The Hypocrisy of Media "Fact-Checking"

Ramesh Ponnuru has a great article up on National Review's website about the bias of the media in its "fact-checking" of this election.  Ponnuru points out that most of the time when the media has accused Romney or Ryan of lying during this year's election campaign, the issue at stake has been one of opinion or interpretation, not fact.  He also points out that the Obama campaign has peddled at least as many debatable claims as the Romney campaign, but those claims have completely avoided scrutiny by the media.  This double standard is a fact of life for Republican candidates in this country, but has seemed to be the worst it has ever been during the last two presidential elections.  I hope the public is smart enough to see through the media bias and make an informed choice on November 6th.

The 99% and the 47%

A National Review Online blogger provides a helpful timeline of the Occupy Wall Street movement's accomplishments here.

If the people involved in this movement are even close to representative of "99%" of America, we are doomed.

In a completely unrelated article, National Review's Ramesh Ponnuru has an interesting analysis of the concerns some conservatives have raised about an imminent "freeloader" majority (currently 47%) who do not pay income taxes. His article really helped me to look at this issue in a different way. Ponnuru argues -- rather persuasively, in my opinion -- that even though the percentage of Americans who pay no income taxes today is much higher than it was 50 years ago, increased payroll taxes mean that the average lower middle class family still pays a larger percentage of its income to the government than it did 50 years ago. He points out that the focus of conservatives should not be to increase taxes on lower-income people "not paying their fair share," but instead should be to keep the number of people receiving benefits from the government as low as possible.