Thursday 21 March 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized
The key to maximizing tax revenue is to broaden the base so that more people pay lower rate taxes, not raising rates and having fewer and fewer people pay taxes. This is not new.
Comments Off on The Key :: Share or discuss :: 2013-03-21 :: madlibertarianguy
Wednesday 20 March 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized
School systems teaching that racism is a phenomenon of white people, and white people alone. From a Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (read: indoctrination):
(R)acism is caused by white people, by our attitudes, behaviors, practices, and institutions … How do you justify it for yourself?
Now I’m not one of those who would try to make the argument that in modern society it is white people who are the predominant victims of racism (that’s simple nonsense), but to frame the argument as “only white people are racist” is equally absurd and infinitely wrong headed. That it is a pillar of a government “teaching” institution is shameful.
Comments Off on Reason 1,254,999 :: Share or discuss :: 2013-03-20 :: madlibertarianguy
Wednesday 20 March 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized
Ugh. The only just punishment would be for him to go to jail and face what others have faced because of politicians like him.
Comments Off on More Hypocrisy :: Share or discuss :: 2013-03-20 :: madlibertarianguy
Wednesday 20 March 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized
This, folks, is what is known to moral human beings as hypocrisy. Glenn Greenwald:
Literally moments after he was inaugurated, the White House declared that “President Obama has committed to making his administration the most open and transparent in history”. Obama continues even now to parade around as a historically unprecedented champion of openness. In a 2010 speech, he said “I will not stop fighting to open up government” and then praised himself this way: “we have put in place the toughest transparency rules in history: in history.” Right this very minute, on the White House website, Obama is quoted this way: “My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government” because “transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is doing.”
[. . .]
Along with others, I’ve spent the last four years documenting the extreme, often unprecedented, commitment to secrecy that this president has exhibited, including his vindictive war on whistleblowers, his refusal to disclose even the legal principles underpinning his claimed war powers of assassination, and his unrelenting, Bush-copying invocation of secrecy privileges to prevent courts even from deciding the legality of his conduct (as a 2009 headline on the Obama-friendly TPM site put it: “Expert Consensus: Obama Mimics Bush On State Secrets”). Just this week, the Associated Press conducted a study proving that last year, the Obama administration has rejected more FOIA requests on national security grounds than in any year since Obama became president[.]
[. . .]
To justify his conduct, Obama “tried to assure his former colleagues that his administration is more open to oversight than that of President George W. Bush”, saying: “This is not Dick Cheney we’re talking about here.” This excuse Obama used – I used to object to these things when I was a Senator but see it differently now that I’m president – is one that is frequently heard from his followers, but more important, is what Bush supporters always said would happen once a Democrat became president: that, with the secret information you get in the Oval Office and the need to Keep Us Safe™, a Democratic president would realize that Bush and Cheney were right all along about many of the policies which Democrats spent eight years so harshly denouncing. Given that Obama himself is now expressly saying this (“he noted his viewpoint changed now that he occupies the Oval Office”), doesn’t he and his party – as I’ve asked many times before – owe a heartfelt and sincere public apology to Bush and Cheney for bashing them so harshly for policies which Obama now not only adopts but has come to explicitly defend?
I wouldn’t expect an apology anytime soon. That would be bad politics (even though bad politics often correlates with doing what is right). Obama could certainly never publicly admit that he thinks Bush was right. THat will never happen, but then again it’s not the point.
What is the point, however, is that he would have us believe that I’m supposed to trust horrible policy in his hands, but not in the hands of one of those evil Republicans. He wants me to believe in the rule of man, not the rule of law. And he is full of shit. Bush wasn’t the one who claimed and exercised the powers to kill American citizens without a shred of due process.
Our entire system of government was set up as a reaction to one man rule. It’s why we had a revolution and set up a Constitution which had built-in checks and balances with multiple branches of government: so that one man could NOT make life and death decisions regarding our citizens. Yet he flaunts it with a wink and a “trust me” after he attains power, and after he spent years denouncing such powers when someone else had them.
It’s nothing but simple hypocrisy.
Comments Off on Hypocrisy :: Share or discuss :: 2013-03-20 :: madlibertarianguy
Thursday 14 March 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized
Rand Paul is right. In theory at least. The Washington Examiner:
Speaking yesterday at a National Review breakfast, Sen. Rand Paul R-Ky. explained what he thought about the Tea Party movement vs. the Occupy Wall Street movement, as Jon Ward reports in the Huffington Post.
“The Tea Party, I always say, is more like the American Revolution, and Occupy Wall Street is more the French Revolution,” Paul said.
Paul explained that the Tea Party looked back to the rule of law.
“We hearken back to sort of rules,” Paul said, identifying with the Tea Party. “We weren’t unhappy with people just because they were rich; we weren’t happy with you if you were making money off of our taxes and we were bailing you out. If you were making $100 million, your bank goes bankrupt and all of a sudden we bail you out and you’re still making $100 million — that upset us.”
Of course when Tea Partiers had the opportunity to vote for a fiscal conservative in last year’s Republican primaries, they elected to vote for the likes of Santorum and Gingrich who are just fine with doling out federal money extorted from taxpayers towards businesses and groups they like.
In theory, however, Paul is correct. The Occupy movement seemed to be more of a “I want free shit” movement which was based on envy, while, originally at least, the Tea Party seemed to hold the idea that shoveling money from taxpayers to government favored institutions was inherently not cool. It would seem to me that Paul still holds this idea as paramount while most of the Tea Party has revealed themselves as nothing more than your average big government GOP supporter who likes their medicare and social security just the way they are despite being blatant extortion from younger demographics (as well as being completely unsustainable).
Comments Off on In Theory :: Share or discuss :: 2013-03-14 :: madlibertarianguy
Thursday 14 March 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized
What happened to “if you make less than $250k your taxes will not go up?” TaxProf:
The Joint Committee on Taxation recently released a 96 page report on the tax provisions associated with Affordable Care Act. The report describes the 21 tax increases included in Obamacare, totaling $1.058 trillion – a steep increase from initial assessment. The summer 2012 estimate is nearly twice the $569 billion estimate produced at the time of the passage of the law in March 2010.
These taxes include payroll taxes, which affect every working American regardless of income, the penaltax (AKA the individual mandate), and an annual tax on prescription drug imports (amongst many others). Of course I don’t expect the media to inform America that taxes on everyone have been raised and yet another of Obama’s promises turned out to be little more than placating bullshit designed to illicit votes from idiots.
Comments Off on What Happened? :: Share or discuss :: 2013-03-14 :: madlibertarianguy
Thursday 14 March 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized
Hacks gonna hack.
In my talks to conservative bloggers and activists who want to understand and influence the media, I downplay the “liberal bias” meme. Sure, most reporters I’ve encountered in my years working for newspapers have a liberal worldview that influences their story selection and coverage. But most are reasonably fair and professional, so I encourage conservatives to try engagement before vilification as they pitch their story lines to reporters.
But my recent experience on the receiving end of a series of supposed exposes has left me rethinking my tendency to cut fellow journalists some slack. I’ve been appalled by the shoddy reporting techniques used to try to embarrass the organization where I work — frustrated by reporters who don’t get the other side of the story and who seem uninterested in investigating anything, but merely want to play a game of “gotcha.”
In today’s media there is no truth; only the narrative.
Comments Off on Hacks :: Share or discuss :: 2013-03-14 :: madlibertarianguy
Tuesday 12 March 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized
Schools divulging the educational records of students so that they can be data mined by private companies looking to make a buck. Reuters:
An education technology conference this week in Austin, Texas, will clang with bells and whistles as startups eagerly show off their latest wares.
But the most influential new product may be the least flashy: a $100 million database built to chart the academic paths of public school students from kindergarten through high school.
In operation just three months, the database already holds files on millions of children identified by name, address and sometimes social security number. Learning disabilities are documented, test scores recorded, attendance noted. In some cases, the database tracks student hobbies, career goals, attitudes toward school – even homework completion.
Local education officials retain legal control over their students’ information. But federal law allows them to share files in their portion of the database with private companies selling educational products and services.
Entrepreneurs can’t wait.
My kid is not a rat in your lab.
Comments Off on Reason 1,254,998 :: Share or discuss :: 2013-03-12 :: madlibertarianguy
Tuesday 12 March 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized
Because nothing says “Public Health Epidemic” like fat lesbians. cnsnews:
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded $1.5 million to study biological and social factors for why “three-quarters” of lesbians are obese and why gay males are not, calling it an issue of “high public-health significance.”
Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Mass., has received two grants administered by NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) to study the relationship between sexual orientation and obesity.
[. . .]
“Obesity is one of the most critical public health issues affecting the U.S. today,” the description of the grant reads. “Racial and socioeconomic disparities in the determinants, distribution, and consequences of obesity are receiving increasing attention.”
“[H]owever, one area that is only beginning to be recognized is the striking interplay of gender and sexual orientation in obesity disparities,” it states. “It is now well-established that women of minority sexual orientation are disproportionately affected by the obesity epidemic, with it continues.
BUT. NOTHING. CAN. BE. CUT. OR. CIVILIZATION. WILL. DIE!!!!!!!!!!!
Does it really take a $1.5M to come up with the conclusion that men generally care more about the looks of their sexual partners than women, whether those men be gay or straight?
Comments Off on Public Health Epidemic :: Share or discuss :: 2013-03-12 :: madlibertarianguy
Monday 11 March 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized
Glenn Greenwald eviscerating his fellow liberals for disavowing Paul’s filibuster as gimmickry:
Commencing immediately upon the 9/11 attack, the US government under two successive administrations has spent 12 straight years inventing and implementing new theories of government power in the name of Terrorism. Literally every year since 9/11 has ushered in increased authorities of exactly the type Americans are inculcated to believe only exist in those Other, Non-Free societies: ubiquitous surveillance, impenetrable secrecy, and the power to imprison and even kill without charges or due process. Even as the 9/11 attack recedes into the distant past, the US government still finds ways continuously to increase its powers in the name of Terrorism while virtually never relinquishing any of the power it acquires. So inexorable has this process been that the Obama administration has already exercised the power to target even its own citizens for execution far from any battlefield, and the process has now arrived at its inevitable destination: does this due-process-free execution power extend to US soil as well?
All of this has taken place with very little public backlash: especially over the last four years. Worse, it has prompted almost no institutional resistance from the structures designed to check executive abuses: courts, the media, and Congress. Last week’s 13-hour filibuster of John Brennan’s confirmation as CIA director by GOP Sen. Rand Paul was one of the first – and, from the perspective of media attention, easily among the most effective -Congressional efforts to dramatize and oppose just how radical these Terrorism-justified powers have become. For the first time since the 9/11 attack, even lowly cable news shows were forced – by the Paul filibuster – to extensively discuss the government’s extremist theories of power and to debate the need for checks and limits.
All of this put Democrats – who spent eight years flamboyantly pretending to be champions of due process and opponents of mass secrecy and executive power abuses – in a very uncomfortable position. The politician who took such a unique stand in defense of these principles was not merely a Republican but a leading member of its dreaded Tea Party wing, while the actor most responsible for the extremist theories of power being protested was their own beloved leader and his political party.
[. . .]
The reality is that Paul was doing nothing more than voicing concerns that have long been voiced by leading civil liberties groups such as the ACLU. Indeed, the ACLU lavishly praised Paul, saying that “as a result of Sen. Paul’s historic filibuster, civil liberties got two wins”. In particular, said the ACLU, “Americans learned about the breathtakingly broad claims of executive authority undergirding the Obama administration’s vast killing program.”
But almost without exception, progressives who defend Obama’s Terrorism policies steadfastly ignore the fact that they are embracing policies that are vehemently denounced by the ACLU. That’s because they like to tell themselves that only Big, Bad Republicans attack the ACLU – such as when George H.W. Bush tried to marginalize Michael Dukakis in 1988 by linking him to that group – so they ignore the ACLU and instead pretend that only right-wing figures like Rand Paul are concerned about these matters. It’s remarkable indeed how frequently, in the Age of Obama, standard partisan Democrats embrace exactly the policies identified by the ACLU as the most menacing. Such Obama-defending progressives also wilfully ignore just how much they now sound like Sarah Palin, Karl Rove, and George Bush when ridiculing concerns about due process for accused Terrorists[.]
It shouldn’t be surprising. Teams RED and BLUE are simply two sides of the same authoritarian coin. Their policies on virtually everything save a handful of idiotic culture war issues (which shouldn’t be under the purview of government anyways) are woefully similar. But Team players and supporters alike like to pretend that there is some sort of substantive difference in order to control who brings us further in to an authoritarian hellhole. It’s shameful.
Comments Off on Evisceration :: Share or discuss :: 2013-03-11 :: madlibertarianguy