LJWorld.com

One of the reasons I have no use for the Democratic Party is the elitist attitudes of many Democrats, particularly at the national level. They think of themselves as the elite and those of us at the bottom of the income scale as peasants.

Thus it shouldn't be too surprising that when a Democratic governor of Kansas thinks the state needs more taxes he proposes raising the taxes of us peasants instead of raising the taxes of those who can afford higher taxes.

Taxman, Mr. Parkinson and the Taxmen and women in the legislature not only want to raise our sales taxes, they are even considering borrowing a suggestion from the old Beatles song, "The Taxman" and taxing our heat.

Those of us who live paycheck to paycheck, or pension check to pension check, cannot afford any more taxes.

If the Topeka taxmen need more taxes they should impose them on the people who can afford to pay higher taxes by raising the taxes on income over $50,000. If the people who make more than $50,000 a year cannot afford higher taxes, how can anyone expect those of us who make substantially less than $50,000 to afford higher taxes.

Raising our taxes will mean we will have less money to spend in local businesses which could mean they will have to lay off more workers which would reduce income tax collections.

Any retailer will tell you that increasing prices doesn't always increase sales revenue. Customers will just end up paying more for fewer goods because they cannot spend any more than they have. With an additional 1% tax, for each $1,000 spent on taxable goods customers will devote $10 less to the goods themselves meaning the entire sales tax will be imposed on $990 instead of $1,000. Local governments that impose sales taxes will end up with less revenue. (corrected)

Raising taxes on those making over $50,000 would mean that school administrators and other government employees who make more than $50,000 would be paying higher taxes. Those Republicans who like to complain about small business owners paying higher taxes should consider the fact that the vast majority of those who make more than $50,000 work for someone else.

It is unfortunate that Sedgwick County District Judge Warren Wilbert decided to deny Scott Roeder his right to a trial by a jury that was independent of government control.

Roeder had admitted to the crime of Voluntary Manslaughter [the "honest but unreasonable belief" that the use of force was necessary in defense of another] in the killing of Dr. George Tiller, but the prosecution decided it wanted him convicted instead of the much broader crime of 1st Degree Murder.

Instead of giving the jury the choice between the two different crimes, Judge Wilbert sided with the prosecution and told the jury that it could only find Roeder guilty of 1st degree murder or not guilty of any crime. Jurors went into the jury room, did what the judge told them to do and found Roeder guilty of 1st degree murder 37 minutes later.

The framers of the Constitution knew that the British court system had been used in the past to punish those who opposed the crown. They made the judiciary independent to keep the executive from coercing the courts into serving the government's needs. Juries selected from the citizenry provided a means of dealing with a situation in which judges might become to close to the executive branch.

A jury cannot perform its constitutional function if a judge denies it the opportunity to decide the major controversies in a trial. Juries under U.S. law have broad authority to make their own decisions and in precedents that predate the establishment of the Constitution may choose to ignore laws like judges sometimes do.

The first example of jury nullification occurred in the case of journalist John Peter Zenger who was acquitted by a jury for publishing defamatory comments about New York Governor William Cosby in 1735 because the statements were true. At the time the law allowed prosecution for negative comments about government officials even it the comments were true. Jury nullification provides an added check on the legislative power by allowing citizens to in effect invalidate what citizens believe are unreasonable restrictions on their freedom.

In the Roeder trial the controversy wasn't whether Roeder committed a crime when he killed Dr. Tiller, but the nature of that crime.

Judge Wilbert decided that he was some type of infallible god instead of a human being who is capable of making mistakes in spite of the fact he had been reprimanded by the state in 2006 in response to a sexual harassment complaint by a court employee.

Wilbert is educated in the law, but so are the defense attorneys who had a different opinion about the meaning of the law defining voluntary manslaughter.

It is not the judge's role in a jury trial to side either with the opinion of the prosecution or the opinion of the defense about how to interpret the law or the facts of the case. A judge usually knows more about the law than jury members, but then so do the attorneys for the prosecution and the defense.

In modern society, judges may have more power to decide legal cases, but the most knowledgeable attorneys are usually not judges.

As far as I know Roeder's defense attorneys Mark Rudy and Steve Osburn sincerely believed that Roeder was only guilty of voluntary manslaughter. Also as far as I know Sedgwick County District Attorney Nola Foulston sincerely believed that Murder One was the appropriate charge. As far as I know she did not choose the more severe charge to punish Roeder for being an opponent of abortion.

American courts are supposed to be biased in favor of the defendant rather than the government. The defendant doesn't have to prove his innocence. If a defendant says he didn't take the action for which he is accused the government must prove him guilty of the action beyond a reasonable doubt.

Scott Roeder admitted in court that he had killed Wichita abortion provider Dr. George Tiller to prevent Tiller from performing any more late term abortions and thus he was guilty of the crime of voluntary manslaughter. Judge Wilbert should have instructed the jury it should find Roeder guilty of voluntary manslaughter unless it felt that the prosecution had proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the crime was not voluntary manslaughter, but 1st degree murder. The jury should not have considered a verdict of "not guilty".

The claim that abortion is legal is a spurious argument in considering whether or not Roeder's action could be considered voluntary manslaughter. Late term abortions are only legal in Kansas under certain circumstances and Tiller had been accused of performing abortions that didn't comply with Kansas law.

Shortly before the killing, Tiller had been on trial for illegally performing late term abortions. There was sufficient evidence against him for an Attorney General who supported abortion to charge Tiller with violating the law, but not enough to convince a jury of his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Roeder might easily have been convinced himself that Tiller was getting away with murder and decided to impose the type of vigilante justice shown in old westerns and occasional cop shows. To Scott Roeder, George Tiller was a serial killer who had escaped punishment because he had a more effective attorney than the state had.

Obviously Scott Roeder violated the law when he killed Dr. George Tiller. The question is which law he should have been convicted under. An independent jury should have been allowed to choose which law to convict Roeder under. The right to a jury trial should always allow a jury to choose a lesser charge than that desired by the prosecution regardless of the wishes of judges who want to limit the right to trial by jury by controlling what the jury can do.

Joan Wagnon should be fired if she doesn't resign. The proposal to charge people for filing tax returns is an example of the type of behavior that has caused people to hate tax collectors for centuries going back at least to the Roman Empire.

If processing tax forms is that expensive, the legislature needs to act immediately to reduce the number of people who have to file income tax forms. it doesn't make sense to require people who owe no taxes to file tax forms because the state loses money on them. For that matter, it isn't cost effective to process tax forms for those who owe less than $50. Perhaps the state would be better off if it ignored those who owe less than $100.

The state could reduce the need to process forms for refunds if it allowed those who would make $20,000 or less a year to avoid having taxes withheld from their pay checks and exempt them from income taxes. Those with only government pensions for income such as KPERS and Social Security should also be exempt form filing tax forms.

Former NBC anchorman Tom Brokaw has been reduced to doing infomercials. I don't know if it's because he has some psychological need to be on tv or he lost his money to Bernie Madoff. Perhaps he expects to profit from trading carbon credits.

Most of us have watched at least portions of infomercials. They often use a similar format. A shill pretending to be a real interviewer asks the questions the seller wants to answer.

Usually the seller has a manufactured product, some medical treatment, a book or perhaps some get rich quick scheme. The format can also be used for political candidates or ideas.

Infomercials differ from presentations by journalists because journalists feel a duty to talk to those with alternate views and consider arguments against whatever ideas the interviewee is attempting to "sell". Real journalists are willing to ask interviewees potentially embarrassing questions.

Brokaw's program "Global Warming: The New Challenge With Tom Brokaw" attempts to sell the carbon credit program begun by the Enron corporation in the 90's. The program repeats the line that Enron's Ken Lay pushed: Minor increases in carbon dioxide supposedly will produce catastrophic global warming.

Enron had done very well selling sulfur dioxide credits and Lay realized a bigger profit could be made if the company could get a program for carbon credits. First the company had to get government to enact a program. Lay discovered that he could easily get the support of the Clinton administration. Clinton even allowed Lay to suggest a framework for the Kyoto Treaty that would financially benefit the company. Enron provided financial support for various purported environmental groups for its carbon trading program. These facts have been known since 2002 so Brokaw should have been aware of them before he did the program. Even the Washington Post reported on the issue.

Brokaw neglects to mention that Dr. Michael Oppenheimer whom he "interviews" got his Ph. D in chemical physics rather than climatology. The fact that Oppenheimer had an association with a political body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, doesn't necessarily mean he has any expertise on climate.

Oppenheimer was the manager [rather than a researcher] of the Climate and Air Program for the Environmental Defense Fund which has been openly supportive of Enron's carbon trading proposal. The EDF failed to criticize an Enron pipeline in Brazil that was environmentally damaging and supported an Enron wind power proposal in California.

Brokaw should have asked if it was only a coincidence that Oppenheimer left EDF for Princeton in the year after Enron imploded or if he had been paid by Enron while at EDF. Did the fall of Enron mean the EDF could no longer afford Oppenheimer's salary at EDF of $197,022? Did Oppenheimer receive more or less from Princeton when he started there?

In 2003 the Washington Post reported that money had compromised the Nature Conservancy which was an early recipient of Enron money. Had something similar happened at EDF?

Brokaw began by repeating the standard lie that there is a "consensus" about human caused global warming. Actually, no consensus exists. Those on both sides can present lists of scientists taking one side or another, however, there is no real consensus about specifics. There is no agreement about whether any warming has occurred or on whether carbon dioxide can affect temperatures. Some scientists say CO2 can have no impact on temperature. Others argue that any impact would be extremely small.

Many astrophysicists argue that fluctuations in the sun's output causes fluctuations in earth's temperature. Some believe that the sun goes through centuries long cycles and the sun may be about to enter a period when its output will decline as occurred a few centuries ago.

Supporters of warming provide no evidence of significant global temperature change. Their figures indicate only a 0.7 C or 1.25 F temperature (about 0.24%) change during the century. Such a change could easily be the result of changes in equipment or its placement. Equipment a century ago might not have been that accurate.

If Brokaw had checked he would have discovered that mathematicians have argued that the whole idea of an average global temperature is an impossibility.

Investigative weather journalist Anthony Watts has operated a blog for some time that exposes problems with the sites for temperature measurement that could lead to inflated temperatures.

In his opening Brokaw talked about global warming "hurting our wallets" and neglected to mention the high cost to consumers of carbon trading. The money that would be made by carbon traders would come from consumers.

Brokaw repeats many of the lies made by global warming scammers. For example, he talks about "tropical diseases" becoming a problem in temperate regions. The fact is that malaria was a major problem in North America, including Canada, during the Revolutionary War period even though that period was much cooler than today. Malaria was part of the cost of slavery. African slaves brought the parasite with them from Africa and passed it along to their owners.

Brokaw like many global warming alarmists uses "global warming" to cover up ways humans actually may harm the environment. For example, he blames the declining amount of snow on Mt. Kilamanjaro on global warming instead of the gradual elimination of the rain forest that provides moisture that falls as snow on the mountain.

Salt water encroachment on the Everglades in Florida is more due to human diversion of water that had flowed through the Everglades. Salt water is moving in because too little water is flowing out rather than because of any change in sea levels.

Brokaw neglects to mentions human actions in Florida that have led to more instances of freezing weather. The draining of wetlands in northern Florida have allowed freezing weather to move farther south into Florida's citrus regions.

Brokaw blames global warming for increased damage from hurricanes when the real cause is excessive development in areas with a virtually 100% chance of being hit by a hurricane over the long run.

Brokaw demonstrates the real reason for the program with a segment that suggests that even if increasing the amount of CO2 doesn't raise temperatures it might increase the growth rate of ragweed. He neglects to mention that increasing atmospheric CO2 might allow greater growth by plants that can be used for fuel and that food crops need large amounts of carbon that they get from CO2. For example, each molecule of sugar, sucrose, contains twelve carbon atoms.

Tom Brokaw was once one of the leading television journalists. His decision to serve as a shill on this infomercial destroyed whatever credibility he once had as a journalist.

Critics of the tea parties held in April noted that participants lacked a common theme. They carried signs dealing with a variety of issues making it difficult for simple minded critics to understand what was going on.

Critics don't understand that protesters felt that government wasn't interested in them except as a source of funds for government programs that sometimes have little or no apparent value.

The original Boston Tea Party had a specific theme - a symbol of what colonists felt was wrong. Colonists were tired of people an ocean away making decisions without considering their input. The new Tea Tax was just the latest evidence that government didn't consider them important.

The carbon dioxide tax Congress is considering provides a good symbol of how politicians in Washington ignore the common people in their desire to benefit the rich and crooked. As I noted in the previous post, the whole idea of carbon taxes and carbon trading are part of a scam developed at the corrupt Enron corporation. Lawrence Solomon reports that Enron for all practical purposes wrote the Kyoto Treaty.

Enron may be gone, but other companies are waiting to take advantage of the scam Enron's Ken Lay set up.

The proposed CO2 tax provides a strong symbol of an unjustified tax to protest against. Future Tea Party participants should carry signs saying something like "Say No to Enron's Breath Tax."