Politicizing Energy Independence

By Daniel Greenfield

Three years after energy independence and alternative energy measures had bipartisan support under the Bush Administration, the Obama Administration has not only succeeded in politicizing alternative energy until it became a divisive issue, but with the Solyndra scandal, it may have also tarred the entire alternative energy field with another Enron.

The problem was always one of goals. For environmentalists alternative energy was never really about independence, it was about austerity and rationing for the good of the earth. The last thing that people who believe that there are already too many people on the planet driving cars, buying consumer goods and otherwise despoiling the virgin paradise of what was once a lovely desert or wetlands, want is cheap energy. If there was a car that ran on water, they would be the first to outlaw it. If solar panels provided cheap and plentiful energy, there would be protests against them every day.

Environmentalists know that austerity and rationing are not popular words, even if you dress them up as carbon footprints and cap and trade. And they will use any conceivable argument to ram their agenda through, but they are not loyal to anything but their core austerity rationing manifesto. Their goal is expensive sustainable energy. If it isn't sustainable, than it had damn well better be expensive.

Upset about gas prices? Hop across the pond where the cost of a gallon of gas hit about 8 bucks in March. Americans cry havoc when the cost of a gallon of gas hits 4 bucks. Now try doubling that.

In 2000/2001 when petrol prices rose by 50 percent or so, there were fuel protests by truck drivers and farmers. Yet the UK has its own oil and pumps a million barrels of oil per day. Compare that to the US with a population more than three times the size, which pumped a mere 2 million barrels of oil last year.

Both US and UK oil production have drastically declined. In 1999 the UK pumped 6 million barrels of oil per day (yet the price per gallon would still have made any US driver reach for a shotgun) and at the same time the US was pumping 6 million barrels per day. Today we can barely manage a third of that and the UK is down to a sixth of its production capacity a decade ago.

The UK is closer to matching its production to its population than we are but its gas prices are twice our own. But then over 60 percent of the price of petrol is made up of taxes. And if we keep raising taxes on gas, then we could have 8 dollar a gallon gas too.

That brings us to the second part of the problem. Governments also benefit from expensive energy. Add on more taxes and there's more pork. Then you can subsidize alternative energy programs that aren't meant to work, but are meant to provide more pork for the well connected. That way the boys at the top get them coming and going.

The environmentalists like this arrangement because they profit and impose rationing. The government likes it because it profits and energy price hikes just means the price of everything goes up, which to politicians who think that the marketplace will yield infinite amounts of money if they just regulate it the right way, means that tax revenues will keep going up. The only people who lose are well... the people.

And yet the environmentalists have a point. Even if we brought up oil production to its peak, we couldn't match domestic demand. We would need to hit 20 million barrels of oil per day and we have never even come close to hitting that number. That doesn't mean it isn't possible, but even if we could meet 90 percent of our domestic demand, we would still be participating in a global oil market which primarily benefits the people trying to kill us or the people who sell them weapons.

7 of the 10 top oil exporting countries are at war with us, directly or indirectly. 8 hate us and 9 are likely to require military intervention or fight us in a war, directly or indirectly. Every war that we have fought in the last twenty years has been either against or on behalf of an oil exporting nation-- directly or indirectly.

Count up the cost of the Gulf War and the War on Terror and add it to how much you're paying at the pump. Of course that trillion dollars plus is chump change compared to the current deficit, but it's very much part of the bottom line. Add on foreign aid, bases in the Middle East and a lot of incidentals and we're already paying a lot more than eight dollars per gallon.

That's not counting burgeoning oil conflicts like another war between the UK and Argentina, or between Turkey, Greece and Israel, or China and the Philippines and Vietnam. Not to mention Canada and Russia. All three of which could drag us into a naval war that we're poorly prepared for against at least two world powers.

And yet the alternative of Chinese tax subsidized low quality wind farms and solar panels marked up by tax subsidized companies and dumped at tax subsidized rates into the power grid looks pretty bad too. Not least because all we did was shift from funding one enemy with our energy consumption to funding another enemy-- at a much lower rate of energy efficiency.

The problem with this kind of energy independence is that it isn't independent and it doesn't yield much energy. But the people behind it aren't interested in either one. They don't care if we're energy independent and they don't care about the energy yield.

The hijacking of energy independence by people for whom it's an aspect of an environmental crusade, a trendy fetish or a way to make some quick money at taxpayer expense has been devastating. And while the Bush Administration is not exempt, the Obama Administration is the absolute worst offender.

For the rationers, energy independence is a convenient word to drop at the right time. But their determination to keep energy prices high sends us right back into the global oil market with less and less domestic production to call our own.

Our economy runs on the cost of transportation, the more dependent we are on oil exports, the easier it is for even Middle Eastern events that we are not involved in to send oil prices higher, which ends up sending the price of goods and services higher. 

The environmental movement is the biggest indirect funder of "conflict oil" and the conflict oil keeps creating new conflicts. Whether it's Russian maneuvers in the Arctic, Turkish threats to Greece or Chinese threats to the Philippines, or the Islamist overthrow of Arab regimes over bread prices caused by ethanol subsidies-- there are many ways in which the body counts of conflict oil keeps growing.

The Obama Administration's crackdown on domestic oil production combined with its politicization and porkitization of alternative energy has turned it into a trendy fetish with no bipartisan support. But the problem isn't going away and neither is the need for pursing alternative energy to untether us from a global oil market which forces us into new wars and funds terror aimed at us.

For the moment oil shale production could allow us to get some breathing room while we make a serious effort to move beyond it. Combined with nuclear power we could have enough energy production to restore a serious measure of prosperity. And all the while keep exploring forms of alternative energy, developing the technologies until they're ready to meet our needs. Like space based solar.

The rationers are against this kind of approach because it's sensible. And the Obama Administration echoes the rationer war cries and convoluted arguments that promise tons of green jobs and energy independence if we just keep lowering domestic oil production, reject oil shale imports from Canada and pass tighter EPA regulations that will eventually give us that 8 dollar a gallon gas complete with 20 percent unemployment.

And that is where the debate must be, between the rationers and the open energy consensus. The rationers have nothing to offer except global warming scare tactics, misery for us and pork for them. Their vision of 8 dollar a gallon gas, local produce that no one but them can afford and one child families would mean the end of the middle class and the end of the United States. And that is exactly what they want.

The environmental movement, like the rest of socialism, is aimed at killing the economic and political independence created by a rising middle-class through free enterprise. And its net result has made the world a more polluted and more violent place.

For the last three years they have politicized energy independence and alternative energy, and made it far less appealing. It's time to take it back from them.

Sultan Knish

Big Time Scandals by Obama Administration Too Small for Investigation by Mainstream Media?

- Jerry McConnell   
Saturday, October 1, 2011

Fast and Furious, Solyndra, LightSquared

Since Obama’s inauguration in January 2009 there have been several major scandals in which his Administration has been involved, principally, Operation Fast and Furious the government sponsored sale of guns to small time gun sellers along our border with Mexico; the failed ‘Stimulus’ loan of multi-millions to Solyndra and LightSquared, two small businesses that were Obama preferred for loans.  All three of these Obama Administration ventures were major failures involving scandalous behavior.

Surely you must have heard about them through the mainstream media consisting of the major news organizations of TV and major daily newspapers. You haven’t?  It’s understandable because the mainstream media does not like to print any incidence of negativity or undesirable behavior on the part of any Obama Administration or government personnel and has been noticeably silent on the reporting of these scandals.
As part of the cover-up, those media organizations including the major daily newspapers such as the Boston Globe, New York Times, Washington Post and other major cities leading newspapers along with the major TV networks ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC have reported so little information and so very infrequently so as to be almost non-existent, or a scandal in itself on lack of reporting these government scandals.

Is that what our country’s communications are becoming; a non-existent, undependable, one-sided bunch of slugs who won’t get off their duffs to report thoroughly and clearly on major government scandals?  Is the entire communications arm of our country becoming beholden to Obama and his scandal ridden administration peopled by socialist, communists who break our laws with impunity and without fear of prosecution in our mainstream media or courts?  Where will that take us if allowed to continue?

To cite a statistic on how seriously flawed this Obama-led government is becoming, the Heritage Foundation on September 25, 2011 reported that except for “some recent reports from CBS News and the Los Angeles Times, and earlier reporting by ABC News, the mainstream media has largely ignored the stories.”  That is an extreme negative attitude for the media and unprecedented for our country’s information sources. 
The Heritage also reported that “the White House press corps has not bothered to ask the President or press secretary Jay Carney about the scandal since July 5 - that’s 78 days, and over 40 press briefings, without one single related question.” (Emphasis added.)  Does that sound like the major media has the interests of the people of the United States at heart or the continuing efforts of covering up for Obama?  You decide.

The gun-handling fiasco known as Operation Fast and Furious, saw that well over one thousand of the guns went missing and ultimately wound up in Mexico where one of our border patrol agents was shot and killed, later investigation of which proved the weapon used was one of the guns that was part of the failed government gun deal. 

Around 1,500 of the guns went unaccounted for, about two-thirds of those guns ended up in Mexico, with which our border patrol agent was shot and killed and 57 Fast and Furious weapons have been connected to at least 11 violent crimes in the U.S.

In Mexico an unconfirmed toll of at least 200 people have been killed or wounded with other weapons linked to the botched effort, Heritage reports.

The other Obama Administration scandals involve his efforts to provide “stimulus” spending to create more jobs in 2009 with an $800 billion upwards to $1 trillion tax dollars spent.  Well, the money was spent but the jobs didn’t materialize due to the possibly illegal handling of the money to sources for purposes other than jobs creation such as political “payback” gifts to corrupt union leader bosses.

Solyndra is a company that did get money, a $535 million loan guarantee to create ‘green’ jobs; today it is bankrupt and plans on the layoffs of over 1,000 employees.  The FBI is conducting an investigation of that company. Then, as Heritage continues, “there’s the story of LightSquared, a wireless start-up company backed by billionaire Democratic donor Philip Falcone. The Daily Beast reports that military officials fear that the company’s technology could interfere with GPS signals-and that two U.S. officials allege the White House tried to influence their [congressional] testimony to rush key testing, to LightSquare’s benefit.” 

Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said that his committee plans to investigate government loans to private companies made by the Obama Administration, according to The Hill.  Now,  Solyndra’s chief executive and chief financial officer have invoked their Fifth Amendment rights and refuse to answer questions at the hearings

Also in the Heritage Foundation report it was stated that “A cross-border gun-running scandal, deaths in the United States and Mexico, staff removals and resignations, secret audio recordings, complaints from foreign officials, hundreds of millions of dollars in loans, bankruptcy, an FBI raid, campaign donors, and allegations of inappropriate White House influence in congressional testimony; and the just reported suicide of ATF agent Jeff Ryan of the LA Field Division. There are serious questions coming out of Washington. It’s time for the media to start demanding answers.”

The mainstream media was very quick to investigate and demand the resignation of a GOP politician for simply sending emails to an underage Congressional Page with no evidence of any contact whatsoever; but a full-fledged taxpayer rip-off scandal by a liberal Democrat president’s administration doesn’t even rate a second thought for investigative purposes.  Double standards anyone?

The end of this Administration can’t come soon enough.

Canada Free Press

The Minority Myth

October 1, 2011
By Albin Sadar

I've checked several times.  I even word-searched both documents.  But try as I might, I could not find the word "minority" anywhere in either the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution.

I guess it might be because the Founders decided instead to use words like "We the People" and "All men are created equal" when establishing this new and unique nation.  Perhaps they were trying to get across the idea that we were not individual groups woven together, but individuals, period, and that collectively we would be known as Americans -- that's it.

Back in the old days (you know, 1776 and 1787, when the respective founding documents were being ratified), there was certainly more of a reason for a person to call himself English or French or Spanish or Dutch.  Many were not even one generation removed from their homelands.  But the prevailing idea was that now, in this new nation, they would be one people, the Americans, and heritage would take a back seat.

The Founders' intention to create documents building a nation of free individuals rather than a collection of small groups is solidly based in their Judeo-Christian underpinnings.

In the very first book of the Bible -- in Genesis, chapter 1 -- when God created mankind, we are told:  "In the image of God he created him, male and female he created them" (Genesis 1:27).  Note that the only difference  made by God himself to distinguish these wonderful new creatures was "male and female."  Not "black and white he created them"...not tall and short, rich and poor, north and south, bald and hairy.

But why would man go against God's original intent?  What is there to be gained?  Could it be that multiple divisions were conveniently created by man as a way to, well, divide -- and eventually conquer?  Once we are broken up into smaller bites, we can more easily be eaten alive, bit by bit.

Modern-day Americans may have unwittingly fed into this destructive tact.  Our "melting pot" mentality of yesteryear has been replaced with "us vs. them."  We've done this by consciously or unconsciously accepting the subset labels (e.g., Italian-American, Irish-American, Hispanic-American, ad infinitum and ad nauseam).

Consider one of the newest subsets of Americans in recent years: the African-American.  This hyphenate grew out of trying to find a more dignified way of describing black people (past words like "colored" or "negro" summon bitter, knee-jerk responses).

This term, however, is not very accurate because it is used to specifically describe a person's skin color.  Personally, one of the few, truly African-Americans I know is white.  She was born and grew up there before coming to the states.  (Yes, Africa has white citizens.)

Another friend who came here from Africa corrected me when I said, "You're a real African-American."  He said, "No, I'm from Nigeria."  Africa is a continent, like Europe.  We seem to be able to divide Europe into countries (Italy, Germany, Ireland), but not Africa.

So America is now made up of myriad groups, and individuals are expected to find their place within those groups.

I was at a symposium recently where so-called minority group members spoke about what it was like growing up in America within their subset.  One person gleefully announced that in about twenty years (or less), "white people will be the minority in this country."  I missed my opportunity to stand up and declare that I will never be a minority because there is no one else like me on the planet, let alone in America.  Both God and Founding Fathers have established that I am a majority of one and "created equal" -- i.e., neither minor nor "major" to any other individual.

But why did the phrase "minority" gain such acceptance?  Well, perhaps if someone can be considered minor to someone else, then he needs help to rise up.  And who better to help him then a "major," an advanced, enlightened individual or group of individuals -- i.e., the elite among us?

Could it be that the elite's endgame is to string together enough people who are told that they are or their group is a "minority," whereupon the elite can keep their powerful "majority" status?

Will any of this change any time soon?  It could, with the change of individual thinking -- and perhaps with a change of leadership.  What if a uniter became our next president, for instance?  Someone who saw him- or herself as an American and not a member of any particular group -- not elitist nor victim nor anywhere in between?

Once we can get beyond "minority think," as individuals and as a nation, we might be able to get back to the original intent of both God and country: each person is a majority of one.

American Thinker

Why Voter Photo Identification Is Crucial to Our Republic

October 1, 2011
By John H. Watson

Voter identification requirements have been a source of contention for some time, despite increased evidence of voter fraud in recent elections.  Generally, the left opposes such requirements, and the right favors them.  As is usually the case, the left's position is based upon emotion, while the right's is more pragmatic -- i.e., how to implement a simple constitutional mandate.

The Washington Examiner noted recently that while the current Justice Department has launched a full-scale assault on state voter identification laws, multiple surveys show overwhelming support of such laws by Hispanics, on whose behalf the DOJ purports to act.

As part of a broad survey of Hispanic attitudes on a variety of political issues, the poll, conducted for the conservative group Resurgent Republic, asked a sample of 1,200 voters the following question: "As you may have heard, many states are considering laws that would require registered voters to present photo identification, such as a driver's license, in order to cast their vote. Do you support or oppose those laws?"

In Florida, 88 percent of those surveyed said they support the laws, while just ten percent oppose them. In Colorado 71 percent support the law, while 26 percent oppose, and in New Mexico, 73 percent support the law, while 25 percent oppose. In general, Hispanic voters in Colorado and New Mexico are more liberal than those in Florida. But strong majorities in all three states favor photo ID laws.

The overwhelming support for photo ID contrasts sharply with the intense opposition to such laws in the Justice Department, the Democratic party, and the civil rights establishment. In June, Democratic National Committee chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz called voter ID laws the work of Republicans "who want to literally drag us all the way back to Jim Crow laws and literally -- and very transparently -- block access to the polls to voters who are more likely to vote Democratic."

Liberal hysteria over voter identification is only the tip of the iceberg, however, and is merely an emotional attempt to divert attention from the real issue.  In view of the estimated 19 million illegal aliens in the United States, the more pertinent question would appear to be the identification of eligible voters.

The Constitution provides that citizens of the United States 18 years of age or older shall be allowed to vote in federal elections, but the Constitution otherwise leaves the eligibility of voters pretty much up to the states. 

 Some states, for example, provide that convicted felons lose their right to vote.  The key constitutional requirement, however, is that a voter must be a citizen of the United States.  There is nothing unique about this requirement, as every nation on the planet allows only its own citizens to vote.  With 19 million illegal immigrants in this country and an estimated 12 million green card holders, plus those here on non-immigrant visas, it is easy to see why we must safeguard that these 31 million-plus non-citizens do not vote in U.S. elections.

This seemingly simple legal principle was complicated by the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, commonly known as the Motor Voter Law.  This law requires states to permit if not encourage voter registration when obtaining or renewing a driver's license or applying for social services.  There is no requirement for a registrant to prove citizenship.  As a result, there have been many instances of non-citizens voting illegally out of ignorance, since they were encouraged to register to vote.  There have also been instances of non-citizens intentionally voting illegally.  Without a photo ID requirement, these non-citizen registrants' names can easily be illegally used by others to vote.

This is an obvious flaw in the law.  What is the purpose of encouraging or offering voter registration to someone for whom it would be illegal to vote?  Some of the 9/11 hijackers had American driver's licenses.  Should they have been allowed to vote?  While many or most states now restrict driver's licenses to citizens or those who can prove they are here legally (even though they are not citizens), this still leaves huge potential for voter fraud.  Our laws must be amended accordingly.

We have federal elections every two years.  That is more than enough time to require every registered voter to re-register and prove his/her citizenship.  Many who oppose such will say this is in effect a poll tax, but it would not be.  While it is true that many who do not hold U.S. passports may need to acquire copies of their birth certificates at some nominal cost, we could simply provide that everyone may get one free copy and provide assistance to those who need it.  The same could apply to future new registrants. A current U.S. passport would suffice as proof of citizenship, as similar proof was required in order to obtain the passport.

Once citizenship is proven, a photo voter identification card should be issued to that effect.  The Motor Voter law could be amended to add proof of citizenship in order to register to vote, as is clearly mandated by the Constitution; however, it would be up to the states to implement procedures to clean up their respective voting lists.

There are many who will oppose such obviously needed steps, usually for political reasons.  Democrats believe that a majority of non-citizens vote or would vote for Democrats.  This may be a rather condescending and arrogant view, however, as evidenced by the polls cited by the Examiner.  Beyond all this, though, we must realize that voter identification laws are not a matter of politics; they are a simple matter of following our Constitution.  Even the liberal bent to refer to foreign laws will not help on this one.

To put the issue into perspective, it is submitted that any standalone bill to allow non-citizens to vote in our federal elections would stand no chance of passing; moreover, it is unlikely that any politician, regardless of political persuasion, would dare offer such legislation, as such an effort would be blatantly unconstitutional, not to mention unpopular.  Why, then, should a commonsense bill that cleans up this potential voting disaster not be introduced and passed?  Do we really want the risk of over 31 million illegal votes in our elections?  This is over 10% of our population (shown to be 308 million by the 2010 census).  Such a number could easily have decisive impacts on our commonly close elections.

In addition to the above, such enabling legislation should provide that any non-citizen who obtains or attempts to obtain such a citizen voter registration card shall be guilty of a felony and subject to immediate deportation with a lifetime bar to reentry to the U.S.  Anyone, citizen or not, who assists or conspires with anyone in such activity likewise shall be subject to felony treatment.

Our Constitution clearly states that only citizens may vote.  Such simple, commonsense legislation is not anti-immigration, but rather merely protective of our system of government.  It easily would have the overwhelming support of the American people and is desperately needed in today's America.  If anyone opposes preventing non-citizens from voting, let him make his case, but they must realize that it will take nothing less than a constitutional amendment to permit non-citizens to legally vote.

American Thinker

The Fat Guy and the Skinny Guy: More Alike Than They Appear

October 1, 2011
By James V Capua

For all their contrasting looks, Chris Christie and Barack Obama are alike in one critical respect: both are the kind of politician endangered elites offer up when they correctly perceive their power threatened.  To preserve their dominance, establishments seek above all to protect the orthodoxies they have enshrined and the trends they have fostered.  By doing so, they maintain the interests of those they depend upon critically for support, and they limit the damage that challengers can cause.  This stasis is sold by wrapping it artfully in the bright colors and shimmering bows of novelty.

Barack Obama has been a perfect example.  He looked different, but his Hope and Change never challenged an elite orthodoxy.  For all his wife's assurances that our lives "as usual" were over, Obama presumed to place himself at the front of Democrat-approved social and cultural trends, all the while never challenging one.  He dutifully followed the rules of Democrat discourse: he regularly called out "Wall Street" and "special interests," but his friends at Goldman Sachs, the Green lobby, GE, NEA, SEIU, AARP, AFSCME, AFL-CIO, etc. understood the game and knew they had nothing to fear.

Even as he has become unhinged of late, Obama has restricted his petulant flailing to relatively low-risk targets like the leeches of the Congressional Black Caucus, who have to take it because they have nowhere else to go.  He and Chu and Geithner and Summers are brilliant -- but Pelosi and Reid were allowed to run the business.

Obama's eloquence, of course, has been celebrated extravagantly -- particularly by a chorus of what the Brits accurately used to call "news readers," who don't even write their own commonplaces and who would not recognize a memorable phrase if it bit them.  Nevertheless, the language that counts in the Obama administration has been that of legislators like Frank, Dodd, and Schumer, and regulators like Warren and Lee.

What does all this have to do with the governor of New Jersey?  Like the originals, each of the Abama and Christello 2012 team looks very different from the other, but their shtick is the same.  The advocates for Christie are selling him in exactly the same way Obama's did, and for exactly the same reason -- Obama did not, and Christie does not, threaten their respective party orthodoxies, and both promise a comfortable working relationship with party elites.

While, like Obama's before 2008, the Christie balloon has been inflating for some time, the excuse for his current prominence was a talk he gave recently at the Reagan Library.  While one could take exception to certain assumptions and emphases, there is nothing wrong with this speech.  But like with every speech of Obama's, there is also nothing remarkable about it -- not one phrase, not one image that rises above current Republican convention.  Unite us rather than divide us; "when there is a problem you fix it"; we are all in this together; demand sacrifice from all; a healthy American economy reinforces our influence abroad; and, of course, "leadership is compromise."

In this year of infinite promise, why is this banal utterance celebrated in Republican circles?  It's safe.  In his California oration, Christie waddled as fast as he could to get in front of trends conventional Republicans endorse: the contest in 2012 needs to be all about the economy and jobs and efficiency -- just fix the GDP, and Americans' faith in who and what we are will miraculously follow.  Christie never threatened to get anywhere near some of those philosophical, regional, or cultural issues that make NRC Republicans uncomfortable, nor did he evidence any sympathy for libertarian notions.  On foreign policy, he embraced neither adventurism nor isolation, and he never questioned the wisdom of our decade-long struggle to introduce assorted barbarians to the glories of democracy.  No matter how the decidedly non-disinterested observers try to sell it, it was just a generally angry-looking guy saying things we have heard many times before from mainstream Republicans.  Though theoretically an homage to Reagan, Christie's speech could have been delivered by John McCain.

Savants will respond that it was really the give-and-take after the formal speech that marked Christie as The Man of Destiny.  Clearly he is a better debater than, say, Rick Perry, and less likely to step into hyperbolic traps than, say, Herman Cain or Michele Bachmann.

The contrast with Perry, Cain, and Bachmann is, of course, the real point of all this for mainstream Republicans, and it incorporates a lot more than Christie's debating skills.  Whether by luck or design, Christie's perfectly timed speech provided the opening for a last-ditch attempt by a Republican establishment, worried about a faltering Romney, to head off trends they do not like represented by the Tea Party, Jim DeMint, strong alternative conservative and libertarian voices in the New Media, and other unsettling influences on the right.
 
Indeed, for all of the "Christie hurts Romney more than Perry" conventional wisdom, if Mitt Romney misses his assigned turn, Christie -- with no extravagant notions about gun rights, definite "Islam is a peaceful religion" credentials, etc. -- is clearly positioned to replace him.

American Thinker

Palin Goes after Fox News

October 1, 2011
By Steve Flesher

Is Sarah Palin preparing to declare her candidacy for president?  In what is sure to cause a lot of speculation, she has taken the opportunity in her last two interviews on Fox News to go after some of that network's tactics and contributors.

Palin expressed major displeasure at what she called a "quasi-reality-show" media game of building up a candidate in order to tear them down.

Among her examples, Sarah Palin cited the popularity Michele Bachmann experienced with the media immediately after winning the Ames Straw Poll in Iowa.  Bachmann is now down significantly in all the polls, especially since Rick Perry has jumped into the race. 

After enjoying a few weeks at the top, Rick Perry's frontrunner status is now threatened by the media, who is now paying more attention to Herman Cain after he won the straw poll in Florida.

Palin's logical position seems to align with the GOP grassroots, who are left scratching their heads wondering why it should take one singular event to get the media to pay more attention to a candidate.  We should be relying on the media to focus on all candidates equally so we can assess the records and positions of each one fairly.

Speaking with Greta Van Susteren earlier this week, Palin remarked on Herman Cain.  She spoke about how his words and his experience as a working American resonated with the grassroots.  She then went on to suggest that it took the straw poll in Florida to make him "flavor of the week" for the media, when in reality it was his qualities as an American which made him appealing to voters.

As usual, the media chose to pick up on one line of Palin's commentary -- i.e., the suggestion that Herman Cain was "flavor of the week."  As a result, various newspaper articles and major media outlets began reporting her context inaccurately.

Later in her interview with Greta Van Susteren, Palin showed dismay at Fox for cherry-picking a few polls which placed her toward the bottom of the GOP's list.  On CNN a couple of days before, a McClatchy Poll was reported which actually showed Palin beating Obama 47-43 among independents.

Fox News contributor Juan Williams remarked that Sarah Palin made a "nasty" comment.  Williams made the statement on Judge Napolitano's Freedom Watch Thursday, right before Palin was scheduled to appear. 

In Palin's subsequent discussion with Napolitano, she said, "I think it's nasty when a colleague [Williams] takes a shot when they don't know what they're talking about."

Palin's complaints on Fox News come after a few other Palin-naysayer moments on the network.  Recently, Bill O'Reilly continued to cite one poll which stated that the majority of Tea Partiers do not want Palin to run for president.  Meanwhile, Sarah Palin continues to draw the largest crowds at Tea Party events, as she did in Indianola, Iowa just a few short weeks ago.

In addition to O'Reilly, frequent Fox News commentators and guests like Dick Morris and Ann Coulter have continued not only to downplay Sarah Palin's chances as a potential candidate, but also to insult her supporters, since they are awaiting Palin's decision before they choose to support anyone else.

Of course, Ann Coulter's undying obsession with Chris Christie is questionable, considering that Christie has stated more than a dozen times that he is absolutely not interested in running for president.   We could also remind Dick Morris that his predictions hardly ever turn out to be accurate.  How did that Hillary vs. Condi thing work out for him in 2008?

Considering the track record of many of these commentators, it certainly is easy to understand Palin's point about the "quasi-reality show" they are attempting to create and steer through 2012.  It can also explain why so many of us are waiting for her to shake that up, just as she shook up those "corrupt bastards" in Alaska. 

Now, if Palin chooses to suspend (or even terminate) her contract with Fox News, it could well signal her intention to run for president.  And that's exactly what a lot of people are waiting for.

American Thinker

Tale of the Tape: President Obama’s Millionaires vs. Secretaries

by Rep. Chip Cravaack 

During his recent rallies to galvanize support for his “American Jobs Act,” President Obama stated that he wanted to ensure that millionaires paid the same percentage of taxes as secretaries.  While this is a great soundbite, this statement is inflammatory and demonstrably false.  “Millionaires” in this country, which according to President Obama’s definition now includes small business owners and job creators along with the likes of Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, pay a significantly higher portion of their salary to federal income tax, and pay a disproportionate amount of the entire tax burden.



When President Obama states that high income earners are paying less tax then the middle class, he cites the example of Warren Buffett, a multi-billionaire who only pays 17.4% of his taxable income.  However, Mr. Buffett is an anomaly in the upper tax bracket, because most of his income is earned through capital gains, which is taxed at a relatively lower 15% rate (IRS, February 2011).  According to figures compiled by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), those making over $1 million per year pay an average tax rate of 23.3%, while those making between $30-50,000 dollars pay an average tax rate of 7.2%.

Most people in the upper tax brackets are not receiving stock options as compensation, and are therefore subject to the same progressive tax structure as “secretaries.”

Under the current tax system, millionaires don’t just pay a higher tax rate; they also are responsible for a much higher percentage of income taxes paid.  Again, the most recent CBO statistics available demonstrate that the top 1% of wage earners contribute nearly 40% of all income taxes paid in this country.  The bottom 50% of America’s wage earners contribute only 3% of all income taxes.  Additionally, under the current tax structure created under the Bush tax cuts, lower income citizens received a new lower tax bracket as well as the Earned Income Tax Credit, which has enabled further reductions to their tax burden.

In order to reduce this perceived “inequality” between millionaires and secretaries, President Obama has proposed an increase in capital gains taxes to 28%.  This is a mistake.  While billionaires take advantage of this tax classification to cushion their compensation packages, the lower rate was designed to help the elderly make the most of their golden years (half of all taxpaying seniors have capital gains or dividend revenue) and to help middle class Americans make the most of their earnings.  The low capital gains tax encourages people to invest their earnings in the enterprises of their fellow citizens, enabling business growth and expanding the wealth of ordinary Americans.  Using the guilt ridden complaints of an already privileged few to discourage the attainment of a higher standard of living by hard working citizens is a disingenuous political strategy by the administration at the detriment of the American economy.

President Obama appears to be preparing a stimulus program that will be used to secure his base during his next Presidential campaign.  However, in his rush for re-election, he ignores the fact that American businesses will respond only with a refined financial and regulatory structure that provides efficiency, clarity, and stability, and a workforce trained to fill jobs that are valued in this evolving economy.  Instead of creating friction between “millionaires” and “secretaries,” it is essential that the entire country is committed to improving the condition of every citizen.

We must be  committed to taking every possible step to improve conditions for private sector job creation and to get our economy back on track so that America’s workers and business owners can do what they do best: create, innovate and lead.  We must commit to pro growth policies that eliminate red tape and put Americans back to work.

Big Government