Fridays' Web

These articles are based on Fact and Truth.  Challenges are invited. 

 

The day’s top political news:

Jobless rate tops 10 pct. for first time since '83

Further evidence Obama’s trillion dollar scam is a failure when it comes to employment.  Democrats had promised their plot would keep the figure at 8 or below. Experts admit unemployment may go even higher.

Nearly 16 million people can't find jobs even though the worst recession since the Great Depression has apparently ended. The Labor Department said Friday that the economy shed a net total of 190,000 jobs in October, less than the downwardly revised 219,000 lost in September. August job losses were also revised lower, to 154,000 from 201,000.

The jobless rate rose to 10.2 percent from 9.8 percent in September. The jump reflects a sharp increase in the tally of unemployed Americans, which rose to 15.7 million from 15.1 million. That was much larger than the net loss of jobs, which is based on a survey of businesses.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Jobless-rate-tops-10-pct-for-apf-563122944.html?x=0&.v=8

Ft. Hood suspect reportedly shouted `Allahu Akbar'

Soldiers who witnessed the shooting rampage at Fort Hood that left 13 people dead reported that the gunman shouted "Allahu Akbar!" — an Arabic phrase for "God is great!" — before opening fire, the base commander said Friday.

Military officials were trying to piece together what may have pushed Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist trained to help soldiers in distress, to turn on his comrades. Cone said the 39-year-old Hasan was not known to be a threat or risk.

An imam from a mosque Hasan regularly attended said Hasan, a lifelong Muslim, was a committed soldier, gave no sign of extremist beliefs and regularly wore his uniform at prayers.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091106/ap_on_re_us/us_fort_hood_shooting

New York’s Governor Paterson Empowered By Obama's Election Woes

He Says He Still Plans To Run Despite President's Request He Not

(Patterson is bringing Clinton's former deputy Chief Of Staff on board.  Can we all say “Hmmm?”)

Gov.  Paterson is pulling out all the stops to save his job. He plans to mount a major ad blitz to tell New Yorkers about all the good things he's done for the Empire State. The ads are aimed at improving Paterson's low poll numbers and sending a message to other Democrats, including President Barack Obama, that he is determined to seek another term in office.

http://wcbstv.com/politics/governor.david.paterson.2.1294872.html

Opinion:
If you don’t think Al Gore’s “Greenies” are idiots, read this.

If Al Gore and the others who take seriously his myth that humans are responsible for global warming, be prepared to swap your steak for broccoli and your lobster for cabbage.

The latest silliness from the Al Gore cabal is a belief that our appetites are every bit as much to blame for global warming as a trip from here to Tallahassee – about one hundred miles.  Believe me, they are serious – or at least seem to be.  With such extremists, its often hard to tell.

Here is an excerpt from one article on the subject:
You Can Help Stop Global Warming Today
The most effective way to fight the global warming crisis is to stop eating meat, eggs, and dairy products. Start today by taking the Pledge To Be Veg for 30 Days. Please also take a few moments to encourage Al Gore, the most prominent voice in the fight against global warming, to add going vegetarian to his list of solutions to our climate crisis.
I’m not making this up.  I’m a lot smarter than to try to fool intelligent Americans.  Unfortunately, Al Gore’s goony followers are not.  In my view, they are insulting normal Americans by insinuating we are dumb enough to follow this latest line of the very sort of stuff Gore’s followers are blaming of late.

From the New York Times:

Is Eating Meat The Global Warming Equivalent To Driving A Hummer?
nytimes.com:
It's true that food production is an important contributor to climate change. And the claim that meat (especially beef) is closely linked to global warming has received some credible backing, including by the United Nations and University of Chicago. Both institutions have issued reports that have been widely summarized as condemning meat-eating.

Of course the last occasion on which the NY Times had a valid position on something was when they picked the Indians over Custer at the Little Big Horn.  But I digress.

(I cannot fail to note anyone who contends the United Nations can provide “credible backing” on anything, makes themselves vulnerable to being laughed at.  I cant speak for today’s University of Chicago – but keep in mind that’s the city whose Democrat Machine is responsible for creating Obama.)

Where will it all end?

Your guess is as good as mine.  Each time I draw a line on what is too weird, too absurd, and too outrageous to take seriously, some little liberal loon comes trotting by to prove me wrong.

Perhaps somewhere out there, there’s someone smart enough to convince me this man-caused global warming has at least some validity.  But the burden of proof has substantially shifted.

In the interests of full disclosure, I must admit I have never intended to give up automobiles, even for an instant.  I don’t trust those little Chinese light bulbs, and I seldom succeed at stifling a snicker when some liberal such as Gore makes what they intend as a solemn pronouncement.  In fact, if there is one political figure who cannot convincingly be solemn or believable about much of anything, its Al Gore.  He seems to have a perpetual case of flatulence.  I am now presuming its because he’s conflicted about whether to have one more link of sausage at breakfast.  Or something.

Must have been something caused by his having grown up living in a Washington, DC hotel.

Buddy

The day’s top blogs:

1.

Speaker Pelosi’s Government-Run Health Plan Will Require a Monthly Abortion Premium

Posted by GOP Leader Press Office

Health care reform should not be used as an opportunity to use federal funds to pay for elective abortions. Health reform should be an opportunity to protect human life - not end it.

Unfortunately, Speaker Pelosi’s 2,032-page government takeover of health care does just that.  On line 17, p. 110, section 222 under “Abortions for which Public Funding is Allowed” the Health and Human Services Secretary is given the authority to determine when abortion is allowed under the government-run plan.  The Speaker’s plan also requires that at least one insurance plan offered in the Exchange covers abortions.

(NOTE: What Nancy Pelosi is lying about, refusing to admit, and hopes normal America never learns about her scheme to takeover the nation’s health care system and replace it with socialized medicine.  She must ask “so quality isn’t everything”.)

What is even more alarming is that a monthly abortion premium will be charged of all enrollees in the government-run plan.  It’s right there on line 16, page 96, section 213, under “Insurance Rating Rules.”  The premium will be paid into a U.S. Treasury account - and these federal funds will be used to pay for the abortion services.

Section 213 describes the process in which the Health Benefits Commissioner is to assess the monthly premiums that will be used to pay for elective abortions under the government-run plan.  The Commissioner must charge at a minimum $1 per enrollee per month.

A majority of Americans believe that health care plans should not be mandated to provide elective abortion coverage, and a majority of Americans do not believe government health care plans should include abortion coverage. Currently, federal appropriations bills include language known as the Hyde Amendment that prohibits the use of federal funds to pay for elective abortions under the Medicare and Medicaid programs, while another provision, known as the Smith Amendment, prohibits federal funding of abortion under the federal employees’ health benefits plan.

Speaker Pelosi’s 2,032-page health care monstrosity is an affront to the American people and drastically moves away from current policy.  The American people deserve more from their government than being forced to pay for abortion.

House Republicans are offering a common-sense, responsible solution that would reduce health care costs and expand access while protecting the dignity of all human life. The Republican plan, available at HealthCare.GOP.gov, would codify the Hyde Amendment and prohibit all authorized and appropriated federal funds from being used to pay for abortion. And under the Republican plan, any health plan that includes abortion coverage may not receive federal funds.

2.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704013004574517603592213342.html?mod=djemEditorialPage
 
The Madness of Queen Nancy
JOHN FUND

It's one thing to be serene under fire, it's another to be delusional.

More than a few Democrats in Congress are perplexed and worried that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is insisting on ramming through a 1,900-page health care bill on Saturday, just days after her party took heavy losses in Tuesday's elections. "It reminds me of Major Nicholson, the obsessed British major in the film 'Bridge on the River Kwai,'" one Democrat told me. "She is fixated on finishing her health care bridge even as she's lost sight of where it's going and what damage it could cause to her own troops."

Indeed, the Speaker's take on Tuesday's off-year elections struck some of her own members as delusive "happy talk." "From our perspective, we won last night," a cheerful Ms. Pelosi told reporters, citing her party's pick-up of a single House seat in a New York special election and retention of another strongly Democratic seat in California.

That's not how many of her own troops see it. Democratic Rep. Parker Griffith of Alabama told Politico.com that members are "very, very sensitive" to the fact that the agenda being pushed by party leaders has "the potential to cost some of our front-line members their seats"

(NOTE: Liberal Democrats are desperate to contend the outcome of Tuesdays’ election was an endorsement of Pelosi’s health care extremism.  A Florida Democrat Congresswoman was in a frenzy whistling past the grave yard, trying to sell the massive Democrat defeat in gubernatorial races as being of no importance.  Hmmm She didn’t even try explaining why, if they meant so little, Obama himself poured millions of dollars and a huge amount of personal time effort, and good will into trying to stave off defeat.  Such liberals also are deep into denial about the tea party protests as well.)

On health care, added New Jersey Democrat Bill Pascrell: "People who had weak knees before are going to have weaker knees now."

Ms. Pelosi, however, apparently thinks the moment is ripe to use sheer political muscle to pass legislation reordering one sixth of the economy, with zero Republican support. The right mixture of "incentives" and Rahm Emanuel-style pressure, she believes, will bring enough Democrats to heel to vote for the bill.

The obsession Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have with passing health care strikes some Democratic moderates as a completely misplaced priority. Polls show that fewer than a fifth of Americans rank health care reform as the most important issue. Their biggest concern right now is jobs. Only 29% of voters in the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll believe the economy "has hit the bottom."

That's also the message from Moody's Mark Zandi, who has become the de facto chief outside economic adviser to the Democratic Congress in recent months and has been telling House Democrats to expect unemployment to be "sticky and stubborn," remaining near 10% a year from now.

A similar warning comes from Christina Romer, chair of President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, who predicts unemployment will be 9.5% when midterm elections occur a year from now.

These considerations spook not just the 49 House Democrats who sit in districts won by John McCain last year.

Even liberals say lessons need to be taken from Tuesday's shellacking: "What the exit polls showed was real voter fatigue with how crowded the plate is," Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia, chairman of his party's freshman class, told the New York Times. "We need to take a deep breath, step back and clean the plate before we add to it."

That the bill would be a job killer isn't the only concern.

Democrats worry about a backlash from the one-fourth of seniors enrolled in Medicare Advantage -- a program that faces steep cuts in both the likely Senate and House bills.

But Speaker Pelosi isn't about to step back. In fact, she plans to force her troops to vote on health care just one day after Friday's jobless numbers are due, which are likely to show unemployment still growing. "When I take this bill to the floor, it will win," she proclaimed earlier this year.

One Democratic House moderate says the leadership has mislearned a lesson from the 1994 collapse of Hillary Clinton's health care bill. "They believe they lost the elections that year because they failed to pass anything," he says. "But they forget it might have been even worse if they'd passed the wrong bill."

The obsession with passing a clearly flawed and overly complex health care bill does indeed recall the classic movie in which Major Nicholson (played memorably by Alec Guinness) convinces his fellow British POWs in Thailand to build a railway bridge for their Japanese captors -- losing touch with the larger reality that the bridge would be used by the enemy against his own people.

John Feenery, who worked for then-House Minority Leader Bob Michel, sees many similarities with Congress's ill-fated rush to pass "catastrophic" health coverage for seniors in 1988. "Like the catastrophic bill, the Democrats' health care bill frontloads the pain and backloads the gain," he told CNN last month. Because Democrats wanted to avoid a negative deficit score from the Congressional Budget Office, taxes went up immediately while benefits were phased in. But seniors revolted. House Ways and Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski was famously chased down a Chicago street by an angry mob. In November, 1989 -- almost exactly 20 years ago -- Congress took the extraordinary step of repealing the catastrophic health care law.

Should the far more complex health care bill now being debated pass, no one expects it could be fully repealed. But Democrats surely would pay a political price for passing a liberal bill with no bipartisan support. Like Major Nicholson on the River Kwai, they may wake up to find they built a monument to a set of presumptions that were really a form of madness.

To read more stories like this one, please subscribe to Political Diary. 

Copyright 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

3. 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703932904574511794170939688.html

The Return of the Inflation Tax
The Pelosi tax surcharge applies to capital gains and dividends.

All of those twentysomethings who voted for Barack Obama last year are about to experience the change they haven't been waiting for: the return of income tax bracket creep.

Buried in Nancy Pelosi's health-care bill is a provision that will partially repeal tax indexing for inflation, meaning that as their earnings rise over a lifetime these youngsters can look forward to paying higher rates even if their income gains aren't real.

(NOTE: In a recession many businessmen and consumers tend to push prices down to 'do the deal'; Queen Nancy seems to think that the time for inflation has begun. She wants to cause it, tax it & jam that in your eye too!    Harry Becker)

In order to raise enough money to make their plan look like it won't add to the deficit, House Democrats have deliberately not indexed two main tax features of their plan: the $500,000 threshold for the 5.4-percentage-point income tax surcharge; and the payroll level at which small businesses must pay a new 8% tax penalty for not offering health insurance.

This is a sneaky way for politicians to pry more money out of workers every year without having to legislate tax increases. The negative effects of failing to index compound over time, yielding a revenue windfall for government as the years go on. The House tax surcharge is estimated to raise $460.5 billion over 10 years, but only $30.9 billion in 2011, rising to $68.4 billion in 2019, according to the Joint Tax Committee. 

Americans of a certain age have seen this movie before. In 1960, only 3% of tax filers paid a 30% or higher marginal tax rate. By 1980, after the inflation of the 1970s, the share was closer to 33%, according to a Heritage Foundation analysis of tax returns.

These stealth tax increases—forcing ever more Americans to pay higher tax rates on phantom gains in income—were widely seen to be unjust. And in 1981 as part of the Reagan tax cuts, a bipartisan coalition voted to index the tax brackets for inflation.

We also know what has happened with the Alternative Minimum Tax. Passed to hit only 1% of all Americans in 1969, the AMT wasn't indexed for inflation at the time and neither was Bill Clinton's AMT rate increase in 1993. The number of families hit by this shadow tax more than tripled over the next decade.

Today, families with incomes as low as $75,000 a year can be hit by the AMT unless Congress passes an annual "patch."

The Pelosi-Obama health tax surcharge will have a similar effect. The tax would begin in 2011 on income above $500,000 for singles and $1 million for joint filers. Assuming a 4% annual inflation rate over the next decade, that $500,000 for an individual tax filer would hit families with the inflation-adjusted equivalent of an income of about $335,000 by 2020. After 20 years without indexing, the surcharge threshold would be roughly $250,000.

And by the way, this surcharge has also been sneakily written to apply to modified adjusted gross income, which means it applies to both capital gains and dividends that are taxed at lower rates.
So the capital gains tax rate that is now 15% would increase in 2011 to 25.4% with the surcharge and repeal of the Bush tax rates. The tax rate on dividends would rise to 45% from 15% (5.4% plus the pre-Bush rate of 39.6%).

As for the business payroll penalty, it is imposed on a sliding scale beginning at a 2% rate for firms with payrolls of $500,000 and rising to 8% on firms with payrolls above $750,000. But those amounts are also not indexed for inflation, so again assuming a 4% average inflation rate in 10 years this range would hit payrolls between $335,000 and $510,000 in today's dollars. Note that in pitching this "pay or play" tax today, Democrats claim that most small businesses would be exempt. But because it isn't indexed, this tax will whack more and more businesses every year.

The sales pitch is pure deception.

As for the Senate, instead of the 5.4% surcharge, the Finance Committee bill raises taxes on "high-cost" health care plans. But this too uses the inflation ruse.

The Senate bill indexes its tax proposal for the inflation rate plus one percentage point. But that is only about half as high as the rate of overall health-care inflation, i.e., the rate of increase in health-care premiums. So the Joint Tax Committee has found that a Senate tax that starts in 2013 by hitting 13.8 million Americans will hit 39.1 million by 2019.

The return of the inflation tax demonstrates once again the stealth radicalism that animates ObamaCare.

In the case of inflation indexing, Democrats would repeal a 30-year bipartisan consensus that it is unfair to tax unreal gains in income, thus hitting millions of middle-class Americans over time with tax rates advertised as only hitting "the rich." Oh, and the House vote on this exercise in dishonest government will come as early as Saturday.

Printed in The Wall Street Journal 

4.
 
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704013004574515652271599392.html
 
Tuesday's Suburban Vote Swing
Even a five-point shift would mean big Democratic losses in 2010.
KARL ROVE

Tuesday's elections should put a scare into red state Democrats—and a few blue state ones, too.
Barack Obama was said to have redrawn the electoral map by winning Virginia last year with 53% of the vote. On Tuesday, Republican Bob McDonnell flipped the state back to the GOP, winning his election for governor with 59% of the vote. Mr. Obama carried New Jersey easily last year with 57% of the vote.

This year, despite being outspent 3-to-1, Republican Chris Christie ousted Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine there by 49% to 45%. Mr. Obama carried Pennsylvania last year by 10 points. On Tuesday, Republican Judge Joan Orie Melvin was elected to the state's Supreme Court by 53% to 47%, leading a GOP sweep of six of seven statewide contests.

The trend here is that suburban and independent voters moved into the GOP column. The overall shift away from Democrats was 13 points in Virginia, 12 points in New Jersey, and eight points in Pennsylvania.

Even a five-point swing in 2010 could bring a tidal wave of change. Today, Democrats enjoy 60 votes in the Senate, Republicans a mere 40. Had there been a five-point swing away from Democrats last fall, the party would have started this year with 54 seats and the Republicans 46. 

A five-point shift in 2006 would have left the GOP in control of the House. In 2008, a five-point shift would have produced a Democratic loss of six House seats rather than a gain of 21. It would also have put John McCain into the White House with 279 Electoral College votes to Mr. Obama's 259.

Looking ahead, the bad news for Democrats is that the legislation that helped lead to the collapse of support for their party on Tuesday could yet inflict more pain on those foolish enough to support it.

The health-care bill House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants to vote on this week could sink an entire fleet of Democratic boats in 2010.

For starters, the bill is a lot more expensive than advertised. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) pegs its cost at $1.055 trillion over 10 years, not the $894 billion Mrs. Pelosi claims. Politico reports that "the legislation is projected to create deficits over the second five years" by front-loading revenue and benefit cuts and back-loading costs. The real cost, according to a Republican House Budget Committee report, could be $2.4 trillion for its first decade of operation.

In its first 10 years, the bill calls for $572 billion in new taxes (including a 5.4% income surtax on anyone making more than $500,000 a year), and $426 billion in Medicare and Medicaid cuts, which will hurt seniors and the poor and could lead to rationing of care.

The Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation reported recently that the House's legislation will whack small businesses because they would pay $153.5 billion of the surtax. Small businesses unable to provide health coverage to their workers would also pay up to 8% in new payroll taxes. This would cost them $135 billion more over the next decade, thereby diminishing their ability to create jobs.

In the House bill there is a $2 billion tax on those who already have health insurance, $20 billion in taxes on medical devices, $8 billion in taxes on anyone who buys over-the-counter drugs with money from their health-savings accounts, and $140 billion in higher taxes on drugs.

Mrs. Pelosi's bill will drive up premiums. A family of four with an income of $78,000 would pay $13,800 for insurance a year by 2016, according to CBO. Their tab would average $11,000 without the bill.

Every American would be required to buy health insurance or be fined up to 2.5% of their income.   

The CBO estimates the public option will have higher premiums than private plans, even though it will get a $2 billion, interest-free start-up loan from the government. The public option is also likely to mimic Medicare, which denies reimbursement claims at almost twice the rate of private insurers, according to the American Medical Association's 2008 "National Health Insurer Report Card."

The bill dumps $34 billion onto already strained state budgets by pushing more of the working poor off private insurance and into Medicaid. There's no proof of citizenship required for the public option, so illegal aliens could get subsidies. And the legislation doesn't close the door to using taxpayer funds on abortion.

Younger people with healthier lifestyles would subsidize older, sicker Americans as insurance companies lose flexibility to charge lower prices for healthier habits.

Every page of the 1,990 bill seems to contain a landmine that could explode on Democrats.

Tuesday's results were the first sign that voters are revolting against runaway spending and government expansion. But Democrat likely ain't seen nothin' yet if they try to ram through health-care reform. There is nothing in the House bill that would do anything to reverse the voter trend we saw this week.

Mr. Rove is the former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush.

 

Comments

[Brittanicus]

WITHOUT ANY FEAR OF CONTRADICTION ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION WAS NEVER MEANT TO BE STOPPED. Very few politicians have tried to halt the occupancy by foreign invaders to our country? This is why the E-Verify mechanism was never mandated, owing to the fact that Americans are last to be a priority, specially the 15.3 million jobless workers. Already Hispanic Caucuses have confronted President Obama at the White House, with the chair of the House Rules Committee indicating they are giving the Caucuses what they have adamantly demanded. Rep. Louise Slaughter D-N.Y indicated that the House will have to vote on a bill that allows illegal aliens to use the new health care "exchange". A loophole that does not require verification to keep illegal aliens out of the other parts of the proposed new federal health care system. Please call all Democratic House Members and urge them to vote against the rule that provides a weak verification mechanism that still allows illegal aliens to purchase insurance from the health care exchange. WE MUST JAM THE SWITCHBOARDS IN WASHINGTON, PUSHING OUR OWN DEMANDS at 202-224-3121 that bars illegal aliens from the health care insurance "exchange" YOUR VOICE IS MAKING AN IMMENSE DIFFERENCE TO HOW THE POLITICIANS VOTE?

Other pieces of information contributing to the dilemma of US legal population: Senate Census allows to Count Illegal Aliens for Congressional Districting . CBO Says New Health Care Bill Would Cover 2.5 Million More Illegal Aliens. Sen. Reid Kills E-Verify Amendment to Unemployment extension Bill. Pro-Enforcement Candidates win in Virginia and New Jersey. 68% of Americans Oppose Sanctuary Cities

You can learn about the corruption and incompetence of lawmakers at NUMBERSUSA. Court cases, political sleaze and immigration non-enforcement at JUDICIAL WATCH. How population growth will effect future generations at CAPSWEB. NO BLANKET AMNESTY!