WSJ editor Stephen Moore poses some questions regarding “fairness” to the president. Don’t hold your breath for any answers, or at least any rational ones.

Is it fair that the richest 1% of Americans pay nearly 40% of all federal income taxes, and the richest 10% pay two-thirds of the tax?

Is it fair that the richest 10% of Americans shoulder a higher share of their country’s income-tax burden than do the richest 10% in every other industrialized nation, including socialist Sweden?

Is it fair that American corporations pay the highest statutory corporate tax rate of all other industrialized nations but Japan, which cuts its rate on April 1?

Is it fair that President Obama sends his two daughters to elite private schools that are safer, better-run, and produce higher test scores than public schools in Washington, D.C.—but millions of other families across America are denied that free choice and forced to send their kids to rotten schools?

Is it fair that Americans who build a family business, hire workers, reinvest and save their money—paying a lifetime of federal, state and local taxes often climbing into the millions of dollars—must then pay an additional estate tax of 35% (and as much as 55% when the law changes next year) when they die, rather than passing that money onto their loved ones?

Is it fair that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, former Democratic Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, former Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel and other leading Democrats who preach tax fairness underpaid their own taxes?

Is it fair that after the first three years of Obamanomics, the poor are poorer, the poverty rate is rising, the middle class is losing income, and some 5.5 million fewer Americans have jobs today than in 2007?

Is it fair that roughly 88% of political contributions from supposedly impartial network television reporters, producers and other employees in 2008 went to Democrats?

Is it fair that the three counties with America’s highest median family income just happen to be located in the Washington, D.C., metro area?

Is it fair that wind, solar and ethanol producers get billions of dollars of subsidies each year and pay virtually no taxes, while the oil and gas industry—which provides at least 10 times as much energy—pays tens of billions of dollars of taxes while the president complains that it is “subsidized”?

Is it fair that those who work full-time jobs (and sometimes more) to make ends meet have to pay taxes to support up to 99 weeks of unemployment benefits for those who don’t work?

Is it fair that those who took out responsible mortgages and pay them each month have to see their tax dollars used to subsidize those who acted recklessly, greedily and sometimes deceitfully in taking out mortgages they now can’t afford to repay?

Is it fair that thousands of workers won’t have jobs because the president sided with environmentalists and blocked the shovel-ready Keystone XL oil pipeline?

Is it fair that some of Mr. Obama’s largest campaign contributors received federal loan guarantees on their investments in renewable energy projects that went bust?

Is it fair that federal employees receive benefits that are nearly 50% higher than those of private-sector workers whose taxes pay their salaries, according to the Congressional Budget Office?

Is it fair that soon almost half the federal budget will take income from young working people and redistribute it to old non-working people, even though those over age 65 are already among the wealthiest Americans?

Is it fair that in 27 states workers can be compelled to join a union in order to keep their jobs?

Is it fair that nearly four out of 10 American households now pay no federal income tax at all—a number that has risen every year under Mr. Obama?

Is it fair that Boeing, a private company, was threatened by a federal agency when it sought to add jobs in a right-to-work state rather than in a forced-union state?

Is it fair that our kids and grandkids and great-grandkids—who never voted for Mr. Obama—will have to pay off the $5 trillion of debt accumulated over the past four years, without any benefits to them?

Here’s a great excerpt from Andrew McCarthy:

Say a governor and state legislature had enacted a scheme to establish a state religion, or at least to advantage one religion over others. One could argue that this was — or was not — unwise policy. It certainly seems as hostile to liberty as the idea of coercing a citizen to buy a commodity as a condition of citizenship. Yet, for the first 160 years of governance under the federal constitution, there would have been nothing objectionable about it under U.S. law. Until the Supreme Court suddenly decided to “incorporate” the Establishment Clause against the states, the First Amendment was no bar. The federal government, as Jefferson put it, was “interdicted from intermeddling” in matters of religion — religion was an issue left to the states and their citizens, and we trusted them to handle it responsibly.

That is the way our system is supposed to work. The federal government has a few discrete areas of national concern to regulate. The rest belong to the states and the people, to regulate or not as they see fit. In a free society, that means decisions on most matters of community life get made by the community that has to live with them — and pay for them. In a pluralistic society, that means we could have 50 different ways of doing things — meaning that if you find yourself in a state that is foolish enough to mandate the purchase of health insurance subsidized by taxes or penalties, you are free to move to some state that isn’t.

The inability in a federalist system to impose a “one size fits all” solution on every choice decompresses a society — which is now a society of over 300 million people with very different ideas about how we should live. It promotes social harmony by allowing people to gravitate to the communities where life best suits them.

Andrew McCarthy has a great observation in last weekend’s GOP debate, which found Mitt Romney utilizing Federalism in order to attack Obamacare even as he (still, foolishly) defends Romneycare — mandates by a state versus the federal government. While McCarthy believes Romney’s recent discovery of Federalism is simply a convenient ploy to deflect criticisms, he finds Romney’s argument nonetheless factually perfect.

The federal government has a few discrete areas of national concern to regulate. The rest belong to the states and the people, to regulate or not as they see fit. In a free society, that means decisions on most matters of community life get made by the community that has to live with them — and pay for them. In a pluralistic society, that means we could have 50 different ways of doing things — meaning that if you find yourself in a state that is foolish enough to mandate the purchase of health insurance subsidized by taxes or penalties, you are free to move to some state that isn’t.

The inability in a federalist system to impose a “one size fits all” solution on every choice decompresses a society — which is now a society of over 300 million people with very different ideas about how we should live. It promotes social harmony by allowing people to gravitate to the communities where life best suits them.

If I were living in Massachusetts (or anyplace else), I would argue that health care is not a corporate asset and that it’s none of anyone’s business whether I choose to buy coverage. But if I lost that debate, and if the coercive mandate law bothered me enough, I could move to some state where the law was different. Or I might decide that, in the greater scheme of things, life in Massachusetts was worth enduring the nuisance and costs of state policies to which I objected. But in either event, none of my calculations would be the concern of someone living in, say, Colorado — at least as long as he wasn’t being made to pay for it.

To the contrary, Romney’s competitors opined that the federal constitution barred states like Massachusetts from imposing an individual mandate as part of an effort to ensure that every citizen in the state was covered. And from there, the putative champions of limited government went haywire. Some want gay marriage banned. Some want abortion banned and criminalized. If you listened to them long enough, it was like listening to Democrats: If I disapprove of it, surely it must be prohibited. If I approve, surely it must be the law.

I confess to thinking we’ve lost our way. The Framers gave us a federal constitution for a confident, self-determining people — people who could be trusted to make sensible choices, to govern themselves through legislation rather than be strait-jacketed in the uncompromising logic of law.

… [Our overspending woes and massive national debt] gets solved only by drastically slashing the functions of the central government. It gets solved by zeroing out departments, agencies, and bureaucracies; by returning those functions to the states so that the people directly affected can decide what ought to be done and how much they’re willing to pay for it — not with other people’s money but with their own.

What does McCarthy forecast our chances of this occurring? Zero! Heh. That’s hardly the attitude that brought down King George, eh Andrew?

Obama’s rhetorical floundering is the sound of a bewildered politician trying to be heard over the long, withdrawing roar of ebbing faith in a failing model of governance. From Greece to California, with manifestations in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Illinois and elsewhere, this model is collapsing. Entangled economic and demographic forces are refuting the practice of ever-bigger government financed by an ever-smaller tax base and by imposing huge costs on voiceless future generations.

Richard Miniter, a Forbes columnist, is right: “Obama is not the new FDR, but the new Gorbachev.” Beneath the tattered, fading banner of reactionary liberalism, Obama struggles to sustain a doomed system. Democrats’ dependency agenda — swelling the ranks of government employees, multiplying government-subsidized industries, enveloping ever-more individuals in the entitlement culture — is buckling under an intractable contradiction: It is incompatible with economic growth sufficient to create enough wealth to feed the multiplying tax eaters.

– George Will.

Bibi — now there’s a guy who can give a kick-arse speech! He’s is Israel’s Ronald Reagan. He’s the Jewish Gipper!

[Benjamin Netanhayu] So now here is the question. You have to ask it. If the benefits of peace with the Palestinians are so clear, why has peace eluded us? Because all six Israeli Prime Ministers since the signing of Oslo accords agreed to establish a Palestinian state. Myself included. So why has peace not been achieved? Because so far, the Palestinians have been unwilling to accept a Palestinian state, if it meant accepting a Jewish state alongside it.

You see, our conflict has never been about the establishment of a Palestinian state. It has always been about the existence of the Jewish state. This is what this conflict is about. In 1947, the United Nations voted to partition the land into a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Jews said yes. The Palestinians said no. In recent years, the Palestinians twice refused generous offers by Israeli Prime Ministers, to establish a Palestinian state on virtually all the territory won by Israel in the Six Day War.

They were simply unwilling to end the conflict. And I regret to say this: They continue to educate their children to hate. They continue to name public squares after terrorists. And worst of all, they continue to perpetuate the fantasy that Israel will one day be flooded by the descendants of Palestinian refugees.

My friends, this must come to an end. President Abbas must do what I have done. I stood before my people, and I told you it wasn’t easy for me, and I said… “I will accept a Palestinian state.” It is time for President Abbas to stand before his people and say… “I will accept a Jewish state.”

Those six words will change history.

Amazing home-made video of the tsunami in Japan.

“Their struggle is your struggle. If anyone thinks you can somehow thank them for their service, and not support the cause for which they fight – our country – these people are lying to themselves. . . . More important, they are slighting our warriors and mocking their commitment to this nation.”

That’s from Lt. Gen. John Kelly, who lost his son, a 2nd Lt., to a land mine in Afghanistan in late 2010. Read the whole heartbreaking story here.

Give. Me. A. Break.

[ABC News] The Arizona sheriff investigating the Tucson shooting that left U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords critically wounded had harsh words today for those engaging in political rhetoric, calling conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh “irresponsible” for continuing the vitriol. … “The kind of rhetoric that flows from people like Rush Limbaugh, in my judgment he is irresponsible, uses partial information, sometimes wrong information,” Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said today. “[Limbaugh] attacks people, angers them against government, angers them against elected officials and that kind of behavior in my opinion is not without consequences. … “The vitriol affects the [unstable] personality that we are talking about,” he said. “You can say, ‘Oh no, it doesn’t,’ but my opinion is that it does.” Dupnik said he’d like to see the federal government establish some kind of commission to deal with civility in the United States and make recommendations about how to get it back.

Seriously? Is that why the founders risked everything they had, including their necks, by committing treason against King George; why brave soldiers from Valley Forge to Tripoli to Gettysburg to Normandy to Falluja gave “the last full measure of devotion”… so that we could establish a Federal commission to study and make recommendations on “civility”?

(And name me just one problem a Congressional commission has ever solved — just one!)

Why, how do we not know that someone out there in the Ether Cloud isn’t going to read the Sheriff’s comments and go nuts and kill some people? “Well, I was just fine until I read what Sheriff Dufus said about Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin, and gee, it made me want to blast away!” Will that then make Sheriff Dufus liable for mass murder? Or does it only work that way against people with whom HE disagrees?

A commission on “civility.” We are slowly but surely becoming the movie Idiocracy.

As far as civility, I think comedian and magician Penn Jilette of Penn & Teller fame made the best recommendation, certainly better then anything Sheriff Dufus’ Civility Commission could ever come up with:

“Fuck Civility. Hyperbole, passion, and metaphor are beautiful parts of rhetoric. Marketplace of ideas can not be toned down for the insane.”

Or,

“Killers need to restrain and be restrained, not speakers.”

Or,

“Insane people are not ‘consequences.’”

Or,

“Killers are not created by words. Words had nothing to do with this.”

Or,

“You can create any climate you want and good people don’t kill. We’re not responsible for the crazies.”

Or,

“You sure can’t guess how crazy people are going to react to anything. That’s what crazy means.”

And, the best for last:

“Freedom is always the answer.”

Here’s Duncan Currie:

Here’s one thing you won’t find in the 2,300-page financial-overhaul legislation that passed the Senate Thursday afternoon: any serious reform of housing giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the longtime “government-sponsored enterprises” (GSEs), both of which have been in federal conservatorship since September 2008. Last summer, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the cost of subsidizing the GSEs would amount to $389 billion through 2019. This figure accounted for “substantial losses on the entire outstanding stock of mortgages held or guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac at that time.” In January, the CBO updated its forecast, projecting a total price tag of at least $373 billion through 2020. By comparison, it now expects the much-maligned Troubled Asset Relief Program to cost just $109 billion.

Those numbers help put the GSE bailout in perspective, yet they tell only part of the story. Fannie and Freddie currently own or guarantee roughly $5.5 trillion worth of mortgages — over half the residential market. If these liabilities were included in the federal budget, Americans would better appreciate the true fiscal impact of rescuing the GSEs.

But Fannie and Freddie are not counted in the budget, a maneuver “worthy of Enron’s playbook, except not quite so hidden,” as Bloomberg columnist Jonathan Weil has written. Their exclusion “makes a joke” out of the U.S. balance sheet, says former SEC commissioner Paul Atkins. The argument for bringing them on budget became even more compelling in December, when the Obama administration removed a cap on their Treasury Department credit line, essentially giving the GSEs a blank check. A few months later, after House Financial Services Committee chair Barney Frank (D., Mass.) suggested that GSE debt obligations were not backstopped by the federal government, Treasury spokeswoman Meg Reilly affirmed that “there should be no uncertainty about Treasury’s commitment to support Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as they continue to play a vital role in the housing market.”

… In December 2008, mortgage-finance consultant Edward Pinto, who served as Fannie’s chief credit officer from 1987 to 1989, told Congress that “Fannie and Freddie went from being the watchdogs of credit standards and thoughtful innovators to the leaders in default-prone loans and poorly designed products. They introduced mortgages which encouraged and extended the housing bubble, trapped millions of people in loans that they knew were unsustainable, and destroyed the equity savings of tens of millions of Americans.”

In a new paper, George Mason University economist Russell Roberts points out that the GSEs bought roughly twice as many home-purchase loans made to below-median-income buyers in 2003 as they had in 1997. It was during this period — from the late 1990s through 2003 — that “Fannie and Freddie played an important role in pushing up the demand for housing at the low end of the market. That in turn made subprime loans increasingly attractive to other financial institutions as the prices of houses rose steadily.” From 2004 to 2006, Roberts adds, commercial and investment banks played a larger direct role in the subprime market than the GSEs did, though Fannie and Freddie were still very active in the mortgage markets in ways that contributed to the subprime problem. In 2006, they bought 390,000 loans with less than 5 percent down, compared with just under 269,000 two years earlier. In 2007, they purchased more than 608,000 such loans.

Wow, when you’re a former media-darling Democratic president and the Associated Press starts to turn on you, you must have bad ratings. Here’s how the AP describes Barack Obama’s panel to investigate the Gulf oil leak:

Only one of the seven commissioners, the dean of Harvard’s engineering and applied sciences school, has a prominent engineering background — but it’s in optics and physics. Another is an environmental scientist with expertise in coastal areas and the after-effects of oil spills. Both are praised by other scientists.

The five other commissioners are experts in policy and management.

The White House said the commission will focus on the government’s “too cozy” relationship with the oil industry. A presidential spokesman said panel members will “consult the best minds and subject matter experts” as they do their work.

The commission has yet to meet, yet some panel members had made their views known.

Environmental activist Frances Beinecke on May 27 blogged: “We can blame BP for the disaster and we should. We can blame lack of adequate government oversight for the disaster and we should. But in the end, we also must place the blame where it originated: America’s addiction to oil.” And on June 3, May 27, May 22, May 18, May 4, she called for bans on drilling offshore and the Arctic.

“Even as questions persist, there is one thing I know for certain: the Gulf oil spill isn’t just an accident. It’s the result of a failed energy policy,” Beinecke wrote on May 20.

Two other commissioners also have gone public to urge bans on drilling.

Co-chairman Bob Graham, a Democrat who was Florida governor and later a senator, led efforts to prevent drilling off his state’s coast. Commissioner Donald Boesch of the University of Maryland wrote in a Washington Post blog that the federal government had planned to allow oil drilling off the Virginia coast and “that probably will and should be delayed.”

Boesch, who has made scientific assessments of oil spills’ effects on the ecosystem, said usually oil spills are small. But he added, “The impacts of the oil and gas extraction industry (both coastal and offshore) on Gulf Coast wetlands represent an environmental catastrophe of massive and underappreciated proportions.”

An expert not on the commission, Granger Morgan, head of the engineering and public policy department at Carnegie Mellon University and an Obama campaign contributor, said the panel should have included more technical expertise and “folks who aren’t sort of already staked out” on oil issues.