Michael Moore a racist?

See the video and judge for yourself. Notes Breitbart TV:

Filmmaker Michael Moore went off on CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer during an interview Monday to promote his latest documentary 'Sicko'. Moore blasted the anchor and the network for not doing enough to stop the Iraq war and for doing a 'crap' report on his new film. Moore also mocked the pronunciation of chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta. (Not the type of thing that the eagle-eyed filmmaker would miss if it came out of the mouth of one his political enemies.)

I'm looking forward to seeing how the moonbatosphere spins this.

Zimbabwe starving, so UN rewards them

I swear, only at the United freakin' Nations does this make sense. From Moonbattery:

It looks like socialist dictator Robert Mugabe's policy of stealing farms from Caucasians and handing them out to the goons who support him isn't turning out too well for Zimbabwe:

Some 2.1 million people in the country’s southern provinces will face serious food shortages by the third quarter of 2007, and the number will reach 4.1 million in the first three months of 2008, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation and the World Food Programme said. About 352,000 tonnes of cereals and 90,000 tonnes of other food aid will be needed to meet the basic needs of the population, the Rome-based agencies have calculated.

The crisis can be attributed primarily to "the country’s unprecedented economic decline," according to Amir Abdulla of the World Food Program. Zimbabwe used to be called the breadbasket of Africa. Thanks to the totalitarian application of liberal politics, it has become hell on Earth, making it the ideal choice to chair the United Nations Commission of Sustainable Development.

Makes sense. The country is starving and farmland is wasting away, rendering the country unsustainable, so according to the pointy-headed elites at the Useless Nations, this situation is a model of "Sustainable Development" for the world to mimic.

Shrillary touts message of socialism

But she's not a socialist, mind you, even if she sounds one. From the AP:

Presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton outlined a broad economic vision Tuesday, saying it's time to replace an "on your own" society with one based on shared responsibility and prosperity.

The Democratic senator said what the Bush administration touts as an "ownership society" really is an "on your own" society that has widened the gap between rich and poor.

"I prefer a 'we're all in it together' society," she said. "I believe our government can once again work for all Americans. It can promote the great American tradition of opportunity for all and special privileges for none."

That means pairing growth with fairness, she said, to ensure that the middle-class succeeds in the global economy, not just corporate CEOs.

"There is no greater force for economic growth than free markets. But markets work best with rules that promote our values, protect our workers and give all people a chance to succeed," she said. "Fairness doesn't just happen. It requires the right government policies."
...
"We have sent a message to our young people that if you don't go to college ... that you're thought less of in America." (Actually, John Kerry sent that message with the "stuck in Iraq" thingy. - Ed.)

I'm wondering: By "special privileges for none", does she mean "being above the law"? She and her hubby wouldn't know anything about that, now would they? And by "fairness", she means "as determined by the imperial federal government", so you just know it's truly "fair", right?

Her assault on and contempt for the rights of the individual are well documented. Yikes. Marx would be proud.

Chavez seizes opposition TV station

Let the defenders of socialist tinpot Hugo Chavez explain away this (via Hot Air):

The last one in the country, in fact, with a national reach:

[T]he decision not to renew Radio Caracas Television’s broadcast license and replace it at midnight Sunday with a public service station was celebrated in the streets by supporters of Chavez, who watched the new channel’s first transmission on large TV screens. Others launched fireworks and danced to the classic salsa tune “Todo tiene su final” — “Everything Has Its End.”

The mood inside the studios of RCTV — the sole opposition-aligned TV station with nationwide reach — was somber. Disheartened actors and comedians wept and embraced in the final minutes on the air.
...
Founded in 1953, RCTV had broadcast a mix of talk shows, sports, soap operas and the popular comedy program “Radio Rochela,” which poked fun at presidents — including Chavez — for decades. RCTV was regularly the top channel in viewer ratings, but Chavez accused the channel of “poisoning” Venezuelans with programming that promotes capitalism.

Gateway Pundit has photos of the reaction from Chavez’s opponents. The tanks have allegedly been sent in.

How sad it is that the left can never acknowledge the totalitarian tactics of socialists and other leftist "leaders" of the world. This is beginning to look like Cuba redux circa 1959.

Neal Boortz sees a disturbing pattern here:

Jealousy is an ugly thing. And jealousy is especially ugly when you have freely elected leaders from a country that prides itself on a dedication to freedom and individual liberty being openly jealous of a dictator.

Such is the case with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.

Hugo the Horrible has now accomplished in Venezuela what Democrats only wish they could accomplish here at home. He has silenced a broadcast outlet that was critical of his regime. Sunday night Venezuela's most popular television station went off the air. Why? Because Chavez decided that their broadcast license would not be renewed. Radio Caracas Television was the only TV station in Venezuela that was broadcast nationwide ... and Radio Caracas Television was critical of Hugo Chavez.

Are you starting to get the picture here?

Chavez says he is "democratizing" the public's airways. He also said that this TV station was a threat to his country. Wow! Now doesn't that sound very much like the things that the left is saying about talk radio in the U.S.?

What Chavez accomplished by edict the left in this country hopes to accomplish through legislation and regulation.

Just be patient, my friends on the left. Your time is coming. The impotent Republicans pose no threat to you in 2008. In the meantime, just sit back and admire your friend Hugo.

We should note that Venezuelans are protesting Chavez' actions. He'll tolerate some protests --- but let's hope these people know just how far they can push it. My wife and I were being shown around Caracas many years ago when we noticed some demonstrators. It was quite a spectacle to watch ... until the gunfire started. Our guide rushed us into a building to keep us safe.

How soon before Chavez answers these protestors with gunfire?

Hold on another second here. We can't let this segment go without mentioning that Hugo Chavez is the hero of such great Americans as Cindy Sheehan (see below), Danny Glover, Harry Belafonte and others. Great Americans all. Coming soon, don't miss Michael Moore's exciting documentary on the evils of Radio Caracas Television!

Silky Pony to mimic Mondale

From the AP:

Presidential candidate John Edwards is offering more policy proposals than any other candidate in the primary and his ideas are winning loud applause from Democratic audiences.

The question is whether other voters will cheer when they see the price tag — more than $125 billion a year.

Edwards is quick to acknowledge his spending on health care, energy and poverty reduction comes at a cost, with more plans to come. All told, his proposals would equal more than $1 trillion if he could get them enacted into law and operational during two White House terms.
...
Edwards says fixing the country's problems takes precedence over eliminating the deficit or offering middle-class tax relief like he proposed when running for president in the last election.

"I think for me, as opposed to the additional tax relief for the middle class, what's more important is to give them relief from the extraordinary cost of health care, from gasoline prices, the things that they spend money on every single day that are escalating dramatically," Edwards said in a recent interview with The Associated Press.

To pay for some of his priorities, Edwards would roll back Bush's tax cuts on Americans making more than $200,000 a year. He also said he would consider raising capital gains taxes to help fund his plans and raise or eliminate the $90,000 cap on individual earnings subject to Social Security taxes to help cover the projected shortfall in the system.

Hmmm. This sounds awfully familiar. Where have I heard this kind of "raise your taxes" thing before?

Edwards' ideas have already opened him to accusations of being just another tax-and-spend liberal, a label put on Walter Mondale, the 1984 Democratic presidential nominee who said he would raise taxes and then lost 49 states to President Reagan.

At least the only state Mondale won was his own state. That's more than Al Gore (and Silky Pony, in 2004) can say.

"Jabba the Hutt" Moore to be investigated for illegal trip to Cuba?

Recall how award-winning fiction director Mikie Moore brought some 9/11 responders to Cuba for health care for his new mockumentary "Sicko"? The feds seem to have taken issue with that violation of federal law. From Breitbart/AP:

Academy Award-winning filmmaker Michael Moore is under investigation by the U.S. Treasury Department for taking ailing Sept. 11 rescue workers to Cuba for a segment in his upcoming health-care documentary "Sicko," The Associated Press has learned.

The investigation provides another contentious lead-in for a provocative film by Moore, a fierce critic of President Bush. In the past, Moore's adversaries have fanned publicity that helped the filmmaker create a new brand of opinionated blockbuster documentary.

"Sicko" promises to take the health-care industry to task the way Moore confronted America's passion for guns in "Bowling for Columbine" and skewered Bush over his handling of Sept. 11 in "Fahrenheit 9/11."

The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control notified Moore in a letter dated May 2 that it was conducting a civil investigation for possible violations of the U.S. trade embargo restricting travel to Cuba. A copy of the letter was obtained Wednesday by the AP.

"This office has no record that a specific license was issued authorizing you to engage in travel-related transactions involving Cuba," Dale Thompson, OFAC chief of general investigations and field operations, wrote in the letter to Moore.

Granted, this kind of pub will likely drum up more interest in the socialist mockumentary. However, he's not above the law, and if there's any justice (I know, I know...dream on, right?), he'll be fined for his infraction.

Hillary: I'm not a socialist chick like that French loser!

The Hildebeast is in damage control mode. From the Washington comPost:

There was a time when advisers to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) looked abroad for proof that women can get elected to a top leadership role in the modern world: Margaret Thatcher, the former British prime minister; Angela Merkel, the German chancellor; and Michelle Bachelet, the president of Chile.

But as presidential candidate Ségolène Royal was defeated by a conservative man who had been France's chief law enforcement officer, the Clinton campaign was quick to dismiss comparisons between their candidate and her Socialist counterpart across the Atlantic. "Other than the fact that they are both women, they don't have much in common," said Howard Wolfson, Clinton's communications director.

Yeah, aside from that whole recurring "taking your stuff for the common good" thing, they're totally different, huh? Continuing:

Clinton advisers said that, if anything, Royal proved that a woman must run with a focus on her credentials. Clinton allies saw the race as evidence that the New York senator is running the right kind of campaign, a substantive one -- even if it means she is sometimes accused of lacking charisma.

"Sometimes"? She's about as charismatic as a bullfrog with gonorrhea.

Exit question: Do you think Shrillary's handlers would be downplaying similarities if Segolene had won, crowing that Segolene's win is good news for Her Highness as proof that voters aren't afraid to support a "strong" woman as leader?

France elects conservative, rejects socialist

Maybe there's hope for the Frogs yet. From the Boob...er, Beeb:

Conservative candidate Nicolas Sarkozy has won the hotly-contested French presidential election.
The final count gave Mr Sarkozy 53.06%, compared with 46.94% for socialist Segolene Royal, with turnout at 85%.

Mr Sarkozy, 52, the son of a Hungarian immigrant, takes over from the 74-year-old Jacques Chirac.

Riot police have fired tear gas at a small group of demonstrators who were protesting in central Paris against Mr Sarkozy's victory.

I see the Democrats have made their way to Paris! Anywho, good news and bad news resulted from the victory. Good news...

He said the US could count on France's friendship...

...and bad news...

but urged Washington to take a lead in the fight against climate change.

Oh, well, nobody's perfect. Finally, this caught my attention:

But the BBC's Caroline Wyatt in Paris says he will have to work hard to unite the French, and try to win round those who voted against him.

Why? Seriously, why does he have to win over those who voted against him? He had a mandate, having both a majority and a near 7% margin of victory. Those who voted against him can continue to oppose him (much as those of us who voted against Democrats last year will be doing), or they can give him a chance. Sure, working for common ground in and of itself is noble and probably a good idea from a political practicality standpoint, but I disagree that it is incumbent upon Sarkozy to "reach out" to those who oppose him.

By the way, the Socialists are in disarray after their third straight defeat. From the Financial Times:

Let the finger-pointing begin. Ségolène Royal’s defeat on Sunday night left the French Socialist party in disarray and searching for someone to blame. There is hardly a shortage of scapegoats.

It is the party’s third consecutive presidential defeat. The Socialists now face the question of whether they can ever regain power without ditching their anti-capitalist rhetoric, as the mainstream left has done across almost all of Europe.
...
”The left is not credible on so many issues (yeah, no kidding! - Ed.), from the 35-hour working week to immigration and law and order,” says Dominique Reynié, professor at Sciences Po university.

“It is the fault of the left collectively. Ever since their [parliamentary election] defeat in 1983 they have never questioned their fundamental ideology, only thinking they needed to change tactics,” he says.

Well, that was the American left's approach for so many years, too: hide your true beliefs and focus on tactics, not the message. That approach always failed until 2006, when (as a result of Iraq, spending, and immigration, among other things) the tactic finally paid off. The approach has yet to pay off in France, though.

Perhaps France will finally return to relevancy on the international stage. Only time will tell.

Mockumentary leftard "Sicko" Moore takes 9/11 reponders to Cuba for health care

Sometimes, words just don't properly convey the outrage felt, but I'm going to give it my level best. From the NY Post:

Filmmaker Michael Moore's production company took ailing Ground Zero responders to Cuba in a stunt aimed at showing that the U.S. health-care system is inferior to Fidel Castro's socialized medicine, according to several sources with knowledge of the trip.

The trip was to be filmed as part of the controversial director's latest documentary, "Sicko," an attack on American drug companies and HMOs that Moore hopes to debut at the Cannes Film Festival next month.

Two years in the making, the flick also takes aim at the medical care being provided to people who worked on the toxic World Trade Center debris pile, according to several 9/11 workers approached by Moore's producers.

But the sick sojourn, which some say uses ill 9/11 workers as pawns, has angered many in the responder community.

"He's using people that are in a bad situation and that's wrong, that's morally wrong," railed Jeff Endean, a former SWAT commander from Morris County, N.J., who spent a month at Ground Zero and suffers from respiratory problems.
...
Regardless, some ill 9/11 workers balked at Moore's idea.

"I would rather die in America than go to Cuba," said Joe Picurro, a Toms River, N.J., ironworker approached by the filmmaker via an e-mail that read, "Joe and Mike in Cuba."

After helping remove debris from Ground Zero, Picurro has a laundry list of respiratory and other ailments so bad that he relies on fund-raisers to help pay his expenses.

He said, "I just laughed. I couldn't do it."

Another ill worker who said he was willing to take the trip ended up being stiffed by Moore.

Michael McCormack, 48, a disabled medic who found an American flag at Ground Zero that once flew atop the Twin Towers, was all set to go to.


The film crew contacted him by phone and took him by limo from his Ridge, L.I., home to Manhattan for an on-camera interview.

"What he [Moore] wanted to do is shove it up George W's rear end that 9/11 heroes had to go to a communist country to get adequate health care," said McCormack, who suffers from chronic respiratory illness.

But McCormack said he was abandoned by Moore. At a March fund-raiser for another 9/11 responder in New Jersey, McCormack learned Moore had gone to Cuba without him.

"It's the ultimate betrayal," he said. "You're promised that you're going to be taken care of and then you find out you're not. He's trying to profiteer off of our suffering."

The left accuses Bush and his buddies from "profiteering off of the war", but I guess that Moore profiteering off of the suffering of 9/11 responders is A-OK.

Might I suggest that the next time Moore takes his ample posterior to Cuba, he should check out the free gastric bypass they offer? His bloated socialist mindset must be getting choked off.

By the way, here is an accurate representation of the real Cuban health care system. While the Silky Pony may be campaigning on "Two Americas", there are "Two Cubas" when it comes to health care. Something tells me that Moore has seen only the better of the two in Castroland.

Another update from Castro's "worker's paradise"

Ah, the joys of forced economic equality! From the AP:

Laura Garcia doesn't have a car, and the change in her pocket won't cover the 15-cent bus fare. But standing by a crumbling overpass, sweating in her shorts, sunglasses and skimpy top, the 18-year-old says a free ride is only an outstretched thumb away.

"People will take you. You can always find drivers to help," said Garcia, who studies law in Havana and was going to see her parents in Pinar del Rio, a 90-minute ride west.

Hitchhiking is a way of life in communist Cuba, where cars are scarce, a gallon of gas costs a third of a civil servant's monthly salary, and public transportation is unreliable and overcrowded. Lately things have worsened, with even acting President Raul Castro admitting in December that public transport was "practically on the point of collapse."

As Winston Churchill properly noted: "The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries." In Cuba, life may suck, but at least it sucks equally for everyone, right? Indeed, misery does love company.

The left failing to see irony

By now, you all know about how badly the health-care system at Walter Reed has been mismanaged, and now, the Washington comPost has an article showing how it's not just Reed that's messed up...it's military health care, in general.

The left now pretends to care about the soldiers by feigning outrage at what's going on at Walter Reed (and, as the comPost points out, elsewhere). They don't care as much about the soldiers as they do about scoring political points, but be that as it may, the hospital's bureaucracy and administration is indefensible. Even the left seems willing to accept that.

So...

If we all agree that this form of health care sucks so badly, why in the HELL are these government-run...er, "universal"...health care advocates so eager to foist this scourge on ALL of us? Obviously, as the article points out, the inefficiencies and inadequacies of government-run health care are numerous, but is there any doubt that if the private sector were nearly as incompetent as the government has been at running health care, the howls for "federal takeover" and denunciations of "greedy profit-driven corporations" would be louder than a Howard Dean scream?

Another socialism failure in Venezuela

Yeah, that Hugo sure is doing a helluva job. From the Old Gray Hag:

Faced with an accelerating inflation rate and shortages of basic foods like beef, chicken and milk, President Hugo Chávez has threatened to jail grocery store owners and nationalize their businesses if they violate the country’s expanding price controls.

Food producers and economists say the measures announced late Thursday night, which include removing three zeroes from the denomination of Venezuela’s currency, are likely to backfire and generate even more acute shortages and higher prices for consumers. Inflation climbed to an annual rate of 18.4 percent a year in January, the highest in Latin America and far above the official target of 10 to 12 percent.
...
“It is surreal that we’ve arrived at a point where we are in danger of squandering a major oil boom,” said José Guerra, a former chief of economic research at Venezuela’s central bank, who left Mr. Chavez’s government in 2004. “If the government insists on sticking to policies that are clearly failing, we may be headed down the road of Zimbabwe.”
...
The economy grew by more than 10 percent last year, helping Mr. Chávez glide to a re-election victory in December with 63 percent of the vote. Yet economists who have worked with Mr. Chávez’s government say that soaring public spending is overheating Venezuela’s economy, generating imbalances in the distribution of products from sugar to basic construction materials like wallboard.

Public spending grew last year by more than 50 percent and has more than doubled since the start of 2004, as Mr. Chávez has channeled oil revenues into social programs and projects like bridges, highways, trains, subways, museums and, in a departure for a country where baseball reigns supreme, soccer stadiums.

In an indicator of concern with Mr. Chávez’s economic policies, which included nationalizing companies in the telephone and electricity industries, foreign direct investment was negative in the first nine months of 2006. The last year Venezuela had a net investment outflow was in 1986.

Shortages of basic foods have been sporadic since the government strengthened price controls in 2003 after a debilitating strike by oil workers. But in recent weeks, the scarcity of items like meat and chicken has led to a panicked reaction by federal authorities as they try to understand how such shortages could develop in a seemingly flourishing economy.

Economic ignorance abounds here, by both socialists and the NYT (pardon the redundancy). It's simple, oh functional economic illiterates: if you keep food retailers (or any other business owners) out of a profit margin, do you think they're going to work for free? The more that government tries monkeying with prices and basic supply and demand, the more damage it does to the very people that government purports to want to help.

Continuing:

With shoppers limited to just two large packages of sugar, a black market in sugar has developed among street vendors in parts of Caracas. “This country is going to turn into Cuba, or Chávez will have to give in,” said Cándida de Gómez, 54, a shopper at a private supermarket in Los Palos Grandes, a district in the capital.

José Vielma Mora, the chief of Seniat, the government’s tax agency, oversaw a raid this month on a warehouse here where officials seized about 165 tons of sugar. Mr. Vielma said the raid exposed hoarding by vendors who were unwilling to sell the sugar at official prices (in other words, they wanted to make a profit...those bastards! - Ed.). He and other officials in Mr. Chávez’s government have repeatedly blamed the shortages on producers, intermediaries and grocers (aka the market! - Ed.).

Those in the food industry argue that the price controls prevented them from making a profit after inflation rose and the value of Venezuela’s currency plunged in black market trading in recent weeks. The bolívar, the country’s currency, fell more than 30 percent to about 4,400 to the dollar in unofficial trading following Mr. Chávez’s nationalization of Venezuela’s main telephone company, CANTV, and its largest electric utility, Electricidad de Caracas.

Fears that more private companies could be nationalized have put further pressure on the currency as rich Venezuelans try to take money out of the country. Concern over capital flight has made the government jittery, with vague threats issued to newspapers that publish unofficial currency rates (officially the bolívar is quoted at about 2,150 to the dollar).
...
“There seems to be a basic misunderstanding in Chávez’s government of what is driving scarcity and inflation,” said Francisco Rodríguez, a former chief economist at Venezuela’s National Assembly who teaches at Wesleyan University.

“There are competent people in the government who know that Chávez needs to lower spending if he wants to defeat these problems,” Mr. Rodríguez said. “But there are few people in positions of power who are willing to risk telling him what he needs to hear.”

Take note, Dubya! The left thinks that Chavez is wonderful, and since Hugo threatens newspapers that publish anything that could be seen as detrimental to Hugo's image, one can logically conclude that the left approves of such censorship. Therefore, if Bush were to do the same thing to the NYT or other leftwing fishwrap that Hugo is doing to his newspapers, the left would support the move, no?

Taxing the "evil" oil companies?

From Lawrence Kudlow via RCP:

ExxonMobil just reported the largest annual profit ever by a U.S. company -- a staggering $39.5 billion.

I say congratulations, although Hillary Clinton begs to differ.

At the winter meeting of the Democratic National Committee, the senator from New York said, "The oil companies reported the highest profits in the history of the world. I want to take those profits, and I want to put them in an alternative energy fund."

Take? Isn't that a confiscation of private property? Author P.J. O'Rourke framed it perfectly on a recent edition of CNBC's "Kudlow & Co.": She's "Hugo Chavez in a pants suit."

And what exactly would Mrs. Clinton be taking? ExxonMobil's profits are outsized, but they come on sales of $377.5 billion, making for a profit margin of just over 10 cents on the dollar. This remains well below the profit margins of many industries, including banking and biotech, where the margins nearly double those in the energy sector. The numbers are big, but the returns are middling.

And since sales and profits in the energy sector depend on the world price of oil, it's feast or famine for these businesses. In the last decade, oil prices have fluctuated from about $10 a barrel to nearly $80. Talk about volatile pricing.

Indeed, the energy business isn't easy. Still, ExxonMobil remains one of the best-run companies in America. Many professional investors believe it's the best-run company. In his recent book, "The Future for Investors," Jeremy Siegel of the University of Pennsylvania reveals that Exxon has been one of the top three stocks in terms of return on investment over the past 50-odd years. John D. Rockefeller Sr., looking down from on high, must be pleased.

But it's also a tax-burdened company. While ExxonMobil recorded record profits last year, it also paid $100.7 billion in taxes -- two-and-half times its net profits, according to the Tax Foundation. In fact, over the past 25 years, federal and state governments took $397 billion from the largest oil companies and an additional $1.1 trillion in taxes at the pump. In today's dollars, that's $2.2 trillion.

This isn't an isolated problem. The prevailing 35 percent corporate tax rate takes a monster bite from all U.S. businesses. Moreover, our business taxes are far too high in relation to the rest of the world. Believe it or not, the corporate tax rate is lower in France than it is in the United States.

Along with slow-growing Japan, the United States has the highest marginal tax rate on corporate profits of any of the developed countries. Think of this: Germany is cutting its corporate tax rate to 15 percent from 25 percent. And if frontrunner Nicolas Sarkozy wins the French presidential election this spring, he plans to slash France's corporate tax burden. Meanwhile, we'll still be taking our best companies behind the barn and shooting them.

The bottom line here is that our economic system is all about free-market capitalism, and at the core of that system is profit. (No wonder Shrillary and her leftist ilk have their boxers in a bunch! - Ed.) Profit isn't a dirty word. From profits spring the abundance of this great country. Profits are the mother's milk of stocks and the economy. Expanding profits provide businesses the resources to enlarge production operations and hire additional workers. This, in turn, is how incomes are created -- wages that are then spent by American families.

Why can't liberals grasp this? (Because in the mind of liberals, this country isn't made great by people, but by government. - Ed.)

When the government meddles in the market and taxes companies more -- when it sticks its nose where it doesn't belong -- it ends up hurting not just businesses, but all individuals. Taxing profits more means taxing families more. Taxing profits more leads to smaller wage gains for middle-income workers. When you tax American companies more, the American workforce is paid less. And when you tax American energy companies more, they produce less energy. That means higher prices for gas at the pump and heating fuel at home. This may enrich Uncle Sam, but it comes at the expense of ordinary folks.

Washington economist Kevin Hassett has shown that the U.S. workforce bears a full 70 percent of the cost of corporate taxes. So, if folks are indeed worried about wage inequality, they should be lobbying their congressional representatives to cut corporate taxes in order to increase worker wages.

The truth is, when you tax profits more you undermine the American work ethic and the incentive structure that goes along with it. In fact, you demoralize the very system that has made this country great. It's the people who ultimately pay the corporate profits tax -- and that includes shareholders, pensioners and other retirees. Business taxes should be headed down, not up.

Punish ExxonMobil for turning a healthy profit? Take those profits? Do that, and you punish the American worker and the entire economy, too.

Unfortunately, the left is governed by such an intense class envy that they allow that disease to fester in their heads, thus infecting their sensibilities and clouding them from economic reality.

Socialism failing yet again

Via Texas Rainmaker:

There’s just no denying the impact Hugo Chavez has had...

Meat cuts vanished from Venezuelan supermarkets this week, leaving only unsavory bits like chicken feet, while costly artificial sweeteners have increasingly replaced sugar, and many staples sell far above government-fixed prices.

President Hugo Chavez’s administration blames the food supply problems on unscrupulous speculators, but industry officials say government price controls that strangle profits are responsible. Authorities on Wednesday raided a warehouse in Caracas and seized seven tons of sugar hoarded by vendors unwilling to market the inventory at the official price.
...
Yet inflation has soared to an accumulated 78 percent in the last four years in an economy awash in petrodollars, and food prices have increased particularly swiftly, creating a widening discrepancy between official prices and the true cost of getting goods to market in Venezuela.

Coming to theaters Fall 2008?

This is yet another example in a long laundry list of examples of the failure of socialism. As Thomas Sowell wisely notes: "Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it."

Quote of the day

From the Breck Girl, John Edwards:

Democratic U.S. presidential candidate John Edwards on Sunday said that he would raise taxes, chiefly on the wealthy, to pay for expanded healthcare coverage under a plan costing $90 billion to $120 billion a year to be unveiled on Monday.

"We'll have to raise taxes. The only way you can pay for a healthcare plan that cost anywhere from $90 to $120 billion is there has to be a revenue source," Edwards said on NBC's Meet the Press news program.

Thanks, John. That whole "I promise to raise taxes" worked so well for Walter "One State" Mondale that you decided to give it a whirl. Good for you, son.

So much for that "free health care" thingy

From al-Reuters via the Kiwis:

Cuban leader Fidel Castro has long prided himself on Cuba's doctors and free public health care system, but that system seems to have let him down after he fell ill in July, US-based doctors said on Wednesday.

Based on a report in Wednesday's edition of Spain's El Pais newspaper, the doctors - who have no first-hand knowledge of Castro's condition - said Castro had received questionable or even botched care at the hands of health experts on his communist-ruled island.

"It's not a good story. Too bad they didn't send him to Miami for surgery," said Dr Charles Gerson, a clinical professor of medicine in the gastroenterology division of New York's Mt. Sinai School of Medicine.

Ouch. I'm sure Castro would have been as welcome in Miami as Ted Kennedy at a Kopechne family reunion.