on media bias…

Posted on by

Bias [in the media] is a fact of American political life…

On the social issues especially, the media narrative is that Republicans are obsessed. The truth is that at a time when millions of Americans can’t find work, when our Middle East policy is in turmoil, when the future of Mr. Obama’s signature legislative achievement—health care—is in question, every Republican in the running is itching for the opportunity to talk about how he would address these things.

In sharp contrast, it was Mr. Stephanopoulos and Ms. Sawyer who showed themselves consumed with nonexistent initiatives on contraception and what you might say to gay friends who are sitting in your living room. Saturday night on ABC, we saw this bias in its full, condescending form.

The Stephanopoulos Standard by William McGurn at WSJ.com

About that “Buffett Rule”

Posted on by

Next time you hear the president talk about how we need to tax more people like Warren Buffett – someone who, as of late, frequently advocates for higher taxation on the rich – should keep this in mind:

The “Buffett Rule” would not tax the vast majority of his shielded income, including either his unrealized capital gains, which are currently taxed at zero percent, or charitable contributions, which are tax deductible.

If the “Buffett Rule” were applied as President Obama proposes, then Mr. Buffett’s federal tax bill would have been $14.4 million, rather than the $6.9 million he actually paid. As a fraction of his true income, his effective tax rate would only have risen from 6/100ths of 1% to 12/100ths of 1%.

 

It turns out that all of Obama’s tax increases wouldn’t actually make any real difference in Buffett’s own taxes.  But the hypocrisy of everyone involved worse:

Mr. Buffett’s donation to the Gates Foundation goes to the heart of my critique of his public call for higher tax rates on the rich. Just look at the second contractual condition for his ongoing pledge to the Gates Foundation: “The foundation must continue to satisfy the legal requirements qualifying Warren’s gift as charitable, exempt from gift or other taxes.”

 

In other words, if his gift weren’t tax sheltered he wouldn’t give it. So much for “shared sacrifice.”

Incidentally, I’m not the first to question Mr. Buffett’s commitment to “shared sacrifice” in balancing the federal budget. In a 2007 CNBC interview, when asked why he shelters his money through tax-free strategies rather than writing big checks to Uncle Sam, Mr. Buffett responded: “I think that on balance the Gates Foundation, my daughter’s foundation, my two sons’ foundations will do a better job with lower administrative costs and better selection of beneficiaries than the government.”

So Mr. Buffett thinks he and his family can put their money to better use than the government can. I guess he’s really not so different from the rest of us after all.

So Mr. Buffett isn’t really being honest with us after all… and neither is Obama.  The richest 1% will continue to shelter their income with the help of an army of lawyers and accountants… and the hard-working upper-middle class who makes more than 250 thousand dollars… THEY will get foot with the bill.  So much for ‘shared sacrifice’.

Via Class Warefare and the Buffett Rule — on WSJ.com

WSJ Magazine

Posted on by

Lets forget about the customer for a minute… I don’t mean that in an arrogant way.  We believe that great brands don’t chase customers, customers chase great brands.

 

At the Gap, someone would try to do polo shirts with a zipper.  I’d say, ‘That’s just wrong.’  And they never sold.  You can take a polo and distress it, do it in new colors, but it’s still a polo.  If you destroy its integrity, it’s not better, just different.

- Gary Friedman in the June 2011 issue of Wall Street Journal Magazine.

WSJ Mag

Posted on by

Architecture is about aging well, about precision and authenticity…  There is much more to the success of a building than what you can see.

- Annabelle Selldorf, in the May 2011 edition of Wall Street Journal Magizine

 

What voter ID fraud?

Posted on by

This is just a post to put in my ‘back pocket’ for the next time someone starts lamenting how unfair voter ID laws are to minorities:

Mr. Holder says the Civil Rights Division led by Thomas Perez will review the policies and impartially “apply the law.” If that’s true, Mr. Perez’s job should be easy: In 2005, Justice approved a nearly identical law in Georgia. In 2008′s Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, the Supreme Court likewise ruled 6-3 that an Indiana law requiring photo ID at the ballot box was constitutional.

The court’s liberal lion, then-Justice John Paul Stevens, wrote for the majority that Indiana’s law “is unquestionably relevant to the State’s interest in protecting the integrity and reliability of the electoral process.” Indiana offered free voter ID cards to all citizens, so the inconvenience of picking up an ID at the Department of Motor Vehicles wasn’t an undue burden and was reasonably balanced by the state’s interest in reducing fraud, Justice Stevens wrote.

That isn’t good enough for Mr. Holder, who says his department’s priority is to “expand the franchise.” But expand it for whom, exactly? The vast majority of voters already have the necessary photo ID, which they need to get through airport security or register for a grocery-store savings card.
Plaintiffs put up by liberal lawsuit shops routinely claim that ID laws endanger the rights of hundreds of thousands, but lawsuits in Indiana and Georgia were dismissed because they couldn’t produce a single eligible voter who’d been turned away due to the ID requirement. Turnout has risen in states that have passed the voter ID laws, with no adverse impact on minorities.
In his speech, Mr. Holder highlighted historical attempts to keep voters away from the polls to “gain partisan advantage.” But in a case of more recent history, in 2009, Mr. Holder’s department dropped a voter intimidation case against the Black Panther Party, in which members stood outside a polling place brandishing nightsticks and threatening voters. Civil-rights lawyer Bartle Bull saw the Panthers in action and called it “the most blatant form of voter intimidation I’ve ever seen.”

via Review & Outlook: Holder’s Voter ID Fraud – WSJ.com.

« Older Posts
Newer posts »