Welcome to today's RedState Morning Briefing Summary (RMBS FAQ).
Today we have a roster of utter dreck. So, for your daily dose of unintended irony, dive in!
Pedophiles, But Not Veterans
Congressman Rooney offered an amendment to include veterans as a protected class in hate crimes legislation, but the Democrats voted down the amendment.
The Democrats did, however, extend hate crimes protection to pedophiles. That’s not a punch line. That’s just sick.
Yeah, OK. 1) Despite a lot of wingnut whining, veterans are not a group routinely targeted for hate crimes. Sex offenders are. I'm talking about sex offenders who have been brought to justice and have been paroled or are on probation. 2) Sex offenders are not all child molesters. Some are rapists but there are a few who are just unlucky. An 18-year-old who had sex with a 17-year-old classmate might end up with a record as a sex offender. A 16-year-old girl who sends her boyfriend a pictures of herself topless might become a sex offender, as might the boy who received the image.
Whatever the case, just because someone is a sex offender does not mean he or she deserves to be the victim of violent crime. That's also true of veterans. The difference, as the author ironically demonstrates, is that people think that sex offenders "deserve it," which is pretty much the definition of a hate crime.
Also, I find it ironic that they want to protect veterans from hate crimes, but not from the medical consequences of their service, including PTSD, or from having to serve in unjust wars in the first place, or from being protected under the Geneva Convention, which we've abrogated, or...
Barack Obama Succeeded In Getting HIs Stimulus Plan Through Congress. Now America Fails.
Well, Barack Obama succeeded. He got what he wanted. And the results speak for themselves. It’s just another example of Rush being right:
The U.S. economy will continue to contract "for some time to come," said Lawrence Summers, director of the White House National Economic Council.
"I expect the economy will continue to decline," with "sharp declines in employment for quite some time this year," Summers said today on "Fox News Sunday."
The International Monetary Fund, which held meetings last week in Washington, cut its forecast for each of the Group of Seven economies for this year and next. The IMF, established in 1944 to aid countries in financial crisis, said the U.S. economy would shrink 2.8 percent this year and have no growth in 2010, with unemployment rising to 10.1 percent.
Because Barack Obama succeeded, our economy will collapse this year, be stagnant next year, and see double-digit unemployment. Way to go, Barry!
Damn that Barry! Our economy was doing so well before he came along. If you look at the charts of our GDP growth, a 2.8 percent contraction would be an improvement. A flat year would be a relief. This disaster started under Bush and Obama can't turn the economy on a dime (especially with Republicans fighting his every move).
We'll recover. Maybe sooner, maybe later, but things will almost certainly be better in 2012, when they really have to make the case that Obama failed. The problem is that they'll have made themselves look plenty stupid with the repeated, alarmist declarations of failed that started way before we knew how the stimulus would affect anything.
Obama admits using tax policy to promote "fairness" not to raise revenue
GIBSON: And in each instance, when the rate dropped, revenues from the tax increased; the government took in more money. And in the 1980s, when the tax was increased to 28 percent, the revenues went down.
So why raise it at all, especially given the fact that 100 million people in this country own stock and would be affected?
OBAMA: Well, Charlie, what I’ve said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness.
There you have it. Barack Obama is not interested in raising revenue to fund the government. He is interested in to keep people from making money — because it is fair.
What’s worse is Obama goes on to prove how terrifically academic he is and has no grounding in real world economics. Gibson challenges him again:
GIBSON: But history shows that when you drop the capital gains tax, the revenues go up.
OBAMA: Well, that might happen, or it might not. It depends on what’s happening on Wall Street and how business is going.
Gee. Bush lowered the capital gains tax and the economy tanked. This myth that lowering the capital gains tax raises revenues has had a stake through its heart for several years now, and yet it still rises at sundown to suck the brains out of interviewers like Charlie Gibson.
Frakking Fast Cars
Here's something I'll bet you've wondered: what if political commentary was done exclusively by junior high school boys?
To put it very crudely, Obama wants to spend government money giving you a job working on wind and solar power. You’ll take the job for sure, if there are no others for you, and you’ll be thrilled to have the money.
So far, so good. That part actually works in theory and can even work in practice.
The problem is this: why do you actually want money in the first place? Well, everyone wants to buy food, clothing, and shelter. Once you have the basics covered, what’s left?
Frakking fast cars.
Yup. That's what it would be like.
Peter King to Holder and Napolitano: Tell Us Where You Will Send The Guantanamo Detainees
President Obama has basked in the international glow of his decision to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center, but he’s never yet answered the hard question at the core of opposition to this decision: what are you going to do with the detainees? It’s a question some of our allies have proven much less interested in asking themselves (witness France’s announcement that it would take one detainee - one can practically hear the French snickering "I told him we already had one!"). It’s also a question of great concern to ordinary Americans who may not be thrilled that Al Qaeda detainees are coming to their own home town.
Congressman Peter King, the ranking Member of the House Commitee on Homeland Security, released a letter today to Attorney General Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, co-signed by 12 other Members, asking that question and a variety of detailed followups.
Peter King is a self-aggrandizing wingnut who I expect to disappear from national politics after his next election challenge. To wit, he's dubbed "the ranking Member of the House Commitee on Homeland Security." Really? I couldn't even find his name on on their web site.
We are only going to release detainees who haven't been charged with crimes. If they're so dangerous, then why haven't we been able to charge them with anything after years of incarceration?
Idiots.
Obama Continues To March Toward More American Deaths
Jake Tapper notes today that people inside the CIA are beginning to bristle at Barack Obama throwing them under the bus.
But some experts say the move could have a chilling effect on the CIA even beyond President Obama’s decision last week to release the so-called "torture memos."
Calling the ACLU push to release the photographs "prurient" and "reprehensible," Dr. Mark M. Lowenthal, former Assistant Director of Central Intelligence for Analysis and Production, tells ABC News that the Obama administration should have taken the case all the way to the Supreme Court. . . .
Lowenthal said the president’s moves in the last week have left many in the CIA dispirited, based on "the undercurrent I’ve been getting from colleagues still in the building, or colleagues who have left not that long ago."
"We ask these people to do extremely dangerous things, things they’ve been ordered to do by legal authorities, with the understanding that they will get top cover if something goes wrong," Lowenthal says. "They don’t believe they have that cover anymore."
That is exactly what I have been saying. Compare the left’s treatment of the present information and memoranda to Valerie Plame. She had not been an active spy for some time and the left demanded Bush administration heads for her name coming out.
Jake Tapper? Please.
Also, notice the wingnut S.O.P.: butress a lie with another lie. The claim that Valerie Plame was "not an active spy" was a falsehood that was injected into the debate by wingnuts and never abandoned, despite being debunked. Her status was highly classified and the CIA never released any information about what she was or wasn't doing.
Sweet Jeebus, these people are reprehensible.