President Barack Hussein Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) want to extend the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 – but only for individuals earning less than $200,000 and families earning less than $250,000. Affluent Americans will pushed into higher tax brackets when the Bush cuts expire at the end of the year, and will pay higher taxes on income, dividends, capital gains and inherited assets. Arguing that it’s not a good idea to raise taxes on anyone in a weak economy, Republicans want to extend the cuts for every taxpayer, and Sens. Kent Conrad (D-ND), Evan Bayh (D-IN) and Ben Nelson (D-NE) seem to be siding with them.

It’s not just Congress that’s divided on whether and how to extend the Bush tax cuts - so are Obama’s economic advisers.

To hold the line on defections by nervous Dems whose political fortunes are on the line in November, Obama will task Treasury Secretary Tiny Tim Geithner with selling the party line that continuing tax breaks upper income Americans will not do much to shore up the economy, but eliminating them will help reduce the deficit. Director of the White House National Economic Council Larry Summers agrees with Geithner that across-the-board tax cuts are a “relatively inefficacious measure for pushing the economy forward.”

Presumably, White House Council of Economics Advisors Chairman Christina Romer does not agree with either of her colleagues. A 2008 paper she wrote with her economics professor husband David Romer found that since the WW II era tax increases have been “highly contractionary” and that that each dollar of lowered taxes gives a $3 shot in the arm to gross domestic product – twice the amount as government stimulus spending. The Romers conclude that "tax increases appear to have a very large, sustained, and highly significant negative impact on output ... [and] tax cuts have very large and persistent positive output effects." The best way to avoid raising taxes? Cut spending.

While Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is agnostic over whether the tax cuts should be extended for wealthy Americans (“[i]n the short term … we ought to maintain a reasonable degree of fiscal support, stimulus for the economy”) he won’t argue with Romer on cutting taxes and spending (“[i]n the longer term … we need to … reassure the American people and the markets that our fiscal situation is going to be well controlled [thus] if you extend the tax cuts, you need to find other ways to offset them.”).

But if several Dems peel off, the rest will have to cut a deal with Repubs to keep those Bush tax cuts they like (the child care tax credit and the 10 percent low-income bracket) or they won’t be able to pass a bill and “taxes will go up on even middle- and low-income people just at a time when Keynesian economists say they shouldn't,” notes Washington Examiner senior political analyst Michael Barone. Now, Dems are not likely to reduce spending enough to make a significant dent in the deficit, so chances are slim that they will be able to negotiate a deal with Repubs that will preserve low-income and middle class tax cuts.

Moreover, it’s not the deficit, the persistently high unemployment rate or the struggling economy that’s stopping Dems from keeping the Bush tax cuts in their current form. It’s that when Obama signs whatever bill Congress sends to his desk, they will no longer be the Bush tax cuts, and after years of demagoguery (“tax cuts for the rich”) Dems can’t negate one of their most oft-repeated attack lines. They’d rather everyone’s taxes go up, than the taxes of wealthy Americans go down.

We Fight Them Over There So We Don’t Have To Fight Them Over Here?: Part XIII

ABC News reports that 34 Americans are “accused of and charged with having ties to international terrorists in the past 18 months,” which “represents an unprecedented spike in homegrown terror and is an emerging threat”:

[M]any of those charged were radicalized on the Internet, with thousands of Americans reportedly frequenting terror websites that espouse mass murder. …

The FBI analysis noted that about 80 percent of those sites existed on U.S.-based computer servers. U.S. officials say these type of sites rapidly gained popularity when Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, began to post beheading videos on the internet in 2003.

"This is what we have feared for a very long time - that finally the ideology of radical Islam is effectively reaching into the United States to disaffected people here over the Internet," said Richard Clarke, a former White House counterterrorism adviser. …

"In the last six to nine months," Clark said, "the FBI has seen more domestic Islamist extremist activity than at any time since immediately right after 9/11."

Three of these Americans, who converted to Islam and became radicalized:

Zachary Chesser (AKA Abu Talhah Al-Amerikee, the 20-year-old who made the honchos at Comedy Central crap their panties (third item) over an episode of “South Park” in which someone that the other characters thought was Mohammad was inside a bear costume) is accused of trying to join Al-Shabaab, a Somali-based Islamist militant group that has been recruiting American-born Somalis in MN and is suspected in the recent bombing attacks in Uganda during the World Cup soccer. The Washington Post reports:

In diary entries, personal e-mails and interviews with federal agents detailed in court papers, [the Oakton High graduate who played football and rowed crew at the Fairfax County school] described in haunting terms a two-year descent from a quiet and awkward suburban teenager to a willing "foreign fighter" for a designated terrorist group. …

Chesser, a George Mason University dropout whose parents live in Centreville, told the FBI that he only recently became religious and grew a beard, took the name Abu Tallah Al-Amrikee and married a Muslim woman in 2009, according to court papers. He allegedly looked to online videos, chats and over-the-counter CDs "almost obsessively," before creating a stream of YouTube sites, blogs and postings spreading the call "to fight jihad," the papers say. …

In an October 2009 diary entry obtained through a search warrant at his home, Chesser wrote, "I ask Allah to make [my writings] a source of inspiration as well as a real-life 'how-to-guide' on how to reach the fields of Jihad."

Paul Rockwood Jr., a meteorological technician working for the National Weather Service in King Salmon, AK, and his British-born wife, Nadia, a stay-at-home mom who is five months pregnant with the couple’s second child, pleaded guilty to one count of willfully making false statements to the FBI. The Los Angeles Times reports:

The plea agreements state that Rockwood, 35, had become an adherent of extremist Islam who had prepared a list of assassination targets, including U.S. service members. And, though no plot to carry out the killings was revealed, he had researched methods of execution, including guns and explosives, the agreements say.

Federal charging papers said his wife, 36, who is five months pregnant with the couple's second child, lied to investigators when she denied knowing that an envelope she took to Anchorage in April at her husband's request contained a list of 15 intended targets. (None were in Alaska.) She told FBI agents that she thought the envelope contained a letter or a book. She gave it to an unidentified individual who her husband believed shared his radical beliefs, the FBI said. …

The plea agreements the couple signed said Paul Rockwood converted to Islam in late 2001 or early 2002 while living in Virginia and became a follower of radical U.S.-born Muslim cleric Anwar Awlaki, now believed to be living in Yemen.

"This included a personal conviction that it was his religious responsibility to exact revenge by death on anyone who desecrated Islam," his agreement said. …

If U.S. District Judge Ralph R. Beistline accepts the plea agreements, Paul Rockwood Jr. will serve eight years in prison followed by three years of supervised release. Nadia Rockwood, who is free and in seclusion in Anchorage, would be sentenced to five years' probation and return to England. Sentencing is set for Aug. 23.

Samir Khan, a 23-year-old naturalized American citizen who moved to the U.S. from Saudi Arabia with his family when he was 7 and grew up in Charlotte, NC, “was involved in radical Islamist blogs, including one he ran called "Jihad Recollections,” reports CNN, and has now founded an online magazine called "Inspire":

Running to nearly 70 pages online, it included articles on bomb-making and encrypting electronic messages, as well as an interview with fugitive Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al Awlaki.

You notice how Anwar al Awlaki’s name keeps coming up?

An Arms Race In Disposable Razor Technology

Manufacturers have thus taken to fiddling with the razor head instead of the handle. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in Alexandria, which places razors in the same category as miter saws, scissors, kitchen utensils and other "cutting tools," receives a handful of applications every year from aspiring razor inventors: Aromatherapy razor heads. Fluid-dispensing razor heads. "Razor Cartridge with Skin Engaging Member," reads the description for patent No. 20100122464.

As The Wall Street Journal notes:

New razors have been fodder for parody for more than a quarter century. In 1975, the inaugural episode of "Saturday Night Live" included a mock commercial for a three-blade razor with the slogan, "Because you'll believe anything."

The introduction of Gillette's Fusion razor, kept secret until its debut in 2005, was eerily predicted the year before by the satirical Onion newspaper, which ran a fake memo from a shaving executive bragging about besting a competitor's four-blade razor by making one with five.

This time, razor makers are claiming breakthroughs in design. Gillette touts its Fusion ProGlide's ergonomic grips, its ultrafine cutting edge and a "snow-plow guard" that moves around the shaving cream. It goes for $16.99 per four-pack of basic cartridges, about a 15% premium to regular Fusion blades.

A four-pack of blades for Schick's new Hydro - with a hydrating "reservoir" - runs $11.49, about 5% more than Schick's premium Quattro blades.

Many men who resent having to throw out a perfectly good razor and spend a small fortune on new blades have taken to hoarding their favorite brands. A 43-year-old investment banker in San Francisco tells The Journal that he’s "investing in blade futures. That's my hedge against getting forced to upgrade." So far, he’s gathered a four-year supply. And a 52-year-old real estate developer in Allentown, PA, who swears by his 1958 gold-plated Gillette toggle razor has managed to collect $1000 worth of the Platinum Plus blades he needs over the past three years.

These men now know how a woman feels when her favorite bra or shade of panty hose is discontinued. As for The Stiletto, she is currently struggling to find replacements for Dove Facial Cleansing Pillows – one “entrepreneur” is selling a two-week supply on Amazon for $65 – and Soft Soap Elements liquid hand soap and body wash in the Pink Grapefruit scent. The facial pillows are a lost cause, but The Stiletto has managed to lay in a year’s supply of the liquid hand soap. Still looking for the body wash.

The Stiletto Scoops WaPo’s Dan Balz (In 140 Characters Or Less)

1. 
   TheStilettoBlog CO Repub Senate primary race comes down to boots or stilettos. Jane Norton can wear either & win but not Ken Buck http://tinyurl.com/33z7h8q 23 Jul 2010 from web

The hotly contested race for the Republican Senate nomination in Colorado has been described as party establishment vs. "tea party" activists. But in the campaign's final weeks, it has turned into something more bizarre: high heels vs. dung-stained boots. Wearing the heels is Jane Norton, a former lieutenant governor and favorite of the party establishment. Wearing the boots is Ken Buck, the Weld County district attorney and darling of tea party and grass-roots conservative activists. Buck had the momentum in the race before this week, when a video appeared of him speaking at an outdoor rally. "Why should you vote for me? Because I do not wear high heels," he said to laughter and then groans in the background.

- Senate Primary In Colorado Illustrates Battle For Direction Of Republican Party,” The Washington Post, July 24, 2010