Archive for the 'Elections' category

Guilt By Association And The Left’s Hypocrisy

Oct 07 2008 Published by under Barack Obama, Candidates, Craziness, Democrats, Elections, John McCain, Political Parties, Politics, Republicans, Terrorism, War

On the same day that the Obama defenders are rallying to his side and suggesting that years of working alongside a domestic terrorist don’t make Obama a bad person, the left is also trying to attach the actions of random crowd members at a rally to McCain-Palin.

Now, I’ll first repeat my firmly held position that John McCain is no great shakes, but come on. How do you, with a straight face, suggest that Obama, who even CNN admits largely owes his political career to someone who targeted his fellow Americans with explosives, should be held harmless for that association? How do you then, in the very next breath, suggest that McCain and Palin are somehow responsible for what one or two unhinged nutbags say or do while attending a rally?

Further, when most of the Democratic party online has spent the last five years calling Bush a war criminal, a traitor, or worse, how do you feign indignation when someone suggests that calling our military a bunch of baby killers is tantamount to treason? Here is Obama’s exact quote in context:

Now you have narco drug lords who are helping to finance the Taliban, so we’ve got to get the job done there [in Afghanistan], and that requires us to have enough troops that we are not just air raiding villages, and killing civilians, which is causing enormous problems there.

Compare that to John Kerry’s now infamous winter soldier testimony:

I would like to talk, representing all those veterans, and say that several months ago in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command….

They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.

This portrayal of our military as a bunch of mongols ravaging the countryside with little regard for “killing civilians” and “air raiding villages” is epidemic in the Democratic Party. It is part of the anti-military talking points. You can’t possibly act surprised that people take Obama’s remarks as an attack on our military.

Yet we’re supposed to look the other way when a man who wishes to be Commander in Chief denigrates our troops?

At the same time, we’re supposed to give a candidate a pass for associating with a man who apparently believed, and remains without remorse for the belief, that the only appropriate use of military power should be against civilians working in our own government? A man who, after bombing his countrymen, still says he wishes he could have done more for his cause.

Honestly? You will defend Barack Obama’s associations with that man, and his own disdain for our troops, yet you will try, with flimsy reasoning, to connect the GOP ticket with some random crowd members?

What if the roles were reversed. What if John McCain had spent 15 years cuddling up to Tim McVeigh? What if Terry Nichols had held a campaign kickoff event for J-Mac in his home? What if McVeigh had worked to secure tens of millions of dollars for an initiative that John McCain ran? Would you give him a pass? I doubt it.

While I am shocked by the Democrats’ indifference to Ayers, I also think the events of the Vietnam war were, as Obama says, 40 years ago. People have moved on.

However, I do not see how you can ignore that, also ignore your candidates defamation of our military’s service on behalf of our nation, and then try, laughably, to make McCain and Palin responsible for some random nutjob in a crowd of thousands.

It makes you look hypocritical and ridiculous.

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Heading Into Tuesday’s Debate

Oct 06 2008 Published by under Candidates, Debates, Elections, Pandering, Politics

I thought I’d pull out an oldie but a goodie from the 2004 campaign. It’s the Daily Show’s coverage of the Coral Gables debate and “the expectations game.”

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The Trouble With Earmarks

Sep 12 2008 Published by under Candidates, Congress, Craziness, Elections, Government, Legislation, Pandering, Politics, Taxes, Waste

The attention to earmarks that has been paid in this campaign highlights the hypocritical nature of the American electorate. We decry “the other guy’s” earmarks. When our guy is bringing back the fat, we praise him. When the other guy is doing it, we vilify him. It’s one of the odd ironies of our political system.

The fact is, we judge our elected officials by what they do for their state. The jobs they bring home, the scientific research centers located in our towns, the military bases, the bridges, etc. When someone is good at attracting that investment in their home state, we call them effective. If they fail at bringing federal dollars back home, we call them ineffective.

We hire politician’s to do a job where the goal is to get stuff for their state. We give them the power – through the nation’s checkbook – to get that stuff. Then, we demand that they not do their job. It’s ridiculous.

If earmarks are evil, and we want to get rid of them, then we need to fundamentally change the role of the elected official. We cannot support a system where their election depends on their ability to deliver for the people, and then blame them for delivering.

Banning earmarks outright would take more political will than Congress has ever had. It’s like challenging them to put down their machine gun and walk willingly into a knife fight. They know they have the advantage over their would-be rivals. As long as they bring back the pork, they don’t have to find a real job.

Why would they want to give up such a powerful tool?

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Obama’s Windfall Profits Tax, and Some Facts From the WSJ

Aug 04 2008 Published by under Barack Obama, Candidates, Craziness, Democrats, Elections, Government, Pandering, Political Parties, Politics, Taxes

Obama on Friday proposed a return to the good old days of Jimmy Carter’s energy policies by suggesting a windfall profits tax on oil producers.

The new Obama ad also pushes his proposal to revive a windfall profits tax on energy companies and asserts that McCain favors tax breaks for the oil industry.

“A windfall profits tax on big oil to give families a thousand-dollar rebate,” an announcer in the ad says.

Obama would use the tax to fund $1,000 emergency rebate checks for consumers besieged by high energy costs.

Congress enacted a windfall profits tax in 1980, during an earlier era of high oil prices, but repealed it in 1988 amid concern it discouraged domestic oil development. Last year, the House approved $18 billion in new taxes on the largest oil companies, but Senate Republicans blocked them.

And thank goodness they did. The windfall profits tax is a tremendously stupid idea premised on the fact that Americans want to take out their anger on someone. But a little digging provides more than a few examples of others that should be taxed. The Wall Street Journal today, helpfully, has a little list and some fact behind the “windfall” lunacy.

What is a “windfall” profit anyway? How does it differ from your everyday, run of the mill profit? Is it some absolute number, a matter of return on equity or sales — or does it merely depend on who earns it?

Enquiring entrepreneurs want to know. Unfortunately, Mr. Obama’s “emergency” plan, announced on Friday, doesn’t offer any clarity. To pay for “stimulus” checks of $1,000 for families and $500 for individuals, the Senator says government would take “a reasonable share” of oil company profits.

Exactly the problem. Who gets to define this ridiculous idea? Apparently, Dick Durbin.

Dick Durbin, the second-ranking Senate Democrat… recently declared that “The oil companies need to know that there is a limit on how much profit they can take in this economy.”

Ok, maybe the concept of capitalism has changed since I studied economics in school, but I don’t recall “there is a limit on how much profit you can take” being part of the economic formula. Let’s assume it is, however. Exxon should surely pay its share, right?

Between 2003 and 2007, Exxon paid $64.7 billion in U.S. taxes, exceeding its after-tax U.S. earnings by more than $19 billion.

That’s right, Exxon paid more in US taxes than it made in the US. Quite a bit more. You see, Exxon is a company that operates globally. It’s sales are global. So we actually see a US company taking money out of the hands of foreign nations, and depositing them into the hands of the US government. Now the Democrats in the US government want to take more money from around the world and spend it on us.

However, we’re not tasked with addressing that fact. We need to figure out what qualifies them for paying such a ridiculous tax. Since they’re entire US revenue already goes to taxes, maybe we can use some other metric to justify the windfall tax.

Maybe they have in mind profit margins as a percentage of sales. Yet by that standard Exxon’s profits don’t seem so large. Exxon’s profit margin stood at 10% for 2007, which is hardly out of line with the oil and gas industry average of 8.3%, or the 8.9% for U.S. manufacturing (excluding the sputtering auto makers).

If that’s what constitutes windfall profits, most of corporate America would qualify. Take aerospace or machinery — both 8.2% in 2007. Chemicals had an average margin of 12.7%. Computers: 13.7%. Electronics and appliances: 14.5%. Pharmaceuticals (18.4%) and beverages and tobacco (19.1%) round out the Census Bureau’s industry rankings.

None of those industries are being asked to pony up… So that can’t be it… Maybe it’s growth based…

In a tax bill on oil earlier this summer, no fewer than 51 Senators voted to impose a 25% windfall tax on a U.S.-based oil company whose profits grew by more than 10% in a single year… This suggests that a windfall is defined by profits growing too fast. No one knows where that 10% came from, besides political convenience. But if 10% is the new standard, the tech industry is going to have to rethink its growth arc. So will LG, the electronics company, which saw its profits grow by 505% in 2007. Abbott Laboratories hit 110%.

If Senator Obama is as exercised about “outrageous” profits as he says he is, he might also have to turn on a few liberal darlings. Oh, say, Berkshire Hathaway. Warren Buffett’s outfit pulled in $11 billion last year, up 29% from 2006.

The fact is, as the WSJ article points out, the idea of a “windfall” profits tax is ridiculous. It could be assessed against any company in America for any number of reasons. It’s simply another way for big government bureaucrats and politicians to redistribute wealth in America. Since Exxon’s US taxes already exceed its US income, in this case, it’s actually a way to redistribute wealth TO America.

That should make Obama’s European fans happy, huh?

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My Personal Experience With Republicans and Racism

Aug 01 2008 Published by under Barack Obama, Candidates, Democrats, Elections, John McCain, Political Parties, Politics, Race, Republicans, Society

With all the discussion of “Republican racism” taking place as a result of Obama’s claim that McCain’s “risky” adjective is based on looks, I thought I’d weigh in. I have been involved in GOP politics for 15 years, and in that time I have never – not once – been involved in a discussion of an opposing candidates race and how to exploit it.

Now the corollary to that is the number of election cycles in that time where I have seen Democrats throw out the racism charge as a way of shoring up their support. On that metric, the Democrats are batting .1000.

I cannot speak to what the GOP may have done in the 70s and 80s because I wasn’t there. I can, however, safely say that every conversation I have had about race in campaigns since 1994 was either a) how the Democrats were exploiting race at our candidates expense and b) how we write copy, produce ads, and develop messages with the specific goal of not providing an opening that let’s them do that.

From everything I have seen, the GOP is obsessively concerned with “not” using race as an issue. That’s not to say that the random nut doesn’t do something stupid, but there will always be examples of nuts saying and doing stupid things. That does not equate to the sustained campaign of racism the Democrats allege.

All of the evidence I have seen of systemic abuse of race comes from the other side, and their attempts to exploit “racism” not “race” for political gain.

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