The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Keynesian Economy: Some Assembly Required

Posted on | October 24, 2010 | 4 Comments

by Smitty

Let me know how that works out for ya:

More at Daily Pundit, via His InstaBadness

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Category: humor

Rule 5 Sunday

Posted on | October 24, 2010 | 10 Comments

by Smitty

Rule 5 Sunday has an unusual burst of first-timers this week, plus the usual cast of characters. Must be getting ready for something beautiful a week from Tuesday.

I thought Brand looked like Tim Minchin:

Stay energized, stay lovely. Hug a hippie; leave the punching to the Lefty twerps.

Category: Rule 5

Obama Cut Your Taxes, and Other Lies Frank Rich Wants You to Believe In

Posted on | October 24, 2010 | 26 Comments

You’ve got to marvel at the effrontery of the man:

President Obama, the Rodney Dangerfield of 2010, gets no respect for averting another Great Depression, for saving 3.3 million jobs with stimulus spending, or for salvaging GM and Chrysler from the junkyard. And none of these good deeds, no matter how substantial, will go unpunished if the projected Democratic bloodbath materializes on Election Day. Some are even going unremembered. For Obama, the ultimate indignity is the Times/CBS News poll in September showing that only 8 percent of Americans know that he gave 95 percent of American taxpayers a tax cut.

This is, evidently, the Great Democrat Myth of 2010, a sequel to “We Didn’t Get Our Message Out” (2004) and “Bush Stole the Election” (2000). Whenever Democrats lose an election, their craving for self-esteem requires that they manufacture a myth to explain it to themselves and to the world. This year, they’re planning ahead!

What was included in the February 2009 stimulus package was not a “tax cut.” No one’s tax rates were reduced. Instead, there was a temporary two-year tax credit that reduced payroll witholding by — brace yourself — a whopping $8 a week:

A refundable tax credit of up to $400 for working individuals and up to $800 for married taxpayers filing joint returns. This tax credit will be calculated at a rate of 6.2 percent of earned income and will phase out for taxpayers with modified adjusted gross income in excess of $75,000, or $150,000 for married couples filing jointly.

And this $8 a week (a temporary credit, which is not the same as a “tax cut”) is the benevolence for which Frank Rich says you should be so grateful to President Obama.

Oh, yeah: And also “averting another Great Depression,” which is a pretty neat trick with $8 a week.

The problem is that Frank Rich doesn’t understand economics any better than the president does. Neither being a film critic nor attending Harvard Law requires any knowledge of economics. For reasons of pure partisan politics, Democrats have spent nearly a decade screaming “tax cuts for the rich” as an indictment of the Bush policy, without once bothering to ask themselves whether “tax cuts for the rich” was actually a bad idea, in macroeconomic terms.

What matters to Frank Rich and Obama is not whether the policies they advocate lead to economic growth, but rather whether their rhetoric helps convince people to vote Democrat. And in this they share the bias expressed by Stanley Greenberg and James Carville, who have issued a strategic memo for the Democratic Party via the New York Times declaring that in their polling “a Democratic message focused on the middle class and American jobs won out over a Republican message of deficit reduction and wasteful spending.”

See? It’s just a matter of having the right “message.” And never mind whether the policies actually work, or whether your “message” is actually true.

Update (Smitty): Welcome, Instapundit readers!

Category: Barack Obama, Economics, New York Times

Double Shot O’ T-Paw

Posted on | October 24, 2010 | 4 Comments

by Smitty

Via The Lonely Conservative, a fine, humorous, positive clip of the sort which should inform more political speech:

Meanwhile, the Insta-visionary also had T-Paw on for some slightly more detailed Q&A, starting with a 2012 presidential statement that falls well short of the full Sherman.

I like his call for fortitude from leaders, but insist that it be echoed by the people to be meaningful.
He calls for a balanced budget amendment. Let’s be radical and delegate to the states all of the collection of taxes. Spending what is collected, and not being able to collect it, will be the forcing function that brings Leviathan to heel.
Pawlenty comes out as a strong Tea Party proponent, understanding the willingness of some to scuttle the GOP outright. Bring it on, T-Paw!

Category: Minnesota

Alyssa Milano in Lingerie
UPDATE: ‘#GoKings’ Raises $29,374 for Children’s Hospital in NHL Hashtag Battle

Posted on | October 23, 2010 | 8 Comments

Just because we can:

Obviously, there is no need to justify Alyssa Milano in lingerie. But I was noticing it’s kind of been a bit too much all-politics-all-the-time here and I figured the readers might be getting bored. However, it’s also for a good cause, because look what Alyssa just Tweeted:

So go Tweet “#GoKings” (until 9 pm. PT, which is midnight ET) and help raise money for a good cause. I think you’ll find it easier to do if you’ll Tweet with both hands.

UPDATE: OMG! OMG! OMG!

UPDATE II: Shortly after 11:20 p.m. ET, guess who joined in? Only the world’s most famous hockey mom, that’s who!

Pretty cool, huh? Here’s the story of the NHL hashtag battle:

When the two clubs meet Saturday at the Pepsi Center in Denver, fans will be encouraged to log onto their club’s corresponding Twitter Page and tweet information with the hashtag “#GoKings” or “#GoAvs.” For every tweet with those hashtags during the game, $1 will be donated to that team’s cancer-related charity of choice. The contest will begin at the opening puck drop (6 p.m. PT) and conclude at the game’s final buzzer. The Kings will donate to Childrens Hospital Los Angeles and the Avalanche and Kroenke Sports Charities will donate to local cancer organizations involved with their Hockey Fights Cancer initiative.

It’s now past midnight, so it’s over. According to the LA Kings (who won the game 6-4), they raised $29,374 while the Avalanche raised $13,876. That’s a lot of Tweets! I know I spent half the night just mindlessly refreshing my feed, killing time with some slot games on my phone, and waiting to see if any other unexpected celebrities were going to crash the hashtag. It isn’t every day you see Alyssa Milano and Sarah Palin inadvertently teaming up on the timeline, but both fanbases really stepped up tonight for a great cause.

Category: Alyssa Milano Should Re-Tweet Me, Celebrities, Rule 5

BUMPED: New Dennis Campaign Clip, Plus, Next House Located For Nancy

Posted on | October 23, 2010 | 11 Comments

by Smitty

Update: It looks like FilmLadd strikes again, this time reprising A Few Good Men. Before anyone gets all nitpicky about the smoking materials, your attention is drawn to this link, which implies that Nancy is OK with a blunt, as long as no one is dressed in S&M garb, not that I have personal experience of either, mind you.

Possibly I should feel bad about ripping the record of the Speaker of the House so badly on Twitter:

Indeed, as her car runs out of gas, and the battleship runs aground, and there are no rabbits remaining in the hat, and the other shoe drops, and the hotel is sold off of her end of Pennsylvania Avenue, and she’s forced to mortgage the property, and even sell it to some Chinese player, this Helpy Helperblog would like to suggest a consolation prize: Read more

Category: California, humor, John Denniss, Nancy Pelosi

Go, Rocket Girl, Go! New TV Ad for Republican Ruth McClung in Arizona

Posted on | October 23, 2010 | 4 Comments

She’s looking like a winner here:

UPDATE: They’re having another “McClung Miracle” money-bomb Monday, and check out this new ad:

RUTH McCLUNG for U.S. CONGRESS

Category: Arizona, Congress, Election, Ruth McClung, Video

Poll: Sean Bielat 63%, Barney Frank 31%

Posted on | October 23, 2010 | 17 Comments

OK, it’s merely an unscientific online poll at the Web site of the New Bedford Standard-Times, but that won’t reduce the shock factor for Democratic Party operatives when they see the headline via their Google alerts. Sometimes you just want to mess with their minds, for the pure outrageous hell of it.

In more serious news, Fleming and Hayes have photos of Barney Frank’s latest full-color mailer, the sentiment of which they sum up: “Vote for Barney Frank, he picks the nation’s pocket and brings it back to Massachusetts.”

That might actually be a winning argument, if only it were true. But the fact is that rich “blue” states like Massachusetts are net losers in the D.C. pork game, paying more in taxes than they receive in federal benefits. In 2005, Massachusetts got 82 cents in federal spending for every dollar in federal taxes, but Barney’s only interested in what’s good for Barney:

GOP challenger Sean Bielat slammed U.S. Rep. Barney Frank yesterday for grabbing more than $40,000 in campaign cash from banks that received federal bailouts — despite the congressman’s own pledge to refuse that dough.
“The rules never apply to Barney — even Barney’s own rules,” said Bielat, whose surging campaign prompted Frank to pump $200,000 of his own cash into his run.
The Herald reported yesterday that Frank accepted $40,000 from bank executives and other special interests that cashed in on the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).

Read the whole thing. Barney complains to ABC News that he’s the victim of a “flood of right-wing money“:

If Bielat can beat Barney, there are no safe seats for Democrats.

BYE-BYE, BARNEY!

Category: Congress, Election, Massachusetts, Sean Bielat
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