Articles Posted by landsbaum
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Texas Gov. Rick Perry, whose stock value might have fallen faster and more dramatically than any Republican in history, has decided to stop running for president. We liken Perry’s meteoric fall to the old silent movie-era actors once talkies arrived. “Yikes!” was the response in both cases.
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. . . Higher taxes, one might conclude, are either inadequate or unnecessary. We should stand back from the furor over tax revenue uncertainties, and consider what we know to be true. Taxation is the power to destroy, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall famously said almost 200 years ago. As such, it should be used as little as possible. . .
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Electric car enthusiasts – those who want someone else to subsidize their extravagances and then pretend that the electricity they use isn’t created with fossil fuel anyway – may at first find something to cheer about in this news from England. There are now more charging stations than electric vehicles on the road, reports the MailOnline. . . . But we need to read a bit more in that Mail story. The reason there are more electric charging stations than electric cars isn’t because there are so many stations. It’s because there are so few electric cars.
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Some complain, rightly so, that we are always harping on what’s wrong. True enough. But there’s so much wrong. Should we avoid it? Here’s another approach: Find the silver lining.
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Ronald Reagan famously set the GOP standard for intra-party campaigning with his 11th commandment – Thou shall not speak ill of any fellow Republican. It would appear the commandment has been amended, if not entirely revoked. The current presidential campaign might be said to follow the new rule of thumb: “Say as many bad things about fellow Republicans as you can.”
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Although the faux science behind global warming alarmism has been amply exposed for its pretensions and errors, the warmists don’t much care. They have their regulations in place. They no longer have to resort to this tactic... Brace yourself. “Gov. Jerry Brown has found a new pot of money to help him fill a $9-billion hole in his proposed budget: $1 billion from auctioning credits to allow California companies to emit greenhouse gases,” reports today’s Los Angeles Times. And you thought it was about saving the planet? It’s always been about money and control. Your money, their control. . ....
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Despite a huge state budget deficit, Gov. Jerry Brown said last week that he not only intends to increase spending, he also plans to move ahead with California's questionable high-speed rail project, even though multiple critiques conclude it is a waste of tax money. ... The governor's refusal to delay or kill the implausible train project should make taxpayers wary of a bill introduced last week by Assemblyman Mike Feuer, D-West Hollywood, to allow "public rail transit projects" to avoid rigorous environmental review.
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The odds of Ron Paul being nominated by Republicans and defeating President Barack Obama are, in the words of one news service, "beyond remote." Perhaps. But Mr. Paul's "Plan to Restore America" is breathtaking, nevertheless. Candidates whose success may be less remote would do well to adopt this plan in large measure...
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California foolishly is going where Congress fears to tread, and where even European global warming zealots are backing away. Nevertheless, an unelected, virtually unaccountable board of government overseers has voted unanimously to impose mandatory cap-and-trade regulations on California businesses that will likely kill jobs, chase companies out of state and impose $2 billion in new taxes, all in a Quixotic quest to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, a highly questionable, perhaps meaningless, goal...
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How the mighty have fallen. We read that somewhere. And right here in our midst an example: John Edwards, the lawyer who made a fortune playing a good guy fighting big bad guys. He wanted to be president and tried twice. He wanted to be a husband and father – then cheated on his wife even as she suffered from cancer and got his girl friend pregnant, then said it was someone else’s child. Whatta guy . . .
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Say you made a million dollars a year. Congratulations. You made yourself a millionaire. It’s yours. Well, not so fast… How could you un-make yourself a millionaire?
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Stop the presses! (Yeah, no one’s said that in any newsroom I’ve worked in four decades in the business.) A major surprise. (Yeah, more sarcasm.) The Los Angeles Times reports that “California lawmakers kill measure banning gifts to themselves” And the sun rose in the east . . .
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If you buy into the public school rationale, you don’t necessarily also buy into the shove-as-much-money-as-possible-into-teacher-union-pensions-and-paychecks rationale. That’s why campaigns for higher taxes for public schools are always couched as “for the children” and never – let us repeat, never – as for the enrichment of public school unionized teachers. Unfortunately (for unionized teachers) people have begun to wake up to the hollow plea that “it’s for the children.” And now to make things worse . . .
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olumnist Dan Walters says even the optimistic view of California’s economic future is pretty bleak. He quotes California Lutheran University’s William Watkins, who says California may have lost its global competitive edge. “Watkins describes California as ‘something like a zombie state, not quite dead, but certainly not vigorous, moving but with no clear direction’ . . .
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Imagine you’re irresponsible. Now imagine you’re the people in charge of California’s government budget. But I repeat myself. Imagine you have run up your credit card and borrowed beyond what’s reasonable. Imagine now that you have too little money because you have a spending problem. Then imagine you get a windfall bundle of cash. What would you do? Pay some outstanding bills? Pay down your credit card? Nah. You’d spend it. . .
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Plenty of people already have claimed that Gov. Jerry Brown reneged Monday on his campaign promise not to increase taxes without a vote of the people. Did he? PROMISE KEEPER??? In a conference call yesterday he stressed . . .
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To hear them talk, you’d think Americans were disenchanted with politics and government. OK, we are too. Daily we hint at and veritably shout suggestions for fixing things. How would Americans fix things? The recent Reason-Rupe poll says 80 percent of Americans would or might consider voting for an Independent or third-party presidential candidate in 2012. . .
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Yes, Osama bin Laden has been delivered to justice. Yes, al Qaida remnants vow revenge. Yes, the president wants amnesty for people who snuck in the United States. But, didn’t someone once say, “It’s the economy stupid?” Rasmussen Reports reports today: . . .
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Apparently it took a while to get it right, but the folks over at the Hockey Schtick are reporting: “Following a long delay and some controversial “adjustments,” the University of Colorado sea level satellite data was recently released. A plot of the rate of sea level rise shows a stable rate between 2003 and 2007, and declining rates since 2007.” Did you catch that? . . .
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There’s an informative story in the paper that concluded corporations are encouraged by the tax code “to stash hundreds of billions in profits overseas…” Gee, who would have guessed? Of 25 Orange County-based California corporations, “most pay less than the official rate, sometimes far less.” We’ve made the case for years that when taxes are raised on corporations, the outcome is predictable . . .
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