Happy Infidel Friday

Yes infidels, it's Friday and time to count the minutes until happy hour. As Alan Jackson says, it's 5:00 o'clock somewhere, so its not to early to get started.

But before you do, how about some interesting reading.

Great op ed in the WSJ by Armando Valladares on Cuba and the Vatican. He notes:

In one especially shameful episode in the 1980s, Ventura, Cipriano and Eugenio García Marín and their mother entered the nunciature in Havana to ask for political asylum. Two days later they saw several priests get out of a black limousine. They were special troops from Castro's political police who entered the Holy See's diplomatic mission with the authorization and complicity of the pope's diplomats in Havana. The three brothers were executed, and their mother was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Read the whole thing here.

And another great read on Obamaspeak in the WSJ where he simply could not explain his inconsistent position on not raising taxes yet he supports raising taxes on cap gains and allowing Bush tax cuts to sunset which in essence, raises taxes. Nice quote here:

Time and again, the rookie Senator has said he would not raise taxes on middle-class earners, whom he describes as people with annual income lower than between $200,000 and $250,000. On Wednesday night, he repeated the vow. "I not only have pledged not to raise their taxes," said the Senator, "I've been the first candidate in this race to specifically say I would cut their taxes."

But Mr. Obama has also said he's open to raising – indeed, nearly doubling to 28% – the current top capital gains tax rate of 15%, which would in fact be a tax hike on some 100 million Americans who own stock, including millions of people who fit Mr. Obama's definition of middle class.

Mr. Gibson dared to point out this inconsistency, which regularly goes unmentioned in Mr. Obama's fawning press coverage. But Mr. Gibson also probed a little deeper, asking the candidate why he wants to increase the capital gains tax when history shows that a higher rate brings in less revenue.

"Bill Clinton in 1997 signed legislation that dropped the capital gains tax to 20%," said Mr. Gibson. "And George Bush has taken it down to 15%. 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%, 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?"

Read it all here And again note the inability to answer the question by the senator and moreover the silence all around about the fact that the sunset of the Bush tax cuts will raises everyone's taxes back to the Clinton era levels -- 39%.

Have a great weekend..

Posted by Cigar Mike at April 18, 2008 10:02 AM

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Posted by: Zhangliqun at April 18, 2008 02:44 PM

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