now is the time for all good conservative helmsmen to hoist the mizzen, pour the cocktails, and steer this damned schooner hard starboard." In the 60 years since he first uttered it after one-too-many Cosmopolitans at one of Pamela Harriman's notorious foreign policy black tie balls, father's pithy bon mot has served as a rallying cry for conservatives from Greenwich to Chevy Chase. Today, I say it's time for we conservatives to once again grab the rigging and set sail with the flotilla of the true conservative in this race: Barack Obama.

Trust me, I haven't taken this tack lightly. No Van Voorhees has supported an avowed socialist since great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandpapa Cragmont Van Voorhees lent Peter Minuet $24 and a sack of wampum to swing a subprime mortgage on Manhattan Island. Old dad himself often recounted how, as a lad, he would command the family chauffeur Carleton to drive the Duesenberg down to the Times Square Trans-Lux so he could hiss Roosevelt. But I've taken a good measure of this Obama fellow, and I must say I like the cut of the man's jib.

Undoubtedly, I enjoyed this bit best:

But there is an even more compelling reason to support Barack Obama: Sarah Palin.

If you are a conservative like me, you guffawed when you heard John McCain announced this declasse rube as a running mate, followed by good-natured applause, thinking it was some sort of whimsical campus prank he was reenacting from his Annapolis years. This was, of course, quickly followed the shock of realizing that he wasn't joking, and all that Hanoi unpleasantness had finally driven him around the bend.

It's an inescapable conclusion that this woman has, in 6 short weeks, single-handedly destroyed the Republican party. Certainly George Bush may share some of the blame; but we conservatives must remember how our hopes were buoyed by his impressive bloodlines and Yale degree before we realized his excursion to Texas had caused him to "go native." But la Palin offers true conservatives no such extenuating graces. I mean, my God, this woman is simply awful; the elided vowels, the beauty pageantry, the guns, the crude non-Episcopal protestantism, the embarrassing porchload of children with horrifying hillbilly names, the white after Labor Day. As fellow conservative commentator Andrew Sullivan quipped to me the other day outside a Martha's Vineyard antique shop, it's gratifying to know the Gipper isn't alive to see what has become of his party.

But it's not just American conservatives who are appalled. Just last week conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks and I were enjoying an apres-badminton apertif at the family weekend house in Montauk with my good friend Viscount Klaus-Maria Von Wallensheim, the conservative EU Agricultural Pricing Minister with whom I shared an Alpine chalet and manservant during our years as classmates at a Swiss boarding school. "Kloonkie" (my old school appellation for the Viscount) reported the growing dismay of the Continental Right over Palin's embarrassing enthusiasm for childbirth and Israel.

"Coddsie, old chap, " he warned, "You know I've always been been America's biggest defender in Monaco. But if you elect this ill-bred charwoman, I will be be forced to move anchor to St. Tropez out of pure shame."

Really, what we are seeing in the likes of Buckley, Brooks, Noonan, Frum and Parker is the intellectual dead wood of conservatism. They liked the "conservatism" of the A-list cocktail parties of Washington and Manhattan; the "conservatism" of Presidential and Congressional power; not to mention the cheap allure of influence and prestige. They never understood the necessity of limiting governmental power or the desirability of economic freedom for everyone.

McCain often says "We Republicans came into power to change Washington, and instead Washington changed us." There is some truth to that, but you cannot underestimate the role played by the yahoos I listed above. They were the champions of every move away from principled conservatism. Thus when Democrats proposed disastrous economic policies that ultimately ruined the housing market, so called "free market Republicans" did little but enable them. When a real conservative raised an actual objection they were dismissed with a "Don't these rubes know how things are done here?" and, sadly, often by people calling themselves conservatives.

In the end, there is a difference between being a pragmatist and being a sell-out, and it behooves us all to recognize that difference. I, for one, will not be fooled again.

The Democrats Plan To Pauperize America

Really, there is no other word for it: Why Democrats Will Target the Investor Class in 2009

There are at least two pretty effective ways to turn someone into a Republican: (1) get them married with kids and (2) get them to invest in the stock market. So, if I were a highly paid Democratic political strategist, I would make sure to spend a few minutes every day thinking of ways to get Americans out of the stock market—the faster, the better. And that's why if Barack Obama is elected president next week, 2009 may well bring a concerted and all-out effort by the Obama administration and a Democratically dominated Congress to turn the generally pro-Republican Investor Class into an endangered class by, among other tactics, raising investment taxes and ending the tax preferences for 401(k)'s, IRAs, and other retirement accounts. Here is the emerging battle plan for Operation Investor Class Rollback:

1) Hike Investment Taxes. Obama wants to raise capital gains taxes even though he has kinda, sorta admitted that it might be bad for the economy and might actually decrease tax revenue to the government. For now, he's talking about raising the highest cap gains rate by one third to 20 percent, though earlier in the campaign, he floated pushing it as high as 28 percent, a near doubling....

2) Eliminate 401(k)'s, IRAs, and other retirement plans. Democrats in the House are now talking openly about the longtime liberal dream of repealing the tax advantages of putting money into a 401(k) plan or other tax-advantaged retirement account....

Not only would removing the preferential tax treatment of these vehicles raise investment taxes by $100 billion a year and affect Americans making less than $100,000, it would surely prompt many Americans, already shell-shocked by the market's recent losses, to flee stocks. All this ignores the fact that there are trillions of dollars in American retirement accounts, and abandoning the higher-returning stock market at a probable bottom is classic financial foolishness. If you believe long term in the American economy, then you have to believe in the stock market. If you don't, then you have to admit the government won't be able to afford its promises anyway.

3) Replace private capital with public capital. But wouldn't a weak stock market hurt the economy by making it tougher to raise investment capital and lessen the return on risk? Surely, it would. But Obama is planning hundreds of billions of dollars of government "investment" in cutting-edge technology, particularly in the energy and healthcare sectors....

Fundamentally this is all designed for a single purpose, to make Americans beholden to, and dependant upon the state. The goal would be to make those with a middle class income unable to provide for their own retirement, or otherwise to direct the financial direction of their own lives.

The goal is also to limit social mobility. As the piece makes clear the trouble with people getting wealthier, from a Democratic point of view, is that they become more Republican. But if you are able to create a new class who feel the only way to have a middle class lifestyle is to have the government guarantee it for you, paid for by the pocketbooks of the rich 5%, then you will have permanent Democrats.

However, this fantasy is just that, a fantasy. There is no way 5% of Americans can pay for a middle class life for the other 95%. So, if you are anywhere in the top 50% of wage earners they are coming for your money next.

If you don't think this is Socialism then that only proves you don't know the meaning of the word.

Obama In A Nutshell

Zogby: Obama Lead Down To Four

I'm not normally a "poll hawk" but with one week to go these could actually mean something.

Democrat Barack Obama has a 4-point national lead over Republican John McCain as they head into the final week of the presidential campaign, according to a Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll released on Tuesday.

Obama leads McCain by 49 percent to 45 percent among likely voters in the three-day national tracking poll, a slight dip from his 5-point advantage on Monday. The telephone poll has a margin of error of 2.9 percentage points.

...

McCain, a veteran Arizona senator, has sliced Obama's 12-point advantage by more than half in the last five days but he has not been able to break through the 45 percent support mark.

Probably more significant is Obama slipping under the 50 percent mark.

The real key will be to see if this signals movement in important state battles. That probably wouldn't be seen until later in the week.

Stay tuned.

O.K. I Give Up

Why are all sorts of people coming to my blog after searching Google for "Thomas Jefferson consistently inconsistent"? In about only two hours it has become the number one way people find this blog.

And what are people finding? A post I wrote in 2005.

Did Obama hiccup again?

Hmmm....

I'm wondering if I'm to be banned from commenting at Donklephant. First, I responded to a post earlier today, but my attempt at a follow-up disappeared.

O.K. The Internet is a tricky place and sometimes weird stuff happens.

However, I just tried to comment on this thread and *poof* my comment disappears again.

If what I think is happening is happening its a nice "centrist" thing to do.

Anyway...what I attempted to follow up on was this comment by Alan:

Equality is the central tenant of liberalism. Universal health care. Affirmative action. Gay rights. Welfare. Minimum wage. Labor laws. Hate speech laws. Progressive taxation. They’re all attempts to equalize us.

I wrote (and luckily I copied it in case of another "accident"):

I teach a "Political Ideologies" course and as such I'm a stickler about some of the terminology.

"Equality is the central tenant of liberalism."

In terms of the political ideology this is assuredly wrong. Liberalism is about maximizing freedom (thus the Latin root "liber"). Maximizing "equality" is, and always has been, a central tenet of socialism. (Which is different than communism...you seem to use the terms interchangeably).

"Universal health care. Affirmative action. Gay rights. Welfare. Minimum wage. Labor laws. Hate speech laws. Progressive taxation. They’re all attempts to equalize us."

And, thus, not particularly "liberal."

Now, this distinction matters. For example, John Stuart Mill has always been classified as a liberal, but he would be horrified at the notion of "hate speech laws"...and rightfully so, as they are completely illiberal. That such laws are termed "liberal" in our weird world Mill would view as grotesque.

What is amazing about our society is there is no longer a popular term to apply to someone who values human freedom above all else.

Is says something unpleasant about the drift of our society.

And drifting it surely is.

(Believe it or not, any irony was completely unintentional.)

UPDATE:

Alan from Donklephant has kindly written me to let me know that their comment filter has been acting up. I'm glad to hear it because I, for one, enjoy good natured argumentation...even when, or especially when, I get worked up about it.

A (Not So) Bold Prediction

Whatever happens in the election I predict the final IMW Electoral Vote prediction (which will happen on Friday) will be closer to actual results than the "projection" of this guy.

Right now I can't decide if this fellow's work is an example of intellectual malfeasance or intellectual ineptitude.

We shall see.

An Obligatory Post

Yes, I saw this:

Pittsburgh police are still questioning a 20-year-old woman who said she was robbed and assaulted at an ATM in Bloomfield because of her political views.

Ashley Todd, of College Station, Texas, said she was using an ATM at Liberty Avenue and Pearl Street just before 9 p.m. Wednesday when a man approached her and put a knife to her throat.

Police spokeswoman Diane Richard said the robber took $60 from Todd, then became angry when he saw a McCain bumper sticker on the victim's car. The attacker then punched and kicked the victim, before using a dull knife to scratch the letter "B" into her face, Richard said.

My initial reaction is to be skeptical about the authenticity of this report. In spirit The Anchoress sums up my thinking exactly:

I did not jump on the story because I’m a New Yorker and my first thought was: Tawana Brawley.

I'll let police do their job. If there is a there there, I'll have plenty of time to be smug and hysterical.

UPDATE & BUMPED:

Well, that didn't take long:

Police sources tell KDKA that a campaign worker has now confessed to making up a story that a mugger attacked her and cut the letter “B” in her face after seeing her McCain bumper sticker.

Ashley Todd, 20, of Texas, initially told police that she was robbed at an ATM in Bloomfield and that the suspect became enraged and started beating her after seeing her GOP sticker on her car.

You could just feel this one coming.

Shooting up yard signs I could buy. Nut job tearing up McCain signs and hitting McCain supporters with them I could buy. But this always sounded fishy.

Ayers Plotted To Kill 25 Million Americans

Well, thank God this guy is a "valued educator."

Thank God, Barack Obama chose to launch his political career in this guy's living room.

(h/t CY)

Is There Any Law The Obama Campaign Won't Break

The Obama campaign accepted the following campaign "donation":

So I went to the Obama website this afternoon and clicked on the "Donate" button.

I used my real MasterCard number (but was not asked for the 3 digit security code).

Used the following information and it was accepted...

First name: Fake
Last Name: Donor
Address: 1 Dollar To Prove A Point
City: Fraudulent
State: AL
Zip / Post: 33333
Email Address: allmyinfoismadeup@mediabias.com
Phone Number: 2125551212
Employer: Mainstream Media
Occupation: Being in the Tank

And incredibly, my $5 donation was ACCEPTED!!!

Sadly, this isn't incredible. It is par for the course for the Messiah.

(In case you were wondering, camp McCain routinely reject such fraudulent "donations."

3000 Educators Sign Petition Insisting They Are Morons

If you've spent any time on college campuses you would have found there has traditionally been a view that faculty at the colleges of education aren't the brightest bulbs in the pack.

Well, here are some "bright" folks who want to reinforce that belief:

More than 3,000 educators have signed a statement in support of William Ayers, the University of Illinois-Chicago professor who has found himself under attack as a "washed-up terrorist" by the McCain campaign of late, the Brown Daily Herald reports.

The "friends and supporters of Bill Ayers" have circulated the statement online to combat the "character assassination and slander" of the Weather Underground founder.

Wow. It is as if these educators do not understand any of the words they use to communicate in English.

Truthful statements cannot be "slander" by definition. Look the word up morons.

Analogy This

Roland Martin says:

Watching Sen. John McCain and top Republicans swing wildly in their attempts to slam Sen. Barack Obama, with less than two weeks ago to go before Election Day, is like watching an old fighter --clearly out of gas, his legs turned to rubber, and all he can do is grab, hold, punch behind the back, just anything to try to win.

Watching the media attempt to suppress Republican turnout by portraying a tightening election as a fait accompli, is like re-watching the Nazified press in Germany help shut down all political opposition to Hitler in the mid 1930's.

Hmm...the trouble here is my analogy is more apt.

IMW Electoral Vote Prediction #5

Wednesday is the new Friday.

O.K., things are moving in the McCain direction for the first time in these.

McCain: 252
Obama: 286

The breakdown of the "toss up" states: PA, OH, FL, MI, MN, WI, VA, NV, CO, NM, IN, NH, MO & NC

McCain:

FL
OH
NV
IN
MO
NC

Obama:

VA
PA
MI
MN
WI
CO
NM
NH

Switching from McCain to Obama: None

Switching from Obama to McCain: FL & OH

Earlier projections:

#4 10/15 Obama 333 McCain 205
#3 10/03 Obama 273 McCain 265
#2 9/26 McCain 279 Obama 259
#1 9/17 McCain 315 Obama 223

The Truth Is...

And yes, this, is the truth:

Editor's note: Orson Scott Card is a Democrat and a newspaper columnist, and in this opinion piece he takes on both while lamenting the current state of journalism.

An open letter to the local daily paper — almost every local daily paper in America:

I remember reading All the President's Men and thinking: That's journalism. You do what it takes to get the truth and you lay it before the public, because the public has a right to know.

This housing crisis didn't come out of nowhere. It was not a vague emanation of the evil Bush administration.

It was a direct result of the political decision, back in the late 1990s, to loosen the rules of lending so that home loans would be more accessible to poor people. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were authorized to approve risky loans.

What is a risky loan? It's a loan that the recipient is likely not to be able to repay.

The goal of this rule change was to help the poor — which especially would help members of minority groups. But how does it help these people to give them a loan that they can't repay? They get into a house, yes, but when they can't make the payments, they lose the house — along with their credit rating.

They end up worse off than before.

This was completely foreseeable and in fact many people did foresee it. One political party, in Congress and in the executive branch, tried repeatedly to tighten up the rules. The other party blocked every such attempt and tried to loosen them.

Furthermore, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were making political contributions to the very members of Congress who were allowing them to make irresponsible loans. (Though why quasi-federal agencies were allowed to do so baffles me. It's as if the Pentagon were allowed to contribute to the political campaigns of Congressmen who support increasing their budget.)

Isn't there a story here? Doesn't journalism require that you who produce our daily paper tell the truth about who brought us to a position where the only way to keep confidence in our economy was a $700 billion bailout? Aren't you supposed to follow the money and see which politicians were benefiting personally from the deregulation of mortgage lending?

I have no doubt that if these facts had pointed to the Republican Party or to John McCain as the guilty parties, you would be treating it as a vast scandal. "Housing-gate," no doubt. Or "Fannie-gate."

Instead, it was Senator Christopher Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank, both Democrats, who denied that there were any problems, who refused Bush administration requests to set up a regulatory agency to watch over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and who were still pushing for these agencies to go even further in promoting sub-prime mortgage loans almost up to the minute they failed.

As Thomas Sowell points out in a TownHall.com essay entitled "Do Facts Matter?" ( http://snipurl.com/457townhall_com] ): "Alan Greenspan warned them four years ago. So did the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to the President. So did Bush's Secretary of the Treasury."

These are facts. This financial crisis was completely preventable. The party that blocked any attempt to prevent it was ... the Democratic Party. The party that tried to prevent it was ... the Republican Party.

Yet when Nancy Pelosi accused the Bush administration and Republican deregulation of causing the crisis, you in the press did not hold her to account for her lie. Instead, you criticized Republicans who took offense at this lie and refused to vote for the bailout!

What? It's not the liar, but the victims of the lie who are to blame?

There is more at the link.

The moral decrepitude of the press is shocking to see. They have descended to depths that are positively Nixonian.

Yet, they are happy about it, because there is no one to hold them accountable.

Instead, we are presented with garbage like Joe Klein's incessant whining that John McCain is mean to him.