This really pisses me off. The President on extending the Bush-era tax cuts to everyone, including the "wealthy."

"When they expire in two years, I will fight to end them," Obama said. "Just as I suspect the Republican Party may fight to end the middle-class tax cuts that I've championed and that they've opposed."

What a fucking scumbag. Maybe this is part of his new "charm offensive" to woo Republican committee chairmen.

It's certainly a continuation of the liberal scaremongering that extending the tax cuts for everyone somehow takes food out of the mouths of starving (?) middle class Americans. I can't find it now, but last week I saw some graphs circulating that put the Bush tax cuts for those earning less than $250 thousand on the Democratic side of the ledger and the tax cuts for those earning more than $250 thousand on the Republican side of the ledger, to demonstrate "who got what" out of the tax compromise.

The truth, of course, is that the "middle class" cuts have always been part of the Republican proposal.

Democrats excel at "framing" issues in such a way as to obscure the truth. They have to be good at this because most of the time their proposals are so awful, if people knew what they were really about, they'd freak. This is no different. Let's "unframe" what the Democrats want when it comes to the Bush tax cuts: "We want to raise taxes."

And when Obama brought that ridiculous proposal to raise taxes -- absurd in good times, but particularly laughable in this economy, when the proposal would most affect those likeliest to create jobs -- to Republicans and asked to make a deal, Republicans rightly said: "FY, NQ."

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 03:48 PM | Comments (191)
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Joe Miller has appealed his spelling and fraud lawsuit to the Alaska Supreme Court on an expedited basis. It will hear argument in the case on Friday.

Miller and his attorneys argued that the law calls for write-in ballots to have the ballot oval filled and either the candidate's last name or the name as it appears on the declaration of candidacy written. Spelling, they contended, matters.

Judge William Carey disagreed, saying that if the Legislature intended for a candidate's name to be spelled perfectly to count, the law would have stated that. Miller's campaign said the ruling "essentially modifies state law."

Carey also dismissed as unfounded questions raised by Miller about voting irregularities.

Miller is also asking for a hand recount of the non-write in ballots, since, after all, the write-in ballots got counted by hand. The Division of Elections has countered that state law does not provide for hand recounts, but instead requires machine recounts.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 03:14 PM | Comments (59)
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Like President Clinton needed this now.

The lawÂ’s never been popular, with support peaking at just 48 percent in November 2009. Today itÂ’s slipped to 43 percent, numerically its lowest in ABC/Post polling. (It was about the same, 44 percent, a year ago.) Fifty-two percent are opposed, and that 9-point gap in favor of opposition is its largest on record since the latest debate over health care reform began in earnest in summer 2009.

More also continue to “strongly” oppose the law than to strongly support it, 37 percent to 22 percent.

This point is now well past its expiration date, but I wanted to note this for a while, so I'll do it now.

Liberals and the media (but I repeat myself) used to console themselves that many elements of ObamaCare polled well. Covering kids under 26? That has 58% support! No pre-existing condition exclusion? 62% support! The public option? 65% support! (I'm making up these numbers but, ballpark.)

So, they reasoned, the bill as a whole must be/should be popular, if only it were explained properly. They just ignored the polls showing a majority opposed to the bill in its entirety as due to an ill-informed public.

They trusted that when the public finally got the find out what was in the bill -- as Nancy Pelosi famously noted she couldn't wait to do herself -- they'd come on board.

But that sort of thinking was flawed from the start because the poll questions relied on by liberals were all benefits of the bill -- without mention of the necessary costs of the individual mandate, rationed health care, increased premiums, etc.

I could get similar poll results if I ask if people are in favor of personally owing a hooker's-lipstick-red Ferrari. I'd get 71% majorities in favor of that idea. Including 63% majorities in favor of owning a car that could do 0-to-60 in 5.2 seconds and 72% majorities in favor of owning a car that increases your odds of getting handjobs from strangers by 25%.

So -- ergo, 71% of the public must either own a Ferrari or be making immediate plans to purchase one, right?

No, of course not. None of my poll questions asked if the respondents were so enamored of those things that they'd be willing to pay $80,000 for the car. I asked only if people would like those things; I didn't bother asking if they would also like paying for those things.

If I asked about cost, I'd get numbers closer to the actual percentage of the public owning a Ferarri. And that's the only sensible way to ask the question. Simply asking people if they want a hot red Italian sportscar is utterly pointless. The only measure that matters is how many people want to trade one thing (a pile of money) for that other thing.

This is exactly what the liberals and media did, both attempting to sway public opinion via the bandwagon effect, and also deceiving themselves that an unpopular bill was really popular in its particulars.

They asked if people were generally in favor of 8-cylinder hot rods. They found, to no one's great surprise, that as a general matter, sure, the public was in favor of such things. They didn't bother to ask if they were willing to pay the costs involved before imposing those costs, by fiat, on the entire country.

Whoops, Meant To Say... One poll question did in fact ask about costs -- namely, the big question on ObamaCare as a whole, the one that implicitly asked about both the gimmes of ObamaCare as well as the take-ies. The public kept expressing its disapproval of ObamaCare when costs were included, every time it was questioned about it, and the liberals/media enablers kept ignoring them, or accusing them of being stupid, racist, or ill-informed.

Posted by: Ace at 01:21 PM | Comments (111)
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Usually considered to have some RINOish tendencies, he also has a lot of offsetting sympathy for having lost the election recount to Al Franken.

Is he a good pick? Or still too RINO?

He wouldn't be the favorite, though:

The vote, to be held next month during the RNCÂ’s winter meeting, is a quirky, unpredictable process. But insiders say the heavy favorite in the race is Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican Party of Wisconsin, who is backed by Henry Barbour, nephew of Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour.

Here's a little background on Priebus' announcement that he's seeking the job, from last week. The WI GOP has been on a hot streak, and he's got testimonials from incoming Senator Johnson and incoming governor Walker, as well as Paul Ryan.

Posted by: Ace at 01:02 PM | Comments (72)
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Above The Post Update:
The vote is still going on (and will for another hour) but the bill already has 60 votes, so the rest is just bookkeeping at this point. Once they finish up this cloture vote, they can move on to final passage, which is just a formality.

Original Post:
Harry Reid is giving the Senate a break from important stuff like DADT and the DREAM Act to give the Senate a chance to prevent a massive tax hike. Sporting of him, isn't it? The vote just started but it will last for over two and a half hours to give Senators a chance to get back into town.

House Democrats, for all their bitching and moaning have been exposed as empty suits as their leader on the Budget Committee over the weekend announced they'd reluctantly pass the package.

Opinion has been divided on the conservative side over whether or not to support the deal. Most famously, Charles Krauthammer came out swinging against it. I think he's wrong simply for the fact that adopting the left's arguments that tax cuts or in this case, not raising taxes, "costs" the federal government is ceding way too much ground.

Keith Hennessey, Director of the National Economic Council under George W. Bush gives the deal a qualified thumbs up.

LetÂ’s look at where the deficit increases in this bill come from.

All figures are from CBO and JCT, are relative to current law and are 10-year totals:

* Prevent income tax rate increases ($408 B)
* Prevent AMT increase next year ($137 B)
* Prevent estate tax from returning to $1M exemption and 55% rate in 2011 ($68 B)
* 2% payroll tax holiday ($226 B)
* Temporarily extend business expensing provisions ($22 B)
* Extend unemployment insurance ($57 B) and
* Grab bag of tax “extenders” ($55 B).

I think I just have different policy preferences than Mr. Limbaugh on this one.

I strongly support $613 B of the above policies – the first three.

While the bill would be better without these (or with the unemployment benefits offset), IÂ’m happy to accept the following policies in a package:

* the half of the 2% payroll tax holiday thatÂ’s actually a tax cut, which increases the deficit by $112 B;
* extending unemployment insurance, for $57 B;
* extending the business expensing provisions for $22 B.

I’d prefer to drop the business expensing provisions ($22 B), and the other half (the “refundable” part that is just an entitlement payment in disguise) of the payroll tax provision ($114 B), and I could easily cut the tax extenders at least in half if you let me ($28 B).

If I tally “things I really like” and “things I can accept” and compare them to “things I don’t like,” the numbers look good to me. Not great, mind you, but good. And for a divided government this looks to me like a great deal.

There's a more point by point rebuttal to the conservative critique of the deal at the link.

One part of the equation I think Hennessey leaves out is a lot of the stuff he (and most conservatives don't like) were going to pass anyway. The Republicans have caved several times in the last two years on deficit spending for unemployment insurance, there's no reason to think they wouldn't have again, especially less than two weeks before Christmas.

Also, if Conservatives don't like that it's a temporary cut and not a permanent one, I really need it explained to me how Republicans were supposed to get a better deal out of Democratic Congress and President than they were able to get 10 years ago with a Republican Congress and President. The math there is a bit fuzzy to me.

On the politics of it, I have to say this is a big loss for Obama. He can go on all he wants about having a discussion and fight over these cuts for the next two years but that's pretty hollow. He's spent the last 4 years (2 campaigning, 2 as POTUS) saying the upper end cuts have to go. Remember the whole "if you make less than 200K you won't pay a dime more in taxes" and if you make more than that the rates will only go back to the Clinton Era rates? Well, he lost that fight. Even Clinton himself supports staying at current rates (at least for low and mid level earners) rather than go back to the levels they were under him.

If Obama wants to run for reelection on raising taxes, a position that has already been rejected, he's welcome to it.

Stray thought: If you went to Vegas this time last year and bet that the two biggest legislative 'achievements' of Congressional Democrats and Obama would be the combination passing "health care reform" and extending the "Bush tax cuts", you would have won a ton of money.

That was not a combination I think a lot of people expected.

Another thought: How stimulative is this plan going to be? Will it ensure Obama's reelection because it will save the economy? I doubt it will have much impact on either the economy or Obama's reelection prospects. Most of this deal involves doing exactly what we've been doing all along. We aren't cutting taxes here, just defensively not raising them. At best, it means things might not get worse.

Posted by: DrewM at 12:49 PM | Comments (104)
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The city's not just a horrifying pit, but it's a depopulating horrifying pint; plans have been put into motion to essentially remake entire neighborhoods into farmland. There are so many deserted homes in Detroit, they figure it makes sense to collapse the size of the city. The idea is to increase the density and vibrancy of the remaining parts of the city, which then becomes smaller as a whole and therefore more manageable and less costly to power and police.

Not a great option, but what do you do with a dying city?

This article suggests that Detroit's new plan of cutting police, power, and garbage collection in a full 20% of the city is just a cost-saving move, but it seems to me like like it's part of the plan to cull the city into something smaller.

It's a weird idea, isn't it? They're basically just saying that 20% of what used to be the city will now just be Thunderdome.

Posted by: Ace at 12:13 PM | Comments (227)
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Who knows with these guys. I don't think anyone can tell if they just make threats because they've learned that threats work, or if they really mean it, or if the regime is so insecure they fell compelled to issue these threats to save face and, if the latter, if they'll feel equally compelled to carry through on them.

Bluster? Or are we on the edge of a nuclear war on the Korean peninsula?

Keep in mind that North Korea's status as a nuclear-armed state is debatable; it's big test of a bomb seemed to be a partial failure, as it generated a blast greater than possible for conventional explosives, but much smaller than a full nuclear blast. A "fizzle," some have said, but still a powerful enough weapon to destroy most of a city.

An even bigger question is what Obama's response would be to an attempted (or successful) nuclear bombing. The proper response is a nuclear one, to lay down the law that if you blow up a nuke, you can expect the same fate visited upon you. Any other response encourages nuclear arms as they would have no downside whatsoever.

But that won't happen. President Prissypants will not be the second American President to order a nuclear strike on an enemy country.

Question: I tried to find the answer to this, but can't.

I know -- or believe -- that while Germany doesn't have nukes, during the Cold War, the idea was to put a number of nukes under West German control in the event of invasion by Russia. The idea being that maybe the US wouldn't have the guts to start a nuclear war on behalf of Germany, but Germany certainly would. Thus increasing the credibility of our deterrent -- maybe you don't think we've got the stones to nuke you, but the Germans whose country you're overrunning would.

I don't know if we have a similar relationship with the South Koreans. I doubt we do, but I'll ask the readers -- do we? Is there some protocol to put some nukes under South Korean control in the event of a North Korean invasion? I'm thinking we don't because we seem to not trust them with nukes as a general matter.

Posted by: Ace at 11:55 AM | Comments (117)
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Someone took a lot of time to put together an unofficial alternate ending to the coming-soon Yogi Bear movie. Thanks to slublog.

Parody: The Yogi death scene is modeled on The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford.

Posted by: Ace at 11:40 AM | Comments (36)
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This is a hoax, of course, or some viral marketing for something or other, but this brief YouTube video is so effective at giving the creeps I figured I should link it.

Partly, I guess, it gave the me the creeps because I figured it was one of those shock videos where all of a sudden Demonic Linda Blair is going to scream at me, so I kept pushing the computer away, ready to flinch. It's not that, but still, it's creepy. Sort of the Blair Witch horror aesthetic -- just cheap minimalism and a scary picture.

Hey, they did this with one photo-shopped image, a little bit of text, and some creepy music they found online. Not bad.

Thanks to rdbrewer.

Viral Video for... A Hunter Camera? I note the "Wildgame" logo is prominent in the bottom left hand corner of the picture.

Posted by: Ace at 10:32 AM | Comments (81)
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A conference call with supporters.

Fox News has confirmed Steele sent an e-mail to committee members Saturday night with the subject line, “conference call.”

In the note, he asked members to join him "for a private conference call" Monday evening.

It's a good move, assuming it's true. Steele's RNC overspent and also lost the confidence of donors, winding up so cash-poor they couldn't even mount the traditional, critical 72-hours-before-the-election get out the vote campaign properly, and had to resort to less-effective but much cheaper initiatives like their call 40 friends program.

That's a good program, and should be continued, but it can't take the place of traditional face-to-face, door-to-door GOTV efforts. Our lack of a ground game probably cost us 5 seats and who knows, maybe a close Senate race too.

Steele had a good basic idea of outreach to independents to bring them into the GOP fold, and there's nothing necessarily wrong with his decision to make himself the chief spokesman for these efforts. But his message strategy was all wrong, and he wound up alienating conservatives in his effort to win over independents -- rather than push central conservative ideology in attractive new arguments, he often accepted the criticism of conservatism as a method to demonstrate his own reasonableness as a spokesman and thus draw in independents.

Calling Rush Limbaugh "just an entertainer" was a formulation, for example, that might please independents, but certainly it angered conservatives, 80% of whom are fans of Rush and certainly don't think he's just an entertainer.

Later, this time I think trying to win over both independents and disaffected Tea Party conservatives, he conceded that the GOP wasn't ready to govern-- a strange statement to make 6 or 9 months out from an important midterm election.

The problem was that Michael Steele may have been building up his personal credibility with independents or disaffected conservatives, but the way he was doing that was to concede that the GOP was badly flawed -- so even as he may have increased his own credibility, he reduced the GOP's itself, and the latter, of course, is really far more important.

The leader of a party apparatus might sound rather robotic in repeating mantra and doctrine, but that is what the job requires. A leader of a fractious organization can't spend so much of his time talking about how bad the organization is, at least not publicly. That sort of public criticism of an organization/movement, is the ambit of outsiders, not the ultimate insider, the top official of and national spokesman for the party apparatus.

Michael Steele set out to be a more-interesting-and-unpredictable-than-usual GOP head. His goal was wrongheaded from the start. A leader might make unexpected and surprising arguments -- that's a good thing, always -- but the head of the RNC should be perfectly predictable and downright boring in the conclusions he comes to.

Posted by: Ace at 10:24 AM | Comments (41)
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