Tuesday, Tuesday, October 26th

Well, we are all looking to the “lame duck” session of Congress to see if they are going to fulfill their pledge to “extend the Bush Tax cuts” – a phrase I personally hate because what it should be is “prevent the scheduled increases in our income taxes.” Throughout this debate, there is a part of these tax increases that has not received very much press and it scares me more than the rest. The ‘death tax’ was reduced to zero in 2010, but will lurch from its grave on Jan. 1, 2011 and haunt small businesses worth $1 million or more. The 55 percent rate, if not repealed, will destroy many family-owned enterprises. While tax-hungry liberals lick their chops at this Soviet-style confiscatory scheme, ordinary Americans should ask politicians why they want to hobble the only sure job-creating sector in a time of nearly 10 percent unemployment. Actually, it’s worse. When you add the people who gave up looking and those working only part time, we’re talking over 17 percent. But even that could balloon if this ghastly grave-robbing is not stopped. It’s not as if Congress doesn’t know what it’s doing. The evidence has been there for years, as companies have folded, been sold off or broken up by the death tax. Liberals love this tax because it’s part of their life support system. When the American dream fails, more people depend on government and liberal politicians who deliver more welfare. And liberals know how to take care of their own. Before adjourning to campaign, Congress enacted a $193,400 “death benefit” for the late Sen. Robert Byrd’s family. As Lawrence Hunter of the Alliance for Retirement Prosperity put it, “I would applaud a charitable act from our elitists in the Senate, but not one senator took a thin dime out of his/her pocket. They took it out of ours.” One would think Al Gore’s green tree-hugging lobby, to whose drumbeat many liberals march, would oppose the death tax if only out of concern for Mother Earth. Hancock Lumber President Kevin Hancock told the senators that the death tax will cripple his Casco-Maine-based company when his mother dies and that the death tax “has been a leading cause of green-space and forest loss in Maine, as multiple private forests have been sold in order to pay the death tax.” Well, you’ve got to break a few eggs to make an omelet or a socialist revolution. A chilling scene in the 1965 Oscar-winning film "Dr. Zhivago" is when the young doctor returns to find his Moscow family home occupied by squatters after the Soviet Revolution. He’s met by a humorless man and woman wearing red stars who inform him that “the people” now own his home. It’s not hard to imagine certain congressional leaders in those roles. 

Police have arrested a man they say twice disguised himself as a woman to get inside a UC Berkeley locker room, where he allegedly used his cell phone to photograph women. UC Berkeley police told the Oakland Tribune that officers arrested Gregorio Hernandez on suspicion of disorderly conduct. Investigators say the 29-year-old Berkeley man does not attend the university.

 

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, left, shakes hands with his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez, during an official welcoming ceremony for him, in Tehran

I hope Mr. Obama and Mrs, Clinton are paying attention. The leaders of Iran and Venezuela hailed what they called their strong strategic relationship on Wednesday, saying they are united in efforts to establish a "new world order" that will eliminate Western dominance over global affairs. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and visiting Venezuelan counterpart, Hugo Chavez, watched as officials from both countries signed 11 agreements promoting cooperation in areas including oil, natural gas, textiles, trade and public housing. Among the agreements, Venezuela's state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA said the South American country was forming a joint shipping venture with Iran to aid in delivering Venezuelan crude oil to Europe and Asia. It said in a statement that the agreement for a joint venture also would help supply Iran "due to its limited refining capacity." Both presidents denounced U.S. "imperialism" and said their opponents will not be able to impede cooperation between Iran and Venezuela. (You don't suppose this is some sort of way to get around all of those "effective" sanctions Mr. Obama has been bragging about, do yo? Nah, couldn't be...) Iran's state TV quoted both Ahmadinejad and Chavez as calling their relationship a "strategic alliance" that would eliminate the current global order. Chavez's trip to Iran was his ninth as president. Before coming to Tehran, he made stops in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. Later Wednesday, Chavez arrived in Syria, and is due to travel next to Libya and Portugal.

On this day in history in 1881 the shootout happened at the OK corral in Tombstone, Arizona and in 1942 the US aircraft carrier USS Hornet was sunk in the Battle of Santa Cruz Islands during WW II (and in 1988 Donald Trump bills Mike Tyson $2,000,000 for 4 month advisory service).

Live Long and Prosper....