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Clayton Cramer's BLOG |
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Clayton's commentary on news and events of the day. Broadly speaking, I'm a conservative with libertarian sympathies (getting more conservative as my children get older).
 Never forget! I'm running for Idaho state senate I've written a number of history books, as well as scholarly and popular articles, (see my web page).
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Saturday, October 30, 2004
More On Market Manipulation for Political Purposes Dan Gifford, a reader with significant experience in the news business, tells me that he saw these interesting items, as accurately quoted as could manage while watching TV. One was Alan Murray MSNBC reporter on October 29, 2004 at about 8:05 AM Pacific Time, on CNBC's "Morning Call": The George Bush futures contracts have fallen tremendously today meaning that people believe Bush is losing ground in the election against John Kerry.The next is from Donald Luskin, Trend Macro's Chief Investment Officer, October 29, 2004 at about 8:50 AM Pacific Time, also on on CNBC's "Morning Call": The George Bush futures contracts are being manipulated. On several different occasions I have seen massive selling of the Bush futures come in that could not possibly have been for the purpose of making money. I think the person doing it or behind it is George Soros who has spent around 20 million that we know of so far to defeat Bush. [Soros' office told CNBC it is not responsible, according to CNBC's Michelle Caruso-Cabrera] .... Fair enough. Then if it is not Soros, then it is surrogate or at least someone who has read his book. Soros calls attacks of this sort the theory of reflexivity, which means that if you influence the perceptions of people by manipulating the theoretical reality within the financial markets, you influence the reality of real world events. In this case, the purpose would be to negatively affect the public perception that George Bush will win the presidency which may, in turn, adversely influence those planning to vote for Bush. This is exactly the tactic Soros has used in past to attack the Bank of England and other institutions and national currencies in order to change government policy.Another reader points me to this article about Soros in FrontPage magazine: Democrats looking to George Soros as a moral compass may want to check to see which direction the needle is pointing. The billionaire might actually be able to help them out on that count: In the mid-1990s he posited that there was “something both phony and pompous about a financial speculator inveighing against the moral crisis of our age.”Does anyone find it at all worrisome that this guy has the billions and the financial connections to manipulate commodity markets, and has expressed a willingness to spend it all to defeat George Bush--and now oil prices are at incomprehensible prices, having damaged the economy just before the election? Faith Without Works Is Dead Kerry claims to oppose abortion, but wouldn't want to impose his morals on others (except about taxation, welfare, gun ownership, the environment, forcing you to hire homosexuals). So this guy asks the question: If, for example, I was a powerful Senator married to a billionaire who was "not in favor of abortion", but I thought it wrong to work directly against abortion in the legal arena, I might do some or all of the following things: Labels: abortion Worst Translation Ever! A friend pointed me to this horrifying example of someone who thought that they knew English writing an instruction manual. I Don't If This Is True Or Not, But There's a Phone Number... This was forwarded to me by someone who forwarded it from someone else. Unlike a lot of "urban legend" items that get distributed this way, this has the name of the people in question, and phone number for verification. It could still be made up--but it fits with everything that I have been able to find out from talking to people that have been there. A few comments first: the formation of local democratic governments in Iraq? Yes, I have seen news coverage of it--but very little, because it doesn't fit the bad news model that most of the news media are interested in reporting. I don't think the claim that "all" cities have done this is correct. Largely a foreign insurgency? There has been some news coverage of that as well--but again, very little, because it doesn't fit the "blame Bush" model. Oddly enough, what should have been big news--the arrest of Iranian government agents with explosives in Iraq--received almost no coverage. Concerning the Lord Hutton inquiry? Yes, the BBC did hype a serious credibility problem--and now three different independent British government reports have concluded that there was no intentional deception concerning Iraq and WMDs. The latest, the Butler report, concluded that Iraq was actually attempting to buy uranium in Niger before the war. This was not a deception at all: Dear Friends, The Belmont Club Points Out That Osama Bin Laden Wants A Truce Important point, made over at The Belmont Club, is not just that Bin Laden is repeating Michael Moore's claims about Bush--he is also asking for a truce: It is important to notice what he has stopped saying in this speech. He has stopped talking about the restoration of the Global Caliphate. There is no more mention of the return of Andalusia. There is no more anticipation that Islam will sweep the world. He is no longer boasting that Americans run at the slightest wounds; that they are more cowardly than the Russians. He is not talking about future operations to swathe the world in fire but dwelling on past glories. He is basically saying if you leave us alone we will leave you alone. Though it is couched in his customary orbicular phraseology he is basically asking for time out.For those who haven't figured this out: it sounds like bin Laden is hurting, and thinks his best hope of surviving is to have someone in the White House who is interested in a "nuanced" approach to terrorism, rather than victory over it. Now, I am hearing the left arguing that Bin Laden really wants Bush re-elected, because the war in Iraq helps raise more terrorists, and because Bush is so hated. I don't think that argument flies. Before 9/11, Bin Laden's political ideas were fully implemented in Afghanistan; he was free to train terrorists, attack U.S. interests (including the World Trade Center in 1993) with impunity, and live a pretty comfortable life. Now, the Taliban are not only out of power; Afghanistan has held the first democratic elections; and Bin Laden has to spend much of his energy keeping out of sight. Anyone that thinks Bin Laden would prefer George Bush as president is kidding himself. Attention Leftists: You Are Going To Have To Abandon Your Fantasy A reader points out something that will doubtless cause great suffering in moonbat circles (including those working to get Senator Kerry elected): Osama admits planning the WTC attack in his new release. Where does this leave the leftwing "CIA/Mossad/Masonic plot ordered by BusHitler at the behest of the Jooze", eh? Will anyone ask Howard Dean if he still things BusHitler knew about it in advance? Will any of the moonbats at the Democratic Underground admit they were barking at fireflies, for example? Friday, October 29, 2004
Osama Bin Laden Is Alive, It Appears At least according to these news accounts, he refers to both Kerry and Bush, which means that it isn't an old tape. Not surprisingly, he is taking the Michael Moore line that Bush could have prevented much of the loss of life. It's nice to know that bin Laden is so concerned about that sort of thing. Not surprisingly, Bin Laden shows his lack of political acumen by attacking George Bush's integrity and competence (see the CBS video special report at the link above) or this report here, I guess in the hopes that undecided Americans would listen to Bin Laden and decide to vote for Kerry. Too Much Division of Labor, I Think The Reuters wire service news headline is depressing: GDP Grows Less Than Expected at 3.7 PercentThe rest of the story, however, is quite different: WASHINGTON — The U.S. economy grew at a healthy 3.7 percent annual rate in the third quarter this year, bolstered by strong consumer spending and accompanied by the lowest inflation in decades, the Commerce Department (search) said on Friday.Two possible explanations: 1. The guy who writes the headlines doesn't write the rest of the story, and perhaps doesn't read them very carefully. 2. The guy who writes the headlines has to figure out how to make this into bad news for Bush. What makes the story so amazing is that this happened in spite of these somewhat suspiciously high oil prices. It makes you wonder what will happen if these oil prices are actually the results of hedge funds playing games with commodity futures--and oil prices suddenly fall. The more I think about this headline/news story mismatch, the more I find myself wondering what would happen if George Bush, as a result of that little incident where he passed out while choking on a pretzel, discovered something quite dramatic. What would the Reuters news story look like? Bush Actions May Cause Unemployment For Hundreds of Thousands of Doctors & Nurses There Goes Kerry's October Surprise What happened to the 377 tons of HMX? WASHINGTON — A U.S. Army officer came forward Friday and said a team from the 3rd Infantry Division took about 200 tons of explosives from the Al-Qaqaa (search) munitions base soon after Saddam Hussein's regime fell last year.There are so many different explanations, of which this is only the latest, that for Kerry to claim that Bush is incompetent is premature, and the sort of opportunism that I expect from Kerry. Voter Fraud in Minnesota I've written in the past about why it is not a good idea to video tape yourself committing a felony. It is also not a good idea to send email organizing voter fraud. Apparently, American Coming Together (ACT) decided to take advantage of a weird little quirk in Minnesota law: Under Minnesota's registration law, an eligible but previously unregistered individual may register to vote in his precinct by showing proof of residence in the precinct or, in the absence of such proof, having a voter registered in the precinct vouch under oath that he personally knows that the unregistered individual is a resident of the precinct.Okay, that sounds reasonable enough, although I find myself asking why you don't have proof of residence. No driver's license? No utility bills? Nothing? But the Bush campaign has obtained an email that ACT sent out to its volunteers: Election Day is upon us. You are confirmed to volunteer with ACT (America Coming Together) on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov 2.If the requirement is "personally knows" then you don't need a name badge, do you? ACT is obviously intending to engage in massive fraud, registering people on election day to vote. It sounds like the plan is to go register to vote with the help of an ACT volunteer who will vouch that he "personally knows" you live in the precinct--then go do it again in several dozen other precincts. I know that this will be very painful to Democrats, but we are going to have to insist on photo ID for voting in the future. "Vote early, vote often" was funny when it was just Chicago politics, but on a national scale? Sorry, no more. Thursday, October 28, 2004
For Gun Owners That Can't Quite Decide Who To Vote For Tuesday As you probably know, in addition to my regularly monthly column in Shotgun News, I am also filling in for Neal Knox while he has some health problems. This is the column that, to my pleasure, appeared before the election. You can also find it here on the Shotgun News web site. If you know a gun ownership who doesn't know who to vote for on Tuesday, or doesn't see any reason to vote for Bush over Kerry or some third party candidate, have them read this. ----- After The Election By Clayton E. Cramer By the time you read this, the election will be over. Either Bush will have won, Kerry will have won--or lawyers will trying to repeat the 2000 Florida disaster. I hope that Bush will have won by a sufficiently large margin that Kerry accepts the loss, and concedes on Election Night. But as I write these words, I find myself increasingly worried that Kerry might win. The news media are pulling out all the stops to elect Kerry: misrepresenting the final report of the Iraqi Survey Group on WMDs; reporting news based on 1973 Air National Guard memos that were produced on a modern computer; soft-pedaling the really astonishing level of violence that Bush campaign offices are suffering from drive-by shootings, from screaming demonstrators forcing entry, and other forms of intimidation. We have won a great victory in September, with the expiration of the federal assault weapons law. If, as you read these words, the news media are filled with coverage about "President-elect Kerry," you can be sure that a new, much more extreme version of the assault weapons law will be introduced into Congress. When President Bush took office in 2001, the federal government stopped assisting ambulance-chasers in suing the gun industry for "negligent marketing." (Negligent marketing means that gun manufacturers were obeying all laws concerning making and selling guns, but federal and state authorities were failing to enforce existing laws.) You can be sure that President Kerry will resume that assistance. Remember: one of America's most successful trial lawyers will be Vice President John Edwards. If John Kerry is preparing his inaugural address as you read this column, remember that you can blame a lot of gun owners. John Kerry made it very clear throughout his time in the U.S. Senate which side he was on, and it wasn't our side. A lot of American gun owners were taken in by Kerry's photo-ops with a shotgun, and did not pay attention to his voting history. If you are one of the gun owners who voted for John Kerry a few days ago, let's just say that gun ownership wasn't near the top of your list of priorities. If it was, you weren't paying attention. Or maybe you said, "I don't want to get called for jury duty." Sorry, but that won't fly. Many states now use driver's license information to call jurors. Would you rather spend two weeks on jury duty every few years, or lose the right to own a gun? "There's no real difference, anyway." I suppose to a blind person, there's no real difference between red and blue. This election has given us a very clear difference-even more clear-cut than the 2000 election, where Gore's history on gun control was disappointing, but he had in the past been on our side. Kerry has never been on our side. If you don't want to invest the time to follow politics (and many people would prefer not to do so), you could at least see what gun rights groups such as the NRA or Gun Owners of America had to say about the candidates. There is one group of gun owners that I am especially upset with--and those are the self-righteous gun rights purists, who complained that Bush wasn't pure enough. They insisted that because Bush agreed to sign a renewal of the federal assault weapons ban, they could not vote for him. If the choice a few days ago had been between George Bush and a wishy-washy Democrat, I could understand the purists who voted Libertarian or did not vote for President at all. But that wasn't the situation this election day. John Kerry was clearly our enemy. President Bush appointed an Attorney General who has defended the Second Amendment as an individual right. Do you think Attorney General Ashcroft made a decision like that without consulting President Bush? If a federal assault weapons ban had made it to the Oval Office, and Bush had signed it, I could understand the purist disdain for Bush. But it didn't happen, because George Bush and House Republicans did an incredibly sly job of making sure that no assault weapon ban came to his desk. This largely defused the assault weapon issue as part of the campaign. If you are one of those gun rights purists who did not vote for President Bush this year--and are now cringing at the prospect of what President Kerry is going to do to your gun rights--I sure hope that you learned your lesson. The rest of us are going to have four years to repent for your decision. Labels: gun rights As Long As You Don't Frighten the Horses or Servants British newscaster speaks, not realizing that he is on the air: Piers Morgan sparked panic among This Morning viewers today when he claimed al Qaida is about to stage a terrorist spectacular. France Will Always Be On Arafat's Side France, the nation committed to human rights and civilized behavior everywhere: PARIS, Oct. 28 (Xinhuanet) -- France will be always on the side of the Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat, French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier declared Thursday.Unless, of course, someone figured out a way to convert French Muslims into petroleum--at which point France would cheerfully solve two problems at once. Oil Prices Dropping As I've mentioned in the last few weeks, there are some curious aspects to how rapidly prices went up--faster than a lot of experts thought likely, considering the actual supply and demand situation. Of course, if certain Democratic Party controlled hedge funds were actually playing games with commodities futures to drive up the price, there's a limit to how long they can play that game, before the prices start to fall. Oil prices are suddently falling--about 10% in two days--and again, it seems like a pretty dramatic drop, if this is something to do with the real world, and not manipulation. What Elephant in the Bathtub? Al-Qaeda & Alien Smugglers I know that at least some of my readers are planning to vote for third party candidates (although not the Libertarian candidate) because of Bush's unwillingness to put any serious effort into the illegal alien problem. This is a mistake in an election this important, but I understand why some people, especially in California, are very frustrated. Illegal aliens are often very poorly paid, which means that government services expended on behalf of illegals are not recouped by payroll taxes that their employers pay. Anyone that doubts this is invited to visit almost any urban California emergency room, and yell la migra! Just don't be standing in front of the exits when you do this. I don't blame the illegals. The vast majority have come to America to work because their home countries have spent decades implementing pseudo-socialist (often closer to fascist) economic policies, and America has horrible jobs that are still much better than home can provide. (A few are here because they are wanted back home--and quickly become wanted here, too.) When I say that "home" can't provide decent jobs, I don't just mean Mexico and other points south. I mean Canada as well. (There are a lot more illegal aliens from Canada than most people realize, but Canadians look like us, and sound like us (well, mostly). Let's not overemphasize this point: some of the people that are hostile to illegal aliens have racist reasons, but the vast majority of the people with whom I talk about this are motivated by economic concerns, not ethnicity. I've previously discussed that both Democrats and Republicans are reluctant to do anything about the illegal alien problem. Democrats see illegal aliens as future Democratic voters. (In some cases, current Democratic voters: look at the Dornan/Sanchez dispute a few years ago where at least 748 non-citizens voted.) Republicans are terrified that pushing this issue will offend Hispanics, a fair number of whom are pretty conservative, and can be persuaded to vote Republican on occasion. At least some Republicans won't push the issue because a lot of American corporations rely on a bountiful supply of illegal aliens to keep labor costs down, and Republicans, for reasons that elude me, have decided that the contributions of a few large corporations are more important than the votes of perhaps ten million working class Americans whose wages are being depressed by the enormous supply of cheap labor. If Republicans had any guts, they would point out illegal aliens make the bottom of legal American residents (black, white, and Hispanic) much poorer than they would otherwise be--and that Democrats are playing racial politics at the expense of the working poor. The problem is that the Democrats, through their wholly owned subsidiaries, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, and most American newspapers, would start screaming "racist" and "you're blaming the victim!" Now, here's a reason to take the problem of illegal aliens seriously that is so powerful that it should even overcome the "racist" scream of the left: A top al Qaeda lieutenant has met with leaders of a violent Salvadoran criminal gang with roots in Mexico and the United States — including a stronghold in the Washington area — in an effort by the terrorist network to seek help infiltrating the U.S.-Mexico border, law enforcement authorities said. Adnan G. El Shukrijumah, a key al Qaeda cell leader for whom the U.S. government has offered a $5 million reward, was spotted in July in Honduras meeting with leaders of El Salvador's notorious Mara Salvatrucha gang, which immigration officials said has smuggled hundreds of Central and South Americans — mostly gang members — into the United States. Although they are actively involved in alien, drug and weapons smuggling, Mara Salvatrucha members in America also have been tied to numerous killings, robberies, burglaries, carjackings, extortions, rapes and aggravated assaults — including at least seven killings in Virginia and a machete attack on a 16-year-old in Alexandria that severely mutilated his hands.How big does the problem get before we recognize that the federal government needs to: 1. Aggressively punish employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens. 2. Shut the border--calling up the unorganized militia of the United States (about forty million men legally obligated to respond to the President's orders), if need be, to adequately seal both the the Mexican and Canadian borders from illegal crossings. State governments also need to develop some guts, and tell cities and counties that they are obligated to arrest illegal aliens, and turn them over to INS, instead of the current policy of many local governments to ignore it when they find illegals. Thanks to Michael Williams for the pointer to the Washington Times article. More On The Explosives Story The Washington Times has an article by Bill Gertz reporting that the missing explosives were removed by Russian forces just before the war started, as a way of removing embarrassing evidence of Russian complicity in Iraq's WMD programs. (Remember that the explosives in question were of interest to the U.N. because they have the high velocity wavefront required to implode plutonium quickly enough to make an explosion, not a fizzle. (I've read that you need a particular high velocity wavefront to bring the density up quickly enough to get a properly explosion. There are a few other details besides the velocity that I am leaving out; I don't think that everyone needs to know them.) Russian special forces troops moved many of Saddam Hussein's weapons and related goods out of Iraq and into Syria in the weeks before the March 2003 U.S. military operation, The Washington Times has learned. Labels: Iraqi WMDs March of the Vulgarians Warning: This entry contains very vulgar sexual content, because it contains part of a speech by the wife of a public official. Teresa Heinz Kerry has been pretty nasty on the campaign trail; I was a bit disappointed in how much the Governator told us about his sex life (or lack thereof) after the Republican National Convention. San Francisco Mayor Newsom's wife makes both of these characters seem downright classy--and it tells us a bit about what is considered appropriate language at a gay rights fundraiser in New York City: Mrs. Newsom, who lives in New York and is a regular on Court TV, offered the 1,100 guests at the Empire State Pride Agenda fundraiser some unusual observations about the couple’s sex life.I get a lot of flack for arguing that homosexuals are unhealthily focused on sex. But where's the news coverage of homosexuals outraged by Ms. Newsom's remarks? Indeed, "Not one person came forward to take offense or say it was inappropriate,'' [Empire Foundation executive director Alan] Van Capelle said.Ms. Newsom now claims that her gestures were misinterpreted: Mayoral first lady Kimberly Guilfoyle Newsom says way too much is being made of her sexually playful comments at a recent gay rights dinner, and that for the record she was not -- we repeat not -- pantomiming eating a banana when talking about her husband's sexuality.Oh yeah. I believe her, don't you? Wednesday, October 27, 2004
Is It Humor? Or Just Plain Weird? It's from Swift Geese Veterans For Truth. It's a parody of John Kerry's testimony before Congress, and I suppose if animal rights activists were a significant chunk of the population, it wouldn't be parody, but a devastating argument for not voting for John Kerry. Instead, it's just disturbingly weird. Labels: humor Airline Security Solution I'm not sure it will work, but then again, this is what I expect from the person whose name appears at the bottom. (No guarantees about its authenticity, you understand.) Dear Sirs, Illegal Aliens Should Not Be Registered To Vote But because we don't dare ask questions or require proof of citizenship, they do. From the Columbus, Ohio Dispatch: Among supposedly eligible voters in Franklin County are suspected terrorists arrested for alleged plots to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge and a local shopping mall. As an imprisoned felon, one is ineligible to vote. The other, from Somalia, is not a U.S. citizen and thus broke state and federal laws when he registered in 1999, officials said.Michelle Malkin claims that one of these guys was registered to vote by ACORN--a charge that ACORN disputes, and which, if Malkin is right about this, she hasn't adequately sourced to prove her claim. UPDATE: Ms. Malkin has blogged that she was in error about ACORN registering this terrorist to vote. I See Some Inconsistencies in This Story It sounds like political derangement is becoming a big problem in Florida: WEST PALM BEACH – An 18-year-old Marine recruit remained in jail on Wednesday, charged with threatening to stab his girlfriend over her choice for president, news partner NewsChannel 5 reported in its noon broadcast.However, the story goes on to say: Soper, who will enter the Marines as soon as he passes the GED test, solidly supports Bush. He allegedly told girlfriend Stacey Silheira, "You'll never live to see the election."Except that the Marines generally don't take a GED except under certain circumstances. A GED plus twelve college credits, sure, but it appears that they are quite reluctant to take just a GED, not a high school graduate. Perhaps Mr. Soper is (make that was) a Marine recruit in his mind. ABC Playing Politics With the News? According to Drudge, they are holding back on a tape that--let's face it--would remind a lot of Americans who al-Qaeda wants defeated in this election: The terrorist claims on tape the next attack will dwarf 9/11. "The streets will run with blood," and "America will mourn in silence" because they will be unable to count the number of the dead. Further claims: America has brought this on itself for electing George Bush who has made war on Islam by destroying the Taliban and making war on Al Qaeda.Oh yeah, I believe ABC too. UPDATE: FoxNews is now reporting the story as well: The tape was handed to the Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency by ABC News two days ago, multiple government sources said. ABC is said to have received the tape last weekend from a terrorist source in Waziristan, a region in Pakistan near the Afghan border where the Taliban and Al Qaeda (search) are believed to be holed up. A Liberal Democrat Explains Why She Is Voting For Bush Let's just say that Meryl Yourish and I don't see eye to eye on very many things, but she clearly recognizes that her liberal ideas have a better chance of surviving under President George Bush--or perhaps she isn't keen on having to wear a burkha in another 20 years. It is an eloquent statement of why someone who even voted for Mondale is voting for Bush: I disagree with nearly every single part of George Bush's domestic policies. I am pro-gay rights, pro-choice, pro-stem cell research, against huge tax cuts for big business, not a strict constructionist regarding Supreme Court Justices. I am in favor of unions (or at least, what unions were supposed to be), affirmative action, and most of the rest of the liberal agenda.Exactly. Democratic Violence Continues This is another one of those liberals with a broad definition of freedom of expression: A Florida man has been charged with attempting to run over controversial Republican congresswoman Katherine Harris with his Cadillac. According to the below Sarasota Police Department report, Barry Seltzer, 46, told cops that he was simply exercising his "political expression" when he drove his car at Harris and several supporters, who were campaigning last night at a Sarasota intersection.Unsurprisingly, he is a registered Democrat, was driving a Cadillac, and lists his occupation as "real estate investor." This isn't one isolated incident. The amount of violence that the Democrats are using in this campaign is really worrisome. If Republicans did even a half of this, the news media would be arguing that Bush should resign from the race, and allow Kerry to take the White House by default. Apparently Butterfly Ballots Aren't The Only Item Too Complex For Democrats The Democrats are already filing lawsuits in Florida: But Mrs. Hood's spokesman, Alia Faraj, described the lawsuits as politically motivated, saying they were eroding public confidence in the election process by challenging "every single law we are following."On the question of citizenship: maybe they failed to check that box before they weren't citizens? I don't know, but I do know that throwing out a form because it asks you to answer a legitimate question--are you a citizen--is equivalent to dropping the requirement that you be a citizen to vote. What are we supposed to do with incomplete or invalid registrations? Accept them anyway? If Republicans argued that voter registration forms are too complicated for black people to fill out correctly, this would be a sign of racism. But when Democrats make that argument? Time To Smell The Coffee Over at electoral-vote.com, the webmaster, who is frank about being a Kerry supporter, has the following commentary today: The Los Angeles Times has a story today that explains why this election is so much more emotionally charged than previous ones. It is not about economics, but part of a cultural war. A new LA Times poll shows Bush doing well among lower and middle income whites, whereas Kerry leads among whites earning more than $100,000 a year despite his promise to roll back the Bush tax cuts for people making more than $200,000 a year. As president, Bush has enacted big tax cuts for the rich but the rich are voting for Kerry. What's up here?Two possibilities: Perhaps the high income crowd can afford the tax increase. Perhaps the low income crowd knows that Kerry's talk really means that they will get stuck with the tax increase, and the high income crowd knows this also. Remember that people with more than five million dollars don't have to pay income tax if they don't want to; they just buy municipal bonds of their state of residence, and the interest income is exempt from federal and state income tax. (Yeah, you and I could do that do, but we can't live on the interest on our savings; with five million dollars, you earn about $200,000 a year, and pay no taxes.) I also asked him if he had seen the New Yorker article about how the billionaires met with the DNC movers and shakers at Aspen the week after the Convention? Doesn't it seem even a little odd that America's wealthiest people are spending tens of millions of dollars each to defeat a man who supposedly reduced their taxes? Tuesday, October 26, 2004
David Zucker of Airplane! Does a Political Ad And it is the funniest political ad that I have ever seen. The good news: David Zucker was just another Hollywood liberal until, as he puts it, he “got mugged on 9/11.”Go to that web site, and click on the appropriate media type! You'll be glad you did! Confirmation That Kerry Is Wrong When you start getting emails from progressive Jews singing the praises of Pat Buchanan's misnamed magazine The American Conservative, and Pat Robertson is suddenly considered a credible source of information by the mainstream media. Has everyone forgotten when leftists were calling Pat Buchanan: Pat Buchanan's book is a loopy and inconsistent piece of Catholic fundamentalism that betrays a weird and self-destructive sympathy for the fascist cause. Irony Overload: Devil Worshipper Chris Cranmer This news story is about what I would expect of post-Christian Britain: LONDON, England (CNN) -- A devil-worshipping sailor in the Royal Navy has become the first registered Satanist in the British Armed Forces.The irony overload is the guy's name: Chris Cranmer. Is he a relative of Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer, responsible for the Anglican Church's Book of Common Prayer? Chris, of course, is short for Christopher, which means "bearing Christ" in Greek. More On The Explosives Scandal Someone on the ground in Iraq has some expert opinion, and he is of the opinion that the explosives might well have moved before U.S. forces arrived: How can we lose almost 400 tons of high-powered explosive material? This is one of those things that just doesn't make sense if you don't know the context. I'm having trouble understanding it myself, but I'll tell you what I do know. When we first crossed the border to start the invasion, we saw some very strange things out in the open desert. Things that weren't supposed to be there. Fighter jets. Randomly scattered tanks and armored vehicles. We even found helicopters hidden underneath foliage on the riverbanks. This was all part of Saddam's bizarre strategy. He knew we'd come in there and thump him. He was hoping that we'd level the country and then leave it in shambles. After we left, he would reemerge and pick up the high-value pieces of war machinery that he cleverly scattered throughout the countryside. Not a brilliant strategy, but please understand his limited options. We recovered most of the jets, choppers, and tanks in a relatively short period of time. We stopped seeing them around after about 3 months. Undercounted Voters I've seen the claim from Democrats that the public opinion surveys are missing younger voters who only have cell phones, and no land lines. I'm not sure if that is completely true, since I understand that most of the pollsters randomly dial phone numbers. But it occurs to me that there is another voting block that we can be sure the pollsters are missing: absentee ballots to be cast by service members who are out of the United States. We have something like 130,000 people in Iraq, and tens of thousands in Afghanistan. There are sound reasons to belive that these votes are going to go 3-1 or better for Bush. Reservists, of course, are going to be voting in their home states, which I suspect are disproportionately Southern. Regular service people, however, are going to be absentee voting in the states where most of them are based. How many of them are based in Florida? I know that the Democrats tried hard to prevent military absentee ballots from being counted in the 2000 Florida fiasco, taking advantage of failures to have the envelope postmarked and similar problems. I suspect that there may be thousands of military absentee ballots arriving right now in Florida--and those voters have been missed in the phone surveys. You May Be In For a Surprise Election Day This blogger reports that she tried to vote early--and discovered that someone has registered to vote using her name, and a different address--and what a surprise! As a Democrat: Well drinkers, it appears your tallglassofmilk is a victim of voter fraud. Turns out that if I hadn't voted early, there's a pretty good chance I might have been hauled off in handcuffs on November 2, for attempting to vote twice. Now it might be somebody else who gets hauled away.I think I now understand why the Bush campaign is encouraging everyone on our side to vote early--to prevent Democrats from voting in our place. Another blogger linked to this entry asks a question that I have asked several times: Question: Is there any good reason why a voter should not have to present valid identification at the polling place?I consider one of the most important actions of the next Congress to be passing a law requiring anyone voting in a federal election to show an official picture ID. UPDATE: It occurred to me after I posted this that some of you may not have sufficiently criminal minds to figure out why someone would register to vote under someone else's name. Let's say that your name is Joe Jones. You register to vote under the name of a real voter named Jack Smith. Then you go and vote as Jack Smith, and then go and vote as Joe Jones. You have effectively cast three votes for John Kerry: one as Jack Smith, one as Joe Jones--and by preventing Jack Smith from voting for George Bush, you have canceled out the vote of the real Jack Smith. The net result is that you have voted three times for John Kerry. Now, if all voting took place on one day, and you registered to vote in the same precinct under both names, there is a small chance that showing up and voting as Joe Jones and Jack Smith might get you noticed by an alert precinct worker--but I wouldn't bet a lot of money on that, especially if you vote in one identity in the morning, and the other identity in the evening. You can get around this by voting absentee in one or both identities--one of the reasons why I think absentee voting needs to be limited to those actually out of town, or hospitalized. Of course, if you register to vote in two different precincts, the chances of getting caught by voting in person are zero. Yet another reason for requiring photo ID when you vote. This Is Really Sad It's an article from the San Francisco Chronicle about a new black urban fashion trend: Earl "E.J." Jackson cracked open a Miller High Life and poured a dribble into the gutter before taking a swig. "That's for my dead homies," he said.Remembering someone who died--okay, that's makes sense. But the circumstances that the article describes are just overwhelming: "Jose Sanchez -- he was shot three months ago, gang related. He was 18, " Dolendo said.Now, I understand why some people look at the murder problem in the ghetto and say, "We need gun control." But that's missing the core problem. Why would anyone murder a two year old over a PlayStation? I'm sure that wasn't done with a gun. Asking Poor Questions Gives Poor Results The Washington Post is reporting: A majority of likely voters says the country is headed in the wrong direction, but these Americans remain sharply divided whether President Bush or Democratic challenger John F. Kerry is the best choice to lead the country over the next four years, according to a Washington Post tracking poll.Yet while acknowledging that generally Bush supporters and Republicans think we are headed the right direction, at least some significant fraction of people who say we are going the wrong direction are voting for Bush. Why? I can think of several explanations. The obvious one (and probably wrong) is that many of the "wrong direction" crowd don't know that Bush is President, or don't blame Bush for this "wrong direction." Another explanation, however, is that the question is poorly written. If you ask me if America is going the "wrong direction," I would say, yes, definitely--and that's why I am voting f |
