“Inversions”

Posted on 17 July 2014 by eehines

US corporate income is taxed at the highest rate in the world. “Inversion” is the process of American companies packing up, usually through merger with foreign entities, and reincorporating (if not physically relocating) in a foreign country in order to avoid US corporate income taxes.

Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew wants the inversions stopped. Writing to the Senate and House tax-writing committees, he said he said those two bodies “should enact legislation immediately…to shut down this abuse of our tax system.”

His letter went on:

This is a preview of “Inversions”. Read the full post (257 words, estimated 1:02 mins reading time)

One Face of Terrorism

Posted on 17 July 2014 by eehines

Just as soon as Israel accepted an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire Hamas fired 47 rockets killing one Israeli citizen. Anyone who has followed the conflict could have predicted this with certainty; the point of a ceasefire—for a terrorist organization—is to break it for exactly the same reason it purposely attacks women and children.

Dr Anna Geifman expanded on this:

[C]hildren are the last consecrated absolute. …militant nihilism strives to ruin first and foremost what their contemporaries hold sacred.

And

Random, en masse brutality against civilians—emblematic for the 20^th-century terror—culminated in a spectacular act of apocalyptic destruction on 9/11.

This is a preview of One Face of Terrorism. Read the full post (197 words, estimated 47 secs reading time)

The Word of a Union

Posted on 16 July 2014 by eehines

The UAW broke its pledge to cease organizing activity at the Chattanooga auto plant that rejected unionization, announcing on Thursday afternoon that it would form a voluntary union for factory workers.

The union signed a neutrality agreement with the German auto manufacturer that gave organizers an advantage during its campaign.

However, that agreement also contained a provision barring the union from any organizing activity for one year following the vote.

The union decided to break that pledge on Thursday, announcing the formation of a new local that would allow workers to join voluntarily.

Who can trust a union’s promise?

This is a preview of The Word of a Union. Read the full post (101 words, estimated 24 secs reading time)

The Wrong Question

Posted on 16 July 2014 by eehines

Jim Angle, of Fox News, usually does better than this.

“Right now the savings that was projected to pay for all this spending [on Obamacare] is not being collected as originally projected,” said Charles Blahous, of the Mercatus Center. He estimated the law will eventually cost $200 billion a year by 2020.

And

“There was about $100 billion that was supposed to come in over the next 10 years from penalties on individuals, if they did not carry health insurance, penalties on employers, if they do not offer health insurance, and to date, those penalties have not been enforced,” Blahous said.

This is a preview of The Wrong Question. Read the full post (284 words, estimated 1:08 mins reading time)

What is this Administration Trying to Hide?

Posted on 15 July 2014 by eehines

Or, of what is this administration so terrified?

Nebraska’s governor says 200 children who entered the country illegally were sent to his state this week without warning and that federal officials are refusing to identify them or their locations.

Governor Dave Heineman (R) said federal officials also wouldn’t answer questions about public school attendance by the children and the potential costs to taxpayers.

“Governors and mayors have the right to know when the federal government is transporting a large group of individuals, in this case illegal immigrants, into your state,” Mr Heineman told The Wall Street Journal in an interview on Saturday. “We need to know who they are, and so far, they are saying they’re not going to give us that information.”

This is a preview of What is this Administration Trying to Hide?. Read the full post (284 words, estimated 1:08 mins reading time)

The Democrats Don’t Like Speech?

Posted on 15 July 2014 by eehines

At least when it’s not been approved by them. This Constitutional Amendment passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee last Thursday on a straight party line vote:

JOINT RESOLUTION

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United

States relating to contributions and expenditures intended

to affect elections.

1 Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives

2 of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two

3 thirds of each House concurring therein), That the fol

4 lowing article is proposed as an amendment to the Con

This is a preview of The Democrats Don’t Like Speech?. Read the full post (524 words, estimated 2:06 mins reading time)

Moral Equivalence Pollution

Posted on 14 July 2014 by eehines

As the Palestinian Authority’s rocket attacks on Israeli cities proceeds apace, the United States supported a unanimously passed UN Security Council “press statement” calling for an immediate cease fire on Saturday. Because Israel acting, militarily this time, to protect its people from this murderous assault is of a piece with the terrorism that is the assault.

This is a preview of Moral Equivalence Pollution. Read the full post (235 words, estimated 56 secs reading time)

A Thought on $3.7 Billion

Posted on 14 July 2014 by eehines

President Barack Obama thinks it’ll take $3.7 billion to handle the explosive flood of unaccompanied children pouring over our border as a result of his decision not to enforce our existing immigration laws. Obama wants the money to plus up existing border security, illegal alien housing in the border area and elsewhere, dealing with the health problems these children are unavoidably bringing with them, transportation, handling legal matters, and so on.

Assuming the money should be spent (a position I don’t endorse, but stay with me), I have a thought on how the money should be allocated. I’d pass a $3.7 billion appropriation that allocates the money in this way:

This is a preview of A Thought on $3.7 Billion. Read the full post (349 words, estimated 1:24 mins reading time)

Rockets on Israel

Posted on 13 July 2014 by eehines

The Executive Vice President of B’nai B’rith International, Daniel Mariaschin, is on the right track. In an op-ed written for Fox News, he very appropriately decried the European Union’s inability to identify, much less understand, who the enemy is in the current explosion of the confrontation between Israel and the terrorists bent on Israel’s destruction.

However, Mariaschin makes his own critical error:

Who exactly does the EU think is firing rockets at Israel?

One thing is for sure: the Hamas rockets have nothing to do with Israel’s settlement policy.

This is a preview of Rockets on Israel. Read the full post (170 words, estimated 41 secs reading time)

The EU, Immigration, and National Sovereignty

Posted on 12 July 2014 by eehines

Germany can’t require the spouses of Turkish immigrants to show a basic knowledge of the German language before granting them visas, the European Union’s top court ruled on Thursday, overturning a condition aimed at preventing forced marriages and at promoting integration.

Foreigners, after all, shouldn’t be expected to assimilate into the culture and country to which they emigrate; they should continue to live apart from their new community, leading in the aggregate to the fractionation of their new “country.”

There are complications in this particular case (there always are when law is involved), but that’s the thrust of this ruling. The court went on:

This is a preview of The EU, Immigration, and National Sovereignty. Read the full post (203 words, estimated 49 secs reading time)

A Plebe's Site

Quam bene vivas referre, non quam diu.