Many on the political left are quick to recognize that tax rates affect behavior when applied to behaviors they do not like, such as smoking. They want to have high taxes on certain foods, such as candy, drinks containing sugar, and transfats, to discourage their use.

But when it comes to labor and capital, those on the left often argue that those taxes have little effect on the willingness of people to work or invest in productive enterprises, despite both the empirical evidence and good economic theory.

President Obama, you assert that it is fair for the rich to pay more, but you never define ‘fairness' or how you derived this undefined concept. Why?

I have asked the White House to provide the answer but have received no response. We know from previous experience and from good dynamic economic studies that higher capital gains taxes will result in fewer new jobs and even less tax revenue. How is that fair, Mr. President?

Now that Bush has utterly outfoxed the Dems on his first Supreme Court nomination - John Roberts is a done deal for Chief Justice - everyone inside the Beltway is handicapping his next choice.

He has confided in no one, including me. Maybe Laura knows, but she’s only given hints. Those hints and everything else points to a feminine direction. The next nominee, replacing Sandra Day O’Connor, almost has to be a woman.

It could be Priscilla Owen, it could be Edith Jones, but I am crossing my fingers for Janice Rogers Brown.

I've been getting lots of questions on the Dubai ITU conference, which begins next Monday (12/03-14). There are a lot of misleading stories floating around. Each group in this fight has journalists that they control, and these "noble servants of the fourth estate" are dutifully raising concerns from several different angles at the same time.

Now, before I explain what's happening, let me warn you that it's an ugly mess, and that none of the players are clearly "the good guys." 

So here's a breakdown on the Players, the Fights, and What Will Happen.

Thanks to Herculean efforts by Miko and Joel Wade, we have finally reached closure on RXII - the Plan B Rendezvous.

First is when.  Memorial Day weekend turned out to be booked up everywhere and impossibly expensive to boot.  After much scrambling, the dates that work are for the following weekend, Friday June 1^st to Sunday June 3^rd. 

Second is where.  It's really hard to come up with a fabulous place in a fabulous location at an affordable price - but after endless hardball negotiating, Miko & Joel did it.  So here we go.  RXII will be at the Seascape Beach Resort on Monterrey Bay in Santa Cruz, California. 

All the info and details will be up early next week.  For now, plan to join us for the 12^th TTP Rendezvous - RXII - the Plan B Rendezvous, Friday June 1^st to Sunday June 3^rd at the Seascape Report in Santa Cruz.  Maybe we should call this the Beach Party Rendezvous!

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The big CPAC convention is going now in DC, and yesterday there was a extraordinary speech - it was exhilarating and depressing, uplifting and infuriating, so galvanizing you stood up and cheered, so immensely sad you sat down and cried.

One of the most frequently asked questions we get at To The Point is: Where’s Osama? Why haven’t we found and killed him?

We’ve gotten another flurry because of the recent claims that “mercs” or mercenaries, “professional soldiers for paramilitary corporations that attend the annual Soldier of Fortune convention in Las Vegas” know where he is - a hidden valley called Dir in northwest Pakistan.

I’ve known Col. Bob Brown, the publisher of Soldier of Fortune magazine for almost 30 years. We almost got ourselves blown up together in Afghanistan with the Mujahaddin back in the 1980s. I told Bob about this claim and he laughed his head off.

“The last Soldier of Fortune convention we had was back in 2000,” he told me. “You should know, Wheeler, you were our keynote speaker! No one in the world is in touch with “mercs” more than me. They would have one simple word for these Elvis sightings of Osama: (expletive). The guy making this claim, Paul Williams, is an (expletive).” Bob doesn’t mince words.

The claim that OBL has been in Dir “since he escaped from Tora Bora in December 2001” is laughable. Williams has, of course, never been remotely close to the place. I’ve been all over the area, from Peshawar through Dir to Chitral in the Hindu Kush, and know it would be easy to get him if he’s there. He’s not in Dir.

Osama is in....

Before we discuss who should be the HFR Hero of the Week, today we're initiating its antipode:  designating the HFR Scum of the Week.

The hands-down winner this week is an evil, racist, corrupt, lying, treasonous accomplice to murder who belongs in jail.  Instead he's the most powerful law enforcement official in the country as head of the Zero Justice Department:  Eric "I'm the Attorney General of the United States, OK?" Holder. 

He testified at a Congressional hearing yesterday (2/02), once again refusing to accept any responsibility or knowledge of his department's Fast & Furious gun-running scandal that, had it been conducted by a Republican Attorney General would have gotten him impeached and imprisoned long before now.

Holder's testimony was so disgustingly outrageous it prompted the mother of murdered border patrol agent Brian Terry - murdered with a Fast & Furious gun - to publicly label Holder a joke and a coward.  He is certainly that and so much worse.

President Obama's speech this past week (9/08)should have been labeled, "Believe what I say, not what I do." All too much of the speech was devoid of reality.

At one point he said, "And I agree there are some rules and regulations that put an unnecessary burden on businesses at a time when they can least afford it. That's why I ordered a review of all government regulations. So far, we've identified over 500 reforms, which will save billions of dollars over the next few years."

The reality is far different. There are thousands of new regulations that have either been implemented or are under consideration that have not been subject to meaningful or rigorous cost-benefit analyses.   The reality is that millions of Americans are without jobs solely because of the president's regulatory incompetence or worse.