Nothing like a little bit of Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, and Tom Turkey:

“Do as we say, or we will destroy you.”

I don’t blame homosexuals for what has happened to eHarmony.com, no more than I blame women for what happened to the men’s Rotary Club in the 80s.

I blame leftists.

There are sites on the internet that specialize in African Americans dating other African Americans. There are sites that specialize in interracial couples. There are sites that specialize in lesbian couples. There are TONS of gay dating sites.

There are even sites to fascilitate dating for your pets- and help you find another pet-lover while you’re at it.

If I decided to sue any of the sites above for not equaling advertising and servicing me as a white person, I would be labeled a racist.  Yet these leftist activists- whose own intolerance for the opinions and liberty of others (namely Evangelical Christians and Mormons) eclipses the supposed intolerance of Neil Clark Warren or James Dobson or any other of the “anti-gay” or “racist” or “sexist” or “anti-immigrant” boogiemen you wish to name- are not labeled as what they are. They are anti-liberty for anyone who disagrees with them.

There is no moral, legal, ethical, or logical reason why eHarmony.com should not be allowed to offer their services only to heterosexual couples if they so choose. None.

This court ruling is wrong, and this is not a heterosexual vs. homosexual issue people.  This is a conflict between those who believe in the centrality of liberty and private property- allowing companies to operate how they wish- and those who value the feelings of the individual over the good of society.

Does it hurt your feelings that eHarmony won’t match you with someone of the same sex? I certainly understand why that may be painful, but imagine how much more painful it will be when the liberties our country were founded upon cease to exist in the name of making everyone “equal”.

I love Google and 2008.

I know this has already existed on Skype, Macbooks, etc etc.  But somehow when Google incorporates video chat inside their general email interface- I dunno. It just seems like a perfect storm of technology has arrived.

It feels almost like this- almost.

It also probably helps that my laptop has a webcam and microphone incorporated into it already. Zero effort to get things working is always very nice.

Yesterday was the birthday of the USMC, and there is a great piece up at culture11 by Joe Carter in honor of that day. I recommend reading it.

Not only that, but today is also Veterans’ Day (not sure if it’s supposed to get the ‘ or not, but I’m too lazy to look it up). My grandfather served in the Army in WWII. He wrote his memoirs and several years ago, and presented bound copies of them to the entire family at Christmas. It is an inspiring book of memories to be sure. I wish I could see my grandaddy today, but I’ll have to settle for giving him a call.

Hug, call, or thank a veteran today. They are treasures to be acknowledged.

There is $4 trillion sitting in 401k and IRA retirement accounts out there.

And the Democrats want to take it from you.

Congratulations America- this is what happens when you hand over power to the Democrats.  Listen- the fact that they are even talking about this- and according to Neal Boortz’s radio show today, they have been talking about this for 16 years- is reason enough to never, ever ever vote for a Democrat.

Dems look at converting 401Ks and IRAs accounts into Social Security Administration.

By Karen McMahan
November 04, 2008

RALEIGH — Democrats in the U.S. House have been conducting hearings on proposals to confiscate workers’ personal retirement accounts — including 401(k)s and IRAs — and convert them to accounts managed by the Social Security Administration.

Triggered by the financial crisis the past two months, the hearings reportedly were meant to stem losses incurred by many workers and retirees whose 401(k) and IRA balances have been shrinking rapidly.

The testimony of Teresa Ghilarducci, professor of economic policy analysis at the New School for Social Research in New York, in hearings Oct. 7 drew the most attention and criticism. Testifying for the House Committee on Education and Labor, Ghilarducci proposed that the government eliminate tax breaks for 401(k) and similar retirement accounts, such as IRAs, and confiscate workers’ retirement plan accounts and convert them to universal Guaranteed Retirement Accounts (GRAs) managed by the Social Security Administration.

Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor, in prepared remarks for the hearing on “The Impact of the Financial Crisis on Workers’ Retirement Security,” blamed Wall Street for the financial crisis and said his committee will “strengthen and protect Americans’ 401(k)s, pensions, and other retirement plans” and the “Democratic Congress will continue to conduct this much-needed oversight on behalf of the American people.”

Currently, 401(k) plans allow Americans to invest pretax money and their employers match up to a defined percentage, which not only increases workers’ retirement savings but also reduces their annual income tax. The balances are fully inheritable, subject to income tax, meaning workers pass on their wealth to their heirs, unlike Social Security. Even when they leave an employer and go to one that doesn’t offer a 401(k) or pension, workers can transfer their balances to a qualified IRA.

Mandating Equality

Ghilarducci’s plan first appeared in a paper for the Economic Policy Institute: Agenda for Shared Prosperity on Nov. 20, 2007, in which she said GRAs will rescue the flawed American retirement income system (www.sharedprosperity.org/bp204/bp204.pdf).

The current retirement system, Ghilarducci said, “exacerbates income and wealth inequalities” because tax breaks for voluntary retirement accounts are “skewed to the wealthy because it is easier for them to save, and because they receive bigger tax breaks when they do.”

Lauding GRAs as a way to effectively increase retirement savings, Ghilarducci wrote that savings incentives are unequal for rich and poor families because tax deferrals “provide a much larger ‘carrot’ to wealthy families than to middle-class families — and none whatsoever for families too poor to owe taxes.”

GRAs would guarantee a fixed 3 percent annual rate of return, although later in her article Ghilarducci explained that participants would not “earn a 3% real return in perpetuity.” In place of tax breaks workers now receive for contributions and thus a lower tax rate, workers would receive $600 annually from the government, inflation-adjusted. For low-income workers whose annual contributions are less than $600, the government would deposit whatever amount it would take to equal the minimum $600 for all participants.

In a radio interview with Kirby Wilbur in Seattle on Oct. 27, 2008, Ghilarducci explained that her proposal doesn’t eliminate the tax breaks, rather, “I’m just rearranging the tax breaks that are available now for 401(k)s and spreading — spreading the wealth.”

All workers would have 5 percent of their annual pay deducted from their paychecks and deposited to the GRA. They would still be paying Social Security and Medicare taxes, as would the employers. The GRA contribution would be shared equally by the worker and the employee. Employers no longer would be able to write off their contributions. Any capital gains would be taxable year-on-year.

Analysts point to another disturbing part of the plan. With a GRA, workers could bequeath only half of their account balances to their heirs, unlike full balances from existing 401(k) and IRA accounts. For workers who die after retiring, they could bequeath just their own contributions plus the interest but minus any benefits received and minus the employer contributions.

Another justification for Ghilarducci’s plan is to eliminate investment risk. In her testimony, Ghilarducci said, “humans often lack the foresight, discipline, and investing skills required to sustain a savings plan.” She cited the 2004 HSBC global survey on the Future of Retirement, in which she claimed that “a third of Americans wanted the government to force them to save more for retirement.”

What the survey actually reported was that 33 percent of Americans wanted the government to “enforce additional private savings,” a vastly different meaning than mandatory government-run savings. Of the four potential sources of retirement support, which were government, employer, family, and self, the majority of Americans said “self” was the most important contributor, followed by “government.” When broken out by family income, low-income U.S. households said the “government” was the most important retirement support, whereas high-income families ranked “government” last and “self” first (www.hsbc.com/retirement).

On Oct. 22, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Argentinean government had seized all private pension and retirement accounts to fund government programs and to address a ballooning deficit. Fearing an economic collapse, foreign investors quickly pulled out, forcing the Argentinean stock market to shut down several times. More than 10 years ago, nationalization of private savings sent Argentina’s economy into a long-term downward spiral.

Income and Wealth Redistribution

The majority of witness testimony during recent hearings before the House Committee on Education and Labor showed that congressional Democrats intend to address income and wealth inequality through redistribution.

On July 31, 2008, Robert Greenstein, executive director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, testified before the subcommittee on workforce protections that “from the standpoint of equal treatment of people with different incomes, there is a fundamental flaw” in tax code incentives because they are “provided in the form of deductions, exemptions, and exclusions rather than in the form of refundable tax credits.”

Even people who don’t pay taxes should get money from the government, paid for by higher-income Americans, he said. “There is no obvious reason why lower-income taxpayers or people who do not file income taxes should get smaller incentives (or no tax incentives at all),” Greenstein said.

“Moving to refundable tax credits for promoting socially worthwhile activities would be an important step toward enhancing progressivity in the tax code in a way that would improve economic efficiency and performance at the same time,” Greenstein said, and “reducing barriers to labor organizing, preserving the real value of the minimum wage, and the other workforce security concerns . . . would contribute to an economy with less glaring and sharply widening inequality.”

When asked whether committee members seriously were considering Ghilarducci’s proposal for GSAs, Aaron Albright, press secretary for the Committee on Education and Labor, said Miller and other members were listening to all ideas.

Miller’s biggest priority has been on legislation aimed at greater transparency in 401(k)s and other retirement plan administration, specifically regarding fees, Albright said, and he sent a link to a Fox News interview of Miller on Oct. 24, 2008, to show that the congressman had not made a decision.

After repeated questions asked by Neil Cavuto of Fox News, Miller said he would not be in favor of “killing the 401(k)” or of “killing the tax advantages for 401(k)s.”

Arguing against liberal prescriptions, William Beach, director of the Center for Data Analysis at the Heritage Foundation, testified on Oct. 24 that the “roots of the current crisis are firmly planted in public policy mistakes” by the Federal Reserve and Congress. He cautioned Congress against raising taxes, increasing burdensome regulations, or withdrawing from international product or capital markets. “Congress can ill afford to repeat the awesome errors of its predecessor in the early days of the Great Depression,” Beach said.

Instead, Beach said, Congress could best address the financial crisis by making the tax reductions of 2001 and 2003 permanent, stopping dependence on demand-side stimulus, lowering the corporate profits tax, and reducing or eliminating taxes on capital gains and dividends.

Testifying before the same committee in early October, Jerry Bramlett, president and CEO of BenefitStreet, Inc., an independent 401(k) plan administrator, said one of the best ways to ensure retirement security would be to have the U.S. Department of Labor develop educational materials for workers so they could make better investment decisions, not exchange equity investments in retirement accounts for Treasury bills, as proposed in the GSAs.

Should Sen. Barack Obama win the presidency, congressional Democrats might have stronger support for their “spreading the wealth” agenda. On Oct. 27, the American Thinker posted a video of an interview with Obama on public radio station WBEZ-FM from 2001.

In the interview, Obama said, “The Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society.” The Constitution says only what “the states can’t do to you. Says what the Federal government can’t do to you,” and Obama added that the Warren Court wasn’t that radical.

Although in 2001 Obama said he was not “optimistic about bringing major redistributive change through the courts,” as president, he would likely have the opportunity to appoint one or more Supreme Court justices.

“The real tragedy of the civil rights movement was, um, because the civil rights movement became so court focused that I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change,” Obama said.

Karen McMahan is a contributing editor of Carolina Journal.

From Obama’s speech last night:

I will listen to you, especially when we disagree.

Great! Then I hope you will oppose the fairness doctrine, Mr. Obama, because otherwise, you will be responsible for shutting down what will be the loudest and most differing voice with your policies: talk radio.

If you do nothing, though, then your true colors will be put on display for all to see, my friend.

I believe there is a good chance that Obama’s desire to be loved combined with a sense of pragmatism, much like president Clinton, will temper his leftist tendencies.  I will hold my piece against him for now and wait to see how he governs. If it is more from the center, then I will give him credit. If not, I will oppose him.

3 practical fears (I could think of more but I have homework to do).

1. I fear for the courts. This result spells doom for the federal judicial system for a while if you ask me. Civil liberties and traditional values are going to continue to go through a difficult time in this country as a result of this election.

2. The fairness doctrine. Maybe I listen to too much talk radio and this isn’t a real threat, but I think there is a very good chance the fairness doctrine will be implemented. If so it will be a disaster for the country and for me personally because talk radio as we know it will disappear. If the Dems do go for it, then I will instantly become Nuclear Ricky and move into expletive-filled wrath mode.

3. Imputed income taxes. They would not affect me directly (yet), and again, I don’t know if this is actually something they Dems will try to do or if it just makes for compelling talk radio; however, if they go for it, it will prove ruinous to the country.

In related news, I’ll just point out that I was mostly right. The margin between Obama and McCain sits at around 6% right now, which is what I predicted.  It was not a landslide or even a huge margin in electoral votes either- the most Obama might end up with is 375.  This sounds like a lot, and it is if your knowledge or history only goes back 8 years.  However, if you look at election history as a whole, 375 is NO BIG DEAL.

Other observations: McConnell kept his seat here in my KY home.  This is incredibly important and symbolic.  Also symbolic is that the Dems were only able to pick off 17 seats in the House and 5 in Senate, as opposed to the 30+ and 8 or 9 that the media was calling for. Another thing: Proposition 8 looks like it has passed in California.

The point of all this is, even though Obama did win and won decisively, this is not a rout or extremely lopsided victory for the Dems and Liberals. It could have been much, much worse.

My prediction:

Obama wins, but not in a landslide, and not even by a sizable margin.

What is a landslide? If you ask me, it’s anything more than 450 electoral votes.  That was the kind of margin broken by the landslides of Reagan, Nixon, Eisenhower, FDR.

No, Obama wins by no more than- oh- 320, but probably more like 300.  Not an impressive margin by any means.

For those of you who think the definition of history is the past 2 elections (8 years), let me point out something.  President Bush won with 286 votes in 2004, and 271 votes in 2000.  However, prior to that, every elected president since Wilson in 1914 won with more than 300 electoral votes (well- ok- carter won with 297). With the exceptions of Truman, Kennedy, Nixon’s first win, and Carter, they ALL won by more than 350 electoral votes.

I hear people are saying “HUGE MARGIN! LANDSLIDE! MANDATE!“

Um, no.

Another thing: the popular vote. I predict that Obama will not win by any more than a 6% margin.  Is this by any measure a big margin? Absolutely not.

Now that being said, McCain does have a chance. Not even a long shot chance, but a decent one. Having read and listened to waaay too many people’s opinions on this race, I’ll offer some tips on how to watch the returns. These are free of charge, and therefore worth no more than that.

If you are a McCain supporter, please do not lose hope until the very end; however the time to begin weeping is if you see that Obama has won any combination of two on the following list of states: Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania.  Another way of saying this is that McCain can only afford to lose one of any of those states. If he loses one of those, but wins all of this second tier list: Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, and Indiana, then he will be hurting.

If McCain loses one of the states on the top tier and one on the second tier, however, then move your attention to the following list: Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, and Iowa. McCain has to win at least 3, but probably all 4 of those states (depending on which 2 states in the first and second tier he lost).

To sum up, here are McCain’s paths to victory: win Florida, Ohio, AND Pennsylvania. Failing that, win North Carolina, Virginia, Indiana AND Georgia. Failing that, he has a last ditch opportunity to win with Iowa, Colorado, New Mexico, AND Nevada.

If he can’t do that, then it is over. And I’m just being honest here: it doesn’t look good.

If you find Barack Obama to be an inspirational figure, then you are not alone. A quick google of “Barack Obama inspiration” reveals that many people feel the same way. Even I find Barack Obama to be an inspiration- though I expect not in a way he would find edifying.  But I digress.

I would like to ask a simple question: what, exactly, does Barack Obama inspire you to do? Think about that for a second.

There are many possible answers to that question.  Perhaps he inspires you to serve your country in the military. Does he inspire you to volunteer at a homeless center, pregnancy center, or church? Maybe he inspires you to act more lovingly toward your family.  He may inspire you to kick a drug habit, study harder in school, or eat a more healthy diet.  Unfortunately I really don’t see how Obama particuarly inspires one to do anything like the above, and I haven’t met anyone yet over the past two Obama-focused years who told me, “you know, because of Barack Obama I’m going to do ____”.

If I may be so bold as to hazard a guess, I would say that Obama inspires you to… drum roll… well, vote for Barack Obama.

Some of you might find this observation to be an unfair one; after all, in my experience, when pressed Obama fans are likely to say “he inspires me to get involved.” However, again I inquire, what does get involved mean?  Well, it means to get involved by… voting for Barack Obama.  Perhaps it also means to convince others to… vote for Barack Obama.

Inspiration ought to be about more than good feelings. Unfortunately, emotion passes for substance in this world.

A person might ask me, “well smarty pants, what does John McCain inspire you to do, eh?” I must confess, I don’t find the man to be particularly inspiring. Oh sure, his POW story is an inpirational one, but I’d be lying if I were to say it inspired me to go out and join the military- I haven’t, and besides, my sister, cousin, and grandfather are more likely to inspire me in that way than McCain.

But you see, that’s the entire point. Inspiration is great, but it is not a necessary facet of a potential presidential package.

My dear Obama supporter, I encourage you not to look toward Barack Obama as your source of inspiration.  He is a politician, and more than that, only a man.  He will always let you down.

Key difference between the Right and the Left #408582: the Left is inspired by politicians; the Right tolerates them.

ADDENDUM: The question strikes me: is the Right inspired by Ronald Reagan? Certainly. Does this invalidate my assertion about the difference the Left and the Right? No. There is a fundamental difference here: Reagan inspires me to hold fast to the values he represents, which I already hold. I am not inspired by Reagan so much as his values.

Obama supporter, do you hold the same values as Barack Obama? Do you believe in the socialist dictum of “spread the wealth around”? Do you want a European/Canadian style, government-run, single-payer (read: socialist) healthcare system? Are you willing to give up the benefits of global free trade in favor of protectionist economic policies that will lead us, like Herbert Hoover’s policies did, into a second Great Depression? Is abortion on demand up to and after a baby’s birth a value you hold dear? Are you in favor of more judges being put on the SCOTUS who will interpret the Constitution according to how their heart leads them, and according to the trends of the other state courts around the world instead of according to the meaning intended by the founders of our country? If so, by all means- let him inspire you all the way into the voting booth.  I don’t begrudge you your opinions.  If not, don’t let emotion deceive you into voting for a person you don’t actually agree with because “he inspires me to get involved.”

Vapid.

Apparently the McCain campaign is spending copious amounts of money and time in PA lately in an effort to eat away at Obama’s lead there.

I don’t know if this is good strategy or not.  If McCain were to get PA (21 votes), that would basically negate the dire need for wins in Colorado, New Hampshire, and Nevada (total of 18 votes).  It’s been the conventional wisdom for a while now that the winner of Colorado this year is the winner. Maybe McCain- in a very McCainesque way, love it or hate it- is trying to buck the conventional wisdom.

But even if he gets PA, he simply MUST get Virginia AND Florida (that is unless you get 3 of NH, NV, CO, MN and WI, but that is not going to happen).  I have to believe he will certainly get at least one of Florida and Virginia. He also might be trying to get MN and/or WI, which throws a wrench into my whole analysis.  If he does not get at least one of Virginia and Florida- how do I put this nicely?- then McCain never had a real chance to begin with.

The real question, though, is: can McCain really win PA? Realclearpolitics has him down by 11 points at the moment; at the same time, an internal Obama campaign poll has Obama ahead by only 3.  Who dost thou believeth?

I don’t know.  However, It sure makes it easier for McCain when western PA’s own Dem Congressman (Murtha) is out there calling them racist (which he did apologize for) and then rednecks a little bit later.

I have some friends living in PA.  Let me use the miniscule influence I have and ask those people: please.  Get out and vote for John McCain on Nov 4th, and urge your friends and family to do the same.  This state’s vote is crucial.