It’s almost beyond belief, but Tim Lambert (who else?) reports that John is at it again:
Lott as usual, has cherry picked his statistics. There are lots of different crime statistics to choose from and some show increases while other show decreases. Lott just tells his readers about the ones that show increases.
Read the whole thing! (Our earlier posts on Lott are here, here and there.)
Earlier this week we linked to Tim Lambert’s find of a Tech Central Station Columnist in desperate need of remedial science (and math) tutoring. (Which followed our own find of a math challenged rant.) Always being on the lookout for further examples showing that “our children isn’t learning,” we are happy to offer you last weekend’s NewsMax email:
Kerry’s Wife Pays Less Taxes Than Median Family
Say what?
For a long time Steve Forbes has been advocating a flat tax. He says this is the only way to make sure the rich pay their fair share of taxes due Uncle Sam.
Now we know why Steve Forbes wants the flat tax. Wealthy individuals such as Teresa Heinz Kerry pay less in taxes, proportionately, than does the median U.S. family.
Let’s see where this takes us:
According to HUD, the median family income for the U.S. for 2003 was $56,500. After applying the standard deduction of $9,500 for married filing jointly we end up with a taxable income of $47,000. This puts the average [do they know average isn’t the same as median? -S,N!] family in the 15 percent tax bracket. Kerry’s wife, using tax shelters, managed to pay only an effective federal tax rate of 11.5 percent, compared with the top federal income tax rate of 35 percent. She paid $587,000 [federal tax only] on an income of $5.1M.
That bitch, this makes us so mad! Except, of course, that the whole thing is bullshit. Let’s go to the video tape:
According to a statement, she had a gross taxable income of $2,338,000, primarily from dividends and interest. She also earned $2,777,000 in tax-exempt interest income from state, municipal and other bonds.
Ah, half of that was tax free interest income. If NewsMax readers were better informed, they would know that flat tax advocates believe that all “unearned income” (i.e. interest, capital gains, etc…) should not be taxed at the federal level:
Individuals would no longer be taxed on their interest, dividends, capital gains and other “unearned” income.
Teresa Heinz Kerry’s tax bill of $587,000 on a taxable income of $2,338,000 constitutes an effective federal tax rate of approximately 26%, a figure that typical for the average taxpayer with an income between 2 and 5 million dollars, who paid 29% in taxes. The flat tax would constitute a huge tax saving for Mrs. Heinz Kerry (and other wealthy Americans,) and leave the US Treasury with significantly lower tax revenue. Figuring this out, however, would obviously require a longer attention span than your typical NewsMax editors (or readers.) [As for John Kerry’s tax bill, it was just under 23% of his adjusted gross income.]
Bonus points: The average tax return for married persons filing jointly with an income between $40,000 and $50,000 showed $3,432 of income tax paid, an effective tax rate that is significantly less than 10% of their income.
The Corner’s resident babe offers this curious assertion:
THIS IS CNN [KJL]
I only caught the first segment of Cap Gang tonight, but it’s a good thing CNN’s motto isn’t “fair and balanced.” Kate outnumbered 4 to 1 everytime the war comes up.
Posted at 07:35 PM
Yesterday’s The Capital Gang lineup?
Welcome to THE CAPITAL GANG. I’m Mark Shields, with Al Hunt, Robert Novak and Kate O’Beirne. Our guest is Tad Devine, senior adviser to the John Kerry campaign for president.
Why was Kate outnumbered 4-1 then? Because she was the only one sticking up for Ahmad Chalabi. The Sadly, No! award for zinger of the week goes to… Al Hunt:
AL HUNT, CAPITAL GANG: Well, when Chalabi said, “Let my people go,” I thought he was talking about Dick Cheney and Scooter Libby and Paul Wolfowitz and Don Rumsfeld. Those are his people.
America’s Worst Mother (used without permission of TBOGG) figures the day has come to make fun of other women’s looks (along with super gal pal Danielle Crittenden:)
My friend Danielle thinks if women are going to lie about their ages, they ought to round them up. No surgery needed: One white lie and you’ll will always look younger than you “are.”
Meghan and Danielle: 
The Seattle Times’ Collin Levey tells the opposed to the Iraq war camp to shut up and fuck off:
Like it or not, this country made a democratic political decision to seek to steal a march on Islamic terrorism by overthrowing Saddam and using Iraq to prod the Middle East toward reform and the greater stability that comes from democracy and economic development.
You know when you put it like that, it doesn’t even sound that hard to do.
WASHINGTON, May 22 ? Presented last fall with a detailed catalog of abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, the American military responded on Dec. 24 with a confidential letter asserting that many Iraqi prisoners were not entitled to the full protections of the Geneva Conventions.
The letter, drafted by military lawyers and signed by Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, emphasized the “military necessity” of isolating some inmates at the prison for interrogation because of their “significant intelligence value,” and said that prisoners held as security risks could legally be treated differently from prisoners of war or ordinary criminals. […]
In recent public statements, Bush administration officials have said that the Geneva Conventions were “fully applicable” in Iraq. That has put American-run prisons in Iraq in a different category from those in Afghanistan and in Guant?namo Bay, Cuba, where members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban have been declared unlawful combatants not eligible for protection. However, the Dec. 24 letter appears to undermine administration assertions of the conventions’ broad application in Iraq. [Emphasis added]
Appears to undermine? Let’s make this into… another stupid Sadly, No! game. Entries will be rewarded with something, and must follow this pattern:
[incontrovertible evidence] appears to undermine [obviously erroneous assertion], as in:
Thanks to Blair for the link.
Members of the 101st Keyboarders are cranking up the engine on the old “Blame the Media” Train. The distinguished professor from Tennessee offers:
MORT KONDRACKE OFFERS A MUST-READ WARNING TO CONGRESS AND THE MEDIA
What is Mort’s must-read? A whole lot of this:
By now, Abu Ghraib has been a lead story for weeks. And Congress has gone so far as to pull top U.S. commanders back from the battle zone to grill them about it – just as America’s enemies are launching what they hope will be the Iraqi equivalent of the 1968 Tet offensive, hoping to undermine the June 30 handover of power to Iraqis.
Really Mort? Sadly, No!:
Mr. Warner made public a letter he sent to Mr. Rumsfeld last week offering to hear witnesses by video teleconferencing if necessary. The Pentagon told him, the senator said, that Gen. John P. Abizaid, the overall commander of operations in Iraq, was already in Washington and that the two other senior officers scheduled to testify Wednesday, Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez and Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, were on their way here for a series of meetings.
Roy Edroso has the best take on the media’s impact:
Perhaps the General actually means that the perfidious networks physically used radio waves, in the manner of mad scientists in old horror movies, to disorient our troops. Imagine our fighting men clutching their helmets as curved lines of force radiate across the screen: “Foreign policy feeling… weak…” gasps the GI. “Feel… sudden compulsion to… negotiate a settlement…” While off behind a nearby sandhill, Bin Laden and Ted Turner cackle fiendishly and rub their hands.
If the answer is Sadly, No!, fear not! We do, and will gladly fill you in on Mona’s meager attempts to turn herself into a serious scholar in yesterday’s Are children of gay parents worse off?:
Two researchers answered when they reviewed the available scholarly literature in the American Sociological Review three years ago. What makes their essay intriguing is that both professors Judith Stacey and Timothy J. Biblarz are emphatically in favor of gay marriage and child-rearing. Being honest scholars, though, they could not accept the tendentious spin that others in their field have put on the available research. They deny that the studies show “no difference” between children raised in gay and lesbian homes and those raised in heterosexual homes.
How many studies did Stacey and Biblarz review? According to Mona, so many you’d be hard pressed to ignore the evidence:
Biblarz and Stacey (B&S) examined 21 studies of “lesbigay” couples’ children compared with heterosexual parents’ children. While all of the researchers had claimed to find “no difference” in outcomes between the two groups, Biblarz and Stacey disagree. There are statistically significant differences in gender identity, sexual experimentation and promiscuity.
Charen would have you believe that the authors found that 21 studies denied the existence of statistically significant differences that B&S have now (courageously) revealed. Mona writes:
The research further shows that daughters raised by lesbians tend to have a larger number of sexual partners from puberty to adulthood than children in ordinary homes. It also, quite interestingly, shows that boys raised by lesbians have fewer sexual encounters than boys raised by heterosexual parents.
“The” research here means a single study (Tasker and Golombok, 1997) that involved 45 children (25 raised by lesbian parents, 20 by opposite-sex parents.) To conclude from a single study (that looked only at lesbian v. non-lesbian parents and their children) that “liberal” researchers have hidden the truth about the impact of same-sex parents on the (alleged) promiscuity of their children is the kind of bogus argument you could only read on TownHall. The evidence for sexual identity and experimentation that the authors argue contradicts the “no differences” claim comes from two of the 21 studies reviewed.
For those too slow to realize what Mona’s point was however, she drives it home in her conclusion:
Biblarz and Stacey deserve credit for their honesty. But their breezy embrace of gay parenting is highly reminiscent of the cheerful accounts offered in the 1970s for divorce and single parent households. In those days, we were told that whatever made for a happier parent also made for a happier child. We are sadder and wiser now. The children are much sadder. [Emphasis added]
Who will think of the poor children??? Since Mona won’t tell you, here are other findings reported by the study she brought to our attention. According to this “21-study” review:
Yeah, those things are just awful.
Sadly, remind us again what Mona told us about the authors’ conclusions?
They deny that the studies show “no difference” between children raised in gay and lesbian homes and those raised in heterosexual homes.
How did the authors conclude their study?
The findings summarized in Table 1 and 2 show that the no differences claim does receive strong empirical support in crucial domains. [Emphasis added]
TownHall: It’s where you go when you need to make shit up and lie.
Michael Rubin thinks it was a big mistake to go after Chalabi. Not only that, but he’s figured out why many people in the CIA hate him:
“The CIA hates Chalabi because he comes out with information they do not have and that later gets confirmed,” Rubin says.
Rubin, sadly, did not elaborate on what information Chalabi has provided that was actually confirmed. Presumably, he doesn’t mean any of the juicy New York Times stories written by Judith Miller.
Rubin isn’t just crazy though, he’s batshit fucktard crazy:
“The most virulent hatred of Chalabi comes from those who have never met him,” [Rubin] says. “Defense Intelligence Agency [DIA] and U.S. military commanders in Iraq who have worked with the INC have given them stellar reviews.
Stellar? Sadly, No!:
Information from Iraqi defectors made available by Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress before the US invasion was of little or no use, a Pentagon intelligence review shows. […]
But the DIA review, mentioned in a leaked letter to Stephen Cambone, the under secretary of Defense for intelligence, makes clear that no more than a third of the information was potentially useful, and efforts to explore even these leads were generally unproductive.
Among several defectors introduced by Chalabi’s organization to U.S. intelligence officials before the war, at least one was formally labeled a fabricator by the DIA. Others were viewed as having been coached by the Iraqi group to provide intelligence critical of Saddam Hussein’s rule. Internal reviews by the Pentagon agency and the National Intelligence Council this year concluded that little of the information from the group had any value.
Three strikes and you are out:
The Defense Intelligence Agency has concluded since the invasion that defectors turned over by the Iraqi National Congress provided little worthwhile information and that at least one of them, the source of an allegation that Saddam had mobile biological warfare laboratories, was a fabricator.
A Sadly, No! first: Kyle “nipple on the brain” Williams has written something that makes sense:
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay quickly replied, “She [Pelosi]apparently is so caught up in the partisan hatred for President Bush that her words are putting American lives at risk. This nation cannot afford the luxury of her dangerous rhetoric.”
First, I fail to see how Rep. Pelosi’s words put any lives at risk. How can her rhetoric be dangerous? It may lower the morale of some servicemen and women who take the time to listen to the crazy liberal, but I don’t see how her rhetoric could do more than that. It seems to me that Pelosi and DeLay are both playing politics and being very demagogic.
It may very well be time to check on the rapture index again.