My Sample Ballot Picks for Election Day

Here are my personal selections for the November 2nd, 2010 General Election:

Tea Party to the Rescue: How the GOP was saved from Bush and the establishment.

From Peggie Noonan, at the Wall Street Journal:

Two central facts give shape to the historic 2010 election. The first is not understood by Republicans, and the second not admitted by Democrats.

The first: the tea party is not a "threat" to the Republican Party, the tea party saved the Republican Party. In a broad sense, the tea party rescued it from being the fat, unhappy, querulous creature it had become, a party that didn't remember anymore why it existed, or what its historical purpose was. The tea party, with its energy and earnestness, restored the GOP to itself.

In a practical sense, the tea party saved the Republican Party in this cycle by not going third-party. It could have. The broadly based, locally autonomous movement seems to have made a rolling decision, group by group, to take part in Republican primaries and back Republican hopefuls. (According to the Center for the Study of the American Electorate, four million more Republicans voted in primaries this year than Democrats, the GOP's highest such turnout since 1970. I wonder who those people were?)

Because of this, because they did not go third-party, Nov. 2 is not going to be a disaster for the Republicans, but a triumph.

Deputy Editorial Page Editor Daniel Henninger analyzes the political impact of the former president's return to the stage. Columnist Mary Anastasia O'Grady describes the flaws in the U.S. agenda at this weekend's G20 meeting, and discusses 20-year-old Marisol Valles Garcia's decision to take on the drug gangs.

The tea party did something the Republican establishment was incapable of doing: It got the party out from under George W. Bush. The tea party rejected his administration's spending, overreach and immigration proposals, among other items, and has become only too willing to say so. In doing this, the tea party allowed the Republican establishment itself to get out from under Mr. Bush: "We had to, boss, it was a political necessity!" They released the GOP establishment from its shame cringe.

And they not only freed the Washington establishment, they woke it up. That establishment, composed largely of 50- to 75-year-olds who came to Washington during the Reagan era in a great rush of idealism, in many cases stayed on, as they say, not to do good but to do well. They populated a conservative infrastructure that barely existed when Reagan was coming up: the think tanks and PR groups, the media outlets and governmental organizations. They did not do what conservatives are supposed to do, which is finish their patriotic work and go home, taking the knowledge and sophistication derived from Washington and applying it to local problems. (This accounts in part for the esteem in which former Bush budget chief and current Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels is held. He went home.)

The GOP establishment stayed, and one way or another lived off government, breathed in its ways and came to know—learned all too well!—the limits of what is possible and passable. Part of the social and cultural reality behind the tea party-GOP establishment split has been the sheer fact that tea partiers live in non-D.C. America. The establishment came from America, but hasn't lived there in a long time.

I know and respect some of the establishmentarians, but after dinner, on the third glass of wine, when they get misty-eyed about Reagan and the old days, they are not, I think, weeping for him and what he did but for themselves and who they were. Back when they were new and believed in something.

Chad Crowe

Finally, the tea party stiffened the GOP's spine by forcing it to recognize what it had not actually noticed, that we are a nation in crisis. The tea party famously has no party chiefs and no conventions but it does have a theme—stop the spending, stop the sloth, incompetence and unneeded regulation—and has lent it to the GOP. 

Actually, Maureen "Moe" Tucker, former drummer of the Velvet Underground, has done the best job ever of explaining where the tea party stands and why it stands there. She also suggests the breadth and variety of the movement. In an interview this week in St. Louis's Riverfront Times, Ms. Tucker said she'd never been particularly political but grew alarmed by the direction the country was taking. In the summer of 2009, she went to a tea-party rally in southern Georgia. A chance man-on-the-street interview became a YouTube sensation. No one on the left could believe this intelligent rally-goer was the former drummer of the 1960s breakthrough band; no one on the left understood that an artist could be a tea partier. Because that's so not cool, and the Velvet Underground was cool.

Ms. Tucker, in the interview, ran through the misconceptions people have about tea partiers: "that they're all racists, they're all religious nuts, they're all uninformed, they're all stupid, they want no taxes at all and no regulations whatsoever." These stereotypes, she observed, are encouraged by Democrats to keep their base "on their side." But she is not a stereotype: "Anyone who thinks I'm crazy about Sarah Palin, Bush, etc., has made quite the presumption. I have voted Democrat all my life, until I started listening to what Obama was promising and started wondering how the hell will this utopian dream be paid for?"

There is also this week a striking essay by Fareed Zakaria, no tea partier he, in Time magazine. He unknowingly touched on part of the reason for the tea party. Mr. Zakaria, born and raised in India, got his first sense of America's vitality, outsized ways, glamour and crazy high-spiritedness as a young boy in the late 1970s watching bootlegged videotapes of "Dallas." What a country! His own land, in comparison, seemed sleepy, hidebound. Now when he travels to India, "it's as if the world has been turned upside down. Indians are brimming with hope and faith in the future. After centuries of stagnation, their economy is on the move, fueling animal spirits and ambition. The whole country feels as if it has been unlocked." Meanwhile the mood in the U.S. seems glum, dispirited. "The middle class, in particular, feels under assault." Sixty-three percent of Americans say they do not think they will be able to maintain their current standard of living. "The can-do country is convinced that it can't."

All true. And yet. We may be witnessing a new political dynamism. The tea party's rise reflects anything but fatalism, and maybe even a new high-spiritedness. After all, they're only two years old and they just saved a political party and woke up an elephant.

The second fact of 2010 is understood by Republicans but not admitted by Democrats. It is that this is a fully nationalized election, and at its center it is about one thing: Barack Obama.

It is not, broadly, about the strengths or weaknesses of various local candidates, about constituent services or seniority, although these elements will be at play in some outcomes, Barney Frank's race likely being one. But it is significant that this year Mr. Frank is in the race of his life, and this week on TV he did not portray the finger-drumming smugness and impatience with your foolishness he usually displays on talk shows. He looked pale and mildly concussed, like someone who just found out that liberals die, too.

This election is about one man, Barack Obama, who fairly or not represents the following: the status quo, Washington, leftism, Nancy Pelosi, Fannie and Freddie, and deficits in trillions, not billions.

Everyone who votes is going to be pretty much voting yay or nay on all of that. And nothing can change that story line now.

Pay attention to constitutional amendments on the GA ballot

Via The Blackshear Times:

These complex issues can affect everyday lives, impact our pocketbook; Here are our recommendations:

• EDITOR’S NOTE: We encourage you to read our analysis of the constitutional amendments and referendum questions appearing on this year’s General Election ballot. Look for information on these issues in other areas as well and then, please cast an informed ballot.

AMENDMENT NO. 1:

“Allows competitive contracts to be enforced in Georgia courts”

Not only is this a harmful amendment for most Georgians, the caption on the ballot is totally misleading. This amendment, instead of promoting competition, will enable mainly out-of-state companies to restrict Georgia employees from going to work for others or starting their own businesses.

This will do just the opposite of the description on the ballot; it will stifle the growth of small business and the mobility of employees.

The Georgia Constitution currently provides at Article III, Section VI, Paragraph V(c) that a contract “which may have the effect or which is intended to have the effect of defeating or lessening competition, or encouraging a monopoly [is] unlawful and void.”

Following this provision of the Constitution, the Georgia appellate courts have set clear limits on the restrictions an employer may put on employees who leave to go to work for themselves or another. These are the types of things that employers may not put in their contracts:

• They may not prevent employees from working in “any capacity” for another. The contract must limit the former employee from doing the type of work for a new employer which would actually be competitive with the former employer.

• An employer can prevent a former employee from soliciting existing clients, but it is unlawful to prevent a client or customer from deciding on his or her own to do business with the former employee.

• A prohibition of competition is invalid if it extends to territories where the current employer does not even do business.

• A prohibition against competition for an excessive time is illegal.

• A prohibition is invalid if it does not clearly set forth the types of business and the places where the former employee is prohibited from working or competing. The former employee cannot be made to “guess” where it is legal or not to work.

• A prohibition on disclosure of information by a former employee is not valid unless it is limited by a reasonable number of years or involves an actual trade secret. It serves no public purpose to bar an employee from using information that is stale or publicly known.

Moreover, the Georgia Supreme Court has held that if a restrictive covenant is invalid in one respect, the courts will not enforce any of it. To do otherwise would allow the employer to get the benefit of coercing a former employee to work under a contract which contains one or more invalid provisions.

As a result of this body of law, there are thousands of Georgians who have been able to leave one employer and start their own businesses or work for others in fields as diverse as medicine, pharmacy, accounting, insurance, customer service, telecommunications, and retailing. At the same time, employers who are careful to have restrictive covenants drawn in compliance with Georgia law have no difficulty when they do not try to restrict employees beyond what the law allows.

Now to this amendment: HR 178 is the proposed amendment. It frames the question as whether “to make Georgia more economically competitive by authorizing legislation to uphold reasonable competitive agreements.”

The legislation to do this has already been passed at O.C.G.A. 13-8-50, but for the legislation to go into effect, the constitutional amendment must first pass.

The heart of 13-8-50 is that it will give the employers a second chance to go to court and have a judge replace any provision that is unlawful with a new provision crafted by the judge which the judge feels is reasonable. Thus instead of bringing certainty to the law, the constitutional amendment and its companion legislation would put everything in the hands of judges; create more litigation than before; and decidedly tilt the table in favor of employers who have the resources to go to court and get what are now unlawful restrictions on employees modified and thus deter the ability of an employee to risk leaving to go into business for himself or with another. It is a mechanism to allow employers to have “unreasonable” and “unenforceable” agreements made over: a “do-over” at the expense of employees who may wish to leave.

Usually there is a tendency to pass amendments with a confusing ballot description like this. Folks will not pay enough attention to know that this is really a terrible proposal. This time, however, it is critical that Georgia voters pay attention.

Please vote "NO" on Amendment No. 1.

AMENDMENT NO. 2:

“Adds $10 tag fee on private passenger vehicles to fund statewide trauma care expansion”

This amendment would apply to tags for vehicles carrying 10 or fewer passengers, and includes pickups, motorcycles, SUVs and vans. For these, a $10 extra charge would be added to the license tag and registration fee each year. The proceeds would have to go into a trust fund created by the General Assembly to be used specifically for trauma care.

News articles and statements from health care professionals have made a strong case that the State of Georgia is inadequately served by the existing trauma care facilities and networks. If these funds are specifically dedicated for that purpose, the $10 fee per license tag is a reasonable method to generate a needed source of revenue.

This Amendment’s passage should be particularly important to all of us who live in the “other Georgia” far away from critical trauma care facilities. Your life, and the life of those you love are at greater risk every day because of the state’s inadequate funding for trauma care. This amendment will be a step toward resolving that problem.

Please vote “YES” for Amendment No. 2.

AMENDMENT NO. 3:

“To allow the Georgia Department of Transportation to enter into multi-year construction agreements without appropriations in the current fiscal year for the total amount of payments that would be due under the entire agreement so as to reduce long-term construction costs paid by the state”

This would allow the General Assembly to authorize the Georgia DOT to enter into construction contracts of up to ten years in duration without having the full funds of the contract on hand in any given year. As a safety valve to protect against situations like the current downturn, the constitutional amendment would provide that the long-term agreement would terminate “in the event of insufficiency of funds.”

This appears to be a reasonable method to provide the Georgia DOT with a measure of additional flexibility in paying for long-term projects. Without this amendment there has been conflict on the legality of long-term contracts without the state having all funds on hand at the time of commencement. The amendment will allow larger projects to go forward without legal uncertainty.

Please vote “YES” for Amendment No. 3.

AMENDMENT NO. 4:

“Allow the state to execute multi-year contracts for projects to improve energy efficiency and conservation”

This amendment would allow the General Assembly to pass legislation to permit state government entities to incur debt to enter multi-year contracts up to 10 years for purposes of energy efficiency or conservation. The safety valve to the amendment is that payments to be owed by the state would be guaranteed by contractors or vendors to the state to be offset by savings or revenue gains from the improvements. The amendment also avoids the legal concern about long-term contracts to be paid for over time.

This seems like a win-win situation. State departments would be authorized to undertake improvements for energy efficiency or conservation, and the contractors with whom they enter these arrangements will have to guarantee that energy savings or revenue gains will offset the amounts that the state has to pay for the improvements.

The amendment also eliminates legal concerns about long-term contracts having to have all funds available at the time of commencement.

Please vote “YES” for Amendment No. 4.

AMENDMENT NO. 5:

“Allows owners of industrial-zoned property to choose to remove industrial designation from their property”

This amendment is to allow Chatham and Jeff Davis Counties to bring certain previously designated “industrial areas” back under local government taxation, zoning and services.

No recommendation.

REFERENDUM A

“Provides for inventory of businesses to be exempt from state property tax”

Georgia is one of six states that still imposes an ad valorem tax on inventory held for sale by businesses. Georgia, along with many other states, also allows local governments and school boards to tax business inventory. This particular referendum is addressed to the State of Georgia’s tax on business inventory. For example, at the end of 2009, the Savannah Morning News reported that business inventory taxes for the county amounted to $362,000 paid to the State of Georgia and over $35 million to Chatham County and to the Chatham County Board of Education. So in the overall scheme of things, the amount of the tax that the state collects is relatively modest.

The question is whether the tax collected by the state is a sufficient deterrent to businesses having inventory in the State of Georgia that the loss of revenue would be overcome by a growth in business activity that would generate other revenues.

However, since the local government and Board of Education inventory taxes will remain in place, eliminating the state portion of the inventory tax is not likely to be a significant factor in decision-making by businesses that maintain inventory for sale.

Another factor in the equation is that certain businesses have received exemption from the legislature on their property subject to ad valorem taxation. One argument in favor of the exemption proposed in this referendum is that it would treat business inventory equally with other business property that has been exempted.

One final point to consider, and this may be the clincher, is that there is a bipartisan commission at work currently in Georgia to make recommendations concerning the state’s overall tax system. Rather than piecemeal in another exemption, perhaps the wisest course would be to wait for the recommendations of the commission and the passage by the General Assembly of a comprehensive package dealing with taxation and all existing exemptions.

Please vote "NO" on Referendum A.

Obama Administration to Sell $60 Billion in US arms to Saudi Arabia

Obama administration to sell jets and other arms to Saudi Arabia for $60 billion - the largest overseas arms sale EVER. ~~~ I guess this makes Obama the "Lord of War" and not Nicholas Cage. Good movie, btw.  Via The Wall Street Journal:

The Obama administration is set to notify Congress of plans to offer advanced aircraft to Saudi Arabia worth up to $60 billion, the largest U.S. arms deal ever, and is in talks with the kingdom about potential naval and missile-defense upgrades that could be worth tens of billions of dollars more.

Associated Press

Blackhawk UH-60 helicopters, such as these flown

in South Korean military exercises last winter,

are part of a proposed arms sale to Saudi Arabia.

The administration plans to tout the $60 billion package as a major job creator—supporting at least 75,000 jobs, according to company estimates—and sees the sale of advanced fighter jets and military helicopters to key Middle Eastern ally Riyadh as part of a broader policy aimed at shoring up Arab allies against Iran.

The talks between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia have been widely known for months, but many new details are only now coming into focus. These include the number and type of aircraft involved, how much the Saudis intend to spend in an initial installment, and the ongoing negotiations to also upgrade the kingdom's navy and missile defenses.

The $60 billion in fighter jets and helicopters is the top-line amount requested by the Saudis, even though the kingdom is likely to commit initially to buying only about half that amount.

In a notification to Congress, expected to be submitted this week or next, the administration will authorize the Saudis to buy as many as 84 new F-15 fighters, upgrade 70 more, and purchase three types of helicopters—70 Apaches, 72 Black Hawks and 36 Little Birds, officials said.

The notification triggers a congressional review. Lawmakers could push for changes or seek to impose conditions, and potentially block the deal, though that is not expected.

French strike to save 'birthright' of benefits

FRANCE: Public Unions have blockaded airports and dried up gas stations because they have to retire two years later than planned (at age 62) to keep the country from going bankrupt from entitlements. ~~~ Coming soon to America.... via MSNBC: 

MARSEILLE, France — Battling for benefits is a tradition in the Gilly family, passed from generation to generation — as it is for families across the country. And that goes some way toward explaining why the protests against plans to raise France's retirement age have shown such determination and ferocity.

For Gilly and many other Frenchmen and women, social benefits such as long vacations, state-subsidized healthcare and early retirement are more than just luxuries: They're seen as a birthright — an essential part of the identity of today's France.

The protest against a government plan to raise the retirement age to 62 has special meaning for five members of the Eric Gilly clan who are demonstrating in the streets of Marseille.

"We want to stop working at 60 because it's something our parents, our grandparents and even our great-grandparents fought for," says Gilly, 50, a union representative at Saint-Pierre Cemetery, the largest in this bustling Mediterranean port city.

"And over the years ... you can see that we're losing everything they fought for. And that's unacceptable."

In Marseille, strikes to protest President Nicolas Sarkozy's planned retirement reform have shut down docks, left tons of garbage putrefying on sidewalks and drawn tens of thousands into the streets for each of six protest marches since early September.

New study shows ObamaCare subsidies potentially five times higher in first year than predicted

From HotAir.com:

In passing ObamaCare, Democrats argued that it would provide a net relief to the budget deficit in its balance of new taxes and fees, drastic cuts to Medicare Advantage, and the subsidies it would provide to Americans making $88,000 a year or less.  A new study commissioned by Families USA, a group that supports ObamaCare, shows that the Democrats and the CBO badly miscalculated the level of subsidies provided.  In the first year (2014), 28 million Americans would have eligibility for more than $110 billion, outstripping the Congressional/CBO estimate by almost 600%:

Families USA commissioned The Lewin Group to use its economic models to estimate how many individuals would benefit from the new premium tax credits in 2014 and the value of the dollars going to help pay for insurance (see the Methodology on page 12 for more details). We found that an estimated 28.6 million Americans will be eligible for the tax credits in 2014, and that the total value of the tax credits that year will be $110.1 billion.
The new tax credits will provide much-needed assistance to insured individuals and families who struggle harder each year to pay rising premiums, as well as to uninsured individuals and families who need help purchasing coverage that otherwise would be completely out of reach financially. Most of the families who will be eligible for the tax credits will be employed, many for small businesses, and will have incomes between two and four times poverty (between $44,100 and $88,200 for a family of four based on 2010 poverty guidelines). However, because the size of the tax credits will be determined on a sliding scale based on income, those with the lowest incomes will receive the largest tax credit, which will ensure that the assistance is targeted to those who need it the most.

That conflicts with the final CBO estimate that Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats used to argue for ObamaCare.  In his presentation to Congress, CBO director Douglas Elmendorf predicted a cost of only $20 billion on health-exchange subsidies and associated costs.  The Lewin Group, which conducted the study for Families USA, shows that four times as many people will become eligible for subsidies in 2014 than the CBO predicted in March and that the cost will be 550% higher as a result (page 4 of the linked study):

„„ Nationally, approximately 28.6 million Americans will be eligible for these new premium tax credits in 2014 (see Table 1).„

„ People in working families—those with annual incomes at or above 200 percent of the federal poverty level ($44,100 for a family of four in 2010)—will constitute nearly twothirds(65.6 percent) of the people who will be eligible for a premium tax credit (seeTable 1a).

Morgen at Verum Serum discovered the wide discrepancy and notes that the study wasn’t intended to argue against ObamaCare:

The Lewin Group study was commissioned by Families USA, a healthcare reform advocacy group based out of Washington D.C. which is closely allied with the White House and leading Democrats in Congress. Then Senator Obama was a keynote speaker at their annual Health Action conference in 2005 and 2007, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi opened the 2008 event. Other leading Democrats who have participated at Families USA events in recent years include Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and Ted Kennedy.
The study appears to be the centerpiece of a major media campaign initiated last month by Families USA to promote the benefits of the health reform legislation. A September 14 press release touts the projected $110 billion in federal subsidies as “one of the largest middle-income tax cuts in history”, but makes no mention of the discrepancy with the CBO’s earlier estimate.
Families USA also published state-by-state estimates by the Lewin Group of the number of people eligible to receive these subsidies and the associated costs. Numerous local media outlets around the country have reported on these figures over the past few weeks.
The CBO’s projection that the healthcare reform bill would reduce the deficit by an estimated $143 billion over 10 years was a critical factor in the enactment of the bill. Democrats lost their super-majority in the Senate in January 2010 when Scott Brown was elected in Massachusetts, and ultimately passed the bill in March only through the use of procedural tactics, and without a single Republican vote in the House or Senate.
The claim that the bill will reduce the deficit continues to be a leading selling point for proponents of reform. Just last month Families USA repeated this claim in a press release criticizing opponents of the legislation. But if the latest Lewin Group estimate is correct the initial 10-year cost of the bill will be significantly higher than what was forecast by the CBO, and would begin adding to the federal deficit as early as 2015.

Morgen also contacted Families USA to get an explanation of the difference, and was told that he made an “apples to oranges” comparison.  Why?  This survey, they explained, showed how many people would be eligible, while the CBO predicted how many people would actually take advantage of their eligibility for tax credits.  This is an odd distinction to make, since the entire idea of the subsidies is to encourage uninsured Americans to buy health insurance through both mandates and generous subsidies.  How likely will it be that people will pass on the notion of getting big tax credits to subsidize must-issue health insurance?  And if the success rate in applying mandates, higher taxes, and more government authority to the 270 million Americans who are already insured is only 20-25% in getting the other 30 million insured, how is that at all successful?
The deficit projection given by Democrats was apparently based on 75% failure rates to get people into the system; their advocates are busy touting the massive amounts of subsidies in the program that will tip ObamaCare into a deficit exploder in Year 2.  Either way this goes, it’s a massive failure.

Afghans pay off Taliban with 'American money'

Well, this is just fannnnntastic, Via MSNBC/Reuters:

KABUL, Afghanistan — Cash from the U.S. military and international donors destined for construction and welfare projects in restive parts of Afghanistan is ending up in the hands of insurgents, a contractor and village elders said.

The alliance of largely Western nations who back President Hamid Karzai and have nearly 150,000 troops on Afghan soil have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on aid and infrastructure since they ousted the Taliban from power in late 2001.

With violence spreading and the insurgency bloodier than ever, some construction firms and workers on development projects say they are having to hand over some of their earnings to insurgents to protect their personnel, projects or equipment.

Mohammad Ehsan said he was forced to pay insurgents a substantial part of a $1.2 million contract he won from the U.S. military two months ago to repair a road in Logar province south of Kabul, after they kidnapped his brother and demanded the cash.

"You know we need this American money to help us fund our Jihad," Ehsan quoted them saying when he eventually spent over $200,000 of the project money to secure his brother's freedom.

Ehsan said the insurgents also demanded the cash be changed out of dollars into Afghan or Pakistani currency, saying greenbacks are "Haram" or forbidden for Muslims.