What a shlemiel

W.C. Fields for President!
http://www.shortenurl.com/7cxfm

He should make it clear that he understands it to mean that Roe would be overturned by a strict constructionist Supreme Court.

Right now it seems that he does not quite understand what it means.

W.C. Fields for President!
http://www.shortenurl.com/7cxfm

Rudy or any other candidate can talk all he wants about "strict constructionist judges", but the fact is Roe v Wade is not gonna be overturned.
Not in our lifetime, anyway.

If...and it's a big "if"...Roe gets overturned, abortion is never going to be outright banned by any state. At best, the Southern states will legislate a ban with a health of the mother exception. (At worst, CA, NY and MA legislating abortion on demand, with no parental notification. SoCons needs to stop living in the merry ol' land of Oz. The goal needs to be making abortion the exception to adoption, not the rule. To think we're ever going to totally get rid of abortion, with a media ran by Democrats and NARAL funded by rich libs, is a fairy tale.

thearmchairrepublican.blogspot.com

I just watched the "This Week" interview. The former mayor said specifically he would elect "conservative judges."

thearmchairrepublican.blogspot.com

because you are their opponent...ala Bill Clinton...you might call it compassionate conservatism I call it liberalism...but I will just let you read then Gov. Clinton's remarks to the DLC and guess what? when you read it you think your listening to Huckabee.

http://www.dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?contentid=3166&kaid=86&subid=194

Freedom of Religion not Freedom from Religion

I watched Huckabee and he makes my stomach churn. Notice how he avoids talking about fair tax neg's like you will pay a third more for your cars and houses. Then he says fair tax will make hookers and unground folks pay taxes...blah blah... Dont know about anyone else but last time I looked hookers were not the ones buying cars and shopping at dept stores???? That would be the middle class!
Then he says the Rep party needs to be changed...well I like my party just the way it is thank you. This guy needs to change the R to a D and he will wipe out Hill and Obama.

Between this and his foreign policy peace, the guy is quickly becoming a liberal version of Ron Paul.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman

An interesting thing has happened with me. I was adamantly against Rudy, even insisting that I would not vote if he were the nominee. That has now changed for me, thanks to Huckabee. I realized what the true betrayal of GOP values is, and it isn't Rudy. Huckabee would be such a disaster to our party. Rudy would have multiple flaws but we all know what they are. Huckabee has some sort of magical power that allows him to explain away all of his ridiculous pardons, eithical problems, tax policies, tax increases and other liberal stances - I still think he casts a spell with that lazy eye of his.

Huckabee has made Rudy acceptable to me. Huckabee is not acceptable.

* PRIESTCRAFT is thus defined: “The stratagem and frauds of priests; fraud or imposition in religious concerns. Management of selfish and ambitious priests to gain wealth and power, or to impose upon the credulity of others.”

I recorded "This Week" because I was at church. At the 17:15 mark, into the show.

Giuliani: "Even on social issues our (social conservatives) goals are all the same...decreasing abortions while increasing abortions. I think a very big issue will be the appointment of judges...what conservative will find in me is I will be very effective in appointing CONSERVATIVE JUDGES."

thearmchairrepublican.blogspot.com

while everyone here is taking themselves so seriously Huckabee continues to attract more and more to him. Might I suggest a look at the Dallas Morning News endorsement (realclear poitics)There is a lot more to Mike than evangelical christians.

This is a battle of semantics over two words that mean the same thing, "conservative" and "strict constructionist."

Giuliani says, after specifying "conservative judges," that in a city that was 5-1 Democrat, he elected as many as Republicans judges as he could, and "the most conservative" (my interpretation) Democrats on crime or, "law and order issues, how it was phrased at the time," as he the former mayor phrased it.

Giuliani is a "strict constructionist" by electing judges - Democrat or Republican - who were tough on crime, decimating the city's crime rate by going for the maximum penalty, rather than the minimum in the sentencing guidelines. The rule of law is to protect us and punish criminals. A conservative judge interprets the law as such. The liberal judge imposes his own personal beliefs onto the law.

As usual, this all comes down to Roe v. Wade, and the implication that Giuliani, who's politically pro-choice and personally pro-life, does not have the internal radar to elect a Scalia, Alito, Thomas or Roberts. Since he's worked with Scalia and Alito, I say he will.

Remember: Reagan gave us O'Connor and Kennedy.

thearmchairrepublican.blogspot.com

conservative and lets just ask the candidates if they will appoint federalist's.

I know that is what I want, someone who will give the big dividing issue's back where they belong to the states.

Freedom of Religion not Freedom from Religion

Oklahoma and Arizona, for instant, have begun to enact and enforce new anti-illegal immigration laws that are driving illegal aliens out of their respective state by the numbers.

I am almost tempted to take an overall federalist approach here and say, let each state decide their own illegal immigration laws. The endgame would be, illegal aliens, shut out of more-conservative states, would flock to liberal havens like CA, and the Northeast exclusively. I guarantee it won't be long before metropolitan, society liberals, faced with reality, and not the liberal ideal of the "poor hardworking illegal alien just trying to make a living," would begin to demand tough anti-illegal immigration laws.

thearmchairrepublican.blogspot.com

The Concord gets it right. Romney is nothing but a rich Snake Oil salesman!

http://osi-speaks.blogspot.com/2007/12/new-hampshire-newspaper-concord-m...

With malice towards none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see right.

Originalist is the term for someone who truly will walk the walk in add'n to talking the talk.

"Strict constructionist" is an unsophisticated term that no self-respecting judge would use. Scalia himself has said that he is "not a strict constructionist and no-one ought to be,"["A Matter of Interpretation", Scalia, Princeton Univ. Press, 1998].
This is a red flag for someone pandering, especially someone who has never claimed to change from his own views.

We don't have to have a crapshoot, which is what George Bush was (altho he had obvious originalist justice options he overlooked, like Janice Rogers Brown).

"Original intent" is the correct assignation, not "strict constructionist." "Strict constructionist" is the judicial "buzzword" that somehow got attached to the issue. Just as "pro-choice" doesn't necessarily mean "pro-abortion."

thearmchairrepublican.blogspot.com

Just backing up your correct assertion.

thearmchairrepublican.blogspot.com

Did someone say, "chattering classes"? They're all right here, and they're proliferating daily. It is the chattering classes that have given us tax slavery, every working hour, and the confiscation of our wages - wages that are needed to meet personal and family needs.

FairTax sets the relationship straight, and Huckabee has seen the vision that is rapidly spreading across America - if not among the "chattering classes."

Economist Dale Jorgensen, Harvard University, was commissioned to find out what portion of current prices were represented by costs for complying with the federal income tax code (i.e., embedded tax costs). He concluded that 22% (average) of every retail dollar, spent by consumers, constituted a price-embedded tax. Thus, in addition to individual income tax and FICA withholding, individuals are unwittingly paying these unseen, embedded business tax costs with every purchase of a new product, or service.

Under FairTax, prices would fall, due to removal of embedded business tax-related costs. Concurrently, wages may rise due to a mix of factors, including reversion of withheld pay (or some portion thereof) to employees, advancement opportunities due to business expansion resulting from retained earnings, and/or increased demand for labor accompanying increased competition (from that expansion). Where profits (or wages) appear lucrative, competition will move into the market space, driving out excesses (immediately present after FairTax is enacted), arriving at new "market-adjusted" prices.

For FairTax to constitute 23% of new transaction cost (i.e., "market-adjusted" price plus FairTax), a mark-up of 29.9% (tax exclusive rate) on the new "market-adjusted" price is necessary. (Before balking, consider what we're paying now if income tax rates are converted to tax-exclusive sales tax rates on net income instead of percentage of gross income. The following figures can be compared to the 29.9% FairTax mark-up: Fifteen pct bracket = 17.6%, twenty-five pct bracket = 33.3%, twenty-eight pct bracket = 38.9% (! really), and thirty-five pct bracket = 53.8% (! that's how bad it is).

In order to make FairTax a progressive consumption tax (such as that recently called for by Warren Buffett), all citizen-families are simply sent a monthly consumption [tax] allowance, called a "prebate." This prebate is intended to reimburse taxes on necessities for every citizen family without need for record-keeping or reporting. Moreover, the direct payment bypasses the creation of a tax code specifying exempted products and services around which a lobbyist industry could grow. The amount is variable, based on family size, and is equal to the FairTax rate on poverty-level spending, as defined by the Dept. of Commerce. At present, a family of one would receive ~$200/month, a family of four, ~$500/month. Thus, the "effective" FairTax rate paid by citizens, will *never* equal the full 23%. Of course, U.S. visitors (legal, and illegal) will pay the full FairTax when they purchase anything new, at retail (used are not taxed again). Under FairTax, working families will have their whole paychecks (minus any state or local income tax withholding) plus their monthly family prebate.

Additionally, citizens will no longer have to spend the average 50 hours per year preparing their federal tax returns. Having more monthly income may result in using credit less, and saving more. Larger savings will make it easier to purchase a home, at a lower interest rate and monthly payment. (Thus, mortgage deductions are no longer applicable when income is not the basis for taxation).

But is FairTax actually "fairer"? To provide substantive answers, Prof.'s Kotlikoff and Rapson (10/06) have concluded,

"...the FairTax imposes much lower average taxes on working-age households than does the current system. The FairTax broadens the tax base from what is now primarily a system of labor income taxation to a system that taxes, albeit indirectly, both labor income and existing wealth. By including existing wealth in the effective tax base, much of which is owned by rich and middle-class elderly households, the FairTax is able to tax labor income at a lower effective rate and, thereby, lower the average lifetime tax rates facing working-age Americans.

"Consider, as an example, a single household age 30 earning $50,000. The household’s average tax rate under the current system is 21.1 percent. It’s 13.5 percent under the FairTax. Since the FairTax would preserve the purchasing power of Social Security benefits and also provide a tax rebate, older low-income workers who will live primarily or exclusively on Social Security would be better off. As an example, the average remaining lifetime tax rate for an age 60 married couple with $20,000 of earnings falls from its current value of 7.2 percent to -11.0 percent under the FairTax. As another example, compare the current 24.0 percent remaining lifetime average tax rate of a married age 45 couple with $100,000 in earnings to the 14.7 percent rate that arises under the FairTax."

Further, per Jokischa and Kotlikoff (2005) ...

"...once one moves to generations postdating the baby boomers there are positive welfare gains for all income groups in each cohort. Under a 23 percent FairTax policy, the poorest members of the generation born in 1990 enjoy a 13.5 percent welfare gain. Their middle-class and rich contemporaries experience 5 and 2 percent welfare gains, respectively. The welfare gains are largest for future generations. Take the cohort born in 2030. The poorest members of this cohort enjoy a huge 26 percent improvement in their well-being. For middle class members of this birth group, there's a 12 percent welfare gain. And for the richest members of the group, the gain is 5 percent."

The current income-based tax system is also more expensive to run, because of the manner in which the tax code is gamed by politicians and lobbyists. Politicians realize great power, and attract constituencies for support, by granting tax favors (i.e., credits, deductions, exemptions) through lobbyists. Fully, fifty-three percent of Washington lobbyists are there because of the tax code! The tax code is continually changing, making it more complex - more difficult to understand. And, the salaries and costs of tax lawyers and lobbyists end up in higher prices of the products and services we buy. Additionally, the time and money required to keep records, file returns, report for audits, retain accounting and legal help, pay IRS penalties and interest, is time and money lost for other productive, or recreational, activities. Depriving us of the use of withheld wages increases our expenses through zero-interest withholding, inflation, return preparation time, and interest paid on credit cards and loans that otherwise may not have been necessary. Summed up, the cost of tax compliance, nationally, has been estimated to range anywhere from $265 billion to twice that amount, depending on the extent to which tax-avoidance consultation is sought and utilized. These expenses constitute a substantial hidden tax which is incomprehensible to the average working American. And the FairTax gets rid of all of it for most Americans, and most of it for business owners.

We, as FairTax advocates, believe that government should serve We, the People, with a fair tax system that will not enable politicians to pit poor against rich (creating barriers to achieve wealth, adding tax penalty to the sacrifices made for personal success). Nor do we want politicians to continue using business as a tool to hide taxes from consumers, often villifying business, which discourages entrepreneuship, personal achievement, economic growth. Liberty and happiness depends on restoring the fruits of labor to those who produce them. We believe that the tax function should align with economic growth, not against it, that government should be paid for in the same manner as working Americans - when, and because, something is sold!

As things stand at present, the system primarily benefits politicans who cater to special interests through lobbyists who game the tax code. The politician seeks to capture them as constituent voting blocks, dependent on continued syphoning of taxpayer dollars to their members' benefit. This is increasingly repugnant to the average working American who often finds it difficult to meet the needs of his, or her, own family in an environment where federal and state business income taxes substantially contribute to trade inequities resulting in the loss of American jobs! Thus, the Sovereign are continually degraded by features of Congress's income tax policy. The most rapidly-growing needs-based "special interest" group has become the Citizens! You see? Congress has nearly all the power; and We, the People, have become We, the Serfs, robbed and enslaved. Getting the federal government's hands out of our family paychecks is the single most important reason to replace the income tax with a consumption tax, the FairTax.

Many of us have joined FairTax.org in order to build a national movement to free ourselves, our family pocketbooks, and our businesses from confiscation of income, and punishment of productivity. And this we say to our federal representatives,

"Either scrap the code and enact the FairTax, or we intend on replacing you with someone who will."

(May reproduce in whole or part. - Ian)