What a coincidence that I just read the following passage in the book ROLLBACK – Repealing Big Government Before the Coming Fiscal Collapse which is a great book written by Tom Woods Jr.

It is great amo to show Warren Buffetts motives may be less pure than he presents them.

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“Big business has also opposed tax cuts or supported tax increases, again contrary to the portrayals of those who imagine businessmen as implacable foes of government intervention. For Example, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have been portrayed in the media as selfless benefactors for opposing the elimination of the estate tax.  As men of wealth themselves, the media line goes, these men outh to favor the abolition of the tax, but instead they have publicly campaigned for its retention.  What men of the people these are!

But there may be more to the Gates/Buffett stance than meets the eye.  For one thing, the estate tax will never hit Microsoft, since, as a publicly held corporation, its owners will never die.  Moreover, if repeal of the estate tax were to be made revenue-neutral, additional taxes to make up the shortfall would very likely fall on corporations.  So if you head large corporations, you might not want to see the estate tax repealed.

A family-owned business, on the other hand, is liable to be devestated by the estate tax.  A son inheriting the family business-whose plant and equipment are worth, say, $2 million-from his father and who has been running the business for five years could be hit with a tax bill of $500,000, and amount he couldn’t possibly pay out of the company’s annual profits.  He has to sell, and fast.

It so happens than an avid buyer of businesses desperate to sell in the face of a massive estate-tax bill is – surprise! – Warren Buffett. In addition to the Buffalo News, reports investigative journalist Tim Carney, “other motivated sellers facing the estate tax who have found a willing buyer in Warren Buffett [include] Dairy Queen, a Utah furniture store, and a Nebraska jeweler.”

Now it could be that Buffett’s support of the estate tax has nothing at all to do with self-interest and instead derives from a pristine devotion to egalitarian ideology. But shouldn’t some of these facts at least be mentioned in media coverage of Buffett and his pro-tax crusade?”

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Something to consider when evaluating Buffett’s opinions.

Obama has requested a joint session of Congress to deliver a speech on the economy and jobs. In an unfortunate ”coincidence” the President has chosen the day of an important and long planned Republican Presidential debate for the session. This “coincidence” would effectively remove Michelle Bachmann and Ron Paul from the debate by forcing their attendance to the joint session and making it impossible for them to attend the debate.

It doesn’t even need to be asked if this is a political move by Obama. the question is, should they

A) Just ignore Obama and debate, maybe catch the speech on youtube later if you want to hear how badly we need to spend money.

B) Use all procedural moves possible to not allow the session, and skip the speech if it doesn’t work.

Or I guess you could be a loser and pick #3 and skip the debate.

What do you think?

Top Story at the Drudge Report currently has a picture of Mitt Romney and a picture of Rick Perry (Perry is nodding and pointing toward Mitt), with the headline COMIN’ ON STRONG,  linking to an article from CNN’s Political Ticker which offers “proof” that Perry sits atop the GOP polls.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/08/29/new-cnn-poll-perry-sits-atop-gop-field/

Here are the first two paragraphs (bold is my highlighting)

“A new national survey is further proof that Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s entrance earlier this month into the race for the White House has dramatically altered the battle for the Republican presidential nomination.

According to a CNN/ORC International Poll of Republicans and independent voters who lean towards the GOP, Perry now sits atop the list of Republican presidential candidates, with strong support from most demographic groups.”

The “proof” comes from this new poll:

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2011/images/08/29/130.poll.pdf

The conclusions that CNN comes too are illogical based on this poll.  First of all CNN claims that it is a “national survey”, but a look at the demographics of the poll show that only southerners were asked. Categories Northeast, Mid-west, and West all show N/A.

They also claim Perry’s support is strong from “most demographics”. Well, a further look at the stats show that this poll is also selective in age groups, living preferences, and race.

Age groups 18-34 and 35-49 show N/A

Living preferences Urban and Rural show N/A (Suburban is only category polled)

Race Non-White shows N/A

A more accurate analysis would be that Perry is the favorite for old, white and suburban southerners. This is certainly an important vote, but it would be illogical for anyone to make the claims made based on this poll. I don’t know why CNN would be anxious to help Rick Perry, but they clearly manipulated the analysis of this poll to favor Perry. The perception displayed by CNN (and Drudge) overstate Perry’s support based on the data given.

Behavior like this is expected from CNN, but disappointing coming from Drudge.

(this is my first RS diary, hope you enjoy)

Honestly, I’m a little disappointed in our media that they haven’t been pointing this out. It really shows what a pathetic bunch of parrots they are. They get the establishment talking points and just squawk slightly different versions of the garbage based on how their stunted minds accidentally skew it. Don’t get me wrong, some of them are very talented, but when ‘everyone’ comes to the same conclusions, and ‘everyone’ has the same one line zingers, they’re reading from the talking points script… and calling Bachmann ‘Hitler’ really has Ed Shultz’s written all over it. I guess the DNC hasn’t made the connection that Hitler had migraine’s too, otherwise you know it would have ended up in some talking points. 

It’s this fun game the MSM likes to play, where they make illogical associations based on faulty logic. Here they say, ‘look, if A=C, and B=C, then A=B right?’. Yes, that is true mathmatically, but watch out because this is what’s coming – ‘well if Bachmann has migraine’s, and Hitler has migraine’s, then Bachmann must equal Hitler right?’. Of course they don’t just come out and say it like that, It just sounds silly, but they make the loose association and talking about the two in the same light, and pushing people toward that conclusion.

But Bachmann is more than just a headache… well maybe that’s all to liberals, but there is definitely more that defines her than just migranes! So it is an illogical conclusion they want you to come too.