Archive for April, 2012

This is quite a hysterical screed, and by hysterical I do not mean that it is funny. It is not funny in the least.

It is hysterical because is driven by hysteria. It is also historically ignorant and irresponsible.

The speaker is Bishop Daniel R. Jenky, head of a Catholic diocese in Illinois. Here’s what he had to say during a weekend Mass:

“The Church survived barbarian invasions. The Church survived wave after wave of Jihads. The Church survived the age of revolution. The Church survived Nazism and Communism. And in the power of the resurrection, the Church will survive the hatred of Hollywood, the malice of the media, and the mendacious wickedness of the abortion industry.

The Church will survive the entrenched corruption and sheer incompetence of our Illinois state government, and even the calculated disdain of the president of the United States, his appointed bureaucrats in HHS, and of the current majority of the federal Senate.

May God have mercy especially on the souls …

Continue reading Catholic bishop likens Obama to Stalin, Hitler »

Here we go again.

On April 15, 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Georgia law that required candidates to be tested for illegal drugs before they could run for public office. In “Chandler v. Miller”, the court ruled that the tests amounted to an unreasonable, unjustified search of a person’s body that is forbidden under the Fourth Amendment.

“However well-meant, the candidate drug test Georgia has devised diminishes personal privacy for a symbol’s sake,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in the 8-1 decision, joined by justices such as Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

On Monday — almost 15 years to the day from the Chandler decision — Gov. Nathan Deal signed another bill into law that is likely to meet the same fate, and for the same reason.

The legislation in question — House Bill 861 — forces welfare applicants in Georgia to submit to a drug test in order to continue receiving state benefits. According to one of its champions, state Sen. John Albers of Roswell, …

Continue reading Poor people not excluded from Constitution »

Once in a while, a story comes along and I have no real reaction to it but … wow.

This is that kind of story, courtesy of The Washington Post:

Investigators now suspect that as many as 21 foreign prostitutes were brought by U.S. Secret Service and military personnel to the Hotel Caribe in Cartagena, Colombia, last week during a night of carousing, a dramatic increase in the number of women previously disclosed by government officials.

Officials said that 11 Secret Service and nine military personnel are suspected of the misconduct that took place in advance of President Obama’s trip to the country for an international economic summit. ….

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said Tuesday that Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan told her that 20 to 21 women were brought to the hotel last Wednesday night…. Two of the Secret Service personnel are senior agents paid at the top levels of the federal government’s pay scale, according to a congressional official with knowledge of the …

Continue reading Secret Service scandal suggests a culture run amok »

In another sign that the general-election campaign season has begun, the folks at Gallup have kicked off their daily tracking poll pitting GOP nominee Mitt Romney against President Barack Obama.

Their initial finding: Too close to call.

As you can see, Romney is up by two, within the poll’s margin of error. Contrary to the insistence of some that “there’s no way X can win,” I think we’re going to see it bounce around in that territory until sometime after Labor Day. In part, that’s testimony to the skill of our political professionals, who through polling, messaging and marketing manage to split us almost right down the middle.

The polling average compiled at Real Clear Politics tells a similar story, putting Obama up by 3 points, roughly the advantage that he has maintained since September.

If I had to bet this far out, I’d say that’s where the race will end up come November, with Obama winning by three to four percentage points. But as they say in the press box, that …

Continue reading Starter’s gun fires in great race of 2012 »

In 2010, total national income increased by some $288 billion. As economist Emmanuel Saez noted last month, that amounted to a growth in average real income per family of 2.3 percent.

Not bad, right? Welllllll…..

Remember that joke about Bill Gates walking into a bar and raising the average net worth of bar patrons to $6 billion? That’s what’s happening here, because as Saez also notes:

“Top 1% incomes grew by 11.6% while bottom 99% incomes grew only by 0.2%. Hence, the top 1% captured 93% of the income gains in the first year of recovery. Such an uneven recovery can help explain the recent public demonstrations against inequality. It is likely that this uneven recovery has continued in 2011 as the stock market has continued to recover. National Accounts statistics show that corporate profits and dividends distributed have grown strongly in 2011 while wage and salary accruals have only grown only modestly. Unemployment and non-employment have remained high in 2011.”

Again, 93 …

Continue reading Is this what class warfare would look like? »

The U.S. Senate will vote today on the so-called Buffett Rule, which attempts to ensure that Americans with millions of dollars of income at least pay taxes at the same or higher rate as do most middle-class taxpayers.

The first question to be asked is whether the proposed solution addresses a real-life problem. Is the Buffett Rule some liberal fantasy dreamed up to feed class warfare, or do a significant percentage of wealthy Americans really pay a lower tax rate than do their secretaries?

Here’s what the Congressional Research Service found in a study last year:

“Interestingly, 65% of rich taxpayers (i.e., taxable income over $1 million) — about 200,000 taxpayers — face a tax rate lower than the median tax rate of moderate-income taxpayers. The primary reason for this is the higher-income taxpayers with low tax rates receive a very high proportion of the income from long-term capital gains and qualified dividends, which are taxed at low tax rates and not subject to …

Continue reading The math and politics behind the Buffett Rule »

"Which end does the bullet come out of?"

“The right to bear arms comes from our Creator, not our government.”
– Newt Gingrich

“Thou shalt not kill.”
– God

——————-

Most politicians wouldn’t dare use a speaking appearance before the National Rifle Association to criticize that powerful organization. But as Newt Gingrich demonstrated once again Friday, he’s not most politicians.

The NRA, he told the group’s annual convention, has been much too timid and moderate in its defense of gun rights. If elected president, he said, he will “submit to the United Nations a treaty that extends the right to bear arms as a human right for every person on the planet because every person on the planet deserves the right to defend themselves from those who would oppress them, those would exploit them, rape them or kill them.”

“Let’s take the George Soroses and the Hillary Clintons head on,” Newt said to the cheering crowd. “They represent a world in which elites disarm the rest of us so we are …

Continue reading When Newt lectures the NRA, hilarity ensues »

Sweeping down out of the plains of Alberta came a country voice the likes of which we had not heard since a plane wreck robbed us too early of Patsy Cline. It belonged to one Kathryn Dawn Lang, known as kd lang, for whom Cline had been a role model.

Of course, kd had a bit of a different thing going on — kind of a Patsy Cline as interpreted by Elvis. My favorite kd album was “Shadowland,” an album of country classics released way back in 1988 and produced by the late Owen Bradley, who had been Cline’s producer. It’s a truly great collection of music.

This song, “Luck in My Eyes”, is not on “Shadowland.” But since it’s Friday the 13th, I was looking for a song related to luck, bad or good, and that was excuse enough to post some kd.

Hope you made it through the 13th safely.

– Jay Bookman

Continue reading Some travelin’ music via Canada, eh? »

Defying international warnings, North Korea attempted to launch a multi-stage rocket Thursday that potentially would be capable of carrying a nuclear payload into space.

Being North Korea, its effort proved a dismal failure, with the rocket falling apart shortly after launch. However, that doesn’t mean that its ambitions can be safely ignored or downplayed. The U.N. Security Council will be taking up the issue today, and the Obama administration has indicated that a program to deliver food aid to North Korean citizens would be abandoned in response to the provocation.

Mitt Romney, however, immediately condemned the launch attempt as a sign of failure by the Obama administration.

“Instead of approaching Pyongyang from a position of strength, President Obama sought to appease the regime with a food-aid deal that proved to be as naive as it was short-lived,” Romney said. “This incompetence from the Obama administration has emboldened the North Korean regime and undermined the …

Continue reading Mitt Romney and North Korea’s missile launch »

This is pretty funny, and even more damning. It was put together by American Bridge 21st Century, a pro-Democrat PAC to mark the sixth anniversary of the signing of RomneyCare into law in Massachusetts:

I continue to be astonished that the party that claims to see ObamaCare as a fundamental threat to American liberty could nominate a man with this as his signature political achievement.

Are the rest of supposed to just pretend it never happened?

– Jay Bookman

Continue reading The anniversary that Mitt Romney wants to forget »