Office of Management and Budget: A Misnomer?
By the Numbers: Oil Leak Wouldn't Fill Superdome
From NewsMax.com - Overwhelmed and saddened by the gargantuan size of the Gulf oil spill? A little mathematical context to the spill size can put the environmental catastrophe in perspective. Viewing it through some lenses, it isn't that huge. The Mississippi River pours as much water into the Gulf of Mexico in 38 seconds as the BP oil leak has done in two months. Since the BP oil rig exploded on April 20, about 126.3 million gallons of oil has gushed into the Gulf. For every gallon of oil that BP's well has gushed into the Gulf of Mexico, there is more than 5 billion gallons of water already in it. And the mighty Mississippi adds another billion gallons every five minutes or so, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. So BP chief executive officer Tony Hayward was factually correct last month when he said the spill was "relatively tiny" compared to what he mischaracterized as a "very big ocean." The amount of oil spilled so far could only fill the cavernous New Orleans Superdome about one-seventh of the way up. Read more
Rich got richer and paid more taxes under GW Bush
From the Washington Times - The rich did indeed get richer under President George W. Bush, but they also paid an ever-larger share of the federal tax burden, according to new numbers compiled by Congress' chief scorekeeper. After dipping in the early part of the Bush administration, by 2007 the top quintile of earners - the 20 percent who made the most - paid nearly 70 percent of all the taxes that the federal government collected, according to Congressional Budget Office figures. That includes a staggering 86 percent of the income tax being paid by just the top quintile of earners. By contrast, the bottom 40 percent on average not only pay no income tax, but they siphon money back from the federal government in the form of the Earned Income Tax Credit, a 35-year-old program designed to offset some of what low-income workers pay in Social Security taxes. Read more
Column - The big question of 2010: Are we fit to be free?
Column by John Andrews - Are we fit to be free? That’s the big question for Americans to decide in election year 2010. Above the chatter of daily headlines, beyond the jockeying of parties, two opposing visions of human nature vie for expression in the political choices we will make. One vision sees mankind as endowed with liberty and equality by our Creator, individually capable of self-determination in most areas of our lives, and inherently (if imperfectly) responsible in choosing for ourselves and taking the consequences. The other vision denies that human nature is trustworthy or even fixed. It regards the person as socially constructed, not divinely created – evolving under an irresistible progressive force called History. It relies on the more-evolved elite to direct the less-enlightened masses, for our own good, toward a utopian destiny unseen by most. This is no mere philosophy seminar. It plays out fatefully on issues that will affect our lives for decades to come. In every race in every state this year, we’re offered very different policy solutions by candidates on the conservative side, who believe we ARE fit to be free, in contrast to those on the liberal side who doubt we are. Read more
Ted Nugent Column: The Declaration of Defiance
Column by Ted Nugent - Defiance is the DNA of America. Every fiber of my being is overdosed on high-octane defiance. I often rise in the morning convinced that I am Rosa Parks with a loud guitar. It is beautiful. From our forefathers tossing tea into the Boston Harbor over abusive taxes; to the brave defenders of the Alamo, who were outnumbered 25-to-1; to Brig. Gen. Anthony C. McAuliffe, who answered the Nazi punks with "Nuts!" when he was asked to surrender at Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge, the DNA of America is rife with proud defiance. We celebrate our freedom on Independence Day, but when you read Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, it could have easily been called the Declaration of Defiance. What Jefferson and his fellow patriots John Adams and Benjamin Franklin wrote was a uniquely defiant document that not only listed their grievances defying King George's oppressive government but also was a declaration of out-and-out war against tyranny. Read more
The Worst of the Worst Dictators
Commentary by George B.N. Ayittey - A continent away from Kyrgyzstan, Africans like myself cheered this spring as a coalition of opposition groups ousted the country's dictator, President Kurmanbek Bakiyev. Approximately 1.9 billion people live under the grip of the 23 autocrats on this list alone. Although all dictators are bad in their own way, there's one insidious aspect of despotism that is most infuriating and galling to me: the disturbing frequency with which many despots, as in Kyrgyzstan, began their careers as erstwhile "freedom fighters" who were supposed to have liberated their people. Read more
Harry Jackson Jr. - Al Greene
David Brooks Commentary: Faustus Makes a Deal
by David Brooks, from the New York Times - It was the winter of 2007. Dr. Faustus, the famous left-wing philologist, was sitting in a coffee shop in despair over the Bush-Cheney regime and the future of his country. Suddenly, Mephistopheles, who happened to be the provost at his college, appeared, sipping a double mocha frappuccino. He sat down next to Dr. Faustus and casually asked him if he would like to be granted any five wishes in exchange for his immortal soul. This was Dr. Faustus’s chance to do something grand for his country. He would lose his soul, but if he chose wisely, he could make the United States a bastion of liberalism forevermore.“I agree, Lord of Darkness, if you grant me the following wishes: First, I would like the nation to be hurled into an economic crisis caused by Wall Street greed and recklessness. This will discredit free-market fundamentalism once and for all.”
“It will be done,” Mephistopheles vowed.
“Then I would like you to find the smartest Democratic politician in the land and make him president.”
“It will be done.”
“Then I would like you to create a political climate so he can immediately enact an $800 billion spending package. This will avert economic collapse and show the American people how effective government can be.”
“It will be done.”
“Then I would like the Democrats to pass a universal health care law. This will show a grateful nation that government can provide basic security.”
“It will be done.”
“If you do all this, America will be transformed. Conservatism will be in retreat and liberalism will reign supreme! Just to be sure, I would like a multinational oil company to cause the biggest environmental disaster in American history. This will completely discredit corporate America and remind people why they need strong regulations and global warming legislation.”
“It will be done.”
And, indeed, everything Dr. Faustus wished for came to pass. Yet he watched events unfold with growing horror. Not in 70 years had there been a sequence of events so perfectly designed to fortify liberalism. Yet the country wasn’t swinging to the left; it was swinging to the right! Read more
Degeneration of Democracy
Federer Survives 1st Round Scare
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