As if we didn’t already know that …

What with the high sales taxes, the stadium tax, the painful state income tax, rising taxes on small businesses, the iPod tax, the garbage collection fees, et al., you can add another item to the cost of doing business in Wisconsin.

Via the MacIver Institute, James Wigderson explains why a friend of his will have to do without a 42-inch LCD TV that was advertised as being on sale at Wal-Mart for $498.

You see, the state’s archaic minimum markup law, ruled as unconstitutional by a federal judge with that ruling on appeal, prohibits Wal-Mart from honoring the sale price in Wisconsin. The same item instead would cost $650.

The minimum markup law is mostly associated with the price of gas, but it moves all across the consumer-based economy. For example, take my Thanksgiving turkey. I bought it at Wal-Mart. In Gurnee, Ill., not the Racine or Kenosha Wal-Mart. Why? Because thanks to the minimum markup law, that turkey would have cost me 86¢ a pound. At the Gurnee Wal-Mart, the exact same turkey cost me 40¢ a pound. For a 22-pound turkey, that’s a significant saving. The same turkey bought in Wisconsin would have cost me more than twice as much, thanks to the real turkeys, the members of the state legislature.

As Wiggy’s friend says:

I’m sorry but my government controlling the price of legal goods in the open market is a little too socialist for my taste.

Agreed. Government has no business setting prices in the open market. Let the markey determine what is the fair price based on supply and demand.

Not just FAIL. Epic FAIL.

Even the Detroit Free Press is in agreement, since no jobs in a state devasted by the deepening recession have been saved, let alone created.

WASHINGTON — Seven months into the massive federal stimulus program, the vast majority of government grants, contracts and loans in Michigan so far have created or retained virtually no jobs, a Free Press analysis shows.

The analysis also revealed that others who have been promised or have received stimulus money have overstated — in some cases greatly — the number of jobs created or protected.

Of course, the White House proves that denial isn’t just a river in Egypt:

Obama administration and state officials say it’s too early to draw conclusions about the overall impact of the $787-billion nationwide program to stimulate the economy and generate jobs. They promise that job growth will follow as more funding arrives.

“It looks to us like the program is unfolding much as we hoped in Michigan,” said White House economic adviser Jared Bernstein.

Hoped? Hoped? Michigan has had a Democrat governor since January 2003 and the state Legislature is split between Democrats (House) and Republicans (Senate). That puts Democrats in control of 2/3rds of state government. Plus, most the the Michigan contingent of the U.S. House of Representatives are Democrats, along with both U.S. Senators.

Michigan is a dark blue state.

Result? As of September 30, the unemployment rate in Michigan was 15.9 percent, up 6.4 percent in the preceding 12 months. Also, in that span, 309,000 jobs had left the state.

Porkulus and the Obama administration’s takeover of GM and Chrysler has had zero positive impact on the state economy.

Here’s more from the Free Press analysis:

• Three of every four stimulus grants, contracts and loans approved in Michigan created or retained one job or less.

• Fewer than 700 awards had received some money, and nearly half of those — 327 — had created one job or less, at a cost per job of $2.7 million.

• Some job estimates were wrong: General Motors Co., for instance, reported 105 jobs saved or created for a government purchase of 5,000 vehicles but later said no jobs were saved or created. The City of Detroit reported 342 jobs it now says were projections — not jobs already created or retained.

Just like everywhere else. Projections. Duplications. Phantom jobs. Only thing missing is just how many government jobs — as opposed to real jobs — were saved or created.

America’s Mayor, Rudy Giuliani, took to the Sunday morning talk shows to emphatically denounce the ludicrous decision by Our Lord and Savior Barack Hussein Obama and his Muslim terrorist appeasing attorney general, Eric Holder, to bring Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other 9/11 jihadists to New York City near the site of the World Trade Center for a show trial.

“It is an unnecessary advantage to give to terrorists,” Giuliani said on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday. “I don’t know you’d want to give terrorists advantages and, secondly, it’s an unnecessary risk.” 

Giuliani also warned that opting for a civilian court trial over a military commissions proceeding would mean lengthy delays. 

“Our federal system has an enormously protracted process that’s going to go on forever….It grants more benefits than a military tribunal will grant. There’s always the possibility of acquittal, change of venue,” the ex-mayor said on ABC’s “This Week.” 

While Attorney General Eric Holder argued that it is typical to try criminals near the site of their alleged acts, Giuliani said just the opposite. “We generally don’t bring people back to the scene of the crime for justice,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.” “What the Obama administration is telling us loud and clear is that both in substance and reality, the war on terror, from their point of view, is over. We’re no longer going to treat these people as if this was an act of war.”

The state-run media is hard at work:

Not surprisingly, al-Associated Press “fact checks” the pre-release copy of Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue, set to be released on Tuesday. And gets it wrong.

Here’s the al-AP analysis via Breitbart.

Mark Steyn fact checks the fact checkers and finds them, well, lacking in facts and competent analysis.

Steyn notes that the al-AP “fact checking” — which comes off as at the same level as al-CNN “fact checking” a Saturday Night Live skit — had 11 contributors, including the credited author of the piece, Calvin Woodward.

AP writers Matt Apuzzo, Sharon Theimer, Tom Raum, Rita Beamish, Beth Fouhy, H. Josef Hebert, Justin D. Pritchard, Garance Burke, Dan Joling and Lewis Shaine contributed to this report.

There’s this one that they got wrong:

PALIN: Says she made frugality a point when traveling on state business as Alaska governor, asking “only” for reasonably priced rooms and not “often” going for the “high-end, robe-and-slippers” hotels.

THE FACTS: Although she usually opted for less-pricey hotels while governor, Palin and daughter Bristol stayed five days and four nights at the $707.29-per-night Essex House luxury hotel (robes and slippers come standard)…

As Steyn observes:

That looks like AP paid 1.8333333 fact-checkers to agree with Mrs Palin: She says she didn’t “often” go for “high-end” hotels; they say she “usually opted for less-pricey hotels”. That’s gonna make one must-see edition of “Point/Counterpoint”.

Or is AP arguing “four nights” counts as “often”? Is that the point? AP assigned 11 reporters to demonstrate that four is a large number?

Here’s another:

PALIN: Rails against taxpayer-financed bailouts, which she attributes to Obama. She recounts telling daughter Bristol that to succeed in business, “you’ll have to be brave enough to fail.”

THE FACTS: Palin is blurring Obama’s stimulus plan–a $787 billion package of tax cuts, state aid, social programs and government contracts–and the federal bailout that President George W. Bush signed.

Palin’s views on bailouts appeared to evolve as John McCain’s vice presidential running mate. In September 2008, she said “taxpayers cannot be looked to” to bail out Wall Street.

The next month, she praised McCain for being “instrumental in bringing folks together” to pass the $700 billion bailout. After that, she said “it is a time of crisis and government did have to step in.”

John Hindraker fisks this one — and more — at Power Line:

The AP doesn’t quote Palin, so it’s hard to say whether she “blurs” the bailouts or not. But by the AP’s own account, Palin has consistently opposed bailouts, except that during the Presidential campaign, she loyally supported McCain’s position on the initial TARP program. That’s what a Vice-Presidential candidate is supposed to do, and this is not a “fact-check.”

Where was all this fact-checking during the 2008 campaign? You know, on Our Lord and Savior Barack Hussein Obama? His longstanding association with well-known radicals, jihadists, Marxists, domestic terrorists, racists, anti-American vermin? Why not fact-check, say, His campaign claim that no one earning less than $250,00 a year would see their taxes go up by not even a dime? Or that 95 percent of Americans would receive a tax cut from Him?

Oh, that’s right. They were too busy trying to get The Messiah elected.

And then there’s this hit piece from the mindless chimpanzees at Newsweek via NewsBusters, complete with a sexist cover and a headline that blares: “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Sarah?” and “She’s Bad News for the GOP – and For Everybody Else, Too.”

Mike Allen of Politico previewed the cover in the Nov. 14 edition of his “Playbook.” In it, he included these comments from Newsweek editor John Meacham who blamed Palin for Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., struggles with his conservative base in South Carolina. One of those struggles for Graham was his acknowledgment that climate change is a manmade phenomenon in need of a so-called “compromise,” And that backlash is somehow former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s fault.

Here’s what Meacham had to say:

What Obama advisers privately refer to as ‘Palinism’ has created a climate of ideological purity inside the GOP. To deviate from the anti-Obama line at all — that is, to acknowledge that politics is the art of compromise — risks the censure of the party. Pure ideologues will argue that this is a good thing; others like, say, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, a close friend of Palin’s onetime champion John McCain, think differently. Graham was denounced last week by the Charleston County Republican Party for working with Democrats on issues such as climate change; the senator’s office replied by invoking President Reagan’s belief that “elected officials need to find common ground and work together to solve difficult problems.”

Clueless. Once again, to accurately depict the state-run media:

There is no purge going on in the Republican Party to create ideological purity. What is going on is the base of the GOP is moving to return the party to its Reagan and Lincoln roots and away from the creeping statism and fascism that has moved it to the Left to become the Democrats’ Mini-Me. Moderates are welcome. Leftists and Progressives are not.

Once again, a party that tries to be all things to all people will collapse from the inside all on its own. See the Whig Party from the 19th century for proof.

Sarah Palin may be a threat to the saboteurs and infiltrators from the Left who are trying to bring the Republican Party down from within, and that’s a good thing.

She’s clearly a threat to the Left, because if they really thought of her in the terms they use, they’d ignore her.

And here’s more al-AP, which went out of its way to find linguists at the University of Wisconsin to analyze — more like, mock and make fun of — Sarah Palin’s speech patterns.

What’s more, these linguists are writing an entire paper on the former Alaska governor’s speech patterns to be published in a so-called scholarly journal next month.

Name me one — just one — American political figure that’s ever been the subject of such an analysis.

If these so-called academic elites — and the state-controlled media by extension — had been even a fraction of this analytical in examining the Little Black Man-Child, maybe we wouldn’t be experiencing The. Worst. President. Ever.

Andrew McCarthy writes that in the wake of the Fort Hood massacre, the United States may be headed to a world ever worse than “September 10th America.”

Why? Because (1) the military is now stressing diversity over gettng rid of potential jihadists and other misfits in its midst and (2) the feds are deliberately ignoring pro-jihadist speech, instead defining it as a First Amendment issue.

McCarthy was one of the federal prosecutors who handled the prosecution of the Blind Sheikh, Omar Abdel Rahman, in the 1990s. He contrasts the atmosphere then and now:

In America, you can believe whatever you want, but your actions must be lawful. Not surprisingly, the Blind Sheikh contended that his incitements to terror were beyond prosecution because he was practicing his religion: Specifically, he claimed he had simply been performing the traditional role of an Islamic cleric called on to determine whether proposed courses of conduct (in this instance, mass-murder plots) were permissible under Islamic law. Fourteen years ago, that contention was properly seen as frivolous. In America, we are not under sharia law — not yet. There is no religious exception for violent acts, conspiracies, and incitements to violence that violate American law.
 
So what has happened? Why did we know these rudimentary, commonsense principles in the Nineties but not now? Because incitement explodes the government’s “religion of peace” narrative. The incitement to Islamist terror is Islamic scripture. The Blind Shiekh was not a hypnotist or a particularly compelling speaker. His authority over terrorist organizations was rooted exclusively in his acknowledged mastery of sharia. Islamic scripture was the source of his power over Muslims.

To concede this would be to concede the obvious but unspeakable fact that there is a nexus between Islam and terror. That would harpoon the lovey-dovey dream that Islam and Western democracy are perfectly compatible. It would upset Muslims — especially the well-organized, deep-pocketed Islamic grievance industry. Today’s hip, progressive FBI, like Gen. George Casey’s modern, slavishly “diverse” military, doesn’t want to upset Muslims. Besides souring State Department cocktail parties and drying up funding for presidential libraries, upsetting Muslims would put a damper on our government’s lavish “Islamic outreach” efforts. These initiatives are premised on the delusion that we’ll stop more terror by having unindicted co-conspirators like CAIR teach Islamic “sensitivity” to our agents than by turning our agents loose to investigate CAIR and its ilk.

So the FBI ignores the significance of a terrorist cleric’s influence over an unabashed Islamist in our midst. After all, their contacts seemed to be religious in nature. We’re told, moreover, that we can’t do anything about the anti-American vitriol oozing out of Islamist mosques under the guidance of our friends the Saudis. After all, the vitriol hasn’t yet “crossed the line into material support.” By the time it does, you might have 13 corpses to tend to, but at least there will be lots to talk about at the next outreach conference — or the next time the attorney general decides to speak at a CAIR-fest.

The post-9/11 era was supposed to be about knocking down walls that obstructed effective counterterrorism. But behold the new wall, more insidious than its suicidal Nineties forerunner: the arbitrary barrier separating terrorism from “protected” incitement — the cagey, generalized, non-specific jihadist rhetoric that is the Islamist cleric’s stock-in-trade. Aside from not being required by law, this new wall will usually mean you can’t go after the worst actors (the Islamic authorities and the terrorists they inspire) until after an attack has happened and Americans have been killed.
 
In other words, be prepared for more Fort Hoods. We’re not in September 10 America. We’ve managed to land in a much more dangerous place.

And a lot of deaths and acts of jihad. Not tragedies or “man-made disasters.”

Those in charge in Washington are welcoming jihad to our shores. Which may be what they’ve wanted all along.

This is good news for those of us sick of sellouts in the Republican Party.

Sen. Lindsey Grahamnesty (RINO-S.C.) is in trouble in the Palmetto State. Big trouble.

From FitsNews via CQ Politics Political Wire :

Sen. Lindsey Graham’s public support is collapsing in South Carolina – driven by a wholesale revolt among the GOP electorate and a steady erosion of his support amongst independents.

Already consistently loathed by a solid third of GOP voters, Graham’s recent leftward bent – including his co-authoring of a controversial “Cap & Tax” proposal supported by President Barack Obama and liberal Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) – has him locked in a “terminal free fall,” according one prominent Republican consultant.

“A chunk of the GOP has always detested him, but in the last month a damn has broken,” said the consultant, who was granted anonymity to discuss the impact of two recent polls that were conducted in South Carolina (one allegedly by Graham’s own advisors). “More Republicans now oppose Sen. Graham than support him.  Independents are also deserting him in huge numbers.”

Even more troubling for Graham is there doesn’t seem to be a way out of the box.  In fact, both polls reportedly showed that the more the national liberal establishment and local environmentalists rally to Graham’s defense, the worse things get for him.

Good. Now if the South Carolina GOP can get a solid conservative to run against John McCain’s little leg-humper, maybe we can get rid of him for good.

Sen. Grahamnesty has bashed the conservative base of the GOP one too many times. Calling opponents of amnesty for illegal aliens “bigots.” Pushing the massive carbon tax to combat the hoax known as global warming. Showing open contempt for constituents at town halls this summer.

Go, Lindsey, Go. And take Mark Sanford with you.

Yes, Our Lord and Savior Barack Hussein Obama put on yet another display of submission to a foreign leader by bowing to the symbolic emperor of Japan.

From Noel Sheppard at NewsBusters comes this image and commentary:

This photo will get Democrat President Obama a lot of approving nods in Japan this weekend, especially among the older generation of Japanese who still pay attention to the royal family living in its downtown castle. Very low bows like this are a sign of great respect and deference to a superior.

To some in the United States, however, an upright handshake might have looked better. Remember Michelle Obama casually patting Britain’s Queen Elizabeth on the back during their Buckingham Palace visit? America’s royalty tends to make movies and get bad reviews and lots of money as a sign of respect.

Just like when he bowed to the Saudi king, it’s a sign of submission. This man does not speak for me or millions of Americans. America does not bow in submission and subservience to any foreign leader.

Michelle Malkin dubs The Anointed One “O-Bow-Ma” and adds:

Crikey, is there a single adult in the White House who can teach the commander-in-chief some presidential protocol?

The Left complained that George W. Bush was too much of a cowboy on the global stage.

It’s better than having a waterboy.

Sister Toldjah observes:

If you’re ok with American Presidents bowing like he has to other heads of state, then perhaps you were disappointed with the outcome of the Revolutionary War, too.

Lefty blogs are now arguing that Obama was just being respectful. It’s far more insiduous than that. I firmly believe The Anointed One was offering an unspoken apology for the U.S. winning World War II and winning it through the use of nuclear weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

There’s no other explanation when every other nation’s leader simply shook the figurehead’s hand.

Coming to Great Britain. Coming soon to America?

Everyone in Britain should have an annual carbon ration and be penalised if they use too much fuel, the head of the Environment Agency will say.

Lord Smith of Finsbury believes that implementing individual carbon allowances for every person will be the most effective way of meeting the targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

It would involve people being issued with a unique number which they would hand over when purchasing products that contribute to their carbon footprint, such as fuel, airline tickets and electricity.

Like with a bank account, a statement would be sent out each month to help people keep track of what they are using.

If their “carbon account” hits zero, they would have to pay to get more credits.

Those who are frugal with their carbon usage will be able to sell their unused credits and make a profit.

This economist gets it:

Ruth Lea, an economist from Arbuthnot Banking Group, told the Daily Mail: “This is all about control of the individual and you begin to wonder whether this is what the green agenda has always been about. It’s Orwellian. This will be an enormous tax on business.”

It’s far more sinister than just a tax on business. It is all about state control of the individual. It’s the state telling you how you must live and charging you more when you fail to adhere to their rules.

Orwellian. Marxist. Fascist. All sorts of adjectives are applicable and none of them good.

From Noel Sheppard at NewsBusters comes good news: the proposed world agreement on global warming climate change at the Copenhagen summit next month.

The decision represents a huge setback to the Obama administration’s goal of passing a cap and trade bill this year, which conversely is great news for virtually every company in America that has been worried about the higher cost of doing business that would come from the enactment of such legislation.

That would also mean cap-and-trade the massive carbon tax is also dead in the water as well.

That in and of itself is reason for celebration.

Might the Obama administration be looking at using government-run health care to sidestep the Second Amendment and impose new gun control restrictions by defining gun violence as a public health issue?

Investor’s Business Daily thinks so.

More than a decade ago Congress, seeing it as a backdoor assault on the 2nd Amendment and the right to keep and bear arms, voted to cut funding for firearms research by the Centers for Disease Control. Such research was viewed as one-sided and based on flawed assumptions that all gun use was bad, even that which saved lives and deterred crime.

The National Institutes of Health seemed to have picked up the baton by funding similar studies of gun violence as a public health issue.

“It’s almost as if someone’s been looking for a way to get this study done ever since the Centers for Disease Control was banned from doing it 10 years ago,” said Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, of one of the NIH studies. “But it doesn’t make any more sense now than it did then.”

In response to inquiries about the studies, NIH spokesman Don Ralbovsky said: “Gun-related violence is a public health problem — it diverts considerable health care resources away from other problems and, therefore, is of interest to NIH.”

Considering the drive for health care reform and the views on private gun ownership held by this administration and appointees such as Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, this renewed linkage between gun control and public health is of interest to defenders of the 2nd Amendment as well.

When the CDC tried this during the Clinton administration — also no friend of gun owners’ rights — we thought it was misguided at best. evil at worst. Potential tyrants view legal owners of firearms as a threat. That’s why the Left has waged a virtual non-stop war on both the Second Amendment. It works hand-in-hand with their war on First Amendment as well.

By the way, for those of you who think that banning private ownership of firearms will reduce crime, think again:

After the 1996 shooting of 16 kids in Dunblane, Scotland, the United Kingdom passed one of the strictest gun-control laws in the world, banning its citizens from owning almost all types of handguns. But that didn’t cut down on violent crime, which nearly doubled from 1998-99 to 2002-03.

Australia also saw violent crime pick up after it banned private possession of most firearms in 1996. Increases in violent crime averaged 32% a year in the six years following the ban. Armed robbery rates showed increases of 74%.

Nothing increases gun violence like the sure knowledge your potential victim is unarmed. Such studies ignore the lives saved and the rapes and assaults prevented by guns in the home or by citizens in “right to carry” states.

Another area that saw a massive increase in the UK and Australia after the gun bans was home invasions. Nothing like knowing that there’s no firearms in the home.

Everywhere conceal-carry has been passed, crime has gone down. Criminals do prefer unarmed victims.

The other things that is often overlooked in these phony, one-sided studies is the impact of criminal-on-criminal gun crimes. You know, like gangs. People that shouldn’t have firearms in the first place as convicted felons. The stats of gang crime also warp figures on youth gun violence because they are not factored out by the gun control advocates.

Second Amendment supporters need to be extremely vigilant, especially since the opponents of our God-given right to bear arms are on the march and looking for yet another end run on the Constitution.

They already consider it nothing more than two-ply to begin with, so there’s nothing that will stop them from trying to subvert it. They’ve already been trying since Day One.