Breaking! Fort Collins, CO Anti-tax Protest!

These are cell phone pictures from today's organized Obama/Tax/Healthcare protest at the corner of College Avenue and Mountain Avenue in downtown Fort Collins!

I wish I could have recorded the raucous sound of horns blaring, people waving and yelling their support! It was pretty inspiring -- especially in a college town that was plastered (and I do mean plastered) with Obama signs and placards last fall!

Gives one some hope that not everyone is supportive of our socialist government in Washington!

Jumping off a cliff.

I hate to say "I told you so" but...

I told you so.

For almost a year I wrote on these pages that Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank and the other Democrats in Congress were a threat to this nation. I wrote ceaselessly of the hypocrisy of the Left's position on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, of Barack Obama's record and relationship with leftist radicals, of his inexperience in foreign policy and the danger that posed to us in a time of war. I outlined the importance of holding the line in the Senate so that the Democrats didn't get a filibuster-proof majority -- making it clear that if we lost that toe hold, your wallet and our national economy were going down the rabbit hole. I tried to warn people -- the few who read this blog and anyone else who would listen.

I tried.

But people chose to believe the hyperbole rather than the facts, and so we sit here with Barack Obama as president and Al Franken sitting as the Democrat's 60th Senator. We're screwed, to be frank. The Congress is on a rampage, forcing through an impossibly reckless health care reform bill in record time that will destroy -- and I do mean d-e-s-t-r-o-y what is left of our once-vibrant economy. What is now coming with the progressive goal of universal health care is a tax increases on small businesses that will kill job creation, and that is only the beginning of the wealth confiscation needed to fund this new mandate. Even Obama's own Congressional Budget Office now admits that it will be far more expensive than the President's party is admitting it will be.

Do you like your private insurance now? Too bad -- it's going the way of GM and Chrysler. The Congressional bill includes the so-called "Public Option" -- which is not really an option at all, but rather a bullet in the heart of private insurance, which will slowly (but surely) disappear. We're going to be Canada and Britain rolled into one. Don't kid yourself -- this is what will happen if the Obamacare program gets passed.

Read the WSJ lead editorial today entitled: "A Reckless Congress: Democrats want to ram through one of the greatest raids on private income and business in American history". Read it and memorize it. For it is the kind of analysis that the left doesn't want you to see. I won't reprint it here in its entirety -- but the most salient paragraph is this:

But the most remarkable quality of this health-care exercise is its reckless disregard for economic and fiscal reality. With the economy still far from a healthy recovery, and the federal fisc already nearly $2 trillion in deficit, Democrats want to ram through one of the greatest raids on private income and business in American history. The world is looking on, agog, and wondering why the United States seems intent on jumping off this cliff.

Exactly!

Read the whole thing here.

Wise? Maybe. Truthful? Not a chance.

If you've been following the Sonia Sotomayor hearings (painful, I know) you may have come to the same conclusion that I have: she's been lying to the Senate Judiciary Committee under oath.

Sotomayor has now backed off completely her "wise Latina" comment that she made in numerous speeches over the past ten years, and she also now denies that she stated clearly that the "Court of Appeals is where policy is made". Here's her saying it at Duke University School of Law:



And here is her saying exactly the opposite (under oath) yesterday:



Does anyone else have a problem with someone so patently dishonest being a member of the U.S. Supreme Court?? That she will disavow her own words in order to win confirmation? Have we all gone crazy?

Donald Douglas has a great blurb from Randy Barnett that sums this all up nicely: "Mike Seidman on Sotomayor":

On the Federalist Society Online Debate on the Sotomayor hearings (click here and scroll down), my Georgetown Law colleague Mike Seidman - a cofounder and intellectual leader of the Critical Legal Studies movement in the 1980s - is brutally candid in his opinion of Judge Sotomayor's testimony today:

Speaking only for myself (I guess that's obvious), I was completely disgusted by Judge Sotomayor's testimony today. If she was not perjuring herself, she is intellectually unqualified to be on the Supreme Court. If she was perjuring herself, she is morally unqualified. How could someone who has been on the bench for seventeen years possibly believe that judging in hard cases involves no more than applying the law to the facts? First year law students understand within a month that many areas of the law are open textured and indeterminate—that the legal material frequently (actually, I would say always) must be supplemented by contestable presuppositions, empirical assumptions, and moral judgments. To claim otherwise—to claim that fidelity to uncontested legal principles dictates results—is to claim that whenever Justices disagree among themselves, someone is either a fool or acting in bad faith. What does it say about our legal system that in order to get confirmed Judge Sotomayor must tell the lies that she told today? That judges and justices must live these lies throughout their professional carers?

Perhaps Justice Sotomayor should be excused because our official ideology about judging is so degraded that she would sacrifice a position on the Supreme Court if she told the truth. Legal academics who defend what she did today have no such excuse. They should be ashamed of themselves.

Arnold rejects new taxes for California: Is the Terminator baaack?

Donald Douglas broke this story tonight and I think it is a pretty interesting turn of events on the tax front in California. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger apparently has decided to return to his campaign pledge of 2003 when he was elected -- rejecting new taxes and new spending in the state's current fiscal mess. Here's his new ad buy -- "Stand with California":




Douglas and others are giving credit to the anti-tax tea parties for the Governor's newly stiffened resolve to balance that state budget without new taxes. I tend to believe it is a combination of the clear message that the defeat of the May 19th special election sent, along with a growing realization that one of the major problems the state is facing is that high-income tax payers (and businesses) are fleeing the state in droves. As a recent article in the WSJ entitled "Democrats for a Flat Tax?" noted, over 50% of the state's tax receipts are now paid by a mere 150,000 high-income residents. For those of you keeping score, that amounts to a trifling 0.03% of the state's population of 36 million. Even Schwarznegger's Democrat Chief of Staff, Susan Kennedy (long a liberal class warrior), now realizes that the state relying on such a small tax base for such a large percentage of its operating budget is too risky. For me, of course, it's also an issue of fairness and equity -- but that's not something that the pols on either side in Sacramento spend much time talking about.

In the end, I think a grudging reality has set in: raising taxes further risks a further reduction in revenue as tax payers move to Nevada or other states with no state income tax. As I wrote last month, the state has commissioned a panel to evaluate alternatives to the current tax rates -- and a flat tax of sorts is definitely under consideration. That would be a step in the right direction, but as I noted in that previous post, you can bet that the liberal and union interest groups who really run the state are going to fight tooth and nail against anything which they see as "regressive". Regressive, by the way, is a code word for any system that makes the middle class pay more than they do now (and they pay almost nothing today -- so that tells you where the left stands on this kind of reform).

This will be interesting. With the state now out of money and issuing IOUs, it may be that the Terminator is going to go down swinging. Let's hope he's baaack!

Tax and punish

One of the most confounding things about the Democrats in Congress is the fact that they don't care about economics. The only thing that matters is ideology -- one based on redistributing income in the name of their version of "social justice". To the left, social justice means punishing the productive members of society by taking "from the rich" and giving to the "poor". The goals always justify the means -- even when the means makes no economic sense and will in the end make things worse for all Americans.

This is the only conclusion you can draw by the revelation that Congressional Democrats (including Charlie Rangel -- who doesn't pay his own taxes, but that's another story) are planning massive surcharges on the "wealthy" to pay for socialized medicine. This is, of course, a peculiar strategy if you really want to repair the faltering economy and solve rising unemployment -- now nearing 10% nationally (and much higher in many high-tax states). As the WSJ reports, the Rangel method hits (you guessed it) job creators particularly hard:

Every detail isn't known, but late last week Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel disclosed that his draft bill would impose a "surtax" on individuals with adjusted gross income of more than $280,000 a year. This would hit job creators especially hard because more than six of every 10 who earn that much are small business owners, operators or investors, according to a 2007 Treasury study. That study also found that almost half of the income taxed at this highest rate is small business income from the more than 500,000 sole proprietorships and subchapter S corporations whose owners pay the individual rate.

But, of course, fixing the economy isn't really the issue -- since the left doesn't really believe there is a correlation between economic growth and taxes. Just ask the state governments in high tax areas like California and New York. In fact, the tax hikes in the Democratic economic plans will make effective rates in a state like California near 60% -- meaning for every dollar you earn, 60 cents will go back into the coffers to finance programs for the "less fortunate". As anyone who uses logic to look at these issues, it doesn't take much to draw the conclusion that such a tax scheme is a disincentive to build wealth. And for those on the left who think that money grows on trees, building wealth means starting businesses that put people to work. Yes, that's right -- punitive taxes kill the golden goose.

Ahh, but that harldy matters when you have social engineering in mind. No amount of evidence that proves that higher taxes leads to less tax revenue will derail the socialists in government from punishing the robber barons who create value in the economy. Obama's own White House economist, Christina Romer, is actually an expert on the relationship between higher tax rates and falling tax revenue:

Democrats claim these tax increases on the rich won't do any economic harm. They should read the work of Christina Romer before she became chief White House economist. Ms. Romer and her husband, David Romer, a Berkeley economist, have published multiple studies on the impact of tax policy changes over the past 100 years. One of their findings is that "tax increases appear to have a very large, sustained and highly significant negative impact on output." In other words, tax hikes are an antistimulus.

Democrats like to say that government can solve most of America's problems. But where do they think the money to fund government comes from? The truth is that they don't care -- having never run a business or done anything other than feed at the public trough, most legislators on the left believe that tax revenue is an inexhaustible resource, impervious to incentives and disincentives. Pity that they don't know history -- which has time and again proven otherwise.

It is true that Republicans over the past decade have been little better than their Democrat colleagues in pillaging the public trust. But that is no reason to proceed down this path to confiscatory taxation and economic ruin. It was announced today that our deficit just passed $1 trillion. Where will it end?

Obama's Russia trip: just another stop on the apology tour

One of my acquaintances from my days at the London School of Economics is Michael McFaul -- a professor at Stanford and now one of Obama's senior advisers at the National Security Council for Russia. McFaul was front and center on the recent Obama visit to Moscow -- and though I like Mike a lot, I must nevertheless say that the trip was a total disaster. Like many of Obama's senior aides, McFaul believes that Obama is smart, thoughtful and capable of the kind of "deep, nuanced" thinking that issues of foreign and national security policy require. In this view, intellectual curiosity and brain power will enable Obama to eventually come to the right conclusion on issues. The issue of experience -- of instinct -- is less important than the ability to noodle out complex issues in search of the right path.

Unfortunately, McFaul's faith in Obama's intellectual abilities can't avoid a more Central, dangerous issue: the weakness that comes from lacking core beliefs. The biggest problem with Obama is that he doesn't stand for anything. His handling of most issues -- save climate change, perhaps -- seems purely intellectual, based on a belief system that assumes there is no right answer to any given question. The left, of course, loves this kind of relativism -- it's the core of the kind of "postmodern" world they are trying to create. Intellectuals -- and academics, in particular -- savor the kind of multi-dimensional thinking that examines every angle, but studiously avoiding the passing of judgment. Passing judgment is just not consistent with the secular world that science (or pseudo science, anyway) inhabit. That's part of the reason why George Bush was so reviled in the salons that have so thoroughly embraced Obama. Bush was so unsophisticated. So uneducated. So...so...certain. The left hates certitude -- for it means that there aren't a million alternative explanations that will sanction doing nothing. Unless its climate change -- and then progressives want to do everything. But the really tough issues? Like Iranian nuclear weapons or ethnic cleansing in Darfur? Forget about it.

So, in Obama we have a double danger: a very smart man who utterly and completely lacks conviction. This is the worst kind of progressive -- someone who acts with his head, but without a gut (or a heart) to tell him when to stop. The power grab since January 20, 2009 has been dazzling in its breadth and depth, because Obama's intellect is telling him that America is broken and needs to be fixed. We need to save the planet, insure everyone, save GM, bail out the banks and then some. We also need to engage the Iranians, punish the Israelis and embrace dictators and despots wherever possible. And why not? Let's not make any value judgments about our friends and foes. Let's just get down to some business. We are all human beings right? We all want the same things, right (see above: universal health care, healing the planet, etc.)

In the case of the Russia trip -- it was just another stop on the Obama apology tour. He made amends for the Bush years by listening carefully and freely complimenting Putin and Medvedev. He struck a deal to reduce nuclear weapons, while asking for very little in return. In the end, his visit allowed the Russian media to portray his visit as a reaffirmation that Russia is -- again -- a global superpower. One can only imagine what Vladimir Putin is thinking in the picture below, looking at Obama on the edge of his seat, thinking that life in the Soviet Union -- er, Russia -- has never been so good. Gone is the immediate condemnation that Bush gave the Russians for invading Georgia. Gone is the hard line the U.S. took on Russian relations with Iran. Gone is the hard line that Bush took on missile defense. In its stead is a young Obama, eager to please -- eager to make a deal.

Sorry, Mike -- but you are now part of the problem, not the solution. BTW -- that's my friend Mike McFaul taking notes, partially obscured by Putin's head.


And so it goes. As I've noted in my last post, America is slowly waking up to the dangers of a return to progressivism here at home and realism abroad. We have traded the certitude -- for good and for bad -- of George W. Bush, for the wandering rationality of Barack Obama. Where it stops? Nobody -- not even Obama himself -- knows. Because it's open to interpretation -- today, tomorrow and always.

I'll take an order of certitude with my gut instinct, thank you very much.

Are Americans finally catching on?

We all know that common sense is in short supply these days. I blame the conspicuous cancer of political correctness -- a scourge that seems to make it impossible for people to speak the truth anymore. Its a shame, but the combination of political correctness, the liberal media and the over-active tort bar has made wussies of almost everyone in power. And that goes double for those in Washington DC -- who will always put politics and their insatiable thirst for power above doing the right thing for the American people.

Fortunately, it appears that the American people may be catching on. As Michael Barone reports, recent polls seem to show that the public is starting to wake up to the big government power grab going on with Obama and his minions:

Last month's Washington Post-ABC poll reported that Americans favor smaller government with fewer services to larger government with more services by a 54 percent to 41 percent margin -- a slight uptick since 2004. The percentage of independents favoring small government rose to 61 percent from 52 percent in 2008. The June NBC-Wall Street Journal poll reported that, even amid recession, 58 percent worry more about keeping the budget deficit down versus 35 percent worried more about boosting the economy. A similar question in the June CBS-New York Times poll showed a 52 percent to 41 percent split.

Other polls show a resistance to specific Democratic proposals. Pollster Whit Ayres reports that 58 percent of voters agree that reforming health care, while important, should be done without raising taxes or increasing the deficit. Pollster Scott Rasmussen reports that 56 percent of Americans are unwilling to pay more in taxes or utility rates to generate cleaner energy and fight global warming.

This is consistent with the most recent Rasmussen poll that shows Obama's approval rating now hovering just above 50% -- in fact, below the percentage of vote he got in the 2008 election. Polls now consistently show that Obama and the Democrats are starting to steadily lose support among the all-important Independent swing voters -- the very same voters who were the difference in the 2008 election. As Ben Smith at Politico notes:

In a potentially alarming trend for the White House, independent voters are deserting President Barack Obama nationally and especially in key swing states, recent polls suggest.

“This is a huge sea change that is playing itself out in American politics,” said Democratic pollster Doug Schoen. “Independents who had become effectively operational Democrats in 2006 and 2008 are now up for grabs and are trending Republican.

“They’re saying, ‘Costing too much, no results, see the downside, not sure of the upside,’” he said.

Predictably, of course, the White House is dismissing any shift in independent support as inconsequential -- the typical hubris of a party that thinks it won a realigning election in 2008.

I have consistently argued that Obama ignores these kinds of polls at his own peril -- for the 2008 election did not reflect a fundamental shift in the American polity center-right to center-left.

Increasingly it seems now that people are starting to wake up to the fact that the power grab going on in Washington has come without much thought -- and without any debate. This is an argument that the Republicans seem to be effectively making now, and it is resonating with Independents. Take a look at this very powerful video that Republican Senatorial Committee put out:

A pretty strong message that I think many voters will respond to. The fact is that the Obama Administration has made an unprecedented grab for power in the form of big government programs with almost no debate -- spending trillions of tax payer dollars far into the future, and committing America to a future of higher taxes, onerous environmental regulation with no purpose, and ultimately to sub-standard government-run health care.

Any American without an ideological stick to beat knows there is no common sense in what is going on in Washington. My guess is that this will become crystal clear in 2010, and a huge backlash is coming.

Hat Tip: Donald Douglas