Monday - September 20, 2010

Let me put this bluntly: virtually no one in America gives a damn what Barack Obama says.

H/T HOT AIR Via RichK with thanks ...

Checking my mail today and found this from RichK. WOW.  Read the whole thing folks. This is really worth the time and isn’t that long either.

Now then, something the fellow wrote .....

If you want to criticize someone for reveling in culture wars, I suggest you take a look at the power-drunk clowns tossing around gigantic bills that “control the people” right down to the menus at fast-food restaurants.  Just wait until they start rolling out the class-war arguments for higher taxes to sustain their frenzied spending.  That will be some serious revelry.

Absolutely tied in with something here in Britain with regard to the class thing.  It may not be on the same level but look at this.

Middle-class families could be forced to undergo lie detector tests as part of a major crackdown on tax avoidance being spearheaded by Nick Clegg. (Deputy Prime Minister)

Tens of thousands will face intrusive new tax investigations under the plans unveiled by the Deputy Prime Minister yesterday.

As part of a two-pronged attack on the better-off, millions more will face cuts in benefits, such as winter fuel payments, child benefit and free bus passes.

The moves, unveiled at the Liberal Democrat conference, were designed to guarantee Mr Clegg’s popularity with mutinous grassroots members, but were described by critics as ‘bully boy tactics’.

I don’t think anyone will argue against people paying their fair share on things. And nobody I know likes paying a lifetime of taxes to support those who just will not work and live off the rest.  But .... in his effort to sooth the more left wing ppl in his party, (my take on that) the deputy PM who heads the other half of this coalition govt. says, “Legal tax avoidance and illegal evasion are ‘just as bad’ as falsely claiming benefits, adding: ‘Both come down to stealing money from your neighbours.”
And just so we are clear on this, he went even further and spelled it out.  People who go to an accountant to have their taxes reduced are just as guilty of cheating on taxes as people who try to hide income and cheat.  I could not make that up.  In a speech to be made today, Mr Clegg will accuse middle class earners who pay accountants to minimize their tax bills are behaving like ‘benefit cheats.’ He will say that legal tax avoidance is as bad as claiming benefits and is the very same as stealing.  How ‘bout them apples?  So then, the rich who nobody feels sorry for anyway because we all know they all have what’s really ours, and the middle class who aspire to riches, will be scrutinized very closely.  It is expected that some 150,000 taxpayers a year will be checked. That’s up from 5,000 now, I have read.  His crackdown will surely affect small business who try and get every legal tax break they can.  Oh, have I mentioned that lie detectors will be used?  The good news is that Mr Clegg says he will be happy to stop getting some £2,400 a year in child tax rebate. He earns something like £134,000 a year as DPM and his wife is described as a “high flying” lawyer.  We are not talking about poor folk here. If legal exemptions are like cheating, then how does he square what he and wife have already received? Or doesn’t that count?  His party is the Lib/Dems which is short for, Liberal Democrats.

So anyway .... I really got off my original topic which is the fine link given us by Rich and all about our Divine Sarah.  I got caught up in that class thing.

The Palin Card
by Doctor Zero

Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic thinks it’s time for the Obama Administration to play the “Palin Card,” setting the former governor of Alaska up as the target for some Alinsky-style frozen personal polarizing.  He dismisses fears that such Presidential attention will elevate Palin to greater national prominence:
Elevate Sarah Palin? How much higher can she go? Everyone knows her.  Some of Obama’s advisers have argued in the past that the attention paid to Palin by Americans in the last stages of the 2008 campaign is one reason why Obama was able to win so cleanly.

Palin and the Tea Party movement are not the same thing. The movement, evolving out of movement conservatism, is principally about government and the economy. Palin revels in the culture wars. But when that part of the Tea Party that does care about social issues becomes the story, linking the two in the public’s mind is easier.
Yes, the election is about control of Congress. But at a larger level, it’s about competing visions of the world. John Boehner v. the Democratic agenda is a boring contrast. Many Democrats couldn’t tell a Boehner from a Cantor. But everyone knows who Sarah Palin is.

He’s right that low-key, largely unknown politicians like Boehner and Cantor don’t make very good targets for the politics of personal destruction.  The effort to inflate stuff Boehner into a Darth Vader costume over the past few weeks was comical.  If the Democrats want to run some more plays out of Alinsky’s faded old handbook, they’ll need to focus on someone exciting.

Palin is linked to other high-profile female candidates, like Sharon Angle and Christine O’Donnell, so she looks like an inviting target.  The subtext of the media narrative Democrats are trying to spin is that outspoken female conservatives are somehow unnatural.  Comfortable, maternal leftism is the natural philosophy of caring women, you see, and the State is their only ally in the quest to shatter those increasingly transparent glass ceilings.  A woman who would enlist in the heavy infantry of the regressive fundamentalist Republicans must be crazy.

I hope the White House takes Ambinder’s advice, because it would be suicidal.  His crack about Palin’s “reveling in the culture wars” betrays his ignorance.  He is confused by the details of her biography, and the sincere affection she earns from her admirers.  His Palin Card is drawn from the wrong suit.  She’s the Queen of Diamonds, not the Queen of Hearts.  Her most impressive statements over the last two years have been on matters of economics, policy, and politics.  She has shredded the Administration over health care, the Gulf oil spill, and unrestrained government spending.  She’s endorsed dozens of primary candidates, with something like a 70% success rate.  Her most notable clashes with “culture” have involved asking it to stop making rape jokes about her daughters.

If you want to criticize someone for reveling in culture wars, I suggest you take a look at the power-drunk clowns tossing around gigantic bills that “control the people” right down to the menus at fast-food restaurants.  Just wait until they start rolling out the class-war arguments for higher taxes to sustain their frenzied spending.  That will be some serious revelry.

Let me put this bluntly: virtually no one in America gives a damn what Barack Obama says about anything at this point.  What could be more predictable, and less interesting, than Obama’s opinion on any given subject?  Who wants to contemplate the economic wisdom of a guy who looted the Treasury for a trillion dollars, with less benefit than we could have achieved by stuffing hundred dollar bills into random cereal boxes?  Who’s excited to hear about the next plan to convert taxpayer dollars into Democrat campaign funds?  Who’s hungry for another hour of tedious excuses about permanently broken markets and the titanic dead hand of George W. Bush?  Who wants a lecture on ethical business practices from the titular head of the party that gave us Charlie Rangel and Maxine Waters?  What use is another hollow foreign-policy speech from a man who sees no global adversary to rival the menace of Arizona?  Even Obama’s supporters don’t hear anything he says any more.  There’s nothing left to hear.

PLEASE SEE ALL AT HOT AIR

Posted by peiper     on 09/20/2010 at 08:38 AM   
Filed Under: • Taxes • UK •  
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