Addressing the “McCain voting with Bush 90% of the time” nonsense

This is honestly one of the dumbest and most idiotic things that I have heard at the DNCC and in the talking points over the last couple of months as the Democrats try and tie McCain as the third term for Bush.  It is an effective campaign attempt but it does not make any sense.

Has it occurred to you that George Bush doesn’t have a vote in the Senate? So just how do you measure the percentage of times that McCain is voting “with” the president? Well, perhaps you could measure the number of times that a Senator votes with the Republican members. Ahhh … but remember, most Senate votes are unanimous. This would mean that the only way not to “vote with the president” would be not to vote at all. As Dick Morris wrote: “The fact that McCain backs commending a basketball team on its victory doesn’t mean that he is in lockstep ideologically with the president.”

Morris also points out a series of important issues on which Bush and McCain did not agree:

• McCain fought for campaign finance reform — McCain-Feingold — that Bush resisted and ultimately signed because he had no choice.
• McCain led the battle to restrict interrogation techniques of terror suspects and to ban torture.
• McCain went with Joe Lieberman on a tough measure to curb climate change, something Bush denies is going on.
• McCain opposed the Bush tax cuts when they passed.
• McCain urged the Iraq surge, a posture Bush rejected for years before conceding its wisdom.
• McCain favors FDA regulation of tobacco and sponsored legislation to that effect, a position all but a handful of Republican senators oppose.
• McCain’s energy bill, also with Lieberman, is a virtual blueprint for energy independence and development of alternate sources.
• After the Enron scandal, McCain introduced sweeping reforms in corporate governance and legislation to guarantee pensions and prohibit golden parachutes for executives. Bush opposed McCain’s changes and the watered-down Sarbanes-Oxley bill eventuated.
• McCain has been harshly critical of congressional overspending, particularly of budgetary earmarks, a position Bush only lately adopted (after the Democrats took over Congress).

Using the same methodology you would probably find that most Democrat senators also voted with Bush 90% of the time.

I have to say more about the economic nonsense that Obama spat out yesterday: Obama’s response last night to the charge that he is going to significantly raise taxes on small business owners that are producing 80% of the new jobs in our economy was to say that “I will eliminate capital gains taxes for the small businesses and start-ups that will create the high-wage, high-tech jobs of tomorrow.”

Obama said he was going to eliminate capital gains taxes. These small businessmen generally don’t pay capital gains taxes. They pay income taxes. Obama’s plan is to raise the income taxes on these entrepreneurs. Telling the American people that he will cut their capital gains taxes is simply a charade.

Then there’s Obama’s line about the Republicans and McCain not proposing one penny of tax relief for over 100 million Americans. Sounds good. But if you’re educated; if you know the statistics; if you pay attention you will know that the bottom 50% of income earners in this country pay only about 3% of all individual income taxes collected by the federal government. When you get to the bottom 40% that percentage figures drops to zero. Now just what is our current population figure? Around 300 million or so? That would bean that about 120 million Americans have no federal income tax liability at all. Yet there’s Obama saying that McCain is offering no tax relief to these people. Relief from what?

There was another line in Obama’s speech that is very typical of far-left politicians. Obama seems to feel those with higher incomes in this country have not earned their way. Whatever the wealthy have was given to them, not earned. So Obama tells the adoring crowd that Republicans want to “Give more and more to those with the most, and hope that prosperity will trickle down to the rest.” As I said, this is a standard Democrat theme. Wealthy people didn’t earn what they have, it was given to them. And since it was given to them, there’s nothing really all that wrong with taking more and more of it away from them … just to even things out a bit. Remember, please, that Obama flat-out said that he wants to raise taxes on the rich not to bring in increased government revenues, but to make things more “fair.”

This idea that whatever wealthy or successful people have was given to them is reflected in the idea that people should “give back.” Charity isn’t recognized for what it is; one individual giving some of what they have earned to another in need. No .. it’s just someone giving back some of the stuff that was given to them. Accomplishment and the concept of earning seems to have no place in Democrat rhetoric.

Despite all of this, John McCain has a huge uphill struggle before him.  He better be on the ball.  Sarah Palin was a great step in the right direction but we will have to wait and see what happens.

Where do they get pro-growth from?

A new Gallup poll says 50 percent expect their taxes to be raised under Obama, despite the complaints of his economic advisors that they’re only raising taxes on the top few percent.

And as the stock market looks on warily, falling slightly today after plunging yesterday, the lead story in this morning’s Wall Street Journal is a serious indictment of Obama’s economic program. “Senator Obama is proposing to use the government to remake economic policies in a way that hasn’t been seen in Washington in decades.” And if it’s a three-house Dem sweep, it will be Katy bar the door. Big-government spending programs, tax increases, trade restraints, a government health-care plan, cap-and-trade on climate change — all without any real deficit restraints, which are accorded a low priority.

Incidentally, while the public clamors for drill, drill, drill, Obama wants high-cost, cap-and-trade carbon regulation enforced by the Environmental Protection Agency. Now, McCain also wants cap-and-trade, but not if India and China don’t go along. Apparently Obama will not be constrained by the rest of the world.

Sure, the economy is languishing. But do we really want a big-government, high-tax solution? Do we really want higher investment taxes that would leave government bigger and private enterprise smaller? Do Americans really blame “rich” people? Or do they actually believe success is a good thing and should not be punished? Do rank-and-file working folks really want to do away with the secret ballot for unionization in the form of the so-called card check? And if there were a three-house Dem sweep, wouldn’t Obama’s middle-class tax credit be overturned in favor of even more government spending, just as Bill Clinton’s plans were subverted back in 1993? The National Taxpayers Union says Obama’s new spending would total $344 billion. That’s a big number. One has to wonder if that’s the opening bid or the final one.

The Obama economists sincerely believe that theirs is a growth program. His advisors are all terribly smart: Jason Furman, Austan Goolsbee, Robert Reich, Jarrod Bernstein.  But I question their economic model. Raising marginal tax rates will minimize — not maximize — economic growth and jobs. Ditto for enlarging the size, scope, and sweep of government.

Business cycles come and go. Each has its own set of excesses and subsequent corrections. It is the nature of free-market capitalism. But heavy-handed government solutions are being rejected worldwide, and it seems foolhardy for the USA to move away from economic freedom when virtually the rest of the world is moving toward it.

One of the greatest tax reformers of all time was John F. Kennedy. He slashed marginal tax rates across the board for businesses and people of all income levels. The economy boomed in the 1960s. Reagan copied the JFK model in the 1980s. Are we turning back this supply-side model? I fear the Obama men are doing just that. I think that fear is worrying the stock market right now.

John McCain’s economic program is certainly not flawless. And his ad bashing business, oil, and others nearly reaches the class-warfare level of Obama-Biden. It’s a Big Mac mistake. Nor does McCain have a solid tax-cutting program for the middle class.

Is Michelle Obama a Republican?

Listening to Mrs. Obama speak last night, and seeing all of the excitement about her, it seems to me that this is a very Republican country indeed!  She sounded like she admired Ronald Reagen, the Bush’s, and even Nixon.  Amazing and very out of character for her and her party.  I was very happy to hear her patriotism and love and support of the American ideals that I share.  Say it loud and proud: I am not a victim!!!!

Have a read of the transcript and see the video:

http://www.eyesonobama.com/blog/content/id_28144/title_Michelle-Obamas-Convention-Speech-Transcript/

Russian Propoganda

I think that it is a bit odd how many Russians are complaining about “US propaganda” in this recent episode with Georgia.  The land of the KGB is “just protecting its people” offering “peacekeeping” exercises and trying to maintain civility.

Yeah right!

Giving credit where credit is due, the European wire services AFP and Reuters as well as the BBC, Times of London, and even the Guardian have been giving extraordinarily good coverage on the entire Russian-Georgia conflict.

It was Reuters reporters who first uncovered the fact that the Russians were lying about Georgian attacks on the city of Tskhinvali. The Russians claimed 2000 civilians were killed and the city nearly razed to the ground by Georgia. In fact, Reuters got a couple of reporters in the city and saw immediately that Russia had wildly misstated the number of casualties while downplaying the fact that it was their artillery that did most of the damage.

The BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7567184.stm) has been doing a bang up job reporting on the diplomatic ins and outs – the unbelievable naivete of the French who keep getting the Russians to sign pieces of paper on a cease fire and withdrawal and then promptly ignoring what they just promised to do.

Now the Times Online (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4553499.ece) informs us that Russians have been forcing the people of Gori – an extremely important rail and road junction that is the lifeline for the capitol Tblisi – to leave. And they are killing them if they stay.

It has been 48 hours since President Medvedev signed an agreement that Russian troops would stop their movements and leave Georgia. But Putin sees no need to obey what is an unenforceable agreement so he continues his threats against the Georgian capitol, putting enormous pressure on President Saakashvili while the world waits and wonders whether Putin will take it upon himself to overthrow the Georgian leader.

But this move on Gori is perhaps the biggest threat to Georgian sovereignty. It basically cuts the country in two leaving the capitol defenseless and desperately in need of relief supplies. The Russians have also apparently blown up a railroad bridge that was a major link to the Black Sea port of Poti. In effect, Tblisi is isolated and ripe for Russian plucking any time they choose.

But I suppose that these foreign news sources are just poodles to Bush’s warmongering.

Democrat priorities with Russia

Reportedly on the short-list to be Sen. Obama’s running-mate, Sen. Tom Daschle appeared on ABC’s This Week (http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek).   And he reveals the Democratic mindset by listing recruitment of Russian-cooperation on “climate” (see video, minute -5.33) as one of the principal national priorities compelling the US to maintain an cordial, open, diplomatic relations regardless of recent events.

 

So let’s review. Sen. Daschle expects that while the Russians are very busy invading Georgia, asserting strategic control over the fossil-fuel energy-flow to Europe, threatening Poland (http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-time-to-calm-down-the-rhetoric-with-russia-900661.html) with nuclear weapons, judging carefully western countries’ political and military responses both individual and multilateral, and calculating whether to further escalate the conflict in attempts to reconstitute the Soviet Empire, they will also be prepared to simultaneously devote a lot of selfless attention and angst over a hypothetical climate-crisis with consequences that might appear 100-years hence.  Needless to say, Siberians would likely welcome as much global warming as they can get.

Olympic medals

Can you believe that Canada just won its first medals???  Today, they have 3 in total.  3!  Canada has 170 athletes and 130 support crew; nearly 300 people and only 3 medals!!!!

Mexico only has one medal!  One!!!!  85 athletes and one medal.  No team sports made it.  Not even their soccer teams!

How pathetic is that.

http://www.nbcolympics.com/countries/country=can/medals/medalists/index.html

Soft power versus Russia

It seems that America is one of the last countries on earth that has any understanding or reaction at all to moral dilemnas.  We are a moral country and have proved so over our entire existence.  The silliness of the moral equivalency arguments that are being spewed in response to the Russia offensive among others is very troubling; especially given that it is the so-called “educated” from higher learning that seeks to condemn America and its goodness with the most vile dictators and countries on earth.

Some questions from a George Will column today (http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=303603753946116) regarding the presidential campaign and response to such conflicts:

McCain should ask Obama to join him in a town meeting on lessons from Russia’s aggression. Both candidates favor NATO membership for Georgia and Ukraine, perhaps Vladimir Putin’s next victim.

But does Russia’s behavior cause Obama to rethink reliance on “soft power” — dialogue, disapproval, diplomacy, economic carrots and sticks — which Putin considers almost an oxymoron? Does Russia’s resort to military coercion, and its arsenal of intercontinental ballistic missiles, cause Obama to revise his resistance to missile defense?

Obama, unlike McCain, believes Russia belongs in the G-8. Does Obama think Russia should be admitted to the World Trade Organization? Does Obama consider Putin helpful with Iran? Does Obama accept the description of the G-8 as an organization of the largest “industrialized democracies”? Does he think China should be admitted?

McCain is hardly the change many people have been eagerly waiting for, but Putin is part of the change we must confront. Until Russian tanks rolled into Georgia, it seemed that not even the Democratic Party could lose this election. But it might if McCain can make it turn on the question of who is ornery enough to give Putin a convincing, deterring telephone call at 3 a.m.

George Will on Russia vs. Georgia

George Will wrote an amazing column today about the Russia and Georgia situation (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/11/AR2008081102156.html?hpid=opinionsbox1).  Most pointed to me is the response from Obama and McCain.  To hear the Obama camp out of one end try to talk about how great Obama’s response was and how it helped the situation and out of the other say how McCain’s comments were “shot from the hip” and may have aggrevated the situation………….okay!
McCain looks really good and like an adult compared to the childish Obama and his campaign.

My favorite comment from the article speaks about approaching the UN Security Council to sanction a member that has a veto:

This crisis illustrates, redundantly, the paralysis of the United Nations regarding major powers, hence regarding major events, and the fictitiousness of the European Union regarding foreign policy. Does this disturb Obama’s serenity about the efficacy of diplomacy? Obama’s second statement about the crisis, in which he tardily acknowledged Russia’s invasion, underscored the folly of his first, which echoed the Bush administration’s initial evenhandedness. “Now,” said Obama, “is the time for Georgia and Russia to show restraint.”

John McCain, the “life is real, life is earnest” candidate, says he has looked into Putin’s eyes and seen “a K, a G and a B.” But McCain owes the thug thanks, as does America’s electorate. Putin has abruptly pulled the presidential campaign up from preoccupation with plumbing the shallows of John Edwards and wondering what “catharsis” is “owed” to disappointed Clintonites.

McCain, who has called upon Russia “to immediately and unconditionally . . . withdraw all forces from sovereign Georgian territory,” favors expelling Russia from the Group of Eight, and organizing a league of democracies to act where the United Nations is impotent, which is whenever the subject is important. But Georgia, whose desire for NATO membership had U.S. support, is not in NATO because some prospective members of McCain’s league of democracies, e.g., Germany, thought that starting membership talks with Georgia would complicate the project of propitiating Russia. NATO is scheduled to review the question of Georgia’s membership in December. Where now do Obama and McCain stand?

Obama’s lobbyists

With labor unions being major supporters of the Democratic party — spending hundreds of millions of dollars in this year’s election campaign — it is hardly surprising that congressional Democrats have lined up solidly behind legislation to let union organizers simply collect signed cards from a majority of workers, in order to be certified as the officially recognized union for those workers and to eliminate the secret ballot.  The same secret ballot that Democrat electorates have pushed hard for in other countries as a sign of their progressivism and prosperity (read George McGovern’s column (I cannot believe I just wrote that) from the Wall Street Journal earlier this week: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121815502467222555.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries).

Of course, the union organizers will then know who did and who did not vote for them. And they may have long memories, or short fuses, or both. Moreover, the workers themselves know that, so they may find it prudent to sign up for a union, whether they want one or not.

This legislation passed the House of Representatives last year but did not make it through the Senate. “I will make it the law of the land when I’m President of the United States,” Barack Obama has said to the AFL-CIO.

Senator Obama has also said many times that he is against “special interests.” But, like most politicians who say that, he means that he is against other politicians’ special interests. His own special interests are never called special interests.

Neither are the environmental extremists who support the Democrats called special interests. But the green zealots who have for decades blocked the country from using oil within our own borders — more oil than in Saudi Arabia, by the way — are also among the special interests with a big voice in the Democratic party.

They are also a major factor in shutting down the democratic voting process — in this case, in the House of Representatives, where Speaker Nancy Pelosi refuses to allow a vote on drilling for oil in places where the green zealots don’t want drilling.

Rather than lose votes in the November elections by voting with the green zealots, or lose the money that the green zealots contribute to the Democratic-party coffers, Nancy Pelosi simply shut down the House of Representatives, so that there could be no votes, and turned off the lights so that C-SPAN could not broadcast Republicans’ speeches protesting what happened.

After all, what is democracy compared to support from the green zealots?

It is the same story when it comes to the teachers’ unions, the biggest special interest of all in the Democratic party. They not only contribute money, they can contribute people who walk the precincts on election nights, rounding up the faithful to go vote.

Even the Congressional Black Caucus dares not vote for vouchers or any other form of school choice that the teachers’ unions oppose. Better to let a whole generation of black children be trapped in failing schools that employ union teachers.

And this is not even to include the huge amounts of money that the trial lawyers are ponying up to the Obama campaign and Democrat campaigns throughout the country.

Why won’t the Dems support the Gang of 10

Nate Silver thinks it would be a political coup for Barack Obama to sign onto the “Gang of Ten” energy compromise bill in the Senate, and Joe Romm argues that even substantively, the bill is a good deal for Democrats. They both make strong cases. There’s a basic inconsistency in the liberal narrative on drilling, which is that drilling is bad because it perpetuates our dependence on fossil fuels, but also that drilling is unwise because it won’t produce very much oil. But, as Romm points out, if it won’t produce much oil, how much can it perpetuate fossil-fuel dependence? And is it really worth taking a big political hit and passing up some genuine liberal goodies (repeal of some special tax breaks for oil companies, increasing funding for alternative fuels) just to keep the prohibition on drilling in place? It doesn’t seem like it, especially since supporting the compromise would throw the spotlight back on John McCain’s position: He opposes the “Gang of Ten” bill because it would repeal the oil-company tax credit. Try selling that politically: No to drilling, no to renewable energy investment, yes to Exxon.

I think the drilling provision can also be justified on federalism grounds. To the extent that the risk of environmental damage as a result of drilling is concentrated locally–which it is, once you accept the premise that new coastal drilling won’t produce enough oil to have a substantial climate-change impact–states should be able to decide for themselves whether they want to accept those environmental risks in order to get the economic benefits of drilling. And the “Gang of Ten” bill doesn’t even go that far; it apparently keeps the drilling ban in place except off the coast of four states (Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia), which would get to choose whether to allow drilling. (And the Navy may veto it in the case of Virginia.) I’d say it sounds like a good deal for Democrats even if there weren’t a political imperative to take the drilling issue off the table.