Tough Questions for AG Holder on ATF/DOJ Mass Murder Catastrophe

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Today November 8 the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee will grill AG Eric Holder on Operation Fast and Furious amid the sounds of a salivating public lapping at the latest lurid suggestions about Herman Cain. Will another convenient sex scandal overshadow Holder’s appearance before a Justice Department oversight hearing?

Border patrol Agent Brian Terry’s death on December 14, 2010 is part and parcel of an ATF/DOJ mass murder catastrophe. Big media has so far chosen to ignore the fiasco and the cover-up. Too bad Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) can’t ask Attorney General Eric Holder whether he sexually harassed young women 15 years ago; he’d have a huge audience.

While the mainstream media is busy destroying Cain’s reputation, Grassley should capitalize on their lack of interest and turn up the heat. Here are some questions he may want to ask the heinous Mr. Holder.

1) What U.S. laws were broken by the Department of Justice in this 18-month operation?

2) Who came up with the Fast and Furious scheme to supply weapons to the Mexican cartel Sinaloa?

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 Read More at American Thinker By M Catharine Evans, American Thinker

A Supercommittee Tax-Hike Surrender Means Republicans Would Snatch Defeat from the Jaws of Victory

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Commenting on Supercommittee deliberations last month, I asked whether Republicans will choose the real budgetary savings of a sequester or surrender to a tax hike.

Well, it appears that the GOP likes being known as the Stupid Party and is seriously considering a plan to increase the net tax burden on the American people – even though some of us have warned from the beginning that the left would use the Supercommittee process as an opportunity to trick gullible Republicans into a tax increase.

Here’s the relevant section of an editorial by Steve Moore in this morning’s Wall Street Journal.

…raising rates and raising revenues are different. Eliminating loopholes in exchange for making the Bush tax cuts permanent after 2013 is on the table—and by broadening the tax base, this could bring in tens of billions of new revenues each year. Says Mr. Hensarling: “Republicans want more revenues. We want more revenues by growing the economy; we’re not happy with revenues at 14% of GDP, but we don’t want to do it by raising rates.” One positive development on taxes taking shape is a deal that could include limiting tax deductions, perhaps by capping write-offs on charities, state and local taxes, and mortgage interest payments as a percentage of each tax filer’s gross income.

I’m a bit disappointed that Steve thinks restricting deductions is a “positive development.” I’m a big fan of getting rid of all preferences and distortions in the tax code, but that should only happen if all the revenue is used to finance lower tax rates, not to finance big government.

But that’s a secondary issue.

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 Read More at danieljmitchell.wordpress.com  By Dan Mitchell, danielmitchell.wordpress.com

Shady UN Development Agency Pushes Hard For Global Tax

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The United Nations launched the 2011 Human Development Report, entitled Sustainability and Equity: A Better Future for All, with great fanfare on November 2, 2011. Helen Clark, Administrator of the largest and perhaps the most unaccountable, ethically-challenged of all UN bureaucratic agencies, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), presided over the ceremonies held in Copenhagen, Denmark. She was joined by Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Prime Minister of Denmark.

The annual UNDP report follows the customary left-wing approach to most problems: Bash industry. Redistribute wealth through more taxes. And throw in a dig at Western free market capitalism for good measure.

In its latest version, the report downplays the importance of economic growth, as reflected in rising national incomes, to the achievement of better living standards. It links much of the world’s ills to “environmental hazards” and “deep inequalities within and among nations.”

To support their conclusions, the authors of the report created out of whole cloth what they call an “Inequality-Adjusted Human Development Index,” which is supposed to somehow adjust the UNDP’s more traditional development index measuring economic prosperity, education levels and life expectancy to take account of “internal inequalities in health, education and income.”

The United States, which had ranked #4 (out of 187 countries measured) in the UNDP’s more traditional human development index, dropped to #23 in the “Inequality-Adjusted Human Development Index,” behind such economic heavyweights as Slovenia and Iceland.

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 Read More at Canada Free Press By Joseph A. Klein, Canada Free Press

Grassley: Obama’s Immigration ‘Policies Are at Odds with the Rule of Law’

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(CNSNews.com) – Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said on Thursday that the Obama administration’s immigration polices are contrary to the rule of law.

“It’s well past time that the administration come to its senses and realize that their policies are at odds with the rule of law that our country was founded on,” Grassley said. “They must wake up and change their ways before it’s too late.”

Grassely also said it was “unfortunate” that the Senate Judiciary Committee learned about the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) new policy of curbing routine checks for illegal aliens at transportation hubs along the northern border from an Associated Press news story.

“This is a serious situation that has been ignored by the secretary” of DHS, Grassley said at a Judiciary Committee session on Thursday, noting that he thought it was necessary to divert from the planned agenda to discuss DHS’s policy change.

DHS is headed by Secretary Janet Napolitano.

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 Read More at CNS News By Penny Starr, CNS News

Bill Gates Urges Obama to Embrace Global Tax

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When Barack Obama was a senator, he proposed a Global Poverty Act to fulfill the U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals. The cost in additional foreign aid: $845 billion. On Thursday, as part of the G20 summit, Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, delivered a report on “financing for development” that proposes global taxes on America and other “rich” nations to make the Global Poverty Act a reality.

“I am honored to have been given this important opportunity,” said Gates, founder of Microsoft. “My report will address the financing needed to achieve maximum progress on the Millennium Development Goals, and to make faster progress on development over the next decade.”

The report, available on the website of the Gates Foundation, proposes a financial transaction tax (FTT) as well as taxes on tobacco, aviation and bunker fuel, and carbon (energy), by G20 countries and other members of the European Union. The G20 are Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, European Union, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Republic of Korea, Turkey, United Kingdom, and the United States of America.

On Wednesday, as part of the coordinated campaign to pass such a tax in the U.S., Democratic Senator Tom Harkin (Iowa) and Democratic Rep. Peter DeFazio (Oregon) introduced legislation to put a tax on “certain trading activities undertaken by banking and financial firms.” What they didn’t say was that it would affect stocks and bonds bought and sold by the average American investor.

Kenneth Bentsen Jr., executive vice president for public policy and advocacy at the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, said, “A financial transaction tax is essentially a sales tax on investors. At a time when we face a slow economic recovery, such a tax will impede the efficiency of markets and impair depth and liquidity as well as raise costs to the issuers, pensions and investors who help drive economic growth. Major economies that have adopted such taxes have had overwhelmingly negative results, including reduced asset prices, trading moving to other venues, market dislocation and decreased liquidity. We encourage Congress and the Administration to continue to resist efforts to implement such a tax.”

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 Read More at aim.org By Cliff Kincaid, aim.org

Republican run North Dakota: an economic success ignored by the Leftist media – it doesn’t “fit”

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A stunning story about the success of conservative Republican governance is taking place daily in North Dakota, and you’re never going to be told about it by our liberal media elites. The victory of elected officials who take seriously their oaths to honor and serve the public trust serves in sharp contrast to the abject failure of Democrat governance in Detroit.

NEWSMAX Magazine’s feature this month tells of North Dakota’s unemployment rate of just 3.5% compared to the national disgrace of this administration’s 9% of Americans out of work. Over the last ten years, the state “has created over 50,000 net new jobs” with average wage increases hiking to $11,287!”

Reporter David A. Patten ticks off such amazing state statistics as an economic growth of 6.68% over the last decade with the country’s overall growth is stagnant at “less than 1.5% for the first half of this year.”

An export growth of 303% during the Bush and Obama governance years coupled with more than doubling North Dakota’s gross domestic product would seem worthy of enormous praise in anyone’s play book. Yet, we hear virtually nothing about why that state is succeeding in the face of horrific economic and regulatory policies for its lignite coal and Bakken shale deposits.

Governor Jack Dalrymple and former Governor John Hoven have created a model that every state could implement even without their own Bakken. NEWSMAX said the two GOP leaders “embarked on a plan to make North Dakota as attractive to prospective businesses as possible.”

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Read More at Coach Is Right By Suzanne Eovaldi, Coach Is Right

A Subpoena for Solyndra

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Tired of the Obama administration’s “slow-walking” documents related to the Solyndra scandal, Republicans on a House panel voted today to subpoena all documents related to Solyndra. The motion to hold the Obama administration accountable passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee on a 14-9, party-line vote.

The measure authorizes committee chairman Rep. Fred Upton, R-MI, to issue a subpoena against leading figures in the administration, whom Republicans say have withheld pivotal documents that would allow them to understand how the government loaned and lost half-a-billion dollars to a Green energy firm known to be a credit risk.

Congressman Upton greeted the vote by saying the subpoena power “is a tool we use sparingly and only as a last resort. Today, it is our last resort.” Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-FL, who is also on the committee, added frankly, “I am not confident that we will have a good faith response from the White House without issuing a subpoena.” The White House, Stearns said, has been “slow-walking” its response.

Upton was more graphic, stating that prying these documents from the administration’s grip has been like “extracting a tooth without anesthesia.”

Although officials boast they have released 80,000 pages of material, Republicans reveal that much of the material has been irrelevant. The Obama administration has proven its bad faith by releasing reams of Solyndra documents to the press before handing them over to Congress — to allow friendly hands to frame the narrative before researchers have finished combing through the document dump.

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Read More at Floyd Reports By Ben Johnson, The White House Watch

Mitt Romney, the pretzel candidate

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The Republican presidential dynamic — various candidates rise and recede; Mitt Romney remains at about 25 percent support — is peculiar because conservatives correctly believe that it is important to defeat Barack Obama but unimportant that Romney be president. This is not cognitive dissonance.

Obama, a floundering naif who thinks ATMs aggravate unemployment, is bewildered by a national tragedy of shattered dreams, decaying workforce skills and forgone wealth creation. Romney cannot enunciate a defensible, or even decipherable, ethanol policy.

Life poses difficult choices, but not about ethanol. Government subsidizes ethanol production, imposes tariffs to protect manufacturers of it and mandates the use of it — and it injures the nation’s and the world’s economic, environmental, and social (it raises food prices) well-being.

In May, in corn-growing Iowa, Romney said, “I support” — present tense — “the subsidy of ethanol.” And: “I believe ethanol is an important part of our energy solution for this country.” But in October he told Iowans he is “a business guy,” so as president he would review this bipartisan — the last Republican president was an ethanol enthusiast — folly. Romney said that he once favored (past tense) subsidies to get the ethanol industry “on its feet.” (In the 19th century, Republican “business guys” justified high tariffs for protecting “infant industries”). But Romney added, “I’ve indicated I didn’t think the subsidy had to go on forever.” Ethanol subsidies expire in December, but “I might have looked at more of a decline over time” because of “the importance of ethanol as a domestic fuel.” Besides, “ethanol is part of national security.” However, “I don’t want to say” I will propose new subsidies. Still, ethanol has “become an important source of amplifying our energy capacity.” Anyway, ethanol should “continue to have prospects of growing its share of” transportation fuels. Got it?

Every day, 10,000 baby boomers become eligible for Social Security and Medicare, from which they will receive, on average, $1 million of benefits ($550,000 from the former, $450,000 from the latter). Who expects difficult reforms from Romney, whose twists on ethanol make a policy pretzel?

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Read More at The Washington Post By George F. Will, The Washington Post

 

Warning: Obama Ed aims at U.S. takeover

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An organization that monitors the U.S. government’s influence on education, and specifically on parents who choose to school their own children, is warning of a pending move in Washington that would result in “de facto national education standards.”

The measure could not only require parents who homeschool their children to teach certain government agenda issues but also effectively remove much of the decision-making authority of local school boards and districts, warns the Home School Legal Defense Association.

The organization focuses on issues affecting homeschool students and their parents in the United States and overseas but also keeps an eye on the larger picture of education policy

The concern is about Democrat-driven plans in the U.S. Senate to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, a massive federal program last reauthorized in 2001 as the No Child Left Behind Act.

“HSLDA’s federal relations staff have read this 868-page bill, and we believe that while it does not directly impact homeschool freedom, the bill will 1) increase the federal role in education at the expense of state, local and parental control, and 2) will greatly increase the pressure on states to align their curriculum and standards, resulting in de facto national education standards,” said the report compiled by Melanie P. Palazzo, the organization’s congressional action program director, and William A. Estrada of the organization’s federal relations office.

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 Read More at WND By Bob Unruh, WorldNetDaily

Who’s to Blame for the “Do-Nothing Congress?” The Democrats

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Last week, President Obama blasted Congress for refusing to “act.” He’s right; it won’t. But Obama ought to focus the blame where it really belongs: on his own party. Because it’s the Democrats in Congress who are causing gridlock — intentionally — especially those in the Senate, which has been in Democratic hands for nearly five years now.

Expect them to keep it up. Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid survived his re-election last year with a scorched-earth campaign and is shielded from voters through 2016, when he’ll be 77 and unlikely to seek re-election. He’s hell-bent on making sure the Senate does nothing — at least until after 2012. Why? Politics.

Following the 2010 election wave, which saw Republicans pick up a net 67 seats in the House and seven in the Senate, Reid faced a choice: Compromise for the good of the country by allowing bills to come to the floor with open debate and amendments or cynically begin plotting for the next election.

Guess which he chose? As Roll Call reported, citing Democratic operatives, “Reid has been effective in protecting his members from taking votes with potentially damaging political consequences.” With 22 incumbent Dems facing re-election next year, he’s determined to skirt any action that might threaten his caucus — and his slim majority. Public policy comes second.

The result: The only significant legislation the Senate has passed this year is so-called “must pass” bills (debt-ceiling hike, continuing resolutions to prevent a government shutdown, etc.). No legislation has passed to counter the unemployment crisis. None.

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Read More at Floyd Reports Matt Mackowiak, Floyd Reports