Income Inequality: Should We Blame The Poor Instead Of Vilifying The Rich?

OK, tongue-in-cheek post title, for sure.  But James Q. Wilson makes a valid point (not that Democrats pay much attention to those things):

We could reduce income inequality by trying to curtail the financial returns of education and the number of women in the workforce — but who would want to do that?

The real income problem in this country is not a question of who is rich, but rather of who is poor. Among the bottom fifth of income earners, many people, especially men, stay there their whole lives. Low education and unwed motherhood only exacerbate poverty, which is particularly acute among racial minorities.

Making the poor more economically mobile has nothing to do with taxing the rich and everything to do with finding and implementing ways to encourage parental marriage, teach the poor marketable skills and induce them to join the legitimate workforce. It is easy to suppose that raising taxes on the rich would provide more money to help the poor. But the problem facing the poor is not too little money, but too few skills and opportunities to advance themselves.

So why can't Barack Obama campaign on giving the poor the social and institutional skill set they need to take advantage of the financial opportunities that present themselves in a capitalistic society?

Because he's not a capitalist? True that, but simplistic. He's campaigned on plenty of things he hasn't believed it.

Because he's scared of being seen as criticizing minorities, a la Bill Cosby or Spike Lee, and thus alienating a crucial base he must have in order to be re-elected to a second term?

Ah. More likely. Conservatives and center-right independents might agree with him, but would still likely vote Republican, offering him few new votes to replace the many he would be risking.

But the real reason why he won't touch this difficult truth with a ten-foot pole?  It's because Obama has nothing to run on in 2012 - the fact that he barely even mentioned his record in his SOTU speech last week (besides repeating, ad nasuem, how "he" got bin Laden) means he realizes how hostile most Americans are to it. And certainly, Obama cannot run on "more of the same" in 2012; that's why his popularity is scraping  bottom in the first place. And besides, "Completing the march towards our glorious Socialist future!" is not a winning campaign slogan either.

So he has to run against something, and as a "protector of America" from something. In a different time a leader would blame it on/run against the Jews, but Obama needs their money, and thus picked a group that is almost synonymous with them and seem as equally evil: The Rich.  Even if, as Wilson makes clear above, they have nothing to do with "income inequality" and may in fact have everything to do with bringing the nation back from the brink.

For what it is worth, I will give the president notice that this might not quite be a winning strategy. Salena Zito, writing about the rising Jacksonian streak in American voters:

Class warfare is not winning populism. Jacksonians are about being for something, not against success.

Liberals have historic memories of populist violence (i.e., World War I), so their intellectuals just can't get "masses arise" out of their minds, (Eldon Eisenach, University of Tulsa political science professor emeritus) says. "So the populism of 'Occupy' or the attempt of Obama to capture a populist strain in Republican progressivism just won't work.

"The one theme (independents) have that is Jacksonian is to get the federal government off their backs and out of their pockets -- hardly what Obama or Occupy have in mind."

Today, we're all political Whigs to some degree, seeking respectability...

Except the president, who will cover himself in mud, and attempt to divide us as a nation by telling us our problems can be solved by seeking vengeance against those who achieved success while we did not.

Doesn't sound like much of a plan. But then again, if Obama does go down in 2012, one will have to believe, in a thin-skinned pique of rage, he will try to take as as much of the nation down with him as he can...

Really: Just How Bad Is America's Debt/Spending Problem?

If you don't already know, maybe this little piece of napkin economics will make it clear how f*cked we truly are:

And if you're feeling like shrugging this all off with the old "Well, it's bad, but in comparison to everyone else, we look good", well...I still think that maybe you ain't quite getting the gravity of the situation.  They do, though, over at the New York Post:

....measured as a percentage of GDP (the value of all goods and services produced in a country over a year), our budget deficit is roughly a quarter larger than France’s. In fact, among European countries, only Greece and Ireland have larger deficits this year than we do.

The debt figures paint an even grimmer picture. If one includes all the unfunded liabilities of pension and health-care systems, Greece’s total debt equals 875% of its GDP. France, the next-most insolvent country in Europe, owes 570% of GDP. The United States, however, now owes 885% of GDP, more than any other industrialized country.

We have been able to avoid disaster so far only because, as the world’s preferential currency, other countries have been willing to lend us money cheaply. But that is not going to continue forever. And if our creditors begin to hike interest rates, we will be facing the same economic consequences facing so much of Europe today.



But don't worry. That will never happen here. Because Barack Obama will save us by..."investing" money in green energy projects while stopping the construction of oil pipelines, by "investing" more money in "education", by spreading broadband internet to barns and corn fields, by raising taxes on the rich, not-so-rich, almost rich, and lower-upper-middle class, and...by killing Osama bin Laden. Again and again, if necessary.

Yeah. We're in touch with reality, all right...

Lego Man In Space: How Much Has Changed

This pretty is pretty viral, so you likely have seen it, or read the story: Canadian teens Mathew Ho & Asad Muhammad spent five months and $400 creating a jury-rigged platform - using a weather balloon, some Styrofoam, a few Canon cameras, and Asad's mom's sewing machine - with which they sent a Lego man, holding the Canadian flag, into outer space. And precisely calculated the trajectory of the landing so that all the material was recoverable, and postable online:




This is the kind of ingenuity American kids used to be famous for, right? Seems like our youth are more interested in making videos of people getting the sh*t kicked out of them then actually doing anything more...inventive.

Starting this past September, the duo spent their Saturdays at Ho’s kitchen table in Scarborough, drawing up plans and building the balloon.

What? Not playing Halo online? Why, that's positively un-American!

Exactly, some would say.

Two other things jumped out at me from the Toronto Sun piece linked above:

The two met in middle school. Muhammad’s family had just immigrated emigrated from Pakistan, and he spoke no English. When other students were ignoring him, Ho walked up and made friends.

Didn't talented people used to come from foreign lands to America in order to have a chance for themselves and their families to succeed? Sure, we get plenty of Mexicans, I suppose, but one gets the feeling more and more of them are coming here for the blue-state welfare checks and food stamps than to actually build a better life as Americans.

And then there's this - a little delay in (literally) launching  the project due to a less-than-friendly neighbor:

The pair discovered a website that calculates a weather balloon’s estimated landing spot based on input launch coordinates, prevailing winds, and balloon specs...

The site kept spitting out Rochester, N.Y., as their balloon’s final landing spot. Muhammad and Ho didn’t like their chances with U.S. Homeland Security.

But one Saturday morning, Ho tried again, and saw the balloon would land near Peterborough...

What would Homeland Security have said if an Asian kid and a Muslim kid named Muhammad had tried to scamper across the border to pick up an object with cameras that had shot through the Earth's atmosphere? The story of their intellectual ingenuity would never have gotten out, nor the video, or the photos, nor they - from some type of maximum-security lockup.

Look at how we are perceived. Look at what we've become. Look at who we are, and what wastrels our youth is becoming.

Used to be that Lego man whould have proudly been holding an American flag...

How much has changed.

Climate Change Hysteria: Who Benefits?

Easy: Liberal-dominated governments who want to redistribute private-sector cash to themselves and their cronies (while impoverishing their subjects), and greedy scientists who sell their soul and diminish their profession for a few pieces of silver. They will prosper from climate change, while the masses, ironically, will shiver and freeze...

Sound like something out of the rough birth of Western Civilization?  It's is, in fact,a regression from our Renessiance and Enlightenment, complete with witch hunts.  But first, the WSJ  reiterates what we know:  High-tech global warming scare tactics are extremely profitable to those in the game:

Alarmism over climate is of great benefit to many, providing government funding for academic research and a reason for government bureaucracies to grow. Alarmism also offers an excuse for governments to raise taxes, taxpayer-funded subsidies for businesses that understand how to work the political system, and a lure for big donations to charitable foundations promising to save the planet...

Much like the Church, Kings and Feudal Lords made out pretty well in the Dark Ages.

So who loses? Anyone else who dares to want to live a life made more comfortable by progress:

A recent study of a wide variety of policy options by Yale economist William Nordhaus showed that nearly the highest benefit-to-cost ratio is achieved for a policy that allows 50 more years of economic growth unimpeded by greenhouse gas controls. This would be especially beneficial to the less-developed parts of the world that would like to share some of the same advantages of material well-being, health and life expectancy that the fully developed parts of the world enjoy now. Many other policy responses would have a negative return on investment. And it is likely that more CO2 and the modest warming that may come with it will be an overall benefit to the planet.

And the witch hunts:

Although the number of publicly dissenting scientists is growing, many young scientists furtively say that while they also have serious doubts about the global-warming message, they are afraid to speak up for fear of not being promoted—or worse. They have good reason to worry. In 2003, Dr. Chris de Freitas, the editor of the journal Climate Research, dared to publish a peer-reviewed article with the politically incorrect (but factually correct) conclusion that the recent warming is not unusual in the context of climate changes over the past thousand years. The international warming establishment quickly mounted a determined campaign to have Dr. de Freitas removed from his editorial job and fired from his university position....


I would love for someone to read this to Mitt Romney, and ask him where he stands on this perversion of our intellectual evolution.  And ask Newt if he still sits with Nancy...

Did Romney "Pack The Room" Last Night? I Hope So....

Jonah Goldberg comments on last night's debate, a rather flat one for Newton and a fairly successful one for Romney:

I don’t know whether he did or not, but it seemed obvious to me that the room had a lot of Romney supporters in it....There were definitely moments when Romney deserved the applause and cheers he got. But he also got applause and cheers for lines that have elicited no such response in the previous 8,000 debates. If Romney did pack the room with ringers, it was smart if also devious. Gingrich exposed a key vulnerability to his debate superpowers: he feeds off the energy from the audience. If Romney and his team figured that out and tampered with his energy source, that’s smart politics.

It is. And in the general election, faced with a choice between the smug, bombastic, pedantic, know-it-all professor they know and the one they are only slightly less familiar with, well...you just might see Barack Obama re-elected, based upon this rationale offered by the president himself.

But if a Republican candidate can get under the president's (extremely) thin skin and expose him as the punk-ass bitch he is without lowering himself to Obama's childish level, you just might have a winner.  And it seems as if Romney, actually possessing the "cool temperament" the president's supporters tried to own, may very well likely be able to tinker with Barack's mojo and pull off the innocent "who, me?" routine while the whiner-in-chief flips his lid.

Not an endorsement of Romney, by the way. I'm just saying. Both his technocratic urge to "tinker &  fix" rather than "destroy & rebuild" (which is what is necessary), and his obvious affection for state-run healthcare, are extremely troubling.

So that's why we need to make sure we elect a Congress and Senate that is as ideologically conservative as possible. If he does get the nomination, and wins the big prize, we'll need to keep President Romney's feet as close to the fire as possible. lest he stray off the path he was appointed to...

Rumble On The Runway: Obama Making Jan Brewer Rich

Obama's reverse-Midas touch in full effect....he publicly and rudely bitches about what he claims is a mis- characterization of him in her book, Scorpions for Breakfast: My Fight Against Special Interests, Liberal Media, and Cynical Politicos to Secure America's Border and it goes from 285,568th place in overall sales to 29th.

Check that. That was five minutes ago. It's up to #21.

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #21 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
#1 in Books> Politics &Social Sciences >Government >Public Policy
#2 in Books > Biographies > Memoirs > Leaders > Notable People> Political
#2 in Books >Politics >Social Sciences >Government >State > Local Government

Can I get the president to throw a Barack Bitch-fit about Right, Wing Nut?

"You're just digging yourself in deeper....and making me much, much richer.  Of course, with Republicans running the show in 2013, your precious federal government will never see a dime of it...Bwahahahahahahahahahahaha !!!"

Finally: A Plausible Reason To Re-Elect Barack Obama!

Seth Mandel takes this from the president's State of the Union/2012 Campaign Kickoff Speech aired this past Tuesday:

The implication was that he hadn’t really done anything, but jobs were somehow coming back anyway so he should be re-elected because if the American economy is strong enough to withstand a first term of his, it can probably withstand another one.

Probably. Unless he actually fulfills his promise to, ahem, "finish the job he started". But based on his record of actually keeping promises - as opposed to simply making them - I think we'd manage to survive.

Or one might just say the president leads the same way Homer Simpson parents:

Homer: I make you kids lots of promises, that's what makes me a good father


Lisa: Actually, keeping promises makes you a good father


Homer: No, that makes me a great father...

Why Does Joe Biden Hate Indians?

First, there was this:

"I've had a great relationship. In Delaware, the largest growth in population is Indian-Americans moving from India. You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I'm not joking."

It's OK.  He's a Democrat, so he's earned absolutions from the media (as opposed to Rick Perry, who was crucified for the scribbling on a rock his grandfather once walked past...)

And just today, in Rochester, New Hampshire, we have this - sneering mockery of an Indian accent as part of a complaint about American jobs going overseas:




But that's OK, he's a Democrat. Biden could walk on his hands like a chimp while speaking in "Ebonics" and still get a pass from the media...

Jan Brewer vs. Barack Obama: One's A Whiny Little Bitch...

...and the other is the governor of Arizona.

Almost a fistfight on the tarmac, when Jan Brewer went to greet Barack Obama as he deplaned.  What happened? Jan tells the tale:

“He was a little disturbed about my book, Scorpions for Breakfast. I said to him that I have all the respect in the world for the office of the president. The book is what the book is. I asked him if he read the book. He said he read the excerpt. So.”

Asked what aspect of the book disturbed him, Brewer said: “That he didn’t feel that I had treated him cordially. I said I was sorry he felt that way but I didn’t get my sentence finished....

She said the president brought up the book.

“I thought we probably would’ve talked about the things that were important to him and important to me, helping one another. Our country is upside down....

He appeared to walk away from her while they were still talking, and she confirmed that by saying she didn’t finish her sentence.

So he turned on his heel and spun off while the lady was still speaking. Stay classy, Baracky...

Not the first time he threw a hissy fit on the tarmac.  Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal tells a similar tale out of the bayou:

I was expecting words of concern about the oil spill, worry about the pending ecological disaster, and words of confidence about how the federal government was here to help. Or perhaps he was going to vent about BP’s slow response. But no, the president was upset about something else. And he wanted to talk about, well, food stamps. Actually, he wanted to talk about a letter that my administration had sent to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack a day earlier.

The letter was rudimentary, bureaucratic, and ordinary. .  .  . We were simply asking the federal government to authorize food stamps for those who were now unemployed because of the oil spill. Governors regularly make these sorts of requests to the federal government when facing disaster.

But somehow, for some reason, President Obama had personalized this. And he was upset.

There was not a word about the oil spill. He was concerned about looking bad because of the letter. “Careful,” he said to me, “this is going to get bad for everyone.

Not the oil spill. President Food Stamps was concerned about...well, you know...

Why does this president have such deep-seated hostility to women and minorities, anyway? Oh, I suppose the racial/gender makeup of his anger victim here is likely irrelevant - when Obama's fragile, delicate, feminine ego is bruised, no one is safe, regardless of whether they have what might be defined as a normally protected status.

And the next time the media tries to tell me about his "cool, even, temperament"...I think I am gonna lose mine...

Chris Christie Outfoxes New Jersey Democrats...

...which, granted, is not saying much.  But still so much fun to watch. State Senate President Stephen Sweeney, usually a union thug, now a gay lover (as in a lover of all things gay, especially same-sex marriage), said publicly he would not consider Christie's appointees for the New Jersey State Supreme Court unless they were minorities. Spending most of his time surrounded by like-minded fellows and reading the Newark Star Ledger, Sweeney made almost an understandable mistake: he assumes that all blacks and gays were liberal Democrats, and would vote thusly.

How's that nuanced line of thinking work out for Sweeney? Ah..not well:

On Monday Christie nominated Korean-American Phillip Kwon and Bruce Harris, the openly gay black mayor of Chatham Borough. Kwon, who worked with Christie when he was U.S. attorney, is currently First Assistant Attorney General for New Jersey.

Christie delivered a body blow to Democrats prepared for a fight over high-court nominees. It puts Democrats on the defensive and gives Christie latitude in bringing more conservative voices to the court. Democrats wanted minority candidates, and they have them.

First Assistant Attorney General Kwon's resume is stellar:

Prior to joining the Office of the Attorney General, Mr. Kwon served for more than ten years as an Assistant U.S. Attorney with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey. As part of the Criminal Division, he focused on prosecutions involving drugs, gangs, counterfeiting, white-collar fraud, and immigration fraud. Mr. Kwon also served in the Special Prosecutions Division where he worked specifically on corruption cases and trials, including those involving Robert Janiszewski, Nidia Davila-Colon, William Braker, Zachary Turner. Mr. Kwon was also a prosecutor on the trial team that convicted Sharpe James and Tamika Riley in their federal corruption case.

In 2005, Mr. Kwon was named as the Chief of the Violent Crimes Unit where he supervised the Office’s gang prosecutors. In 2006, Mr. Kwon was named as the Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division where he directly oversaw the Commercial Crimes Unit, the Terrorism Unit, and the Violent Crimes Unit.

Tough on crime, tough on corruption, and a minority. How are the Democrats going to fight that, and simultaneously keep the state's substantial Asian vote in 2012?

Admittedly, Bruce Harris' record is a bit less clear:

Age: 61
Hometown: Chatham, Morris County

Party: Registered Republican
Education: Graduated magna cum laude from Amherst College in 1973; graduated with honors from Boston University Graduate School of Management in 1979 and from Yale Law School in 1992.
Professional experience: currently of counsel at the law firm Greenberg Traurig, and previously at Riker, Danzig, Scherer, Hyland and Perretti, with a focus on lending, real estate and construction financing and bond transactions.
Political experience: Elected mayor of Chatham Borough in 2011; appointed to fill a vacancy on the borough council, and elected to two terms, making him its longest-serving councilman
Other activities: served on Chatham Planning Board, Environmental Commission, Historic Preservation Commission; former member of the Morris County Open Space Preservation Trust; trustee of the UMDNJ and the New Jersey Health Foundations; trustee of Eric Johnson House Inc., a transitional housing program for people with HIV/AIDS, including five years as president.
Family: partner of 32 years, Marc Boisclair
Honors: New Jersey Super Lawyers 2005-2007
Quote: Stuart Lederman, a partner at Riker Danzig who is president of the New Jersey State Bar Foundation, said Harris "brings an intellectual curiosity to the bench, but balancing that with an understanding of issues facing government and individuals."

Seems like a guy who has tried to balance the concerns of the community with the needs of business. Although certainly not a "constitutional originalist", He's worked closely with Christie in the past, and the governor likely knows his way of thinking.

Of course, the timing is sweet and well-planned. As the New Jersey legislature works to pass laws legalizing gay marriage, it now becomes harder to paint Christie as a hateful bigot, which was likely the primary reason the Democrats were pushing the same-sex marriage bill so hard.

So those so-much-smarter-than-thou Democrats are now in a box of their own making. They can't oppose Christie's nominees without confessing it's not minorities that matter to them, it's liberal ideology (and how honest and refreshing would that be?). They can't paint Christie as a gay-basher, not with the Harris nomination and his declaration that the gay marriage issue should be decided at the ballot box by statewide referendum and not by a small majority of lawmakers.

The Democrats are screwed and will likely have to submit to Chris Christie's will.

Just imagine what this guy would have done to Barack Hussein Obama...

Obama Still Thinks He's Lincoln?

Money quote from his campaign speech - sorry, State of the Union Address -  last night:

“I believe what Republican Abraham Lincoln believed,” he said, “that government should do for people only what they cannot do better by themselves, and no more.”

But where the Great Emancipator diverges from the once-Great Orator is that Barack Obama thinks the government can do everything better than the people themselves.  From health care, to eating habits, to the illumination of their homes, to the cars they drive and what devices they use inside them.  If there's a sweet spot where Obama believes the private sector can do a better job than government, I haven;t heard him mention it yet...

It doesn't mean that Obama wasn't honest in his statement above.  He simply has a much, much lower opinion of the American people than the great leaders he claims to channel...

Is Tim Thomas As Brave As, Say...Sean Avery?

Well, now that Glenn Reynolds has written about Bruins goalie (and 2011 playoff MVP) Tim Thomas refusing to join his teammates at the White House yesterday to be congratulated on their Stanley Cup victory by Barack Obama,  I'm sure we'll see a lot more commentary on his bold stand in the upcoming days/hours/minutes.  That's good. But it's the commentary from the left, and the sports-writing media,  that I'm most interested in...

If you haven't heard the story:

Bruins GM Peter Chiarelli confirmed that Thomas had told him months ago he would not attend the White House event due to his political and ideological differences with the Obama administration. Chiarelli said he had tried to convince Thomas to attend the event "over the last couple months" to no avail.

While his politics aren't common knowledge among many hockey fans, Thomas hasn't hidden his political leanings. He's a fan of former Fox News channel host Glenn Beck, once saying he aspired to appear on Beck's talk show as a guest.

Big Government, a website founded by conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart, celebrated Thomas as a "true Tea Party patriot" for having "In God We Trust" and the Gadsden flag on his mask.

Here's why I am curious to see what comes from the sportswriters and blogs: Tim Thomas is not the only hockey player in recent months to make an open political stand.  Rangers forward Sean Avery did the same thing last year, when he appeared in TV advertisements supporting gay marriage in New York State.  Avery was lauded for his stand, being called "unafraid", a "true leader", and "inspiring".  This, despite a well-deserved reputation as the dirtiest player in the NHL.  Think Ty Cobb without the skill.  Click the link if you want to see videos of Sean "in action" (including a pregame fight with, ironically, Tim Thomas.  Hmmm....).

So my question is:  Will Thomas  - a clean living, blue-collar, working -class hero from Flint, MI. - get the same respect for standing up for his beliefs as Avery got when he stood up for gay marriage?

Sportswriters tend to be frustrated opinion columnists - dying to get the serious respect of their newsroom peers, they'll often launch into judgmental tirades whenever the opportunity presents itself.  Tim Thomas' stand against a corrupt president certainly leaves him open to controversy.  Will he be weighed on the courage of his beliefs, or condemned due to a differing value system than that held by the mainstream media?

Should be interesting...

UPDATE:  By popular demand - here's Avery fighting with Thomas.  Watch Avery hit Thomas on the back of his head with his stick, while Tim is on his knees.  Time takes exception to typical liberal chicken-fighting:




UPDATE II:  As expected. The Boston Globe's Kevin DuPont orders Thomas to turn in his 2012 Olympic medal and sweater, if he's so ashamed of his country. Whatever happened to dissent being the highest form of patriotism?

A reminder from The Corner:

Notably, no one at the Boston Globe complained when Red Sox owner John Henry and general manager Theo Epstein, both dyed-in-the-wool Democrats, opted out of the invites to the Bush White House after the 2007 World Series.

it is all about the double-standard.  TSN's Gord Miller:

For those wondering, Tim Thomas will be in uniform in Washington tonight, as soon as he dumps the last crate of tea into Boston Harbor.

But no jokes about Sean Avery bending over in the shower, of course...

Another Boston lefty whines:

Two words: embarrassing and classless....The only thing I knew about Thomas until yesterday had to do with phenomenal hockey playing. Here’s what I suspect today: He’s a spoiled brat.

Others, with more nuanced minds, think otherwise:

One can argue Thomas could have just as easily played along with everyone else, shaken Obama’s hand and enjoyed his private tour of the executive residence. I believe he could have done so without compromising himself, but he thought differently, chose to make a statement about his principles and risked the opprobrium of the liberal press. For that he deserves our respect as a citizen and a man.

No way.  He's a Republican....!

More here.