‘Rats Propose Fifty-four Percent Tax Increase

I paid $3.99 to gas up this morning, a bargain at recent prices, but still highway robbery.   However rather than woking to lessen the pain at the pump, democrats want to increase the pain.   Congressional democrates are propossing a whopping fifty-four percent increase in the federal gas tax, Fox News:

WASHINGTON – The political vision of a summer gas tax holiday died a quick death in Congress, losing to a view that federal excise taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel – far from dropping – will have to go up if they go anywhere.

Despite calls from the presidential campaign trail for a Memorial Day-to-Labor Day tax freeze, lawmakers quickly concluded – with a prod from the construction industry – that having $9 billion less to spend on highways could create a pre-election specter of thousands of lost jobs

As usual, democrats are more worried about big labor, and their campaign contribution, than they are with the American driver.

Jay, Stop the ACLU, has an apt description:

Unbelivable stupidity!

I gotta disagree.  It is very easy to  believe any party which would elect Mrs. Pelosi Speaker is utterly stupid.

As I told you would happen, the WordPress folks released version 2.6.

This actually happened a few days ago.

I’ve got it up and running, and it looks fine so far.

I must say the guy  doing the ayuo-upgrade software has just about earned a nice check from me; this time it went almost flawlessly.

Over at OTB, James notes a pattern I started taking note of last night:

The Outrage of the Day comes to us from Josh Marshall, a pretty even keeled fellow.   John McCain said this to reporters.

“I believe that either today or tomorrow — and I’m not privy to his schedule — Sen. Obama will be landing in Iraq with some other senators” who make up a congressional delegation, McCain told a campaign fund-raising luncheon.

Says Josh, “[I]f Obama is going to be in Iraq this weekend, this is a major breach on McCain’s part.”  Why?  Because operational security (OPSEC) for VIPs traveling to dangerous areas involves blurring the details of trips so as to make it harder for the bad guys to do them harm.  Josh concedes, “Hypothetically, maybe McCain was just guessing.”  He continues, ” But even so it would still be a serious lapse of judgment on his part.”

Hilary Bok agrees and goes further:

This is not just another screwup from McCain. It is very, very serious. There are things you are just Not Supposed To Talk About. This is one of them. If McCain doesn’t have the common sense, the decency, and the discipline not to talk about them, that’s a very serious problem. Since I’m not willing to assume he did this out of malice, I have to conclude that he just let this slip. But if he were President, we would need to count on him not to let things like this slip. Apparently, we can’t. And that’s a very big deal.

I thought Obama was so very popular that none of the people in question would want to kill him. Is this a tacit admission on the part of these leftists that there are still threats to be dealt with in region that talking won’t solve? Amazing how these little snippets of truth leak out.

• CW holds that when the economy is down, movie houses don’t do well. So why’d we have the biggest weekend ever at the movies last weekend? Something isn’t quite up to what the Democrats and their MSM minions are advertising.
• Yet another Obama gaff, and one the MSM will never report: “The bomb that fell on Pearl Harbor”?  That was the one the Germans dropped, right? Someone get Brother Bluto on the phone.  How can we not elect someone with this ummmm unique sense of history, to the office of POTUS? Sheesh.
• Andy Dick and drugs? Hmmmmm….  And pulling her top down to have a look? The ‘vcitim’ was ‘ traumatized ‘? More likely, she was annoyed because she didn’t get paid and saw an opportunity to cash in. I mean I’m not defending Dick, here, whose antics in the past have labeled him as… well… a dick… but comon, gang… this is LA we’re talking about, here. 17 year old street walkers and 17 year old groupies, are less rare than some would have you thinking.
• It’s true, Billy. I’d also suggest looking at what Churchill had to say about our Muslim brethren.
• Oh, speaking of Billy, I wrote yesterday about the storm he caught day before yesterday, AND yesterday. Turns out that storm yesterday really screwed things up in Naples, NY, too.. something on the oder of 2000 customers were on candle power as a result of the one I spoke of in yesterday’s Ramble.
• Finally, to Billy a comment;  Yes, Den Beste may get the relationship of Religion to simple delusion wrong. But, by God he’s got the rest of it right, pardon the pun.
• And while I’m thinking along those lines, let me state this flatly;There is no climate crisis, people. None. You’re being scammed. Here’s the numbers. Turns out the UN inflated the CO2 numbers on the order of 2000%  This is what happens when scammers gain the power of government.  John Tierney at the New York Times wonders why Al Gore is hurting his cause with Junk Science. The answer is one he won’t be happy with; It’s because the very basis of the global warming scare can be found in lesser amounts on any stable floor.  It’s total crap. The one thing driving Gore is his own profit and power. It doesn’t hurt Gore’s purposes that there’s a googly number of insufferable pantloads willing to go to bat for him. But the facts are there, and there’s only one conclusion to draw; the faster we get Gore and the AGW nonsense on the ash heap of history, the better mankind will be for it.
• The price of oil is in an extended fall, just as I told you it would be… and WHEN I told you it would be.
• Speaking of oil prices and so on… here’s the Irony of the Day…. I see the plant that makes the Prius out in the bay area is shutting down. They’re moving it all to Missisippi. Why? In the end it comes down to one thing; Less liberalism.
• Chuck notes the rebuilding of Iraq
• The gloom and doom surrounding banks may not be as bad as the left would ike us to beleive.
• Remember those JibJab folks? They did it again.
• Tony Snow’s funeral was yesterday. I’ve not said much about his death, preferring to sit back and watch developments, save for mentioning the left doing their usual class act.  I’m going to tell you something, though, that you may not have considered; Tony Snow and his very Reaganesque attitude on life in general,  and his ability to transmit that attitude to his viewers, was one of the biggest reasons Fox News made the bigtime.  You watch the other folks on Fox; the next several months; the ones who most closely emulated Tony in this, or at least shared his attitudes on things… and his ability to impart that attitude… are the ones who draw the largest followings.
• This is going to be an interesting august if Denver is half as fun as what the billing makes it.
• So, the government thinks Tomatoes are OKagain? Gee, that’s very reassuring, particularly since they’ve still not ID’d the original cause of the problem.Almost as if actual thought wasn’t part of the process.  They saying now it’s the peppers. Well, yeah… I mean, didn’t anyone notice that Italian food wasn’t affected, but rather the Taco Bells and such?
•  More doping charges in theTour de France.
• And finally, this week, we see where Hillary Clinton has gone to GoDaddy and snapped up HRC2012.com. The implications here are both expected and interesting. James has this one.

Have a great weekend.

Hume:

On his upcoming overseas trip, Barack Obama will be met along the way by the anchors of the three network evening newscasts. About 200 other journalists have also asked to join Obama during his trip.

But Howard Kurtz of The Washington Post reports that John McCain has taken three foreign trips in the past four months — all unaccompanied by a single network anchor and with little fanfare.
The Tyndall Report, which monitors news coverage, says that since June the nightly newscasts on the three networks spent a combined 114 minutes covering Obama while devoting just 48 minutes to McCain.

Is there any doubt remaining  in anyone’s mind of press bias?

I have said it before and I say it again. Anthropogenic global warming is a hoax. The proof is that no person who seriously believed that the use of carbon based energy was causing catastrophic climate change would be a total energy slut. Yet the chief and self anointed spokesman for global climate change, Al Gore, is an energy slut, video: 

[wp_youtube]ESxvY1tQHTo[/wp_youtube]

Until such time as Gore takes his own message seriously, there is no reason to believe Gore’s doom and gloom fairy tale.

Memo to Steve Benen, Carpet Bagger Report, when Gore talks about ambitous plans to cut energy consumption, he talking about other people.   Gore may want you to cut back on the energy you use.   He sees no need to cut back on the energy he uses.   Those are two Lincoln Towncars, and not bicycles, by which Gore had himself transported to his climate speech.   Then as Leona Helmsley might say, “Sweating if for the little people.”

Hat tip and more Jay Tea, Wizbang, “Limosine Liberals” :

I’ll believe there’s a crisis when those who say it’s a crisis behave as if it’s a crisis

Judging by Gore’s girth, it would behoove him to ride a bicycle, a lot.\

Addendum:

Added photo.  Hat photo and more, Michelle:

Addendum ][:( Bit) I’ll be touching on this in tonight’s Ramble.

Interesting. When you’re a total failure as house speaker, what do you do? You call the President a total failure. CNN:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called President Bush “a total failure” on Thursday, among the California Democrat’s harshest assessments to date of the president.

Quick translation: The woman is getting frantic and panicky.

But Pelosi’s comments come as a new Gallup poll registers the lowest level of congressional approval among Americans in the polling organization’s 30-year history of conducting that survey.

That poll showed that its approval rating had reached an anemic 14 percent, while more than 70 percent of those polled said they disapproved of the job Congress is doing.

I repeat our call:

Pelosi… Wrong on Iraq, wrong on the economy, wrong on energy. The woman needs to go.

Now.

BO complains to Glamour magazine about the media treatment of his missus:

SENATOR OBAMA: It’s infuriating, but it’s not surprising, because let’s face it: What happened was that the conservative press—Fox News and the National Review and columnists of every ilk—went fairly deliberately at her in a pretty systematic way…and treated her as the candidate in a way that you just rarely see the Democrats try to do against Republicans. And I’ve said this before: I would never have my campaign engage in a concerted effort to make Cindy McCain an issue, and I would not expect the Democratic National Committee or people who were allied with me to do it. Because essentially, spouses are civilians.

Carol Platt Liebau, Townhall tries to explain the facts of poliical liife to BO:

As long as Michelle Obama campaigns and acts as a surrogate on the trail — not to mention providing interviews to kissy-kissy outlets like Entertainment Tonight and Access Hollywood — she is fodder for commentary and, yes, even criticism.  Properly so

Mean while, as Amanda Carpender, Townhall, reports, BO’s hired stooge, Jamal Simmons, is attacking Mrs. McCain.  Simmons is DNC employee and the DNC is subsidiary of the Obama campaign.

Like B.J. Clinton, BO says one thing, while he does another.   With the Clintons it was the politicals of personal destruction.   They disavowed it while they practiced it.   

Unlike B.J. Clinton, BO is not even waiting to get elected before he starts breaking his campaign promises.   If BO won’t keep his promise not to attack the canidate’s family, there no reason to expect him to keep any other campaign promise he may happen to make.

Addendum:

More, Michelle:

Yep, he’s whining to Glamour magazine-the print equivalent of, oh, Access Hollywood, about us meanies who listen to his bitter half on the campaign trail and hold her accountable for her public statements.

Curses on us!

Gee, maybe we were mistaken when we thought BO sent his missus out to campaign for him because he wanted us to listen to her and respect her as woman of substance.  So sorry.

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• Oil is down again… third straight day this has happened…. another $4  That’s about $15/bbl… on the hope that Congress will get out of the way of drilling. And remember, gang, I told you this would start happening about midsummer.
•  Pelosi meanwhile is being stupid. For the record, gang, I added nothing to DavidL saying we look for Pelosi’s removal  from office, because I agree with it.  the woman needs to leave. Now.
• So, Obama plans to rid the world of all known diseases all Nuclear weapons. I guess it would take a Messiah to put that particular genie back in the bottle, huh? And what Democrat since FDR has NOT made such a pledge at some point during his election? We see how well it’s worked previously, once exposed to reality. (OK, yes, hat was a nod to Monty Python)
• I see housing starts are up. Gee,  nobody saw that one coming, huh?
• Obama says “Debate ME not Michelle”. Fine. Mr Obama, when are you going to toss your wife under the bus?
• Speaking of Obama, we’ve been hearing all day about his $52m haul last month. What a lot of the reports don’t tell you is that $52m is short of what they projected,and well under what he’s been spending.  In short, Obama is in money trouble. Funny how the press hasn’t been sayng much about this.
• This stuff about Jackson keeps trickling out. Just release the damned tape and get it out in the open. One gets the impression this stuff is being managed for a reason that doesn’t involve Fox.
• Israel will always end up on the fuzzy end of these sticks. The reason is simply enough, they’re trying to appear accommodating.  After a while, reasonable people would say ‘no deals’, and simply bomb the crap out of the Palastinians, who are using these negotiations to obtain what they cannot on the filed of a battle they started, and using them as they would any other weapon; against their enemy.
• Billy writes today of a storm that went through his neck of the woods yesterday and blewdown a much of stuff including a buddy’s barn.  Today, I get a note from my wife: They just interrupted the radio broadcast with emergency info – “move indoors immediately”.  60 mph winds, penny size hail, severe t-storm warning until 10:15.”. I watched the radar as that storm, that lit up around Niagara Falls, and went over us here, went south and sat over I81 from about Tully south to Billy’s neck of the woords. Two days now, he’s had that stuff going on. Another little cell lit up over Corning and Elmira while this was going on. All with the same stuff; Hail, 60mph winds, dogs and cats living together, etc. Twice in two days. Last I saw of the storm at about 4p eastern it was headed at NY City, and a bucnh of freinds have showed up on the same front, heading south and west toward the Jersey Shore.
• Glenn says: “Quite a few people need to be reminded of the importance of a free economy.”, and that’s true enough. But perhaps of greater import, we need to reinforce what constitutes a free economy. What we see now in energy, for example, where every possible thing that can be regulated or taxed, is, from dead dino to fuel tank, has no connection whatever to a free market at any stage of the game.
• Powerline nails it: Democrats aren’t opposed to drilling, unless where they’re drilling has oil.

Glenn Reynods and Brannon Denning, on Heller

The Supreme Court has released its long-awaited opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller,[1] and the buzz has been considerable. Though much has been made of the majority’s historic ruling and of the narrowness of that majority, many commentators have missed an important point. What Heller is most notable for is its complete and unanimous rejection of the “collective rights” interpretation that for nearly seventy years held sway with pundits, academics, and—most significantly—lower courts.

The repudiation of this extensive body of case law[2] suggests that the real test of Heller will occur once the lower courts, traditionally hostile to an individual rights interpretation of the Second Amendment, face the inevitable follow-up cases challenging other restrictive gun laws. Experience with other seemingly groundbreaking Supreme Court decisions in recent years, such as United States v. Lopez, suggests that lower-court foot-dragging may limit Heller’s reach, though this time around there will likely be considerably more scrutiny and more vigorous litigation efforts.

If the lower courts present a challenge to the implementation of Heller, they also provide litigants with an opportunity. Given the fact that the Heller majority declined to give a detailed accounting of the proper standard of review to be used in subsequent Second Amendment cases, litigants have a rare opportunity to write on a tabula much more rasa than is ordinarily the case in constitutional litigation, making use of recent scholarship on the crafting of constitutional decision rules that implement constitutional provisions.

In the pages that follow, we take a look at these aspects of Heller. The triumph of the Standard Model of the Second Amendment is examined in Part I. Part II asks whether Heller is merely the opening volley in the coming judicialization of the gun control debate, or whether like the Court’s attempt to rein in congressional power under the Commerce Clause, Heller will ultimately be seen as largely symbolic. Finally, in Part III, we discuss the possibility that recent scholarship on constitutional doctrine might play a role in separating permissible from impermissible gun controls post-Heller.

It’s worth a read, but prepare to spend a little time with it.

My own read (Now that I’ve actually had the chance to read the ruling) is that the court, in this case, was no freind to gun rights with this one. Or, individual rights, in general, for that matter. Granted, that the court did strike down DC’s ban on handguns, but in not specifying where, exactly, the border lies between constitutional and unconstitutional, what we have here is ammunition for the Gun Grabbers who will doubtless be hauling these questions through the lower courts all over again. Quite a boon to the lawyers, certainly, but not to individual freedom.

In my view, this ruling does reinforce the concept of the need of a conservative in the White House. Perhaps just as importantly, however, does it point to the need for less in the way of Senate Liberals, who after all, the White House has to get it’s Surpeme Cout Nominees by. this because for all the fighting and namecalling and so on that goes on during the confirmation process, those who are nominated, are nominated by Republican Presidents because they’re conservatiuve, but more for their ability to get by the Senate. As such instead of real conservatives such as Scalia, we end up with more centrists like Arthur Kennedy, who at best slow the growth of liberalism somewhat, rather than reverse it…. and reversing it is decidedly what is needed.

Michelle says:
 

.Geez, I thought that the two Texas dunces who protested the phrase “black holes” had won the grievance-mongering morons of the year award.

They’ve got competition.

Enter Myrlie Evers-Williams, NAACP official and widow of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers. She is decrying the New Yorker cartoon of the Obamas as a “lynching.” Hey, never mind that it’s the critics of Obama who are the subject of the cartoon’s “lynching.” Evers-Williams’ cartoon comprehension score: F-. Some people to need to be kept away from the microphone.

For crying out loud:

An NAACP leader, who saw her husband killed decades ago for his civil rights work, said Tuesday that presidential candidate Barack Obama and his wife, Michele, are undergoing “political lynching” in the media.

 

This just goes to show what I’ve been saying for years, folks; Such comments all become knee-jerk after a while. You tend to go with your strengths, after all. Evers-Williams has been crying ‘lynching’ so long for two reasons; Initially, it was an effectve guilt amplifyer, aiding her and her late husband to get their way. And secondly, she doesn’t know any other way to express herself. She’s pragmatic, that way. No real thought process involved.  Between those two situations, the only response to any opposition to what an ostenibly black man’s politics is that it’s a ‘political lynching’.  It’s far easier, after all to defend yourwelf with a tool of guilt for your opposition, than it is to actually look at the issues involved. 

One gets the impression that were Evers-Williams to actually try to address the differences on the issues, between Obama and anyone else, she’d come up far short. The logical conclusion to draw here, is that she’s fallen back on this shop-worn defense, because she knows she really cannot defend him any other way.

We have a national energy problem and she is pictured to the left.   Mrs. Pelosi has gone from being pig-headed to dangerous, Investor’s Business Daily:

Any leader with an energy record as derelict as Speaker Pelosi’s ought to step down. Where she once was just incompetent and irresponsible, she has now — with her latest scheme to fix oil prices — become dangerous.

Despite polls showing Americans in favor of drilling more oil from America’s huge untapped supplies, Pelosi won’t allow it. She just wants to empty our Strategic Petroleum Reserve for a short-term fix to get through Election Day

BitsBlog seconds IBD call for Mrs. Pelosi’s resignation, from Congress.

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Omar Khadr is a guest of the US taxpayer at Club Gitmo.   HIs lawyers have released a tape of Khadr crying, “Ya Umi”  which is “Oh Mommy” in Arabic.  Khadr’d lawyers hope to use the tape to win sympathy for Khadr’s release.

Layne Morris, United States Army (retired) offers no sympathy for Khadr.  Morris was blinded by Khadr.

Khadr’s lawyers want him released due to his age, fifteen, at the time of his arrest.

This strikes me a Menendez brothers defense, pleading for mercy because they were orphans.

So what do we know?

Khadr is an enemy combatent, captured on the batttlefield.   If Khadr was old enough to freely throw a grenade at American Fighting Men, he is old enough to take his lumps like a soldier.   Khadr’s age at the time is not relevant.

That Khadr fought as soldier and must take his punishement as a soldier, does not mean that he is a good soldier.   Hint good soldiers don’t cry out for Mommy.

That al Qaeda was taken to recruiting and fielding such babes in arms damns al Qaeda.   Khadr’s shame falls not on the military which captured him, but rather on the military, al Qaeda, which recruited and fielded  him.

I would call Khadr an embrassment to his uniform, but alas al Qaeda does not have uniforms.

I would not put too much heed into Khadr’s words.  He is a liar:

Peeling off his orange prisoner shirt, he shows the wounds and complains he cannot move his arms, saying he has not received proper medical attention, despite requests.

It is rather impossible to peel off your shirt, if you can’t move your arms.

Source.

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My syndicated column today looks at Barack Obama’s dopey, dangerous views on ending jihad with “understanding.” He shouldn’t be protesting cartoons. He is a walking, talking cartoon

Michelle Malkin. 

I disagree a bit with Michelle.   Morons are not capable of being educated.  On the other hand, those in the public arena can be used for sport.

• Apparently, anti-war protestors have worn out their welcome in Canada. Remember, I’m within earshot of most of eastern Canada, and I’ll tell you the big concern is the amount of money such people won’t be paying for healthcare services, which are already in short supply up there.
• I see AOL finally served a purpose. Now, if we can just get penis enhancement ads out of my Mom’s mailbox…
• An unusually strong reaction form the WaPo yesterday, to Obama’s statements about Iraq. It doesn’t quote well, so I’ll just have you read it.
• How to hide the homeless during the Democrat party convention?
• When asked why he hasn’t been telling Americans to drive less and so on, Bush had the proper response.  Question; Where the hell has this Bush been and why have we been sadled with the other one for so long?
• Speaking of oil prices and such, I caught some hell in the feedback the other day for saying we are not in a resession.  Turns out the Fed agrees. Yes, there may well be one on the horizon. But it’s not here yet.  That said, I suggest the whole thing can be averted by congress committing to drilling domestically…. NOW, since the vast majority of the problems currently have to do with the artificially high price of oil.
• And a random thought;  How about using old Military installations for refining purposes? They’re usually big enough, and being federal land, they’re also beyond the ability of local zoning boards to NIMBY. Be kinda nice having such places working for our security, again.
• Hume says he’s stepping down as of the end of the year. There’s a fair amount of reax, inclduing the knuckle-dragging crowd at “Think Progress”.  Classy bucnh that.  Without the C. Have they forgotten that Rather’s a short timer?
• VW has a new plant going up in Tennesee. Apparently they’re not overly worried about gas shortages
• If you can’t get ’em to agree with you, try to silence them with the power of government… typical leftist ploy
• Any Railfan will tell you the same thing, Billy.
• Jon Stewart, who I usually have no use for at all, flirted with the snark of the day with “Obama is not upset about the cartoon that calls him a Muslim extremist. Who gets upset about cartoons? Muslim extremists.” Sorry, no link. Came in the mail.

¼/p>