Two Views on Afghanistan: Intel Agencies vs. the Military

Max Boot  "Just a day ahead of the official release of the administration’s Afghanistan review, someone has leaked the intelligence community’s assessment of the situation — which apparently is less optimistic than the military’s view. As the New York Times notes, part of the discrepancy is due to “the longstanding cultural differences between intelligence analysts, whose job is to warn of potential bad news, and military commanders, who are trained to promote ‘can do’ optimism.”"

Charles Krauthammer: Sarah Palin Must Expand Policy Knowledge

Mediaite  "Krauthammer compared Palin’s problem to Hillary Clinton’s in the late 1990s – strong support from her core base, virulent opposition from most others. O’Reilly asked if the level of opposition to Palin is the media’s fault, and while Krauthammer said they’ve “contributed enormously” and that “the animus to her is unprecedented,” he also allowed that “she is not practiced in policy” and that the infamous Katie Couric interview was “not a ‘gotcha’ interview.” According to Krauthammer, Palin’s growth in mastering policy issues will shape her fate:

I think if you want to expand your base, you have to get into policy even though it sounds dull.

School District Decides Christmas Tree Must Include Muslim & Jewish Symbols

Gateway Pundit  "District officials have implemented new holiday guidelines this year, after a controversy erupted at Bellview Elementary School last December over Principal Michelle Zundel’s removal of a holiday tree, because a family complained that it was a religious symbol. After dozens of parents and students protested the decision, Zundel replaced the tree, adding other winter decorations and allowing students to decorate the tree with symbols from their own religions. Emphasis added.

Like Dogs to Vomit, Media Matters Cleans Up Liberal Media Messes

Big Journalism  "The latest example of Media Matters’ vomit fetish is their defense of the attempted smear of Sarah Palin during her humanitarian trip to Haiti last weekend by the Associated Press and others as a hair-obsessed diva. The former Alaska governor, accompanied by her husband Todd and their eldest daughter Bristol, was a guest of the Rev. Franklin Graham and Samaritan’s Purse."

Bush Tax Cuts For The Rich Actually Had The Rich Paying More Taxes

SayAnythingBlog  "In 2000, for instance, the top 1 percent of income earners paid 37.42 percent of all income taxes collected.
"In 2008, they paid 38.02 percent.
"That’s down a bit from the peak of 2007 and reflects the recession hitting.
"The bottom 50 percent of filers saw their share of the income tax burden fall from 3.91 percent to 2.7 percent.
"Two groups in the upper half of the income distribution made out, it seems: Folks coming in between between 10 percent and 25 percent of income and those between 25 percent and 50 percent. Each saw their share of total tax collected decline a bit (like the share of taxes paid, this reflects the recession)."
From Neal Boortz

Economic Academics



Angiecomics  "The Left is playing mathematical semantics. The argument is hiking tax rates versus maintaining them. There is no tax cut. No one is giving money to the rich. Forget class warfare. Take a person who can barely make ends meet every month. Come the new year, hike his taxes and he cannot make ends meet at all. This is bad. But keep his taxes the same and he continues to barely make ends meet. His situation does not improve. It is sustained.

If Congress does nothing, taxes go up. If Congress acts, taxes are maintained. Nothing changes, but hopefully things won't get worse. However to actually cut taxes by lowering current rates, would free up money. That person who barely makes ends meet every month can now meet his ends and perhaps pay off a loan, go on vacation or buy a Wii for everyone on his Christmas list. Cut taxes and the economy may improve.

President Obama is doing something very clever. By calling sustaining of the present tax rate a cut, he positions himself so when nothing improves he can say, "You see? I told you cutting taxes won't work! It makes things worse!" Just remember… there are no tax cuts."

International Scandal Revealed: Bristol Palin Fixes Strand of Sarah Palin’s Hair

Patterico's Pontifications  "If the media was unfair to Sarah Palin, it must show that Sarah Palin was being a big huge jerk to the media. Because, why else would the media be unfair to Sarah Palin??
"Here’s the problem. The sleuths at Free Republic figured out, based on clothing, that the “hairdresser” was Sarah’s daughter Bristol."....

"...That’s right: Bristol Palin was the hairdresser, simply fixing an out of place strand of hair on her mom’s head.

Which, of course, the photographer would have known. But deliberately chose not to reveal.

What media bias?"

The Ethanol Idiocy that Will Not Die

National Review  "In his wisdom, the Goracle recently acknowledged what almost all disinterested observers concluded long ago: Ethanol is a fraud. It has no environmental benefits, and harmful side effects. The subsidies that support its use are an object lesson in the incorrigibility of Washington’s gross special-interest politics. It is the monster that ate America’s corn crop."....
"But who cares about the facts? Once we have fired up a vast machine that from cornfield to distilleries produces 38 million gallons of ethanol a day, it will be nearly impossible to turn it off. Too many people will have a vested interest in continuing the scam, and its supporters — like Harkin and Grassley now — will always argue that any change is too disruptive. We’ll still be mandating ethanol long after the internal-combustion engine is obsolete"

Press releases are more informative than diplomatic cables in the Arab world.

Daniel Pipes "It’s intuitive to privilege the confidential over the overt and the private over the public. However, Middle East politics repeatedly shows that one does better reading press releases and listening to speeches than relying on diplomatic cables. Confidential views may be more heartfelt but, as Dalia Dassa Kaye of the Rand Corporation notes, “what Arab leaders say to U.S. officials and what they might do may not always track.” The masses hear policies; high-ranking Westerners hear seduction." National Review

On the Court, Leftist Justice vs. the Rule of Law

Pajamas Media  "Elections do indeed have consequences, and Justice Breyer has done a public service in revealing America’s future should Barack Obama or anyone remotely like him be able to shift the balance of the Supreme Court away from the rule of law to the whims of “progressive” men."

Another Victory on the Road to Repeal (Updated)

Heritage  "But whether or not courts will invalidate just Obamacare’s individual mandate is rapidly becoming irrelevant. Obamacare simply may not survive that long. It is already collapsing under its own financial and bureaucratic weight. Just last week, Congress voted to stop reductions in Medicare payments to doctors by raiding future revenues from Obamacare’s insurance subsidy program. The number of waivers the Obama Administration has to grant from Obamacare’s unworkable regulations grows each day. Doctors are telling pollsters they will leave the medical profession in droves if Obamacare is implemented as planned by 2014. And according to the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll Obamacare is now more unpopular than ever, with only 43 percent approving the law and 52 percent opposed."

Obamacare Ruled Unconstitutional; Americans Favor Repeal Almost 2 to 1  "The Times writes that the ruling, which the Obama administration will of course appeal, is "striking given that only nine months ago, prominent law professors were dismissing the constitutional claims as just north of frivolous." In this way, yesterday's ruling further highlights the gap between the views of elites and those of everyday Americans on the impending fate of Obamacare."

Why Not Soak the Rich?

Victor Davis Hanson  "If we prefer high rates, we will see either more tax avoidance or a certain reluctance to work an extra day, buy new equipment, or hire a new employee — given that any additional income will be mostly eaten up in taxes. Those who make over $250,000 are those who would be more likely to hire new employees, and they usually can do it far more efficiently than the federal government."

Are We Too Dependent on Rich Taxpayers?. "In 2005, the richest 13.5% of California taxpayers (or those earning more than $100,000) paid 83% of all income taxes. Capital gains from the top 5% of taxpayers accounted for $100 billion out of the $111 billion in total capital gains reported.
"“Those revenues rise and fall dramatically with the stock market, resulting in California’s unstable and volatile revenue stream,” the state Controller wrote.
"Why is this a problem?
"Some might say fairness. Conservatives are frequently arguing that it’s not “fair” that the top 1% pay more taxes than the bottom 90%." Hat tip to Neal Boortz.