This week we’re fortunate enough to have a professional video produced by the folks at Americans for Fair Taxation. It gives a good overview of taxation in America, grassroots movements (and the FairTax initiative is definitely a grassroots issue!), and some good information about the FairTax and how it works. If you have a friend or family member who is not familiar with the FairTax, just have them watch this video. It’s less than 20 minutes long, and definitely worth your time!

The FairTax Blogburst is jointly produced by Terry of The Right Track Blog and Jonathan of Publius Rendezvous. If you would like to host the weekly postings on your blog, please e-mail Terry or Jonathan. You will be added to our mailing list and blogroll.

Your humble pundit still lives…barely.

I am in the middle of my bar preparation courses. Please be patient as posting will be sparse this week since I am getting adjusted to the demands and time requirements of the course.

By the way, I am now an ALUMNUS of Cumberland School of Law.

A truly heart-wrenching story, and my western mind finds it difficult to fathom. Yet, it is a stark reminder of what transpires in this world and why we fight Islamofascism.

Tehran, Iran, Jan. 07 – An Iranian court has sentenced a teenage rape victim to death by hanging after she weepingly confessed that she had unintentionally killed a man who had tried to rape both her and her niece.

The state-run daily Etemaad reported on Saturday that 18-year-old Nazanin confessed to stabbing one of three men who had attacked the pair along with their boyfriends while they were spending some time in a park west of the Iranian capital in March 2005.

Nazanin, who was 17 years old at the time of the incident, said that after the three men started to throw stones at them, the two girls’ boyfriends quickly escaped on their motorbikes leaving the pair helpless.

She described how the three men pushed her and her 16-year-old niece Somayeh onto the ground and tried to rape them, and said that she took out a knife from her pocket and stabbed one of the men in the hand.

As the girls tried to escape, the men once again attacked them, and at this point, Nazanin said, she stabbed one of the men in the chest. The teenage girl, however, broke down in tears in court as she explained that she had no intention of killing the man but was merely defending herself and her younger niece from rape, the report said.

The court, however, issued on Tuesday a sentence for Nazanin to be hanged to death.

Last week, a court in the city of Rasht, northern Iran, sentenced Delara Darabi to death by hanging charged with murder when she was 17 years old. Darabi has denied the charges.

In August 2004, Iran’s Islamic penal system sentenced a 16-year-old girl, Atefeh Rajabi, to death after a sham trial, in which she was accused of committing “acts incompatible with chastity”.

The teenage victim had no access to a lawyer at any stage and efforts by her family to retain one were to no avail. Atefeh personally defended herself and told the religious judge that he should punish those who force women into adultery, not the victims. She was eventually hanged in public in the northern town of Neka.

(Hat Tip - Flopping Aces)

Yes, your humble pundit did not commit any form of a typographical error, Mexico is threatening the United States after President Bush’s proposal to send a paltry amount of national guard units to our border.

How is Mexico threatening the United States?

They are threatening the United States with lawsuits.

In this story, filed under “You Could Not Make This (%&#@) Up If You Tried,” Mexico has expressed that levying a suit in courts of the United States of America is not out of the question in their efforts to prevent any substantial immigration. From Yahoo! News,

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico - Mexico said Tuesday that it would file lawsuits in U.S. courts if National Guard troops on the border become directly involved in detaining migrants.

Mexican border officials also said they worried that sending troops to heavily trafficked regions would push illegal migrants into more perilous areas of the U.S.-Mexican border to avoid detection.

President Bush announced Monday that he would send 6,000 National Guard troops to the 2,000-mile border, but they would provide intelligence and surveillance support to Border Patrol agents, not catch and detain illegal immigrants.

“If there is a real wave of rights abuses, if we see the National Guard starting to directly participate in detaining people … we would immediately start filing lawsuits through our consulates,” Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez told a Mexico City radio station. He did not offer further details.

Mexican officials worry the crackdown will lead to more deaths. Since Washington toughened security in Texas and California in 1994, migrants have flooded Arizona’s hard-to-patrol desert and deaths have spiked. Migrant groups estimate 500 people died trying to cross the border in 2005. The Border Patrol reported 473 deaths in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30.

In Ciudad Juarez, Julieta Nunez Gonzalez, local representative of the Mexican government’s National Immigration Institute, said Tuesday she will ask the government to send its migrant protection force, known as Grupo Beta, to more remote sections of the border.

Sending the National Guard “will not stop the flow of migrants, to the contrary, it will probably go up,” as people try to get into the U.S. in the hope that they could benefit from a possible amnesty program, Nunez said.

Juan Canche, 36, traveled more than 1,200 miles to the border from the southern town of Izamal and said nothing would stop him from trying to cross.

“Even with a lot of guards and soldiers in place, we have to jump that puddle,” said Canche, referring to the drought-stricken Rio Grande dividing Ciudad Juarez and El Paso, Texas. “My family is hungry and there is no work in my land. I have to risk it.”

Some Mexican newspapers criticized President Vicente Fox for not taking a stronger stand against the measure, even though Fox called Bush to express his concerns.

A political cartoon in the Mexico City newspaper Reforma depicted Bush as a gorilla carrying a club with a flattened Fox stuck to it.

Fox’s spokesman, Ruben Aguilar, said Tuesday that Mexico accepted Bush’s statement that the sending in the National Guard didn’t mean militarizing the area. He also said Mexico remained “optimistic” that the U.S. Senate would approve an immigration reform “in the interests of both countries.”

Aguilar noted that Bush expressed support for the legalization of some immigrants and implementation of a guest worker program.

“This is definitely not a militarization,” said Aguilar, who also dismissed as “absolutely false” rumors that Mexico would send its own troops to the border in response.

Bush has said sending the National Guard is intended as a stopgap measure while the Border Patrol builds up resources to more effectively secure the border.

In Nuevo Laredo, across from Laredo, Texas, Honduran Antonio Auriel said he would make it into the U.S.

“Soldiers on the border? That won’t stop me,” he said. “I’ll swim the river and jump the wall. I’m going to arrive in the United States.”

Does this not galvanize what many individuals have echoed countless times over, that Mexico, in some perverted form, believes that they are somehow entitled to demand we subsidize their poor? It is beyond that which your humble pundit is capable to fathom that President Bush misplaced his backbone when facing such utter hypocrisy and entitlement. This is nothing short of a blatant effort of another foreign sovereign to subvert our public policy. 

How can a President who remains resolute in the face of Islamofascism become so spineless in securing a fundamental aspect of our sovereignty? It is not reconcilable to my feeble mind.

(Hat Tip - StoptheACLU)

Mensa Barbie - “US Border to Cap Guerilla Overflow”
Iowa Voice asks “[w]ho the hell do these people think they are?”
Expose the Left reports.

Open TBs - Blue Star Chronicles / Gribbit’s Word / Diane’s Stuff

Technorati: Immigration / Politics / border / Homeland Security / homeland-security / News / Illegal Immigration / MEXICO / México / Undocumented Worker / Mexican Lawsuit / Mexican Lawsuit / Mexico and Lawsuit

From our modern perspective, is Gulf War II a failure?

I fervently disagree with any assertion that would foist any label of failure on this war, but some would mistake that assertion as one that does not question whether mistakes have been made in the war’s execution. It should go without question that mistakes will be made, but mistakes and “failures” should not be the solitary focus of any critique. War is hell, and with this hellish nature of war, perfect execution is never attainable.

Victor Davis Hanson’s op-ed over at NRO goes a long way in delving into perspective. It would seem that in the vacuum of our modern lives has morphed what we construe to be mistakes and “failures.” When we are able to live life without the atrocities and sacrifices of war, we somehow feel as though that our comfort should be juxtaposed onto war itself. Yet, Mr. Hanson paints a vivid landscape of what would be these same expectations during World War II. It is quite illuminating to see such a historian critique an era from the perspective of modern eyes and expectations foisting upon the “Greatest Generation” our ideas of mistakes and “failures.”

(Hat Tip - Wizbang!)

Open TBs - Blue Star Chronicles / Gribbit’s Word / Diane’s Stuff

The Curse of the Tax Refund

by Jordan LeDoux of The Politicker

Tax refunds are perhaps the worst things I have ever conceived a government doing. I’m sure you’re asking “why”, wondering what could possess me to deride your check that bought you the iPod in your hands, or the new TV in your entertainment room. Perhaps you are wondering what this has to do with the FairTax. Well allow me to explain.

What exactly is a tax refund? Well, a tax refund is a check that the government sends you for overpaid taxes. Overpaid, eh? Do you ever remember sending them a check for those overpaid taxes? I’m pretty sure that you wouldn’t have overpaid them if you had written them a check. No, the overpayment comes from the concept of withholding. Withholding is how most income taxes are collected. You get your check, and it has gross pay, then some deductions, right? Those deductions are taxes that you are paying. Or, in other words, the government is taking your money from you before you ever get it, and before they even know how much to take.

Many people don’t get this fundamental principal. In fact, you’ll hear people say things like “I didn’t pay any taxes this year! In fact, I got money back!” That the government has been able to convince the public of this is disturbing. Government spending would not be as hog-wild as it is, were it not for the fact that average Americans just aren’t outraged. And the primary reason they aren’t outraged, is that they don’t see taxes as ever being their money. They never get that money, so why should they see it as theirs? This creates the illusion that government has an inherent right to take your money… to levy a tax. This is not true at all. Government is granted to right to levy a tax by the people because the people feel that the service provided by the government is worth the money paid.

But most people never understand this concept. Taxes are simply there. They just exist. You don’t know your tax rate on each check… payroll takes care of that for you. I’m sure that many Americans would be shocked at the revelation that they make 15-30% more money than they think they do.

This creates a dangerous indifference to tax changes. If people never have possession of the money, they put don’t put up a fight when you steal more of it. Since withholding has been enacted, taxes have increased at an unheard of rate. Because people never see this money, there is also less money to invest. I was looking at investing about $500 this month. In reality, my $500 is about $700… but about $200 was taken out before I even received it. Then, once I invest it, they will take out another 18% in Capital gains taxes if I liquidate my assets. In other words, in order to compensate for the tax money I have lost, I need to turn my $500 into $871, or I need to earn nearly 75% on my investment.

But taxes aren’t an expense, you say. They cannot be counted against investments as an expense, because they are not an expense of investing. Oh really? Enter the FairTax. Because there are no Capital gains taxes in a FairTax government, I no longer have to return that 18%. Further, because there are no more business taxes, the money I am investing to is no longer taxed. And yet further, because I receive 100% of my paycheck, I’ll have my full $700 to invest, avoiding triple taxation.

The FairTax will create wealth by providing an enormous amount of investment capital for the economy, and will turn nearly every American into an investor. Many claim that the FairTax would create a larger disparity between the rich and poor. But as this average middle class college student will attest to, the FairTax makes middle class investing exactly what it should be: Fair.

The FairTax Blogburst is jointly produced by Terry of The Right Track Blog and Jonathan of Publius Rendezvous. If you would like to host the weekly postings on your blog, please e-mail Terry or Jonathan. You will be added to our mailing list and blogroll.

Yet another nail to be firmly placed in the coffin of left-wing radical conspiracy theorists…

Via Judicial Watch

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that Department of Defense will release a videotape to Judicial Watch at 1:00 p.m. this afternoon that allegedly shows American Airlines Flight 77 striking the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. The Department of Defense is releasing the videotape in response to a Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act request and related lawsuit.

“This is in response to your December 14, 2004 Freedom of Information Act Request, FOIA appeal of March 27, 2005, and complaint filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia,” wrote William Kammer, Chief of the Department of Defense, Office of Freedom of Information. “Now that the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui is over, we are able to complete your request and provide the video…”

Judicial Watch originally filed a Freedom of Information Act request on December 15, 2004, seeking all records pertaining to September 11, 2001 camera recordings of the Pentagon attack from the Sheraton National Hotel, the Nexcomm/Citgo gas station, Pentagon security cameras and the Virginia Department of Transportation. The Department of Defense admitted in a January 26, 2005 letter that it possessed a videotape responsive to Judicial Watch’s request. However, the Pentagon refused to release the videotape because it was, “part of an ongoing investigation involving Zacarias Moussaoui.” Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit on February 22, 2006 arguing that there was “no legal basis” for the Defense Department’s refusal to release the tape.

“We fought hard to obtain this video because we felt that it was very important to complete the public record with respect to the terrorist attacks of September 11,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “Finally, we hope that this video will put to rest the conspiracy theories involving American Airlines Flight 77. As always, our prayers remain with all those who suffered as a result of those murderous attacks.”

(Hat Tip - StoptheACLU & Allah Pundit)
Michelle Malkin

Technorati: Pentagon / Military / 9/11 / Terrorism / Pentagon & 9/11 / September 11 / Current Affairs / 9/11/01 / Conspiracy Theory / right wing / conspiracy

I am dissapointed.

I was giving President Bush a chance tonite. I did not want to have any preconcieved speculations as to what he was going to discuss this evening; however, any of my conjectures, I will admit were less than positive.

President Bush did not really offer any dynamic solutions to the illegal immigration rift. As your humble pundit made mention in an earlier post, the only aspect of his speech that considered something bold, was the enforcement via the national gaurd; though, this planned outline for their use is already defanged. I will refrain from going further into the discussion of the other aspects for all five of them are predictable, soft middle-ground stances that he has espoused quietly from the sidelines throughout this whole debate.

Otherwise, President Bush only added more blood to the water of his critics with this speech. President Bush was quite Roveian with his approach, which to me as been impotent on issues of dire conservative concern over the last number of years. Instead of seizing the oppuurtunity of being a capable, bold leader on one domestic issue, President Bush is inching his way closer to securing a legacy quite similar to that of President Nixon.

I am dissapointed in him, as all Americans should be.

UPDATE: (Blogosphere Roundup)

Wizbang!

Bush needed to throw some red meat to the staunch anti-illegal-immigration elements, but he decided to cheap out. The meat he found was all fat and gristle, so it tastes good and will keep some chewing for a while, but it will ultimately prove frustrating, unsatisfying, and downright unhealthy. His grand initiative is full of sound and fury, but signifying nothing.

Captain’s Quarters

George Bush tried to reassure conservatives and others concerned about the lack of action on border security that the administration takes those concerns seriously. In his speech, he laid out specifics intended to bolster support for his comprehensive immigration reform policies that would reassure people that the border would get effective attention. The two chief proposals comprised the deployment of National Guard troops to support the Border Patrol and the establishment of a fence in high-traffic areas and a system of barriers and electronic surveillance in others.

However, within hours of the speech, holes began to appear in both elements. The New York Times reports that the governors of the border states that would have to authorize the deployment of the National Guard did not get consulted on the plan ahead of time:

Riehl World View

Unfortunately, visitors to a Bush ‘43′ Library may have to cross the border into Mexico to take it all in. In a speech which was as much a eulogy for the so-called Reagan Revolution, as it was an unfortunate beginning to a pending political battle on immigration, President Bush all but declared himself irrelevant to the conversation. In essence, the sitting President of the United States through up his hands and declared, “No mas.”

GOPBloggers

All in all, I have to say it was a good speech last night. Mark has expressed his approval and I have to say I came out of it mostly satisfied. I expect Democrat to disapprove of everything Bush said, whether they disapprove of the National Guard being used to defend our borders (of course, they seem to disapprove of the National Guard doing anything, but that’s another story) or pretend like they really believe Bush isn’t doing enough and try to act as if they would do more.

The Jawa Report observes that Bush is learning from the MSM.
Southern Appeal has a roundup.
Right Wing News also has a thorough roundup.
Hot Air has yet another roundup.

Technorati: Bush Speech / Immigration / Bush / Illegal immigration / national guard / President Bush / Mexico / México / MEXICO / Immigrants / Politics / Current Affairs / News / Immigration Speech / Undocumented Worker / Republicans / GOP / Election 2006 / election-2006 / Democrats

Deplorable.

(BIRMINGHAM) - A Democratic candidate for attorney general denies the Holocaust occurred and said Friday he will speak this weekend to a “pro-white” organization that is widely viewed as being racist.

Larry Darby concedes his views are radical, but he said they should help him win wide support among Alabama voters as he tries to “reawaken white racial awareness” with his campaign against Mobile County District Attorney John Tyson.

The state Democratic chairman, Joe Turnham, said the party became aware of some of Darby’s views only days ago and was considering what to do about his candidacy.

“Any type of hatred toward groups of people, especially for political gain, is completely unacceptable in the Alabama Democratic Party,” said Turnham.

(Hat Tip - GOPBloggers)

Technorati: Alabama Attorney General / Holocaust / Jews / Politics / Current Affairs / White Supremacy / Racism / Alabama

Rove’s statements seem somewhat naive in the midst of the concerns facing the nation in the last few weeks. Mainly, as Heidi at Euphoric Reality goes on to discuss, it is as if President Bush and Karl Rove want us to forget the position that he has been taking on the immigration issues. Particularly, Rove believes that the war is what is dragging President Bush to the doldrums that he now sees in the polls and approval ratings.

Presidential adviser Karl Rove blamed the war in Iraq on Monday for dragging down President Bush’s job approval ratings in public opinion polls. “People like this president,” Rove said. “They’re just sour right now on the war.”

Rove said that Bush’s likeability ratings are far higher than his approval ratings. “There is a disconnect” because of the Iraq conflict, Rove told the American Enterprise Institute.

“I think the war looms over everything. There’s no doubt about it,” Rove said during a question-and-answer session after a speech on the economy at the conservative think tank.

Personally, your humble pundit hopes that the “brain” is merely attempting to put a spin on President Bush’s ratings because if he truly believes that President Bush is facing unparalleled disapproval, then this Administration will remain a rudderless lame duck throughout 2008.

President Bush won re-election amidst the war, and has enjoyed steady approval throughout a great deal of his administration. What makes this unique is the undeniable fact that Bush is going against what a great deal of Americans are for, substantial and substantiated immigration reform.

 This factor has been the lone factor to be the variable of change since Bush’s poll numbers have plummeted.