Author: Papa Giorgio

Tale of Two Cities (The NYTs vs. Reality)

Published by Papa Giorgio

BigJournalism shows just how biased the NYTs is when they say things that aren’t actually true:

The Progressive newspaper of record, the New York Times headline proclaimed:

“Israelis See Netanyahu Trip as Diplomatic Failure.”

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel returned from Washington on Wednesday to a nearly unanimous assessment among Israelis that despite his forceful defense of Israel’s security interests, hopes were dashed that his visit might advance peace negotiations with the Palestinians.”

They continue:

Two new polls prove the NY Times report about Israeli reaction was totally biased.

A poll conduced by the liberal Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz which reported the positive Israeli reaction to Netanyahu’s trip.

“Ha’aretz Poll: Netanyahu’s Popularity Soaring Following Washington Trip”

“A new poll conducted by Dialog, under the supervision of Prof. Camil Fuchs of the Tel Aviv University Statistics Department, showed that 47% of the Israeli public believes Netanyahu’s U.S. trip was a success, while only 10% viewed it as a failure.”

In fact the poll seems to indicate the D.C. trip reversed Netanyahu’s decline in approval:

While in a Haaretz poll five weeks ago Netanyahu seemed to be in hot water with the public, with 38 percent expressing satisfaction with his performance and 53 percent disappointed with it, in yesterday’s poll the results were essentially reversed: 51 percent were satisfied, while 36 percent were not.

The moderate Jerusalem Post conducted its own poll conducted after Obama’s Speech to AIPAC:

When asked in the poll whether they saw Obama’s administration as more pro-Israel, more pro-Palestinian or neutral, just 12 percent of Israeli Jews surveyed said more pro-Israel, while 40% said more pro-Palestinian, 34% said neutral and 13% did not express an opinion.

Other polls taken after the Netanyahu trip agree with the other two:

A Telesker poll published in Ma’ariv on Wednesday found that the Likud had strengthened against Kadima. The poll predicted that the Likud would rise from 27 to 30 Knesset seats, while Kadima would fall from 28 to 27.

Asked who was more fit to be prime minister, 36.9% said Netanyahu; 28.3% said Kadima leader Tzipi Livni; 9.2% said Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman of Israel Beiteinu; 2.6% said Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Independence; and 18.2% answered none of the above.

A Sarid Institute poll broadcast on Channel 2 Tuesday night found that 38% of Israelis found Netanyahu most fit to be prime minister, and 35% Livni. The poll found that the Likud had grown in support at Kadima’s expense.

Since the last poll taken by the institute during a crisis over gas prices, Kadima fell by five seats and Likud rose by four.

The poll found that if an election were held now, Likud would win 34 seats (up seven from the last election in February 2009); and Kadima 29 (up one).

A Geocartographic Institute poll broadcast on Channel 1 Tuesday night predicted that the Likud would win 33 seats, and Kadima 22. According to that survey, 61% of Jewish Israelis oppose Obama’s formula of the 1967 lines with land swaps as a basis for an agreement with the Palestinians, while only 27% favor it.

…(read more)…

 

Democrats Bringing Us to the brink of Carter Tax days?

Published by Papa Giorgio

From the Wall Street Journal:

Media reports in recent weeks say that Senate Democrats are considering a 3% surtax on income over $1 million to raise federal revenues. This would come on top of the higher income tax rates that President Obama has already proposed through the cancellation of the Bush era tax-rate reductions.

If the Democrats’ millionaire surtax were to happen—and were added to other tax increases already enacted last year and other leading tax hike ideas on the table this year—this could leave the U.S. with a combined federal and state top tax rate on earnings of 62%. That’s more than double the highest federal marginal rate of 28% when President Reagan left office in 1989. Welcome back to the 1970s.

Here’s the math behind that depressing calculation. Today’s top federal income tax rate is 35%. Almost all Democrats in Washington want to repeal the Bush tax cuts on those who make more than $250,000 and phase out certain deductions, so the effective income tax rate would rise to about 41.5%. The 3% millionaire surtax raises that rate to 44.5%.

But payroll taxes, which are income taxes on wages and salaries, must also be included in the equation. So we have to add about 2.5 percentage points for the payroll tax for Medicare (employee and employer share after business deductions), which was applied to all income without a ceiling in 1993 as part of the Clinton tax hike. I am including in this analysis the employer share of all payroll taxes because it is a direct tax on a worker’s salary and most economists agree that though employers are responsible for collecting this tax, it is ultimately borne by the employee. That brings the tax rate to 47%.

Then last year, as part of the down payment for ObamaCare, Congress snuck in an extra 0.9% Medicare surtax on “high-income earners,” meaning any individual earning more than $200,000 or couples earning more than $250,000. This brings the total tax rate to 47.9%.

But that’s not all. Several weeks ago, Mr. Obama raised the possibility of eliminating the income ceiling on the Social Security tax, now capped at $106,800 of earnings a year. (Never mind that the program was designed to operate as an insurance system, with each individual’s payment tied to the benefits paid out at retirement.) Subjecting all wage and salary income to Social Security taxes would add roughly 10.1 percentage points to the top tax rate. This takes the grand total tax rate on each additional dollar earned in America to about 58%.

Then we have to factor in state income taxes, which on average add after the deductions from the federal income tax roughly another four percentage points to the tax burden. So now on average we are at a tax rate of close to 62%.

Democrats have repeatedly stated they only intend to restore the tax rates that existed during the Clinton years. But after all these taxes on the “rich,” we’re headed back to the taxes that prevailed under Jimmy Carter, when the highest tax rate was 70%.

…(read more)…


G8 Hate and the lack of Western Leadership in Regards to Israel

Published by Papa Giorgio

I almost didn’t report this, but with the latest news that at the G8 meeting that Canadian Prime Minister was the only one of these major leaders who oppose the 1967 borders in Israel, I thought I had to get this post up. Both observations come from LR, the first is his older post:

UK Columnist Melanie Phillips: Canada’s Stephen Harper now the leader of Western Civilization

Just a Quote
‘To be secular is to embrace certain values and beliefs. Instead of neutrality there is an attempt to get rid of religion and to promote something else instead. It has produced a ‘me society’, a society of great selfishness and increasing cruelty and brutality.’ ~ Melanie Phillips

Excerpt, “And now, those who are on the side of civilisation” Melanie Phillips, The Spectator UK, May 23:

In these terrible times when western elites are dominated by the fellow-travellers of Islamo-fascism and genocidal Judeophobia, it is very important to realise that there are also some outstandingly decent, courageous and rational individuals who are putting their heads above the parapet and speaking up for Israel, truth and justice.

One such is Canada’s Prime Minister, Stephen Harper. Within a few hours of Obama’s call for Israel to return to the ‘Auschwitz borders’ with land swaps (as if the Arabs really do own all the territory beyond the Green Line, which legally, historically and morally they most emphatically do not) Harper was saying ‘not in our name’:

The Harper government is refusing to join the United States in calling for a return to 1967 borders as a starting point for Mideast peace, a position that has drawn sharp criticism from Canada’s staunch ally Israel.

And the later post about the G8,

Just a Quote
“Regarding sexual orientation or, more accurately, what we are really talking about, sexual behaviour, the argument has been made … that this is analogous to race and ethnicity…. (For) anyone in the Liberal party to equate the traditional definition of marriage with segregation and apartheid is vile and disgusting.” – Conservative leader Stephen Harper, 2003.

Harper stands out on Israel at G-8

Now this from the Globe and Mail:

Alone among G8 leaders, the Canadian Prime Minister refuses to embrace the U.S. President’s plan to begin peace negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis on the basis of a return to Israel’s de facto borders as they existed before its 1967 war with neighbouring Arab countries – a precondition, accepted by Arabs and by many previous Israeli leaders and Canadian governments, that would be necessary to get Palestinians back to the table.

Mr. Harper made his opposition to that position clear through a spokesperson shortly after Mr. Obama’s Middle East speech last week in a pre-G8 briefing, making him the lone leader in the G8 not to back the U.S. preconditions.