The Anchoress

UPDATE: Court Allows Casino Vote that May Boost Obama

The Texas Rainmaker says this video of Bill Clinton getting red-faced and angry with a reporter (his question didn’t seem so “accusatory” to me, but what do I know?) and says it is Bill Clinton “admitting that Democrats are stupid and deceitful.”

I don’t think Democrats are stupid or deceitful, and I do think that such flamethrowing is unproductive. It also misses the point, which seems to be that Clinton is - if I am understanding the reporter, correctly - “spinning” or “not quite representing things fully,” or “telling a whopper,” depending upon your take. As the reporter notes, no one had a problem with the Nevada caucus arrangements until the huge and powerful culinary workers union endorsed Barack Obama. Then, suddenly, the Clinton-endorsing Teachers Union had a problem, as did Clinton supporters. And it is not quite true that the Clinton campaign is completely “neutral” on this. As I linked earlier, Bill Clinton supports the lawsuit - in different (not 5-to-1) language.

Whatever. I’m getting weary of these shenanigans and it’s still ten months to elections.

Rudy is in Florida talking A flatter, fairer tax system:

In a competitive global economy, American businesses and workers cannot afford to pay noncompetitive taxes. Our corporate tax rate of 35 percent is the second highest in the industrialized world. We should cut it to 25 percent. We also need to keep investments in the United States, which is why we should cut the capital gains tax from 15 percent to 10 percent and index it for inflation.

Two of the most unfair taxes are the death tax and the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT). The death tax is scheduled to be 45 percent in 2009, then go to 0 percent in 2010, and back up to 55 percent in 2011. Only Congress could invent an incentive to die. It’s past time to give the death tax the death penalty.

His Tax Cut Campaign Video is here. Having seen via Kennedy, Reagan and now Bush that tax cuts do work, I’m inclined to favor them, these days!

Speaking of Rudy, a writer in the Canada Free Press says GOP Primary Voters are making a mistake in not voting for Giuliani. Some would argue that Giuliani is making a mistake putting all his eggs into a Florida basket. We’ll have to see who is correct.

I do, however, find this piece to be right on, about Rudy and terrorism. As a New Yorker, I still remember him chasing Arafat out of Lincoln Center, and telling an American/Israel policy-blaming Saudi prince to stick his 10 million dollar check. I remember who he turned the city around after it had been written off as ungovernable. That stuff matter. Abortion? Hey, we’ve had the most pro-life president ever in office (and for a while we had a GOP congress) and that meant nothing on abortion. The SCOTUS is the key there; at least three of them are hanging on for dear life, waiting for a Democrat to be elected, so they can die. I trust Rudy will appoint judges who - like him - respect and defer to the constitution.

Whatever. I’m also tired of the GOP’s identity crisis. Judith Apter Klinghoffer says Republicans are tired of governing and writes:

In 2000 Republicans were hungry and coalesced around a “compassionate conservative.” In 2008 they look forward to an opportunity to criticize the Democrats. Rush [Limbaugh] felt “liberated” after Republican lost Congress. His fellow pundits focus on proving their ability to move the base instead of enlarging it.

How pitiful and how tragic. Does anyone doubt that the terrorists will test the mettle of a new Democratic administration in a manner they would never dare test a Republican one?

Discuss?

Can someone explain to me why Clintons can campaign in churches with impunity?

Johann Sebastian Bach is a Christian Missionary to Asia. No, really! Read the fascinating story at Cyberbrethren, which I got via Julie who got it via Brandywine Books:

…this scholar’s conversion could have been attributed to the impact of pericopes’ biblical texts on Maruyama. Why, though, would a fugue have such evangelistic powers as it did on the Japanese organist in Minnesota? Why would even listening to Bach’s Goldberg Variations, which contain no lyrics, arouse someone’s interest in Christianity? This happened when Masashi Yasuda, a former agnostic, heard a CD with Canadian pianist Glenn Gould’s rendering of this complex Clavier-Übung, or keyboard study. Still, Yasuda’s spiritual journey began precisely with these variations. He is now a Jesuit priest teaching systematic theology at Sophia University in Tokyo.

Fascinating. Read it all.

Dick Meyer at CBS has a novel notion:

Give congress perks and a raise, to lesson the influence of lobbyists: Senators should make at least a million and House members at least $750,000, probably more. They should have huge private accounts and travel budgets so that they would never be tempted by a junket, feast or floozy financed by a lobbyist. They should be able to pay their staff big bucks so they could hire the almost-best and nearly-the-brightest.
[...]
The goal here is to create what Congress once had: tyrants.

It’s all going to seem terribly, terribly counter-intuitive, but go read it. Let’s discuss. There may be something to what he says, but I doubt it will ever happen.

Vaguely related: On the Billionaires who promote Big Government.

Don Surber has more thoughts on the economy.
And go here for excerpts from The Economics of Marriage.

Bob Owens takes on the NY Times and their latest Vet smear. Instapundit rounds that up.

Saul Alinksy, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. It seems those three names have a date for the dance. I was going to write “a date with destiny,” but that sounds like I know what I’m talking about, which I don’t.

Dentists are leaving the UK, because socialized medicine does not work.

Jenna Bush: My Li’l Bro Thom predicted this, that she’d go for a small, private wedding in Texas. A shame. I would have dug a White House Wedding. But if Hillary gets in, we’ll get to watch Chelsea’s. You know that.