Here’s a new way to try and hip-up the boring, ages-old, left-wing idea of tax hikes: link it to reality TV star Kim Kardashian. That is just what ABC News tried to do on the Wednesday, January 4th edition of ABC “World News Tonight” when the venerable news program helped advertise an effort by a small group headed by a former Democrat operative that wants to hike California’s income taxes. It is a two-pronged approach of hitching a big government, big spending, high tax agenda to the TV reality show star in order to drag younger people into the left’s class warfare game.

ABC highlighted a California Millionaires Tax policy recommendation from a group called Courage Campaign. The group is headed by Rick Jacobs who is the former head of Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign in California, a Huffington Post writer, and leader of this admittedly “progressive” group.

ABC reported that the “liberal group” (and kudos to ABC for actually identifying them as a liberal group for a change) is upset that Kim Kardashian, who made some $12 million in 2011, only paid one percent more than the average middle class wage in the Golden State.

Here is what the extremist high-tax group says on it’s website about this:

Kim Kardashian made more than $12 million in 2010, but she only paid 1% more in taxes than a middle-class Californian. That’s not OK, especially when budget cuts are decimating schools and critical programs for children, the elderly, and the disabled. It’s exactly why Courage Campaign and two dozen other organizations are putting the Millionaires Tax of 2012 on the ballot.

Wow, that tiny, little one percent suuuure seems small, right? But let’s look at the actual payment, shall we? Kardashian paid a tax rate of 10.3 percent and 10.3 percent of twelve million is $1,236,000! And those middle-class folks that paid one percent less at 9.3 percent? Well if the average income in California is $47.000, then they paid only $4,371. Why aren’t these middle-class louts paying their fair share? (That’s called sarcasm, by the way.)

Now, it’s not that I care at all for Kim and her brood — I never watch so-called reality TV and have never seen her show — but this is all really just class warfare. After all, let’s look at the tact here: Instead of actually talking about what Kardashian pays, this ABC flogged extremist group focuses on that “one percent” as if that makes her tax remittance tiny. They mislead the public by purposefully avoiding any mention of the amount she actually paid.

Seriously, the fact is we could out right confiscate the millions made by the Kardashinas of this country and it wouldn’t make a dent in the hole of trillions of dollars that Democrats have dug for us.

But there is one last thing to ask about this ABC report: I’m just wondering, but has ABC ever highlighted the tax policy idea of some small tea party group that made a video to sell its plan to the people? Why does this tiny, left-wing group in California rate any attention at all in a national news program?

Obviously the answer here is that ABC saw the possibility of exploiting Kardashian and enraging her young fan base in order to drive them to support a left-wing idea. It’s all about branding, you see. If the far left and ABC can leech off Kim Kardashian to sell their creaky old socialist policies, then that’s what they will do.

Oh, but he was speaking figuratively. Of course. Dig the #newtone.

I’m curious as to how Feingold plans to validate his freshman Marxism 101 accusation that billionaires got their wealth by stealing from the poor.

The Wall Street Journal in 2007 published a study which showed that the vast majority of the American wealthy are nouveau riche as their wealth is, on average, less than 13 years-old. Contrary to Feingold’s hysteria, these new wealthy are self-made entrepreneurs, not robber barons. They earned their money through commerce. Such success used to be celebrated as evidence that the American Dream still existed, that you too can start from nothing and make it anywhere in America so long as you have the will and persistence. What you put into it is what you get out of it. Since the breakdown of the American psyche by Marxist-loving liberals, the American Dream is now something of which successful Americans should be ashamed. How dare Americans who work hard reap any reward from their work! They should pay their fair share!

Except they do. They pay theirs, yours, and everyone else’s. Analysis of tax data shows that the top 5% pay 58% of all federal income taxes in the United States, while the bottom 50% pay less than three percent.

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In news that’s sure to make liberals’ heads explode, Fox News has now sat atop the cable-news ratings for one hundred consecutive months. From Fishbowl DC:

The gang at FNC has to be pleased. The network rolls in at #1 for 100 consecutive months in total viewership, according to Nielsen Media Research. This includes Primetime and Total Day news programming.

FNC also secured nine out of the top 10 programs in cable news for April in total viewers. Here’s the pecking order of the top five:

1. Bill O’Reilly
2. Glenn Beck
3. Sean Hannity
4. Bret Baier
5. Greta Van Susteren

As if on cue, liberals’ heads exploded.  Here’s one now: (more…)

“If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, not your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”                –Samuel Adams, 1776

Part 1: A Primer, Part 2: Foundation, Part 3: Execution

You would think that everyone wants to be free. You would think no one wants to be ruled by tyrants of any kind. Yet many people in the so-called free world are not only selling themselves out, they are selling out the rest of us, and our descendants. And so many of them don’t even know they’re doing it. They’ve been lied to. Tricked, fooled, played. And the agents of statism intend to keep it that way.

For 100 years the Big Government (BG) loving statists have been trying to convert the bottom-up United States into top-down society. They have managed to bring it very far along this course. There are still some matters they have to resolve, but they are closer than they ever have been. They never sought to win through insurrection because war is too costly and the results of any conflict are unpredictable. They used an approach the Nazis did to great effect in Germany. They gamed the system.

Like our progressive statists, the Nazis came to power legally. They got elected and then, once in positions of authority, corrupted the system and turned it into what they wanted. The old fascists did this in a short amount of time because Germany did not have a LG constitution like the US. Our system makes it very hard to turn the state into an autocratic dictatorship. Those progressives of the ’30s, who were at first enamored of the Fascists in Europe, wanted to take over the US in the same fashion. They had been doing it since Teddy Roosevelt was elected. Roosevelt began a war on corporations, including a bizarre crusade against Coca-Cola. It would echo later crusades by politicians against American industries, demonizing them and making them out to be evil incarnate. (more…)