As I have explained elsewhere, tax increases are a bad idea – unless you favor bigger government.

And I’ve already added my two cents to the tax debate between Senator Coburn and Grover Norquist regarding the desirability of higher taxes.

So it won’t surprise anyone to know that I fully agree with this new video from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity, which offers seven reasons why higher taxes are a bad idea.

The video is narrated by Piyali Bhattacharya of Young Americans for Liberty, and here are her seven reasons.

1. Tax increases are not needed
2. Tax increases encourage more spending
3. Tax increases harm economic performance
4. Tax increases foment social discord
5. Tax increases almost never raise as much revenue as projected
6. Tax increases encourage more loopholes
7. Tax increases undermine competitiveness

I think reasons #1, #2, #3, and #5 are the most powerful.

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No offense to the classic movie thriller, “Friday the 13^th ” but heees baaack!  Yes, James Earl “Jimmy” Carter is, once again, sticking his nose and misguided views into international relations and continues, further complicating American policy in the world’s most dangerous regions.  As Yogi Berra said “it’s déjà vu all over again.”  Carter and his massive ego arrived in the capital of Pyongyang (he must account for half of their tourism) to “try” and get an audience with Kim Jong Il, the despot who poses as the beloved leader of a prison camp posing as a country.

He is a menace to world peace and by that we mean Mr. Carter and not Kim Jong Il.  Let us review recent events.  In the last year, North Korea has without provocation sunk a South Korean vessel (the Cheonan) killing many South Korean sailors and, then, for an encore, lobbed live artillery at the South Korean island, Yeonpyeonq, killing civilians.  It is bad enough that the feckless United Nations can’t muster the wherewithal to apply any kind of meaningful sanctions against North Korea, let alone expel them from that World body, but our own ex‑president, Neville Chamberlin style, is rewarding the North Koreans with a visit which the Koreans interpret as carrying a presidential imprimatur.

According to news reports, Mr. Carter hopes to get six party negotiations restarted.  But wait – didn’t the same parties reach an agreement just a few years ago for North Korea, in exchange for massive food aid, to dismantle a nuclear plutonium plant only to have Kim rebuild it once the food was delivered . . . and for an extra bonus for the other participants who seem to show no embarrassment at being taken, once again, for fools, the rogue regime threw in another nuclear bomb test.  It isn’t as if our State Department or the White House didn’t know what a rogue this man is.  Private citizen Carter once before announced a treaty with North Korea without the permission of the Clinton administration.

Here is how the scam works.  First the Koreans pocket billions of dollars in food aid for their starving population, only to have most of the food siphoned off to support Kim’s military forces.  Does it not occur to our egotistical, stubborn and trouble-making ex‑president that every dollar we provide in humanitarian aid is a dollar the North Koreans need not spend to feed their populace, thereby making more of their precious foreign hard currency reserves available to spend on their nuclear program.

What will be different this time?  Here’s our prediction.  Mr. Carter will flash his signature grin and announce, like the British Prime Minister mentioned above, whose name is synonymous with appeasing despots, that he has achieved “peace in our time.”  When one can’t comprehend the adage “fool me once, shame on you, but fool me twice shame on me,” he is probably destined never to be taken seriously.

But let us not be one sided and ignore Mr. Carter’s significant achievements.

As president he gave a pass to Vietnam draft dodgers; he dealt with gas lines and saved energy by sitting in front of the White House fireplace wearing a cardigan and announcing that he was turning the thermostat down to 68 degrees and also forming a new federal behemoth, the $26 billion (2011 budget) Department of Energy that is responsible for energy efficiency and domestic energy production, including alterative energy and nuclear energy (we’ll leave it to the reader to grade our progress in these areas) ; he gave away the American-built-and-financed Panama Canal; and in his final act of accomplishment he stood by helplessly while 78 U.S. diplomats were taken prisoner by Iranian thugs for 444 days.  His principal strategy was to adopt the lyrics of a popular song of 1979 and encourage Americans to hang yellow ribbons around old oak trees, no doubt suggested to him by that dynamic diplomatic duo, Tony Orlando and Dawn.  He officially exited the U.S. presidential stage January 20, 1981, leaving behind the worst inflation and slowest growth in 50 years, but his legacy was nowhere near finished.

This man keeps parachuting himself into delicate diplomatic matters and, to paraphrase Emperor Hirohito after the second atomic bomb was dropped in Nagasaki “not necessarily to the advantage of the nation.”

Perhaps his main mischief is in the Middle East where he describes the Israelis in language worse than he uses for the North Koreans.  He has been a frequent critic of Israel’s policies in Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza.  He turns a blind eye to Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza and is silent about the daily bombardment of missiles from Gaza into Israel proper.  He refers to Israel’s policy as “apartheid” a word so odious that it is either deliberate misinformation or just plain ignorance that Carter cannot distinguish between Israel and South Africa in the pre-Mandela days.  In fact in his book, Palestine:  Peace Not Apartheid, Carter stated that Israeli control and corruption of Palestinian land are the main obstacles to a cooperative peace in the Holy Land.  Not rejectionist Hamas, not Hezbollah, not Bashar al-Assad, not Iran, not continued acts of war by Arabs and Islamic terrorists . . . no Mr. Carter blames Israel.

Online Wikipedia summarizes as follows:

In 2006, at the UK Hay Festival, Carter stated that Israel has at least 150 nuclear weapons.  He expressed his support for Israel as a country, but criticized its domestic and foreign policy; “One of the greatest human rights crimes on earth is the starvation and imprisonment of 1.6m Palestinians,” said Carter.

He mentioned statistics showing that the nutritional intake of some Palestinian children was below that of the children of Sub‑Saharan Africa and described the European position on Israel as “supine.”  And why are they without an economy that can feed its people?  It is not their own failure to seriously pursue peace and build such an economy?  In April 2008, the London‑based Arabic newspaper Al‑Hayat reported that:

Carter met with exiled Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal on his visit to Syria.  The Carter Center initially did not confirm nor deny the story.  The U.S. State Department considers Hamas a terrorist organization.  Within this Mid‑East trip, Carter also laid a wreath on the grave of Yasser Arafat in Ramallah on April 14, 2008.

Mr. Carter loves to bask in his efforts to free innocent Americans illegally kidnapped by North Korea or other states hostile to the United States, lavishly praising their humanitarianism when they finally release these totally innocent people, but he hasn’t lifted a finger to free Israeli Corporal Gilad Shalit kidnapped in 2006 by Hamas from Israeli territory.

Mr. Carter has also endorsed the integrity of Venezuelan presidential elections despite overwhelming evidence of fraud.  Moreover, in 2009 he endorsed the notion that the 2002 Venezuelan coup was inspired by the United States.

In short, Mr. Carter can’t stop meddling in and criticizing U.S. foreign policy.  When he was president he was as ineffective a leader as we have seen since President James Buchanan.  After his presidency he has traveled the globe lavishing praise on leftist dictators and heaping scorn on the US and our allies.  No one put it better than a blog published under the name davidstuff.com in an article entitled “Jimmy Carter Narcissistic and Clueless” when it stated:

Carter’s penchant for human rights abuses displays ponderous selective indignation.  Should there be abuses in South Africa, Chile, Britain, Brazil or Spain, Carter will tell you, and anyone else who will listen, all about it.  However, should there be abuses in Communist Cuba, Communist China, Communist Ethiopia, Communist North Korea, Communist Nicaragua, or in tyrannically oppressed Palestine, Syria, Haiti, Libya, Iraq, Iran, you will hear only about the progress, fairness, freedoms and benefits of these regimes, who all happen to be victims of capitalistic oppressors.

Mr. Carter, as they say about some athletes, “peaked early.” He should have remained on the farm.

By Hal Gershowitz and Stephen Porter

Congratulations to President Obama for the gutsy call regarding the killing of Osama bin Laden. I didn’t know he had it in him.  His campaign pledge of going into Pakistan unannounced – once met with derision by John McCain and the Republicans – was fulfilled and is precisely what it took to get the bastard.

Obama is riding the positive wave for all it’s worth. John Brennan, homeland security advisor, was dispatched to the briefing room to regale the media with the administration’s heroics.  The LA Times provided the right amount of reality:

“Sunday was, Brennan revealed to his eager audience, ‘probably one of the most anxiety-filled periods of times in the lives of the people assembled here.’ Poor, poor bureaucrats. Extra Tums all around. Did someone order dinner?”

Obama will be visiting Ground Zero Thursday.  According to FoxNews.com, the president explained:

“I know that unity that we felt on 9/11 has frayed a little bit over the years, and I have no illusions about the difficulties, the debates we’ll have to be engaged in in the weeks and months to come,” Obama said. “But I also know there have been several moments like this during the course of this year that have brought us together as an American family, whether it was the tragedy in Tucson or most recently our unified response to storms that have taken place in the South.”

It is this type of response that leads me to believe these kinds of events, Tucson specifically, are used by politicians to marginalize legitimate critics.

As the president said, it was a “good day” for America when Bin Laden’s last memory was apparently the barrel of an American gun.

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Apparently, it took ‘enhanced interrogation’, ’secret prisons’, Gitmo and combatants caught in Iraq to pull together information to find the trail leading to Osama bin Laden. All of these things happened under the watch of the last president. Discuss among yourselves.

So, Prince Charles is coming to Washington, D.C. to lecture us about ’sustainability.’

Sacrifice, you might have heard it used in other words or terms. Invest, tighten your belt, Put the car in D for Dead on the side of the road because the price of gas will necessarily skyrocket. You see, we are told to sacrifice our patriotism for a much more global society. We are told to sacrifice more of our money in an effort to bring about stability and fairness. We are told to sacrifice our children and youth because there are those that know how to raise them better than we do, as we are told to sacrifice our rights because we are too feeble minded to wield it properly.

Then as our patriotism is besmirched, we are left with elitists who degrade us while lauding and cowering to failed and failing nations. As our money is severed from our pocket books, all we see is a government full of crony capitalists, only willing to spend to their hearts delight. We watch as billions and trillions of dollars wrung from the toil of our everyday rigors, evaporate, just like that. An enlarging government such as ours thinks that its only solution is to spend more money, even when we don’t have it. So, it’s no surprise when they just throw some more taxpayer dollars at a failing public educational system. A public school system that seems more concerned about enhancing ideologies, such as globalism, than it is about teaching our youth what they need to survive in the real world.

Our children are indebted from birth, then more of our money is funneled to actually keep them just around or below mediocre. Then they are tethered to ideologies of men who have been proven suspect regarding the facts. Ideologies that often detach them from responsibilities that would otherwise fortify their character. Upon the many challenges that they face as kids these days, to have them bear the torch of the global agenda is simply cruel.

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As the federal government rapidly approaches the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling, 96 percent of Americans say it is important to reduce the national debt, according to a new Reason Foundation-Rupe poll. Of those surveyed, 69 percent believe reducing the national debt is “very important.”

With the debt piling up, it is also clear that taxpayers do not trust the federal government to live within its means. In fact, the Reason-Rupe survey finds 74 percent of Americans support implementing a spending cap that would prohibit the government from spending more money than it takes in during a fiscal year. Only 19 percent oppose a government spending cap.

The most popular policy prescription for reducing the national debt is spending cuts: 45 percent of people say Congress should bring down the debt by reducing spending without raising taxes. Another 16 percent favor reducing the debt primarily through spending cuts, but are open to some tax increases; 14 percent prefer an equal emphasis on spending cuts and tax increases; 8 percent want to reduce the debt primarily through higher taxes with some spending cuts; 4 percent say current spending levels should be maintained and taxes should be raised as needed; and 1 percent of Americans say we shouldn’t do anything about the debt.

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Drug A is approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat a disease.

Drug B is not.

Drug A is proven effective to treat a serious disease.

Drug B is not.

Drug A is proven safe.

When Drug B is taken scientists report a higher rate of “serious systematic events” when it is taken.

If you are a government bureaucrat which drug do you recommend a patient take?

If you are an Obama ideologue driven by a desire to limit the cost of health care, you choose Drug B.

This is not a theoretical example but is the new reality of “comparative effectiveness,” a cornerstone of the president’s health care initative where cost trumps everything. The cheaper the cost, the more the government will push a drug despite safety consquences.

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Wisconsin is the birthplace of American public-sector unionism. In the 1930s the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) first organized in Madison. How ironic then that Wisconsin may also be the burial ground for public-sector unionism. Governor Scott Walker and the state legislature confront implacable and intractable union opposition as they struggle to bring Wisconsin’s finances under control. The Badger State has become ground zero in the battle between unions intent on expanding their health and pension plans and state governments determined to avoid bankruptcy.

In 1932, a small group of Wisconsin state workers organized in depression-stricken Madison to “promote, defend and enhance the civil service system,” and to spread the gospel of civil service throughout the country. Their creation, the Wisconsin State Employees Union/Council 24, was soon rechristened the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), and in 1936 it received a charter from the American Federation of Labor (AFL):  Public-sector unionism was born.

Times are not as tough these days as they were back in the 1930s, but Wisconsin in 2011 is nonetheless in dire fiscal shape, facing an immediate $136 million deficit and a projected $3.6 billion budget shortfall over the next two years. (Wisconsin has a lot of company: forty-four states and the District of Columbia face shortfalls of $125 billion for fiscal year 2012, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.)  Simply put, the costs of governing Wisconsin are unsustainable, and one of the primary reasons, according to Lt. Governor Rebecca Kleefisch, is the cost of state employee health plans, which have risen 90 percent since 2002.Page 2 Labor (more…)

Far left teachers have young minds captured for 6 ½ hours a day and work subtly to fill them with Marxist and radical ideas.  That’s what a New York City teacher explained [see the video here] at the recent socialist Left Forum, transcribed courtesy of the Washington Times:

“How do you act as a teacher…in a classroom? Kind of promote ideas of Marxism or kind of begin to (in-audible)? Ya’ know, I think part of it is, particularly at the high school level or at an elementary school level, you have to be careful, because your job…they want you to stick to fairly narrow things and that can be fairly frustrating about it. You can do it wherever you possibly can.”

You just need to be subtle about it.  Can’t put up the Soviet flag.  Can’t replace Washington’s picture with ole Karl.  So how does one go about it?

“Part of it is just actually allowing for room for critical thought in the classroom and allowing for students to think for themselves to talk about issues wherever it’s possible to bring in history and you know…radical from the past… fight for that kind of thing. And I think there is space to do that. There is limitations that we have to do to try to provide that room in our classrooms. I think that radicals and socialists have a particular role to play in fighting for that type of education and bringing it whenever possible…”

And this scheme seems to be working beautifully.

A survey from late last year commissioned by the Bill of Rights Institute revealed that nearly half of U.S. adults thought a popular Marx saying —”from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” — originated from one of the founding documents.

Karl Marx in the same sentence as America’s founding documents.  Let that marinate for a minute.

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Dan McLaughlin to discuss his experience on September 11, 2001, and what the death of Osama bin Laden means to him, the country and the legacy of 9/11.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

WHY BASEBALL STILL MATTERS: My September 11 Story
Bin Laden Announcement Has Highest Sustained Tweet Rate Ever, At 3440 Tweets Per Second
Osama Is Dead. Don’t Believe It Makes Obama Invulnerable to Defeat
Coffee & Markets: The Symbolism of Osama Bin Laden’s Death

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While University of Missouri – Kansas City Professor Judy Ancel has yet to explain her false and misleading defense of classroom statements suggesting violence is an acceptable tactic with an appropriate place in advancing the labor movement, new video reveals Ancel giving students insight into how to put non-union companies out of business. The tactic Ancel recommends to students is based upon deception and designed to burden a non-union company with a costly labor action under false pretenses.

Ancel uses the word, “salt” in relating the tactic. In union terminology, that would supposedly be an individual who goes to work at a company with the intent to organize a union. However, that is not the goal Ancel embraces, as the video makes clear. She informs students how one can use so-called salts to put a non-union company out of business entirely.

While demonstrating no concern at all for non-union employees and business owners certain to face financial hardship as a result of the deceptive tactic Ancel endorses to her class, she calls it “useful,” going on to cackle while pointing out how the tactic is largely frowned upon by the public, a majority of which is comprised of non-union taxpayers who actually pay Ancel’s salary given her employment at a public university.

Certainly tactics union organizers use, or have used, in the past are appropriate for discussion in a class on Labor and Politics. However, one would think a genuine educational experience would come with at least some balance and objectivity and perhaps a discussion of the broader repercussions of any tactic, especially one specifically designed to destroy an individual business owner’s livelihood, while leaving some number of other taxpayers out of work.

Unfortunately, Ancel demonstrates no such thing. Consequently, it makes her class look more like a lesson in union organizing 101, as opposed to a serious and appropriate college-level educational experience related to the Labor movement in America.

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Given Barrett’s aspirations, it should surprise no one that hizzoner spent the next day rubbing elbows with the AFL-CIO’s Richard Trumka.

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The domestic Right has for decades been calling for a reduction in the size, scope and sphere of influence of government.

All the while, we have endured an excruciating and – it had begun to seem – inexorable growth of the federal Leviathan.

And after decades of incremental government expansion, it has in the last four years exploded.  Up 29% – from $2.7 trillion to $3.82 trillion.

An insane financial flurry – that gave rise to the Tea Party.  And thanks to them, for the first time… ever, we are discussing cutting the budget.

Not reducing the rate of growth – actually cutting.

The Left has of course rushed to the defense of their titanic spending status quo – ever increasing expenditures until we all collectively collapse in a bankrupt heap.

Their primary pseudo-reasoning has been that reducing the government’s size does nothing to create jobs.  That the desire to rein in this fiscal insanity is nothing more than ideological inanity.  And that ONLY more government spending will generate gigs.

Seeking to reduce spending is called by them “Economic Know-Nothingism.”

Vice President Joe Biden notoriously asserted “we got to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt.”

Seeking to outdo the Vice President, Moody’s issued an asinine report that said Republican plans to cut a paltry $61 billion – from, again, a $3.82 trillion budget, with a $1.65 trillion deficit – would result in the loss of 700,000 jobs.

Let us quickly do some math here.

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From The Associated Press:

Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper won his coveted majority government in elections Monday that also marked a shattering defeat for the opposition Liberals, preliminary results showed.

Harper, who took office in 2006, has won two elections but until now had never held a majority of Parliament’s 308 seats, forcing him to rely on the opposition to pass legislation.

While Harper’s hold on the 308-member Parliament has been tenuous during his five-year tenure, he has managed to nudge an instinctively center-left country to the right. He has gradually lowered sales and corporate taxes, avoided climate change legislation, promoted Arctic sovereignty, upped military spending and extended Canada’s military mission in Afghanistan.

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Today, in 1957, Walter O’Malley agreed to move the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles. Sadly, the O’Malley family relinquished control of the storied franchise a few years ago. Things haven’t gone well since.

(Happy Birthday, Jim!)

This month’s slate of busybodies includes the FDA whose agents embarked on a year-long sting operation to bust an Amish company for selling raw milk. And then there are the killjoys at New York’s Department of Health who were poised to crack down on “dangerous” activities like wiffle ball and freeze tag.

But this time around no one out-nannied the Chicago public school principal who banned students from eating homemade lunches.

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Last night was a transcendent moment for Americans. News that Osama bin Laden had been killed–by U.S. forces, no less–triggered spontaneous joy that spilled over into the streets of our nation. All of us–almost all of us–were united in congratulating President Obama, the armed forces, and each other.

There were a few, on both sides, who indulged the urge to turn America’s victory into an occasion for smug partisanship.

And I’ll admit that I enjoyed the opportunity to mock the extremists at MoveOn.org for smearing the military that brought America this great achievement.

Yet like most Americans, I gave standalone credit to President Obama–and in my exuberance, I even had to be reminded that President Bush deserved credit, too.

But victory against Al Qaeda wasn’t good enough for some on the left and in the mainstream media, who decided to declare Obama the pre-emptive winner of the 2012 election.

In fact, they have been politicizing Osama bin Laden’s death for years.

In September 2004, Bob Woodward told Larry King that Bush might produce “the apprehension or the death of bin Laden” as a “September or October surprise” to win the election.

In 2006 and 2008, the left revived the same conspiracy theory–with Media Matters, among others, claiming that Al Qaeda had supported Bush.

Today, the propaganda factory of the left is once again politicizing bin Laden’s death, using it to smear conservatives. John Podesta’s ThinkProgress.org has led the charge, touting a supposed “deather” conspiracy theory that refuses to believe bin Laden is dead: “Andrew Breitbart, a prominent right-wing commentator with close ties to the Republican Party and the Tea Party, is pushing the theory on his website Big Peace.”

That is pure projection by the institutional left, which can neither celebrate American victories in the war on terror, nor mourn American tragedies like Tuscon, without politicizing them.

So I am challenging the left to prove what it is alleging.

If anyone can prove that I believe American special forces did not kill Osama bin Laden, I will donate one million dollars to ThinkProgress.

Put up or shut up, John Podesta. And let Americans celebrate as one.

Remember when the Obama White House proudly announced it would make records of White House visitors publicly available as a demonstration of the president’s “commitment to transparency?” Well, this announcement may have played well in the lap-dog press, but when you dive into the details, it appears these White House logs are “riddled with holes,” rendering the grand Obama promise into nothing more than political posturing.

According to the Center for Public Integrity:

The [White House visitor] logs are…incomplete for thousands of…visitors to the White House, including lobbyists, government employees, campaign donors, policy experts, and friends of the first family, according to an investigation by the Center for Public Integrity.

The White House website proudly boasts of making available ‘over 1,000,000 records of everyone who’s come through the doors of the White House’ via a searchable database.

Yet the Center’s analysis shows that the logs routinely omit or cloud key details about the identity of visitors, who they met with, the nature of the visit, and even includes the names of people who never showed up. These are critical gaps that raise doubts about their historical accuracy and utility in helping the public understand White House operations from social events to meetings on key policy debates.

Judicial Watch has been covering the White House visitor logs issue for a very long time. (And we were happy to help the Center for Public Integrity on its story.) In fact, it was Judicial Watch that successfully forced the release of White House visitor logs related to visits by former lobbyist and convicted felon Jack Abramoff to the Bush White House all the way back in 2006.

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