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Pushing The Envelope, Part VIII:

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The human being has always pushed the envelope into and beyond the realms of danger. This is the eighth of various weekend postings displaying how restless Man is with the mundane and how he purposely crosses the threshold into danger willingly — and sometimes unwillingly.



Car: 2004 Ford Mustang Cobra, 550 hp.

Bikes: Triumph Speed Triples.

BZ



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AGAIN: Obama Reveals His Insanity With Newest SOTU

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A look at Obama’s rhetoric Tuesday night and how it fits with the facts and political circumstances:
OBAMA: “We have subsidized oil companies for a century. That’s long enough. It’s time to end the taxpayer giveaways to an industry that’s rarely been more profitable, and double-down on a clean energy industry that’s never been more promising.”
THE FACTS: This is at least Obama’s third run at stripping subsidies from the oil industry. Back when fellow Democrats formed the House and Senate majorities, he sought $36.5 billion in tax increases on oil and gas companies over the next decade, but Congress largely ignored the request. He called again to end such tax breaks in last year’s State of the Union speech. And he’s now doing it again, despite facing a wall of opposition from Republicans who want to spur domestic oil and gas production and oppose tax increases generally.
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OBAMA: “Our health care law relies on a reformed private market, not a government program.”
THE FACTS: That’s only half true. About half of the more than 30 million uninsured Americans expected to gain coverage through the health care law will be enrolled in a government program. Medicaid, the federal-state program for low-income people, will be expanded starting in 2014 to cover childless adults living near the poverty line.
The other half will be enrolled in private health plans through new state-based insurance markets. But many of them will be receiving federal subsidies to make their premiums more affordable. And that’s a government program, too.
Starting in 2014 most Americans will be required to carry health coverage, either through an employer, by buying their own plan, or through a government program.
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OBAMA, asking Congress to pay for construction projects: “Take the money we’re no longer spending at war, use half of it to pay down our debt, and use the rest to do some nation-building right here at home.”
THE FACTS: The idea of taking war “savings” to pay for other programs is budgetary sleight of hand. For one thing, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been largely financed through borrowing, so stopping the wars doesn’t create a pool of ready cash, just less debt. And the savings appear to be based at least in part on inflated war spending estimates for future years.
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OBAMA: “Through the power of our diplomacy a world that was once divided about how to deal with Iran’s nuclear program now stands as one.”
THE FACTS: The world is still divided over how to deal with Iran’s disputed nuclear program, and even over whether the nuclear program is a problem at all.
It is true that the U.S., Europe and other nations have agreed to apply the strictest economic sanctions yet on Iran later this year. But the global sanctions net has holes, because some of Iran’s large oil trading partners won’t go along. China, a major purchaser of Iran’s crude, isn’t part of the new sanctions and, together with Russia, stopped the United Nations from applying similarly tough penalties.
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OBAMA: “Tonight, I want to speak about how we move forward, and lay out a blueprint for an economy that’s built to last – an economy built on American manufacturing, American energy, skills for American workers, and a renewal of American values.”
THE FACTS: Economists do see manufacturing growth as a necessary component of any U.S. recovery. U.S. manufacturing output climbed 0.9 percent in December, the biggest gain since December 2010. Yet Obama’s apparent vision of a nation once again propelled by manufacturing – a vision shared by many Republicans – may already have slipped into the past.

Over generations, the economy has become ever more driven by services; not since 1975 has the U.S. had a surplus in merchandise trade, which covers trade in goods, including manufactured and farm goods. About 90 percent of American workers are employed in the service sector, a profound shift in the nature of the workforce over many decades.
The overall trade deficit through the first 11 months of 2011 ran at an annual rate of nearly $600 billion, up almost 12 percent from the year before.
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OBAMA: “The Taliban’s momentum has been broken, and some troops in Afghanistan have begun to come home.”
THE FACTS: Obama is more sanguine about progress in Afghanistan than his own intelligence apparatus. The latest National Intelligence Estimate on Afghanistan warns that the Taliban will grow stronger, using fledgling talks with the U.S. to gain credibility and stall until U.S. troops leave, while continuing to fight for more territory. The classified assessment, described to The Associated Press by officials who have seen it, says the Afghan government hasn’t been able to establish credibility with its people, and predicts the Taliban and warlords will largely control the countryside.
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OBAMA: “On the day I took office, our auto industry was on the verge of collapse. Some even said we should let it die. With a million jobs at stake, I refused to let that happen. In exchange for help, we demanded responsibility. We got workers and automakers to settle their differences. We got the industry to retool and restructure. Today, General Motors is back on top as the world’s number one automaker. Chrysler has grown faster in the U.S. than any major car company. Ford is investing billions in U.S. plants and factories.”
THE FACTS: He left out some key details. The bailout of General Motors and Chrysler began under Republican President George W. Bush. Obama picked up the ball, earmarked more money, and finished the job. But Ford never asked for a federal bailout and never got one.
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OBAMA: “We can also spur energy innovation with new incentives. The differences in this chamber may be too deep right now to pass a comprehensive plan to fight climate change. But there’s no reason why Congress shouldn’t at least set a clean energy standard that creates a market for innovation.”
THE FACTS: With this statement, Obama was renewing a call he made last year to require 80 percent of the nation’s electricity to come from clean energy sources by 2035, including nuclear, natural gas and so-called clean coal. He did not put that percentage in his speech but White House background papers show that it remains his goal.

But this Congress has yet to introduce a bill to make that goal a reality, and while legislation may be introduced this year, it is unlikely to become law with a Republican-controlled House that loathes mandates.
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OBAMA: “Right now, because of loopholes and shelters in the tax code, a quarter of all millionaires pay lower tax rates than millions of middle-class households.”
THE FACTS: It’s true that a minority of millionaires pay a lower tax rate than some lower-income people. On average, though, wealthy people pay taxes at a much higher rate than middle-income taxpayers.

Obama’s claim comes from a Congressional Research Service report that compared federal
taxes paid by people making less than $100,000 with those paid by people making more than $1 million. About 10 percent of families with incomes under $100,000 paid more than 26.5 percent in federal income, payroll and corporate taxes. And about a quarter of millionaire taxpayers paid a rate lower than that.
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OBAMA: “We can’t bring back every job that’s left our shores…. Tonight, my message to business leaders is simple: Ask yourselves what you can do to bring jobs back to your country, and your country will do everything we can to help you succeed.”
FACT CHECK: Many of the jobs U.S. companies have created overseas won’t return because they were never in the United States in the first place.
As Obama said in his speech, U.S. workers have become more productive and labor costs have fallen.

But there are powerful forces pushing the other way: Many of the overseas jobs in U.S. companies weren’t transferred from the U.S. They were created in fast-growing markets in Latin America, Asia and elsewhere to serve customers in those markets. Companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index now earn more than half of their revenue from overseas.
That has fueled more job creation abroad. U.S. multinationals cut more than 800,000 jobs in the United States from 2000 to 2009, according the Commerce Department. They added 2.9 million overseas in the same period.
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OBAMA: “Anyone who tells you that America is in decline or that our influence has waned doesn’t know what they’re talking about … That’s not how people feel from Tokyo to Berlin; from Cape Town to Rio; where opinions of America are higher than they’ve been in years.”
THE FACTS: Obama left out Arab and Muslim nations, where popular opinion of the U.S. appears to have gone downhill or remained unchanged after the spring 2011 reformist uprisings in the Middle East. A Pew Research Center survey in May found that in predominantly Muslim countries such as Turkey, Jordan and Pakistan, views of the U.S. were worse than a year earlier. In Pakistan, a major recipient of U.S. foreign aid that went unmentioned in Obama’s speech, just 11 percent of respondents said they held a positive view of the United States.
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Associated Press writers Tom Raum, Anne Gearan, Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Martin Crutsinger, Jim Drinkard, Dina Cappiello, Erica Werner, Andrew Taylor, Christopher S. Rugaber and Stephen Ohlemacher contributed to this report.
Nothing like any number of bald-faced “misrepresentations” in Mr Obama’s speech.
BZ
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Tom McClintock on SOPA and PIPA:

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Again, how lucky I am that Mr Tom McClintock is my representative:

As I wrote here, SOPA and PIPA are dangers to our very own First Amendment.

It was reconsidered but only upon a hue and cry raised by the Groundlings of this nation. With Mr McClintock’s voice officially and publicly included alongside!

The transcript here, and below:

House Chamber, Washington, D.C. – January 23, 2012

Madam Speaker:

Long ago, Jefferson warned, “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground.” The exceptions to that rule have been few and far between recently, and ought to be celebrated when they occur.

One did this past week with the announcement that supporters of the so-called “Stop On-Line Privacy Act” and the “Protect Intellectual Property Act” have indefinitely postponed their measures after an unprecedented protest across the Internet.

SOPA and PIPA pose a crippling danger to the Internet because they use the legitimate concern over copy-right infringement as an excuse for government to intrude upon and regulate the very essence of the Internet – the unrestricted and absolutely free association that links site to site, providing infinite pathways for commerce, discourse and learning.

It is not the Internet per se that has set the stage for the next quantum leap in human knowledge and advancement – but rather the free association at the core of the Internet. And this is precisely what SOPA and PIPA directly threaten.

But as dangerous as this concept is to the Internet, it pales in comparison to the danger it poses to our fundamental freedoms as Americans.

It is true that rogue web sites operating from off-shore havens, are stealing intellectual property and then selling it.

We already have very good laws against that, as evidenced by the arrest yesterday of Mr. Kim Schmitz and his associates in New Zealand, who now stand accused of operating one of the biggest of these rogue sites.

Theft of intellectual property is fundamentally no different than the theft of any other kind of property. It should be taken no less seriously than the thefts perpetrated by the likes of Bernie Madoff, John Dellinger or Willie Sutton.

It is no different and it should be treated no differently. In every such case, it is the individual who commits the theft and the individual who is culpable and accountable to the law. And it is the individual who is accorded the right of due process, including the presumption of innocence, while he stands accused.

This is what SOPA and PIPA destroy. Upon mere accusation, these measures would allow the government to shut down web sites, ruin honest businesses, impound property, disrupt legitimate speech and dragoon innocent third parties into enforcing laws that may or may not have been broken.

When property is stolen, we hold accountable the individuals who knowingly commit the act, and place the burden of proof on the accuser. The accuser must demonstrate to the satisfaction of a jury that the defendant stole property or that he received property that he knew was stolen.

Yes, it is a ponderous system. Yes, it means you actually have to provide evidence. Yes, it means you have to convince a jury. Yes, it means we can’t catch and successfully prosecute every criminal. But the experience of mankind over the centuries has proven that this is the best possible way to protect the innocent and to protect our freedom while also punishing the guilty. In part, we punish the guilty to discourage others we might not be able to punish.

And as the arrests yesterday in New Zealand prove, it works. Let Mr. Schmitz and his confederates be extradited and let them have their day in court. Let evidence be presented. Let a jury be convinced of that evidence. And if convicted of one of the greatest thefts in human history, let us mete out the full measure of punishment provided by the law to stand as a fearsome example to others.

That doesn’t and won’t stop all theft and it isn’t perfect. But to replace it with one where mere accusation can bring punishment or inflict ruinous costs upon innocent third parties, would introduce a despotic and destructive concept that is antithetical to the ancient rights that our government was formed to protect.

The developments of the last few weeks have saved the Internet and saved these fundamental principles – at least for now. But Jefferson was right that the natural order is for government to grow at the expense of liberty. That is why we have our Constitution.

And to the protection of that Constitution, the Internet has now empowered its rightful owners, “We, the People,” to defend it more effectively than ever before.

Which leads me, Madam Speaker, to conclude that because of the events of this past week, we will see many more victories for freedom in the days and years ahead.

You can be guaranteed that the assaults upon our freedoms will continue under the current regime.

Thank you for reading.

BZ

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Brewer Stands Up To Obama

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And a nice photograph it is, also.

Finally, a Republican who can stand up to Mr Obama. Directly. From ABCNews:

Longstanding tension between Republican Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer and Democratic President Barack Obama flared into the public spotlight Wednesday just after Air Force One touched down in Phoenix.

Brewer, who was on the tarmac to greet Obama, hand-delivered a letter before engaging the president “intensely” for several minutes, including pointing her finger directly at him, according to Politico’s Carrie Budoff Brown, acting as a pool reporter for other media outlets.

Accounts from both camps later said the terse talk focused on Brewer’s book – “Scorpions for Breakfast: My Fight Against Special Interests, Liberal Media and Cynical Politicos to Secure America’s Border.”

The book, which was released in November, describes a June 2010 Oval Office meeting between Obama and Brewer aimed at diffusing conflicts surrounding Arizona’s controversial state immigration law and the administration’s immigration policy.

It is of great interest that I note these thoughts from Governor Brewer:

Brewer complains in “Scorpions for Breakfast” that she and her staff were treated coldly by White House aides, prevented from taking pictures in the holding room outside the Oval Office and that their cell phones and cameras were “confiscated” by Secret Service.

“Too bad we weren’t illegal aliens, or we could have sued them,” she writes.

During her meeting with the president, Brewer said Obama was “condescending” and professorial, “lecturing” on his efforts to promote comprehensive immigration reform.

“It wasn’t long before I realized I was hearing the president’s stump speech,” she said. “Only I was supposed to listen without talking. Did he care to hear the view from the actual scene at the border? Did the opinions and observations of the people of Arizona mean anything to him? I didn’t think so.”

“He was patronizing,” she said. “Then it dawned on me: He’s treating me like the cop he had over for a beer after he bad-mouthed the Cambridge police, I thought. He thinks he can humor me and then get rid of me.”

Imagine that. Obama patronizing, arrogant, lecturing, thin-skinned. I am shocked. Shocked, I tell you.

BZ

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Israel, Iran and Syria: Two Months To Conflict?

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Candice Lanier in HumanEvents.com writes:

Recent events in the Middle East would indicated that Israel, Syria and Iran are all making preparations for a regional war. According to information acquired by DEBKAfile, the conflict would likely ensue some time within the next two months.

With that in mind, the Debkafile indicates that Mr Obama contacted Israeli PM Netanyahu in what was typified as an “angry phone call” following the unattributed killing of Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan last Wednesday, Jan. 11th. The Debkafile writes that DC thinks Israel is going to attack Iran unilaterally. Following that phone call from Obama, in two words, Israel was pissed off. Further:

Debkafile‘s exclusive sources report that the differences between the US and Israel surfaced before the tough Obama-Netanyahu conversation last Thursday (January 12th -BZ). Political, military and intelligence officials privately voiced resentment over the strong and unusual condemnation the White House and Secretary Clinton issued over the death of the Iranian nuclear scientist.

By denying “absolutely” any US involvement in the killing, the administration implicitly pointed the finger at Israel – an unusual act in relations between two friendly governments, especially when both face a common issue as sensitive as a nuclear-armed Iran.

Obama seemed to suspect that Israel staged the killing to torpedo yet another US secret effort to avoid a military confrontation with Iran through back channel contacts with Tehran, while the administration’s extreme condemnation is seen as tying in with its all-out campaign to hold Israel back from a unilateral strike.

Again with that in mind, it was Israel’s Netanyahu who called off the joint powers exercise, Austere Challenge 12 — and not Washington as reported — because, as Debkafile notes:

Netanyahu acted when he judged the Obama administration’s resolve to preempt a nuclear Iran to be flagging. His action also aimed at freeing Israel’s hands for a unilateral strike on Iran’s nuclear sites – if necessary.

Finally, from Debkafiles:

The new round of European sanctions will not stop Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon, Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned in a radio interview Tuesday, Jan. 24. debkafile: The Obama administration and EU delayed oil sanctions to July 1 for back-channel contacts to ripen and produce a fresh round of nuclear talks with Tehran. Barak stressed Israel’s hand was always near the trigger and advised taking “very seriously” Israel’s military option which had not been taken off the table.

LinkTo me, it appears obvious that Israel is on its own. Mr Obama has made it abundantly clear that he is no friend of Israel but still manages to find time to honor various and sundry Islamic persons and events, despite their clear goals.

Any intervention by any country or entity into Iran with regard to its nuclear program will be painful, very painful, for the United States or any Western Nation dependent upon Middle Eastern oil. I’ve written about this countless times, most recently here.

On the other hand, when the whip comes down, please remember that it was Mr Obama, the Demorats and the Religious Left who REFUSED to allow a Canadian oil pipeline into the country so that LOCAL and not MIDDLE EASTERN oil could more readily be supplied to the country.

We are sitting, ourselves, on the Bakken Reserves — an oil field that is thought to be equal or larger than any extant in the Middle East. We have large, untapped fields of natural gas. We have huge fields of oil off our very own coasts. And another large field in Alaska’s ANWR.

All of which we are NOT allowed to tap, so that we are FORCED to rely on the political intransigence of Middle Eastern countries, the chokepoint of the Strait of Hormuz, and all the hate and discontent that naturally brings.

When the lights go out, when the gas stops, when heating oil deliveries cease, perhaps it’s time for these four words: “Thank you, Mr Obama.”

BZ

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