Confirming the weekend’s reporting, on Tuesday “America’s Toughest Sheriff,” Joe Arpaio, endorsed Texas Gov. Rick Perry for president at a diner in Amherst, New Hampshire.

“The federal government has failed on border crime and border enforcement, and no candidate for president has done more to secure the border than Governor Rick Perry,” Arpaio wrote in a statement. “I have been watching Governor Perry and Texas closely and know his border surge operations with state, local and federal law enforcement officials have helped shut down the illegal trafficking of weapons, drugs and people.”

While the federal government has failed, according to the Arizona sheriff, Perry is the guy who can right the wrongs on the border.

“I’m endorsing Rick Perry because we need a tough-on-crime president who will champion and fund full-time border security operations from Brownsville[, Texas] to San Diego,” he said. “Governor Perry has a superior border security record and plan to make our border and our nation safer.”

Arpaio is well known for his aggressive opposition to illegal immigration and unwavering law and order policies. According to ABC News, the sheriff will be campaigning Tuesday and Wednesday with the Texas governor in New Hampshire.

Follow Joe Miller at Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Read More at The Daily Caller By Caroline May, The Daily Caller

As President Obama looks increasingly vulnerable, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has emerged as the latest frontrunner for the GOP’s presidential nomination. Many political observers attribute this to his status as the party’s idea man who promises fundamental change. Here are some of those ideas and how they could directly affect your wallet:

1) Make the Bush tax cuts permanent. If nothing changes, the Bush tax cuts are scheduled to expire at the end of 2012, increasing tax rates on almost everyone who pays taxes (maybe that’s what the Mayan’s meant by the end of the world). While Obama would let the cuts expire for the top two tax brackets, Gingrich, like all the GOP candidates, would make them all permanent.

2) Eliminate the estate tax. Part of the Bush tax cuts was the elimination of the estate tax in 2010. While the estate tax sprung back to life in 2011 for estates over $5 million (and over $1 million starting in 2013), Gingrich also joins the other Republicans in wanting to repeal it altogether.

3) End the capital gains tax. This has long been a Republican policy goal. If you think this is likely to happen, you may want to postpone selling taxable investments and use your retirement accounts to re-balance. But if you’re wrong, the capital gains tax for most taxpayers is currently scheduled to increase from 15 to 20% in you guessed it…2013.

4) Cut the corporate income tax. Gingrich would also cut the top corporate income tax rate to 12.5% and allow for 100% expensing of investment in new equipment. Companies could pass the tax savings on directly to shareholders in the form of higher dividends or stock buybacks or potentially increase profits by expanding the company or cutting prices to be more competitive. This would actually benefit more people since most Americans own stock through mutual funds in their retirement plans, which aren’t affected by the capital gains tax.

Follow Joe Miller at Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

 Read More at Forbes By Erik Carter, Forbes

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson stepped off the elevator into the Third Avenue offices of hedge fund Eton Park Capital Management LP in Manhattan. It was July 21, 2008, and market fears were mounting. Four months earlier, Bear Stearns Cos. had sold itself for just $10 a share to JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM)

Now, amid tumbling home prices and near-record foreclosures, attention was focused on a new source of contagion: Fannie Mae (FNMA) and Freddie Mac, which together had more than $5 trillion in mortgage-backed securities and other debt outstanding, Bloomberg Markets reports in its January issue.

Paulson had been pushing a plan in Congress to open lines of credit to the two struggling firms and to grant authority for the Treasury Department to buy equity in them. Yet he had told reporters on July 13 that the firms must remain shareholder owned and had testified at a Senate hearing two days later that giving the government new power to intervene made actual intervention improbable.

“If you have a bazooka, and people know you have it, you’re not likely to take it out,” he said.

On the morning of July 21, before the Eton Park meeting, Paulson had spoken to New York Times reporters and editors, according to his Treasury Department schedule. A Times article the next day said the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency were inspecting Fannie and Freddie’s books and cited Paulson as saying he expected their examination would give a signal of confidence to the markets.

Follow Joe Miller at Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Read More at Bloomberg By Richard Teitelbaum, Bloomberg

As early as today the Senate could vote to strip us our 6th Amendment rights!

In a move that would make Joseph Stalin proud, Arizona Senator John McCain has joined Michigan’s Carl Levin in crafting a section of a bill designed to take away our rights to face an accuser and have a fair trial before being placed in prison. A section of S. 1867 The National Defense Authorization Act bill, written by McCain and Levin would in effect give the President arrest powers. It would authorize the Chief Executive to order our military personnel to forcibly- if necessary- take any one, regardless of guilt or innocence, into custody without charges or a trial.

These “McCain – Levin” detainees could be held indefinitely with no due process or speedy trial.

As if this sneaky piece of garbage was not bad enough the cowardly McCain and Levin pushed this bill through a Senate Committee in total secrecy with no public hearings or “leaks” to the press. Not a single Republican Senator brought this gross violation of our 6th Amendment rights to light. All of these feckless quislings turned their back on the guarantees Americans have fought and died for over the past 236 years.

The heart of the 6th Amendment reads as follows:

“In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.”

Follow Joe Miller at Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

 Read More at Coach Is Right By Kevin “Coach” Collins, Coach Is Right

What should be done about income inequality? That basic question underlies the arguments hashed out in the supercommittee and promises to be a central issue in the presidential campaign.

Supercommittee Democrats argue that income inequality has been increasing and can be at least partially reversed by higher tax rates on high earners. They refused to agree on any deal that didn’t include such tax increases.

Supercommittee Republicans offered a plan to eliminate tax preferences and reduce tax rates, as in the 1986 bipartisan tax reform. They argued that high tax rates would squelch economic growth.

They didn’t make the case that their proposals would also address income inequality. But House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, in a 17-page paper based largely on a Congressional Budget Office analysis of income trends between 1979 and 2007, has done so.

Ryan, a Republican from Wisconsin, makes the point that the government redistributes income not only through taxes but also through transfer payments, including Social Security, Medicare, food stamps and unemployment benefits. The CBO study helpfully measures income, adjusted for inflation, after taxes and after such transfer payments.

Follow Joe Miller at Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

 Read More at Human Events By Michael Barone, Human Events