† Romney: The Sequel: Tony Lee and Jarrett Stepman of Human Events note that at campaign appearances in Plymouth, NH, Romney made comments that indicate “he has a new found approval for a flat tax” but that “this is yet another instance when Romney’s past comments may come back to haunt him and give his opponents more ammunition to label him an unprincipled flip-flipper [sic]:

In a full page Boston Globe advertisement in 1996, Romney attacked Steve Forbes’ flat tax proposal as being unfair and a “tax cut for fat cats!” …

The distaste for flat taxes continued for Romney up until 2008 when he said, in an interview with the Des Moines Register, that “one person’s flat tax is another person’s unfair tax.” …

Romney has often had difficulty defending his record and stances as governor of the very liberal state of Massachusetts, and a departure from his earlier denunciations of a flat tax may end up costing him with conservative primary voters.

For her part, OpinionJournal.com assistant editor Allysia Finley points out another tax-related Romney flip-flop: 

During his a stop in Berlin, N.H., on Tuesday, he spoke favorably of the Bush tax cuts. But as governor of Massachusetts, Mr. Romney refused to endorse them. As the Boston Globe reported in 2003, Mr. Romney told the state's congressional delegation that he didn't support tax cuts for the wealthy and wouldn't be a "cheerleader." By the time Mr. Romney was running for president four years later, he'd come around to supporting the tax cuts.

Finley also likens his current tax reform position to that of President Barack Hussein Obama, both of whom are “campaigning against tax cuts for ‘the rich’”: 

"I'm not for tax cuts for the rich. The rich can take care of themselves," he told an audience in Plymouth, N.H. … "I want to make sure that whatever we do in the tax code, we're not giving a windfall to the very wealthy."

Forget the flip. That rhetoric is a flop.

† Let Them Eat Steak!: Part VIII: Emily Miller of The Washington Times calls President Barack Hussein Obama "the partier in chief":

This is the third year the Obama family has escaped to the liberal, upper-crust enclave of Martha’s Vineyard. They are staying “up-island” in the town of Chilmark, far away from the troubled cities and towns of America’s heartland. …

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said au revoir to the Riviera when his country’s stock market plummeted and the nation’s credit rating was put at risk. British Prime Minister David Cameron bid farewell to Tuscany to deal with the riots in London. Mr. Cameron’s chancellor of the exchequer, George Osborne, rode the Jurassic Park log flume at Universal Studios and hit Disneyland until he had to say an early ta-ta to California to deal with his nation’s economic crisis. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said ciao to his regular Sardinia holiday to work through August to deal with his nation’s debt crisis. …

The fact is this guy is simply detached from normal Americans. Even when he wants to give the appearance of being with the common man in the hard-hit Midwest, the bus he took was a $1.1 million ultra-luxury model custom-built at taxpayer expense. Now he’s jetting off to take advantage of the kind of glamorous lifestyle otherwise only open to A-list celebrities and billionaires.

To which, The Stiletto adds:

You better get it while you can.

You better get it while you can.

If you wait too long, it'll all be gone,

And you'll be sorry then.

† The Summer Of Our Discontent: In a marketing survey done for Wal-Mart by Kantar Retail, 82 percent of the discount chain's customers said they haven't seen any improvement in their financial situation in the past year, and 70 percent don't expect their finances to get better next year, Marketing Daily reports. "The economic downturn, credit crunch and higher gas prices, among other factors, squeezed the discretionary spending out of the wallets of Wal-Mart shoppers," Kantar notes.

† What Freedom Of Speech Means To Muslims (The U.S. Edition): The FBI believes that a jihadi calling himself Umar al-Basrawi – who posted a message on the Shumuka al-Islam forum exhorting Islamofascists to cut out Late Show host David Letterman's tongue over a joke he made about the drone strike that killed Ilyas Kashmiri – is a lone wolf, FOX News reports. The FBI said that it would intercede should there be any reason to believe that the threat would actually be carried out. For his part, MSNBC terrorism analyst Evan Kohlmann thinks “[t]his is not something that I think we can take very seriously” because al-Basrawi is “not a member of a terrorist group” and his post got “almost no response” from actual terrorists. Easy for Kohlmann to say. CBS is boosting security at the Ed Sullivan Theater, where Letterman tapes his show.

Editorial Note: “South Park” devotees who bought the “complete” 14^th season of the show on DVD found out that Comedy Central exercised self-censorship and omitted the episode for which creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker received death threats from the NY-based Islamofascist group Revolution. Comedy Central remains a profile in courage cowardice.

† Art Does Not Imitate Life (third item): With the ups and downs of the real estate market, savvy NYers know that the one-sure way to make money (in the sense of "a penny saved is a penny earned") is to "inherit" or otherwise acquire a rent-controlled apartment in Manhattan at a fraction of the going rate. One woman won the rent-control lottery by marrying a geezer a month before he died and getting added to his lease, the New York Post reports:

Sarah Berman wed ailing 87-year-old Stanley Lowell last September and inherited his cheap digs at 302 W. 12th St. when he died just a month later. …

[A] neighbor guessed her monthly payment could be as little as $400, in a building where market rents can run to more than $5,000.

The building's owner, Fourth FGP LLC, doesn't believe the grieving newlywed married for love, accusing her of using "gamesmanship, seduction and artifice" to get her man and his bachelor pad.

The company wants a Manhattan Supreme Court judge to give Berman the boot, arguing in legal papers that she tricked the vulnerable Lowell into wedded bliss "to wrongfully procure succession rights to the apartment."

The "purported" marriage "violates the intent, spirit and purpose of the rent regulatory laws of the state and city of New York," Fourth FGP claims in legal papers. …

Public records show Berman had been living with Lowell since the early 1990s. …

The landlord, who wants "immediate possession" of Lowell's unit, insists in court papers that Lowell would have "lacked the mental capacity to understand the nature, effects and consequences of the purported marriage."

† All The News That’s Fart To Print: It all started when legendary French actor Gérard Depardieu (AKA Pee Pee La Pew) urinated in the aisle of a CityJet flight from Paris to Dublin that was delayed on the tarmac because he did not wish to follow the crew’s instructions to wait to use the toilet until the plane had taken off. The incident made it onto Anderson Cooper’s The Ridiculist, and the AC360 anchor giggled his way through a pun-laden account (“Depardieu created his own little jet stream, or as the French would say. ‘wee wee.’”). Not to be outdone, Stephen Colbert followed up with poop puns of celebrity names (“Camilla Parker Bowels”; “Dame Doody Stench”; “Fudge Andrew Napolitano”). [Hat Tip: Mediaite]

† Out Of Little Acorns …: Two women filed a complaint after PA magistrate judge Isaac Stoltzfus gave them hollowed out acorns stuffed with condoms and told them they “make a nice afternoon snack” and that “I’ll be here tomorrow, let me know what you think.” The state’s Judicial Conduct Board subsequently pursued a judicial misconduct complaint alleging that Stoltzfus had brought “disrepute” to the bench. The PA Court of Judicial Discipline found that while Stoltzfus showed poor judgment his bizarre actions did not constitute an ethics violation (“[H]is preoccupation with acorns is mystifying. It is not funny, and we strongly disapprove.”). In other words, he may be cuckoo but he’s not corrupt.

† Updates To Previous Posts (Every Bubble Bursts Eventually): Here's some anecdotal evidence supporting a recent Quinnipiac poll finding that President Barack Hussein Obama has lost significant ground amongst bluer-than-blue NYers. The September 13^th special election to replace disgraced Rep. Anthony Weiner has become “a referendum on the president and his party that is highlighting the surprisingly raw emotions of the electorate,” The New York Times reports:

Of all the places to hear fulminations against President Obama, one of the least expected is the corner of 71st Avenue and Queens Boulevard, in the heart of a Congressional district that propelled Democrats like Geraldine A. Ferraro, Charles E. Schumer and Anthony D. Weiner to Washington.

But it was there that Dale Weiss, a 64-year-old Democrat, approached the Republican running for Congress in a special election and, without provocation, blasted the president for failing to tame runaway federal spending. “We need to cut Medicaid,” she declared, “but he won’t do that.” She shook her head in disgust. “He is a moron.”

After nodding approvingly for a time, the Republican candidate, Bob Turner, signaled for an assistant to cut off Ms. Weiss. Frustration with Mr. Obama is so widespread, he explained later, that he tries to limit such rants to about 30 seconds, or else they will consume most of his day.

“It’s endemic in the district,” Mr. Turner said. “You can’t stop them once they get started.”

The Sept. 13 election was expected to be a sleepy sideshow — a mere formality that would put David I. Weprin, a Democratic state assemblyman and heir to a Queens political dynasty, into a Congressional seat that became vacant this summer when Mr. Weiner quit over an online sex scandal. …

“The issue defining this race,” said Robert Zimmerman, a member of the Democratic National Committee from New York, “is the confidence that the electorate has in this district about the national Democratic agenda.”

† Updates To Previous Posts (last item, Obama Is Just About Every U.S. President All Rolled Into One!): President Barack Hussein Obama's incredible shrinking presidency has shriveled to the point that in a Commentary blog post Peter Wehner, who served in the administrations of the last three Republican presidents, compares him to a previous vice president - and one who was forced out of office at that:

According to the New York Times, on his bus tour in the Midwest, President Obama is “bitterly pointing the finger at his opponents for their refusal to consider any new revenues to tackle the deficit and their insistence on deep near-term spending cuts that will only cause more economic pain.” …

The Times says of Mr. Obama, “His anger is a start.” Actually, it’s been pretty much of a constant for most of his presidency. But it’s the anger of the cool, urbane liberal instead of the anger of a blunt, swaggering conservative, which I guess makes it okay.

In any event, it is rather hard for Mr. Obama to run against the constant, petty bickering that’s come to characterize our politics, especially since he’s a central actor in the squabbles, repeatedly challenging the patriotism of his opponents.

Who knew that deep down Barack Obama was really Spiro Agnew?

† Updates To Previous Posts (fourth item, Is Hillary Clinton Campaigning For President?): A year ago, The Stiletto posited that, if Hillary Clinton challenged President Barack Hussein Obama for the nomination and won the White House, her policies would be informed by the failure of her predecessor's progressivism and she would be more centrist than if she had become president instead of Obama. In other words, Hillary would have learned from Obama’s mistakes – something he seems incapable of, as he keeps demonstrating repeatedly.

In this New York Times op-ed Rebecca Traister, author of “Big Girls Don’t Cry: The Election That Changed Everything for American Women” and a supporter of Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign, contemplates "what would Hillary Clinton have done?" if she had been elected in 2008 and concludes that her presidency would probably not have looked so different from Obama’s”

If she had won her party’s nomination and then the general election, Hillary Clinton’s presidency would probably not have looked so different from Obama’s. She was, after all, a senator who, for a variety of structural and strategic reasons, often crossed party lines to co-sponsor legislation with Republicans, who voted to go to war in Iraq, who moved to the center on everything from Israel to violent video games. You think Obama’s advisers are bad? Hillary Clinton hired, and then took far too long to get rid of, Mark Penn. And her economic team probably would have looked an awful lot like Obama’s.

Traister adds that Clinton’s presidency would have been just as divisive as Obama’s – maybe more so – because she would have never measured up to people’s unrequited, romanticized love that Was Not Meant To Be:

[H]er similarities to Obama never seemed to register with those who saw in our current president a progressivism that he himself wasn’t advertising, and saw in her a drive and ferocity that – far from being the salvation some are now imagining – made her a harpy, a monster and a bitch. Her storied toughness was then read as craven ambition that was going to tear her party apart. Her knowledge of how Congress works was seen as part of her dynastic and corrupt Beltway privilege. And her engagement with working-class voters, well, that was just pandering to her supposedly racist base.

If Clinton had been elected president, those characterizations would have become only uglier, especially as her tenure was compared with an unrealized and thus unblemished Obama administration. Alternate-universe President Hillary Clinton would have been competing with a dream. But in a funny way, Obama is, too.

† Updates To Previous Posts (seventh item, There's No Such Thing As Free Healthcare): In the five years since RomneyCare was enacted in MA, the state’s uninsured rate fell to 1.9 percent – the lowest in the U.S., which averages about 17 percent – but the law “has done little to fundamentally change the way consumers shop for health care, which analysts say is the only lasting solution to ballooning costs,” The Washington Times reports:

[H]ealth care premiums continued to outpace inflation by rising an average of 5 percent to 10 percent each year. …

MassHealth, which includes Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, has seen more residents come under its wings from the dual impacts of an economic recession and the new mandates under the law. An extra $5.6 billion in Medicaid funding through the federal stimulus bill helped to pay for the program over the past two-plus years.

As of this year, though, that assistance is gone. In response, the state trimmed $770 million from MassHealth in a 2012 spending plan that authorizes higher co-pays and reduces reimbursements to providers.

The cuts add to concerns about sustaining the program that costs $10.4 billion annually and insures one-fifth of state residents, represents 29 percent of all state spending and forms the backbone of the new health care law. Spending on the program has increased by an average of 6.2 percent each year since 2005, when MassHealth made up 27 percent of the state budget.

MA is a small state, and everyone is required to buy insurance. Extrapolating this model to all 50 states may well be unconstitutional, and is without a doubt economically unfeasible.

† Updates To Previous Posts (fifth item, Living In These Mad, Mad, Madoff Times): USA Today reports that the "extreme couponing" fad has crossed the line from thriftiness into thievery, with newspapers being stolen from racks and driveways “as enthusiasts seek out even more coupons, police and newspaper execs say”:

The craze ... has been fueled in part by the recent TLC show Extreme Couponing. It features homemakers and couples stockpiling reams of coupons, filling up several carts of groceries at the store and buying hundreds of dollars' worth of items for just a few dollars. The show also features shoppers wiping out entire grocery shelves, building additions to their homes to store the surplus goods and Dumpster-diving for discarded coupons. …

Producers defend the show, which debuted in April, saying it helps viewers save money during tough times. The show doesn't condone the thefts, says Matt Sharp, Extreme Couponing's executive producer. "More people than ever are couponing, and we've contributed to that," he says.