Will the real prisoner torturers pplease stand up?

There was a lot of commentary during the GWB presidency about the abuse of prisoners, and specifically the use of torture. I think the following items have been established as facts:

* In Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse took place. Prison guards performed unprofessionally and in some cases criminally. Many have been charged and tried, but undoubtedly some guilty have escaped justice. Additionally we can be sure that a large number of those mistreated were innocent to begin with. (We should also keep in mind that many who claim innocence are guilty, and there are incentives for the prisoners to exaggerate claims of abuse.)

* CIA has used - with great effect - coercive tactics (i.e. waterboarding) to attain information that helped prevent future attacks.

* CIA also used extradition flights to send certain prisoners to governments less concerned with human rights.

The analysis does not agree generally I'd stereotype it this way: Those on the left feel its a wide spread gov't problem under GWB, driven from the president himself. Those on the right feel any abuse was the price of business and should be dealt with quickly and quietly. (In reality you can provide a million different examples of analysis or opinion about this stuff, because it is a complicated issue.) But one thing I find extremely hypocritical is the hysteria from the left and MSM over prisoner abuse and the use of "torture" (sorry waterboarding doesn't meet my definition of torture), in conjunction with their warm embrace of Obama's do nothing, nothing due w/r/t the recent Iranian fraudulent election and protests. The most the current POTUS did was embrace dinner jacket as the legitimate.

But if you actually care about human rights and torture - then bringing down (and not propping up) the Iranian regime should be your goal.

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NzQzNjA3MjI2ZTY3OTJhMTc3ZmJlYmU4NTU3Njg2Mzc=

Healthcare Shenanigans

Duane (on Hugh Hewitt's blog) calls shenanigans on Obama's anti doctor strawmen.

What pisses me off about those clips is that stupidity of the common man is axiomatic in Obama's reasoning. Note the elderly woman (and her family) are incapable of avoiding needless procedures by becoming well informed, we need a government bureaucrat to help. (Side bar: the lady asked about a situation where they sought out a procedure and it did help, not a situation where an extra procedure was being pushed. Obama answers the inverse question. There is an awful lot of "Here's the answer to the question I wish you had asked" going on in support of the health care debate.) The tonsil example assumes the patient wouldn't ask about other possible causes of "repeated sore throats". And the final example - someone with diabetes is unable to research how to treat diabetes, and let's a doctor give them a substandard care resulting in foot loss. And in the end that's what government health care is about: treating the "unwashed" masses as infants. And once they can make decisions about health care, smoking, drinking and eating become fair game.

Waxman-Markey

I saw this post linked by Instapundit. So I called congressman Markey's office to ask a few simple questions:

1. Is the Congressman aware that his bill would push carbon limits to Haiti or US 1875 levels? Does he think the quality of life achieved here since then might be related to those levels?


2. Is he aware of what the effects of this legislation would be on jobs in his district? In the state? In the country? Does he realize there is a recession going on and that it's almost guaranteed the regulations would have a negative impact short term?

After having no answers - "you know the congressman sponsored the bill?", to which I responded "yes, so it should be easy for his staff to have some simple answers" - and clearly readying my complaints for the recycle bin - the joke of a staffer said "I think the congressman hopes that his bill would actually create jobs, green jobs." Firstly the only green I'm interested in when it comes to jobs is cash. Secondly - his hope is about as likely to be true as my hope to have my congressman read a bill and have some basic understanding of it before sponsoring it. Then I asked this follow up:

3. How many of our top American companies rely on oil or are directly in the oil industry? Does he know what happened in Spain with their "green jobs" foray? (He did not.)



So in summary: if the congressman wants to improve air quality, he should start by removing his head from his posterior.

Standard Ops

This is how it goes today. Discrimination protection for thee, but not for me.

Guess that Immigration Status

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/03/03/chandra.levy.suspect/

Since they don't say, I'll guess he's an illegal. What do you want to wager?

Malkin was there weeks ago: http://michellemalkin.com/2009/02/23/return-of-the-chandra-levy-case-and-illegal-alien-sex-offender-ingmar-guandique/

Yep, he's illegal, seems like information that a news story should report.

Changes I don't care about

I saw some write ups about how certain Obama changes, notably reducing or eliminating Tax Deductions for mortgage interest and charitable giving, were big mistakes. Frankly I don't care about these changes.

1. If you believe in a free market, then Gov't regulation through the tax code bothers you. On the mortgage interest (and I'm enjoying the benefit, so this is an argument against self interest) it's a contributor to encouraging people to buy, and it creates upward pressure in the home market. Like subsidizing student loans this distorts the market, and IMO drives prices too high. It also subsidizes home owners at the expense of renters. Renting is probably a better choice for people in the lower brackets and with certain lifestyles (i.e. jobs that move you a lot.)

2. On charitable giving - yes this will effect churches and good organizations, but most people doing this kind of donations, probably will still find a way to give. The whole charitable corporation is so corrupt these days, I'd like to see the entire industry take a hit. Every time you see an article about some charity funneling money to terrorists, or really being a front for a political group, etc - it makes the whole thing seem dirty.

Now I do agree that these changes happening over night and in isolation are probably bad policy, but again - that's not a surprise. Obama has zero experience in anything other than pandering - so why would expect anything different? For at least the next two years, expect bad policy ideas to be the topic du jour.

How would I deal with these? Phase out any changes of this magnitude.
1. Shift all corporations to be tax free - but none to be charitable (i.e. you can't give money to a company and then not pay taxes on it, no matter what). It's our government and we should (individually) pay for it.

2. Set all personal tax at the same rate and allow no deduction, tax all income at the same rate (no special treatment for investor class income.)

3. Use the no speed bump approach to make the tax code somewhat progressive and handle welfare issues. Have the federal government remove itself all together from any other welfare issues. (Think of this as the Gov't taking out an insurance policy on you.) Note this approach removes the regressive nature of todays biggest welfare policies (payroll tax, medicare, SSN.)

4. Reform campaign finance and speech: allow any organization to campaign on it's own behalf with disclosure. Require all campaign contributions be from individuals directly. Require reporting on all funds over $100 within 24 hours via the campaign website. Charge an audit fee on all non-traceable funds (anything that comes in as cash or is under the $100 reporting limit and not reported) in the amount of 2* the personal tax rate. Candidates should be personally responsible (civil or criminal) for any behavior of their campaign. Any money later moved from the reported to the non-traceable category should be subject to the same payment, plus a matching fee charged to the candidate.

Prepare for the worst

Our society has declined to the point that a soft tyranny is now appearing right before our eyes:

Obama and company are making unprecedented power grabs. In one swoop, grabbing money to buy favors for his friends and take over industry. Grabbing the census bureau to realign electoral votes in his favor. Dividing us with fearmongering and class warfare. And coming soon: Imigration policy that imports poverty and redefines citenship for votes. Fairness doctorine that attacks free speech. A massive gun grab. Lifetime activist judges. The list goes on and on.

Does the majority care? No. They are getting their bread and circuses, at least in the modern form... Welfare and reality TV.

This cowardly, lazy, greedy, and selfish trend is unsustainable. It has created the current tyrant, and will encourage the worse ones that will follow.