Wednesday evening, the Associated Press’s Sam Hananel, with predictable help from Scott Bauer, tried to do a Bing Crosby imitation (“Unions look for silver lining in Wisconsin recalls”) in an attempt to “Accentuate the Positive” in reporting on the results of yesterday’s attempts to defeat six Republican Badger State Senators in recall elections.

Democrats, leftists, and public-sector unions needed to win three of the six races to tentatively and perhaps only temporarily regain a State Senate majority. They only got two, putting the GOP’s temporary majority at 17-16. Temporary? Oh, Hananel “somehow” forgot to tell readers that two electoral attempts to replace Democratic State Senators are taking place next week, and that their retention of those positions is by no means assured.

Here are several paragraphs from Hananel’s report (“Accentuate the [false] Positive” items are in bold):

Labor officials said Wednesday that the results in Wisconsin’s unprecedented recall elections should send a stern warning to any elected official who might seek to curb collective bargaining rights.

But in toppling only two of the six lawmakers they targeted, some observers said the outcome could be a sign that labor’s political clout isn’t what it used to be.

Unions celebrated the ouster of two Republican state senators who supported Gov. Scott Walker’s bill to curb collective bargaining rights for most state employees. Despite the historic wins for Wisconsin Democrats in Tuesday’s voting, they still fell short of their goal to knock off at least three Republicans so they could take majority control of the state Senate and be able to block Walker and the Republicans’ conservative agenda.

… “Organized labor certainly didn’t lose any ground,” (Democratic political strategist Doug) Schoen said. “They didn’t fundamentally alter the political environment, but they sent a strong message to Republicans that what they are doing is not without peril.”

That’s the silver lining union officials were spinning Wednesday.

“This is going to send a signal that workers and the public are not going to take this overreaching lying down,” AFL-CIO political director Mike Podhorzer said. “I can’t imagine that if I were a state legislator in another state that I would want to go through what these six Republicans just went through.”

Unions plan to take the fight to Ohio, where voters will decide in November whether to repeal the state’s new collective bargaining law. A spokesman for a group that wants to keep the law in place called the two election wins in Wisconsin “meaningless.”

“Labor got into this with the goal of shifting the balance of power and they failed,” said Jason Mauk, spokesman for Building a Better Ohio, a group defending the new law. “There’s no other way to read it. They spent millions of dollars in hopes of sending a message and it fell flat.”

Here’s a memo to the AFL-CIO’s Podhorzer: Two Democrat state senators are going through the same thing you “can’t imagine” in your very own state next week. Here’s how Wisconsin-based blogger Steve Eggleston of No Runny Eggs assessed yesterday’s results in an email to yours truly, and his take on what he knows about the two elections next Tuesday:

I honestly wasn’t surprised at either of the two (Republican) losses, or that it was only 2. While Dan Kapanke is a good guy, he is in a D district. While Randy Hopper’s district is, in normal circumstances, a “safe” R, he has personal issues (cough…extramarital affair…cough) and outside the Dane County (Madison) districts, he had the highest percentage of state workers thanks to several prisons in the district.

I don’t have any polling, much less solid, but (next week) the Rs should get at least Jim Holperin’s seat – the district is about as much R as Kapanke’s is D. I honestly don’t have any feel for the Robert Wirch seat.

So one of the “R’s” arguably deserved to be thrown out yesterday anyway, and a GOP pickup of one of the two seats next week is looking at least somewhat likely. One would think that the two GOP challengers and everyone helping them have been buoyed by yesterday’s results and are even more motivated to finish strong.

Hananel’s writeup reminds me of what Mark Steyn wrote after the closely-watched Paul Hackett vs. Jean Schmidt special congressional election in Southwestern Ohio in 2005. In that race, seen nationally as a mini-referendum on the popularity of the Iraq War, Operation Iraqi Freedom vet and Democrat Hackett attempted to pretend in the district’s TV ads that he was a supporter of George W. Bush and the war, while telling the rest of the nation, particularly the nutroots, that Bush was a “son of a b****” and a “chickenhawk.”

Schmidt won narrowly, and Democrats tried to go into “We lost, but we sent a message” mode. Steyn was having none of it:

It was “nearly the biggest political upset in recent history,” which is another way of saying it was actually the smallest political non-upset in recent history.

Exactly the same thing can be said of Wisconsin’s recall efforts — and, contrary to Sam Hananel’s non-mention, it isn’t over yet. By next Tuesday night, the party makeup of the Wisconsin Senate could be only one seat different than it was previously, and might conceivably end up the same. The Buckeye State election discussed in the final two excerpted paragraphs is certainly up for grabs, but anyone on the left who thinks what happened in Wisconsin represents any kind of momentum coming into that election is in deep denial.

By the tone of what Hananel wrote, it’s not unreasonable to predict that the AP will treat next week’s Wisconsin elections next week as a non-national story — because, you see, Democrats ousting Republicans is news, but Republicans returning the favor isn’t.

Prove me wrong, Sam and Scott.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

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BizzyBlog Update: In the spirit of the left’s desperate attempt to pretend that defeat is some kind of victory (as noted, it isn’t necessarily any kind of victory yet), I give you Bing Crosby and Bette Midler in a duet of the post’s referenced song, followed by the full version delivered by the inimitable Ella Fitzgerald —

Crosby’s seemingly effortless and mellow vocals are simply amazing. We’ll probably never see or hear anything like him — or Ms. Fitzgerald — again.

Here I was feeling bad about the fact that I haven’t directly commented directly on the London riots.

There was no need. Max Hastings at the UK Daily Mail has said just about everything that needs to be said.

It’s a bit on the long side, but read the whole thing, and ask yourself what percentage of what he has observed is taking place here, and how close we are to replicating London right here in the U.S.

This morning on CNBC, bank analyst Meredith Whitney — well, just read:

Here are pictures which prove Whitney’s “angry white men” point (click to enlarge and open in a new window/tab):

Oh, I’m sorry. The pics disprove Ms. Whitney’s contention — even demonstrating that women make up a substantial portion of rally participants. Women also make up a heavy plurality and possibly a majority of “leadership” (or, to rephrase in a way friend and SOB Alliance blogger Matt Hurley at Weapons of Mass Discussion will find acceptable, “coordinators, facilitators, and activists who possess and demonstrate leadership skills”). Someone needs to let Ms. Whitney know about the “Mama Grizzly” effect of government overreach.

Then, as if to confirm what should have been a long-gone female stereotype, if you watch the related video, Whitney plays the victim card after Rick Santelli asks how many muni-bond failures there have been (Her response: “I was empathizing with people who are unemployed”; what rubbish) — and Joe Weisenthal at Business Insider plays along as if SHE is the one “insulted.” Bleep you, Mr. Weisenthal.

Back to Whitney — 2-1/2 years in, and you still think the Tea Party movement is a bunch of angry white guys? Sorry, I can’t resist: Insert dumb blonde joke here.

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UPDATE: Noel Sheppard at NewsBusters gives the context of Santelli’s muni dig –

For those unfamiliar with Santelli’s muni reference, Whitney has recently come under fire for having predicted eight months ago there would be widespread defaults by municipal bond issuers around the country this year.

As Bloomberg reported in July, during the first six months of 2011, muni defaults are down 60 percent compared to the same period last year.

Obviously aware of this, Santelli chose to pull that scab off in order to get back at the banking analyst.

And why not? She had it coming. Her market assessment, at least in the case cited, isn’t any better than her assessment of the most important political movement in at least the past 40 years (arguably more like 100).

Ms. Whitney: If you’re going to get in the arena with the guys, especially if you’re just going to dish it out without engaging your brain first, you’re going to have to get used to getting verbally roughed up.

UPDATE 2: It’s been well over a year that the truth about women’s involvement in the Tea Party movement has been widely known, and there’s no reason to believe that it has materially changed since then:

When the tea party movement burst onto the scene last year to oppose President Barack Obama, the Democratic Congress, and the health care legislation they wanted to enact, some liberal critics were quick to label its activists as angry white men.

As the populist conservative movement has gained a foothold over the past year, it’s become increasingly clear that the dismissive characterization was at least half wrong.

Many of the tea party’s most influential grass-roots and national leaders are women, and a new poll released this week by Quinnipiac University suggests that women might make up a majority of the movement as well.

… Take women such as Darla Dawald.

“You know the old saying that if mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy?” Dawald, national director for the tea party social network and activism site ResistNet said, when asked why women seem to outnumber men in the movement. “Well, when legislation messes with mama’s kids and it affects her family, then mama comes out fighting — and I don’t mean in a violent way, of course.”

Somebody tell clueless Meredith Whitney.

UPDATE 3: Dr. Helen at the PJ Tatler weighs, wondering, “Does Meredith Whitney Read?” Spreadsheets don’t count.

Hopefully more later, but for now, go to David Freddoso’s writeup (HT Say Anything) at the Washington Examiner.

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UPDATE: Here’s a portion of the emailed reax from the Ohio Liberty Council —

Yesterday, our fellow citizens in Wisconsin stood up to a $20 million dollar propaganda blitz, paid for by the unions, MoveOn.org, George Soros and all the other likely “progressive” suspects. Despite this campaign of misinformation, the citizens of Wisconsin voted to retain four of the six Republican Senators who were facing a recall vote, and in doing so, retain the majority control of the Wisconsin Senate. … Despite their lies about these reforms being an “attack on the middle class” their message is a loser, because everyone knows that the unions don’t make our schools or our local and state government better, they make them worse. …

Now it is on to Ohio … They spent $4.5 million dollars, just to buy the signatures they needed to get a repeal vote on Senate Bill 5 (now Issue 2) on the ballot. They will spend millions more on paid “volunteers” to hand our materials and on TV and radio ads. They will attempt to scare teachers and government retirees with lies about 50% salary cuts and huge reductions in pensions.

… We know that workers should be paid on performance not on tenure or seniority. We know that government agencies should be able to decide who they hire and who they let go, just like any business. We know we must decide what we can afford to pay for health care and other benefits instead of being told by an arbitrator that we must provide benefits we cannot afford. We know that we want our schools to be about educating or children, not about creating government jobs. We want the best police and firemen to be retained and rewarded and given the opportunity to advance based on skill instead of held back by seniority. We want our elected officials to have the flexibility to use the tax money we give them in the most efficient and productive way possible and not be encumbered by contracts and laws that waste our money.

This November, we must stand with the citizens of Wisconsin and make clear that we are voting to take back control of our state just like they did yesterday. …

Tom Zawistowski
President
Ohio Liberty Council

Tom Z is confident that the unions will lose again. Fine Tom, but please campaign as if you’re not so sure.

UPDATE 2: Steve of No Runny Eggs assesses yesterday’s results and the two remaining recall elections, both of which involve incumbent Democrats, in an email —

I honestly wasn’t surprised at either of the two losses, or that it was only 2. While Dan Kapanke is a good guy, he is in a D district. While Randy Hopper’s district is, in normal circumstances, a “safe” R, he has personal issues (cough…extramarital affair…cough) and outside the Dane County districts, he had the highest percentage of state workers thanks to several prisons in the district.

I don’t have any polling, much less solid, but the Rs should get at least Jim Holperin’s seat – the district is about as much R as Kapanke’s is D. I honestly don’t have any feel for the Robert Wirch seat.

One successful recall of a Dem would be good. Two would be much better. Finish strong, people.

It’s here.

It will go up here at BizzyBlog on Friday (I’ll add the link when it goes live) after the blackout expires.

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The theme is that the left’s orchestrated notion that the Standard and Poor’s U.S. debt rating downgrade is somehow the fault of Tea Party patriots (i.e., “The Tea Party Downgrade”) cannot be allowed to stand. Rick Santelli’s passionate defense earlier in the week was a good start.

South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint pushed back on Monday on Sean Hannity’s TV show, where Mark Steyn was guest-hosting (bolds are mine):

It seems, Mark, that everyone who disagrees with the president is a member of the Tea Party now. But you know and you’ve been predicting these kinds of things for years. Over 70 percent of Americans think we need to balance our budget. That’s no small Tea Party group. That is a lot of common sense Americans who understand that we can’t keep spending more than we are bringing in.

So, this is a bipartisan problem. But the solution that they came up with has made the problem even worse. It locks us in to another seven to $10 trillion in debt. And there’s not enough credit in the whole world for us to borrow that much money. So, we are looking sometime over the next few months, or maybe few years, if we’re lucky, we are going to come to the point where there is a real debt limit. Where we can’t borrow any more money and that is going to be a serious time.

So, we are talking about serious things right now. And the president is trying to point fingers everywhere he can look and say that’s a Tea Party guy behind that bush. I think this is really pitiful.

… The only way to solve this is to get control of the spending. And we had several plans in Congress to do this. One was “Cut, Cap and Balance.” I mean, we passed a budget or at least all the Republicans voted on it in the Senate that would have balanced our budget over 10 years. That’s what the market needs to see.

It’s what S&P didn’t see, which is why the downgrade occurred.

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Related: Over at the PJ Tatler, Bryan Preston ties the “Tea Party Downgrade” slander to Rasmussen’s “consent of the governed” poll result (i.e., that “just 17% of Likely U.S. Voters think the federal government today has the consent of the governed”) —

The literally unbelievable attempt to pin the downgrade on the Tea Party that rose up to prevent it is just the latest sign of contempt that some in power have for the rest of us, and that contempt is more and more a two way street.

From Washington:

Aug 9, 2011 / 05:53 pm

Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio of the Archdiocese for the Military Services expressed his “heartfelt condolences” to the family and friends of the “valiant” service members killed in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan.

“Their death is one more reminder of the terrible tragedy of war and its toll on all people. No person of good will is left unmoved by this loss,” he said in an Aug. 8 statement addressed to the family and friends of the U.S. servicemen and of the Afghani citizens who died.

“As we pray for the repose of their souls and the consolation of their families, we also raise our hearts and minds to Almighty God and beg for the elusive gift of peace on earth and harmony among all people,” Archbishop Broglio said.

Thirty U.S. troops, seven Afghan commandos and an Afghan interpreter died in the Tangi Valley on Aug. 6 when a Taliban insurgent shot down their helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade. Many of the Americans were members of the Navy’s SEAL Team Six, the elite unite that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

Go here for the rest of the story.

To be fair to Chris Muir, I’ll show just the first panel (HT to an e-mailer):

To see the whole thing, go here. It’s worth the click, as are all DBD cartoons.

Related:
- July 31 — Red States, Including the ‘Newly-Reds,’ Excel at Job Growth
- July 18 — Ohio’s Improved Debt Rating
- July 16 — S&P Upgrades Ohio Rating, Warns on U.S. Debt

For some reason, Associated Press reporters Eric Tucker and Thomas Watkins, in a story about the wave of flash mob crime in the U.S. this summer, felt compelled to find an “expert” who would express some sympathy for its participants.

Well, they supposedly found one. His name is Jonathan Taplin. Here’s what he told the AP:

(more…)

Communist Cuba’s Castro brothers may be asking themselves why they need to engage in any propaganda on their own when they have Associated Press’s Images Division promoting photos of Dear Leader Fidel Castro as “iconic” and the brutal Ché Guevera as a “revolutionary hero.”

What follows is the text of an email NewsBusters and BizzyBlog commenter/correspondent Gary received from AP Images on Monday. It’s so over the top that you almost wonder if it’s a gag. This link proves that it’s not. Here goes (complimentary words and descriptive flattery bolded by me):

Subj: Fidel Castro Turns 85 – Get our Iconic Images & Videos
(more…)

Supporting their spiritual brothers, namely status quo-defending leftists who castigate others for their lack of “civility” while calling those who want this country as we have known it to be around for future generations “hostage takers” and “economic terrorists,” Newsweek, the publication that was such a hot property it was bought for a buck last year, has given us a deliberately bad cover picture of Michele Bachmann on the right.

In response, a gentleman from Texas named Rick Shick (about; resume; artwork) has graciously provided yours truly with a response in the form of a deliberately bad alternative cover appropriately placed to the left of Ms. Bachmann. You can click on his picture to see a full-sized version in a separate window or tab.

Nice job, guy. Say hi to the folks in the fever swamp at the Austin American Statesman for me.

Readers who choose to use the graphic should be sure to credit Mr. Shick.

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Speaking of mocking Dear Leader, there’s this, which originally appeared last night at Instapundit:

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On a more serious note, here’s Rush yesterday on the downgrade, Obama’s eventual reaction, and who Barney Frank is blaming. He also echoes Rick Santelli’s “we’re better than this” riff (internal links added by me):

Obamageddon, Barackalypse Now! Bam is “Debt Man Walking” in 2012

Does anybody now doubt that this is on purpose? I mean, after all, Barack Obama inherits a AAA credit rating from George W. Bush, and look what he does to it. Obama is always running around complaining and whining and moaning about all that he inherited from George W. Bush. Well, he inherited a AAA credit rating, an unemployment rate of 5.7%.

… What are the Democrats doing? Blaming the referees! Blaming Standard & Poor’s! That always changes the outcome, doesn’t it? Blame the refs. You people in Seattle? The Seahawks, Super Bowl, 2005, Steelers? Blame the refs. Last time I looked the Steelers still won the game. So go ahead and blame Standard & Poor’s all you want, Democrats. Now they’re blaming the military! Barney Frank’s blaming the military. Rumsfeld was on our DC affiliate this morning, WMAL. You know our military spending is 4% of GDP right now? Military spending is 4% of GDP. During the Eisenhower administration in the fifties, post WWII, defense spending was 10% of GDP. Today it’s 4% of GDP, and Barney Frank and the Democrats are trying to say it’s the military’s fault that we’ve been downgraded.

This is the fault of the Democrat Party.

… Even my old buddy Pete Wehner who worked for Rove in the White House and who has been reluctant… Pete’s the epitome of fairness and evenhandedness and so forth. Even Pete, at his Commentary magazine blog today, said this: “It reinforces, perhaps, like nothing else has the impression that Obama is overseeing — and some respects engineering — the decline of the American republic.”

… Folks, this is not who we are.

This country today, as constituted, is not who we are.

… We have a president that’s overseeing — and Pete’s right here: Engineering — the decline of the American republic. I’m glad that somebody is finally starting to echo this.

… I’m simply trying to point out here that this is all being done on purpose, and it’s tragic, and it just ticks me off. When Barney Frank sits over there and starts talking about how we need to cut defense, he is singing from the ChiCom hymnal. They want us to cut our defense spending, too! Now, contrary to what the Democrats are saying, Standard & Poor’s is not saying we’re not taxed enough; they’re saying we’re spending too much …

Those who are offended by the suggestion that our decline is being deliberately engineered (but at a speed slow enough to allow for the opportunity for those engineering it to remain in power) should ask themselves the following: If Team Obama, the architects of the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) Economy aka the Fear-Based Economy, and the left haven’t hasn’t been working towards this objective for the past three years while still wishing to remain in power, what would they be doing differently if they did? The only available answer is: Not a damned thing.

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Warren Buffett, the oracle of Omaha, said that he considers U.S. debt to be “AAAA.”

That was a weak attempt at self-defense. Astute investor Buffett he had to know what was coming next:

Standard & Poor’s has lowered its outlook on Berkshire Hathaway’s debt from “stable” to “negative” but the revision isn’t due to something Warren Buffett did or didn’t do.

In its news release issued a few minutes ago, S&P says its downgrade of U.S. debt over the weekend “constrains our financial strength ratings on insurers,” including Berkshire.

Berkshire and four other U.S. insurance group keep their AA+ ratings, but they now have “negative” outlooks.

… Why the changes? S&P explains:

“In our view, the U.S. sovereign credit rating constrains the long-term rating on these U.S. insurers because their businesses and assets are highly concentrated in the U.S. and they have significant holdings in U.S. Treasury and agency securities.”

From Denver:

Aug 7, 2011 / 08:02 am

On August 9 the Catholic Church remembers St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, also known as St. Edith Stein. St. Teresa converted from Judaism to Catholicism in the course of her work as a philosopher, and later entered the Carmelite Order. She died in the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz in 1942.

Edith Stein was born on October 12, 1891 – a date that coincided with her family’s celebration of Yom Kippur, the Jewish “day of atonement.” Edith’s father died when she was just two years old, and she gave up the practice of her Jewish faith as an adolescent.

As a young woman with profound intellectual gifts, Edith gravitated toward the study of philosophy and became a pupil of the renowned professor Edmund Husserl in 1913. Through her studies, the non-religious Edith met several Christians whose intellectual and spiritual lives she admired.

After earning her degree with the highest honors from Gottingen University in 1915, she served as a nurse in an Austrian field hospital during World War I. She returned to academic work in 1916, earning her doctorate after writing a highly-regarded thesis on the phenomenon of empathy. She remained interested in the idea of religious commitment, but had not yet made such a commitment herself.

In 1921, while visiting friends, Edith spent an entire night reading the autobiography of the 16th century Carmelite nun St. Teresa of Avila. “When I had finished the book,” she later recalled, “I said to myself: This is the truth.” She was baptized into the Catholic Church on the first day of January, 1922.

Edith intended to join the Carmelites immediately after her conversion, but would ultimately have to wait another 11 years before taking this step. Instead, she taught at a Dominican school, and gave numerous public lectures on women’s issues. She spent 1931 writing a study of St. Thomas Aquinas, and took a university teaching position in 1932.

In 1933, the rise of Nazism, combined with Edith’s Jewish ethnicity, put an end to her teaching career. After a painful parting with her mother, who did not understand her Christian conversion, she entered a Carmelite convent in 1934, taking the name “Teresa Benedicta of the Cross” as a symbol of her acceptance of suffering.

“I felt,” she wrote, “that those who understood the Cross of Christ should take upon themselves on everybody’s behalf.” She saw it as her vocation “to intercede with God for everyone,” but she prayed especially for the Jews of Germany whose tragic fate was becoming clear.

“I ask the Lord to accept my life and my death,” she wrote in 1939, “so that the Lord will be accepted by his people and that his kingdom may come in glory, for the salvation of Germany and the peace of the world.” …

Go here for the rest of the story.

A true thing of beauty.

Just watch (HT The Right Scoop):

Transcript of relevant portions (roughly the first two minutes, after Santelli is asked, “What do you make of what’s happened since Friday):

Santelli: You guys ever play sports, y’ever been on an organized team?

Answer: Yes.

Santelli: Okay, y’know, sometimes you get a couple of bad calls, or the game didn’t go your way and it should’ve. A good coach isn’t going to come up to you and say, “Gee, y’know, the other team really stinks. Y’know, I’m mad. We’re gonna fight, we’re gonna appeal. We’re gonna go to every league and every lawyer.”

No, y’know what a good coach says? “It doesn’t matter, okay? We’re a better team than this.” Just take this to motivate the team to go on to greater things.

Y’know, the Treasury Secretary, the 8% excuses, y’know, the blame Bush, blame the sun, blame this. Y’know what leadership means? It means it doesn’t really matter what S&P says. We all know deep inside that no country’s the same as it was five years ago. And the market seems to be okay with it.

And as for stocks goin’ down, we’re already Ralph Cramden on thin ice. Now an infant jumped on our shoulders. It’s even more weight.

In the end, in the end, we need to address problems we know exist. A Treasury Secretary or a President should be out here not fighting S&P, not grabbin’ the other coach and slappin’ ‘em around, takin’ the umpire behind the barn. He should be getting the team psyched to overcome. See, I remember I had a professor in college. I wrote a great paper, could never please this guy. But it made me better, okay?

We nee-, we’re better than this. Don’t get caught up in the minutiae, all this BS. We’re better than this. We need to prove it. We’re off the track. Whether we’re better than some other country or not, the real issue is we’re on the wrong path.

Blame the Tea Party? Geez, no wonder Kerry did so well in an election! If it wasn’t for the Tea Party, they’d have passed the debt ceiling thumbs-up, we’d have been rated Triple -B.

By the way, what is the full name of that complete jerk “Steve” who thinks it’s his moral duty to interrupt Santelli, believes that tax increases are the answer to everything (never mind that we’re either in a recession or darned near it), and actually said with a straight face that we’re every bit as creditworthy as a country now as we were five years ago? He’s about as insufferable as anyone I’ve seen on a business program.

You want “revenue,” Steve-O? Here’s how you get it:

• Selectively sell federal lands.
• Drill baby drill.
• Frack baby frack.
• Selectively sell more federal lands.
• Call off the EPA attack dogs.
• Expedite permitting processes across the board.
• Overall, cancel the current fear-based economy by repealing Obamacare and its $400-plus billion in tax increases and telling the statist-in-chief to sit on the sidelines for the next 17-1/2 months. Watch the economy respond and generate all kinds of corporate and individual tax collections.
• Restore the 2% Social Security cut next year; it didn’t “stimulate” anything, and Social Security is too broke.

That’s just a warm-up. You don’t need across-the-board, recession-inducing tax increases to take in more money (and they won’t produce as much as you think they will anyway) — unless your goal is power and control, and not economic growth and prosperity.