For GOP only

[DrunkBomber]

Sold by a vender at the Texes Republican Convention...

 

Sold by an Online Vender...

The Obama Sock Monkey

 

Oh, and this too...

 

He never said the GOP itself would say he's black. He said his republican opponents woud.

 

It's already started. Not "hardcore" yet, but on the fringes.

 

And already the "core" is trying to exploit fear of his middle name. Must I remind you of Bill "Barack Hussein Obama" Cunningham and Ann "B. Hussein Obama" Coultergeist.

Well I guess if a vendor sold these things its the consensus of the entire party. If you want to stereotype a whole party by what a few stupid people do believe it or not we might be able to find a few democrats who have crossed the line. I know it would be unlikely, but maybe we could find one or two.

[lostfan]

Well I guess if a vendor sold these things its the consensus of the entire party. If you want to stereotype a whole party by what a few stupid people do believe it or not we might be able to find a few democrats who have crossed the line. I know it would be unlikely, but maybe we could find one or two.

I think the point is - if you think that race isn't going to be an issue, whether it's in the polls or whether Obama brings it up or not, you're fooling yourself, or maybe just being too Pollyana.

 

Personally I'd rather Obama had not brought it up but that's another subject entirely.

[Controlled Chaos]

The Imitators

Thomas Sowell

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

 

If anyone suggested that Tiger Woods should try to be more like other golfers, people would question the sanity of whoever made that suggestion.

 

Why should Tiger Woods try to be more like Phil Mickelson? If Tiger turned around and tried to golf left-handed, like Mickelson, he probably wouldn't be as good as Mickelson, much less as good as he is golfing the way he does right-handed.

 

Yet there are those who think that the United States should follow policies more like those in Europe, often with no stronger reason than the fact that Europeans follow such policies. For some Americans, it is considered chic to be like Europeans.

 

If Europeans have higher minimum wage laws and more welfare state benefits, then we should have higher minimum wage laws and more welfare state benefits, according to such people. If Europeans restrict pharmaceutical companies' patents and profits, then we should do the same.

 

Some Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court even seem to think that they should incorporate ideas from European laws in interpreting American laws.

 

Before we start imitating someone, we should first find out whether the results that they get are better than the results that we get. Across a very wide spectrum, the United States has been doing better than Europe for a very long time.

 

By comparison with most of the rest of the world, Europe is doing fine. But they are like Phil Mickelson, not Tiger Woods.

 

Minimum wage laws have the same effects in Europe as they have had in other places around the world. They price many low-skilled and inexperienced workers out of a job.

 

Because minimum wage laws are more generous in Europe than in the United States, they lead to chronically higher rates of unemployment in general and longer periods of unemployment than in the United States-- but especially among younger, less experienced and less skilled workers.

 

Unemployment rates of 20 percent or more for young workers are common in a number of European countries. Among workers who are both younger and minority workers, such as young Muslims in France, unemployment rates are estimated at about 40 percent.

 

The American minimum wage laws do enough damage without our imitating European minimum wage laws. The last year in which the black unemployment rate was lower than the white unemployment rate in the United States was 1930.

 

The next year, the first federal minimum wage law, the Davis-Bacon Act, was passed. One of its sponsors explicitly stated that the purpose was to keep blacks from taking jobs from whites.

 

No one says things like that any more-- which is a shame, because the effect of a minimum wage law does not depend on what anybody says. Blacks in general, and younger blacks in particular, are the biggest losers from such laws, just as younger and minority workers are in Europe.

 

Those Americans who are pushing us toward the kinds of policies that Europeans impose on pharmaceutical companies show not the slightest interest in what the consequences of such laws have been.

 

One consequence is that even European pharmaceutical companies do much of their research and development of new medications in the United States, in order to take advantage of American patent protections and freedom from price controls.

 

These are the very policies that the European imitators want us to change.

 

It is not a coincidence that such a high proportion of the major pharmaceutical drugs are developed in the United States. If we kill the goose that lays the golden egg, as the Europeans have done, both we and the Europeans-- as well as the rest of the world -- will be worse off, because there are few other places for such medications to be developed.

 

There are a lot of diseases still waiting for a cure, or even for relief for those suffering from those diseases. People stricken with these diseases will pay the price for blind imitation of Europe.

 

The United States leads the world in too many areas for us to start imitating those who are trailing behind.

 

Copyright © 2008 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.

 

 

The Imitators: Part II

Thomas Sowell

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

 

It must be a bitter disappointment to those in the media and in politics who have been dying to use the word "recession" that, for the second quarter in a row, there has been no downturn in the economy, though growth has been slow.

 

Alarmists have been reduced to quoting other alarmists on the supposedly impending recession but that is still not the real thing.

 

The definition of a "recession" is very clear and straightforward: Two consecutive quarters of negative growth. We have not yet had one consecutive quarter of negative growth.

 

The fault-finding brigades of critics of the American economy and society are among the reasons why there is so much talk about how we ought to do things that are being done in Europe.

 

We need to understand America first, before we start imitating Europe.

 

The American economy produces the largest output in the world-- more than Japan, Germany, and Great Britain combined.

 

Measured by purchasing power, output per capita in the United States is the highest of any large nation.

 

There are some very small places like Luxembourg or the Cayman Islands with higher purchasing power per capita but, as Professor Benjamin M. Friedman of Harvard put it, places like Luxembourg are "technically countries but are more like large suburbs." Luxembourg's total population is about the same as that of Long Beach, California. Wal-Mart has more employees than the total population of Luxembourg.

 

Some other small places like the Cayman Islands are tax havens that attract the wealth of people who are not really Cayman Islanders.

 

Among countries at all comparable to the United States in size or population, none has achieved as high an output per capita. New Jersey produces more than Egypt. California produces more than Canada or Mexico.

 

Desperate efforts to depict all the prosperity and progress in the United States as being monopolized by "the rich" have led to all kinds of statistical mumbo jumbo, such as comparing the changing ratios between statistical categories over time and ignoring the fact that most of the people in those categories move from one category to another over the years.

 

Studies that follow given individuals over time show the exact opposite of what is being said in the mainstream media and in politics. That is, most of the working people in the bottom fifth of the income distribution rise into the top half, and the rate of increase of their incomes is greater than that of most of the people initially in the top fifth. Those individuals in the top one percent, as of a given time, actually have an absolute decline in income over time. As they drop out of the top one percent, they are replaced by others, so the statistical category can be doing great, while the flesh-and-blood people who pass in and out of that category are by no means gaining on those further down the income distribution.

 

None of this is rocket science. But most people in politics, in the media and in academia still insist on using statistics based on the fate of abstract categories over time-- households, families, income brackets-- even when other statistics, based on following specific individuals over time, are available.

 

Households and families vary in size from group to group and are generally declining in size over time, but an individual always means one person. Income per household or family can be stagnant, or even declining, while income per person is rising.

 

That has in fact been a general pattern in recent decades, which may be why the nay-sayers are forever citing household and family income statistics, while ignoring statistics on income per person.

 

Amid a general undermining of American economic performance, it is hardly surprising that so many people think we should imitate what the Europeans are doing-- whether in the economy, in foreign policy or in other areas.

 

We can always learn particular things from other countries, whether in Europe, in Asia or elsewhere. But imitating Europeans when they are not doing as well as Americans makes no sense.

 

 

 

Copyright © 2008 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[southsider2k5]

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/...ticleid=1102761

 

The father of a slain Florida girl pushing for mandatory prison time for child rapists in the Bay State is blasting a Taunton lawmaker who said he’d torment young victims on the witness stand to defend his perv clients.

 

“Why doesn’t he figure out a way to defend that child and put these kind of people away instead of trying to figure ways for defense attorneys to get around Jessica’s Law?” Mark Lunsford fumed, slamming recent remarks by Rep. James f**an. “These are very serious crimes that nobody wants to take serious. What about the rights of these children?”

 

Lunsford, whose daughter Jessica was raped and murdered in Florida by a repeat sex offender, will be in Massachusetts tomorrow to push lawmakers to pass Jessica’s Law, which would require a 20-year sentence for rape of a child under 12. The House passed a watered-down version of the bill last week but Lunsford and other victims’ rights activists will be pushing the Senate to include mandatory prison time in the final law.

 

“If this bill is not going to put these people away, don’t disrespect me by putting my daughter’s name on it,” Lunsford told the Herald last night. “You have to put these guys in prison and admit these people are uncurable.”

 

f**an, a defense attorney, infuriated victims’ rights advocates during a recent House debate when he said he would “rip apart” 6-year-old victims on the witness stand and “make sure the rest of their life is ruined.”

 

In a fiery soliloquy on the House floor, f**an said he’d grill victims so that, “when they’re 8 years old they throw up; when they’re 12 years old, they won’t sleep; when they’re 19 years old, they’ll have nightmares and they’ll never have a relationship with anybody.”

 

f**an did not return calls seeking comment.

 

Rep. Karyn Polito, a Republican from Shrewsbury who supports Jessica’s Law, said of f**an’s comments: “The words speak for themselves. I think there’s a large part of the (House) membership that doesn’t agree with that.”

 

f**an also called Jessica’s Law “knee-jerk” legislation and said “every time the Legislature has named a law after somebody, it has been a failure.”

 

That comment angered Ron Bersani, grandfather of Melanie Powell, whose death at the hands of a drunken driver inspired Melanie’s Law, which hiked OUI penalties.

 

“Absolutely ridiculous,” Bersani said. “I would beg to differ with Rep. f**an.”

 

Bersani also took issue with f**an’s characterization of such laws as “knee-jerk.”

 

“I find that description despicable,” Bersani said. “It’s a lot easier to call it knee-jerk when it’s not your daughter or granddaughter.”

 

Interesting that they left out the party affiliation...

 

http://www.mass.gov/legis/member/jhf1.htm

[southsider2k5]

What a surprise, this turd sandwich of a bill is about to pass, dispite all of the conflicts of interest leading the way. Funny how they have changed their tunes about subsizing big business when it subsidizes their mortgages...

 

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080625/D91H2TT80.html

 

WASHINGTON (AP) - A mortgage aid plan is on track for passage in the Senate as soon as today. The massive foreclosure rescue bill cleared a key Senate test yesterday by an overwhelming margin, with Democrats and Republicans both eager to claim election-year credit for helping hard-pressed homeowners.

 

The mortgage aid plan would let the Federal Housing Administration back $300 billion in new, cheaper home loans for an estimated 400,000 distressed borrowers who otherwise would be considered too financially risky to qualify for government-insured, fixed-rate loans.

 

An 83-9 vote put the plan on track for Senate passage as early as Wednesday, but President Bush is threatening a veto, and Democrats are fighting each other over key details. Those challenges will probably delay any final deal until mid-July.

 

The bill advanced as separate reports underscored rising economic anxiety: Consumer confidence slid to its lowest level in more than 16 years, and closely watched indices showed a continuing decline in home values.

 

At the Capitol, Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn., the Banking Committee chairman, said the lending measure "would allow us to begin to put a tourniquet on the hemorrhaging of foreclosures in this country."

 

"We need to demonstrate to people in this country that have lost an awful lot of faith in almost everything, but certainly in (Congress), that we can get something done, that we can put aside differences and make a difference in their lives," Dodd said.

 

Still, conservative Democrats known as "Blue Dogs" are concerned about how to pay for the measure, and members of the Congressional Black Caucus call it unacceptable, arguing it doesn't do enough to address the needs of black Americans.

 

Congressional leaders also are divided on how high to place loan limits that apply to government mortgage insurance and financing. The Senate bill sets those limits at $625,000 while a House-passed version puts them at $730,000 - a crucial difference in high-cost housing markets like California, home to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

 

Lawmakers have been negotiating behind the scenes with the Bush administration to avert a veto. Dana Perino, the White House spokeswoman, told reporters the Senate measure has "some really good aspects" and Congress is "on the right path."

 

"We have been working closely with them to try to change the bill in a way that we think that it could be something that the president could sign," Perino said.

 

Borrowers would be eligible for the housing rescue if their mortgage holders were willing to take a substantial loss and allow them to refinance, and if they could show an ability to make payments on the new loan. They would ultimately have to share with the government a portion of any profits they made from selling or refinancing their properties.

 

The bill also would tighten controls and create a new regulator for Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE), the mortgage giants that provide huge amounts of cash flow to the home loan market by buying loans from banks.

 

It would provide a $14.5 billion array of tax breaks, including a credit of up to $8,000 for first-time homebuyers who buy in the next year. And it would boost low-income tax credits and mortgage revenue bonds. The measure falls $2.4 billion short of covering the costs of those tax items, a sort point for Blue Dogs who oppose initiatives that add to the deficit.

 

Mixing in a controversy involving lawmakers, Republicans and Democrats on the Ethics Committee proposed adding mortgage disclosure requirements for members of Congress to the bill following a flap over reports that Dodd and Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., got preferential home loans from Countrywide Financial Corp. (CFC), a lender at the center of the subprime mortgage mess. The proposal by John Cornyn of Texas, the senior Republican on the committee, and Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., the chairman, would remove an exception that currently allows lawmakers to omit home mortgages from their annual financial disclosures.

 

On the broader bill, the 42 House members of the Black Caucus said in a letter to Democratic leaders last week that it has "glaring omissions," including affordable housing funds for states affected by Hurricane Katrina and grants for states and localities to buy and fix up foreclosed properties.

 

To draw GOP support, Senate Democrats diverted the affordable housing money to pay for the foreclosure aid program.

 

Some Republicans, however, are still vehemently opposed to the legislation, which they describe as a government giveaway for reckless lenders and investors.

 

"They expect the federal government to turn their backs on responsible lenders and borrowers and renters waiting - waiting - to become first-time homeowners, and support those groups that have pushed our housing market into decline with bad loans and bad investments," said Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo. "This bill is a federal government bailout."

 

The Senate bill would provide $3.9 billion in grants to deal with foreclosed properties - a House plan would provide $15 billion - but the White House singled out the funds in its veto threat, and Blue Dogs are demanding that the money be offset with cuts elsewhere.

 

Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., the Financial Services Committee chairman, has said he'd be willing to jettison the money and add it to a separate measure in the interest of a deal.

[Cknolls]

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/...ticleid=1102761

 

 

 

Interesting that they left out the party affiliation...

 

http://www.mass.gov/legis/member/jhf1.htm

 

 

Wonder why that is.

 

What a precious human being.

[lostfan]

Honestly does his party affiliation even matter? What he said is pretty appalling and the Republican whatshername pretty much said it all IMO, basically nobody agrees with what he said.

 

Unless somebody is interested in using this as part of some ad hominem argument I don't see the relevance.

Edited June 25, 2008 by lostfan

[Cknolls]

Honestly does his party affiliation even matter? What he said is pretty appalling and the Republican whatshername pretty much said it all IMO, basically nobody agrees with what he said.

 

Unless somebody is interested in using this as part of some ad hominem argument I don't see the relevance.

 

 

Why would anyone in his district, with kids, vote to re-elect this guy?

[HuskyCaucasian]

This is borderline weird...

 

Edited June 25, 2008 by Athomeboy_2000

[lostfan]

Why would anyone in his district, with kids, vote to re-elect this guy?

It seems like he committed political suicide to me. The only reason I can think why someone would want to vote for him is if they wanted a Democrat (pretty weak reason to vote for someone but that's how it is) but if another Democrat knows what they're doing they'd contest him so they can run against the Republican candidate and not this guy.

[Controlled Chaos]

The Imitators: Part III

Thomas Sowell

Thursday, June 26, 2008

 

Some of the people who are most adamant against outsourcing economic activity from the United States to other countries often seem to think we should outsource our foreign policy to "world opinion" or act only in conjunction "with our NATO allies."

 

Like so many things that are said when it comes to public policy, there is very little attention paid to the actual track record of "world opinion" or of "our NATO allies."

 

Often there is a blanket assumption that European countries are just so much more sophisticated than American "cowboys." But there is incredibly little interest in the track record of those European sophisticates whom we are supposed to consult about our own national interests-- including, in an age when terrorists may acquire nuclear weapons, our national survival.

 

In the course of the twentieth century, supposedly sophisticated Europeans managed to create some of the most monstrous forms of government on earth-- Communism, Fascism, Nazism-- in peacetime, and to start the two World Wars, the bloodiest in all human history. In each of these wars, both the winners and the losers ended up far worse off than they were before these wars were started.

 

After both World Wars, the United States had to step in to save millions of people in Europe from starving amid the wreckage and rubble that their wars had created. These do not seem like people whose sophistication we should defer to.

 

Between the two World Wars, European intellectuals-- more so than ordinary people-- completely misread the threat from Nazi Germany, and were urging disarmament in France and England, while Hitler was rapidly building up the most powerful military force on the continent, obviously aimed at neighboring countries.

 

During the Cold War, many European intellectuals once again misread the threat of a totalitarian dictatorship-- in this case, the Soviet Union. When they finally recognized the threat, many saw the question as whether it was "better to be red than dead."

 

They were no more prepared to stand up to the Soviet Union than they had been ready to stand up to Nazi Germany in the 1930s.

 

Worse yet, much of the European intelligentsia objected to America's standing up to the Soviet Union.

 

Many of them were appalled when Ronald Reagan met the threat of new Soviet missiles aimed at Western Europe by putting more American missiles in Western Europe, aimed at the Soviet Union.

 

Reagan, in effect, called the Soviet Union and raised them, while many of the European sophisticates-- as well as much of the American intelligentsia-- said that his policies would lead to war.

 

Instead, it led to the end of the Cold War. Are we now to blindly imitate those who have been so wrong, so often over the past hundred years?

 

 

 

Copyright © 2008 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.

 

[HuskyCaucasian]

Well I guess if a vendor sold these things its the consensus of the entire party. If you want to stereotype a whole party by what a few stupid people do believe it or not we might be able to find a few democrats who have crossed the line. I know it would be unlikely, but maybe we could find one or two.

FYI: Conservative Activist Grover Norquist: Obama Is "Kerry With A Tan"

Norqui

s

t dropped by The Time

s

' Wa

s

hington bureau today and, a

s

part of hi

s

negative critique of Obama'

s

liberal

s

tance

s

on economic i

s

s

ue

s

and other matter

s

, he termed the pre

s

umptive Democratic pre

s

idential nominee "

John

K

erry with a tan

."

 

Guess it could have been worse. He could have termed the Illinois Senator "John Kerry in blackface."

 

Such admirable restraint on Norquist's part!

:

Edited June 27, 2008 by Athomeboy_2000

[southsider2k5]

FYI: Conservative Activist Grover Norquist: Obama Is "Kerry With A Tan"

 

:

 

He's much more like Jimmy Carter if you ask me...

[mr_genius]

FYI: Conservative Activist Grover Norquist: Obama Is "Kerry With A Tan"

 

:

 

I don't think saying Obama is like John Kerry with a tan is racist. It seems like people are going out of their way to find racist things said about Obama.

[HuskyCaucasian]

I don't think saying Obama is like John Kerry with a tan is racist. It seems like people are going out of their way to find racist things said about Obama.

how is that not racist? He basically said "hey, he's John Kerry, but black"

He does NOT need to inject race. Make a stand on how you think they are alike, just dont go "hey, he's the same, just blacker"

[southsider2k5]

how is that not racist? He basically said "hey, he's John Kerry, but black"

He does NOT need to inject race. Make a stand on how you think they are alike, just dont go "hey, he's the same, just blacker"

 

So all we have to do is find one Democrat making fun of McCains age, and we can assume all Democrats hate old people. Awesome.

[HuskyCaucasian]

So all we have to do is find one Democrat making fun of McCains age, and we can assume all Democrats hate old people. Awesome.

didnt say all. no one has EVER said all would. But some will.

[mr_genius]

how is that not racist? He basically said "hey, he's John Kerry, but black"

He does NOT need to inject race. Make a stand on how you think they are alike, just dont go "hey, he's the same, just blacker"

 

uh you are really reading a lot in to that. his point was obviously that Obama is similar to Kerry. he didn't say anything derogatory about Obamas race. it's obviously not racist. it seems people may have reached uber hyper pc sensitivity levels.

 

edit: as far as injecting race, Obama has already done that.

Edited June 27, 2008 by mr_genius

[mr_genius]

well the MSM is completely ignoring the Dodd predatory lending scandal. they sure don't want to get off their narrative of Democrats = good.

[BigSqwert]

I can't say I found anything racist about the statement. People are getting overly sensitive about things in this campaign.

[southsider2k5]

didnt say all. no one has EVER said all would. But some will.

 

Then why answer the original post about representing the whole party with a post about someone being racist ? That is exactly what it looks like you are trying to do there. At best it is more lowest common denominator politics.

[HuskyCaucasian]

Then why answer the original post about representing the whole party with a post about someone being racist ? That is exactly what it looks like you are trying to do there. At best it is more lowest common denominator politics.

my bad. It wasnt intended to reply THAT particular comment. That was a lapse in judgement. I was looking for the most recent comment on race in the race. It was poor judgement on my part.

[southsider2k5]

my bad. It wasnt intended to reply THAT particular comment. That was a lapse in judgement. I was looking for the most recent comment on race in the race. It was poor judgement on my part.

 

Gotcha. That's cool.

[lostfan]

how is that not racist? He basically said "hey, he's John Kerry, but black"

He does NOT need to inject race. Make a stand on how you think they are alike, just dont go "hey, he's the same, just blacker"

It wasn't racist in the slightest, all he did was point out the difference in skin color and even then didn't say it as a perjorative.

[lostfan]

uh you are really reading a lot in to that. his point was obviously that Obama is similar to Kerry. he didn't say anything derogatory about Obamas race. it's obviously not racist. it seems people may have reached uber hyper pc sensitivity levels.

 

edit: as far as injecting race, Obama has already done that.

By the time Obama made an obvious reference to his race, other people had already done it. Did he need to bring it up, no probably not, but it really didn't matter. The only real effect it had was allowing people to go "ha gotcha I KNEW it!"