A Breitbart-Type Reward Offered

Posted on May 14, 2012 by Thomas Thurlow

Recall that in March, 2010, when the Obamacare battle was raging, following a walk through a Tea Party rally outside the Capitol, black congressional leaders John Lewis and Emanuel Cleaver accused the Tea Party protesters there of spitting on them and calling them the “n-word.”  Media outlets ran with it, but then Andrew Breitbart promised a $100,000 reward to the NAACP if anyone can show a video confirming the charge.  The $100,000 was never paid.

You would think that, with the marvels of modern technology, someone would at least try to fake a video of some tea partiers yelling the n-word, but there have been no takers.

This was the event that put Andrew Breitbart on the map for me and probably for many conservatives.  If ever a media outlet repeated the charge made by Lewis and Cleaver, a fair follow-up question would be whether the charge was ever confirmed, and why the $100,000 Breitbart reward was never collected.

Even without such a question, the nagging suspicion remained in the minds of all news consumers.  After all, is the reporting of the news really reporting the objective facts as they really happened, or is it just a series of accusations of one group on another?  A $100,000 reward to confirm a media narrative that went uncollected is a big stain on the credibility of any media outlet that reported this charge as fact.

Anyway, in recent online debates I have had with liberals, I have heard that you cannot compare the deficits under Presidents Bush and Obama because President Bush did not include the costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars in his deficits, whereas President Obama did.  President Obama does the stand-up thing and includes expenditures where they really belong, so it is unfair to compare the deficits under the two presidents.  Liberals have explained this to me several times.

While I don’t claim to be an expert on government spending, I have written a couple of columns that required a cursory research of Congressional Budget Office reports, and this argument sounds a little strange to me.  You would think there would be a footnote next to the relevant deficit numbers, explaining that these numbers are not really apples-to-apples comparisons.  A footnote like this: “oh, by the way, these deficit numbers between 2003 and 2011 are not really fair comparisons.  The costs of the Iraqi and Afghanistan wars have been omitted from the 2003 – 2009 figures, but have been added to the figures after 2009.”  Something like that.  But I haven’t been able to find such a footnote.

So, in the spirit of Andrew Breitbart, I am hereby offering a reward, and keep I mind that I do not have the amount of money that the late Mr. Breitbart had: if anyone can show to me that magic footnote that explains that the deficit numbers of Presidents Obama and Bush are not direct comparisons because of their treatment of war expenditures, I will give to that person my Starbucks card that still has $4.15 credit on it.

Just think of it: $4.15 for a delicious Starbucks coffee drink!  While this might not be enough to get a “Venti” sized anything at Starbucks, this will pay for a “Grandi” sized coffee or Frappuccino.  You can even wait until the holidays when Starbucks sells its pumpkin pie-flavored or peppermint coffee drinks.  How cool is that?

So get to work!  Go to cbo.gov, treasurydirect.gov, or whitehouse.gov/omb and find a report that will show that the annual deficits listed under Bush and Obama really are apples-to-oranges comparisons because of war expenditures.  Show me the footnote, and the Starbucks card is yours.

Not that I blame liberals for trying to fudge the issue.  The deficits under President Obama have truly been nightmarish.  While many of us conservatives were disappointed that President Bush’s annual deficits averaged $251 billion per year during the eight years of his presidency, President Obama finished his first year as president with a 2009 deficit of $1.4 trillion.  And sure, fiscal year 2009 overlapped both presidencies.

But what about the years 2010 and 2011?  Free from the sinister influence of President Bush, surely the annual deficits under President Obama for those years would be less horrifying.  But not so: 2010’s deficit was $1.3 trillion, and 2011’s deficit was another $1.3 trillion.  A recent CBO study even projected that the deficit for 2012 looks to be another $1.2 trillion.  The United States now has a total debt of $15.7 trillion, making President Obama the most debt-inducing president of all.

With deficits like these, the interest part of our annual spending is going higher and higher, and the CBO projects that by 2020, interest from prior debts will make up 11% of our annual spending.  Gee, you would think that as that interest amount gets higher, our country would be headed to bankruptcy or something.

 

This column was originally published in REDSTATE

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Carolla and Prager: The Newest Odd Couple Click On Stage

Posted on May 7, 2012 by Thomas Thurlow

Much as I hate to admit it, there was one interesting idea from the 1981 movie “My Dinner With Andre”: the notion of just sitting down and spending two hours listening to an interesting conversation at a nearby dinner table.

Well, dinner may not have been served, but the mostly-unplanned conversation between Adam Carolla and Dennis Prager was delightfully entertaining for the mostly-sold-out crowd Saturday night in San Diego’s Spreckels Theatre.

And the pair-up was truly eclectic: Prager, the politically conservative radio talk-show host, orthodox Jew who in his spare time teaches the Torah, and Carolla, the apolitical atheist comedian whose edgy podcasts are the guilty pleasure for countless subscribers.

Prager appreciates Carolla’s humor and spontaneity, while Carolla appreciates Prager’s intelligence and judgment.

“There is a ton of wisdom in Prager,” Carolla said in a recent podcast. “We have almost nothing in common.”

But you have to wonder how they would interact together to produce an interesting conversation worth the price of admission for two hours.

Somehow it worked.

Prager pursued a dialogue of general topics, with freedom to stray from the subject, and Carolla interjected humor along the way. Carolla began discussing his son’s recent T-ball prowess and then reminisced about his own days of school dodge-ball, a sport that is currently outlawed, along with many other fun sports.

“My kids will never know the joys of Smear The Queer,” he said.

The subject of racism in America came up, and Prager reiterated a point he has made on his radio show that “the United States is the least racist country in the world.”

To which Carolla replied, “1,400 white people are now applauding that comment.”

Typical of the evening, when Prager referred to street riots, Carolla questioned whether “do you really need the word ‘street’ before ‘riot’? Where else are you going to riot, in an entry way?”

Photo courtesy of bobbyearle.com

Both Carolla and Prager described how when they grew up their parents would cover the upholstery of their couches with plastic or sheets. I have seen this and never understood the point of it – the only people getting to enjoy the couch would be the future owners, if any. But it was a pretty personal moment for both men, opening up this part of their childhoods for the crowd.

Carolla reflected that he “wasn’t raised with low self-esteem. I was raised with no self-esteem.” After more discussion on self-esteem in kids, the two agreed that the higher the self-esteem of the kid, the worse the resulting adult is, and vice versa.

Among the laughs there were some other ultimate truths: cohabitating before marriage leads to a marriage that ends in divorce, government care should be reserved for military amputees and disabled people, not freeloaders, and the bigger the government the smaller the citizen.

At one point Carolla asked Prager, “if it is so obvious that socialism, communism or the western European model has failed, why do liberals keep proposing it?”

Prager answered that leftism is a religion and facts rarely get in the way of any religion. Prager mentioned his recent non-profit project, Prager University, a collection of 5-minute online courses from notable authors and lecturers. At the mention of the word “university,” Carolla interjected “I rushed a frat at Prager University but it didn’t work out.”

Both Carolla and Prager had books to sell, but they were clearly not there to promote them. Prager referred to his book, “Still The Best Hope,” only in passing, and Carolla never mentioned his upcoming book, “Not Taco Bell Material,” available for pre-order now before its June release.

They had a certain chemistry together, if for no other reason than the fact that they have so little in common and yet they respect and enjoy each other. One thing that could add to this great pairing would be more comedic interactions between the two, where one of them pokes fun at or criticizes the other, and the audience gets to see a resolution or impasse of the dispute. Sure, Prager isn’t known for his own sense of humor, but he is able to follow along the arc of Carolla’s gags. They could become a kind of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, or at least Tony Randall and Jack Klugman.

On the other hand, this might be a show that is impossible to improve upon, as viewers will be able to see for themselves at the following scheduled dates:

July 12 Houston

July 14 Phoenix

August 26 Orlando

September 13 Dallas

October 11 Cleveland

October 13 Philadelphia

November 29 Sacramento

December 1 Seattle

 

Tickets can be bought at Laughstub.com.

 

This column was originally published in Big Hollywood

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Ted Cruz, The Tea Party’s Bunker-Buster

Posted on April 28, 2012 by Thomas Thurlow

Here is how it works: a federal agency re-interprets its job to encompass whole new areas of the economy.  For example, the EPA says that the Clean Air Act allows it to create a whole new cap-and-trade system, or to outlaw the lead in bullets.  Never mind that such ideas weren’t even hinted at in the Clean Air Act or in any of the laws that created the EPA.

Or the Fish and Wildlife Service decides that a lizard that lives in an area that perfectly matches the Texas Permian Basin oil fields is endangered, thus turning the west Texas oil business into a paperwork chaos.  Or the Department of Health and Human Services mandates that some catholic hospitals have to begin dispensing contraceptives or abortion pills.  Or the National Labor Relations Board decides to sue if a company moves its manufacturing plant to a location the NLRB doesn’t like.

At that point, any Republican office-holder who gets elected, hoping to be there and vote against stuff like this when it happens will have already lost.  There won’t be any vote.  Federal bureaucrats, like people secure in their bunkers, need not worry about any vote on what they are doing.

Enter the Texas Tea Party’s favorite GOP senate candidate and bunker-buster, Ted Cruz.  “These bureaucracies,” Cruz recently e-mailed me, “must be reined in.  Instead of allowing the people to participate in the democratic process, the bureaucrats create the rule and then declare that it will benefit society, sidestepping the constitutional legislative process.  That’s why we must re-establish the proper role of the federal government.  To do that, we need new leadership in the U.S. Senate.”

Pass the popcorn — it will probably be a good show when Ted Cruz gets onto those Senate oversight committees, shaking things up.  He probably can’t wait for the oversight of these bureaucracies.

Candidate Ted Cruz with a supporter at a recent campaign rally

Ted Cruz has a history of shaking things up in a big way.  As the author of 70 Supreme Court briefs as Texas Solicitor General, Cruz was instrumental in several U.S. Supreme Court decisions, including District of Columbia vs. Heller, which held that the 2nd Amendment defines an individual right to gun ownership, as opposed to a “collective right” for a state-run militia.  That was a huge win for gun owners.

Also, in Medellin vs. Texas, Cruz led the defense of Texas against not only the Bush administration but the World Court, the United Nations and 90 other nations when they attempted to pressure Texas against executing a rapist/murderer who was tried and convicted in Texas.

Recently Cruz has been stirring things up on the Justice Department’s “Fast and Furious” scandal, calling for impeachment and possible prosecution of Attorney General Eric Holder.  Not exactly your average go-along and get-along politician.  In fact, it sounds pretty obnoxious.

But I say that as a compliment.  See, we conservatives need all the obnoxious representatives we can get.  How many times does a candidate promise to get tough, only to succumb to the usual big-money Washington politics?   Someone always seems to be scratching someone else’s back, contributions are made and the stupid people who follow the rules, we citizens, get stuck with the bill.  That is what brought about the Tea Party movement in the first place.  Early in the big-spending days of the Obama presidency, watching bail-outs, rescues and give-aways from “Obama’s stash,” our limit was reached.  Enough is enough.  Time for a correction.

My personal favorite Ted Cruz campaign issue is his approach to Obamacare, which has become a mantra of his campaign: “I will work to repeal every word and every syllable of Obamacare.”  Sounds kind of like a Matthew 24, not-one-stone-left-upon-another approach, which is exactly what will be needed for the Obamacare monstrosity.

Cruz’ main opponent in the Republican nomination battle will be current lieutenant governor and establishment GOP favorite David Dewhurst, who also pledges to repeal Obamacare.  But in a recent filing with the Federal Elections Commission, Dewhurst was shown to have accepted donations from Pfizer, Humana, Harden Healthcare, the American Hospital Association, and AstraZeneca, so he probably cannot be taken seriously on that issue.

And although Dewhurst was recently endorsed by Texas Governor Rick Perry, Dewhurst’s

The endorsements page on David Dewhurst’s website shows support by many lobbyists who do business with the state government in Austin

website lists endorsements of many lobbyists and political action committees that have had dealings with the Texas government, which also doesn’t look good.  Not exactly a stranger to the type of political back-scratching that happens with lobbyists.

One recent controversy in the campaign was whether in 2005 Dewhurst proposed a “wage tax,” as opposed to an income tax, which is outlawed by the Texas constitution.  Allegedly such a tax would have raised a small amount of money for Texas schools.

Cruz said that Dewhurst did in fact make such a proposal, and Dewhurst denied it.   As evidence, the Cruz website presented a Wall Street Journal editorial published at the time, and an interviewer who heard Lt. Gov. Dewhurst actually make the proposal back then.  To be fair to Dewhurst, he sure isn’t proposing any tax hikes in Washington now.  No sane Republican candidate in Texas would.  (Oh, be still my beating Californian heart – these Texas guys are arguing over who might fudge a zero state income tax while the knuckleheads in Sacramento are battling over whether to raise California’s top rate to 11% or to 13%!)

But every argument like this means a lot to Texas conservatives in this heated Senate nomination race.  FEC filings show an uphill battle for Cruz, but things can change.  While Dewhurst has raised more than twice what Cruz has raised, almost $12 million to about $5 million, the current cash on hand figure, about $3 million, is about the same for both candidates.  And a recent poll shows Ted Cruz inching closer to David Dewhurst for the May 29 Texas primary.  With national conservative supporters, including not only Tea Party Senators Pat Toomey, Mike Lee, Jim DeMint, and Rand Paul, but also endorsements from the Club For Growth, FreedomWorks, and the Eagle Forum, things are looking up for what could be the Senate’s next conservative senator and Tea Party bunker-buster.

******

[It may be a little obvious that I support Mr. Cruz, but a full disclosure is probably in order: I have endorsed and contributed to the Ted Cruz campaign.   -Tom]

 

This column was originally published in American Thinker

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California’s Proposed Tax Hikes

Posted on April 16, 2012 by Thomas Thurlow

Never underestimate the anti-tax wrath of California voters.  Years ago, Californians were struggling under higher and higher property taxes that were continually getting reassessed and raised, and at one point they had had enough.  In 1978, Proposition 13 was proposed to cap property taxes and limit reassessments, and it passed with a huge margin despite a firestorm of opposition from every politician around.  The author and chief proponent of Prop 13, gadfly Howard Jarvis, became a minor celebrity and helped author similar ballot measures in other states.  His fame even earned him a cameo appearance in the 1980 movie Airplane!

California faced a similar moment in 2003 after the Internet stock market went bust and the then-governor tried to fix a budget shortfall by drastically raising vehicle registration fees.  That governor became the second state governor in US history to be successfully recalled from office.

This November, Californians are facing several tax-increase proposals.  While anything is possible, all of the tax-hike proposals will probably fail.

The proposition claiming dibs on the highest amount of Californians’ money is the “Molly Munger’s California State Income Tax Increase to Support Education Initiative,” named after Molly Munger, daughter of Berkshire Hathaway billionaire Charlie Munger.  (Question: what is it with Berkshire Hathaway?  First Warren Buffet and now his partner’s daughter are pushing huge tax increases.  Maybe there is something in the water at the Berkshire headquarters in Omaha.)  If passed, the Munger initiative would raise an estimated $10 billion per year by raising taxes on all but the poorest Californians, with the windfall earmarked for education.  So far, the only vocal opponents to this tax hike are those groups who want to clear the field so that other tax hike proposals have a better chance of passing.

California’s Governor Jerry Brown also has combined several tax hikes into a single tax hike proposal on this year’s ballot.  Brown’s proposal would raise taxes on the highest-earners to a produce peak marginal tax rate of 13.3 percent, incorporating another “millionaire’s tax” that originally worked a few years ago, and will also raise sales taxes from 7.25% to 7.5%, the nation’s highest.  This tax hike is estimated to raise about $7 billion per year.

Californians will also be asked to vote on a proposal that re-assesses commercial properties every three years, expected to bring $4 billion in new taxes annually, and on a proposal to tax the drilling of oil and gas in California, and that proposal will bring in an estimated $2 billion every year.

Apparently there are still some out-of-state businesses that venture into California, so another proposed tax will address their ability to pay more taxes, to the tune of $1 billion annually.  And in a June Proposal, those dastardly cigarette smokers will also be asked to cough up another $1 per pack of cigarettes, and that measure is expected to bring in another $850 million annually.

All told, Californians could potentially be taxed almost $25 billion more per year, including the increased tax on out-of-state businesses, which will undoubtedly be passed along to California consumers.  In one of the already highest-taxed states with an economy of $1.9 trillion, this is a pretty big addition to the government’s tax take.

So is California really that pro-tax?  Could all these tax hikes pass?  And what about the California electorate gives encouragement to the authors of these proposals?

Granted, if you look back on the results of the 2010 elections, you can see why tax-hikers are encouraged.   The 2010 conservative tidal wave that swept out of office many Democrats in the rest of the country mostly passed California by.  Very few California office-holders were thrown out, and not only did California re-elect the liberal Democrat Barbara Boxer to the Senate, but the voters dusted off and brought Jerry Brown back as governor.

But come November, any liberal optimism will be misplaced.  The same economic malaise that existed in 2010 in California is still alive and well.  A Field Poll from last fall showed that 91% of Californians say that the state’s economy is bad, and only 26% foresee things getting better in the next year.  That is a lot of pessimism out there.  And while the unemployment situation in the country overall is slightly improved, unemployment in California is still stuck at 11%.  In a good economy, Californians might stomach tax hikes like these, but in the current slow economy with high unemployment, Californians are just not in the mood to raise their taxes.

Jarvis would have had fun with these proposals

In fact, Californians would be much more interested in cutting their taxes, a la Proposition 13, than in raising them.  If Howard Jarvis were alive today he would have his hands full.  And he would be having much more fun opposing these tax proposals than he ever had in his cameo in the movie Airplane!

 

 

 

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Palin’s Privilege

Posted on April 9, 2012 by Thomas Thurlow

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was on the Today show last week, and she did very well.  It was an enjoyable show and she handled the occasional barbs against her with class.  But don’t mention that in mixed company (liberals and conservatives), or anywhere online.  There are prohibitions against foul language online, you know.

Palin’s appearance on Today was met with an avalanche of criticism from the left.  Websites like Democratic Underground and Huffington Post stewed in their hatred for Gov. Palin.  Lefty mocker Jon Stewart ridiculed her.  Former Today host Bryant Gumbel even said he was “embarrassed by Palin’s appearance on the show,” and complained that she lacked the capability of reporting or interviewing, or having “a degree of gravitas.”

In their attacks against Gov. Palin the familiar refrain is that she is stupid, but that doesn’t sound right to me.  When liberals criticize Sarah Palin is being stupid, they have a real anger in their voice or urgency in their blog posts.

If they were really concerned about a public figure who is stupid they would focus on Vice President Joe Biden.  To those who pay attention to the news, if they are honest, they would agree that Vice President Joe Biden is a real buffoon.  This recent rambling explanation regarding gasoline prices was yet another proof of his foolishness.

But it is Sarah Palin for whom liberals have a special hatred when they assert that she is stupid.  Why is this?

The last time the Left in this country had such a full-throated denunciation of someone as stupid, it was of Ronald Reagan.  I remember it so well because I too was a liberal during Reagan’s first term as president.  It was very frustrating to denounce someone a stupid as they win two landslide elections.

Even more frustrating, Reagan didn’t seem to care when he was called an idiot.  He just kept doing what he saw as his mandate: unleashing the American economy and defeating the thugs of the Soviet Union.  At the time I remember feeling guilty in admiring the self-confidence of someone repeatedly called stupid but not seeming to care.  It almost seemed a privilege to him to be called stupid by liberals.

Sure, President Reagan did not have a college degree, and he did not sound intellectual, but he did his job well.  When he spoke directly to the people about a certain issue, he connected and persuaded.

Same for Sarah Palin.  She got a bachelor’s degree from University of Idaho after spending a lot of time in junior college.  Yet when she discusses the issues, she has a certain connection with the people, and she persuades.

The formal education argument is a common one.  “Why should we listen to someone who barely has any formal education?” liberals ask.  It all feels so nouveau-intellectual because it is usually asked by someone with a wall full of college and post-graduate degrees, implying that they should be listened to simply by virtue of their own formal education.

Smart people should take Gov. Sarah Palin seriously, just like one smart person took Ronald Reagan seriously.  I recently bought a DVD of the William F. Buckley’s Firing Line interview with Ronald Reagan in 1980.  Now there is a guy who had some high-brow credentials: William F. Buckley Jr. graduated from Yale, used words in conversation that people had never heard before, started National Review, and even had some kind of impressive accent that no one could really place.

Buckley took Ronald Reagan seriously because he knew that Reagan was a real conservative who could persuade the country to follow conservative principles.  If Buckley had any intellectual insecurity, he easily could have sided with the better-educated but hapless Jimmy Carter.

And this shows the important part of the job of president or political leader, whether it was Reagan back in the 1980’s or Sarah Palin today.  We aren’t choosing someone to be philosopher or pontificator-in-chief.  We are choosing someone who will advance the cause of freedom and opportunity.  The issue is do they believe in the American people, and do they have conservative values that they can advance.

No relation at all

I realize Sarah Palin isn’t perfect.  She resigned her only term of Alaska governor before the end of the term, giving conservatives false hope that she would run for president this year.  And although it wasn’t her fault, I was greatly disappointed in 2008 when we were introduced to her, and despite her name “Palin,” she appears not to be related to Michael Palin, my favorite member of Monty Python.  That would have been nice.

But her appearance on the Today show was not only good for ratings but it was very good for the conservative ideas that are so rarely promoted in the mainstream media.  If NBC had any programming brains — which is not a given – they would invite Sarah Palin back to co-host the Today show again and again.  NBC and the country would definitely be better for it.

 

This column was originally published in American Thinker

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