Dick Morris had a piece in the New York Post saying Obama’s stimulus proposal will hurt the GOP politically. Only three percent of all federal income tax payments come from the poorest half of the country, and the Obama plan will funnel more than $50 billion to the lowest half of the country, thereby wiping out any remaining federal tax liability. In most cases, it would trigger a “refund” welfare check. Morris thinks blue collar Americans will no longer be receptive to the message of tax cuts after the Obama stimulus gets delivered. I disagree.

Morris is missing the point that the working people pay far more in other government fees and taxes than they do in income taxes. The Bush tax cuts already took millions of lower income people completely off the tax roll. Those cuts now make it easier to focus on how much a typical lower or middle income American gets withheld out of every paycheck through payroll and other taxes. The proposed Obama tax credit giveaway probably just covers social security taxes for working people.

I agree with Morris that GOP-inspired tax revolts of the… Read More

I was looking through some of the clippings for the week this morning and read several Republicans talking about Democrats moving us towards socialism. What is happening might indeed might be considered some degree of movement towards socialism, but the language itself is old hat and has no real meaning to anyone who can’t remember the communist threat – just about everyone under the age of 35, a group that the GOP is having real problems with generally. To some degree I don’t think it really has much emotional value to most people older than that. I thought the same thing when I heard our Presidential ticket saying the same thing or something similar. Communism is in the ash heap of history, and with no threat to the western world from that source it just falls flat, whatever the reality.… Read More

Ordinarily, I’m not one to get much excited about news involving the party-out-power this soon after a presidential election. Finding out who’s keynoting the Iowa Republican Party’s Lincoln Dinner, for example, is about as earth-shattering as new of, oh,the Dodgers’ new Assistant G.M. Newsworthy? Yes. Will we be talking about it a year from now? Not likely.

That said, it’s worth taking a moment to reflect onthe news out of Washington: the selection of Michael Steele as chairman of the Republican National Committee.

The choice was not just historic — Steele being the GOP’s first Africa-American chair, chosen less than weeks after the swearing-in of the nation’s first African-American president. It could turn out to be an important early step in digging the GOP out of its current bind as the nation’s minority party.

Off the top of my head, here are four reasons why Steele seems the right choice:

1) He’s battle-tested Steele twice sought statewide office in Maryland — winning a race for Lieutenant Governor (making him, at the time, the nation’s highest-ranked… Read More

Blackwell out. Endorses Steele. Fifth round of ballots handed out.… Read More

Steele 79.

Dawson 69.

Anuzis 20.

After the results were announced, Anuzis dropped out, endorsing no one. 85 votes needed to win — the next ballot is probably it…… Read More

A Federal judge in Sacramento yesterday ruled against the Yes on 8 Committee’s motion to protect some of its later donors from public disclosure (due on February 2) because of a persistent, organized campaign of personal and business harassment of prior disclosed donors by supporters of gay marriage, who gleaned the names and addresses of those donors from government records.

The claims made by Yes on 8 are similar to constitutional arguments that won the day in prior cases involving communists and socialists, who claimed they would be harassed and their privacy rights violated if their names and addresses were publicly disclosed by the government in connection with the campaigns of their partys. The Federal Judge in the Yes on 8 case didn’t agree, even thoughthe claims of the Yes on 8 committee were stronger than the other established cases, and supported by real evidence of an organized boycott of businesses and personal harassment of donors who gave as little as $100.

Liberal election lawyers were happy with the result, but concerned that Yes on 8 might have some success by filing an emergency appeal to the Ninth… Read More

On the sixth ballot, we finally have a winner. With a vote of 91 (a majority), we extend congratulations to Chairman Michael Steele!

The challenges before the party are great, and no one person can do it all — but Steele will play a key role in leading our party, and preparing us for our march out of the wilderness.… Read More

[Pub. Note – FlashReport readers will have to pardon my temporary and brief departure from writing about California’s overspending crisis, in order to write about something that really has me worked up… – Flash] Washington’s bailouts are bad enough, but it adds insult to injury when bailout recipients use their money for stupid things. AIG thought it smart to hold a corporate retreat at the Ritz Carlton. Citi defied logic and tried to spend $50 million on a new corporate jet. Now, there is word that another bailout recipient is wasting its money, this time on a frivolous lawsuit.

Hollywoodʼs six major studios have filed a lawsuit to prevent consumers (like me!) from being able to buy RealDVD, a cool program that allows you to legally back up your DVDs to your personal computer just like you… Read More