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- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, July 30, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, July 29, 2010
- U.S. v. Arizona -- No. CV 10-1413-PHX-SRB
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, July 28, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, July 27, 2010
- Summer Reading 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, July 26, 2010
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., July 24 & 25, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, July 23, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, July 22, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, July 21, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, July 20, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, July 19, 2010
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., July 17 & 18, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, July 16, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, July 15, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, July 14, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, July 13, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, July 12, 2010
- Deputy Assistant Attorney General Julie Fernandes
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., July 10 & 11
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, July 9, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, July 8, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, July 7, 2010
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- Weekend Newsbites: Sat., Sun., & Mon., July 3/4/5
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, July 2, 2010
- Operation Wetback
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, July 1, 2010
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About Me
- William R. Barker
- Pearl River, NY High School Class of '81; Northeastern University, Boston, MA Class of '87.
15 comments:
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/politics/Polanski_will_not_be_extradited_to_the_US.html?cid=15389712
Filmmaker Roman Polanski will not be extradited to the United States, the Swiss Justice Ministry has decided.
* WE SHOULD RECALL OUR AMBASSADOR.
The announcement follows months of uncertainty over whether Polanski would have to return to the US to face sentencing for having unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977.
* WHICH HE PLED GUILTY TO IN 1977 AND AFTER FINDING OUT HE'D HAVE TO SERVE TIME IN JAIL HE FLED THE COUNTRY. THIS SCUMBAG WAS 43 YEARS OLD AT THE TIME. HE DRUGGED THE GIRL BEFORE RAPING HER.
According to Swiss Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, the US has accepted the decision. The US does not have the possibility to appeal.
* IF THIS IS TRUE THEN BOTH OBAMA AND HILLARY CLINTON ARE AT FAULT.
* THIS WHOLE EPISODE IS DISGRACEFUL AND DISGUSTING.
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jul/8/climate-change-a-collective-flight-from-reality/
Climate change isn't a threat. CO2 isn't a significant factor. But the action we're proposing to take on climate mitigation will devastate our Western economies and impoverish a whole generation.
Over the last hundred years, mean global temperatures have increased by 0.7 of a degree Centigrade. That's all. The whole climate scare is all about a fraction of a degree. According to Professor Phil Jones of the infamous Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, there has been no significant warming for the last 15 years.
And the slight warming we have seen is entirely consistent with well-established, long-term natural climate cycles. We had the Roman Optimum (warm); the Dark Ages (cool); the Medieval Warm Period; and the Little Ice Age (when they had ice-fairs on the River Thames in London). Over the last couple of centuries, we've been moving into what seems to be a new 21st Century Optimum. It's rightly called an "Optimum." (Generally speaking, human societies do better in warmer weather.)
12,000 years ago in the Younger Dryas cold climate period, at the beginning of the current Interglacial, we saw temperature change at 10 times [the current] rate - and there wasn't an SUV to be seen.
When I was at Cambridge in the 1960s, everyone knew that climate was cyclical and was driven largely by astronomical cycles. And there is good evidence that recent decades have also seen warming on Mars and elsewhere in the solar system - pointing to a solar cause.
But the Warmists have the bizarre idea that only CO2 matters. Certainly CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but it's not even the most important one. That's water vapor, and there's nothing we can do about it (as long as the wind blows over the ocean).
* To be continued...
* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 2)
I'm horrified that the Environmental Protection Agency has declared CO2 a pollutant. They might as well declare oxygen a pollutant. We are a carbon-based life form, and CO2 is vital to the whole biosphere. Higher levels of atmospheric CO2 drive increased bio-mass formation and improved crop yields.
Al Gore is excited by a correlation between mean temperatures and CO2 levels over the past 600,000 years. He's right about the correlation, but he doesn't mention that the temperature graph leads the CO2 graph by several hundred years. The inescapable conclusion is that temperature drives CO2 - not vice versa. (Over the longer term, the correlation breaks down entirely. Current atmospheric CO2 levels are quite low in geo-historical terms. They have been 10 times as high in the past - and that was during an ice age. There is no tipping point. There is no runaway global warming.)
Our efforts to control climate by reducing emissions are doomed to failure. Bjorn Lomborg, author of "The Skeptical Environmentalist", has studied the economics of climate change and estimates that the European Union's 20% emissions-reduction target will cost around $250 billion a year. Yet the impact by 2100 on global temperatures is likely to be only 0.05 a degree Centigrade - almost too small to measure.
The EU's "Cap 'n' Trade" scheme has been a disaster. It has imposed high costs on industry, achieved little or nothing and introduced very severe distortions into the market. The EU's "Cap 'n' Trade" scheme has been a disaster. It has imposed high costs on industry, achieved little or nothing and introduced very severe distortions into the market. ... [Proponents] argue that Cap 'n' Trade is "a market-based solution." But it's a wholly artificial market, trading in a virtual commodity, and subject always to the whims of bureaucrats and legislators. The carbon price in the EU has been extremely volatile, and often close to zero. I appeal to America: Look at the European experience before you go down that route.
Don't believe the nonsense about "green jobs." President Obama likes to cite the Spanish experience. But recent reports from Spain show that most of the green jobs created were ephemeral, while high costs meant that each new green job cost two or more jobs in the real economy. They talk about the economic opportunities presented by green industries. But how can you achieve economic growth by doubling the cost of electricity?
http://blog.heritage.org/2010/07/12/morning-bell-oil-spill-response-is-stuck-on-stupid/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell
The Heritage Foundation sent a team of experts to Louisiana last week to see first-hand the [Gulf oil spill] crisis and the coordinated response. Based on earlier reports, our expectations were low. However, the federal government’s involvement turned out to be so much worse.
The first thing we actually heard from every single Louisianan we spoke with had nothing to do with the capping or cleanup of the oil - it was the devastating impact of the Obama drilling moratorium. (Legally, the moratorium has been struck down in two major court decisions, yet the administration continues on, trying to reshape it to survive future hearings, and creating the necessary uncertainty for a de facto moratorium to exist anyway.)
Ironically, royalties from offshore drilling in Louisiana are designated by the state constitution to pay for critical infrastructure protection and coastal restoration. The longer this drilling moratorium continues, the longer Louisiana has to wait to protect itself from future disasters.
You would think the seafood industry would support the ban on drilling, since oil is now threatening their way of life, but not so. In fact, the shrimpers and fishers are some of the biggest advocates for ending the ban so the Louisiana economy does not suffer any more, and so more jobs aren’t lost.
Eric Smith, an energy expert at Tulane University, pointed out that the moratorium also increases the risk of a spill because that threat increases every time you start and stop operations. Smith also pointed out that putting two to three independent safety inspectors on each rig, paid for by the oil companies, would be a low-cost alternative to the moratorium.
The second item we heard most often was that unnecessary federal permitting delays were making environmental and economic protection impossible. The marshes, waters and estuaries make up a complicated eco-system that protects south Louisiana from flooding and prevents oil from reaching inland. Yet, without the ability to build rock jetties, dykes and sand berms, the environment is going unprotected. ([T]the left absurdly believes the protective measures might cause long-term damage, despite assurances that all measures are temporary, could be removed, and BP would pay for it. Ignoring this crisis in favor of a mythical one 30 years away must end, today.)
We also discovered that response crews are being prevented from working at night or for more than 20 minutes out of every hour. (And apparently, those 20 minutes an hour aren’t even in shifts, but total stoppages.) Louisiana fishermen are no strangers to working at night, or long hours. BP could easily afford the GPS, maps and lights needed to extend work hours. But so far, the daily response time to this crisis is simply unbalanced to the disaster itself. If you’ve seen the broken well, you know that the oil spill itself isn’t taking mandated breaks. President Obama needs to explain what is preventing a 24/7 response...
We also saw many other areas where the federal government is simply making matters worse. President Obama’s commission examining the spill has no industry or local expertise, but is instead loaded with environmentalists searching for a justification to institute cap and trade energy taxes.
We saw how entrepreneurs are being discouraged from offering solutions, and when offered, are met with months of red tape. We observed a claims process begging for transparency. Overall, we witnessed the need for a strong political leader that can be held accountable for the keystone-cop federal effort.
Ineptitude. Incompetence. Inattention. We heard these themes consistently as we traveled across the Gulf, but perhaps the best description came from a local Louisiana official who told our team that the federal response was “stuck on stupid.”
Indeed.
http://www.house.gov/htbin/blog_inc?BLOG,tx14_paul,blog,999,All,Item%20not%20found,ID=100712_3721,TEMPLATE=postingdetail.shtml
* BY CONGRESSMAN RON PAUL (R-TX)
Last week, GOP chairman Michael Steele came under fire for daring to say what a lot of Americans already know - that our involvement in Afghanistan is an ill-advised quagmire with no end in sight.
After nearly 10 years and approaching $1 trillion spent, the conflict is going nowhere because there is nowhere for it to go. (After all, if victory is never really defined, defeat is inevitable.)
With our economy at home in serious trouble, this wasteful occupation is something we clearly cannot afford. Each soldier costs us $1 million per year, and yet most in Washington are only considering how many more soldiers to send. Fuel costs an astonishing $400 per gallon for our military in Afghanistan! Yet somehow, many politicians feel it is acceptable to squeeze this money out of our taxpayers, who are truly struggling economically, to fund this non-war.
* OK. THIS "$1 MILLION PER YEAR FIGURE" IS WIDELY ACCEPTED, BUT MY GUESS IS THAT THEY DOUBLE-COUNT COSTS TO A LARGE EXTENT. AS FOR THE $400 PER GALLON FIGURE... I'M GUESSING THAT'S WITH FUEL TRANSPORTATION COSTS FACTORED IN. (EVEN SO... SOUNDS ABSURDLY HIGH...)
Where the money for Afghanistan comes from is one problem – where it goes is another. Recently, it has come to light that much of the aid money we send to Afghanistan is lost due to corruption. Billions of tax dollars from hard working Americans are ending up lining the pockets of corrupt Afghan officials, and likely even filtering into the Taliban we are ostensibly fighting.
The Wall Street Journal recently reported that curiously enough, billions more than the Afghan government collects in revenue is leaving the country in the form of cash on huge pallets and in suitcases and mostly ending up in Dubai, as well-connected Afghan officials buy up luxury homes and enrich their personal off-shore bank accounts.
* YEP. COVERED THAT WAS A PAST NEWSBITE!
Robbing citizens here to fund corruption over there is not helping average citizens anywhere. We are sacrificing real economic opportunities at home for the opportunity to line corrupt pockets in Afghanistan. Not only that, but American soldiers are being killed and maimed. It is tragic and frustrating how much we have lost and wasted already. It is time to leave Afghanistan to the Afghans to sort out.
* AMEN!
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703580104575361030264013868.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_AboveLEFTTop
[T]he U.N. Security Council...on Friday denounced the March sinking of the South Korean ship the Cheonan without denouncing anyone in particular for having sunk it.
* YEP... YOU READ THAT RIGHT.
Seoul went to the Security Council to seek the global rebuke of the North, but China objected to a resolution that specifically blamed its clients in Pyongyang. Thus the Security Council retreated to writing a resolution that condemned the act of aggression but named no aggressor.
Apparently the rogue underwater missile targeted and then launched itself against the South Korean vessel. (*SMIRK*) The torpedo couldn't be reached for comment (*CHUCKLE*) but the North Koreans quickly claimed what a spokesman called a "great diplomatic victory" because the U.N. had failed to back up South Korea's allegations against the North. "We have made it clear that this incident had nothing to do with us," he said.
* YEP. HILLARY HAS THE U.N. EATING OUT OF HER HAND... (*SMIRK*)
It would be nice if we could dismiss the U.N. as a land of meaningless make-believe, but too many people, including the Obama Administration, imbue the U.N. with moral authority and the Security Council with the power to enforce collective global security. A body that refuses even to speak obvious truths about a murderous act, much less do anything about it, deserves no such authority, much less respect.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704075604575356611173414140.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
Last November there was a world-wide outcry when a trove of emails were released suggesting some of the world's leading climate scientists engaged in professional misconduct, data manipulation and jiggering of both the scientific literature and climatic data to paint what scientist Keith Briffa called "a nice, tidy story" of climate history.
The scandal became known as Climategate.
Now a supposedly independent review of the evidence says, in effect, "nothing to see here."
Last week "The Independent Climate Change E-mails Review," commissioned and paid for by the University of East Anglia, exonerated the University of East Anglia.
(*GUFFAW*) (*BELLY LAUGH*)
* YEP... YOU READ THAT RIGHT, KIDS... "COMMISSIONED AND PAID FOR BY THE UNIVERSITY OF EAST ANGLIA..."
* ANYWAY... CONTINUING... A FIVE MEMBER COMMITTEE REVIEWED THE ALLEGATION AND EVIDENCE... (CONTINUE READING...)
One of the panel's four members, Prof. Geoffrey Boulton, was on the faculty of East Anglia's School of Environmental Sciences for 18 years. At the beginning of his tenure, the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) - the source of the Climategate emails - was established in Mr. Boulton's school at East Anglia. Last December, Mr. Boulton signed a petition declaring that the scientists who established the global climate records at East Anglia "adhere to the highest levels of professional integrity."
* LAST DECEMBER... (*SNORT*)
This purportedly independent review comes on the heels of two others - one by the University of East Anglia itself...
(*RUEFUL CHUCKLE*)
...and the other by Penn State University, both completed in the spring, concerning its own employee, Prof. Michael Mann.
Readers of both earlier reports need to know that both institutions receive tens of millions in federal global warming research funding (which can be confirmed by perusing the grant histories of Messrs. Jones or Mann, compiled from public sources, that are available online at freerepublic.com). Any admission of substantial scientific misbehavior would likely result in a significant loss of funding.
* ANYONE... (*SHRUG*)... SO MUCH FOR THESE "INDEPENDENT REVIEWS."
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/07/12/white-house-muslim-outreach-task-nasa/
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Monday that NASA Administrator Charles Bolden must have misspoken when he told Al Jazeera last month that one of his top priorities is to reach out to Muslim countries.
"That was not his task and that's not the task of NASA," Gibbs said.
Bolden, though, said last month in the interview that it was President Obama who gave him that task. He made a similar claim in February.
The White House also backed up Bolden last week when his remarks first stirred controversy. A White House spokesman last Tuesday said Obama wants NASA to engage with the world's best scientists and that to meet that challenge, NASA must "partner with countries around the world like Russia and Japan, as well as collaboration with Israel and with many Muslim-majority countries."
NASA last week walked back Bolden's claim that Muslim outreach was the "perhaps foremost" plank of his mission, saying that Bolden was merely talking about his "outreach" responsibilities and that space exploration is still NASA's No. 1 job.
But Gibbs on Monday appeared to deny that Bolden was asked to focus on Muslim outreach at all.
Asked whether Bolden misspoke, Gibbs said: "I think so."
* REGULAR READERS WILL NOTICE THAT THIS IS MY FIRST POST CONCERNING THIS ISSUE. FRANKLY, WHEN IT FIRST CAME TO LIGHT I JUST THOUGHT IT WAS TOO SILLY TO EVEN DWELL ON.
* THING IS, THOUGH... NOW... WITH THIS "WALK BACK"... ONE HAS TO QUESTION WHETHER THESE PEOPLE ARE SIMPLY INCOMPETENT, DELUSIONAL, OR SERIAL LIARS.
(*SHRUG*)
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/540123/201007122007/FinRegs-Crucial-Congo-Codicil.aspx
What's the Congo have to do with financial overhaul? Absolutely nothing. But Democrats have sneaked it into the final bill, along with a host of other race-related oddities.
Tucked away under Title XIV - "Misc. Provisions" - and attracting zero media attention is yet another stealthily omnibus aspect of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street "Reform" and Consumer "Protection" Act.
(*SNICKER*)
The provision requires manufacturers to hire independent auditors to certify with the SEC that their products use "conflict free" minerals - that is, minerals that aren't mined in the Congo or adjoining countries.
The financial overhaul bill, which was supposed to fix easy credit woes that led to the mortgage crisis, also tasks the secretary of state with publishing a blacklist of "conflict minerals." In addition, it empowers the secretary to devise "punitive measures that could be taken against individuals or entities whose commercial activities are supporting armed groups and human-rights violations in the Congo." This is an onerous new regulation affecting more than just big miners. End-use electronics manufacturers, including computer and cell phone makers, will also be affected - and ultimately consumers of their products.
(*SIGH*)
How did this Congo provision find its way into a banking bill?
* EASY! OUR AMERICAN FEDERAL SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT IS BROKEN! IT REALLY IS THAT SIMPLE...
It was [Congresswoman Maxine] Waters (D-CA) - one of the conferees hammering out the final text of the bank overhaul bill - who also sneaked in a provision unleashing an army of diversity cops on the Fed and all its regional banks, along with the FDIC, Treasury and other federal financial agencies.
All told, some 20 government agencies will have to set up offices of "minority and women inclusion" regulating their work forces and those of their contractors. [T]his creates an unprecedented layer of bureaucracy that will have the result of injecting affirmative-action decision making in financial transactions, slowing the flow of money and economic growth.
Think about it: For the first time, the central bank will have racial quotas imposed on it.
Democrats sold their overhaul bill as restoring America's financial health. It's really about restoring the social engineering and race-based mandates that led to the financial crisis in the first place.
(*NOD*) (*SIGH*)
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/540118/201007122007/Steeles-Right-Afghanistan-iIsi-Obamas-War.aspx
* BY RICHARD COHEN --
For saying that the war in Afghanistan is "a war of Obama's choosing"...Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee and almost certainly to someday take his place in the conservative cable TV firmament...was, for a brief and shining moment, stating the absolute truth.
Steele was right...enough time has elapsed so that the war in Afghanistan can be seen as Barack Obama's.
The truth is that Obama found this war on his doorstep, took it in, nursed and even escalated it and swaddled it in his own clothes: more troops, and still more on the way.
One can appreciate how Steele got his "facts" wrong. It is how possession of the Vietnam War moved from Lyndon Johnson to Richard Nixon even though they both lacked absolute belief in the cause - whatever exactly that once was.
* AS ALL EDUCATED AMERICANS SHOULD KNOW, JFK SENT IN THE FIRST U.S. COMBAT TROOPS IN FORCE - 17,000.
* UNDER FDR THE OSS WAS ACTIVE IN VIETNAM; UNDER TRUMAN IT BECAME THE CIA; UNDER IKE IT WAS MILITARY ADVISORS... BUT, AGAIN, IF YOU HAVE TO BLAME JUST ONE PRESIDENT FOR GETTING US IN VIETNAM IN A BIG WAY... IT WAS JFK.
Nixon, in fact, even had a secret plan to end the conflict and was furiously de-escalating, rapidly Vietnamizationing and frantically trying to disentangle himself and the nation from the war. Still, when demonstrators gathered outside the White House, it was not to praise his peace efforts but to denounce him as a warmonger.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/540126/201007122007/Boot-On-Neck-Policies-Choke-US-Recovery.aspx
If you could spend vast amounts of other people's money just by saying a few magic words, wouldn't you be tempted to do it?
Barack Obama has spent hundreds of billions of dollars of the taxpayers' money just by using the magic words "stimulus" and "jobs."
* TECHNICALLY THE DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS - PELOSI AND REID'S CONGRESS - HAS SPENT THESE HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS. (STILL... WE GET THE POINT: OBAMA IS THE PIED PIPER.)
It doesn't matter politically that the stimulus is not actually stimulating and that the unemployment rate remains up near double-digit levels, despite all the spending and all the rhetoric about jobs. And of course nothing negative will ever matter to those who are part of the Obama cult, including many in the media.
But, for the rest of us, there is a lot to think about in the economic disaster that we are in.
Not only has all the runaway spending and rapid escalation of the deficit to record levels failed to make any real headway in reducing unemployment, all this money pumped into the economy has also failed to produce inflation. The latter is a good thing in itself, but its implications are sobering.
How can you pour trillions of dollars into the economy and not even see the price level go up significantly? Economists have long known that it is not just the amount of money, but also the speed with which it circulates, that affects the price level.
Last year the Wall Street Journal reported that the velocity of circulation of money in the American economy has plummeted to its lowest level in half a century. Money that people don't spend does not cause inflation. It also does not stimulate the economy.
The current issue of Bloomberg Businessweek has a feature article about businesses that are just holding on to huge sums of money. They say, for example, that the pharmaceutical company Pfizer is holding on to $26 billion. If so, there should not be any great mystery as to why they don't invest it.
With the Obama administration being on an anti-business kick, boasting of putting their foot on some business' neck, and the president talking about putting his foot on another part of the anatomy, with Congress coming up with more and more red tape, more mandates and more heavy-handed interventions in businesses, would you risk $26 billion that you might not even be able to get back, much less make any money on the deal?
For the first time, more gold is being bought as an investment to be held as a hedge against a currently nonexistent inflation than is being bought by the makers of jewelry. There may not be any inflation now, but eventually that money is going to start moving, and so will the price level.
One of the little-noticed signs of what is going on has been the increase in the employment of temporary workers. Businesses have been increasingly meeting their need for labor by hiring temporary workers and working their existing employees overtime, instead of hiring new people.
Why? Because temporary workers usually don't get health insurance or other benefits, and working existing employees overtime doesn't add to the cost of their benefits.
There is no free lunch - and the biggest price of all is paid by people who are unemployed because politicians cannot leave the economy alone to recover, as the American economy has repeatedly recovered faster when left alone than when politicians decided that they have to "do something."
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/540122/201007122007/Our-Fiscal-Cancer.aspx
As a president, it's one thing to know you have a big fiscal problem. It's quite another when a panel you appointed tells you the policies you have in mind will only make things worse.
That's what happened Sunday, when leaders of President Obama's deficit commission offered up the darkest of outlooks for our financial future - calling current trends in U.S. budgets a "cancer" that will "destroy the country from within" unless halted soon.
"We can't tax our way out," admitted Erskine Bowles, co-chairman of Obama's deficit commission and formerly President Clinton's chief of staff. "We've got to cut spending or increase revenues or do some combination of that."
How nice it is to hear a Democrat say taxes aren't the answer. (But, of course, "increase revenues" in Washington-speak is often code for "higher taxes.")
Based on current estimates, today's total federal debt of just over $13 trillion will hit $20 trillion by 2020. Beyond that, the coming retirement tidal wave of 65 million baby boomers will push Social Security and Medicare [deficit] spending to stratospheric levels. America's debts will become crippling.
Today, the federal government alone is spending around 25% of GDP, compared with its long-term average of 18%. If expected massive deficits are closed with taxes rather than spending cuts, it will require a 25%-plus increase in the real size of government. Absent serious spending cuts, spending will rise to 32% of GDP by 2030, Congressional Budget Office data show. At current levels, taxes on Americans would have to rise 78% to pay for all that spending.
Ready for that?
By the way, when state and local spending are added in, government in a few short years will take up more than half of all U.S. GDP. In short, the U.S. is essentially on the road to becoming just another stagnant, state-run welfare economy.
The only real answer: Shrink government to expand the private sector. Anything else, such as massive tax hikes, is doomed to failure. And when it comes to our fiscal future, failure is not an option.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/540127/201007122007/The-Great-Escape.aspx
Oregon voters decided in January that it was a good idea to raise taxes on the wealthy to increase revenues. The result: Tax revenues are actually down.
The lesson: Envy doesn't pay.
Had the liberals been paying attention to the real world instead of trying to repackage their failed ideas, they would have noticed that taxing the wealthy erodes the tax base. People of means will simply leave rather than pay punitive rates.
* AND IF THEY DON'T LEAVE, THEN THEY'LL RE-DIRECT THEIR INVESTMENT INTO TAX-DEFERRED AND/OR TAX-FREE GOVERNMENT BONDS WHICH AMOUNT TO ADDED DEBT LOANS UPON FUTURE TAXPAYERS. (*SIGH*)
This has been the story in New Jersey. From 2004 to 2008, $70 billion in wealth left as many of the state's better educated, more entrepreneurial and more professional residents fled a tax code that punishes success. The Star-Ledger of Newark reported that "the exodus of wealth ... local experts and economists concluded, was a reaction to a series of changes in the state's tax structure - including increases in the income, sales, property and 'millionaire' taxes."
Maryland has had a similar experience to New Jersey's. Increasing the rate on the state's richest resident...led to Maryland losing one-third of the millionaires on its tax rolls. (Lawmakers [had] thought their scheme would yield an additional $106 million in tax collections in 2009, but the millionaires paid $100 million less than they had the year before.)
Polanski pled guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse and in exchange, a Los Angeles judge agreed to drop the remaining charges and sentence him to prison for a 90-day psychiatric evaluation. He was released after 42 days by an evaluator who deemed him mentally sound and unlikely to offend again, but the judge threatened further sanctions. Our so-called system of justice failed to abide by the agreement under which he pled guilty. While Polanski is scum, what do we do about our courts that refuse and fail to comply with the law (pick one immigration, criminal, civil, you name it) and where the law allows folks to collect millions for spilling hot coffee on themselves? Polanski isn't worth anything more than a foot note. Look at one of your other posts about Justices' decision to not pursue motor voter violations! That's disgraceful and disgusting!
Midcon,
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/polanskicover1.html
As to your specific "clarification" attempt... all I can tell you is:
QUOTING --
"Following his indictment on various sex charges, Polanski agreed to a plea deal that spared him prison time (he had spent about 45 days in jail during a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation). But when it seemed that a Superior Court judge might not honor the deal--and sentence Polanski to prison--the director fled the country."
Just to be CLEAR, Dave, the jail time "served" (whether 43 days or 45 days) was not a SENTENCE per se but rather a pre-trial evaluation.
(In other words... "served" is not really the right word to use; true, Polanski was IN jail... but for evaluation, not punishment.)
The plea bargaining by its very nature was also "pre-trial."
Finally... as with ALL "plea deals"... the ink on the "deal" is not set in stone till a judge signs off on it and so technically there was no "deal."
Bottom line... Polanski should be extradited. He should be forced to serve the maximum possible sentence he was liable to serve at the time. THEN the Court should add on the stiffest possible sentence for the added crime of fleeing the jurisdiction.
(*SHRUG*)
The Swiss should be punished. That's my bottom line.
Polanski should be punished... the Swiss should be punished.
If only Eric Holder, Hillary Clinton, and Barak Obama took this matter as seriously I as do perhaps there'd be less need to feel such shame that people like them are presently leading our once great but now sadly in decline nation.
BILL
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