Krauthammer; Cliff-jumping with Barack

Charles Krauthammer   "Why are Republicans playing the Democrats’ game that the “fiscal cliff” is all about taxation?

"House Speaker John Boehner already made the preemptive concession of agreeing to raise revenue. But the insistence on doing so by eliminating deductions without raising marginal rates is now the subject of fierce Republican infighting."
"Where is the other part of President Obama’s vaunted “balanced approach”? Where are the spending cuts, both discretionary and entitlement: Medicare, Medicaid and now Obamacare (the health-care trio) and Social Security?"

PAT CONDELL on ‘Islamophobia’ Awareness Month', says it's time to retire the word 'Islamophobia'

Bare Naked Islam
Classic Condell contends that “Islam is the problem and Islamphobia(sp) Awareness month should more accurately be called Islamic Cultural Terrorism Awareness Month…The concept of ‘Islamophobia’ comes from the imaginations of aggresssive(sp) Islamic supremacists who have paranoia on a permanent hair trigger and see violence as the solution to criticism.”

Of course, we mean all this in a nice way.

Part of the Problem: French Media Ducks Anti-Islam Protest  "There are numerous reasons the West is losing the war with Islam. They range from being bitten by the politically correct bug, to Muslim con artists exploiting naive and trusting infidels, to the malevolent mainstream media. Tonight we get a look at the malevolent media of France…."

Egypt Is Collapsing Thanks To Obama Foreign Policy

Investors.com   "The democratic "New Beginning" President Obama announced in Cairo in 2009 becomes a new, bold Egyptian tyranny. An imperfect ally was swept away by what has generated into an Islamist perfect storm.
"Apparently confident that an eloquent mea culpa would prompt an abundant supply of Islamic goodwill, Barack Obama in his first year as president appeared at Cairo University before an audience that included leaders of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood and gave a speech meant to shake the world.
"He apologized for the "overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government" during the Cold War and sought "a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world" based on "common principles — principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings."

More introspection: Learning from the Election

Victor Davis Hanson   "A final take on the election: Mitt Romney was a glittering Sir Galahad who, given his impressive horse, armor, and lance, along with his decency and piety, assumed that he could win a joust in a fair charge against the other team’s knight. Instead he waded into a sudden fray where he was swarmed, mobbed, cut off, pulled off his magnificent steed, had his matchless armor yanked away by a mob of foot soldiers, and then, once stripped clean, was clubbed and maced beyond recognition."


America passed up an excellent man for a mediocre political hack once again.

Let's pass it so we can find out what's in it!

http://legalinsurrection.com/

Kimberly Strassel; This Unserious White House  Read this Wall Street Journal column.

To Jail a Mockingbird

American Thinker   "ABC News published an AP story Wednesday with the headline "Ohio Man Gets Jail for Mocking Disabled Girl." Then it ran an expanded version of the story with the similar headline "Man Sentenced to Jail After Mocking Disabled Girl."
"No doubt the initial reaction by most readers was "What a cruel, ignorant buffoon." And earlier, there reportedly was an outcry for legal action after the girl's mother posted a video of the incident on Facebook and YouTube. But the story also raises the question: if mockery is a crime, then why is sarcastic entertainer Bill Maher not on death row?"

HOW’S THAT “SMART DIPLOMACY” WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA?

Glenn Reynolds writes at Instapundit:  

"It is symptomatic of the national condition of the United States that the worst humiliation ever suffered by it as a nation, and by a US president personally, passed almost without comment last week. I refer to the November 20 announcement at a summit meeting in Phnom Penh that 15 Asian nations, comprising half the world’s population, would form a Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership excluding the United States.
"President Barack Obama attended the summit to sell a US-based Trans-Pacific Partnership excluding China. He didn’t. The American led-partnership became a party to which no-one came.
"Instead, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, plus China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, will form a club and leave out the United States.

I’m not sure Barack minds this diminution in U.S. power and prestige.

Asia Times; Post-US world born in Phnom Penh  
"It is hard to fathom just what President Obama had in mind when he arrived in Asia bearing a Trans-Pacific Partnership designed to keep China out. What does the United States have to offer Asians?

"It is borrowing $600 billion a year from the rest of the world to finance a $1.2 trillion government debt, most prominently from Japan (China has been a net seller of Treasury securities during the past year).
"It is a taker of capital rather than a provider of capital.
"It is a major import market but rapidly diminishing in relative importance as intra-Asian trade expands far more rapidly than trade with the United States.
"And America's strength as an innovator and incubator of entrepreneurs has diminished drastically since the 2008 crisis, no thanks to the Obama administration, which imposed a steep task on start-up businesses in the form of its healthcare program. "

Isn't this what Rev. Wright, Bill Ayres Bernie Sanders, Maxine Waters, et. al. wanted for the United States?  We deserve the kind of government we got. My regret is that those who voted for this leftist regime are generally too ill-informed to comprehend the damage taking place before their very eyes.

Lesson for Warren Buffett: British Millionaires’ Response to Tax Increases

Heritage  "As the fiscal cliff approaches, Congress and President Obama continue to debate tax increases, even though spending is the problem. Investor Warren Buffett recently opined that tax hikes on the wealthy would not curtail investments or hurt the economy. His logic, like President Obama’s, assumes that incentives don’t matter.
"Oh really? News that Great Britain saw its number of millionaires decline by two-thirds due to a steep top tax rate tells a different story.
"The year after former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown introduced a 50 percent top income tax rate, the number of people filing as millionaires dropped 63 percent, from 16,000 to 6,000. Tax revenue also declined by nearly £7 billion.
"No single reason explains the drop. Some millionaires probably earned less money due to the slow-growing European economy, or they may have simply worked less. Others may have shifted the timing of their income or moved it to less-taxed forms. Still others might have physically left the country.
"Here’s the bottom line: All these reasons are economically important and show that incentives matter."....

So what should be done, given the fiscal problems? Heritage offers these solution, if only Obama can get over his visceral dislike for business and the rich and his desire to wreak revenge on them: 6 Fixes to America’s Fiscal Crisis
"President Obama made his first offer to congressional Republicans yesterday in negotiations over the “fiscal cliff”—an economic catastrophe of tax hikes just a few weeks away.
"The White House’s proposal? $1.6 trillion in tax increases, $50 billion in new stimulus spending, and a change that would make it easier to raise the debt limit—so that all this spending could continue.
"Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) couldn’t contain his laughter at these suggestions.
"One congressional aide said the offer “amounts to little more than reiterating the President’s budget request—which failed to get a single vote in the House or Senate.” "
Read the list here:...

http://snunes.blogspot.com/2011_09_01_archive.html

Bill and the hoodie

Washington Times  "Two decades have passed since nightclub entertainer and blond bombshell Gennifer Flowers stepped before cameras and announced she had a 12-year affair with then-Gov. Bill Clinton, joining a roster of attractive women who reported similar dalliances, wanted and unwanted. Miss Flowers has stepped forward once again to reveal that in 2005, Mr. Clinton offered to come visit her once again.

"“I picked up the telephone, and it was him. I said, ‘No, you can’t come over here. No way.’ I said ‘No, you can’t come to my house.’ He said, ‘I’ll put on a hoodie and jog up there.’ He used to do that. I said ‘No. No. And I want you to leave me alone.’ And that was the end of it,” said Miss Flowers, now 62, as she sipped wine and laughed languidly through an interview with WGNO, an ABC affiliate in New Orleans."

Seattle Pilot

If this nation goes over the fiscal cliff, Obama will be sunning himself in Hawaii

Rick Moran  "The Hawaii Reporter says the 20 day trip will cost taxpayers $4 million.
"But that's a small price to pay for our Dear Leader's comfort."
Keith Koffler:

President Obama is reportedly scheduled to be vacationing in Hawaii on January 2, the date billions in spending cuts - and untold consequences for the economy - will kick in if a deal is not reached on the "fiscal cliff."

According to the Hawaii Reporter, residents who live in the area of Oahu where Obama and his family vacation have been told that the usual restrictions on their movements during an Obama stay will be in place for 21 days, from December 17 through January 6.

Stick with me on this: The Case for Palestinian Independence

This may be the last guy to put this idea forth with a straight face.
Jewish World Review  "Israel's case against a UN-sanctioned Palestinian independence isn't wrong. The initiative all but scuttles the Oslo peace process and, newly reinforced by a Muslim Brotherhood-dominated Egypt, very likely scuttles Camp David as well. It is not a two-state, but a one-state solution the Palestinians have in their sights.

"Doubters need only listen to Palestinian Authority (PLO) President Mahmoud Abbas at the UN last fall: "They talk to us about the Jewish state, but I respond to them with a final answer: We shall not recognize a Jewish state."
"Responding to Abbas, senior Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh (who rejects the UN process) doubled down: "[We] do not beg for a state. States are not built on UN resolutions. States liberate their land and establish their entities." "

President Corleone is watching, General