Government’s Main Function: The Transfer Of Money

Government, Taxation

Mitt Romney told the truth in the 2012 campaign about the 47 percent. If anything, he underestimated the severity of the Taker Problem in U.S. society. Writes Jeffrey Dorfman:

“Mitt Romney aimed low in his famous remark. We are now well past a majority in terms of how many people are net receivers from the government. The coalition of voters who have an economic interest in voting for more goodies from the government is over 70 percent and growing.”

AND, “… in 2010 the top 40 percent of families paid 88 percent of all taxes—and that is all taxes, not just income taxes.”

In case you’ve forgotten, “During the 2012 presidential campaign … Mitt Romney was reported to have commented about how 47 percent of Americans were bound to vote for Democrats (or whatever party promised them free stuff) since they did not pay any income taxes. …”

AND, in case you don’t know:

“… about 70 percent of the federal government’s spending is the transfer programs already accounted for. … in actuality around 70 percent of American families are receiving more from the government than they are paying in.”

MORE.

Where’s America’s Right To Referendum, Secession?

Federalism, Foreign Policy, Liberty, Military, Multiculturalism, Neoconservatism, Political Correctness, Russia

“Where’s America’s Right To Referendum, Secession?” is the current column, now on WND. An excerpt:

From a node in the neoconservative network, a Fox News studio, Charles Krauthammer has complained about the eviction of the Ukrainian Navy from the city of Sevastopol, where it was headquartered. Not a word did the commentator say about the city’s location: Sevastopol is on the Crimean Peninsula. It would appear that the city now falls within Crimean jurisdiction—starting on March 16, the day the people of Crimea voted to secede from Ukraine.

By most estimates, between 97 and 93 percent of Crimean voters said yes to a reunion with Russia. High too was voter turnout. McClatchy pegs it at 83 percent of registered voters in Crimea. BBC News was agreed, also reporting a ballot of ‘more than 80 percent.’ Zerohedge.com counted a ‘paltry’ 73 percent turnout, still ‘higher than every U.S. presidential election since 1900.’

As rocker Ted Nugent might say, the Russians and Crimeans are blood brothers. Nugent got into trouble for using this perfectly proper appellation to describe his affinity for a politician, of all people: Texas Republican gubernatorial hopeful Greg Abbott. Notwithstanding that in the land of the terminally stupid, linguistic flourish can land one in hot water—blood brother is a good, if colorful, turn of phrase that denotes fealty between like-minded people. Steeped in state-enforced multiculturalism, America’s deracinated, self-anointed cognoscenti have a hard time grasping the blood-brother connections between the people of Russia and Crimea.

For no apparent reason other than that it is pro-Russian, Americans have reflexively aligned themselves against the swell for secession in southern Ukraine. Separatist referenda in Kosovo, Catalonia, South Sudan and Scotland have been accepted without demur by a political and media establishment unprepared to countenance a similar referendum in Crimea. …”

… Read on. The complete column is “Where’s America’s Right To Referendum, Secession?” now on WND.

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Where’s The Equal Division Of Labor Between Liars?

Democrats, Journalism, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media, Republicans

Am I correct to suspect, from perusing its “truth-o-meter statements,” that PolitiFact.com has a preference for certain “truths” over others?

The site is the winner of the prize establishment bores and boors give themselves: The Pulitzer Prize for journalism.

Just look at the Pulitzer winners over the years in the Commentary category. To borrow from a Camile-Paglia description: “catty, third-rate, wannabe sorority queens; empty vessels,” all. One pleasure of reading online is that one never has to see anything written by people like Maureen Dowd, Kathleen Parker, Eugene Robinson, Thomas Friedman and Cynthia Tucker! “I ignore their hypertext like spam for penis extenders.”

Back to PolitFact. I would think that in the Demopublican confederacy of knaves, members of both parties would feature equally as liars, but are lie detectors biased too?

It doesn’t look like it from the latest statements PolitiFact.com has reviewed. I could be wrong, but practically everything bad said about Obamacare is marked as a false statement.

A Professor Who Doesn’t Pander

Economy, Education, English, Internet, Journalism, Media, Pseudoscience

Still a tad mild for my liking, but far better than any “critique” provided in mainstream media is Tyler Cowen’s assessment of Nate Silver’s “data-driven journalism.” In “Nate Silver’s 538 is up and running,” Cowen, professor of economics at George Mason University, writes wryly:

… to me these are “tweener” pieces, too superficial for smart and informed readers, yet on topics which are too abstruse for the more casual readers. … Here is Silver’s introductory essay as to what they are about. It is too sprawling and evinces a greater affiliation to rigor with data analysis than to rigor with philosophy of science or for that matter rigor with rhetoric.

In Cowen we may have a rare professor who doesn’t pander to annoying Millennials.