Year: 2012

Sen. Jim DeMint to resign and head Heritage Foundation

Something moderately surprising to wake up to:

South Carolina U.S. Senator Jim DeMint will replace Ed Feulner as president of the Heritage Foundation. Mr. DeMint will leave his post as South Carolina’s junior senator in early January to take control of the Washington think tank, which has an annual budget of about $80 million.

Sen. DeMint’s departure means that South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, a Republican, will name a successor, who will have to run in a special election in 2014. In that year, both Mr. DeMint’s replacement and Sen. Lindsey Graham will be running for reelection in South Carolina.

Mr. DeMint was reelected to a second term in 2010. The 61-year-old senator had announced earlier that he would not seek a third term.

via Sen. Jim DeMint to Head Heritage Foundation – WSJ.com.

The first person I thought about, was Amanda Carpenter. Amanda is the sweetest person in the Conservative Blogosphere; well she was, she decided to get away from blogging and work in the beltway. She is Jim DeMint’s speechwriter. Amanda took to twitter to say this:

As for DeMint his leaving the Senate is a huge loss for the Conservative wing of the Republican Party. I do not doubt his story at all. But I can see why he would want to do it. Because it is obvious that the Republicans are going to concede this tax hike nonsense, so DeMint just decided, “You know what? Screw it. I am going to work in the activist arena.”

I cannot blame him, it would be a huge pay raise for the man and plus, he can actually make a difference there. Not much he can do in the Senate, when you have squishy Republicans running the show. Either way, I wish Senator DeMint the best and I also wish Amanda Carpenter the best as well.

Huge Blogger and Media round-up here.

Pat Buchanan calls it exactly like it is

This one is very good.

Saith Patrick Buchanan on his website:

Two years ago, Obama had to eat crow and extend the Bush tax cuts. Now it’s payback time. And behind their arrogance lies a belief that the GOP cannot say no. For if the Bush tax cuts and the payroll tax cuts expire on Jan. 1, Americans will face the highest tax hike in history.

– Every family earning up to $100,000 would see 2 percent of its income lopped off, as the employee half of the Social Security tax rises from 4.2 to 6.2. percent. The discretionary income of Middle Americans would be ravaged.

– The federal tax rate on capital gains will rise from 15 percent to a maximum 24.7 percent, a jump of 60 percent.

– The federal tax rate on interest and dividends will triple from 15 percent to a maximum 44.7 percent.

– Where $5 million of an estate can now be passed on to one’s heirs non-taxed, that will be cut to $1 million. And the death tax rate would shoot from 35 percent to a neo-Marxist 55 percent.

Even Senate Democrats fear this would force a selloff or breakup of family farms and family businesses at death. Yet somewhere, the radical socialist Saul Alinsky, who inspired the young community organizer, is smiling.

[….]

What to do?

Forget the deal. Walk away from the talks with Geithner. Pass an extension of the payroll tax cut, and send it to Harry Reid. Pass the Bush tax cuts, and send them to Harry Reid and say:

“Harry, you are going to have to pass this extension of the tax cuts, or kill them, or send us a counteroffer. Do nothing, and you, not we, will take America over the cliff.”

When Sen. Edmund Ross rose to cast the decisive vote in the impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson, he said, “I looked down into my own political grave.”

Reviled by the radicals of his era, Ross yet made it into JFK’s “Profiles in Courage.” We are at such a moment.

Indeed we are, and the Democrats are going to own this one, big time. Ignorant overreach has consequences and the Democrats are going to reap the whirlwind come 2014 and so will the establishment Republicans as well.

 

The Thursday Morning Music Express Presents: Dave Brubeck

I will not lie to my readers, Jazz is really not my thing. I am a rock and roller. However, I always show mad respect to the great ones in music. Jazz is an American thing, and we invented it, and people overseas wanted to sound like us. This was back, when America was a great Nation and people around the world wanted to be like us.

Enjoy the music:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faJE92phKzI

Dave Brubeck, the pianist and composer who helped make jazz popular again in the 1950s and ’60s with recordings like “Time Out,” the first jazz album to sell a million copies, and “Take Five,” the still instantly recognizable hit single that was that album’s centerpiece, died on Wednesday in Norwalk, Conn. He would have turned 92 on Thursday.

He died while on his way to a cardiology appointment, Russell Gloyd, his producer, conductor and manager for 36 years, said. Mr. Brubeck lived in Wilton, Conn.

In a long and successful career, Mr. Brubeck brought a distinctive mixture of experimentation and accessibility that won over listeners who had been trained to the sonic dimensions of the three-minute pop single.

Mr. Brubeck experimented with time signatures and polytonality and explored musical theater and the oratorio, baroque compositional devices and foreign modes. He did not always please the critics, who often described his music as schematic, bombastic and — a word he particularly disliked — stolid. But his very stubbornness and strangeness — the blockiness of his playing, the oppositional push-and-pull between his piano and Paul Desmond’s alto saxophone — make the Brubeck quartet’s best work still sound original.

Outside of the group’s most famous originals, which had the charm and durability of pop songs ( “Blue Rondo à la Turk,” “It’s a Raggy Waltz” and “Take Five”), some of its best work was in its overhauls of standards like “You Go to My Head,” “All the Things You Are” and “Pennies From Heaven.” — Source

Others Remembering — Left and Right: BBC, Gothamist, Los Angeles Times, The Maddow Blog, Gawker, Truthdig, Stinque, The Week, Blazing Cat Fur, Balloon Juice and Althouse, The Atlantic Online, Los Angeles Times, Outside the Beltway, Gimme Noise, The Democratic Daily, The Reaction, Power Line and The Volokh Conspiracy, FIRST DRAFT

Trickle down recession

This is what happens when Washington DC scares the living crap out of everyone:

SINGAPORE: Oil prices fell in Asian trade today on signs of weaker US energy demand and as positions hardened in a fiscal showdown in Washington that could push the world’s biggest economy back into recession.

New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in January was down 16 cents to USD 87.72 a barrel in the morning and Brent North Sea crude for January shed nine cents to USD 108.72.

A weekly US government report released yesterday showed a surge in supplies of gasoline and other products, indicating softer demand in the world’s biggest oil consuming nation.

The supplies of distillates, which include diesel and heating fuel that are closely watched at the onset of winter, rose by three million barrels, while gasoline inventories leaped by 7.9 million barrels, five times more than forecast.

“Oil prices fell… after data showed a huge increase in gasoline stockpiles in the United States last week,” Phillip Futures said in a market commentary.

The political impasse in Washington over avoiding mandatory fiscal cliff of tax increases and spending cuts in January that may toss the US economy back into recession was casting a cloud on sentiment.

via Oil prices down in Asian trade – The Economic Times.

This is what happens when you scare the living crap out of everyone with a chicken match. If you are invested in oil, get out while you can. On the other hand, gas prices are going to come down and for we middle class, that is a very good thing. But, for those in the market, it sucks. Good time to get out of futures and get into gold or something.

Oh yes, and the Democrats are owning this one too.

Horse-hockey!

More stupid from the left:

When Congress picks a fight with the President, no matter who the President or who leads the Congress, the President usually wins in the public eye.

Prediction: if the President plays chicken on this tax and spending issue and doesn’t flinch, he wins one way or the other politically.

via Congress & President Playing Chicken | The Moderate Voice.

Bullcrap. The President, nor the Republicans are going to look good in the eyes of the people; whose taxes are going to go through the roof!

Morons, I swear.

Let them own it

Them being the Democrats. This is some grade A, class 1, horse-hockey right here:

President Obama’s lead negotiator in the “fiscal cliff” talks said the administration is “absolutely” willing to allow the package of deep automatic spending cuts and across-the-board tax hikes to take effect Jan. 1, unless Republicans drop their opposition to higher income tax rates on the wealthy.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in an interview with CNBC that both sides are “making a little bit of progress” toward a deal to avert the “cliff” but remain stuck on Obama’s desired rate increase for the top U.S. income-earners.

“There’s no prospect for an agreement that doesn’t involve those rates going up on the top two percent of the wealthiest,” Geithner said.

Most House Republicans, including Speaker John Boehner, remain opposed to any increase in tax rates.

Obama and Boehner spoke by phone this afternoon, their first conversation in exactly one week, an administration official said. Their relations have grown frosty in recent days as both sides have dug in on the issue of higher rates.

via White House ‘Absolutely’ Willing To Go Off The Fiscal Cliff – ABC News.

The truth is, the Democratic Party leadership does not honestly care, if the United States of America goes back into a full-blown recession.

As much as I despise this god-forsaken woman, I am going to link to something she wrote at Crooks and Liars, about what is going to happen to the working class AKA middle class, if we head over the cliff:

but I think it’s worth listing what happens on January 1st if Democrats do absolutely nothing:

  • The top tax rate for individuals goes up by about 4 percentage points.
  • Capital gains rates increase to 20 percent.
  • Dividends are taxed as ordinary income, rather than at the Bush-era 15 percent capital gain rate.
  • Estate tax rates return to 2001 levels, and the taxable cap returns to $2 million instead of $10 million.
  • Payroll tax holiday expires

Some of these consequences aren’t great for the middle class, which is why House Democrats are pushing so hard to force a vote on the Senate bill extending those tax cuts while allowing the upper-income tax cuts to expire.

So, for you that actually have a job and are not sitting around on your butt, like me, wishing you had a job; guess what? Your taxes will be going up. Which means, you will get less of a refund after you file, especially if you are in the $20-120 a year bracket.

This is your modern-day Democratic Party. They would rather America go into a full-blown recession, than do something that would actually keep America out of a recession —- all for politics, all to keep their ideological purity. This is why I despise that god-forsaken party, with every last fiber of my being. Democrats of this day and age are not patriotic Americans. They are anti-American, Anti-Capitalist, profit hating, bastards who have really no place in this Country! They would rather stick it to the people who actually make jobs in this Country and those who work for them and actually give to society, than they would help them.

Joseph McCarthy warned us about these bastard fiends and for it, he sacrificed his career and life for it. The Republicans at the time, dismissed him as a drunkard, and as a paranoid old coot. We are seeing the fulfillment of his prophecies, now, in front of our eyes. It goes without saying that these are frightening times in America.

Be ready, that is all that I truly say about this; be very ready.

Very well put!

Another Conservative blogger, who thinks just like I do.

This is good stuff, follow the link:

Is it about supporting democracy? Because democracy is essentially bullshit, you know. I’ve never understood why promoting and defending democracy overseas is such a priority for some conservatives. Democracy has made a royal fucking wreck out of the US, after all.

Are we worried about a human rights disaster if Israel is wiped out? That’s a nice moral concern, but the US does a fine job of ignoring such things in countries where the people don’t look like us. Why is any of this our job, anyway? The Palestinians aren’t our enemies or even our problem. Even Hamas isn’t a particular threat to the US. This instinctive desire to root for Israel and curse the Palestinians makes less and less sense to me with every rocket fired and bomb dropped.

Now I’m not going all anti-Zionist here. Israel has every right to exist as a Jewish state. What I can’t wrap my head around is why we think it’s our job to defend them and demand their protection regardless of what (sometimes brutal) steps they take to maintain that status. That Israeli lobbying cash that keeps our elected representatives in thrall isn’t lining any of my pockets. How about you? I think our “leaders” are duping us, truthfully.

Simply put, I’m tired of defending Israel when the rewards are clearly diminishing, if there are any at all. Demographics and political developments among Israel’s neighbors give me a bad feeling that we’re supporting the losing side for no good reason.

It’s perfectly appropriate for us to admire a romantic and embattled people. It’s another thing entirely–and arguably not conservative–to place the ambitions of such a nation above the long-term interests of the United States. I think it’s time for American conservatives to break up this bad romance.

via Wherein I Call for Throwing Israel Under the Bus » Right Thinking.

I will be adding these guys to the blogroll. It is an excellent blog. Please, check them out and pop a donation if you can.

Video: Bob Costas explains himself

The only real quibble I have with this, is this: The gun culture that Bob Costas is referring to, is mostly promoted by Gangster Rap. Most of those guns that are in the inner cities are illegally bought and owned. Most legal gun owners are upstanding citizens, and not deranged nut jobs like the guy who shot up that theater or the guy who shot Gabrielle Giffords.

The painful truth is, that both of these guys bought these guns legally, and even I, as strong of a supporter of the second amendment as I am; I will concede that background checks would be a good idea, on the state level, with states sharing information. Now that would be a good idea. As for what kind of background, I believe checking for like serious health illnesses, such as mental illness and whether that person takes medication for some sort of illness is not unreasonable.

Either way, this video is very good. I think Costas defended his position well, I do not agree with it. I do not believe that the “Gun Culture” is necessarily a bad thing. The problem is that it has been exploited, by the gangsta rap culture.

(Via Bill O’Reilly’s Fox News Page)

Finally! The ACLU does something right….for a change.

It is about darned time that the ACLU has done something worthy of their name and not something in the league of the Communist Party of America!

My friends, this is good, very good:

The ACLU of Oklahoma filed a complaint Tuesday against a judge who made required church attendance part of a teenager’s sentence for manslaughter.

TulsaWorld.com reports 17-year-old Tyler Alred was sentenced to 10 years of probation after he pled guilty to manslaughter as a youthful offender in connection with an alcohol-related crash that killed 16-year-old John Luke Dum.

Muskogee County District Judge Mike Norman made mandatory church attendance for 10 years part of Alred’s requirements to avoid prison. Alred must also wear an ankle bracelet that monitors alcohol consumption, attend victim-impact panels and speak at events about the consequences of drinking and driving, among other requirements.

The ACLU argues in their complaint that Norman’s ruling violates the Oklahoma Code of Judicial Conduct because the decision disregards America’s principles of religious liberty.

via ACLU files complaint after teen sentenced to church in manslaughter case | Fox News.

Excellent. Glad to see that they actually are defending the Constitution for a change. This judge violated the first amendment, when he imposed a theocratic sentence this kid, who is a murderer, if you want to be real about it. The kid belongs in prison, period.

If I had the money, I would be sending the ACLU a donation myself, because of this. But, now, I do not have the funds. Nevertheless, good on them for doing this.