Two Different Approaches

Look at that face: "When I get out of this, the biting begins."

Slow Response

I saw Nancy Pelosi fall off of the Golden Gate Bridge into the bay this morning and, being a responsible citizen, I informed the emergency services.

They still haven’t responded. I’m beginning to think I’ve wasted a stamp.

h/t: Bits

Merry Christmas

"No, you need to share your candy with the elves who accidentally ate theirs already."

I'm just kidding. I think the O's are doing Christmas well. Did you see the photos of them at the tree lighting? A cynical guy would suspect that an acting coach was involved.



The unconstitutionality ruling on Obamacare has got me feeling charitable, so I say: what a fine looking family.

photos: Daylife

Improper Use of the Motor Car

We're going in for a driver's test over the Christmas break.

Tax Cut?

OK, just to be clear, nobody is getting a tax cut under the proposed Obama compromise. Everyone would be paying the rate they've been paying for the last 10 years. you probably already know that.

Point B: If the old rates were allowed to expire, the top tax bracket rate would increase from 35% to 39.6%. That's 11.6% more tax at the bottom line. So when Alan Grayson claims that Rush Limbaugh would get 2.7 million dollars more if the present tax rates are extended, it follows that Rush is already paying 23.3 million dollars in tax. Maybe Grayson should consider saying thank you for the taxes Limbaugh already pays.

Point #3: The bottom tax bracket rate goes from 10% to 15% if the current rates are not continued. That's a huge difference.

Point Last: Hard economic times are not the time to raise tax rates on anybody. You want to stimulate growth, not stifle it.

Point OK this one is really the last: Why not bring money into the country for a change:

During last year's "Jobs Summit," President Obama said he was open to any good idea to get the economy moving again. Today he should be especially so, since Washington's many monetary and fiscal policy decisions have not been able to spur the robust growth or job expansion that we all would like. And yet there is a simple idea—the trillion-dollar elephant in the room—that has apparently been dismissed for no good reason.

One trillion dollars is roughly the amount of earnings that American companies have in their foreign operations—and that they could repatriate to the United States. That money, in turn, could be invested in U.S. jobs, capital assets, research and development, and more.

But for U.S companies such repatriation of earnings carries a significant penalty: a federal tax of up to 35%. This means that U.S. companies can, without significant consequence, use their foreign earnings to invest in any country in the world—except here.

The U.S. government's treatment of repatriated foreign earnings stands in marked contrast to the tax practices of almost every major developed economy, including Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Italy, Russia, Australia and Canada, to name a few. Companies headquartered in any of these countries can repatriate foreign earnings to their home countries at a tax rate of 0%-2%. That's because those countries realize that choking off foreign capital from their economies is decidedly against their national interests.

Why won't we follow the lead of every other big industrialized country? Because the Democrats would call it a gift to big business. Democrats. Listen up. Foreign profits are a good thing to bring back to this country. They've already been taxed in the country where they were made. Let them build a factory or two here.

Mr Bean Christmas

h/t: B&R

Blows Keyboard Cat Out of the Water

Not overly slick but cute:



h/t oops!

On the Tax Compromise

Jonah Goldberg in a personal e-mail to me (and others clever enough to sign up for his mailing list):

...the simple fact is that Obama's "race to the center" looks an awful lot like a guy backing up from a steamroller. He may not in fact be surrendering to the GOP, but he is throwing overboard every dispensable item he can find, lest he go down on the HMS Failed Presidency. At this rate, by the end of this movie, he's going to be standing on top of a huge steamer trunk labeled "Obamacare" as the galley fills with rushing seawater.

Image complete.

In Communist North Korea

"Work is completed on the giant monkeys. We'll see
who's laughing once the huge machine guns are ready."

Wikileaks

And the leaking goes on:

...in an exclusive interview with ABC News' Jim Sciutto, Wikileaks' spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson insisted Assange's arrest won't alter the site's calculated release of thousands of secret government cables, which still continues according to plan. The site published a new slate of cables Wednesday.

"It is not derailing us in any way," said Hrafnsson, adding that a group of five to six people is running Wikileaks' operations in Assange's absence. "This is a turning tide and starting a trend that you can't really stop unless you want to shut down the Internet."

Wikileaks has to be the worst assault on diplomacy ever. I can't say I thought much of Obama's general theme that if we're nice to the world the world will be nice in return. I knew it was naive to think that talking to our enemies would solve all our problems. So OK, I think Obama has learned that too in the last two years.

But diplomacy is still the way we solve differences without resorting to war. Whether Obama is good at it, or bad at it, or naive, or shrewd, doesn't matter; diplomacy is still necessary to avoid destructive confrontations. Have the Assange groupies thought through the consequences of damaging the world's ability to communicate diplomatically? Do they want trade wars, more nuclear weapons, and armed conflicts? Is a nuclear Iran a good thing? Should the United States quit trying to broker peace in the Middle East and Korea?

Diplomacy is a good thing. And diplomacy is what Assange and friends have hurt. They're children playing with pipe bombs and their inability to think their actions through is a hazard to everyone. They have to be stopped, one way or another.