Fire Hydrant of Freedom
Politics, Religion, Science, Culture and Humanities => Politics & Religion => Topic started by: Mad Scientist on February 01, 2008, 01:19:16 PM
-
The Doctrine Of Fascism ... by Benito Mussolini (1932): The Cliff Notes
Again with the cliff notes Mad Scientist! I just wanted to assert a point I made before that Fascism and Racism (specifically Anti-Semitism) should not be confused. Here are excerpts of the original document (excuse the annotations) which defined Fascism. It was Mussolini’s invention. I know, some Italians don’t like him, get over it. Really nobody cares anymore. I searched the original document (which can be found online) and did NOT find those words or ideas which would cause the “tolerant” or multi-cultural to become immediately offended. I asked the question to myself, “What is Fascism and why do people use this word? Do they know what it means or not?”. I looked up the answer and here is what I found. Also, I think Fascism is a fascinating ideology, but the only problem is that it requires people to care. And as we all know, 90% of the world does not care. Let me say here that I think we have the best system in the world here in the United States and I do not now or ever have belonged to any racial supremacy groups. God Bless America. Next Cliff Notes I’ll throw up here may be the Communist Manifesto, where the people own the means of production (whatever the hell that means)… SO, onto the article excerpts… PS keep it in historical context.
Fascism sees in the world not only those superficial, material aspects in which man appears as an individual, standing by himself, self-centered, subject to natural law, which instinctively urges him toward a life of selfish momentary pleasure; it sees not only the individual but the nation and the country; individuals and generations bound together by a moral law, with common traditions and a mission which suppressing the instinct for life closed in a brief circle of pleasure, builds up a higher life, founded on duty, a life free from the limitations of time and space, in which the individual, by self-sacrifice, the renunciation of self-interest, by death itself, can achieve that purely spiritual existence in which his value as a man consists.
Fascism wants man to be active and to engage in action with all his energies; it wants him to be manfully aware of the difficulties besetting him and ready to face them. It conceives of life as a struggle in which it behooves a man to win for himself a really worthy place, first of all by fitting himself (physically, morally, intellectually) to become the implement required for winning it. As for the individual, so for the nation, and so for mankind (4). Hence the high value of culture in all its forms (artistic, religious, scientific) (5) and the outstanding importance of education. Hence also the essential value of work, by which man subjugates nature and creates the human world (economic, political, ethical, and intellectual).
This positive conception of life is obviously an ethical one. It invests the whole field of reality as well as the human activities which master it. No action is exempt from moral judgment; no activity can be despoiled of the value which a moral purpose confers on all things. Therefore life, as conceived of by the Fascist, is serious, austere, and religious; all its manifestations are poised in a world sustained by moral forces and subject to spiritual responsibilities. The Fascist disdains an “easy" life.
The Fascist conception of life is a religious one (7), in which man is viewed in his immanent relation to a higher law, endowed with an objective will transcending the individual and raising him to conscious membership of a spiritual society. "Those who perceive nothing beyond opportunistic considerations in the religious policy of the Fascist regime fail to realize that Fascism is not only a system of government but also and above all a system of thought.
In the Fascist conception of history, man is man only by virtue of the spiritual process to which he contributes as a member of the family, the social group, the nation, and in function of history to which all nations bring their contribution. Hence the great value of tradition in records, in language, in customs, in the rules of social life (Cool. Outside history man is a nonentity. Fascism is therefore opposed to all individualistic abstractions based on eighteenth century materialism; and it is opposed to all Jacobinistic utopias and innovations. It does not believe in the possibility of "happiness" on earth as conceived by the economistic literature of the XVIIIth century, and it therefore rejects the theological notion that at some future time the human family will secure a final settlement of all its difficulties. This notion runs counter to experience which teaches that life is in continual flux and in process of evolution.
Liberalism denied the State in the name of the individual; Fascism reasserts the rights of the State as expressing the real essence of the individual (12). And if liberty is to he the attribute of living men and not of abstract dummies invented by individualistic liberalism, then Fascism stands for liberty, and for the only liberty worth having, the liberty of the State and of the individual within the State.
Fascism is therefore opposed to that form of democracy which equates a nation to the majority, lowering it to the level of the largest number (17); but it is the purest form of democracy if the nation be considered as it should be from the point of view of quality rather than quantity, as an idea, the mightiest because the most ethical, the most coherent, the truest, expressing itself in a people as the conscience and will of the few, if not, indeed, of one, and ending to express itself in the conscience and the will of the mass, of the whole group ethnically molded by natural and historical conditions into a nation, advancing, as one conscience and one will, along the self same line of development and spiritual formation (18). Not a race, nor a geographically defined region, but a people, historically perpetuating itself; a multitude unified by an idea and imbued with the will to live, the will to power, self-consciousness, personality (19).
The years preceding the March on Rome cover a period during which the need of action forbade delay and careful doctrinal elaborations. Fighting was going on in the towns and villages. There were discussions but... there was something more sacred and more important... death... Fascists knew how to die. A doctrine - fully elaborated, divided up into chapters and paragraphs with annotations, may have been lacking, but it was replaced by something far more decisive, - by a faith.
First of all, as regards the future development of mankind, and quite apart from all present political considerations. Fascism does not, generally speaking, believe in the possibility or utility of perpetual peace. It therefore discards pacifism as a cloak for cowardly supine renunciation in contradistinction to self-sacrifice. War alone keys up all human energies to their maximum tension and sets the seal of nobility on those peoples who have the courage to face it. All other tests are substitutes which never place a man face to face with himself before the alternative of life or death. Therefore all doctrines which postulate peace at all costs are incompatible with Fascism. Equally foreign to the spirit of Fascism, even if accepted as useful in meeting special political situations -- are all internationalistic or League superstructures which, as history shows, crumble to the ground whenever the heart of nations is deeply stirred by sentimental, idealistic or practical considerations. Fascism carries this anti-pacifistic attitude into the life of the individual. " I don't care a damn „ (me ne frego) - the proud motto of the fighting squads scrawled by a wounded man on his bandages, is not only an act of philosophic stoicism, it sums up a doctrine which is not merely political: it is evidence of a fighting spirit which accepts all risks. It signifies new style of Italian life. The Fascist accepts and loves life; he rejects and despises suicide as cowardly. Life as he understands it means duty, elevation, conquest; life must be lofty and full, it must be lived for oneself but above all for others, both near bye and far off, present and future.
Having thus struck a blow at socialism in the two main points of its doctrine, all that remains of it is the sentimental aspiration-old as humanity itself-toward social relations in which the sufferings and sorrows of the humbler folk will be alleviated. But here again Fascism rejects the economic interpretation of felicity as something to be secured socialistically, almost automatically, at a given stage of economic evolution when all will be assured a maximum of material comfort. Fascism denies the materialistic conception of happiness as a possibility, and abandons it to the economists of the mid-eighteenth century.
In rejecting democracy Fascism rejects the absurd conventional lie of political equalitarianism, the habit of collective irresponsibility, the myth of felicity and indefinite progress. But if democracy be understood as meaning a regime in which the masses are not driven back to the margin of the State, and then the writer of these pages has already defined Fascism as an organized, centralized, authoritarian democracy.
The liberal century, after piling up innumerable Gordian Knots, tried to cut them with the sword of the world war. Never has any religion claimed so cruel a sacrifice. Were the Gods of liberalism thirsting for blood? Now liberalism is preparing to close the doors of its temples, deserted by the peoples who feel that the agnosticism it professed in the sphere of economics and the indifferentism of which it has given proof in the sphere of politics and morals, would lead the world to ruin in the future as they have done in the past.
The Fascist State organizes the nation, but it leaves the individual adequate elbow room. It has curtailed useless or harmful liberties while preserving those which are essential. In such matters the individual cannot be the judge, but the State only.
The Fascist State is not indifferent to religious phenomena in general nor does it maintain an attitude of indifference to Roman Catholicism, the special, positive religion of Italians. The State has not got a theology but it has a moral code. The Fascist State sees in religion one of the deepest of spiritual manifestations and for this reason it not only respects religion but defends and protects it. The Fascist State does not attempt, as did Robespierre at the height of the revolutionary delirium of the Convention, to set up a "god” of its own; nor does it vainly seek, as does Bolshevism, to efface God from the soul of man. Fascism respects the God of ascetics, saints, and heroes, and it also respects God as conceived by the ingenuous and primitive heart of the people, the God to whom their prayers are raised.
This political process is flanked by a philosophic process. If it be true that matter was on the altars for one century, today it is the spirit which takes its place. All manifestations peculiar to the democratic spirit are consequently repudiated: easygoingness, improvisation, the lack of a personal sense of responsibility, the exaltation of numbers and of that mysterious divinity called n The People a. All creations of the spirit starting with that religious are coming to the fore, and nobody dare keep up the attitude of anticlericalism which, for several decades, was a favorite with Democracy in the Western world. By saying that God is returning, we mean that spiritual values are returning. (Da the parte va it mondo, in Tempi della Rivoluzione Fascista, Milano, Alpes, 1930, p. 34).
The Fascist state claims its ethical character: it is Catholic but above all it is Fascist, in fact it is exclusively and essentially Fascist. Catholicism completes Fascism, and this we openly declare, but let no one think they can turn the tables on us, under cover of metaphysics or philosophy. (To the Chamber of Deputies, May 13, 1929, in Discorsi del 1929, Milano, Alpes, 1930, p. 182).
The concept of freedom is not absolute because nothing is ever absolute in life. Freedom is not a right, it is a duty. It is not a gift, it is a conquest; it is not equality, it is a privilege. The concept of freedom changes with the passing of time. There is a freedom in times of peace which is not the freedom of times of war. There is a freedom in times of prosperity which is not a freedom to be allowed in times of poverty. (Fifth anniversary of the foundation of the Fasci di Contbattimento, March 24, 1924, in La nuova politica dell'Italia, vol. III, Milano, Alpes, 1925, p. 30).
(sic)
-
WSJ
The cavalier use of brute government force has become routine, but the emerging story of how Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke forced CEO Ken Lewis to blow up Bank of America is still shocking. It's a case study in the ways that panicky regulators have so often botched the bailout and made the financial crisis worse.
In the name of containing "systemic risk," our regulators spread it. In order to keep Mr. Lewis quiet, they all but ordered him to deceive his own shareholders. And in the name of restoring financial confidence, they have so mistreated Bank of America that bank executives everywhere have concluded that neither Treasury nor the Federal Reserve can be trusted.
Mr. Lewis has told investigators for New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo that in December Mr. Paulson threatened him not to cancel a deal to buy Merrill Lynch. BofA had discovered billions of dollars in undisclosed Merrill losses, and Mr. Lewis was considering invoking his rights under a material adverse condition clause to kill the merger. But Washington decided that America's financial system couldn't withstand a Merrill failure, and that BofA had to risk its own solvency to save it. So then-Treasury Secretary Paulson, who says he was acting at the direction of Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke, told Mr. Lewis that the feds would fire him and his board if they didn't complete the deal.
Mr. Paulson told Mr. Lewis that the government would provide cash from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to help BofA swallow Merrill. But since the government didn't want to reveal this new federal investment until after the merger closed, Messrs. Paulson and Bernanke rejected Mr. Lewis's request to get their commitment in writing.
"We do not want a disclosable event," Mr. Lewis says Mr. Paulson told him. "We do not want a public disclosure." Imagine what would happen to a CEO who said that.
After getting the approval of his board, Mr. Lewis executed the Paulson-Bernanke order without informing his shareholders of the material events taking place at Merrill. The merger closed on January 1. But investors and taxpayers had to wait weeks to learn that the government had invested another $20 billion plus loan portfolio insurance in BofA, and that Merrill had lost a staggering $15 billion in the last three months of 2008.
This was the second time in three months that Washington had forced Bank of America to take federal money. In his testimony to the New York AG's office, Mr. Lewis noted that an earlier TARP investment in his bank had a "dilutive effect" on existing shareholders and was not requested by BofA. "We had not sought any funds. We were taking 15 [billion dollars] at the request of Hank [Paulson] and others," Mr. Lewis testified.
But it is the Merrill deal that raises the most troubling questions. Evaluating the policy of Messrs. Bernanke and Paulson on their own terms, this transaction fundamentally increased systemic risk. In order to save a Wall Street brokerage, the feds spread the risk to one of the country's largest deposit-taking banks. If they were convinced that Merrill had to be saved, then they should have made the public case for it. And the first obligation of due diligence is to make sure that their Merrill "rescuer" of choice -- BofA -- had the capacity to bear the losses. Instead they transplanted the Merrill risk to BofA shareholders, the bank's depositors and the taxpayers who ensure those deposits. And then they had to bail out BofA too.
Messrs. Bernanke and Paulson also undermined the transparency that is a vital source of investor confidence. Disclosure is not a luxury to be enjoyed only when markets are rising. It is the foundation of the American regulatory system and a reason investors have long sought to keep their money within U.S. borders. Could either man have believed that their actions wouldn't eventually come to light, with all of the repercussions for their bank rescue plans?
Mr. Paulson told Mr. Cuomo's investigators that he also kept former SEC Chairman Christopher Cox out of the loop while forcing BofA to rescue Merrill. Mr. Cox wasn't the only one. Mr. Paulson and Mr. Bernanke both sit on the Financial Stability Oversight Board, comprised of federal regulators who oversee TARP. Two days after Mr. Lewis told the dynamic duo that Merrill's losses were exploding and that he was looking for a way out, Mr. Bernanke chaired and Mr. Paulson attended a meeting of this board. Minutes of the meeting show no mention of BofA or Merrill.
At the next meeting on January 8, a week after the merger had closed, the minutes again make no mention of either regulator telling their colleagues that they had committed tens of billions of dollars. Yet the minutes helpfully note that among the topics discussed were "coordination, transparency and oversight."
Meeting minutes suggest Messrs. Bernanke and Paulson finally informed fellow board members at 4:30 p.m. on January 15, after news outlets had already reported a pending new taxpayer investment in BofA. What exactly did Mr. Bernanke and Mr. Paulson tell their colleagues about their plans for TARP prior to January 15?
Let's hope they treated their government colleagues better than they've treated Ken Lewis, whom they hung out to dry. After making him an offer he could hardly refuse, they've let him endure a public flogging from shareholders and the press, lengthy discussions with prosecutors, plus new hiring and compensation rules that limit his bank's ability to compete.
No wonder no banker in his right mind trusts the Fed or Treasury, and no wonder nobody but Pimco and other Treasury favorites is eager to invest in the TALF, the PPIP, or any of the other programs that require trusting the government as a business partner.
The political class has spent the last few months blaming bankers for everything that has gone wrong in the financial system, and no doubt many banks have earned public scorn. But Washington has been complicit every step of the way, from the Fed's easy money to the nurturing of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and since last autumn with regulatory and Congressional panic that is making financial repair that much harder. The men who nearly ruined Bank of America have some explaining to do.
-
I see CEO BO is halving the advertising budget for Chrysler.
Oy fcuking vey!!!
The march to liberal fascism continues, and our Pravda press cheers and the sheople bleat :-P :-P :-P :cry: :cry: :cry:
-
Sent to me by Scott Grannis
http://www.washingtontimes.com:80/news/2009/feb/15/the-peron-pattern/
-
nice find
-
In my own thinking more and more I find myself turning to the word fascism to describe what is going on today. Typically, to distinguish it from certain associations, I will specify "economic fascism".
The destruction of the American Creed which I fear we now undergo is, as I see it, fascism. There is liberal fascism (the Dems and Liberals) and corporate fascism (the Reps and the Dems-- see e.g. Goldman Sachs). The Reps used to have a strong strand of the American Creed, but it appears to be a dead man walking at this point.
:cry:
-
Good thing we have His Glibness rolling back the Bush era :x :x :x
This is fascism.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWs12ccbOiE
:x :x :x :x :x :x :x :x :x
-
TTT
-
I would like to see a moderate Democrat, maybe even someone who hasn't posted anything political on the board yet, start a discussion thread regarding 'the way forward for moderate Democrats'. I am not a moderate Dem so it won't be me, but there must be people out there who are Democrats in a more conventional sense, that resent the takeover of their party from the extreme left but are not inclined to join conservatives or Republicans. Just a thought.
-
Interesting idea, and one that might not be seen by such a person on a thread named as this one is :lol:
Please feel free to suggest it on the "Politics" thread.
-
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/11/16/far-lefts-answer-goons-attack-foes-of-illegal-immigration/
-
Why No One Expects a Strong Recovery
When you repeal sound economic policies you repeal their results
By JEB HENSARLING AND PAUL RYAN
One of the strongest factors promoting recovery from our 10 post-World War II recessions was an unshakable conviction that, regardless of the immediate trouble, the American economy is fundamentally strong. Based on this underlying confidence, recessions and recoveries roughly conformed to the principle of the bigger the bust, the bigger the boom, and vice versa.
Thus real growth in the four quarters following postwar recessions averaged 6.6% and 4.3% over the following five years. As the chief economist for Barclays, Dean Maki, said in this newspaper on Aug. 19, "You can't find a single deep recession that has been followed by a moderate recovery."
That may no longer hold. Since the current recession has lasted a record seven quarters—and has been marked by a near-record average GDP decline of 1.8% per quarter—we should be witnessing the start of a powerful and sustained recovery. Yet forecasts of a 2% recovery in growth are only one-fourth as strong as postwar experience suggests. Meanwhile, unemployment sits at a generational high of 10.2%.
Why all the pessimism? The source appears to be a growing fear that the federal government is retreating from the free-market economic principles of the last half-century, and in particular the strong growth policies that began under Ronald Reagan. A review of the economic policies instituted by President Barack Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress lends credibility to this concern.
Exhibit A is the economic stimulus package signed into law by President Barack Obama in February. Even among previous stimulus efforts, the 2009 stimulus stands out for its ineffective targeting and sheer size. With interest, it is $1.1 trillion, double the size of Roosevelt's New Deal spending as a percentage of GDP.
View Full Image
Martin Kozlowski
.Virtually none of the stimulus spending was directed towards encouraging broad-based private investment, and thus failed to encourage true economic growth. An analysis by economists John F. Cogan, John B. Taylor and Volker Wieland, published on this page on Sept. 17, suggests that while the stimulus succeeded in temporarily and marginally increasing disposable personal income, it left personal consumption spending virtually unchanged.
Meanwhile, $112 billion of its $300 billion tax relief was in the form of payments to people who paid no income taxes. These payments, akin to a one-time welfare check, do not change the incentives to save and invest, and do not effectively promote broad-based economic growth.
Exhibit B is tax policy going forward. It is a near certainty that Democratic-controlled Congress will allow most of the tax cuts of 2001-2003 to expire on Dec. 31, 2010. Marginal income tax rates, capital gains rates, dividend rates and death-tax rates will increase—significantly. Hardest hit by these increases will be small businesses that file under the individual income tax code as sub-chapter S corporations, partnerships and proprietorships. Yet these are the very people whose investment and hiring decisions either drive or starve recoveries.
Exhibit C is the administration's intervention in the GM and Chrysler reorganizations. Upsetting decades of accepted bankruptcy law, the administration leveraged TARP funds to place unsecured and lower priority creditors like the United Auto Workers union in front of secured and higher priority creditors. This intervention has arguably had the effect of stifling investment as wary investors watched political considerations trump the rule of law.
As Warren Buffett said at the time, "We don't want to say to somebody who lends and gets a secured position that the secured position doesn't mean anything." Gary Parr, deputy chair of the mergers and acquisitions firm Lazard Freres & Co., stated the problem more directly. "I can't imagine the markets will function properly if you are always wondering if the government is going to step in and change the game," he was quoted in The Atlantic Online in September.
Health care, the administration's signature issue, is Exhibit D. Disregarding its impact on quality and access, its plan will surely cost well over $1 trillion over the next decade. The House-passed version includes an 8% "pay or play" payroll tax and a half-trillion dollar surtax on incomes over $500,000, much of which will strike small business. Both taxes will tend to depress investment and the creation of new jobs.
And looming down the road is the proposed cap-and-tax legislation, which will cost taxpayers $800 billion.
Beyond instilling tremendous political uncertainty into economic decision-making, these policies ensure that deficits will shatter all previous records. In the Office of Management and Budget's 2009 Mid-Session Review, the administration projects a decade of deficits averaging 3.3 times the postwar norm of 1.8%. Yet its projections assume that interest rates will be less than half the postwar norm for interest rates, and that economic growth will be almost 10% higher than the high-growth 1980s. Never in the postwar era have such high deficits, low interest rates and high growth rates occurred simultaneously.
If one substitutes the Blue Chip Economic Forecast's interest-rate forecast for that of the administration, deficits will increase by an additional $1.2 trillion over the administration's projected deficits. If the next decade's interest rates climb to match those of the 1980s, then the deficit would increase another $5.3 trillion. If higher interest rates then slow economic growth, the impact on the deficit would be much worse.
Anyone who believes the Democratic Party's recently expressed concern over the deficit should look at the relentless growth of spending on its watch. Total nondefense spending set an all-time record this year—20.2% of GDP—double federal spending as a percentage of GDP during the height of the New Deal in 1934. Even without this year's stimulus bill and last year's bailout of the financial system, nondefense discretionary spending authority still grew by 10.1% in fiscal year 2009 and is projected to rise by another 12% in fiscal year 2010. Forty-three cents of every dollar of this spending is borrowed money.
Given the magnitude of federal borrowing, there is good reason to expect higher interest rates and strong inflationary pressures in the future.
It is hardly surprising that many investors are reaching the conclusion that this administration and Congress favor policies that virtually guarantee the economy will not return to the climate of low interest rates, benign inflation and strong growth that we knew from 1982-2007. These investors understand a simple truth that current Washington policy makers fail to grasp: When you repeal the Reagan economic program, you repeal its results.
Messrs. Hensarling and Ryan are Republican representatives from Texas and Wisconsin, respectively.
-
"Too big to fail" means the end of the free market-- that is why this idea is being pushed so sedulously by the Pravdas:
================
'We won't have a real market-based financial system until it is safe to let a financial firm fail," Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said last week. He's certainly right, though you wouldn't know it from Mr. Bernanke's own actions the last two years. Meanwhile, the politicians are preparing to give the Fed and Treasury more power to bail out all and sundry companies on an unprecedented scale, and so far without any objection from the Fed chairman.
Reading the pending bills to "resolve" failing financial houses from Representative Barney Frank and Senator Chris Dodd, the challenge is to conceive of someone who is not eligible for unlimited taxpayer funds. The list of potential bailout recipients under both bills runs from bank holding companies to hedge funds to auto makers, consumer retail chains and just about anyone else engaging in finance of one kind or another.
While most scholarly investigations of the too-big-to-fail phenomenon start from the premise that it's a problem, Messrs. Dodd and Frank appear to view it as the cornerstone of our financial system. This may not be surprising given their history. Mr. Frank is famous for saying he wanted to "roll the dice" with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Less well known is how Mr. Dodd has labored to make Wall Street increasingly eligible for the taxpayer safety net. By raising expectations that bailouts will be available, he has, as much as anyone in Congress, encouraged the risk-taking that took the financial system to the brink of ruin.
During consideration of the 1991 Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Improvement Act, the Connecticut Senator insisted on reducing the quality of collateral Wall Street would need to present when borrowing from the Federal Reserve in times of emergency. Said Mr. Dodd: "My provision allows the Fed more power to provide liquidity, by enabling it to make fully secured loans to securities firms in instances similar to the 1987 stock market crash." He also fought every serious reform of Fannie and Freddie.
In his current bill, Mr. Dodd allows private market participants to receive emergency cash from both the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, without the bailout recipient having to enter either bankruptcy or the vaunted "resolution" process we'll describe in a moment.
View Full Image
Associated Press
Sen. Christopher J. Dodd
.
Under "miscellaneous provisions," Mr. Dodd's bill rewrites a portion of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act and allows cash going to depository institutions—i.e., commercial banks backed by FDIC's insurance fund—to also go to nondepositories in an emergency. We see no limit in the bill on what these nonbanks can be.
Similarly, Mr. Dodd rewrites the Federal Reserve Act's section on "unusual and exigent circumstances." Bailouts could now go to "any program or facility with broad-based participation." Mr. Dodd's "resolutions" do not require that firms be liquidated or wound down. Regulators can pump unlimited funds into failing firms and choose to rescue creditors.
Alabama Republican Richard Shelby warns that these multiple paths for large firms to avoid bankruptcy "will undermine incentives for investors and executives to effectively monitor risks. They will likely take even more risks because they know that they will reap the benefits, while taxpayers will have to cover the costs." He adds that the moral hazard created by the bill "could set the stage for an even more severe and more expensive financial crisis in the future." That sounds exactly right.
Over in the House, Mr. Frank gives the FDIC new power to pump cash into both banks and nonbanks that are neither bankrupt nor under government "resolution." As for that "resolution" process, which Mr. Frank has described as "death panels" for nonbanks, shareholders and unsecured creditors could still recover money. In fact, they might recover a great deal, because the FDIC can make loans or buy equity in a failing company or guarantee its debts, among other assistance.
The FDIC may "take such action as necessary to put the covered financial company in a sound and solvent condition." So the government can do more than just prevent a "disorderly failure." It can pump in so much cash that the business becomes an orderly success. This sounds like a mandate to treat even more companies like Citigroup, which has been rescued despite multiple failures and with little discipline for shareholders or executives, much less for creditors.
To fund these bailouts, large financial companies will pay fees until the government has collected $150 billion. Republican Scott Garrett has been warning House colleagues that Mr. Frank's "death panels" really add up to a "permanent bailout authority" that would expand the power of government and taxpayer rescues to historic highs.
Mr. Dodd decided against writing a bipartisan bill with Mr. Shelby, and it shows. For years, Mr. Shelby warned about Fannie and Freddie and the rise of moral hazard, not to mention government-selected credit-ratings agencies and bank capital standards. One might think these warnings would have inspired Mr. Dodd to seek the Alabamian's counsel after the disasters of 2008. But down in the polls and facing re-election, Mr. Dodd wants to pose as a populist reformer even as his bill would entrench moral hazard (and cheaper funding costs for the likes of Goldman Sachs) even deeper into the financial system.
Still, it's not too late to consider a bipartisan approach. This would start with an appreciation that any resolution authority has to include some rules of the road for regulators, rather than let Mr. Bernanke and the Treasury secretary decide who to bail out and when out of their hip pocket.
It must also include the guarantee of punishment for firms that come looking for help. The first step in discouraging excessive risks is that the risk-takers understand they will suffer the consequences of their bad bets. Former SEC Chairman Richard Breeden proposes a special bankruptcy court, like the FISA court for intelligence, where experienced judges with ample resources could handle large financial cases.
This deserves consideration and debate. We think it has potential as a venue if a behemoth like General Electric, with its large finance business, or even a bank holding company like Goldman Sachs, were ever to fail. The FDIC could seize the bank to protect depositors and the rest of the firm could restructure under bankruptcy protection.
Barring such a resolution process, the other way to reduce moral hazard is to limit certain kinds of risk-taking by institutions that hold taxpayer-insured deposits, as suggested by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker and Bank of England Chairman Mervyn King. This has its own problems. But unlike the emerging plans in Washington, it is credible and would give capitalism a fighting chance to survive regulatory reform.
-
Big Business can be amongst the most ardent players of fascism:
Big Pharma Sells Out
However the Senate's health-care debate pans out, we'll wager this prediction: The pharmaceutical executives who have endorsed this exercise will eventually be exposed as among the most shortsighted CEOs in the history of capitalism.
In June, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America sealed a deal with the White House and Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus promising to contribute $80 billion in lower drug costs over the next decade to ObamaCare, plus a multimillion-dollar TV ad campaign. In return they were to be spared from price controls and the reimportation of cheaper foreign drugs.
The loophole is that the deal didn't include the House, and now it may fall apart in the Senate. But even if it does somehow survive, by now it is obvious that the industry's political protection will last only as long as it takes to pass a bill, whereupon the same politicians who are trying to override this deal will get back to work.
"You've heard that as a consequence of our efforts at reform, the pharmaceutical industry has already said they're willing to put $80 billion on the table," President Obama said in July. "We might be able to get $100 billion out or more."
Led by Henry Waxman, the House saw that and raised: The bill that passed earlier this month extracts as much as $150 billion from the industry, including demands for a 23.1% "discount" when Medicare buys prescription drugs for some seniors (much like Medicaid imposes now) and gives the government the power to "negotiate" lower prices for everyone.
The pharma lobby was unfazed. "Despite the shortcomings in the House legislation, we remain completely committed to helping the President and Congress pass comprehensive health care reform this year," a senior vice president said in a statement. "This is a three-act play and a good critic doesn't write a review after the opening scenes."
But now the curtain is coming down. The Senate bill is only going to grow more expensive on the floor. Given that Harry Reid is even relying on a 5% "botax" on cosmetic surgery, the drug makers will become ever more appealing targets as the search for revenue to make ObamaCare appear to be deficit neutral grows more desperate.
Meanwhile, the AARP and its media stenographers are levelling allegations that drug makers are already jacking up prices for brand-name prescriptions. John McCain and Olympia Snowe are cosponsoring a bill with Byron Dorgan that would allow pharmacies and wholesalers to import medications from Canada and Europe.
So how has the industry responded? More or less as Lenin predicted. Big Pharma is now running ads against Joe Lieberman, saying his threat to torpedo the Senate bill could cause drug prices to rise by 20%. It is also funding a campaign that targets the fence-sitters Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu and Blanche Lincoln.
In other words, the industry is trashing the very Senators who stand the best chance to rescue it from government control. Instead, the drug CEOs are making themselves complicit with the Washington mentality of seeing only the costs of medications, not benefits like longer lives or fewer hospitalizations. They are ensuring that they will always be a political target and making the extortion easier in the bargain.
The shame is that there be will fewer resources for the research and development that drives innovation, particularly for the smaller biotech companies that are the future of cutting-edge medicine. When it takes about a decade and a billion dollars to bring a new drug to market, a CEO of a smaller drug company told us recently, most firms are "living on the edge of extinction."
View Full Image
Associated Press
Pfizer CEO Jeffrey Kindler
.But it is the biggest players who are engaged in political gamesmanship. At a speech in February at the Economic Club of Chicago, Pfizer CEO Jeffrey Kindler laid out what he called his company's "new approach to legislation and public policy." Rehearsing the health industry's role in stopping HillaryCare in 1994, he announced that the difference this time is that pharma will be "actively supporting appropriate reforms, rather than simply trying to stop things we don't agree with."
Mr. Kindler, a lawyer and former McDonald's executive, went on to endorse even such political inspirations as comparative effectiveness research, which while fine in theory will inevitably be used to "prove" that more expensive medications aren't worth the costs to government when ObamaCare's spending detonates. In England, these kinds of studies were used to try to ban Pfizer's Stutent, a treatment for kidney cancer. The Senate bill contains a Medicare commission with a mandate to go after drugs, though only about 10 cents of every U.S. health dollar goes toward prescriptions.
The irony is that if business began to educate the public about what the current bills will mean for U.S. health care, it might be able to defeat them and force a more modest, sensible reform. National Journal's composite of all health polling finds that 50.9% of the public now opposes health reform in general, up from about 15% in February. Only 43.9% are in favor. The most recent polls put support even lower: Just 35% from Quinnipiac, 38% from Rasmussen.
A Washington Post-ABC poll found that 52% of the public believes ObamaCare will increase their personal health costs and that 37% expect their quality of care will deteriorate. They're right. A survey of registered voters by Public Opinion Strategies found that the more people hear about the plan, the less they like it, and that voter hostility is higher now than it ever was for HillaryCare.
Yet now this son of HillaryCare is headed toward passage, and when shareholders start griping about lousy returns, Mr. Kindler and his fellow executives will be long gone. It's one more reminder that when it comes to protecting economic freedom, you can never trust big business. The biggest losers will be patients, who lack the millions to lobby Congress and in the future will have fewer innovative medicines.
-
Has anyone noticed the MSNBC types trying to marginalize the efforts to expose BO for what he is as a new version of "McCarthyism"?
Trying to link the Becks et al with what possibly was historically rewritten that McCarthy efforts were so terrible in the 50's.
Ah the poor liberals of HWood whe were smeared and black listed. How they suffered yadda yadda.
-
Every Democratic president since FDR has failed to pass national health insurance. The current legislation in Congress is likely the last chance to enact it.
By DANIEL HENNINGER
If President Obama's health-care initiative fails, there is no longer a rationale for being a liberal in the United States. Everything else on liberalism's to-do list is footnotes.
Passing national health insurance has obsessed every Democratic president since Franklin Roosevelt. Even Harry Truman, for some conservatives a model of "moderate" Democratic politics, wanted it. Looking back, Truman wept and warned: "I've had some bitter disappointments as President, but the one that has troubled me most, in a personal way, has been the failure to defeat the organized opposition to a national compulsory health insurance program. But this opposition has only delayed and cannot stop the adoption of an indispensable federal health insurance plan."
No other issue has consumed more political energy in the U.S. than "health-care reform." Congress's half-year preoccupation with health care is only the latest blip in the Democrats' long march to a public option.
As we head to the final act, one element of this history stands out: The liberals' repeated failure to get it done.
The Democratic Mecca—a real national health insurance system available to all—has always encountered stiff resistance in Congress, notably as now from moderate Democrats. In the 1960s, Senate Finance Chairman Russell Long (of Mary Landrieu's Louisiana) railed publicly against Medicare's costs but as now, questions about cost were obliterated.
Frustrated at the failure to pass their "National Health Insurance" bill during the presidency of Dwight Eisenhower, the Democrats ratcheted back from the Euro-style idea of FDR and Truman to a plan that would cover only Social Security beneficiaries, the elderly. This was Medicare.
Medicare failed all its initial votes in 1960. A compromise known as Kerr-Mills, which limited federal coverage to the "indigent" elderly, passed the Senate by a vote of 91-2. Many said then that Kerr-Mills addressed the U.S.'s main problem, which was medicine for the poor. Ronald Reagan supported Kerr-Mills, arguing that people "worth millions of dollars" shouldn't be getting health care paid for by government.
For Democratic liberals, a lot is never enough. With John Kennedy's election, they resubmitted Medicare for the elderly regardless of income.
The Democrats still couldn't pass a health-care entitlement on the scale of Social Security. The politics they threw into the effort was massive. They put 20,000 elderly in Madison Square Garden to hear JFK's oratory. Rallies were held in 45 cities. Organized labor ran campaigns against members of the Ways and Means Committee in their home districts. For all this, in July 1962 the Senate voted 52-48 against Medicare. JFK denounced the vote on TV.
It is a familiar story that Lyndon Johnson got Medicare passed as part of the Kennedy legacy. But for LBJ in 1965, the political planets were in perfect alignment. He had an overwhelming victory in the 1964 presidential campaign and huge congressional majorities. He had a robust economy, a gift of the Kennedy tax cut passed in early 1964. Also, no House hearings were held that year on the 296-page bill, which Democratic Sen. Philip Hart of Michigan complained was "one of the most complex set of social security amendments ever brought before this body."
Oh, and let us not overlook the party's concurrent quest for money transfers. In a moment of glee over the 1965 bill, Rep. Phil Burton of California, a member of the liberal pantheon, intoned: "All in all, our fair state and its people in the first year will be favored to the tune of some $550 million, a not modest sum." (Norms of spending "modesty" have changed since.)
The Democrats' persistent problems with this issue, including the Clintons' Health Security Act in 1994, suggests a victory for ObamaCare is no sure thing.
Nearly every defeat of broad public health coverage has come amid some turbulence that scared the public or politicians.
For Truman it was the Korean War. For JFK it was a recession, Vietnam and the Cuban missile crisis. Walter Lippmann wrote of JFK that a too-confident president was exceeding the public's reach. The Social Security Administration's own history of the Kennedy effort notes, "Some experts still had doubts about the reliability of the cost estimates for the bill."
Now Democrats say this vote is about "history." No, it's about their history. As with past failures to federalize health care, the air in 2009 is full of static—high unemployment, Afghanistan, a terrorist prison in Illinois and a petulant White House. The Democrats' familiar problems with the politics of universal health care have turned the bill into one of the most degraded legislative exercises in congressional history. Left-wing Dems like Howard Dean are screaming "kill" the Senate bill, suggesting a progressive Jonestown over it. Public support is below 40%.
This is probably the final death struggle for universal health care. They may let Harry Reid's Senate seat itself go down in the bloodbath over the 70-year obsession. Anyone remotely opposed to this idea had better step forward. History says ObamaCare isn't a done deal til the fat lady votes.
Write to henninger@wsj.com
-
"The idea of essentially taxing hardworking citizens of the democracies to fill the treasuries of Third World kleptocracies"
Perhaps a new thread should be started on the "assualt on the working American taxpayer" or "the new slavery" wherein hardworking American taxpayers are now expected to pay for all those who claim hard times here in our own country and all around the world as well. Whether or not a tea party could really gain momentum or should merge with Republican party I don't know. It is not simply as Hannity says we need to go back to our roots. Republicans are just as corrupt as the Dems. Their earmarks, their pork, their lobby money. IN any case,
****The new socialism
By Charles Krauthammer
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | In the 1970s and early '80s, having seized control of the U.N. apparatus (by power of numbers), Third World countries decided to cash in. OPEC was pulling off the greatest wealth transfer from rich to poor in history. Why not them? So in grand U.N. declarations and conferences, they began calling for a "New International Economic Order." The NIEO's essential demand was simple: to transfer fantastic chunks of wealth from the industrialized West to the Third World.
On what grounds? In the name of equality — wealth redistribution via global socialism — with a dose of post-colonial reparations thrown in.
The idea of essentially taxing hardworking citizens of the democracies to fill the treasuries of Third World kleptocracies went nowhere, thanks mainly to Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher (and the debt crisis of the early '80s). They put a stake through the enterprise.
But such dreams never die. The raid on the Western treasuries is on again, but today with a new rationale to fit current ideological fashion. With socialism dead, the gigantic heist is now proposed as a sacred service of the newest religion: environmentalism.
One of the major goals of the Copenhagen climate summit is another NIEO shakedown: the transfer of hundreds of billions from the industrial West to the Third World to save the planet by, for example, planting green industries in the tristes tropiques.
Politically it's an idea of genius, engaging at once every left-wing erogenous zone: rich man's guilt, post-colonial guilt, environmental guilt. But the idea of shaking down the industrial democracies in the name of the environment thrives not just in the refined internationalist precincts of Copenhagen. It thrives on the national scale, too.
On the day Copenhagen opened, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency claimed jurisdiction over the regulation of carbon emissions by declaring them an "endangerment" to human health.
Since we operate an overwhelmingly carbon-based economy, the EPA will be regulating practically everything. No institution that emits more than 250 tons of CO2 a year will fall outside EPA control. This means more than a million building complexes, hospitals, plants, schools, businesses and similar enterprises. (The EPA proposes regulating emissions only above 25,000 tons, but it has no such authority.) Not since the creation of the Internal Revenue Service has a federal agency been given more intrusive power over every aspect of economic life.
This naked assertion of vast executive power in the name of the environment is the perfect fulfillment of the prediction of Czech President (and economist) Vaclav Klaus that environmentalism is becoming the new socialism, i.e., the totemic ideal in the name of which government seizes the commanding heights of the economy and society.
Socialism having failed so spectacularly, the left was adrift until it struck upon a brilliant gambit: metamorphosis from red to green. The cultural elites went straight from the memorial service for socialism to the altar of the environment. The objective is the same: highly centralized power given to the best and the brightest, the new class of experts, managers and technocrats. This time, however, the alleged justification is not abolishing oppression and inequality but saving the planet.
Not everyone is pleased with the coming New Carbon-Free International Order. When the Obama administration signaled (in a gesture to Copenhagen) a U.S. commitment to major cuts in carbon emissions, Democratic Sen. Jim Webb wrote the president protesting that he lacks the authority to do so unilaterally. That requires congressional concurrence by legislation or treaty.
With the Senate blocking President Obama's cap-and-trade carbon legislation, the EPA coup d'etat served as the administration's loud response to Webb: The hell we can't. With this EPA "endangerment" finding, we can do as we wish with carbon. Either the Senate passes cap-and-trade, or the EPA will impose even more draconian measures: all cap, no trade.
Forget for a moment the economic effects of severe carbon chastity. There's the matter of constitutional decency. If you want to revolutionize society — as will drastic carbon regulation and taxation in an energy economy that is 85 percent carbon-based — you do it through Congress reflecting popular will. Not by administrative fiat of EPA bureaucrats.
Congress should not just resist this executive overreaching, but trump it: Amend clean-air laws and restore their original intent by excluding CO2 from EPA control and reserving that power for Congress and future legislation.
Do it now. Do it soon. Because Big Brother isn't lurking in CIA cloak. He's knocking on your door, smiling under an EPA cap.*****
-
From the WSJ today.
Change Nobody Believes In
A bill so reckless that it has to be rammed through on a partisan vote on Christmas eve
And tidings of comfort and joy from Harry Reid too. The Senate Majority Leader has decided that the last few days before Christmas are the opportune moment for a narrow majority of Democrats to stuff ObamaCare through the Senate to meet an arbitrary White House deadline. Barring some extraordinary reversal, it now seems as if they have the 60 votes they need to jump off this cliff, with one-seventh of the economy in tow.
Mr. Obama promised a new era of transparent good government, yet on Saturday morning Mr. Reid threw out the 2,100-page bill that the world's greatest deliberative body spent just 17 days debating and replaced it with a new "manager's amendment" that was stapled together in covert partisan negotiations. Democrats are barely even bothering to pretend to care what's in it, not that any Senator had the chance to digest it in the 38 hours before the first cloture vote at 1 a.m. this morning. After procedural motions that allow for no amendments, the final vote could come at 9 p.m. on December 24.
Even in World War I there was a Christmas truce.
The rushed, secretive way that a bill this destructive and unpopular is being forced on the country shows that "reform" has devolved into the raw exercise of political power for the single purpose of permanently expanding the American entitlement state. An increasing roll of leaders in health care and business are looking on aghast at a bill that is so large and convoluted that no one can truly understand it, as Finance Chairman Max Baucus admitted on the floor last week. The only goal is to ram it into law while the political window is still open, and clean up the mess later.
***
• Health costs. From the outset, the White House's core claim was that reform would reduce health costs for individuals and businesses, and they're sticking to that story. "Anyone who says otherwise simply hasn't read the bills," Mr. Obama said over the weekend. This is so utterly disingenuous that we doubt the President really believes it.
The best and most rigorous cost analysis was recently released by the insurer WellPoint, which mined its actuarial data in various regional markets to model the Senate bill. WellPoint found that a healthy 25-year-old in Milwaukee buying coverage on the individual market will see his costs rise by 178%. A small business based in Richmond with eight employees in average health will see a 23% increase. Insurance costs for a 40-year-old family with two kids living in Indianapolis will pay 106% more. And on and on.
These increases are solely the result of ObamaCare—above and far beyond the status quo—because its strict restrictions on underwriting and risk-pooling would distort insurance markets. All but a handful of states have rejected regulations like "community rating" because they encourage younger and healthier buyers to wait until they need expensive care, increasing costs for everyone. Benefits and pricing will now be determined by politics.
As for the White House's line about cutting costs by eliminating supposed "waste," even Victor Fuchs, an eminent economist generally supportive of ObamaCare, warned last week that these political theories are overly simplistic. "The oft-heard promise 'we will find out what works and what does not' scarcely does justice to the complexity of medical practice," the Stanford professor wrote.
• Steep declines in choice and quality. This is all of a piece with the hubris of an Administration that thinks it can substitute government planning for market forces in determining where the $33 trillion the U.S. will spend on medicine over the next decade should go.
This centralized system means above all fewer choices; what works for the political class must work for everyone. With formerly private insurers converted into public utilities, for instance, they'll inevitably be banned from selling products like health savings accounts that encourage more cost-conscious decisions.
Unnoticed by the press corps, the Congressional Budget Office argued recently that the Senate bill would so "substantially reduce flexibility in terms of the types, prices, and number of private sellers of health insurance" that companies like WellPoint might need to "be considered part of the federal budget."
With so large a chunk of the economy and medical practice itself in Washington's hands, quality will decline. Ultimately, "our capacity to innovate and develop new therapies would suffer most of all," as Harvard Medical School Dean Jeffrey Flier recently wrote in our pages. Take the $2 billion annual tax—rising to $3 billion in 2018—that will be leveled against medical device makers, among the most innovative U.S. industries. Democrats believe that more advanced health technologies like MRI machines and drug-coated stents are driving costs too high, though patients and their physicians might disagree.
"The Senate isn't hearing those of us who are closest to the patient and work in the system every day," Brent Eastman, the chairman of the American College of Surgeons, said in a statement for his organization and 18 other speciality societies opposing ObamaCare. For no other reason than ideological animus, doctor-owned hospitals will face harsh new limits on their growth and who they're allowed to treat. Physician Hospitals of America says that ObamaCare will "destroy over 200 of America's best and safest hospitals."
• Blowing up the federal fisc. Even though Medicare's unfunded liabilities are already about 2.6 times larger than the entire U.S. economy in 2008, Democrats are crowing that ObamaCare will cost "only" $871 billion over the next decade while fantastically reducing the deficit by $132 billion, according to CBO.
Yet some 98% of the total cost comes after 2014—remind us why there must absolutely be a vote this week—and most of the taxes start in 2010. That includes the payroll tax increase for individuals earning more than $200,000 that rose to 0.9 from 0.5 percentage points in Mr. Reid's final machinations. Job creation, here we come.
Other deceptions include a new entitlement for long-term care that starts collecting premiums tomorrow but doesn't start paying benefits until late in the decade. But the worst is not accounting for a formula that automatically slashes Medicare payments to doctors by 21.5% next year and deeper after that. Everyone knows the payment cuts won't happen but they remain in the bill to make the cost look lower. The American Medical Association's priority was eliminating this "sustainable growth rate" but all they got in return for their year of ObamaCare cheerleading was a two-month patch snuck into the defense bill that passed over the weekend.
The truth is that no one really knows how much ObamaCare will cost because its assumptions on paper are so unrealistic. To hide the cost increases created by other parts of the bill and transfer them onto the federal balance sheet, the Senate sets up government-run "exchanges" that will subsidize insurance for those earning up to 400% of the poverty level, or $96,000 for a family of four in 2016. Supposedly they would only be offered to those whose employers don't provide insurance or work for small businesses.
As Eugene Steuerle of the left-leaning Urban Institute points out, this system would treat two workers with the same total compensation—whatever the mix of cash wages and benefits—very differently. Under the Senate bill, someone who earned $42,000 would get $5,749 from the current tax exclusion for employer-sponsored coverage but $12,750 in the exchange. A worker making $60,000 would get $8,310 in the exchanges but only $3,758 in the current system.
For this reason Mr. Steuerle concludes that the Senate bill is not just a new health system but also "a new welfare and tax system" that will warp the labor market. Given the incentives of these two-tier subsidies, employers with large numbers of lower-wage workers like Wal-Mart may well convert them into "contractors" or do more outsourcing. As more and more people flood into "free" health care, taxpayer costs will explode.
• Political intimidation. The experts who have pointed out such complications have been ignored or dismissed as "ideologues" by the White House. Those parts of the health-care industry that couldn't be bribed outright, like Big Pharma, were coerced into acceding to this agenda. The White House was able to, er, persuade the likes of the AMA and the hospital lobbies because the federal government will control 55% of total U.S. health spending under ObamaCare, according to the Administration's own Medicare actuaries
Others got hush money, namely Nebraska's Ben Nelson. Even liberal Governors have been howling for months about ObamaCare's unfunded spending mandates: Other budget priorities like education will be crowded out when about 21% of the U.S. population is on Medicaid, the joint state-federal program intended for the poor. Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman calculates that ObamaCare will result in $2.5 billion in new costs for his state that "will be passed on to citizens through direct or indirect taxes and fees," as he put it in a letter to his state's junior Senator.
So in addition to abortion restrictions, Mr. Nelson won the concession that Congress will pay for 100% of Nebraska Medicaid expansions into perpetuity. His capitulation ought to cost him his political career, but more to the point, what about the other states that don't have a Senator who's the 60th vote for ObamaCare?
***
"After a nearly century-long struggle we are on the cusp of making health-care reform a reality in the United States of America," Mr. Obama said on Saturday. He's forced to claim the mandate of "history" because he can't claim the mandate of voters. Some 51% of the public is now opposed, according to National Journal's composite of all health polling. The more people know about ObamaCare, the more unpopular it becomes.
The tragedy is that Mr. Obama inherited a consensus that the health-care status quo needs serious reform, and a popular President might have crafted a durable compromise that blended the best ideas from both parties. A more honest and more thoughtful approach might have even done some good. But as Mr. Obama suggested, the Democratic old guard sees this plan as the culmination of 20th-century liberalism.
So instead we have this vast expansion of federal control. Never in our memory has so unpopular a bill been on the verge of passing Congress, never has social and economic legislation of this magnitude been forced through on a purely partisan vote, and never has a party exhibited more sheer political willfulness that is reckless even for Washington or had more warning about the consequences of its actions.
These 60 Democrats are creating a future of epic increases in spending, taxes and command-and-control regulation, in which bureaucracy trumps innovation and transfer payments are more important than private investment and individual decisions. In short, the Obama Democrats have chosen change nobody believes in—outside of themselves—and when it passes America will be paying for it for decades to come.
Regards,
Larry N. Smith, M.D.
-
http://www.daybydaycartoon.com/2009/11/29/
-
http://www.daybydaycartoon.com/2009/11/29/
That would be funny if it wasn't so true.
-
http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-goods-producing-wrokers-vs-government-payroll-2010-1
-
Timothy Geithner is back in piñata mode, with House Oversight Chairman Edolphus Towns asking him to testify next week about bailout giant AIG. By all means Members should swing away at the Treasury Secretary, but only if they focus on the right questions.
The trigger for the Towns hearing is the release of emails between the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and AIG in November and December 2008. The New York Fed urged AIG to limit disclosure of its deal to buy out derivative trading partners at 100 cents on the dollar. But since AIG went ahead and disclosed it anyway, this line of inquiry doesn't get to the heart of the taxpayer interest.
Likewise, asking if Mr. Geithner helped write the emails to AIG will simply allow him to continue avoiding the bigger questions: Why did he believe AIG could not fail? Why should he receive more authority to declare firms systemically important, when he will still not fully explain his previous multibillion-dollar judgments in the name of countering "systemic risk"?
Mr. Geithner was president of the New York Fed when it began sending what has become $182.3 billion in taxpayer assistance to AIG in September 2008. Much of this money was used to meet collateral calls from big banks that had bought AIG's credit default swaps. AIG had resisted handing over more collateral. But once Mr. Geithner was in charge of AIG, the cash flowed freely to these bank counterparties.
View Full Image
Associated Press
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner
.The Fed and AIG ultimately bought the underlying securities at par. This was not only much more than the counterparties might have received from a bankrupt AIG, but even a healthy AIG would never have handed over so much cash in the midst of a panic in which cash was king. Mr. Geithner's New York Fed demanded the 100-cents on the dollar deal for these counterparties, and it demanded that their identities be kept secret. The Journal nonetheless reported this sweet deal and the names of some beneficiaries, including Goldman Sachs, in early November 2008, but taxpayers had to wait months before AIG finally released the full story.
Given the sweet deal and the fact that Mr. Geithner sought to keep secret the identities of the beneficiaries, logic would suggest that the AIG intervention was intended as a bailout for these counterparties. Supporting this conclusion is the fact that Mr. Geithner has sold his plan to regulate derivatives as a way to prevent such problems in the future. Yet when asked directly by the inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program why he opted to buy out the counterparties at par, Mr. Geithner said "the financial condition of the counterparties was not a relevant factor."
OpinionJournal Related Stories:
•Review & Outlook: Spitzer's AIG Emails
•Review & Outlook: Banker Baiting
•Review & Outlook: Saying No to Spitzer, Four Years Later
.Then last November, he suggested that the systemic risk was in AIG's traditional insurance business. "AIG was providing a range of insurance products to households across the country. And if AIG had defaulted, you would have seen a downgrade leading to the liquidation and failure of a set of insurance contracts that touched Americans across this country and, of course, savers around the world," he said. So which was it?
Taxpayers also still haven't been told why there couldn't have been any sunshine on Mr. Geithner's beloved AIG counterparties. If some of them really would have failed, with systemic consequences, why not announce that they were all getting a deal to bolster liquidity and allow them to resume lending? That is exactly what regulators had just done in October 2008 by naming recipients of TARP capital injections.
On the other hand, if the counterparties weren't the systemic risk, then what's the argument for regulating derivatives?
The evidence builds that AIG's "systemic risk" wasn't a mathematical answer to a rigorous and thoughtful review of data, but rather a seat-of-the-pants judgment by regulators in a panic. If that is the case, someone should ask Mr. Geithner why the American people should give him even more authority to make more such judgments from his hip pocket—with little public scrutiny.
Under the House regulatory reform, Mr. Geithner would chair a new Financial Services Oversight Council. The council could declare virtually any company in America a systemic risk, making them eligible for intervention on the taxpayer's dime. The law firm Davis Polk reports that since this council is not an agency, it will not be subject to the Administrative Procedure Act, the Freedom of Information Act or the Sunshine Act, among other laws intended to allow citizens to scrutinize government.
It's difficult to learn and apply the lessons of AIG because the New York Fed has done so much to conceal them. Mr. Towns appears to be getting closer to the truth, deciding yesterday to issue subpoenas focused on the New York Fed's decision-making, as opposed to whatever it told AIG to say in public. Let's hope lawmakers explore what the "systemic risk" actually was—and why Mr. Geithner should get nearly open-ended power to define it again.
-
The Left and Right are all over this.
http://stossel.blogs.foxbusiness.com...est=latestnews
An obscure 2008 academic article gained traction with bloggers over the weekend. The article was written by the head of Obama's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Harvard Law Professor Cass Sunstein. He’s a good friend of the president and the promoter the contradictory idea: "libertarian paternalism". In the article, he muses about what government can do to combat "conspiracy" theories:
...we suggest a distinctive tactic for breaking up the hard core of extremists who supply conspiracy theories: cognitive infiltration of extremist groups, whereby government agents or their allies ... will undermine the crippled epistemology of those who subscribe to such theories. They do so by planting doubts about the theories and stylized facts that circulate within such groups, thereby introducing beneficial cognitive diversity.
That's right. Obama's Regulation Czar is so concerned about citizens thinking the wrong way that he proposed sending government agents to "infiltrate" these groups and manipulate them. This reads like an Onion article: Powerful government official proposes to combat paranoid conspiracy groups that believe the government is out to get them...by proving that they really are out to get them. Did nothing of what Sunstein was writing strike him as...I don't know...crazy? "Cognitive infiltration" of extremist groups by government agents? "Stylized facts"? Was "truthiness" too pedantic?
Salon.com's Glenn Greenwald explains why this you should be disturbed by this:
This was written 18 months ago, at a time when the ascendancy of Sunstein's close friend to the Presidency looked likely, in exactly the area he now oversees. Additionally, the government-controlled messaging that Sunstein desires has been a prominent feature of U.S. Government actions over the last decade, including in some recently revealed practices of the current administration, and the mindset in which it is grounded explains a great deal about our political class.
... What is most odious and revealing about Sunstein's worldview is his condescending, self-loving belief that "false conspiracy theories" are largely the province of fringe, ignorant Internet masses and the Muslim world.
It's certainly true that one can easily find irrational conspiracy theories in those venues, but some of the most destructive "false conspiracy theories" have emanated from the very entity Sunstein wants to endow with covert propaganda power: namely, the U.S. Government itself, along with its elite media defenders. Moreover, "crazy conspiracy theorist" has long been the favorite epithet of those same parties to discredit people trying to expose elite wrongdoing and corruption.
It is this history of government deceit and wrongdoing that renders Sunstein's desire to use covert propaganda to "undermine" anti-government speech so repugnant. The reason conspiracy theories resonate so much is precisely that people have learned -- rationally -- to distrust government actions and statements. Sunstein's proposed covert propaganda scheme is a perfect illustration of why that is. In other words, people don't trust the Government and "conspiracy theories" are so pervasive precisely because government is typically filled with people like Cass Sunstein, who think that systematic deceit and government-sponsored manipulation are justified by their own Goodness and Superior Wisdom.
==============
From Salon.com:
Key para from Salon article:
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/gl...ein/index.html
"Sunstein advocates that the Government's stealth infiltration should be accomplished by sending covert agents into "chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups." He also proposes that the Government make secret payments to so-called "independent" credible voices to bolster the Government's messaging (on the ground that those who don't believe government sources will be more inclined to listen to those who appear independent while secretly acting on behalf of the Government). This program would target those advocating false "conspiracy theories," which they define to mean: "an attempt to explain an event or practice by reference to the machinations of powerful people, who have also managed to conceal their role." Sunstein's 2008 paper was flagged by this blogger, and then amplified in an excellent report by Raw Story's Daniel Tencer.
-
Funny enough, the fact that this idea has been publicly disclosed tends to undercut the hypercompitent government usually required for various conspiracy theories.
-
It is with the greatest regret, on behalf of our Board, that we must announce that Air America Media is ceasing its live programming operations as of this afternoon, and that the Company will file soon under Chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code to carry out an orderly winding-down of the business.
The very difficult economic environment has had a significant impact on Air America's business. This past year has seen a "perfect storm" in the media industry generally. National and local advertising revenues have fallen drastically, causing many media companies nationwide to fold or seek bankruptcy protection. From large to small, recent bankruptcies like Citadel Broadcasting and closures like that of the industry's long-time trade publication Radio and Records have signaled that these are very difficult and rapidly changing times.
Those companies that remain are facing audience fragmentation as a result of new media technologies, are often saddled with crushing debt, and have generally found it difficult to obtain operating or investment capital from traditional sources of funding. In this climate, our painstaking search for new investors has come close several times right up into this week, but ultimately fell short of success.
With radio industry ad revenues down for 10 consecutive quarters, and reportedly off 21% in 2009, signs of improvement have consisted of hoping things will be less bad. And though Internet/new media revenues are projected to grow, our expanding online efforts face the same monetization and profitability challenges in the short term confronting the Web operations of most media companies
When Air America Radio launched in April, 2004 with already-known personalities like Al Franken and then-unknown future stars like Rachel Maddow, it was the only full-time progressive voice in the mainstream broadcast media world. At a critical time in our nation's history — when dissent on issues such as the Iraq war were often denounced as "un-American" — Air America and its talented team helped millions of Americans remember the importance of compelling discussion about the most pivotal events and decisions of our generation.
Through some 100 radio outlets nationwide, Air America helped build a new sense of purpose and determination among American progressives. With this revival, the progressive movement made major gains in the 2006 mid-term elections and, more recently, in the election of President Barack Obama and a strongly Democratic Congress.
Laws have changed for the better thanks to this revival.....but all the same our company cannot escape the laws of economics. So we intend a rapid, orderly closure over the next few days. All current employees will be paid through today, January 21. A severance package will be offered tomorrow to full-time current employees with more than six months of tenure.
We will strive to assist affiliates and partners in achieving a smooth transition. Starting at 6 pm EST today, we will provide our affiliates, listeners and users a selection of encore programming until 9 pm EST on Monday, January 25, at which time Air America programming will end.
We are proud that Air America's mission lives on through the words and actions of so many former radio hosts who are active today in progressive causes and media nationwide. In the years ahead, as we look back, we should all be proud of our passionate determination to assure that our nation's progressive voice would be heard loud and clear. Through the hard work and dedication of current staff, and those who preceded you, a lasting legacy was forged which will now continue through other voices and venues.
Thank you.
http://airamerica.com/
-
Paid secret agents of DOJ at work with your tax dollars
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/01/doj_hires_bloggers_as_propagan.html
http://patterico.com/2010/01/24/stil...-obama-letter/
Example:
Jan Chen of Seattle writes to the Northwest Asian Weekly (a small Asian paper serving the Seattle area):
As one listens to the Republican anger over health care reform, one can imagine an anti-government protester cheerfully paying premiums on insurance policies that drop you after you make a claim, or happily sauntering out of an emergency room that denied them treatment because of a coverage problem. One can imagine a town hall sign-waver enthusiastically forking over most of their pay to bill collectors after suffering a catastrophic injury, thinking, “Wow, the free market system is great.”
Meanwhile, Gloria Elle writes to the Baltimore Chronicle — on the same page as Mark Spivey and Ellie Light:
As one listens to the Republican anger over health care reform, one can imagine an anti-government protester cheerfully paying premiums on insurance policies that cancel you for making a claim, or happily sauntering out of an emergency room that denied them treatment because of a coverage problem. One can imagine a town-hall sign-waver enthusiastically forking over most of their pay to bill collectors after suffering a catastrophic injury, thinking, “Wow, the free market system is great.”
-
Here is the website noted as the source. There is also a link to "the evidence" of their claims though I don't have time to peruse that at the moment.
The flipside to the argument is if Bama/Pelosi/Reid care were to go through catastropic injuries might not be covered at all due to risk/benefit/cost ratios don't make it worthwhile. Esp. if one is over a certain age.
In my experience ER care is usually covered and not denied but not always. If the writer wants us to believe care is rationed now the answer is correct. If the writer wants us to think it won't under the Dem plan he or she is incorrect.
http://muffledoar.blogspot.com/
-
Secretary of the Treasury under Clinton: Robert Rubin of Goldman Sachs
under Bush: Henry Paulsen of Goldman Sachs
under BO: Timothy Geithner of Goldman Sachs
From a recent email conversation:
"The real reason that AIG was bailed out was very simple. All Swap sellers had special terms in their contracts that could be adverse to the Wall Street buyers. AIG did not have these terms in their agreements at the "request" of Goldman Sacs. Goldman ran all their Swaps through AIG. And that is.............the rest of the story."
"I am sorry-- this went over my head a bit. May I ask you to flesh this out?"
"I have to find the original article again, but here is the essence of it:
"Goldman Sachs demanded that one condition be placed in their Swaps that other firms did not demand. As a result, Goldman used AIG most of the time. If AIG had failed, then Goldman could never collect on the Swaps. As well, when GS securitized loans, there were hundreds of millions of dollars in each pool. Some went over one billion. The loans were sold to the investors, mutual funds, hedge funds, etc. These loans were headed for failure from Day One.
GS, after selling the loans, immediately took out Swaps on these pools. They did not have to own the pools or loans to take out a SWAP. I could even do it. GS knew the loans would fail, so they took out the Swaps, betting against the loans and knowing that they would make significant amounts of money when the loans failed. GS would buy a Swap, say $20m, and then they would at times sell the Swap to other buyers.......for $40m. Other times, they kept it, based upon the Pool. GS was the biggest crook in all of this. It was criminal what they did. Yet Timmie and Paulie are covering for them.
"This will eventually come out, in about a decade or so. Someone will write the definitive book on this. I would, but I would need someone from the Securitization side who understands this part much better than I do. Actually, I have guy in mind who could do that. He was former FDIC in the S&L crisis, and led the response team to bailing out banks then. I am working with him on another project and it might be something to team up with him on the book."
-
Please see my post under stock market. I think this is why GS has had such a long history of outperformance.
They have the inside info all the time. And they can act on it before others.
-
I'm not really sure of which is the right thread for this amazing little report, but put it here as an example of the human reality of the Mussolini-like economic path which we have undertaken.
Some random questions noted by one blogger:
"This is the same Hank Paulson that, as head of Goldman Sachs, lobbied the SEC in 2004 for relaxed capital standards and self-monitoring of risk for investment banks. Goldman was one of the major players in securitizing private mortgage loans before the bubble burst. How could he not know how these debt instruments were structured by his own firm that he headed? This statement now does not seem very credible to me."
The Adventure continues , , , :-P
================
Paulson says he was scared and clueless during Lehman collapse
Henry Paulson, the former U.S. Treasury Department secretary, just said in a CNBC interview that in the midst of the Lehman Brothers collapse he had no idea what to do and was so afraid he excused himself from an emergency meeting on the matter and called his wife.
"I'm scared," he said he told his wife on a cell phone, while appearing to the others in the meeting that he was making a business telephone call. "I didn't know what to do."
He asked his wife to pray for him. "Then, I put on my armor and went back into the room and acted like I knew what to do."
Paulson's just written a new book, "On the Brink," in which he recalls the details of the weekend when he dealt with the Lehman collapse.
More shocking, is Paulson's contention that prior to the collapse, neither he nor other administration officials had any idea how housing debt was structured in various Wall Street creations. Paulson has said that he discovered all of this in the midst of the crisis. Prior to the collapse, his department had done a study of housing and concluded there was no problem. The study left out the esoteric financial structures that turned out to be a disaster.
Now, there are two things that must be done, said Paulson. "We need one systemic regulator" and "we need resolution authority so no institution is too big to fail."
He thinks the public should channel its anger into demanding financial reforms. But he also agrees with the public's anger over tremendous Wall Street bonuses.
"When I ran Goldman, even during benign times, I thought compensation was out of whack," he said. He claims he told his staff during meetings "people don't like you" because of compensation levels.
Still, although he headed the company before taking over as U.S. Treasury secretary, he was not able to curtail the bonuses that have so angered the public after bailouts with public money.
And he claims Goldman would have been in danger of collapsing if the government had not stepped into the financial crisis with emergency measures.
"It seemed like there was a good chance Morgan Stanley could go down, and if it did that could take Goldman down," said Paulson.
If that had happened, added Paulson: "It would have been all she wrote for the American economy."
-
Gee, it's a good thing that these scary moments have done such a good job of informing our current batch of policy makers. Not.
-
Why are liberals so condescending?
By Gerard Alexander
Sunday, February 7, 2010; B01
Every political community includes some members who insist that their side has all the answers and that their adversaries are idiots. But American liberals, to a degree far surpassing conservatives, appear committed to the proposition that their views are correct, self-evident, and based on fact and reason, while conservative positions are not just wrong but illegitimate, ideological and unworthy of serious consideration. Indeed, all the appeals to bipartisanship notwithstanding, President Obama and other leading liberal voices have joined in a chorus of intellectual condescension.
It's an odd time for liberals to feel smug. But even with Democratic fortunes on the wane, leading liberals insist that they have almost nothing to learn from conservatives. Many Democrats describe their troubles simply as a PR challenge, a combination of conservative misinformation -- as when Obama charges that critics of health-care reform are peddling fake fears of a "Bolshevik plot" -- and the country's failure to grasp great liberal accomplishments. "We were so busy just getting stuff done . . . that I think we lost some of that sense of speaking directly to the American people about what their core values are," the president told ABC's George Stephanopoulos in a recent interview. The benighted public is either uncomprehending or deliberately misinformed (by conservatives).
This condescension is part of a long liberal tradition that for generations has impoverished American debates over the economy, social issues and the functions of government -- and threatens to do so again today, when dialogue would be more valuable than ever.
Liberals have dismissed conservative thinking for decades, a tendency encapsulated by Lionel Trilling's 1950 remark that conservatives do not "express themselves in ideas but only in action or in irritable mental gestures which seek to resemble ideas." During the 1950s and '60s, liberals trivialized the nascent conservative movement. Prominent studies and journalistic accounts of right-wing politics at the time stressed paranoia, intolerance and insecurity, rendering conservative thought more a psychiatric disorder than a rival. In 1962, Richard Hofstadter referred to "the Manichaean style of thought, the apocalyptic tendencies, the love of mystification, the intolerance of compromise that are observable in the right-wing mind."
This sense of liberal intellectual superiority dropped off during the economic woes of the 1970s and the Reagan boom of the 1980s. (Jimmy Carter's presidency, buffeted by economic and national security challenges, generated perhaps the clearest episode of liberal self-doubt.) But these days, liberal confidence and its companion disdain for conservative thinking are back with a vengeance, finding energetic expression in politicians' speeches, top-selling books, historical works and the blogosphere. This attitude comes in the form of four major narratives about who conservatives are and how they think and function.
The first is the "vast right-wing conspiracy," a narrative made famous by Hillary Rodham Clinton but hardly limited to her. This vision maintains that conservatives win elections and policy debates not because they triumph in the open battle of ideas but because they deploy brilliant and sinister campaign tactics. A dense network of professional political strategists such as Karl Rove, think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation and industry groups allegedly manipulate information and mislead the public. Democratic strategist Rob Stein crafted a celebrated PowerPoint presentation during George W. Bush's presidency that traced conservative success to such organizational factors.
This liberal vision emphasizes the dissemination of ideologically driven views from sympathetic media such as the Fox News Channel. For example, Chris Mooney's book "The Republican War on Science" argues that policy debates in the scientific arena are distorted by conservatives who disregard evidence and reflect the biases of industry-backed Republican politicians or of evangelicals aimlessly shielding the world from modernity. In this interpretation, conservative arguments are invariably false and deployed only cynically. Evidence of the costs of cap-and-trade carbon rationing is waved away as corporate propaganda; arguments against health-care reform are written off as hype orchestrated by insurance companies.
This worldview was on display in the popular liberal reaction to the Supreme Court's recent ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Rather than engage in a discussion about the complexities of free speech in politics, liberals have largely argued that the decision will "open the floodgates for special interests" to influence American elections, as the president warned in his State of the Union address. In other words, it was all part of the conspiracy to support conservative candidates for their nefarious, self-serving ends.
It follows that the thinkers, politicians and citizens who advance conservative ideas must be dupes, quacks or hired guns selling stories they know to be a sham. In this spirit, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman regularly dismisses conservative arguments not simply as incorrect, but as lies. Writing last summer, Krugman pondered the duplicity he found evident in 35 years' worth of Wall Street Journal editorial writers. "What do these people really believe? I mean, they're not stupid -- life would be a lot easier if they were. So they know they're not telling the truth. But they obviously believe that their dishonesty serves a higher truth. . . . The question is, what is that higher truth? What do these people really believe in?"
In Krugman's condescending world, there is no need to take seriously the arguments of "these people" -- only to plumb the depths of their errors and ponder their hidden motivations.
But, if conservative leaders are crass manipulators, then the rank-and-file Americans who support them must be manipulated at best, or stupid at worst. This is the second variety of liberal condescension, exemplified in Thomas Frank's best-selling 2004 book, "What's the Matter With Kansas?" Frank argued that working-class voters were so distracted by issues such as abortion that they were induced into voting against their own economic interests. Then-Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, later chairman of the Democratic National Committee, echoed that theme in his 2004 presidential run, when he said Republicans had succeeded in getting Southern whites to focus on "guns, God and gays" instead of economic redistribution.
And speaking to a roomful of Democratic donors in 2008, then-presidential candidate Obama offered a similar (and infamous) analysis when he suggested that residents of Rust Belt towns "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations" about job losses. When his comments became public, Obama backed away from their tenor but insisted that "I said something that everybody knows is true."
In this view, we should pay attention to conservative voters' underlying problems but disregard the policy demands they voice; these are illusory, devoid of reason or evidence. This form of liberal condescension implies that conservative masses are in the grip of false consciousness. When they express their views at town hall meetings or "tea party" gatherings, it might be politically prudent for liberals to hear them out, but there is no reason to actually listen.
The third version of liberal condescension points to something more sinister. In his 2008 book, "Nixonland," progressive writer Rick Perlstein argued that Richard Nixon created an enduring Republican strategy of mobilizing the ethnic and other resentments of some Americans against others. Similarly, in their 1992 book, "Chain Reaction," Thomas Byrne Edsall and Mary D. Edsall argued that Nixon and Reagan talked up crime control, low taxes and welfare reform to cloak racial animus and help make it mainstream. It is now an article of faith among many liberals that Republicans win elections because they tap into white prejudice against blacks and immigrants.
Race doubtless played a significant role in the shift of Deep South whites to the Republican Party during and after the 1960s. But the liberal narrative has gone essentially unchanged since then -- recall former president Carter's recent assertion that opposition to Obama reflects racism -- even though survey research has shown a dramatic decline in prejudiced attitudes among white Americans in the intervening decades. Moreover, the candidates and policy agendas of both parties demonstrate an unfortunate willingness to play on prejudices, whether based on race, regional stereotypes, class and income, or other factors.
Finally, liberals condescend to the rest of us when they say conservatives are driven purely by emotion and anxiety -- including fear of change -- whereas liberals have the harder task of appealing to evidence and logic. Former vice president Al Gore made this case in his 2007 book, "The Assault on Reason," in which he expressed fear that American politics was under siege from a coalition of religious fundamentalists, foreign policy extremists and industry groups opposed to "any reasoning process that threatens their economic goals." This right-wing politics involves a gradual "abandonment of concern for reason or evidence" and relies on manipulative propaganda to maintain public support, he wrote.
Prominent liberal academics also propagate these beliefs. George Lakoff, a linguist at the University of California at Berkeley and a consultant to Democratic candidates, says flatly that liberals, unlike conservatives, "still believe in Enlightenment reason," while Drew Westen, an Emory University psychologist and Democratic consultant, argues that the GOP has done a better job of mastering the emotional side of campaigns because Democrats, alas, are just too intellectual. "They like to read and think," Westen wrote. "They thrive on policy debates, arguments, statistics, and getting the facts right."
Markos Moulitsas, publisher of the influential progressive Web site Daily Kos, commissioned a poll, which he released this month, designed to show how many rank-and-file Republicans hold odd or conspiratorial beliefs -- including 23 percent who purportedly believe that their states should secede from the Union. Moulitsas concluded that Republicans are "divorced from reality" and that the results show why "it is impossible for elected Republicans to work with Democrats to improve our country." His condescension is superlative: Of the respondents who favored secession, he wonders, "Can we cram them all into the Texas Panhandle, create the state of Dumb-[expletive]-istan, and build a wall around them to keep them from coming into America illegally?"
I doubt it would take long to design a survey questionnaire that revealed strange, ill-informed and paranoid beliefs among average Democrats. Or does Moulitsas think Jay Leno talked only to conservatives for his "Jaywalking" interviews?
These four liberal narratives not only justify the dismissal of conservative thinking as biased or irrelevant -- they insist on it. By no means do all liberals adhere to them, but they are mainstream in left-of-center thinking. Indeed, when the president met with House Republicans in Baltimore recently, he assured them that he considers their ideas, but he then rejected their motives in virtually the same breath.
"There may be other ideas that you guys have," Obama said. "I am happy to look at them, and I'm happy to embrace them. . . . But the question I think we're going to have to ask ourselves is, as we move forward, are we going to be examining each of these issues based on what's good for the country, what the evidence tells us, or are we going to be trying to position ourselves so that come November, we're able to say, 'The other party, it's their fault'?"
Of course, plenty of conservatives are hardly above feeling superior. But the closest they come to portraying liberals as systematically mistaken in their worldview is when they try to identify ideological dogmatism in a narrow slice of the left (say, among Ivy League faculty members), in a particular moment (during the health-care debate, for instance) or in specific individuals (such as Obama or House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whom some conservatives accuse of being stealth ideologues). A few conservative voices may say that all liberals are always wrong, but these tend to be relatively marginal figures or media gadflies such as Glenn Beck.
In contrast, an extraordinary range of liberal writers, commentators and leaders -- from Jon Stewart's "Daily Show" to Obama's White House, with many stops in between -- have developed or articulated narratives that apply to virtually all conservatives at all times.
To many liberals, this worldview may be appealing, but it severely limits our national conversation on critical policy issues. Perhaps most painfully, liberal condescension has distorted debates over American poverty for nearly two generations.
Starting in the 1960s, the original neoconservative critics such as Daniel Patrick Moynihan expressed distress about the breakdown of inner-city families, only to be maligned as racist and ignored for decades -- until appalling statistics forced critics to recognize their views as relevant. Long-standing conservative concerns over the perils of long-term welfare dependency were similarly villainized as insincere and mean-spirited -- until public opinion insisted they be addressed by a Democratic president and a Republican Congress in the 1996 welfare reform law. But in the meantime, welfare policies that discouraged work, marriage and the development of skills remained in place, with devastating effects.
Ignoring conservative cautions and insights is no less costly today. Some observers have decried an anti-intellectual strain in contemporary conservatism, detected in George W. Bush's aw-shucks style, Sarah Palin's college-hopping and occasional conservative campaigns against egghead intellectuals. But alongside that, the fact is that conservative-leaning think tank scholars, economists, jurists and legal theorists have never produced as much detailed analysis and commentary on American life and policy as they do today.
Perhaps the most important conservative insight being depreciated is the durable warning from free-marketeers that government programs often fail to yield what their architects intend. Democrats have been busy expanding, enacting or proposing major state interventions in financial markets, energy and health care. Supporters of such efforts want to ensure that key decisions will be made in the public interest and be informed, for example, by sound science, the best new medical research or prudent standards of private-sector competition. But public-choice economists have long warned that when decisions are made in large, centralized government programs, political priorities almost always trump other goals.
Even liberals should think twice about the prospect of decisions on innovative surgeries, light bulbs and carbon quotas being directed by legislators grandstanding for the cameras. Of course, thinking twice would be easier if more of them were listening to conservatives at all.
galexander16@gmail.com
Gerard Alexander is an associate professor of politics at the University of Virginia. He will be online to chat with readers on Monday, February 8, at 11 a.m. Submit your questions and comments before or during the discussion. On Monday, he will also deliver the American Enterprise Institute's Bradley Lecture, "Do Liberals Know Best? Intellectual Self-Confidence and the Claim to a Monopoly on Knowledge."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/04/AR2010020403698_2.html?sid=ST2010020403858
-
Plan to Seek Use of U.S. Contracts as a Wage Lever
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
Published: February 25, 2010
POTH
The Obama administration is planning to use the government’s enormous buying power to prod private companies to improve wages and benefits for millions of workers, according to White House officials and several interest groups briefed on the plan.
By altering how it awards $500 billion in contracts each year, the government would disqualify more companies with labor, environmental or other violations and give an edge to companies that offer better levels of pay, health coverage, pensions and other benefits, the officials said.
Because nearly one in four workers is employed by companies that have contracts with the federal government, administration officials see the plan as a way to shape social policy and lift more families into the middle class. It would affect contracts like those awarded to make Army uniforms, clean federal buildings and mow lawns at military bases.
Although the details are still being worked out, the outline of the plan is drawing fierce opposition from business groups and Republican lawmakers. They see it as a gift to organized labor and say it would drive up costs for the government in the face of a $1.3 trillion budget deficit.
“I’m suspicious of what the end goals are,” said Ben Brubeck, director of labor and federal procurement for Associated Builders and Contractors, which represents 25,000 construction-related companies. “It’s pretty clear the agenda is to give big labor an advantage in federal contracts.”
Critics also said the policy would put small businesses, many of which do not provide rich benefits, at a disadvantage. Furthermore, government officials would find it difficult to evaluate bidders using the new criteria and to determine whether one company’s compensation package should give it an edge, said Alan L. Chvotkin, executive vice president of the Professional Services Council, a coalition of 340 government contractors.
From his earliest days in office, President Obama has called for an overhaul of government procurement policy, citing the contracting scandals of the previous decade involving cost overruns and no-bid contracts.
“The president made it clear that he is committed to reforming government contracts to save taxpayers money while protecting workers and the environment,” a White House spokesman, Bill Burton, said. “The administration is currently gathering data and examining the best ways to do this.”
Two of Mr. Obama’s allies — John Podesta, the Clinton administration chief of staff who headed the president’s transition team, and Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union — have repeatedly pressed the president to use procurement policy to push up wages and benefits.
In testimony last year to the Office of Management and Budget, Mr. Podesta said that 400,000 workers employed under federal contracts — like cafeteria workers, security guards and landscaping workers at federal buildings — earn less than $22,000 a year, the federal poverty line for a family of four, assuming just one paycheck in a household.
“We have a president who is talking about bringing more people into the middle class,” Mr. Stern said. “The government should expect contractors to obey the law, and at the same time contractors should not be building a poverty economy, but should be trying to build a high-road economy.”
The officials briefed on the plan said it was being developed by officials in the Office of Management and Budget, the White House Office of Legal Counsel, the Treasury, Justice and Labor Departments and the vice president’s Middle Class Task Force.
Even as business groups press the administration for more details, they are denouncing the plan, tentatively named the High Road Procurement Policy.
The Daily Caller, a conservative Web site, reported Feb. 4 that the plan would “heavily favor government contractors that implement policies designed by organized labor.”
Randel K. Johnson, senior vice president for labor at the United States Chamber of Commerce, called the plan a “warmed-over version” of President Bill Clinton’s regulations that sought to bar federal agencies from awarding contracts to companies with a record of breaking labor, environmental or consumer laws. President George W. Bush vacated those regulations soon after taking office.
“We strongly opposed the Clinton blacklist regulations,” Mr. Johnson said, “and this appears worse than that.”
On Feb. 2, Senator Susan Collins of Maine and four other Republican senators sent a letter to Peter R. Orszag, director of the White House budget office, saying, “We are concerned that the imposition of these requirements, during a time of significant economic turmoil in the private sector and tight federal budgets, could have serious, negative consequences, especially for our nation’s small businesses.”
===========
Page 2 of 2)
One signer was Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, who was one of the two main sponsors — the other was Senator Barack Obama — of a bill that sought to increase the transparency and accountability of federal contracting by requiring the government to create a data base of all federal contracts. President Bush signed it into law in 2007.
David Madland, director of the American Workers Project at the Center for American Progress, a liberal research group founded by Mr. Podesta, argues the new policy could lower government costs, instead of raising them.
Many low-wage employees of federal contractors receive Medicaid and food stamps, he said. Citing studies conducted by the Department of Housing and Urban Development and by academic researchers, he said that contractors that pay their employees well have greater productivity and reliability, while contractors with a record of labor law violations do shoddier construction work.
“This policy is good for workers, it’s good for taxpayers and it’s good for high-road businesses,” Mr. Madland said.
He said that one study done by the state of Maryland found that after the state began requiring bidders to pay a living wage, the number of bidders per contract rose by a third on average. Some higher-wage companies said they began seeking government bids because the new policy leveled the playing field.
One federal official said the proposed policy would encourage procurement officers to favor companies with better compensation packages only if choosing them did not add substantially to contract costs. As an example, he said, if two companies each bid $10 million for a contract, and one had considerably better wages and pensions than the other, that company would be favored.
Some supporters of the new procurement policy — and even some opponents — say Mr. Obama could impose it through executive order. They assert that the president has broad powers to issue procurement regulations, just as President John Kennedy did in requiring federal contractors to have companywide equal employment opportunity plans.
But some opponents argue that legislation would be needed because an executive order may collide with laws that require federal contractors to pay the prevailing regional wage for the type of work being done. The executive order, they fear, would call for higher wages.
-
From Britain:
=========
Too much, too soon
As possibly one of its last acts as government, British Labour bids to make sex education compulsory.
Sex education. The very words strike a note of gloom. Long, long ago, back in the 1950s when schoolgirl pregnancies were a rarity, and anyone who gave children contraceptives and urged them to enjoy “safe sex” would have been arrested, things looked different.
In those days, there was a feeling that, with the advent of television and greater prosperity, with young people enjoying more freedom than had been the case in centuries past, and with a general sense of social change in the air, it might be useful to ensure that the young were well informed about the facts of human reproduction. In this way, greater freedom would not spell social chaos; with knowledge and with suitable moral guidance, the young could enjoy wholesome relationships and understand why it was important to remain chaste.
The accepted wisdom was that sexual experimentation among young people arose out of ignorance: girls did not know how babies happened, and were too shy or embarrassed to discuss such things with their parents. Now things would change; health officials drew up plans. All were agreed on one thing: information about sexual and reproductive matters would come with clear moral guidance and, indeed, the whole scheme was seen primarily in that context.
But things did not work out as planned. Other voices took over as commercial and ideological forces got involved. Golly, how different things are in 2010. We have now had massive schemes of propaganda on sexual issues pushed at the young for decades. Schools arrange talks and brochures, demonstrations and films about contraception and abortion, making official links with abortion providers and with clinics which give youngsters contraceptives without parental knowledge or consent. Posters urge youngsters to consider whether or not they are lesbian or homosexual, and how to feel good about it if they decide they are.
The result? The teenage pregnancy rate has soared, and the problem of sexually-transmitted diseases among the young is now so huge that supermarkets and youth clubs have joined health centres and schools in giving information about how to obtain medical help for these potentially lethal illnesses.
Fewer and fewer young people are marrying. Of those who do, many divorce – especially if they have been living together beforehand. Many people in their twenties, attempting marriage, have had multiple sexual partners. Many girls bring to marriage a background of more than one abortion, with its consequent physical and psychological damage. Almost half of all births are now out of wedlock. Children born to unmarried couples have only a slim chance of remaining in contact with both parents by the time they reach puberty as most such relationships break up before then.
And into this grisly scene the government is bringing – yes, you’ve guessed it – more sex education. Under legislation now in Parliament (Children Schools and Families Bill), sex and relationships education will be a compulsory part of the statutory National Curriculum. Parents will continue to have the right to withdraw their children from these classes, but only up to the age of 15. After that they must attend classes which include information on “how and where to obtain information about health and sex advice” -- to wit, your local family planning/abortion clinic. This is to ensure they get at least 12 months of amoral, utilitarian sex education before finishing compulsory schooling.
However, there is no opt-out at any stage for schools. Faith schools -- which constitute a third of all schools in Britain -- will have to teach a curriculum that starts with talking to five-year-olds about bodily changes, teaches “different relationships” (of which marriage is only one) from the age of seven, and everything else from the age of 11 -- including same-sex relationships, contraception and abortion.
Since the government announced its latest plan in November, the excellent Family Education Trust has produced a a devastating critique in its detailed report, Too Much,Too Soon. Increasingly, informed and professional voices are raised about the sexualising of the young and there is discussion about the links between this and the rising tide of teenage drunkenness, violence, and suicide. Ironically, the government itself has just released a report warning Britons about the sexualisation of children -- as if it had nothing to do with its own awful agenda.
In response to outrage from many parents and family groups the minister in charge of this draconian bill, Ed Balls, the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families (yes, this government department really does seem to believe that it is in charge of children and families as well as schools) has insisted that faith schools will still be able to teach the sex content within “the tenets of their faith”. Last week an amendment to this effect was passed in the Commons -- the result of a deal with religious authorities, notably the Catholic Education Service of England and Wales (CES), which seems to regard it as a positive coup.
But there are many sceptics. Jewish columnist Melanie Phillips has taken a liberal rabbi to task for defending the compromise, which she calls “demonstrably absurd”. The Telegraph’s Catholic blogger Damian Thompson has called for the CES to be wound up, and The Catholic Herald says that it demonstrates the need for Catholics to “take drastic action to confront moral relativism in our schools”.
On the other hand the National Secular Society, in tune with much of the press, has portrayed the amendment as a massive concession, saying that the government has “once more bowed to pressure from the Catholic church, betraying the children in faith schools who have a right to objective and balanced sex education."
This, despite Mr Balls’ repeated insistence that there is to be "no watering down" of the government’s scheme. "There's no opt-out for any faith school from teaching the full, broad, balanced curriculum on sex education," he says. "Catholic schools can say to their pupils that, as a religion, we believe contraception is wrong, but what they can't do is say they are not going to teach about contraception."
Meanwhile the CES is emphatic that the character of education in Catholic schools will remain clear: “The teaching of all aspects of the curriculum in Catholic schools reflects their religious ethos. In the same way, the SRE in Catholic schools will be rooted in the Catholic Church’s teaching of the profound respect for the dignity of all human persons," it says. This is unconvincing, to say the least. Already – and this is shameful – some Catholic schools promote access to abortion information and use standard leaflets to ensure that children are given material about contraception.
With a general election coming up this year, this ought to be a major issue. What next? Thank goodness for one clear voice – the Cardinal Archbishop of Edinburgh, Cardinal Keith Patrick O’Brien, has hit out at the government’s “systematic and unrelenting attack on family values”. He points to the “soaring toll” of abortions, and to the government’s record on forcing all adoption agencies to accept allocating children to homosexual couples, as examples of government anti-family attitudes.
Ordinary Christians – and people of all faiths and none who are concerned about the tragic brokenness of modern British society – look to religious leaders for a voice. Can we hear more voices like that of Cardinal O’Brien, please? And can we ask what a Catholic Education Service is for, if it is not to promote Catholic beliefs and values in education?
Sooner or later, there will be a turnaround in the official policies on sex education. The sheer social chaos that has resulted – and will worsen rapidly in the next few years – from the policies of recent decades will ensure this. We need to speed up the process, and we need people of faith to help in that. At present, the future looks bleak.
Joanna Bogle writes from London.
-
Another political fallacy, back in the 50's a majority were still growing up on the farm. If you just watch the animals, you know where babies come from. The labor those mothers went thru also served as a warning how much work birth could be. Raising the livestock and the chores that were required also served as education, all without this "science" of education.
Some of the farmgirls were willing to play, given the information. Others were not willing without a committment, and were in the majority. So what changed where? More .gov interference? Lack of a "natural" living landscape due to the migration to the cities?
-
Everyone knows Democrats are planning to use the budget reconciliation process to get ObamaCare through the Senate. Less well known is that Democrats are plotting add-ons to that bill to get other liberal priorities enacted—programs that could never attract 60 votes.
One of these controversial measures rewrites the Higher Education Act to ban private companies from offering federally guaranteed student loans as of this July. Congress has already passed laws in recent years discouraging private lenders from making loans without a federal guarantee. But most college financial-aid departments still want private companies to originate and service the guaranteed loans. That's because the alternative—a public option run by the Department of Education—has been distinguished by its Soviet-style customer service.
The Democratic plan is to make this public option the only option mere days before colleges send out their financial aid packages to incoming students. The House and Senate budget committees issued instructions last year to look for savings in the student-lending program, so the Democrats have prepared in advance their excuse to jam these changes through the reconciliation process.
View Full Image
Associated Press
Education Secretary Arne Duncan.
.Secretary of Education Arne Duncan portrays the changes as eliminating subsidies to private companies, but no one should misinterpret these comments to mean that taxpayers will benefit. The plan that passed the House includes $67 billion in "savings," according to a Friday estimate from the Congressional Budget Office. But the bill also has more than $77 billion in new spending.
The net loss to taxpayers isn't limited to $10 billion. After inquiries from Senator Judd Gregg (R., N.H.) and Rep. John Kline (R., Minn.) last year, CBO explained that "savings" estimates are artificially high because of government accounting rules that undercount the risks of default when the government is originating the loans, while the new spending estimates are artificially low. This could be significant. Many colleges oppose the government plan specifically because the feds don't make the same effort to prevent defaults that the private lenders do.
Taxpayers have even more reason than academics to fear the impact, in part because the public may not learn the details before this plan becomes law. Democrats aim to bring their education revolution to the floor without a committee vote or even a hearing in the Senate.
Democrats might seek to enact the bill passed by the House last summer, an even more ambitious plan sketched out in the President's 2011 budget, or some mystery meat prepared by chef Tom Harkin, who chairs the Senate education committee. So far he won't tell anyone what's on the menu, and he may not have to. The limited 20 hours of reconciliation debate will no doubt be consumed by ObamaCare, but another new entitlement could be hustled into law under cover of bloviating lawmakers.
Both the House-passed bill and the President's budget increase Pell Grants and also create automatic future increases, so individual grants will grow faster than inflation every year. Colleges will pocket the money by raising tuition, so we have yet another federal program ensuring that higher education costs continue to rise even faster than health-care spending.
Mr. Obama's budget also calls for making Pell Grants a mandatory entitlement. At least now they are subject to annual appropriation and their growth can be slowed when tax revenues fall or other priorities rate higher. Mr. Obama would prefer spending that is quite literally out of control.
"Various changes that the President proposes to the Pell Grant program would add another $0.2 trillion to the deficit between 2011 and 2020," CBO said Friday. That could turn out to be a very optimistic estimate if unemployment remains high and more people seize the educational opportunity to which they have just become entitled. Still another taxpayer trap will be sprung if the President's proposal to forgive some debt incurred by "overburdened" borrowers is included in the bill.
The federal education takeover is another example of the Democrats' willingness to use whatever tactics are necessary to advance their agenda to concentrate power in Washington—while they still can.
-
WSJ:
We're not sure American schools teach civics any more, but once upon a time they taught that under the U.S. Constitution a bill had to pass both the House and Senate to become law. Until this week, that is, when Speaker Nancy Pelosi is moving to merely "deem" that the House has passed the Senate health-care bill and then send it to President Obama to sign anyway.
Under the "reconciliation" process that began yesterday afternoon, the House is supposed to approve the Senate's Christmas Eve bill and then use "sidecar" amendments to fix the things it doesn't like. Those amendments would then go to the Senate under rules that would let Democrats pass them while avoiding the ordinary 60-vote threshold for passing major legislation. This alone is an abuse of traditional Senate process.
But Mrs. Pelosi & Co. fear they lack the votes in the House to pass an identical Senate bill, even with the promise of these reconciliation fixes. House Members hate the thought of going on record voting for the Cornhusker kickback and other special-interest bribes that were added to get this mess through the Senate, as well as the new tax on high-cost insurance plans that Big Labor hates.
View Full Image
Associated Press
Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y
.So at the Speaker's command, New York Democrat Louise Slaughter, who chairs the House Rules Committee, may insert what's known as a "self-executing rule," also known as a "hereby rule." Under this amazing procedural ruse, the House would then vote only once on the reconciliation corrections, but not on the underlying Senate bill. If those reconciliation corrections pass, the self-executing rule would say that the Senate bill is presumptively approved by the House—even without a formal up-or-down vote on the actual words of the Senate bill.
Democrats would thus send the Senate bill to President Obama for his signature even as they claimed to oppose the same Senate bill. They would be declaring themselves to be for and against the Senate bill in the same vote. Even John Kerry never went that far with his Iraq war machinations. As we went to press, the precise mechanics that Democrats will use remained unclear, though yesterday Mrs. Pelosi endorsed this "deem and pass" strategy in a meeting with left-wing bloggers.
This two-votes-in-one gambit is a brazen affront to the plain language of the Constitution, which is intended to require democratic accountability. Article 1, Section 7 of the Constitution says that in order for a "Bill" to "become a Law," it "shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate." This is why the House and Senate typically have a conference committee to work out differences in what each body passes. While sometimes one house cedes entirely to another, the expectation is that its Members must re-vote on the exact language of the other body's bill.
As Stanford law professor Michael McConnell pointed out in these pages yesterday, "The Slaughter solution attempts to allow the House to pass the Senate bill, plus a bill amending it, with a single vote. The senators would then vote only on the amendatory bill. But this means that no single bill will have passed both houses in the same form." If Congress can now decide that the House can vote for one bill and the Senate can vote for another, and the final result can be some arbitrary hybrid, then we have abandoned one of Madison's core checks and balances.
Yes, self-executing rules have been used in the past, but as the Congressional Research Service put it in a 2006 paper, "Originally, this type of rule was used to expedite House action in disposing of Senate amendments to House-passed bills." They've also been used for amendments such as to a 1998 bill that "would have permitted the CIA to offer employees an early-out retirement program"—but never before to elide a vote on the entire fundamental legislation.
We have entered a political wonderland, where the rules are whatever Democrats say they are. Mrs. Pelosi and the White House are resorting to these abuses because their bill is so unpopular that a majority even of their own party doesn't want to vote for it. Fence-sitting Members are being threatened with primary challengers, a withdrawal of union support and of course ostracism. Michigan's Bart Stupak is being pounded nightly by MSNBC for the high crime of refusing to vote for a bill that he believes will subsidize insurance for abortions.
Democrats are, literally, consuming their own majority for the sake of imposing new taxes, regulations and entitlements that the public has roundly rejected but that they believe will be the crowning achievement of the welfare state. They are also leaving behind a procedural bloody trail that will fuel public fury and make such a vast change of law seem illegitimate to millions of Americans.
The concoction has become so toxic that even Mrs. Pelosi isn't bothering to defend the merits anymore, saying instead last week that "we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it." Or rather, "deeming" to have passed it.
-
It is these machinations that have shown up, and violate checks and balances and due process that are getting people increasingly dissatisfied with government. There is a reason the process was a PITA- to make it difficult to pass any new laws, but how many have been passed as riders, earmarks, mandates, exec findings, etc. etc. that bypas what is suposed to happen?
I really think the government is in violation of its contract..............
-
A lot of talk here about theoretical "fascism" from the left, but curiously little to say about a case of actual fascism from the Christian right.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/29/AR2010032901891.html
The Hutaree militia and the rising risk of far-right violence
By Eugene Robinson
Tuesday, March 30, 2010; A25
The arrests of members of a Michigan-based "Christian" militia group should convince doubters that there is good reason to worry about right-wing, anti-government extremism -- and potential violence -- in the Age of Obama.
I put the word Christian in quotes because anyone who plots to assassinate law enforcement officers, as a federal indictment alleges members of the Hutaree militia did, is no follower of Christ. According to federal prosecutors, the Hutaree -- the word's not in my dictionary, but its Web site claims it means "Christian warrior" -- are convinced that their enemies include "state and local law enforcement, who are deemed 'foot soldiers' of the federal government, federal law enforcement agencies and employees, participants in the 'New World Order,' and anyone who does not share in the Hutaree's beliefs."
According to the indictment, the group had been plotting for two years to assassinate federal, state or local police officers. "Possible such acts which were discussed," the indictment says, "included killing a member of law enforcement after a traffic stop, killing a member of law enforcement and his or her family at home, ambushing a member of law enforcement in rural communities, luring a member of law enforcement with a false 911 emergency call and then killing him or her, and killing a member of law enforcement and then attacking the funeral procession motorcade" with homemade bombs.
Nine members of the Hutaree were named in the indictment. Eight were arrested during weekend FBI raids in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana; one suspect remains at large. The group's Web site shows members in camouflage outfits traipsing through woods in "training" exercises. They could be out for an afternoon of paintball, except for the loony rhetoric about "sword and flame" and the page, labeled "Gear," that links to several gun dealers. Along with numerous weapons offenses, the Hutaree are charged with sedition.
The episode highlights the obvious: For decades now, the most serious threat of domestic terrorism has come from the growing ranks of paranoid, anti-government hate groups that draw their inspiration, vocabulary and anger from the far right.
It is disingenuous for mainstream purveyors of incendiary far-right rhetoric to dismiss groups such as the Hutaree by saying that there are "crazies on both sides." This simply is not true.
There was a time when the far left was a spawning ground for political violence. The first big story I covered was the San Francisco trial of heiress Patricia Hearst, who had been kidnapped and eventually co-opted by the Symbionese Liberation Army -- a far-left group whose philosophy was as apocalyptic and incoherent as that of the Hutaree. There are aging radicals in Cuba today who got to Havana by hijacking airplanes in the 1970s. Left-wing radicals caused mayhem and took innocent lives.
But for the most part, far-left violence in this country has gone the way of the leisure suit and the AMC Gremlin. An anti-globalization movement, including a few window-smashing anarchists, was gaining traction at one point, but it quickly diminished after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. An environmental group and an animal-rights group have been linked with incidents of arson. Beyond those particulars, it is hard to identify any kind of leftist threat.
By contrast, there has been explosive growth among far-right, militia-type groups that identify themselves as white supremacists, "constitutionalists," tax protesters and religious soldiers determined to kill people to uphold "Christian" values. Most of the groups that posed a real danger, as the Hutaree allegedly did, have been infiltrated and dismantled by authorities before they could do any damage. But we should never forget that the worst act of domestic terrorism ever committed in this country was authored by a member of the government-hating right wing: Timothy McVeigh's bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City.
It is dishonest for right-wing commentators to insist on an equivalence that does not exist. The danger of political violence in this country comes overwhelmingly from one direction -- the right, not the left. The vitriolic, anti-government hate speech that is spewed on talk radio every day -- and, quite regularly, at Tea Party rallies -- is calibrated not to inform but to incite.
Demagogues scream at people that their government is illegitimate, that their country has been "taken away," that their elected officials are "traitors" and that their freedom is at risk. They have a right to free speech, which I will always defend. But they shouldn't be surprised if some listeners take them literally.
-
Wow, the blinders you folks on the left wear. Every time the World Bank meets, every national political convention, at many armed forces recruiting stations, or when conservative speakers appear on college campuses, and on and on leftists let their fascist ya yas out, but some podunk Christian militia that has likely been long infiltrated by law enforcement comes up with some asinine plan they didn't get around to executing and all of a sudden we are supposed to believe goose stepping Baptists or something are about to sweep across the nation. Build a lot of straw men, do you? Next absurd talking point, please.
-
BBG, you seem rather quick to dismiss this. Would you have the same attitude about "some asinine plan they didn't get around to executing" if we were talking about a group of Muslims instead?
I just assumed that people so concerned about fascism would have something to say about this. Especially since their asinine plans apparently included deliberate targeting of LEOs. Again, is this what you'd be saying if a group of Muslims were the alleged would-be terrorists?
-
Good to see opposing views Rog. Answering from my point of view: Assuming what we are hearing is true, I deplore the terrorists and applaud law enforcement for stepping in preemptively. Saying so seems too obvious, like opposing wife beating, racism The rest I don't buy, that anything I've heard on popular shows or from prominent conservatives caused this.
The piece immediately answered my first point, these people aren't Christians, though you called them the Christian right in your first sentence and they referred to themselves that way.
From the piece: "It is disingenuous...to dismiss groups such as the Hutaree by saying that there are "crazies on both sides." This simply is not true."
- Unibomber Ted kuzinski, St. Paul homemaker, 'Sara Jane Olson' and Obama friend Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn come to mind. I don't know the numbers but..."there are crazies on both sides". He dismisses these as things of the past, but that has more to do with who is in or out of power than right vs. left IMO. Remember the violence in Seattle 1999 over trade rights, environmentalists attacking loggers etc., it goes both ways. Today it is the right who feel powerless, that does not justify violence. No one mainstream and prominent said it did.
Anyone following the uneven recount of the 60th senator (Franken) or the polls tanking on health care and disregard for constitutional limits could easily feel powerless to change government using convention means. The fringe who act on that with terror plans or war can expect to find themselves arrested, and they did.
"we should never forget that the worst act of domestic terrorism ever committed in this country was authored by a member of the government-hating right wing: Timothy McVeigh's bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City."
- And that was RECKLESSLY blamed by President Clinton on Rush Limbaugh. I listened to the show more than Clinton did and I never saw hint toward violence, much less cause and effect. Are you saying, or is he saying, dissent should not be expresses because it could be taken the wrong way?? What were those inciteful words and if so where was the federal prosecution?? Clinton's reaction was political opportunism and so is this.
"The vitriolic, anti-government hate speech that is spewed on talk radio every day...is calibrated not to inform but to incite."
- An example or three might be fitting with a charge like THAT!
"they shouldn't be surprised if some listeners take them literally."
- If they took them literally, they would go out and vote, lol. Did I miss some story that these militias interrupt their training exercises at 'show' time and huddle around their radios for marching orders or words they can overreact to. I seriously doubt these folks look to aging political analysts, entertainers or columnists to find what is wrong in Washington.
So what were those fighting words?
"government is illegitimate" - Also heard that a zillion times about Bush Cheney - not mentioned. Hard not to notice the people in power today got there using an amazing number of false promises and are exercising and expanding powers not authorized in the constitution. That does not equate with a declaration of war.
"that their country has been taken away" - true that many freedoms have been taken and things like the work ethic and entitled to the fruits of your labor are replaced with people taking power from the welfare rights side of the spectrum. Even if done by the majority, mostly by proper procedure, with courts and RINOS signed on, still a part of what many of us value was 'taken'.
"that their elected officials are traitors" - I did not hear that from mainstream conservatives and I listen more than he does. Fact is the other side is STILL calling for war crimes prosecution against the previous administration. Those who made such sounds still frequent the oval office.
Hard to conclude 'cause' or that this goes only one way. But good to see a post that goes too far the other way. We need the balance.
-
Doug,
No time to respond to all your points, but here's my response.
I remember reading the Unabomber manifesto, and IIRC a lot of it was devoted to "the dangers of Lefitsm" and other denunciations of political correctness, etc. In short, Ted was no left-wing terrorist.
The article I posted does acknowledge that left-wing violence did exist at one time, but nothing they did came even close to an Oklahoma City bombing and very little left-wing violence (let alone murder) has happened since the 1960s.
I listen to the right-wingers on the radio all the time, and they would be having a field day if this recent incident involved Muslims instead of Christians. The Rush Limbaughs, Glenn Becks, Sean Hanntiys, etc. would be calling for them to be sent directly to Guantanamo without even a trial. They've had very little to say about this, and have certainly not called for "profiling" of white, Christian men as potential terrorists. I can think of many, many examples of the right wingers on talk radio hysterically accusing Obama and the Democrats of all kinds of nasty stuff. Too many to post here. I think the author of the column I posted is correct is pointing out that it's only a matter of time before some nut takes them seriously. No, they don't specifically urge their listeners to do actual violence, but there is a LOT of coded speech that is pretty racist and all but say outright that violence would be justified. I don't think I'm exaggerating here either.
War crimes charges against Bush & Cheney over Iraq is not likely to happen, but pre-emptive, aggressive war against another nation was officially designated as "the supreme crime from which all others followed" when the Nazis were put on trial in Nuremburg. Again, not saying this is likely to happen or would even result in a conviction, but I see a legitimate case to made here. That's not a "crazy" point of view.
Rog
-
http://fl1.findlaw.com/news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/iraq/libact103198.pdf
Who signed this into law, Rog? A war criminal?
-
No, they don't specifically urge their listeners to do actual violence, but there is a LOT of coded speech that is pretty racist and all but say outright that violence would be justified. I don't think I'm exaggerating here either.
**Please cite some quotes of the "coded speech" mentioned above.**
-
IF the charges against these Hutaree folks are roughly true, then these arrests, a fair trial, and long sentences are in order. OTOH the timing here is very convenient, and the BO administration is well-populated with Alinsky-ites, progressives, socialists, and marxists. Let us watch this one closely.
Furthermore, I would strongly quibble with the idea that these folks, if guilty, are fascists. Fascism, be it corporatist or liberal, is about a very strong state and these folks are quite contrary to that. A different term is needed.
-
GM wrote: "Please cite some quotes of the "coded speech" mentioned above."
GM, As I read your post I heard liberal co-host of 'The View' (I don't know her name) on the Tonight Show say "Karl Rove was attacked today at a book signing - HA HA HA!!!" followed by several derisive comments about him.
An example of not very coded speech, but on the other side.
Rog: The thing with Beck, Limbaugh, etc. is that they fill a gap in the market, not try to cover all stories evenly (obviously). I haven't listened during any of this, but if everyone is already condemning the wackos, there is nothing of value for them to add. But when liberal politician x or y tells a lie or breaks a promise and few in the main stream call him on it, then they add value at least to some by filling the void.
Limbaugh has a strong set of views and he wants you to keep listening to the show. That's it. He makes a big deal that election results don't affect the success of the show. He plays golf, smokes cigars, looks out at the ocean. I kind of doubt he has ever thrown a punch or shot a squirrel much less led a militia. Tells people they can be anything they want to be. He is an expert at timing the monologues and getting smoothly into commercial breaks. Doesn't do motivational rallies. Inciting violence is quite a stretch from everything I've heard on the air.
Beck I find more rambunctious and more open about asking the similar minded to get out and make a difference. But I have many times heard him say what that doesn't mean, anything overboard especially violence and how anything like that just sets the cause back. He prays for the health and safety of the President everyday and I find it genuine.
These guys actually love the challenge and set the example of taking on liberal ideas with words, arguments and persuasion. Beck wants you to punch out the phone calls and be a watch dog for freedom. That is the opposite of telling people they are powerless except to plot and plan to go out and shoot up the place.
-
"I heard liberal co-host of 'The View' (I don't know her name) on the Tonight Show say "Karl Rove was attacked today at a book signing - HA HA HA!!!" followed by several derisive comments about him." This is so common that most of us notice it no more than a fish notices water. The completely uncoded hatred and violent imagery that was aimed at Bush makes what we see now seem pale in comparison.
"I listen to the right-wingers on the radio all the time, and they would be having a field day if this recent incident involved Muslims instead of Christians. The Rush Limbaughs, Glenn Becks, Sean Hanntiys, etc. would be calling for them to be sent directly to Guantanamo without even a trial. They've had very little to say about this, and have certainly not called for "profiling" of white, Christian men as potential terrorists."
RL has too low a content/time ratio for me and I find SH to be such an ass and a mental mediocrity that I only watch his show if there is a guest of interest to me e.g. Newt Gingrich-- so I can't speak from a personally informed perspective on them. I do watch GB quite regularly and think quite a bit of him. That said, we don't have a world-wide movement of white Christian men making war spearheaded by terrorist tactics on our country. If we did, I suspect we might see some different reactions from them.
"I can think of many, many examples of the right wingers on talk radio hysterically accusing Obama and the Democrats of all kinds of nasty stuff. Too many to post here. I think the author of the column I posted is correct is pointing out that it's only a matter of time before some nut takes them seriously. No, they don't specifically urge their listeners to do actual violence, but there is a LOT of coded speech that is pretty racist and all but say outright that violence would be justified. I don't think I'm exaggerating here either."
GB has very consistently and very insistently anticipated that some would go over the edge in response to the dangers to our Republic. Even the opening graphics of his show for all of 2009 showed MLK as a Founding Father on a par with George Washington and Thomas Jefferson-- which is not what a man who is like how you see GB would do.
This brings us to the larger point. Liberal Fascism/Progressivism/Corporate Fascism is destroying our country as we know it. Our HC system is about to be destroyed by a law that was forced through by the progressives/liberal fascists. As this law phases in my life will be less free when I go to my doctor-- which inevitably will involve matters of life and death-- because not only will I have fewer doctors from whom to choose and innovations diminished, but those left will be forced by the State to follow courses of treatment in the the treatments that they offer. The absolutely deranged levels of deficit spending are making debt slaves of us all. As best as I can figure, under the BO ten-year "plan" (Soviet Russia used to have ten year plans too) each of us, including our children, will be some $30,000 further indebted. The suffocation of economic freedom, the regulations, the debt burden, and the taxes that go with all of this (many of which are designed to "nudge" us to behaviors the State wishes to impose upon us) all presents the largest threat to American freedom that I have seen in my lifetime. Government is FORCE and BO et al are massively expanding governmental FORCE into our lives.
IMHO the best strategy is voting (which is badly diminished by gerrymandering and campaign finance law to the benefit of both the Democrat and Republican wings of the Incumbent Party) and the example of MLK. IMHO we are still quite far from a situation which calls for the exercise pf the God-given inalienable revolutionary rights of the American people.
A less violent/force-driven approach to Life by those in Congress and the White House would do wonders in calming things down.
-
BBG, you seem rather quick to dismiss this. Would you have the same attitude about "some asinine plan they didn't get around to executing" if we were talking about a group of Muslims instead?
What, like the Muslim militia groups who have been training in facilities in New York, Virginia and elsewhere for years without any arrests being made? Seeing how Eric Holder just dismissed charges against New Black Panthers caught on film waving batons at voters in a clear effort to intimidate, I guess federal law enforcement is being selective about their priorities. This incident has an odor about it similar to the Randy Weaver Charlie Foxtrot where a confidential informant wheedled Weaver into committing a crime that SWAT was then sent in to deal with. How 'bout we wait to hear the particulars before leaping to conclusions, or is a rush to judgement what right thinking folks like you demand?
Speaking of inconsistencies, I see in pervious posts you had complaints about Guantánamo, but haven't had anything to say lately about the fact it wasn't closed; took great issue with the term "Islamofascist," but seem to have little complaint about a Christian Fascist label; made a lot of hay over climate change "deniers" being in the pocket of oil companies, but have had nothing to say about how it's come out in the wake of Climategate that those companies funded Warmist research, and so on. Are you really the guy who should be beating his breast about consistency?
-
Will these domestic terrorists get lawyers from big firms lining up to defend them pro bono, like the jihadis in Gitmo did? Will they get tenure at universities like Obama's patron Bill Ayers did?
-
Crafty,
You saying the Hutaree militia is not "fascist" because they are "quite contrary" to a strong state is BS. Would they not be perfectly happy with a "strong state" that forced their brand of fundamentalist Christianity on everybody? Even leaving the Muslisms aside, to call the Democrats "fascist" for passing a completely weak health care reform bill (when ALL other industrialized nations have a much stronger form of it) while consciously avoiding the term for the Hutarees says that you guys pretty much consider only liberals even capable of fascism. It's difficult to take such a discussion of "fascism" seriously.
Rog
-
GM,
I often hear Rush and others refer to Obama as "that boy king". Obama is on the younger side in terms of US presidents' age, but he's hardly the youngest. I think "boy king" term is a reference to when it was common for whites to address blacks as "boy". Rush and these other clowns are no doubt well aware of the racist hostility no small number of their listeners have for Obama, but since it's not kosher to be seen too directly appealing to this, the coded speech will have to do.
Let's not forget the words of Republican god Lee Atwater regarding the infamous "Southern Strategy":
Atwater: As to the whole Southern strategy that Harry Dent and others put together in 1968, opposition to the Voting Rights Act would have been a central part of keeping the South. Now [the new Southern Strategy of Ronald Reagan] doesn’t have to do that. All you have to do to keep the South is for Reagan to run in place on the issues he's campaigned on since 1964 and that's fiscal conservatism, balancing the budget, cut taxes, you know, the whole cluster.
Questioner: But the fact is, isn't it, that Reagan does get to the Wallace voter and to the racist side of the Wallace voter by doing away with legal services, by cutting down on food stamps?
Atwater: You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger"—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger."[7]
Doug, Crafty, was it reasonable or accurate, in your opinions, for Glenn Beck to say (about Obama):
This president, I think, has exposed himself as a guy, over and over and over again, who has a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture. I'm not saying he doesn't like white people, I'm saying he has a problem. He has a -- this guy is, I believe, a racist.
-
Rog,
You kind of glossed over how "Clinton lied, people died", right? When do Al Gore and Slick Willy face war crimes prosecution, using your "not crazy" legal theory?
Rush used "boy king" and that's your smoking gun for a racist incitement for violence? Shall we compare and contrast with Obama's pastor of 20 years, his friend Bill Ayers, or the leader of the NOI that went to visit Moammar Kadaffi in Libya in 1984 with Obama's spiritual leader in tow? Remember Obama's "typical white person" quote? Remember Obama's rush to judgement on a Cambridge police officer while remaining agnostic on the motivations of the Ft. Hood jihadist?
Remember the last 8 years of leftist hatred aimed at President Bush? Lee Atwater is a republican god? In what fantasy world? Funny how you can immediately associate "boy king" with race, it never occurred to me. That says something, doesn't it.
-
"Doug, Crafty, was it reasonable or accurate, in your opinions, for Glenn Beck to say (about Obama):This president, I think, has exposed himself as a guy, over and over and over again, who has a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture. I'm not saying he doesn't like white people, I'm saying he has a problem. He has a -- this guy is, I believe, a racist."
- To me, yes. I didn't like his referral to Grandma as a typical white person and references of that sort in his books, though he is entitled to that view. Same for clinging to God, gays and guns, not expressly race but disdainful and condescending to a group he dislikes that happen to be white. That was prior to his election. Now he represents all of us and hopefully has shaken that off.
I hate race identification and race politics. I oppose Obama based on his policies. So does Rush and Beck. It is crazy to think Rush would be more tolerant if Hillary had won, or Joe Biden! You don't believe that.(?) Or that Beck would simmer down if it was a white Ralph Nader bring Maoists and Marxists into the White House to help on economic policy and inch toward socialized medicine. Rush's right hand man is black, his fill-in host is black. His song the magic negro is a parody on a piece in the LA Times that no one else criticized. Harry Reid made the negro gaffe, same for Biden, also about Indians at 7-11. No career ending uproars there. I didn't hear the boy king nickname. If so, I see that point, but also true that his party picked the youngest candidate with the least experience and opponents think he behaves like a king - or a religious figure. He has much more often been called 'the Messiah'. Nothing racial there.
Barack Obama is half black and half white, Kansas I think. He identifies himself as black. Where he has expressed pride in his white heritage? Will he lead the charge to start a white history month in Kansas? :-)
-
GM,
I also felt that the "birther" movement (heavily egged-on by the talk radio right-wingers) had a fairly racist component to it. Again, they're not going to come right out and say "aren't you pissed off that a black guy is president?" But if all you're doing is "simply asking the question" (over and over and very loudly) of whether the black president is *really* American, then you're appealing to racists without having to make any openly, blatantly racist statements. Not all (or even most) conservatives are racist, but a significant chunk of them are and politicians and media personalities absolutely know it.
I take back my calling Lee Atwater "Republican god", since it would be incorrect to suggest most Republicans agree with him. To his credit, near the end of his life he expressed deep regret for a lot of the nasty things he did as a political consultant. It's unfortunate that his proteges who are still operating today haven't come to any such enlightenment.
But back to the subject of the thread, why are none of you willing to call the Hutarees "fascist"? Or do you guys just want to call Obama and the Dems fascists and have tailored your definition of the term to apply solely to them (and Hitler, Mussolini, etc)?
Rog
-
Barack Obama is half black and half white, Kansas I think. He identifies himself as black. Where he has expressed pride in his white heritage?
I'm not black myself, so I don't know what it's like to grow up (even partially) black in US society. If you look black, you're 100% black as far as most people are concerned, regardless of your actual percentage. I'm guessing you're asking the above question facetiously of course :)
As far as Obama being racist goes, come on. People with a "deep-seated hatred" of people with a certain skin color were doing lynchings and behind-the-car draggings. When Obama was a kid, that stuff was still happening and it was possible for white people to be (what would now be considered) blatantly racist in polite company. Again, I imagine somebody who actually grew up black would see it differently than a white person.
-
"If you look black, you're 100% black as far as most people are concerned, regardless of your actual percentage." - No. The Majority leader of the senate disagrees. Being "light skinned and with no Negro dialect" makes the difference. :-)
Lynchings and car draggings? No. He grew up with every advantage most whites don't have, the best private schools growing up, plus Columbia University and Harvard Law School. He was in Harvard law School and President of the Law Review either partly because of race or else it obviously didn't hurt. Now private schools for his kids. Hardly a lynching. If it was all for academic achievement, why not release college transcripts? Who paid for college and how did he get into the best ones? Harvard Law School with a 3.3 GPA? It all reaks of special treatment, fine, but accompanied with thanklessness for it - as I see it.
-----
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_were_Barack_Obama%27s_grades_in_college
What were Barack Obama's grades in college?
In: US Presidents, Barack Obama, Nobel Prize Winners
Barack Obama has not released transcripts for his grades from Occidental College, Columbia University and Harvard Law. He has also not released his SAT and LSAT scores. No explanation has been offered for not releasing them.
Per the Wall Street Journal September 11, 2008, "Obama's Lost Years," Obama graduated from Columbia University (to which he transferred after his first two years at Occidental College in California), with a degree in Political Science without honors, so had a GPA less than a 3.3.
------
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/02/AR2009010202325.html
Washington Post Saturday, January 3, 2009
HONOLULU -- When President-elect Barack Obama visited the lush campus of his old high school for a game of basketball in the waning days of his vacation this week, he returned to no ordinary Hawaiian school, but one with a rich history of teaching the island's elite and an array of distinctions: the nation's No. 1-ranked athletic program, the largest U.S. independent day school and the oldest west of the Mississippi River.
----
The Punahou School campus covers 76 acres at the edge of lush Manoa Valley. Students occupy 44 school buildings, including three libraries and learning centers; computer areas and language labs; an impressive physical education facility (that includes a gymnasium, 50-meter pool, Mondo track, playing fields, racquetball and tennis courts, and weight and training facilities); and art facilities that include jewelry, ceramics and glassblowing.
No record of lynchings.
-
Rog:
Too many points to address in my day, so for the moment I will refresh your memory with this:
"Liberal Fascism/Progressivism/Corporate Fascism is destroying our country as we know it."
Please note "corporate fascism" as part of the mix. I don't accept calling the Huts "fascist" because there is nothing in the record of which I am aware that indicates they are for the large coercive state you seem to favor or that they call for religious coercion. Indeed, as best as I can tell their starting point is a desire to be left alone.
Concerning the new HC law-- IMHO it deliberately contains the seeds of destruction for the remainder of private sector health care insurance. BO has already been campaigning for single payer a.k.a. nationalized/socialized medicine.
-
GM,
I also felt that the "birther" movement (heavily egged-on by the talk radio right-wingers) had a fairly racist component to it.
**Birtherism, in general is fueled by two non-racial elements:
1. A distrust of the MSM (and rightfully so).
2. The perception that Obama has no love for America, no attachment to this nation and it's ideals, again rightly so in my book.**
Again, they're not going to come right out and say "aren't you pissed off that a black guy is president?" But if all you're doing is "simply asking the question" (over and over and very loudly) of whether the black president is *really* American, then you're appealing to racists without having to make any openly, blatantly racist statements. Not all (or even most) conservatives are racist, but a significant chunk of them are and politicians and media personalities absolutely know it.
**The people that are actually pissed that a black guy is president need no code words. The people that are frightened/angered by Obama's ascent to power are concerned by the red shade of his ideology, not the amount of melanin in his skin.**
I take back my calling Lee Atwater "Republican god", since it would be incorrect to suggest most Republicans agree with him. To his credit, near the end of his life he expressed deep regret for a lot of the nasty things he did as a political consultant. It's unfortunate that his proteges who are still operating today haven't come to any such enlightenment.
But back to the subject of the thread, why are none of you willing to call the Hutarees "fascist"? Or do you guys just want to call Obama and the Dems fascists and have tailored your definition of the term to apply solely to them (and Hitler, Mussolini, etc)?
Rog
-
Crafty wrote: [New Health care law]"contains the seeds of destruction for the remainder of private sector health care insurance."
Obama came out of closed door sessions with supporters of single payer - one system heath care, including Dennis Kucinich,, with their vote switched from no to yes based on assurances made and a road map to the satisfaction of those representatives.
Promised with openness and specifically with negotiations publicly broadcast. Delivered with tricks, deals and back room buy-offs and sell-offs. Invites the charge of ... illegitimacy.
Obama still says you won't lose your current plan, but I will lose mine, please see HR-4872 Section 202(d)(2). Be careful googling that. I locked up my computer downloading and searching the various versions of the Multi-Kilo-Page 2010 Federal Simplification of Health Affordability Mandates (FED-SHAM-2010). :-(
-
"A form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion." [Robert O. Paxton, "The Anatomy of Fascism," 2004]
**Sounds more like Obama and his consolidation of power rather than a handful of midwestern loons awaiting a final apocalyptic battle with the anti-christ, yes?**
-
**Rog, did you bother to parse out the various "clean and articulate" and "He'd be getting coffee for us" "negro dialect" quotes for racist motivations from democrats? No code words in these statements, are there?**
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/06/nader-obama-try.html
Nader -- who launched his 5th presidential campaign in February -- says the only thing different about Obama from previous Democratic presidential candidates is his race. "I haven't heard him have a strong crackdown on economic exploitation in the ghettos," Nader says. "Payday loans, predatory lending, asbestos, lead. What's keeping him from doing that? Is it because he wants to talk white? He doesn't want to appear like Jesse Jackson? We'll see all that play out in the next few months and if he gets elected afterwards."
____________________________
Sep 14, 2006
Top Racist Democrat Quotes
"You cannot go to a 7-11 or Dunkin Donuts unless you have a slight Indian Accent."
-Senator Joe Biden
Mahatma Gandhi "ran a gas station down in Saint Louis."
-Senator Hillary Clinton
Some junior high n*gger kicked Steve's ass while he was trying to help his brothers out; junior high or sophomore in high school. Whatever it was, Steve had the n*gger down. However it was, it was Steve's fault. He had the n*gger down, he let him up. The n*gger blindsided him."
-- Roger Clinton, the President's brother on audiotape
"You'd find these potentates from down in Africa, you know, rather than eating each other, they'd just come up and get a good square meal in Geneva."
-- Fritz Hollings (D, S.C.)
"Is you their black-haired answer-mammy who be smart? Does they like how you shine their shoes, Condoleezza? Or the way you wash and park the whitey's cars?"
-- Left-wing radio host Neil Rogers
Blacks and Hispanics are "too busy eating watermelons and tacos" to learn how to read and write." -- Mike Wallace, CBS News. Source: Newsmax
Black on Black
"In the days of slavery, there were those slaves who lived on the plantation and [there] were those slaves that lived in the house. You got the privilege of living in the house if you served the master ... exactly the way the master intended to have you serve him. Colin Powell's committed to come into the house of the master. When Colin Powell dares to suggest something other than what the master wants to hear, he will be turned back out to pasture."
-- Harry Belafonte
"Republicans bring out Colin Powell and J.C. Watts because they have no program, no policy. They have no love and no joy. They'd rather take pictures with black children than feed them." -- Donna Brazile, Al Gore's Campaign Manager for the 2000 election
(On Clarence Thomas) "A handkerchief-head, chicken-and-biscuit-eating Uncle Tom." -- Spike Lee
"He's married to a white woman. He wants to be white. He wants a colorless society. He has no ethnic pride. He doesn't want to be black."
-- California State Senator Diane Watson's on Ward Connerly's interracial marriage
Comments From The Past
"Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds."
-- Former Klansman and current US Senator Robert Byrd, a man who is referred to by many Democrats as the "conscience of the Senate", in a letter written in 1944, after he quit the KKK.
"I am a former kleagle of the Ku Klux Klan in Raleigh County and the adjoining counties of the state .... The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia .... It is necessary that the order be promoted immediately and in every state of the Union. Will you please inform me as to the possibilities of rebuilding the Klan in the Realm of W. Va .... I hope that you will find it convenient to answer my letter in regards to future possibilities."
-- Former Klansman and current US Senator Robert Byrd, a man who is referred to by many Democrats as the "conscience of the Senate", in a letter written in 1946, after he quit the KKK.
"These laws [segregation] are still constitutional and I promise you that until they are removed from the ordinance books of Birmingham and the statute books of Alabama, they will be enforced in Birmingham to the utmost of my ability and by all lawful means."
-- Democrat Bull Connor (1957), Commissioner of Public Safety for Birmingham, Alabama
"I'll have those n*ggers voting Democratic for the next 200 years."
-- Lyndon B. Johnson to two governors on Air Force One according Ronald Kessler's Book, "Inside The White House"
(On New York) "K*ketown." -- Harry Truman in a personal letter
"I think one man is just as good as another so long as he's not a n*gger or a Chinaman. Uncle Will says that the Lord made a White man from dust, a nigger from mud, then He threw up what was left and it came down a Chinaman. He does hate Chinese and Japs. So do I. It is race prejudice, I guess. But I am strongly of the opinion Negroes ought to be in Africa, Yellow men in Asia and White men in Europe and America."
-Harry Truman (1911) in a letter to his future wife Bess
"There’s some people who’ve gone over the state and said, ‘Well, George Wallace has talked too strong about segregation.’ Now let me ask you this: how in the name of common sense can you be too strong about it? You’re either for it or you’re against it. There’s not any middle ground as I know of." -- Democratic Alabama Governor George Wallace (1959)
On Jews
"You f*cking Jew b@stard." -- Hillary Clinton to political operative Paul Fray. This was revealed in "State of a Union: Inside the Complex Marriage of Bill and Hillary Clinton" and has been verified by Paul Fray and three witnesses.
"The Jews don't like Farrakhan, so they call me Hitler. Well, that's a good name. Hitler was a very great man. He rose Germany up from the ashes." -- Louis Farrakhan (1984) who campaigned for congresswoman Cynthia McKinney in 2002
"Now that nation called Israel, never has had any peace in forty years and she will never have any peace because there can never be any peace structured on injustice, thievery, lying and deceit and using the name of God to shield your dirty religion under his holy and righteous name." -- Louis Farrakhan who campaigned for congresswoman Cynthia McKinney in 2002, 1984
'Hymies.' 'Hymietown.' -- Jesse Jackson's description of New York City while on the 1984 presidential campaign trail.
"Jews — that's J-E-W-S." -- Democratic state representative Bill McKinney on why his daughter Cynthia lost in 2002
On Whites
"I want to go up to the closest white person and say: 'You can't understand this, it's a black thing' and then slap him, just for my mental health."
-- Charles Barron, a New York city councilman at a reparations rally, 2002
"Civil rights laws were not passed to protect the rights of white men and do not apply to them." -- Mary Frances Berry, Chairwoman, US Commission on Civil Rights
(I) "will not let the white boys win in this election."
-- Donna Brazile, Al Gore's Campaign Manager on the 2000 election
"The old white boys got taken fair and square." -- San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown after winning an election
"There are white n*ggers. I've seen a lot of white n*ggers in my time." -- Former Klansman and Current US Senator Robert Byrd, a man who is referred to by many Democrats as the "conscience of the Senate" in March of 2001
"The Medicaid system must have been developed by a white male slave owner. It pays for you to be pregnant and have a baby, but it won't pay for much family planning." -- Jocelyn Elders
The white man is our mortal enemy, and we cannot accept him. I will fight to see that vicious beast go down into the lake of fire prepared for him from the beginning, that he never rise again to give any innocent black man, woman or child the hell that he has delighted in pouring on us for 400 years." -- Louis Farrakhan who campaigned for congresswoman Cynthia McKinney in 2002, City College audience in New York
"There's no great, white bigot; there's just about 200 million little white bigots out there." -- USA Today columnist Julienne Malveaux
"We have lost to the white racist press and to the racist reactionary Jewish misleaders." -- Former Rep. Gus Savage (D-Illinois) after his defeat 1992
"White folks was in caves while we was building empires... We taught philosophy and astrology and mathematics before Socrates and them Greek homos ever got around to it." -- Rev. Al Sharpton in a 1994 speech at Kean College, NJ, cited in "Democrats Do the Dumbest Things
"The white race is the cancer of human history." -- Susan Sontag
"Reparations are a really good way for white people to admit they're wrong." -- Zack Webb, University Of Kentucky NAACP
Wow Democrat's... We Hardly Knew Ya! -
-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6b1VOAATNk&feature=player_embedded#
History lesson.
-
The Hutarees: Exposure and Vulnerability
April 1, 2010
By Fred Burton and Ben West
On March 29, an indictment accusing nine individuals of planning attacks against police officers was unsealed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. Those named in the indictment had been arrested by a joint anti-terrorism task force consisting of the FBI, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and state and local police. Raids took place from March 27 to 29, with most of the arrests occurring in Washtenaw County in southeastern Michigan, near the border with Ohio. Other arrests took place in Ohio and Indiana. Photos and video of the raids showed special operations police staging outside targeted properties with armored personnel carriers, assault rifles and helicopter support — unusually overwhelming measures, likely taken because of suspicion that the group was plotting to kill police officers.
The individuals referred to themselves as “Hutarees,” a name meaning “Christian Soldiers” according to the group’s Web site, although it is unclear what language the word might come from. The federal indictment indicated that the apparent leader of the group, David Brian Stone, was known to make up names for tactical operations and maneuvers, so it is likely he coined the name of the group as well. The meaning given the term reflects the group’s extremist Christian beliefs and its claims that it was preparing to defend itself and others in the name of Christianity. According to the Hutaree Web site:
Jesus wanted us to be ready to defend ourselves using the sword and stay alive using equipment … We, the Hutaree, are prepared to defend all those who belong to Christ and save those who aren’t. We will still spread the word, and fight to keep it, up to the time of the great coming.
All the task force raids transpired and ended peacefully, with one of the members, Joshua Matthew Stone, David’s son, holding out the longest. All nine individuals were charged Monday with seditious conspiracy; attempts to use weapons of mass destruction; teaching and demonstrating the use of explosive materials; and carrying a firearm for criminal violence. According to the indictment, the nine individuals trained in small-unit paramilitary tactics and acquired and trained with firearms, live ammunition, explosives, uniforms, communication equipment and medical supplies. It consisted of two units, one led by David Stone and the other led by his son Joshua, and the two units met and trained together roughly once a month. Another son, David Brian Stone Jr., served as the militia’s explosives instructor and demonstrator.
The most incriminating act the group committed was plotting to kill police officers by luring them into a trap. The group was planning to cause a police traffic stop or fake a 911 call and attack the responding officers, then follow up with more attacks during the official funerals that would follow. The indictment also accuses the elder David Brian Stone of instructing the group to kill anyone who happened upon and did not acquiesce to the group during an exercise set to take place in April 2010. This overt and imminent threat likely precipitated the raid that led to the arrests in late March. The group allegedly intended to trigger a larger uprising against the U.S. government in response to Hutaree activities, a charge that carries connotations of terrorism.
A Lack of Operational Security
Federal charges against the Hutarees relate to events as far back as August 2008, approximately when the group began plotting against the federal government, according to the indictment. It is unclear exactly how federal investigators collected information on the group, although it is not too difficult to imagine, given the group’s relatively high profile. For one thing, it maintained a Web site with photos of members, scheduled meeting times and forums where members and visitors could post comments and communicate with each other. This made it very easy for anyone to find the group and initiate contact with it, which in turn made it an easy target for enforcement.
The group displayed on its Web site and in a YouTube video footage of members training in small-unit tactics, images that never depicted more than six or seven people at a time. A group photo on their Web site shows 17 people, presumably the entire Hutaree membership, a relatively small group for a militia. The videos show them patrolling through woodlands and conducting small-arms firing exercises from behind vehicles. One video shows a mock-up of an improvised explosive device being detonated by a man crossing a tripwire and “killing” him, a demonstration that substantiates the accusation in the indictment that the group was attempting to acquire explosive materials and construct improvised explosive devices. In that same video, members of the group are seen setting fire to the UN flag and raising a flag bearing their own Hutaree insignia: an “H” overlaying a cross with two crossed spears at the bottom. However, the weapons displayed by the group varied: Some members brandished semi-automatic assault rifles while others held bolt-action hunting rifles. The lack of weapon standardization indicates that the group was still operating at a low level of organization.
The group was also thought to have had connections with other militias in the region. The federal indictment specifically mentions a meeting with several other groups that Hutarees planned to attend Feb. 6 in Kentucky. The meeting was meant to “facilitate better communications, cooperation, and coordination between the various militias.” Such contact with other militias is probably what emboldened the Hutarees to expect a coordinated uprising from these groups when the Hutarees started their offensive against the U.S. government. Although representatives of the group were ultimately unable to attend the February meeting, their intention to go indicates that they communicated with other groups in the region, and this would have increased the number of people who knew about them and could report on their activities. (In fact, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Detroit field office, Andrew Arena, confirmed that an outside militia member had gone to the FBI after interacting with the Hutaree group.) It also means that the group likely engaged in e-mail and/or telephone contact with outsiders, which would allow law enforcement authorities to keep tabs on the group’s thoughts and plans.
Finally, one of the arrested individuals, Kristopher Sickles, had been a guest numerous times on nationally syndicated radio shows, once in August 2009 under the pseudonym “Pale Horse.” Publicly, Sickles associated himself with the Ohio militia, a fact that, when combined with details from the indictment, indicates that the group was not necessarily exclusive and that members of the Hutarees also trained with other groups in the region. The fact that the Hutarees trained together only once a month gave members ample opportunity to be involved in other militia activities. The fact that Hutaree members associated with other groups is not surprising; it would have helped them expand the movement and improve communications. But it would also have undermined the authority of any one group and prevented a clear hierarchy from forming, since the foot soldiers would not have answered to any one commander. This sort of dynamic dilutes any one group’s potency and leaves it more vulnerable to detection.
In his radio talk-show interviews, Sickles claimed he and his compatriots were “practicing their constitutional rights” by collecting firearms and ammunition and encouraging others to do so as well, emphasizing the need to “be prepared.” When asked what he was preparing for, Sickles named the economic crisis and the threat of U.S. involvement in more foreign wars while alluding to certain unanticipated and unnamed threats. He did not advocate the radical Christian ideology that was put forward by other members of the Hutarees and certainly did not publicly advocate attacking law enforcement officers.
The Risk of Going Public
Maintaining such a public profile greatly reduces the ability of any group to carry out surprise attacks on police officers and opens the group to infiltration. Sure enough, the federal indictment alludes to at least one case in which David Brian Stone sent diagrams and information on explosive devices over the Internet to “a person he believed capable of manufacturing the devices,” wording that indicates that either the FBI was using a source or an undercover agent had convinced Stone that he was an explosives expert who could help them. Such a source would be able to keep tabs on the group and draw them out. This tactic is extremely common in domestic counterterrorism cases involving Islamist militants and shows how the terrorist attack cycle is vulnerable, no matter who the actors are. Other cases, such as the Newburgh, N.Y., plot, involved law enforcement penetration into the suspected group and promises to deliver explosive material.
Successful domestic terror attacks require a high degree of isolation on the part of the operatives. The more people brought in to assist with the operation and become familiar with the group’s intentions, the higher the group’s risk of discovery. Unlike successful domestic terrorists before them, like Timothy McVeigh and Theodore Kaczynski, the Hutarees failed spectacularly at maintaining isolation, and this allowed authorities to penetrate their circle and maintain surveillance, thus mitigating any threat they posed.
The targets that the Hutarees had identified were police officers, who themselves are vulnerable targets (as seen in the fatal shootings in Seattle in November 2009), and considering the tactics the Hutarees devised to lure officers in and the arsenal they possessed, they certainly posed a risk. However, the degree of publicity that the Hutarees generated indicates that they were not practicing good tradecraft when it came to operational security — making the group an easy target for federal law enforcement agencies. This is an Achilles’ heel for many militant and criminal conspiratorial plots, especially plots originating inside the United States, where federal, state and local agencies are able to monitor a group’s e-mail, voice communications and activities.
-
These clowns were Christian apocalyptic types who liked to dress up an play war. People who make so much tea out of these paltry leaves ought to be called teabaggers, too.
The Hutaree Arrest and Getting Tough on Terror From Left and Right
Brian Doherty | March 29, 2010
The indictment on the Hutaree "militia arrests" is out. From my read, even taking every word in it as gospel, it sounds like these guys were angry loudmouths who fantasized too much to someone who turned out to be a federal informant or agent, but who they thought was a potential comrade who might help them obtain some explosives.
I may be wrong on this, the government will have its opportunity to prove its case in court, and the defendents will have their opportunity to, well, defend themselves. (I have written and blogged in the past on the generally weak nature of the government's past highly publicized "domestic terror" busts.) It is way too early to decide exactly how much of a real threat to other people's lives and property these guys were.
Not if you are bloggers at DailyKos who are thrilled to see "sedition" being called by its true name, and appearing to presume that, well, the government wouldn't charge someone with something if they weren't guilty.
At Balloon Juice, they play a particularly dumb version of the "my opponents are hypocrites" game while lumping together everyone they think of as "on the right":
The indictment sounds pretty clear: we captured a bunch of religious fundamentalist extremists planning mass casualty attacks against America. Unlike, say, Jose Padilla or any of the clown car gangs whom Bush rounded up this team had the gear and the training to go operational (and kill a lot of people) within a month.
Rightwing antiterror doctrine clearly states that we must strip these “terrorists” (no such thing as alleged in the war on terror) naked and hang them in cold cages by the wrists with their arms tied behind their backs so that the tendons tear and the shoulder joint dislocates. We should waterboard them until they confess and give up their co-conspirators (the Inquisition found waterboarding almost 100% effective!). Without question these people should be held without any trial or access to habeas corpus petitions until the “war” against violent fundamentalist groups is over. At the very least we should shunt these guys into military tribunals where the rules have been rigged to ensure a conviction.
Of course Jonah Goldberg and Glenn Reynolds and Crittenden and Erickson and any other credentialed rightblogger will agree with what I just said. They have to.
I guess Balloon Juice is saying that, well, since these terrorists are on Goldberg and Reynolds' team, that they will defend them? Frankly, from their website's concerns and the general sense of their intellectual and cultural milieu I got from it, it would surprise the hell out of me if the Hutaree gave much of a damn about the vital importance of keeping Gitmo open, nor do the Jonah Goldberg/Glenn Reynolds right generally make much common cause with Christian apocalyptic warriors in the woods. But I am glad to see Balloon Juice is setting themselves up to be strong watchdogs for the Hutaree's procedural rights as this proceeds.
The Detroit News article (filled with good details on the specifics of the many raids that led to the arrests) has an interesting story spelling out that, whatever the Hutaree's crimes turn out to be, it would be wrong to smear the entire "militia movement" so-called with them:
Mike Lackomar, of Michiganmilitia.com, said...he heard from other militia members that the FBI targeted the Hutaree after its members made threats of violence against Islamic organizations.
"Last night and into today the FBI conducted a raid against homes belonging to the Hutaree. They are a religious cult. They are not part of our militia community," he said.....
One of the Hutaree members called a Michigan militia leader for assistance Saturday after federal agents had already began their raid, Lackomar said, but the militia member -- who is of Islamic decent and had heard about the threats -- declined to offer help. That Michigan militia leader is now working with federal officials to provide information on the Hutaree member for the investigation, Lackomar said Sunday.
"They are more of survivalist group and in an emergency they withdraw and stand their ground. They are actively training to be alongside Jesus," he said.
Anyone writing or thinking about how this is all going to play out as a cultural and political story should have under their belt Jesse Walker's excellent October 2009 Reason magazine feature on "The Paranoid Center."
http://reason.com/blog/2010/03/29/the-hutaree-arrest-and-getting
-
Granny fined £1,000 for selling goldfish to child
Wed Mar 31, 9:01 AM
LONDON (AFP) - A British grandmother was heavily fined and electronically tagged for selling a goldfish to a child, triggering criticism Wednesday of over-zealous use of animal protection laws.
Pet shop owner Joan Higgins, 66, was fined 1,000 pounds (1,500 dollars, 1,120 euros) also given a dusk-to-dawn curfew for selling an animal to a person under the age of 16, but her 47-year-old son Mark -- also ordered to do community service -- slammed the ruling as a farce.
The pair were prosecuted after the local council sent a 14-year-old boy to buy a goldfish in a "sting" operation following reports that their shop, Majors Pets, had sold a gerbil to a teenager with learning difficulties.
The shopkeepers sold the fish without asking his age or how the fish would be cared for, prosecutors said.
"I think it's a farce and legal lunacy and I told the council that," said Mark Higgins, cited by the Daily Telegraph, noting that his mother was also given an electronic tag.
"What gets me so cross is that they put my Mum on a tag -- she's nearly 70, for goodness sake... You would think they have better things to do with their time and money," he said.
But Trafford Council in northern England defended the decision to prosecute, noting that the gerbil sold to the teenager with learning difficulties -- who was also 14 -- was put in a cup of coffee.
"The evidence presented for this conviction clearly demonstrates that it is irresponsible to sell animals to those who are not old enough to look after them," said Iain Veitch, the council's head of public protection.
Higgins and her son pleaded guilty at Trafford Magistrates' Court to selling an animal to a person aged under 16. She was ordered to obey a curfew from 6:00 pm to 7:00 am for seven weeks because she is unfit for community service.
Her son, who manages the shop, was fined 750 pounds and ordered to carry out 120 hours of unpaid community work at the end of eight months of legal action Tuesday.
The story was highlighted by a number of British newspapers Wednesday. The Daily Express said it made a "farce" of Britain's legal system, adding in a front-page headline: "Proof Britain really has gone mad."
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/100331/oddities/britain_legal_animals_offbeat
-
Waxman Convenes the First Death Panel
The chairman is denouncing businesses for complying with the law.
By JOHN FUND
The health care law is only a week old and already the bullies are throwing their weight around.
Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee, is furious that large companies such as AT&T, Caterpillar and Deere are obeying SEC disclosure laws that Congress passed in the wake of the Enron scandal. The three companies were the first of many to take sizeable write-downs because the heath-care bill effectively poses a new tax on retiree drug-benefit plans. Benefit consultants say the new tax could reduce corporate profits by as much as $14 billion.
But Mr. Waxman will have none of it. He wrote to the heads of the three companies summoning them to testify at an April 21 hearing: "The new law is designed to expand coverage and bring down costs, so your assertions are a matter of concern." The letter reminded one business reporter of Darth Vader's famous line in "Star Wars" that he found an underling's actions "disturbing" -- just before he strangled him. The Waxman letter was accompanied by a lengthy request for documents that he demanded be produced for the star-chamber hearing.
At least one business group isn't backing down. The American Benefits Council, which represents 300 large corporations, called on President Obama and Congress to repeal the new tax yesterday. The Benefits Council shouldn't expect much sympathy from Chairman Waxman. Mr. Waxman, who he has spent over 35 years in Congress and has no economics background, is convinced the government health-care takeover he has championed for so long can't have negative side effects. Any troublemakers who say otherwise should expect to be summoned to explain themselves before his committee.
To read more stories like this one, please subscribe to Political Diary.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304739104575153943132772852.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLESecond
-
And a fourth post:
The Left's Ludicrous Accusations against Tea Partiers
By James Simpson
Forgive the obscene photo of "Politically Incorrect" show host Bill Maher, but it serves as a stark visual testimonial to the Left's true nature. Every day, the Left shows us with their own actions that they are exactly what they accuse conservatives and tea partiers of being.
It is astonishing that they have the gall to accuse anyone of anything. People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. But then we remember that the smear and the lie are all they have. As a post at Powerline relates, "It is liberals, not conservatives, who rely on ad hominem attacks, outrageous allegations and violent imagery." The accusations of racism and threats of violence put forth by congressional Democrats since Saturday are straight out of the Alinsky playbook. They probably made the calls themselves.
Thank God for talk radio and the internet. Thanks to the New Media, Democrats can no longer do these things with impunity. As Andrew Breitbart says, "The emperor has no clothes." The Left is being exposed for the empty fraud of a movement it is, and as that happens, they are getting increasingly desperate. Yes, we do have to worry about violence. From them. But this is nothing new, either.
Powerline describes the 2008 Republican convention in Minneapolis, where Leftist protesters
... threw bricks through the windows of buses, sending elderly convention delegates to the hospital. They dropped bags of sand off highway overpasses onto vehicles below. Fortunately, no one was killed.
As Noel Sheppard relates, the media were AWOL.
Here is a list of representative Leftist misbehavior:
Air America exhorts listeners to assassinate Bush.
Five campaign workers for Kerry arrested for slashing tires on 25 cars rented by GOP campaign workers. One of the five was the Milwaukee Mayor's son, the other the son of a Democrat U.S. congresswoman.
Republican combat wounded Vietnam vet's house spray-painted with the words BUSHNAZIS, American flags shredded, truck keyed.
Leftist lawyer caught keying Marine Iraq War vet's BMW just prior to his second deployment. (This one is priceless. You should read the outcome.)
Senator Mary Landrieu threatens to punch President Bush (a felony). Where was the press on that one?
Astroturfers threaten Andrew Breitbart and throw eggs at patriot rally buses.
Alan Grayson says that we need to "get rid of Republicans entirely."
Many cases of conservative newspaper production runs stolen or vandalized.
On "Conan O'Brien Show," unglued Alec Baldwin screams that Rep. Henry Hyde and family, including children, should be stoned to death.
Mere days ago, a Leftist Astroturf group of union activists threw eggs at a tea party bus entering Searchlight, Nevada -- hometown of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. They also cornered Andrew Breitbart, physically threatened him, and then called police, accusing Breitbart of throwing the eggs. He related the event to two San Francisco Chronicle reporters who hitched a ride with him. Here's the video.
Recall the SEIU thug who beat up a black reporter at a town hall rally in Missouri last summer. Recall that he was called "nigger," and that the thug was arrested. Somehow the AP missed all that.
Recall the Arizona town hall meeting where MS-NBC reported that some white racist was carrying an "assault weapon," except that that white racist happened to be black. Somehow they missed that, too.
Following is a rundown of anti-GOP incidents from the 2004 presidential election. We gratefully acknowledge the late Clifton T. Sharp of Clifto.com for compiling the list. It came from a post titled "Identifying the Good Guys, Notes for Election Fence-Sitters." I will preface the list with Cliff's insightful counsel:
More often than not, if you see a pattern of violence from one side, they're the bad guys. They're the ones who can't make their side rise above the other through merit, so they try to make the other side fall by violence and intimidation. It is nearly always true that the side that resorts to violence has no other method for achieving its goal. They cannot make good things happen for their side, so they make bad things happen to the other side.
Whenever there is a difference of beliefs, reasonable men can agree to reasonably disagree. It follows that those who resort to violence in an attempt to force their beliefs on others, or to stop others from expressing their beliefs, are not reasonable men. They do not believe in free speech; they want you to know that they will hurt you to stop you from exercising your rights to free speech.
When there are a few incidents among a very large group, such as a political party, it's hard to blame the entire group. But when violence is frequent and widespread, it becomes a policy rather than an aberration. It becomes an indication that the violent side believes it cannot reasonably persuade others to their beliefs, but instead must use force and intimidation to deter others from exercising their rights as citizens of the United States of America.
Thousands of years ago, ancient philosophers taught that one can distinguish the good guys from the bad guys by their actions. That advice still holds true. The bad guys are running organized attempts to disrupt and to harm their opponents, to frighten people like you so that you won't vote for the good guys. When you make your choice, try not to give them what they want.
Well said, Cliff. Rest in peace. Now here's the list:
October 15, 2004: Bullet Placed Upright outside the Door of Littleton, New Hampshire, Victory 2004 Headquarters.
October 15, 2004: Broken Piece of Ply-Board Thrown At the Glass Window/Door of Santa Fe, New Mexico, Republican Party Headquarters.
October 14, 2004: Potato Guns Fired At St. Paul, Minnesota, Victory 2004 Headquarters.
October 13, 2004: A Kerry Supporter Caught Stealing A Bush Sign In Cape Girardeau, Missouri, Pulled A Knife On The Signs Owner And Was Arrested. (Linda Redeffer, "Cape Man Claims He Was Threatened At Political Rally," Southeast Missourian, 10/16/04)
October 13, 2004: Window Smashed At Laconia, New Hampshire, Victory 2004 Headquarters.
October 13, 2004: Signs Ripped Down At Nashua, New Hampshire, Victory 2004 Headquarters; Perpetrators Swore At Headquarters Staff When They Tried To Replace The Signs.
October 13, 2004: Walls And Windows Of York, Pennsylvania, Victory 2004 Headquarters Vandalized With Pro-Kerry Spray-Paint And Signs Outside Destroyed.
October 11, 2004: Windows Broken, Petty Cash Stolen And Computers Tampered With In Burglary At Spokane, Washington Victory 2004 Headquarters. (David Postman, "President Bush's Campaign Office in Spokane Burglarized, Vandalized," The Seattle Times, 10/11/04)
October 11, 2004: Missouri Yard Signs Shredded With A Knife, Burnt And Discarded Behind A Building.
October 10, 2004: Threatening Note Found On Elderly Veteran's Bush-Cheney '04 Yard Sign In Ballwin, Missouri, Saying "You Vote For Bush, Then Later Down The Road You Die," Adding "You Will Burn In The After Life For The Suffering And Pain That Your Vote Will Cause Me."
October 10, 2004: Office Windows Broken And Field Director's Laptop Bag and Purse Stolen In Burglary At Canton, Ohio Victory Center. (Edd Pritchard, "Campaign Office Burgled Sunday," Canton Repository, 10/12/04)
October 9, 2004: Raleigh, North Carolina Supporter Had Several Bush-Cheney '04 Yard Signs Stolen On Separate Occasions Culminating In Attempted Arson Of Her Car.
October 9, 2004: Bush-Cheney Signs Near Vail, Colorado, Cut In Half And Burned In Ransacking. (Matt Zalaznick, Op-Ed, Welcome To the Tea Party, Vail [CO] Daily, 10/9/04)
October 9, 2004: Oxnard, California, Support Placing Bush-Cheney '04 Yard Signs Knocked Down And Had All Her Signs Stolen.
October 6, 2004: Organized Protest at Westmoreland, Pennsylvania Victory 2004 Headquarters, Protesters Entered Headquarters Premises. (Matthew Junker, "Protester Disrupts Kerry Rally," Tribune-Review, 10/7/04)
October 5, 2004: Protestors Storm, Ransack Bush-Cheney Headquarters in Orlando, Florida. "Local 6 News reported that several people from the group of 100 Orlando protestors face possible assault charges after the group forced their way inside the Republican headquarters office. While in the building, some of the protestors drew horns and a mustache on a poster of President George W. Bush and poured piles of letters in the office, according to the report." ("Protestors Storm, Ransack Bush-Cheney Headquarters in Orlando," Local 6 News, 10/5/04)
October 5, 2004: Organized Protests At Bush-Cheney '04 And Victory Headquarters In: Albuquerque, New Mexico (Protesters Entered The Bush-Cheney '04 Headquarters Premises)
Canton, Ohio (Protesters Attempted To Enter The Victory 2004 Headquarters Premises)
Dayton, Ohio (Protesters Attempted To Enter The Victory 2004 Headquarters Premises)
Columbus, Ohio (Protesters Attempted To Enter The Bush-Cheney '04 Headquarters Premises)
Charleston, West Virginia ("Business Briefs," Charleston [West Virginia] Gazette, 10/6/04)
Kansas City, Missouri (Protesters Entered The Victory 2004 Headquarters Premises)
Des Moines, Iowa ("Union Protestors March On GOP Headquarters," KCCI 8, TheIowaChannel.com, Accessed 10/12/04)
Concord, New Hampshire Dearborn, Michigan (Protesters Entered The Victory 2004 Headquarters Premises) (Chris Christoff, Dawson Bell And Patricia Montemurri, "Citizens Get Into The Mix Of Campaign Clashing," Detroit Free Press, 10/6/04)
Milwaukee, Wisconsin (Protesters Entered The Victory 2004 Headquarters Premises) (Greg Pierce, "Inside Politics," The Washington Times, 10/7/04)
St. Paul, Minnesota (Protesters Entered The Bush-Cheney '04 Headquarters Premises) (Patricia Lopez, "Protesters Raise A Ruckus At GOP Office," [Minneapolis, MN] Star Tribune, 10/6/04)
Tampa, Florida (Protesters Entered The Victory 2004 Headquarters Premises) (Jim Stratton, "Protesters Alarm Bush Campaign Workers," Orlando Sentinel, 10/6/04)
Miami, Florida (Protesters Entered The Bush-Cheney '04 Headquarters Premises) (Jim Stratton, "Protesters Alarm Bush Campaign Workers," Orlando Sentinel, 10/6/04)
Warren, Ohio (Protesters Attempted To Enter The Victory 2004 Headquarters Premises)
West Allis, Wisconsin (Protesters Entered Wisconsin Party Headquarters Premises) ("WisPolitics: Protestors Storm GOP Victory Center In West Allis," WisPolitics.com, 10/6/04, , Accessed 10/6/04)
Westmoreland, Pennsylvania (Protesters Entered The Victory 2004 Headquarters Premises) (Dan Majors, "Hethinks They Doth Protest Too Much," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 10/7/04)
October 5, 2004: Gun Shot Fired Into Knoxville, Tennessee Victory-Bush Headquarters. "Gunshots shattered the plate-glass front doors of a local Bush-Cheney campaign headquarters Tuesday morning before volunteers reported to work. Police believe someone pulled up to the Kingston Pike Shopping Center storefront of Bush-Cheney Victory 2004 and began firing." (Duncan Mansfield, "Shots Fired At Knoxville Bush-Cheney Office; No One Hurt," The Associated Press, 10/5/04)
October 3, 2004: Burglary at Thousand Oaks, California Victory 2004 Headquarters Where A Bush-Cheney '04 Banner Was Stolen From Outside The Premises.
October 2, 2004: Collinsville, OH, Resident Chains Down Bush-Cheney Signs After Several Signs Stolen And One Was Replaced With Kerry Sign. (Bush-Cheney Signs Going Missing In Collinsville, The Associated Press, 10/2/04)
October 1, 2004: Swastika Burned Into Grass On Bush-Cheney Supporter's Lawn In Madison, WI. ("Swastika Burned Into Grass On Bush-Cheney Supporter's Lawn," WISC-TV Website, 10/1/04, , Accessed 10/12/04)
October 1, 2004: Laptops Of Executive And Field Director Stolen From Bush-Cheney '04 Headquarters In Seattle, Washington. "Three computers loaded with confidential campaign plans were reported stolen early yesterday in a burglary at President Bush's Washington state campaign headquarters. Someone threw a rock through a window of the campaign's office in a suburban business park, taking laptops belonging to key campaign workers from the desk of the Bush campaign's state director, Bellevue police and Republican Party officials said." (David Postman And Ashley Bach, "3 Computers Are Stolen From Bush Campaign Office," The Seattle Times, 10/7/04)
September 28, 2004: Vandalism Against Springfield, Missouri Victory 2004 Headquarters Where Perpetrators Broke Bottles And Spit On The Headquarters And Wrote The Anarchy Symbol On The Sidewalk With Chalk
September 22, 2004: West Elmira, New York, Resident Found Swastika Drawn On Bush Campaign Sign In His Yard. (John P. Cleary, "Swastika On Bush Sign Troubles Resident," [Elmira, NY] Star-Gazette, 9/23/04)
September 13, 2004: Swastika Drawn On Lawn Of Duluth Resident, Whose Signs Were Defaced With Words "Nazi" And "Liar." (Mark Stodghill, "Campaign Vandalism Increases," Duluth News-Tribune, 9/14/04)
September 10, 2004: West Virginia Victory Field Director's Car Tires Slashed Again And Note Left His Windshield Stating "Go Home Or Die."
September 4, 2004: West Virginia Victory Field Director's Car Tires Slashed.
September 3, 2004: Windows Broken, Anti-Bush Messages Scrawled At Gallatin County Republican Headquarters. "The headquarters of the Gallatin County Republicans was vandalized early Friday morning in a crime one Republican called an 'act of terror.' An unknown vandal or vandals spray-painted peace signs on the windows and anti-Bush messages on the outside walls. A rock was thrown through a double-paned window next to the main entrance to the building, and the front door was coated with eggs and possibly cottage cheese." (Walt Williams, "GOP Headquarters Vandalized In Political Protest," Bozeman [Montana] Daily Chronicle, 9/4/04)
September 2, 2004: Gun Shot Fired Into Huntington, West Virginia Headquarters. "The Secret Service was contacted Friday to help investigate a shot fired at the Cabell County Republican headquarters in Huntington. Supporters of President Bush had gathered at the 4th Avenue headquarters Thursday night to watch the president accept his party's nomination. About two minutes into the speech, someone fired a shot through the front window of the building." ("Few Leads In Shooting At GOP HQ," wowktv.com, 9/2/04)
September 1, 2004: Bullet Hole Found In Front Of Miami, Florida, Bush-Cheney '04 Headquarters.
July 31, 2004: Windows Again Broken At Morgantown, West Virginia Headquarters.
July 2, 2004: Windows Broken At Morgantown, West Virginia Headquarters.
Note that you will not find a similar list for vandalism against Democrats. I'm sure that there must have been some. Being confronted with people who routinely attempt to steal elections, people who even have billionaires creating professional organizations with the goal of systematically stealing elections while elected officials give them cover, and people who spew hatred everywhere they go while accusing the other side of hate and getting a free pass from the press while they're at it, it is understandable that some real Americans might have lost their patience and pulled up a yard sign or two.
But the truth is that that kind of behavior just is not in us. We were born and raised to be decent. We were born and raised to be self-supporting. We were born and raised to chip in and help out when we can. We were born and raised to be respectful of our institutions and our elected officials of both parties -- at least until they turned against us. In other words, we were born to be Americans, and the Left vitriolically hates us for it. It is a pity that they don't see that their cowardly, despicable, nihilistic behavior ultimately spells ruin for them as well.
I was at the 9-12 Rally. Not only were most of the people there the kind who would help granny cross the road, but many were grannies themselves -- some in wheelchairs. That the Left is systematically trying to smear such great people just demonstrates what cockroaches they really are.
Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/04/the_lefts_ludicrous_accusation.html at April 01, 2010 - 09:30:26 AM CDT
-
MSNBC adjective use on the Bama drilling flip flop.
He "evolved" his thinking. Talk about a double standard.
Additionally MSNBC also was raving about talk radio being dominated by "fringe right" and going off with guests including Bill Press giving all sorts of reasons and strategies how the FCC should put a stop to talk radio because it is mostly conservative.
With regards to the bama flip flop Morris wonders on O'Reilly if this is the start of a Clintonesque triangulation strategy.
My suspician is this is more of a set up to get cap and trade passed.
Pretend he is being bipartisan and meeting half way the conservatives before the liberals try to shove cap and trade down our throats. Also it could get swing Dems on board with the cap and trade. Bonus to the bama: they can tax the crap out of this.
And of course he can also reverse this once cap and trade passes through reconciliation. Even if it is a few years from now. The offshore oil wouldn't be available for years thanks to the left's past actions.
-
This man does not have enough power! Lets give him some more:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNZczIgVXjg&feature=player_embedded
-
I am no expert but I think the congressman is high as a kite. He can't be that stupid. His eyes are half shut and his delivery is too slow. Something is wrong with him.
-
Let's try some less controversial examples.
Is Operation Rescue fascist?
Was Timothy McVeigh a fascist?
Rog
-
Let's try some less controversial examples.
Is Operation Rescue fascist?
**To my knowledge, Operation Rescue is devoted to stopping elective abortions, with no other political agenda. You should read up on this origins of Planned Parenthood.**
http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=21984
And we all know how evil Nazi eugenics were, don't we? How crazy were their efforts to build up the "master race" through selective breeding of SS men with the best of German women — the Lebensborn project? Good Leftists recoil in horror from all that of course. But who were the great supporters of eugenics in Hitler's day? In the USA, the great eugenicists of the first half of the 20th century were the "Progressives". And who were the Progressives? Here is one summary of them:
Originally, progressive reformers sought to regulate irresponsible corporate monopoly, safeguarding consumers and labor from the excesses of the profit motive. Furthermore, they desired to correct the evils and inequities created by rapid and uncontrolled urbanization. Progressivism ... asserted that the social order could and must be improved... Some historians, like Richard Hofstadter and George Mowry, have argued that the progressive movement attempted to return America to an older, more simple, agrarian lifestyle. For a few progressives, this certainly was true. But for most, a humanitarian doctrine of social progress motivated the reforming spirit.
Sound familiar? The Red/Green alliance of today is obviously not new. So Hitler's eugenics were yet another part of Hitler's LEFTISM! He got his eugenic theories from the Leftists of his day. He was simply being a good Leftist intellectual in subscribing to such theories.
The summary of Progressivism above is from De Corte (1978). Against all his own evidence, De Corte also claims that the Progressives were "conservative." More Leftist whitewash! See also Pickens (1968).
And are feminists conservative? Hardly. And feminists are hardly a new phenomenon either. In the person of Margaret Sanger and others, they were very active in the USA in first half of the 20th century, advocating (for instance) abortion. And Margaret Sanger was warmly praised by Hitler for her energetic championship of eugenics. And the American eugenicists were very racist. They shared Hitler's view that Jews were genetically inferior and opposed moves to allow into the USA Jews fleeing from Hitler (Richmond, 1998). So if Hitler's eugenics and racial theories were loathsome, it should be acknowledged that his vigorous supporters in the matter at that time were Leftists and feminists, rather than conservatives.
-
Rog, Regarding your examples I don't know whether you refer to their politics or their tactics. Operation Rescue wants to stop the killing of innocent life. I wouldn't think PETA is fascist unless they want to control more aspects of our lives than protecting animals. They don't necessarily want the government to control your lives, just want to stop what they see as an injustice. The killing of Tiller the late term abortionist was not a pro-life act and Operation Rescue condemned it in the strongest terms: "The anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, which runs a "Tiller Watch" feature on its website, released a statement condemning the shooting. "We are shocked at this morning's disturbing news that Mr. Tiller was gunned down. Operation Rescue has worked for years through peaceful, legal means, and through the proper channels to see him brought to justice. We denounce vigilantism and the cowardly act that took place this morning." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/31/george-tiller-killed-abor_n_209504.html
McVeigh's politics could easily be considered right wing. He was a gun rights advocate and anti-government, both to extreme levels. His connection to Nazis seems to be that blowing up the building was inspired by a neo-Nazi novel. But Nazis or fascists wouldn't allow private citizen gun ownership or forming private militias to protect liberties, or limited government, so I don't see the connection between Nazi-ism and his politics at least before he fell off the deep end.
Reading around I found this trying to make a connection between the Bush and what someone calls the 14 points of Fascism: http://www.oldamericancentury.org/14pts.htm. I admit to my biases, but I don't see the connection of any of them.
I follow you in the hypothetical. If the huts were Christian extremists and wanted the government to force all to practice Christianity, and force their way with the powers of government into your life to enforce it, then I agree. But I doubt that was their view. If it was, they are Fascists, not Christians or limited government advocates.
If being anti-abortion is really sexism in disguise where what they really want is more control over women, then they are fascists. But I think it is all about the unborn. It doesn't mean people don't have compassion for the situation of the unwanting parents. It's just that it doesn't rise to the level of death penalty for the unborn.
From the link above, if Bush, as accused, was using terrorism as just an excuse because he really wanted to wiretap more Americans, empower government and limit freedoms, then fascist he was. But I don't buy it. And now Obama is caught up in the same wiretaps, Guantanamo and an executive order ending federal funding of abortion. Surprisingly, no fascism update at that website for the new administration.
-
A different tone of voice would serve this article better; I post it more for its list of examples:
http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/04/the_lefts_ludicrous_accusation.html
Concerning "right wing" and "left wing": In my opinion, these two terms, which have become quite deeply rooted, are used quite often in ways that ultimately are confusing and/or logically incoherent.
QUESTION: Lets see if we mean the same thing by the word "rightist": Is a rightist someone who believes in a more or less intrusive, controlling government?
-
How the Left Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the FBI
By Anthony Gregory on Mar 30, 2010 in Civil Liberties, Surveillance, The State, terrorism, weapons
At the close of World War I, the federal government created the General Intelligence Division, an agency that eventually morphed into the modern FBI. One of GID’s main tasks was to compile a list of hundreds of thousands of radicals—socialists, anarchists, labor activists and antiwar agitators. Thousands were arrested for being suspected Communists. Hundreds of anarchists were deported to Bolshevik Russia, the silver lining being that left-anarchists like Emma Goldman discovered and wrote about the pure horror of Leninism and the fact that “proletarian dictatorship” was not any sort of improvement upon the wartime corporatism of the U.S. under Woodrow Wilson.
In the late 1920s, the renamed Bureau of Investigation spied on such “socialist” threats as Albert Einstein. Under Franklin Roosevelt, although the FBI continued to keep track of left radicals, it found a new enemy in the form of opponents of the New Deal. FDR used the FBI to spy on multitudes of peaceful rightwingers, unleashing a Brown Scare that was later turned against the left during the McCarthy-era Red Scare. Roosevelt even spied on his Republican presidential opponent, Wendell Willkie.
But during the Cold War, Republican and Democratic administrations again focused the FBI, for the most part, on disrupting the left. Its COINTELPRO operation—a program to “track, expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize the activities” of political radicals—was a great success. FBI’S COINTELPRO forged letters to bring about violence between the Black Panthers and United Slaves. In 1976, a Senate report showed that the FBI had boasted that “Although no specific counterintelligence action can be credited with contributing to this overall situation, it is felt that a substantial amount of the unrest [among left radical groups] is directly attributable to this program.”
While the FBI was used to infiltrate rightwing anti-Civil Rights and anti-integrationist activists, it was also targeted against stalwarts of the Civil Rights movement. The FBI monitored everyone from Martin Luther King in the 1960s to John Lennon in the 1970s. In the late 70s, the Church Committee reports in the Senate culminated in some effort to rein in this horribly abusive federal agency.
In the 1990s, the FBI was at the center of the militia scare, with its snipers and strongmen turned against peaceful separatist Randy Weaver and his family, and later at the Waco, Texas, standoff with Branch Davidians, at the end of which FBI agents gassed, shot and killed dozens of David Koresh’s followers at their home at Mt. Carmel. They used incendiary devices, which might have brought on the fire, and then lied about it.
It was in this period that the modern left became enamored of the federal police state and especially the FBI. Almost none of them stood up for the Branch Davidians. They came to think of FBI agents as a professional, national and enlightened force populated by such figures as the Jodie Foster character in Silence of the Lambs, an agency that enforced civil rights, protected the country from “rightwing extremists,” and overturned the injustices of local, prejudiced law enforcement.
But during the Bush II era, when the administration was reported to be reviving COINTELPRO, the left’s distrust of national police forces also became revived. In October 2003, the FBI extensively spied on peaceful Iraq war protesters, focusing especially on “anarchists. . . capable of violence.” Bush’s FBI activities were a throwback to the post-World War I General Intelligence Division’s obsession with anarchists. In 2005, the ACLU sued to reveal in court that it had been monitored by the FBI, which had over a thousand pages of documentation on the organization, as had Greenpeace and other politically leftist organizations. Religious pacifist groups were also spied on and infiltrated. And one “terror plot” after another allegedly discovered and broken up by the administration just in the nick of time turned out to be a group of poor saps of below-average intelligence who had been duped by federal informants into saying something threatening or “planning” a terror attack on American infrastructure with no chance at all of being successful, and probably no chance of having even come up with the idea without federal prodding and agitation. The concern about the return of Cold War-era FBI infiltration of fringe groups was once again seen on the left.
Now we are back to the Brown Scare, to militia hysteria, to fears that the out-of-power anti-government right, Christian groups, separatists, gunowners, opponents of national social programs, census and tax resisters and so forth are a great threat to American security. With all the Bush-era anti-Muslim hysteria and war on terror authoritarianism still in place, we have under Obama a revitalization of 1990s-style paranoia about “hate groups,” survivalists and indeed the entire populist right. Just as Bush conservatives could not differentiate Saddam Hussein from Osama bin Laden, or an innocent Muslim doing charity work in Pakistan from an engineer of 9/11, or an antiwar American activist from an anti-American enemy within giving comfort to the enemy abroad, so too do the Obama leftists conflate peaceful separatists with violent racists, peaceful survivalist militia men with Timothy McVeigh.
Every act of violence or alleged plan to commit violence or even adamant anti-government activism that can be pinned on the “extremist right”—the shooter who murdered a guard at the Holocaust museum, the man who murdered an abortion doctor in church, the man who flew a plane through an IRS building, some “militia” members allegedly planning anti-government violence—all of this is seen as part of a general trend, even a rightwing conspiracy, one about as coherent as the neoconservatives’ lumping together all anti-US Muslims under the banner of “Islamofascism.” Indeed, I am surprised that not many have yet warned of the “Christofascist” threat to America, although there has been plenty of talk comparing the tea party movement to the Nazi brownshirts and talk that this kind of militia activity is often associated with “race war,” even when the particular subjects at hand are not even accused of being racially motivated.
And so when a progressive like Rachel Maddow cheers that the Michigan militia members can be indicted and imprisoned without having done anything violent, when she reports that the FBI has infiltrated this group for months and stepped in to arrest them just in the nick of time, we should not be too surprised when she fails to make the obvious connection, and fails to be the least bit skeptical of the federal government’s police agents infiltrating a group for months only to discover that that group’s members are saying things about government that amount to “seditious conspiracy.” What kind of Orwellian world is it when the government can arrest people accused only of planning to commit violence against government agents and unleash a “civil war” that we all know is only a fantasy? What kind of world is it when the very media figure who denounced Bush’s “preemptive war” and Obama’s adoption of Bush’s “pre-crime” approach to imprisoning “enemy combatants” in “prolonged detention” before they commit violence is happy to see a group indicted on federal charges of talking about committing violence—talk that we can safely guess was likely incited by the very FBI that had been infiltrating this group for months? What kind of absurdist dystopia has the left crying foul when a private citizen infiltrates ACORN, but has no similar apprehensions about the FBI infiltrating “extremist” groups and arresting them for “seditious conspiracy”? How can anyone who saw through the Bush lies of war and crackdowns in the name of “national security” and stopping madmen from getting “weapons of mass destruction” really believe that fewer than a dozen Americans with some rifles and some pipebombs were themselves planning to use “weapons of mass destruction” in any way that posed a threat to the U.S. government? And what about the charge of having weapons in connection to a crime—that crime being the intention of one day committing a crime?
Of course, preempting people from committing acts of criminal violence is just and sometimes necessary, but the list of questionable charges levied at these people, on the tail end of months of FBI infiltration, would seem to be in a different category, and at least warrants more critical examination before passing judgment. One can abhor and condemn the idea of violence and oppose vehemently the types of acts that these men and women are accused of planning—and certainly, I do—while still smelling a rat in the way such sting operations are conducted, or at least demonstrating some journalistic skepticism that the government’s side of the story is 100% accurate and justifies the imprisonment of these people and the hysteria on which this kind of government activity thrives.
But once again, with their people at the helm of state, the left has decided to embrace the FBI, take it at its word, assume that people are guilty until proven innocent once accused of guilt by the police state that they now see as the guardian of order against rightwing extremism. Especially strange is the tendency of leftists to fear rightists out of power even more than in power. The same dynamic can be seen on the other side. The left and the right love power, and although that power is often directed against their own when the other side is at the reins, they cannot abandon the idea that a police state can be pinpointed only against those they hate, and not those with whom they sympathize. The responsible, non-partisan and indeed American thing to do is to harbor extreme skepticism toward the state when it spies, infiltrates, arrests and imprisons anyone, and most especially those whose alleged crime is “sedition” or “conspiracy” or in any way being the enemy of the state.
A note on sources: Much of this history is discussed in Geoffrey Stone’s Perilous Times. A lot of the stuff on the FBI’s history I read years back in Roland Kessler’s Bureau: The Secret History of the FBI. A good treatment of COINTELPRO can be found in James Bovard’s Terrorism and Tyranny. On Waco see Carol Moore’s the Davidian Massacre and my Waco archives. And see the ACLU on some of the surveillance abuses under the Bush administration.
http://www.independent.org/blog/?p=5565
-
The FBI needs to stop being used by whatever political party is in office, and focus on their job. As it is they are abridging the civil rights of whoever is LEAST represented. Sounds like the Tyrany of Majority item that the Constitution is supposed to prevent eh?
-
Generally the piece makes good points, but I most certainly quibble with these two:
a) "one about as coherent as the neoconservatives’ lumping together all anti-US Muslims under the banner of “Islamofascism"
b) "With all the Bush-era anti-Muslim hysteria"
-
If we define 'rightist' as someone who believes in a less intrusive, controlling government, pretty hard to find fascist in that definition. Wanting the Pledge of Allegiance recited is about as far as we go, but we are asking them to pledge to keep our liberties.
With most leftists, the charges of fascism are exaggerated. They don't really want to control ALL of your life cradle to grave. Far more than they should but not all of it.
When you look at the kooks who commit the atrocities, I thinks the ties to their politics either way are mostly irrelevant. Their violence does not further their agenda in any of the examples. They are mentally ill, criminally deranged or physically missing a crucial connection in their brain, whichever political side they say they are on. Bill Maher flipping the bird doesn't move the moral or economic arguments for or against national health care or closing Guantanamo one iota in either direction. It just means he's a jerk.
-
The FBI needs to stop being used by whatever political party is in office, and focus on their job. As it is they are abridging the civil rights of whoever is LEAST represented. Sounds like the Tyrany of Majority item that the Constitution is supposed to prevent eh?
As usual, you have an opinion with nothing to support it.
-
How the Left Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the FBI
By Anthony Gregory on Mar 30, 2010 in Civil Liberties, Surveillance, The State, terrorism, weapons
**What tin-foilist site did you dredge this up from?**
-
The FBI needs to stop being used by whatever political party is in office, and focus on their job. As it is they are abridging the civil rights of whoever is LEAST represented. Sounds like the Tyrany of Majority item that the Constitution is supposed to prevent eh?
As usual, you have an opinion with nothing to support it.
Didn't you read BBG's post?
During the "Red Scare" Era (right/conservative) the FBI reacted fairly conservatively leaning on leftist factions, now after enough years of left/liberal in the government it is going the other way. If they just worried about the active threats -Machine Gun Kelly and such- instead of taking preventive steps they would not be nearly as maniplulated as they are now. They would also be dealing with De Facto criminals, and on non-political safe ground, rather than the "political agitator" crimes. Given freedom of speech the political agitator could easily be wearing the suit of a delegate at a non-majority party convention.............
-
BBG's post was written by someone with an anti-establishmentarian agenda coupled with a profound lack of law enforcement knowledge.
Do politics shape how law enforcement works? Yes, to a degree as law enforcement agencies in this country either answer to an elected official, or the appointed head of the agency answers to an elected official, but how FBI "brick agents" work is very distant from politics 99.9 % of the time. The FBI has 300+ federal laws they are charged with enforcing by statutes set by congress. It's easier to be admitted to Harvard than to be hired by the FBI. The men and women of the FBI take on huge responsibilities and lots of sacrifice for not a great deal of money, especially when compared to the cost of living in the cities they often get posted to at the start of their careers. When you consider what lawyers, CPAs and foreign linguists with undergrad degrees could make in the private sector compared to doing a job where a bad day at work can result in a flag draped coffin, we should be glad that are such people willing to step up and do the job.
fbi.gov
FBI PRIORITIES
In executing the following priorities, we will produce and use intelligence to protect the nation from threats and to bring to justice those who violate the law.
1. Protect the United States from terrorist attack.
2. Protect the United States against foreign intelligence operations and espionage.
3. Protect the United States against cyber-based attacks and high-technology crimes.
4. Combat public corruption at all levels.
5. Protect civil rights.
6. Combat transnational and national criminal organizations and enterprises.
7. Combat major white-collar crime.
8. Combat significant violent crime.
9. Support federal, state, county, municipal, and international partners.
10. Upgrade technology to successfully perform the FBI's mission.
Shouldn't someone be doing this?
-
**This story came out 3/31/2010. I guess the FBI didn't get the political memo that Anthony Gregory did.** :roll:
http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=10251568
FBI Sees Little Chance of Copycat Militia Plots
Anger aplenty, but FBI sees little chance of copycat plots after Christian militants' arrest
By DEVLIN BARRETT
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON
There's a lot of anger out there. But the alleged plot by Midwestern militants and violent outbursts by scattered individuals don't signal any coming wave of extremist violence, federal investigators say.
There's more fizzle than fight among self-styled militias and other groups right now, they say, and little chance of a return to the organized violence that proved so deadly in the 1990s.
Militia extremist statements "primarily have served as an expression of anger after a particular event," according to an FBI intelligence bulletin obtained by The Associated Press. "The FBI assesses the likelihood of violent conflict from the remaining group members or other militia extremists as low."
A group of Christian militants calling themselves the Hutaree stand charged with plotting attacks against police in Michigan, assaults that prosecutors say the militants hoped would inspire others to commit anti-government violence. There was no attack; authorities moved in and made arrests last weekend because, the prosecutors contend, the group was girding for action in April.
There is always a risk of a lone wolf launching an attack, and law enforcement officials cannot rule out the possibility that they have failed to detect larger, more organized plots still unfolding. But the FBI bulletin — it was issued to police departments — underscores that authorities have not yet detected clear signs of a revival of organized violence that would require a strong federal response.
-
http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/03/29/stone.pdf
Read the indictment and tell me this is just "freedom of speech".
-
Department of Justice Press Release
For Immediate Release
March 29, 2010 United States Attorney's Office
Eastern District of Michigan
Contact: (313) 226-9100
Nine Members of a Militia Group Charged with Seditious Conspiracy and Related Offenses
Six Michigan residents, along with two residents of Ohio and a resident of Indiana, were indicted by a federal grand jury in Detroit on charges of seditious conspiracy, attempted use of weapons of mass destruction, teaching the use of explosive materials, and possessing a firearm during a crime of violence, United States Attorney Barbara L. McQuade and FBI Special Agent in Charge Andrew Arena announced today.
The five-count indictment, which was unsealed today, charges that between August 2008 and the present, the defendants, David Brian Stone, 45, his wife, Tina Stone, 44, his son, Joshua Matthew Stone, 21, of Clayton, Michigan, and his other son, David Brian Stone, Jr., 19, of Adrian, Michigan, Joshua Clough, 28, of Blissfield, Michigan, Michael Meeks, 40 of Manchester, Michigan, Thomas Piatek, 46, of Whiting, Indiana, Kristopher Sickles, 27, of Sandusky, Ohio, and Jacob Ward, 33, of Huron, Ohio, acting as a Lenawee County Michigan militia group called the Hutaree, conspired to oppose by force the authority of the U.S. government. According to the indictment, Hutaree members view local, state, and federal law enforcement as the “brotherhood,” their enemy, and have been preparing to engage them in armed conflict.
The indictment further alleges that the Hutaree planned to kill an unidentified member of local law enforcement and then attack the law enforcement officers who gather in Michigan for the funeral. According to the plan, the Hutaree would attack law enforcement vehicles during the funeral procession with improvised explosive devices with explosively formed projectiles, which, according to the indictment, constitute weapons of mass destruction. Subsequently, and in furtherance of this plan, David Brian Stone, the Hutaree’s leader, obtained information about such devices over the Internet and e-mailed diagrams of such devices to a person he believed capable of manufacturing the devices. He then had his son, Joshua Matthew Stone, and others gather materials necessary for the manufacturing of such devices.
According to the indictment, in June 2009, David Brian Stone and his other son, David Brian Stone, Jr., taught other Hutaree members how to make and use explosive devices intending or knowing that the information would be used to further a crime of violence. In addition, the grand jury charged all nine defendants with carrying or possessing a firearm during a crime of violence on at least one occasion.
U.S. Attorney McQuade said, “Because the Hutaree had planned a covert reconnaissance operation for April which had the potential of placing an unsuspecting member of the public at risk, the safety of the public and of the law enforcement community demanded intervention at this time."
Andrew Arena, FBI Special Agent in Charge, said, "This is an example of radical and extremist fringe groups which can be found throughout our society. The FBI takes such extremist groups seriously, especially those who would target innocent citizens and the law enforcement officers who protect the citizens of the United States. The FBI would like to thank our federal, state, and local law enforcement partners who are member of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, for their assistance in this case."
As of this morning, eight of the nine defendants are in custody and seven of them will be making their initial appearance before United States Magistrate Judge Donald A. Scheer at 10 a.m. Joshua Stone is currently a fugitive. Any person with information as to the whereabouts of this individual should contact the Federal Bureau of Investigation at (313) 965-2323.
The charge of seditious conspiracy carries a statutory maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction carries a statutory maximum penalty of life in prison, Teaching the use of explosives materials carriers a statutory maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, and possessing a firearm during a crime of violence carries a mandatory minium penalty of at least five years in prison.
An indictment is only a charge and is not evidence of guilt. A defendant is entitled to a fair trial in which it will be the government's burden to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
The case was investigated by special agents of the FBI and the Michigan State Police.
-
That "military inspired training" sure sounds scary. That's like those military inspired guns. Oh wait, all guns are military inspired. . . . :roll:
My guess is that these guys are a bunch of wannabes who ran their mouths in the wrong places. Note to self: leave the room when someone starts ranting about anti-government small group action as it's about dead nuts certain that someone in the room is an informant or agent and just nodding your head can get you lumped in as a conspirator amid a group that couldn't fight its way out of a wet paper bag.
Sure wish the Justice Department had the same kind of hard on for the New Black Panthers intimidating voters in Philly or the various jihadi groups that have been long training in the US. . . .
-
The lack of prosecution in the Black Panthers case was political (and disgusting), but that decision was from the US Atty's Office, not the FBI. The FBI has popped jihadists CONUS multiple times since 9/11.
-
**Another innocent victim of the FBI?**
Department of Justice Press Release
For Immediate Release
September 24, 2009 United States Attorney's Office
Northern District of Texas
Contact: (214) 659-8600
FBI Arrests Jordanian Citizen for Attempting to Bomb Skyscraper in Downtown Dallas
DALLAS—James T. Jacks, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas, and Robert E. Casey, Jr., Special Agent in Charge for the Dallas Office of the FBI, announced today that Hosam Maher Husein Smadi, 19, has been arrested and charged in a federal criminal complaint with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction. Smadi, who was under continuous surveillance by the FBI, was arrested today near Fountain Place, a 60-story glass office tower located at 1445 Ross Avenue in downtown Dallas, after he placed an inert/inactive car bomb at the location. Smadi, a Jordanian citizen in the U.S. illegally, lived and worked in Italy, Texas. He has repeatedly espoused his desire to commit violent jihad and has been the focus of an undercover FBI investigation.
“The highest priority of the FBI and the Department of Justice remains the prevention of another terrorist attack within the United States,” said U.S. Attorney Jacks. “In that effort, it is the job of the FBI to locate and identify individuals intent upon carrying out any type of attack upon this country and its citizens/residents. Whether as part of a group or acting alone, persons contemplating such acts need to know that all components of the government are working together to ferret out their activities and to insure that such individuals face the full measure of the law. The identification and apprehension of this defendant, who was acting alone, is a sobering reminder that there are people among us who want to do us grave harm,” Jacks continued.
Special Agent in Charge Casey said, “Today’s arrest of Hosam Maher Husein Smadi underscores the FBI’s unwavering commitment to bring to justice persons who attempt to bring harm to citizens of this country and significant danger to this community. Smadi made a decision to act to commit a significant conspicuous act of violence under his banner of “self jihad.” He will now face justice. The many agents, detectives, analysts, and prosecutors who helped to bring about Thursday’s arrest deserve special thanks for their efforts. This case serves as a reminder of the continuing threats of terrorism we face as a nation and the FBI’s resolve to meet those threats. The arrest of Smadi is not in any way related to the ongoing terror investigation in New York and Colorado.”
“The criminal complaint alleges that Hosam Smadi sought and attempted to bomb the Fountain Place office tower, but a coordinated undercover law enforcement action was able to thwart his efforts and ensure no one was harmed,” said David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for National Security.
Smadi will make his initial appearance tomorrow in U.S. District Court before U.S. Magistrate Judge Irma C. Ramirez.
According to affidavits filed today with the complaint and search warrants:
Smadi was discovered by the FBI espousing his desire to commit significant acts of violence. Smadi stood out because of his vehement intention to actually conduct terror attacks in the U.S.
The FBI developed an investigative plan to determine Smadi’s true intent while also protecting the public’s safety. Smadi made clear his intention to serve as a soldier for Usama Bin Laden and al Qaeda, and to conduct violent jihad. Undercover FBI agents, posing as members of an al Qaeda “sleeper” cell, were introduced to Smadi, who repeatedly indicated to them that he came to the U.S. for the specific purpose of committing “Jihad for the sake of God.” Smadi clarified that he was interested in “self-jihad,” because it was “the best type of jihad.” Smadi was interested in violent jihad against those he deemed to be enemies of Islam. The investigation determined Smadi was not associated with other terrorist organizations.
Throughout the investigation, undercover FBI agents repeatedly encouraged Smadi to reevaluate his interpretation of jihad, counseling him that the obligations a Moslem has to perform jihad can be satisfied in many ways. Every time this interaction occurred, Smadi aggressively responded that he was going to commit significant, conspicuous acts of violence as his jihad.
In June 2009, Smadi identified potential targets in the Dallas area; but in mid-July, he notified an undercover FBI agent that he had changed his mind regarding the targets. On July 21, 2009, Smadi met with an undercover FBI agent and directed the agent to drive them to a Wells Fargo Bank in downtown Dallas. Smadi and the undercover FBI agent then drove to 1445 Ross Avenue where the Fountain Place office tower is located. A Wells Fargo Bank is located in that building. Smadi went into the building where he conducted his own reconnaissance.
In late August 2009, while meeting with one of the undercover FBI agents in Dallas, Smadi discussed the logistics and timing of the bombing, stating that he would have preferred to do the attack on “11 September,” but decided to wait until after the month of Ramadan, which ended on September 20, 2009. At the conclusion of the meeting, Smadi decided that a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED) would be placed at the foundation of the Fountain Place office tower. Unbeknownst to Smadi, the FBI ensured the VBIED contained only an inert/inactive explosive device which contained no explosive materials.
A federal complaint is a written statement of the essential facts of the offenses charged, and must be made under oath before a magistrate judge. A defendant is entitled to the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. The offense of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction carries, upon conviction, a maximum statutory sentence of life in prison and a $250,000 fine.
The case is being investigated by the FBI in conjunction with members of the FBI-sponsored North Texas Joint Terrorism Task Force. Assistant U.S. Attorney Dayle Elieson is in charge of the prosecution. The Counterterrorism Section of the Justice Department’s National Security Division is assisting in the prosecution.
-
Last I heard, the FBI worked for Justice.
We've got jihadi enclave where a lot of training goes on, locals are intimidated, lotta coming and going down south of me that has been operating in an uninterrupted manner for quite a few years. Betcha some of those folks talk to others about doing naughty things, too. Be nice to see that operation and similar ones rolled up as, when you are fishing for headlines, it appears pretty simple to crack a bunch of folks for running around playing soldier.
Of course arresting a bunch of white god squaders fits into the the current MSM narrative a wee bit better than nailing a jihadi enclave that's been operating for years.
-
The FBI works for the DOJ, but the decision to prosecute a case, or not is not up to the FBI.
Maybe the "Muslims of America" have a bit better OPSEC and are a bit more wary of whom the recruit.
-
Ok BBG,
Let's say you are the SAC in the FBI office in the midwest when it comes to your attention that you've got a group that's plotting to kill cops. Do you wait until some rural deputy gets murdered on a traffic stop, or see if a U/C or other investigative method can make a case before someone gets killed?
-
I say clowns get what they deserve. It's just awfully politically convenient to have religious wackos in tiger stripes on the front page, and islamic wackos and New Black Panther wackos off the same. Perhaps I'm a conspiracy theorist, and the MSM is certainly involved as they select what to focus on, but when the bounces all start breaking the same way at opportune times I look to see if the game is rigged.
-
Were your theory true, why this ? "The FBI assesses the likelihood of violent conflict from the remaining group members or other militia extremists as low."
-
**Who was president in 1985 ?**
Police Continue Siege at Extremist Camp
April 22, 1985|Associated Press
THREE BROTHERS, Ark. — Camouflaged police officers trod warily Sunday for fear of setting off booby traps or mines as they besieged for a third day the hide-out of an extremist religious group whose leader is wanted on a weapons charge.
Federal officials were continuing to negotiate with the group--known as the Covenant, the Sword and the Arm of the Lord--for the surrender of leader Jim Ellison and hoped the standoff would not erupt into violence, said FBI agent Ray McElhaney.
Another right-wing extremist, who was arrested Saturday night in connection with the shooting death of a Missouri state trooper, was held without bond in a Springfield, Mo., jail Sunday.
Crowd Cheers Arrest
David C. Tate was transferred to Springfield from Forsyth, where 200 persons cheered upon hearing of his arrest.
Meanwhile, inside the remote, 224-acre compound deep in the Ozarks on the Arkansas-Missouri border, members of the extremist group moved into a barbed-wire enclosure, authorities said.
"We are talking about people who have announced they are well armed," McElhaney said. "There is good reason to believe there are explosives, mines and assault weapons on the premises, and the people that occupy the compound have adequate training in using them."
Federal and state lawmen converged on the encampment Friday to arrest Ellison, 44, who faces a federal charge of conspiracy to manufacture restricted weapons--automatic guns. The charge carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
In an attempt to flush him out of the compound Saturday, officers took over two unoccupied clusters of buildings.
Four women and 12 children had voluntarily left the compound, McElhaney said.
Police had wanted to search the compound as part of the massive manhunt for Tate of Athol, Ida., a member of the neo-Nazi group The Order, accused in the slaying of Trooper Jimmie L. Linegar, 31, last Monday. Another trooper, Allen Hines, 36, was wounded.
However, Tate, 22, who Covenant members said had visited the compound two years ago, was arrested unarmed late Saturday in Forsyth, said Missouri Highway Patrol Capt. Lee Thompson.
He was transferred from the Taney County Jail in Forsyth to the Greene County Jail in Springfield, 30 miles to the north, Saturday night, officials said. He was placed in a maximum security cell where authorities could check him every 15 minutes.
Tate was arraigned in Taney County on charges of murder, first-degree assault, federal charges of unlawful possession of a machine gun and violation of anti-racketeering laws, said Lt. Ralph Biele of the highway patrol. When Tate was brought to the courthouse in Forsyth, some in the crowd outside yelled, "Kill him, kill him."
-
NYPD, FBI heroes honored after foiling terror plot to bomb Riverdale synagogues
BY Celeste Katz and Corky Siemaszko
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Updated Friday, May 22nd 2009, 1:44 PM
Watts/NewsMayor Bloomberg, Police Commissioner Kelly and Governor Paterson (center) honor more than 100 law enforcement personnel who had a hand in foiling the plot to bomb synagogues in the Bronx.
The cops and G-men who busted a gang of homegrown terrorists before they could blow up two Bronx synagogues got a big pat on the back Friday from a grateful city.
"I feel safer in the city today than ever before," Mayor Bloomberg said at a City Hall ceremony to honor the heroes. "They have prevented what could have been a terrible loss of life."
Gov. Paterson called the plot "one of the most heinous crimes that has been [planned] in this city for a long time."
And Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly called the police and FBI response "a textbook example of how a major investigation should be handled."
The kudos came a day after the suspects were ordered held without bail - and branded anti-Semitic would-be killers who dreamed of basking in the glory of their spectacular attacks.
"It's hard to envision a more chilling plot to bring mass murder to a . . . community," said Eric Snyder, an assistant U.S. attorney. "These are people who are eager to bring death to Jews."
Three of the shackled suspects - James Cromitie, 44; David Williams, 28, and Onta Williams (no relation to David), 32 - barely spoke at their Thursday arraignment in White Plains Federal Court.
The fourth man, Haitian immigrant Laguerre Payen, 27, looked dazed when he appeared later.
Cromitie, who recruited the other plotters, decided to bomb the synagogues because Al Qaeda already had brought down the best target the World Trade Center, court papers said.
"I hate those motherf-----s, those f-----g Jewish bastards," he told the informant, court papers revealed. "I would like to get [bomb] a synagogue."
He was itching to watch the devastation he wrought played out over and over again on TV.
"I'm the one who did that," Cromitie congratulated himself after the planned attacks, an informant told cops. "That's my work."
Even though cops called Cromitie the ringleader, Snyder singled out David Williams as the meanest of the bad-news bunch, saying he bragged he'd shoot anyone who tried to stop him.
The suspects, who are charged with conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction and anti-aircraft missiles, did not ask for bail. A judge ordered them held until a hearing on June 6.
The group's diabolical dream was to create "a fireball that would make the country gasp," a law enforcement source said.
The accused terrorists were busted Wednesday night as they planted what they thought was 37 pounds of explosives outside the Jewish center and the Riverdale Temple, two blocks away.
Within seconds, authorities had closed off the normally tranquil street using 18-wheel trucks. Cops and agents swarmed over the black SUV getaway vehicle, broke the windows and yanked the suspects out.
The four also plotted to blow a plane out of the sky at Stewart Air National Guard Base in Newburgh, Orange County, authorities charge.
"These guys were angry, they had intent and they were searching for capacity," a senior federal law enforcement official told the Daily News. But, the official added, they're "not exactly Al Qaeda."
The suspects met at their Newburgh mosque, Masjid al-Ikhlas, sources said, and at least three were jailhouse converts to Islam.
The mosque's spiritual leader denounced the plot and disowned the suspects. "Their plan was un-Islamic," declared Imam Salahuddin Mustafa Muhammad.
With Rich Schapiro, Tanyanika Samuels and Alison Gendar
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/05/22/2009-05-22_nypd_fbi_heros_honored_after_foiling_terror_plot_to_bomb_.html#ixzz0kNJTlKG6
-
Hmm, okay, I stand corrected. LEOs never grandstand, the goals of the regime in power doesn't impact the pace of an investigation, and perp walks are a vital piece of performance art and never done to strut before the news media. . . .
-
As I said before:
Do politics shape how law enforcement works? Yes, to a degree as law enforcement agencies in this country either answer to an elected official, or the appointed head of the agency answers to an elected official, but how FBI "brick agents" work is very distant from politics 99.9 % of the time. The FBI has 300+ federal laws they are charged with enforcing by statutes set by congress.
-
http://counterterrorismblog.org/2010/04/print/target_police_policing_in_the.php
Counterterrorism Blog
"Target: Police" Policing in the Era of Tighter Budgets and Heightened Threats
By Madeleine Gruen
Last week in Washtenaw County, Michigan, a right-wing militia called the Hutaree was raided by state and local police, and FBI agents. Nine militia members were arrested and charged with conspiring to murder a police officer then attack that officer’s funeral with improvised explosive devices (IEDs). This was to be the first step in the Hutaree’s plot to overthrow the U.S. government.
The Hutaree is only one of many separatist, terrorist, and hate groups that position police as their number one target for attack. The threat to police officers’ personal safety has always been a hazard of the profession. However, concern for their own safety is a fraction of the growing number of concerns police departments are required to manage—they are still responsible for maintaining civil order, public safety, and now also play a role in detecting and disrupting terrorist threats.
To make matters even more complex, massive budget cuts in municipalities across the country are forcing police departments to eliminate officers, and do without essential training and resources. The financial circumstances raise a serious concern that departments may not be able to continue to hold back the rising threat.
The Hutaree arrests shined a spotlight on the danger to law enforcement presented by groups that seek to wage a war against the U.S. government. The Hutaree regularly trained in the woods with live ammunition, and believed it was ready for a showdown with police. The Hutaree anticipated that the police would be defeated, demoralized, and rendered ineffective following the bloody confrontation at the police funeral.
Tom Metzger, a veteran of the white racist movement and founder of the White Aryan Resistance, says that the declining economy and evidence of weakening governance create an opportunity for his movement, and other anti-government groups, to gain support. Ultimately, Metzger predicts, the system will tip in the favor of anti-government extremist movements.
Michigan police were also the target of another fringe group’s violent ambitions in October 2009. The Ummah is a nation-wide Islamist movement whose spiritual mentor is convicted cop-killer Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin. The movement’s Detroit branch was led by Luqman Ameen Abdullah, who intended for his group to establish a separate Islamic state in the United States by waging “offensive jihad” against the government. Abdullah was obsessed with killing cops, and instructed his followers, many of whom were convicted felons, to carry guns so that they could shoot officers rather than be arrested by them, telling them gleefully to “shoot cops in the head! Pop, pop!”
Abdullah and many of his closest followers were allegedly involved in gun-running, and the buying and selling of stolen goods. On October 28, 2009, Abdullah was shot and killed in a gunfight during a raid that was conducted jointly by state and local police and the FBI.
Recently, in Hemet City, California, the Vagos biker gang has been attacking the local police department in retaliation for the department’s crackdown on the gang’s drug dealing and other criminal activity. Since December, police have found explosive devices strapped under their vehicles and guns rigged to shoot officers as they open doors. An attempt was made to kill officers by rerouting a natural gas pipeline to spew fumes into their offices. The department has since built a barricade around its headquarters to protect against grenade or other types of attacks perpetrated by the 600-member strong gang. Last year, the Hemet Police Department was forced to slash a quarter of its officers due to budget cuts. They are currently fighting crime and managing the attacks directed at them with only 68 officers. Over the past decade, the population of Hemet has doubled to more than 100,000 residents.
In the next few months, Baltimore, Maryland may be forced lose as many as 200 officers, and faces possible elimination of its helicopter, marine, and mounted units. These units are critical to the department’s efforts to secure Baltimore’s harbor, facilitate the pursuit of criminals, and control riots. Baltimore Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III said it would take 10 years for the city to recover from the setbacks caused by the proposed cuts.
The Illinois State Police will have to cut 460 troopers, and Georgia will have to do away with some critical training for new recruits. Michigan, which had its share of incidents with the Hutaree and the Ummah, has already lost 4,000 police officers in the past decade, and will be forced to cut a few hundred more. The list goes on.
In an effort to soften the playing field in their favor, terrorist, separatist, and hate groups will continue targeting police. These groups view dwindling police resources, and the declining economy in general, as an opportunity to improve their own strategic positions. This means police may be forced to concentrate what few resources they have on fighting the threat created by these groups. Meanwhile, public security will be compromised.
By Madeleine Gruen on April 8, 2010 5:02 PM
-
Which is why you want armed citizens who haven't been peeved by in your face tactics and attitude. They can keep crime down with the simple knowledge they are out there, and maybe even save your butt once in a while.
-
Oh puuleeze. What "in your face tactics and attitude"?
-
Amid cuts, Ohio judge tells citizens to carry guns
By THOMAS J. SHEERAN (AP) – 23 hours ago
CLEVELAND — One judge's solution for citizens feeling less secure because of budget cuts in an Ohio county: Carry a gun.
Judge Alfred Mackey of Ashtabula County Common Pleas Court advised residents Friday to be vigilant and arm themselves because the number of deputies has been cut about in half because of a tight budget. He also urged neighbors to organize anti-crime block watch groups.
"They have to be law-abiding, and if they are not familiar with firearms they need to take a safety course so they are not a threat to their family and friends and themselves," Mackey said Friday.
Mackey, whose comments were first broadcast Thursday by WKYC-TV in Cleveland, was expressing concerns with budget cuts that have trimmed the sheriff's department from 112 to 49 deputies in the county, which is Ohio's largest by land area.
Asked by WKYC how people should respond to the cuts and limited patrols, he said, "Arm themselves. Be very careful and just be vigilant because we're going to have to look after each other."
Andrew Pollis, who teaches law at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, saw the original TV clip of Mackey and said it was clear the judge wasn't advocating vigilantism.
Still, Pollis said, snippets of the comments could be misunderstood "as a license, if you will, to engage in conduct which we as a society collectively would not want."
In Akron, Summit County Common Pleas Judge Patricia Cosgrove, president-elect of the Ohio Common Pleas Judges Association, said she was surprised by Mackey's suggestion.
"That's scary to me," she said. "I don't know what the situation in Ashtabula County is. I personally would never — that's a personal choice in terms of carrying a weapon."
With deputies assigned to transport prisoners and serve warrants, only one radio car is assigned to patrol the county of 720 square miles, excluding municipalities with police departments. The sheriff's patrol area covers most of the county, the judge said Friday.
Mackey said the response to his comments has been positive in the mostly rural county between Cleveland and Erie, Pa.
"People in this county are hunters," said Mackey, who grew up on a farm with rifles and still owns firearms. "People have familiarity with firearms."
Messages seeking comment on the judge's remarks were left for Sheriff William Johnson and county commissioners.
Johnson has threatened to sue the commissioners to have some of his department's funding restored.
The jail in the county of about 100,000 people has held as many as 140 prisoners, but the number has dipped to about 30 because of reductions in the guard staff. About 700 people are on a waiting list to serve time in the jail.
Ohio has had a concealed handgun law for five years, and from October to December the Ashtabula County sheriff issued 54 licenses. Twenty-eight licenses were renewed.
-
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/12/AR2010041203044_pf.html
LAPD detectives sidelined by city budget crisis
The Associated Press
Monday, April 12, 2010; 4:27 PM
LOS ANGELES -- The city's budget crisis and cap on overtime is forcing homicide detectives to stop work for days at a time, hurting their ability to solve cases, authorities said.
Some detectives said they had to delay interviewing witnesses to killings after supervisors ordered them to take days off.
"Could this cause us to not solve a case? Sure," said Detective Chris Barling, who oversees the LAPD's South Bureau homicide unit.
The 11 detectives in the Southeast Division's homicide squad had to take off 700 hours in February despite opening five new investigations.
Nine of 14 killings reported in the area this year are unsolved.
"That is horrible compared to our typical rates," said Detective Sal LaBarbera, division supervisor. "A few of them would likely already be solved, if I could just let my guys loose to work."
The worst economic decline since the Depression, a steep drop in tax revenue and burgeoning expenses have led to the city's dire financial situation. The city has a $212 million budget deficit that some have estimated could grow to $1 billion in four years without drastic cuts.
The Police Department typically spends about $100 million a year in overtime but plans to allocate less than $10 million for the upcoming fiscal year.
Homicide detectives are among the first officers to be sent home in significant numbers because they routinely rack up overnight and weekend hours. Typically, a third of detectives' pay comes from overtime.
Police Chief Charlie Beck said the overtime limits were painful.
"It has a serious impact on our ability to respond to some of the large, violent incidents we've been experiencing lately," Beck told the civilian Police Commission last week.
Last year, LAPD officers took off about 17,000 hours a month to compensate for some of the overtime they worked, but the figure jumped to nearly 60,000 hours in March, according to department figures.
That lost work time was the equivalent of removing 290 officers from duty.
In the Foothill Division, a cold-case detective was assigned to help solve five new killings in March. Some detectives said they fill out paperwork or make phone calls on their own time.
"It's really disheartening," said Detective Nate Kouri, who solved more than a dozen cases last year but had to stop working for six weeks beginning in January. "All we want to do is work our cases. That's what we feel we owe to the families of victims."
-
Voter Intimidation, New Black Panther Style
The Obama Justice Department wants to ignore what happened at a Philadelphia polling place on Election Day 2008.
I’ve been to numerous hearings held by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights — but never before to one where there were armed security guards.
But then, it has been decades since the commission held a hearing about the threats and intimidation carried out by an organization that the Anti-Defamation League categorizes as a hate group — in this case, the New Black Panther Party.
On Friday, April 23, the commission finally held its long-delayed hearing on the Justice Department’s now-infamous dismissal of almost all the cases it had already won by default against three members of the NBPP and the party itself for voter intimidation in Philadelphia in the November 2008 election.
In fact, there was good reason for the security. A number of Panthers, including two of the defendants in the lawsuit the DOJ dropped (Jerry Jackson and King Samir Shabazz), marched into the hearing room in their black, fascist-style paramilitary uniforms. The very fact that the NBPP showed up in force refutes the claim made by the DOJ’s leadership that the case was dismissed because there was no evidence of coordination between the national organization and the Philadelphia chapter. Furthermore, the Panthers were handing out a press release from Malik Zulu Shabazz, the national chairman of the NBPP.
That same DOJ leadership apparently doesn’t believe the NBPP was engaging in intimidation when it sent thugs uniformed like Mussolini’s blackshirts, one with a billy club, to stand in front of the entrance to a polling place. In fact, there is nothing the New Black Panthers have ever said or done to suggest that they don’t believe what they did was intimidating to people they hate. They preach intimidation and worse.
Such intimidation continued at the hearing. In the middle of it, King Samir Shabazz, the Panther who swung the billy club on Election Day, got up, moved to the side of the hearing room slightly in front of the witnesses, and photographed the three men seated at the witness table testifying against him. These were the three men who had attempted to protect prospective voters in Philadelphia on Election Day. One later testified that he did notice his picture being taken by Shabazz. It’s hard to see any reason for taking their photographs in such a way other than to try to intimidate them. Or does an advocate of genocide just want to add pictures to his scrapbook?
The hearing started with brief opening statements from the commissioners. Then all the depositions and other evidence gathered by the commission were entered into the record. That formality revealed that when the depositions of the two Panthers who had stood in front of the polling were taken, they both refused to testify, asserting their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
Now, you cannot assert Fifth Amendment protections merely to stop testimony in a civil action or a commission investigation. Thus, if the two men were lawfully invoking their Fifth Amendment right, that means that they were conceding that their actions not only violated the Voting Rights Act — which is a civil matter — but might also subject them to criminal prosecution.
Chairman Shabazz, who lives in Washington, D.C., never even appeared for his deposition when subpoenaed. The commission has asked the Department of Justice to enforce the subpoena, but so far, that doesn’t seem to be a department priority. What a surprise!
Meanwhile, the opening statements of the commissioners revealed a lot about how interested they were in protecting voting rights. The Democratic commissioners, especially Michael Yaki, a former Pelosi staffer, tried to minimize what happened in Philadelphia; he even said at one point that there may have been no more than a couple of people who were turned away. Yaki was unable to produce any evidence that would support that assertion.
Yaki’s Democratic colleague Arlan Melendez claimed the investigation was a waste of time and resources. According to him, everyone should just take the DOJ’s word that the case was meritless. Most of the other commissioners pointed out that the commission has a special mandate to protect voting rights and that not only was the Justice Department’s dismissal of this case inexplicable, but its refusal to provide information, documents, or witnesses violated the law in general and specifically its responsibility not to engage in selective enforcement.
After the opening statements and the reading of evidence into the record, the hearing continued with three videos: the atwo camera-phone videos shot at the polling place (now on YouTube), and clips from a National Geographic documentary about the NBPP that includes interviews with Chairman Shabazz and with the billy-club-wielding King Samir Shabazz. Mr. Billy Club talks about how much he hates and wants to kill white people, including white babies, and the documentary includes a very ugly scene (among many) in which he confronts an interracial couple in a Philadelphia neighborhood.
The first three live witnesses were Mike Mauro, Chris Hill, and Bartle Bull. Mauro is a lawyer from Connecticut who had gone to Philadelphia as a volunteer. Hill is a former infantry soldier who lives only nine blocks from the polling place. They were part of a roving team that responded on Election Day to a desperate call for help from a black poll watcher. The poll watcher told Hill that the Panthers had called him a “race traitor” and threatened him, saying “there would be hell to pay if he came out.” Hill said the man was visibly scared and had clearly been intimidated. Hill added that the poll watcher was afraid to testify before the commission or in the original voter-intimidation case because “he lives in that neighborhood.”
Hill was called a “white devil” and a “cracker,” and was told he would be ruled by the black man the next day, and he would have to get used to “living under his boot.” Hill saw several voters, including two elderly women, stop abruptly as they were walking up to the polling place when they saw the two Panthers standing right in front of the door. The voters turned around and left; they said they would “come back later” to vote.
Of course, we don’t know if they did. And Hill and Mauro were there for only a short time. There is no telling how many other voters had left without voting that morning before Hill and Mauro showed up at close to noon. This testimony was ignored by a Washington Post reporter at the hearing, who posted a story claiming that “there was no evidence that voters had been prevented from casting ballots in Philadelphia.”
Bartle Bull — a well-known Democratic lawyer (and former publisher of The Village Voice), who worked in the South during the height of the civil-rights campaign — saw the same thing happen. He had also gotten a call about the intimidation and drove to the polling place. One of the Panthers pointed his billy club at Bull and said, “Now you are going to find out what it is to be ruled by the black man, cracker.” This to a man who started off as a volunteer for Adlai Stevenson, who headed Robert Kennedy’s campaign in New York in 1968, and who, in 1971, worked to get civil-rights stalwart Charles Evers elected governor of Mississippi.
Bull saw several voters walk up the long driveway to the polling place, stop, turn around, and leave when they saw the Panthers standing there in their black uniforms and combat boots with one of them slapping a billy club in his hand. It was a pretty dramatic moment in the hearing room when Bull, Hill, and Mauro turned in their chairs, and Bull pointed to one of the Panthers sitting two seats down from me and identified him as the one who wielded the billy club that day and who also said on the National Geograpic documentary that he wanted to kill white people.
A former deputy associate attorney general, Greg Katsas, testified that this was a clear case of voter intimidation, and that there is really no explanation for the DOJ dismissal. Rep. Frank Wolf (R., Va.), who, along with Rep. Lamar Smith (R., Texas), has been tireless in his efforts to get Justice to explain its actions in this case, also testified. He would have been a difficult man for someone like Commissioner Yaki to attack as a partisan or a racist: Wolf was the only member of the Virginia congressional delegation, Republican or Democrat, to vote for the renewal of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act in 1981, even though he suffered withering criticism in his home state.
In fact, Yaki was almost pathetic in the way he groveled to Wolf, thanking him for the way he worked with Nancy Pelosi when Yaki was still on her staff. Wolf called the Justice Department’s obstruction of congressional oversight into this case “a shameful example of the types of partisan obstruction that undermine our nation’s civil-rights laws.” He also revealed that the DOJ had finally admitted this week that Attorney General Holder “was made aware — on multiple occasions — of the steps being taken to dismiss this case.”
Wolf was referring to the fact that after nine months of stalling, the Justice Department finally answered some of the commission’s queries and sent some of the documents requested, although it still refuses to let the chief of the Voting Section, Chris Coates, and another trial lawyer who worked on the case, Christian Adams, respond to commission subpoenas and testify. Compounding its offenses, when the Justice Department finally did, on the eve of the hearing, send the commission copies of the written statements of the witnesses who were going to testify, it had redacted the names of the witnesses and other information in the statements. There is no justifiable legal or other reason whatsoever for having redacted any portion of the witness statements.
The most amusing part of the hearing was watching Commissioner Yaki try to run interference for the Obama administration. Yaki was clearly unhappy to have the administration’s dirty linen dragged out into the public arena, and he did his best to try to cross up witnesses like Bull and Katsas when he was questioning them. Yaki obviously believes he’s a very smart lawyer, but Bull and Katsas both ran rings around him. Bull, who did an outstanding job of pointing out how outrageously the Panthers had acted in Philadelphia and how wrong the Justice Department was in dismissing this lawsuit. Imagine for a moment if members of a white supremacist group had shown up in paramilitary uniforms with swastikas at a polling place, and yet the Justice Department dropped a voter-intimidation lawsuit it had already won against the group. The hearing room at the commission would have been swarming with news crews, and C-SPAN would surely have covered the hearing live. However, none of that happened. C-SPAN wasn’t there, and neither was a single one of the national cable-news channels.
If a Republican member of the Civil Rights Commission had then claimed during the hearing that the entire case was much ado about nothing because only a couple of people had been turned away from voting, it would have been front-page news in the Washington Post and the New York Times. Editorials in every major newspaper would not only have demanded his resignation, but would also have condemned the Justice Department for its actions. So far, we haven’t seen that happen in this case.
Thomas Perez, assistant attorney general of the Civil Rights Division, has agreed to testify before the commission on May 14. He is the political appointee in charge of the division — but his testimony will be just another effort by the Justice Department to look as if it’s cooperating when it really isn’t. Perez wasn’t even at the division when the decision was made to drop this case, and his agreeing to testify is just a way of obscuring the fact that the DOJ continues to refuse to allow the trial team who worked on this case to testify. Why? Because the Obama administration knows that their testimony would destroy its claims that it has taken the partisanship out of the Civil Rights Division.
— Hans A. von Spakovsky is a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation (www.heritage.org) and a former counsel to the assistant attorney general for civil rights at the Department of Justice.
http://article.nationalreview.com/432583/voter-intimidation-new-black-panther-style/hans-a-von-spakovsky
-
Nice how the media can fill it's days with their "Tea Party, threat or menace" stories but ignore this and the Arizona riots.
-
What Ron Paul "corporatism" I call "fascism":
===============
Lately many have characterized this administration as socialist, or having strong socialist leanings. I differ with this characterization. This is not to say Mr. Obama believes in free-markets by any means. On the contrary, he has done and said much that demonstrates his fundamental misunderstanding and hostility towards the truly free market. But a closer, honest examination of his policies and actions in office reveals that, much like the previous administration, he is very much a corporatist. This in many ways can be more insidious and worse than being an outright socialist.
Socialism is a system where the government directly owns and manages businesses. Corporatism is a system where businesses are nominally in private hands, but are in fact controlled by the government. In a corporatist state, government officials often act in collusion with their favored business interests to design polices that give those interests a monopoly position, to the detriment of both competitors and consumers.
A careful examination of the policies pursued by the Obama administration and his allies in Congress shows that their agenda is corporatist. For example, the health care bill that recently passed does not establish a Canadian-style government-run single-payer health care system. Instead, it relies on mandates forcing every American to purchase private health insurance or pay a fine. It also includes subsidies for low-income Americans and government-run health care “exchanges.” Contrary to the claims of the proponents of the health care bill, large insurance and pharmaceutical companies were enthusiastic supporters of many provisions of this legislation because they knew in the end their bottom lines would be enriched by Obamacare.
Similarly, Obama's “cap-and-trade” legislation provides subsidies and specials privileges to large businesses that engage in “carbon trading.” This is why large corporations, such as General Electric support cap-and-trade.
To call the President a corporatist is not to soft-pedal criticism of his administration. It is merely a more accurate description of the President’s agenda.
When he is a called a socialist, the President and his defenders can easily deflect that charge by pointing out that the historical meaning of socialism is government ownership of industry; under the President’s policies, industry remains in nominally private hands. Using the more accurate term – corporatism – forces the President to defend his policies that increase government control of private industries and expand de facto subsidies to big businesses. This also promotes the understanding that though the current system may not be pure socialism, neither is it free-market since government controls the private sector through taxes, regulations, and subsidies, and has done so for decades.
Using precise terms can prevent future statists from successfully blaming the inevitable failure of their programs on the remnants of the free market that are still allowed to exist. We must not allow the disastrous results of corporatism to be ascribed incorrectly to free market capitalism or used as a justification for more government expansion. Most importantly, we must learn what freedom really is and educate others on how infringements on our economic liberties caused our economic woes in the first place. Government is the problem; it cannot be the solution.
See the Ron Paul File
April 27, 2010
Dr. Ron Paul is a Republican member of Congress from Texas.
The Best of Ron Paul
-
Dr. Paul, despite the occasional moments of lucidity, is batsh*t crazy.
-
Jeepers, where were all the national media when all this hemming and hawing was occurring?
FBI agent short on details on militia inquiry
ASSOCIATED PRESS
DETROIT - An FBI agent who led the investigation of nine Michigan militia members charged with trying to launch war against the federal government couldn't recall many details of the two-year probe yesterday during questioning by defense lawyers.
Even the judge who must decide whether to release the nine until trial was puzzled.
"I share the frustrations of the defense team … that she doesn't know anything," U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts said after agent Leslie Larsen confessed she hadn't reviewed her notes recently and couldn't remember specific details of the case.
Judge Roberts is hearing an appeal of another judge's order that has kept members of so-called Hutaree militia in jail since their arrest in late March.
The indictment says the nine planned to kill police officers as a steppingstone to a widespread uprising against the federal government.
Defense lawyers, however, say their clients are being punished for being outspoken.
Prosecutors fought to keep Ms. Larsen off the witness stand, saying the defendants had no legal right to question her.
But the judge said the agent's appearance was appropriate because the burden is on defense lawyers to show their clients won't be a threat to the public if released.
The nine lawyers asked specific questions about each defendant. Ms. Larsen said she had not listened entirely to certain recordings made by an undercover agent who infiltrated the group.
She said that because they were still being examined, she didn't know if weapons seized by investigators last month were illegal.
At other times, Ms. Larsen couldn't answer questions because she said she hadn't reviewed investigative reports.
Defense lawyer William Swor asked if the No. 1 defendant, Hutaree leader David Stone, had ever instructed anyone to make a bomb.
"I can't fully answer that question," the agent replied.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Tukel defended Ms. Larsen, telling the judge it wasn't clear until Monday that she would testify.
Judge Roberts, however, said she told the government to be prepared last week.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Ronald Waterstreet played an audiotape of what he said were several militia members talking freely about killing police.
The participants talked over each other, often laughed and made goofy noises and disparaging remarks about law enforcement.
Prosecutors objected to questions about interpreting the secretly recorded conversations, but the judge said they were fair game.
The judge will resume the court hearing today.
Prosecutors will have a chance to question people who are willing to be responsible for some of the nine if they are released from jail.
http://www.toledoblade.com/article/20100428/NEWS02/4280343/-1/rss
-
Oh dear, this dangerous vanguard of violent, right wing, religious zealots has been released on bail because a clearly reactionary judge says nutjobs muttering about violent things is protected speech. I am stunned and amazed the media isn't all over this story as they initially portrayed the Hutarees as Ticking Bombs about to launch Christian Jihad against an unsuspecting populace. Surely commensurate coverage is due here. Or does the story line no longer conform to the talking point of the day and hence needs to be swept under the rug?
Posted: 12:03 p.m. May 3, 2010 | Updated: 1:46 p.
m. today
Judge orders release of 9
Hutaree militia members
BY DAVID ASHENFELTER
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
A federal judge in Detroit today ordered the
release of nine members of a Lenawee County
Christian militia group freed on bond over the
objections of federal prosecutors.
“The United States is correct that it need not
wait until people are killed before it arrests
conspirators,” U.S. District Judge Victoria
Roberts said in a 36-page decision. “But, the
Defendants are also correct: their right to engage
in hate-filled, venomous speech, is a right that
deserves First Amendment protection.”
She said federal prosecutors failed to persuade
her that the defendants must be jailed until trial.
It is unclear whether the U.S. Attorney’s Office
will appeal the decision.
"We will be reviewing and weighing all of our
options," said spokeswoman Susan Plochinski of
the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Roberts said the defendants could be freed
under house arrest on electronic tethers. They
must surrender their concealed weapons permits, c
annot apply for a license to purchase or carry
guns and cannot drink alcohol or take drugs.
She said they must continue to work and report
to pretrial services on a weekly basis.
Robert said the defendants also must provide a
list of names, addresses, and phone numbers for
all Hutaree members and members of any other
militia groups they associated with.
Roberts put more than two dozen restrictions on
the group, altogether.
The defendants are David Stone, 45, Tina Stone,
44, and Joshua Stone, 21, all of Clayton; another
son, David Stone Jr., 19, of Adrian; Joshua
Clough, 28, of Blissfield; Michael Meeks, 40, of
Manchester; Kristopher Sickles, 27, of Sandusky,
Ohio, Jacob Ward, 33, of Huron, Ohio; and
Thomas Piatek, 46, of Whiting, Ind.
A federal indictment says the defendants, led by
the elder David Stone, belonged to the Hutaree, a
Christian militia that planned to attack local,
state and federal law enforcement officers,
among other officials.
All nine are charged with seditious conspiracy,
attempting to use weapons of mass destruction
and possession of a firearm in relation to a crime
of violence. David Stone and David Stone Jr. also
are charged with teaching/demonstrating use of
explosive materials.
The weapons of mass destruction charge, the
most serious, carries a maximum penalty of life
in prison.
Absent an appeal and request for a stay from the
judge, authorities said the nine would be brought
to the U.S. Courthouse in Detroit on Tuesday for
Advertisement
release.
"We're excited but I haven't digested the order
yet," said William Swor of Detroit, who
represents David Stone, the alleged leader of the
group. Another defense attorney, Michael Rataj,
said defense lawyers are waiting to see if the U.S.
Attorney's office decides to appeal Roberts' order
and ask her to delay implementing the decision.
But Rataj said Roberts indicated in the decision
that she wasn't interested in granting a stay.
The defendants are being held in jails in several
counties, including Sanilac, St. Clair and Wayne.
Check back with Freep.com for more details.
Contact DAVID ASHENFELTER:
http://www.freep.com/article/20100503/NEWS06/100503031/Judge-orders-release-of-9-Hutaree-militia
-
Hope 'n' Change: Big Brother to Monitor Your Bank Account?
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who didn't see fit to pay his own income taxes, may soon have the authority to watch over your financial transactions, thanks to a new federal agency that would be created in the Democrats' financial overhaul bill. The Office of Financial Research, straight out of a George Orwell novel, would serve as a central repository of transaction records generated at private financial companies. Geithner, along with an unspecified number of bureaucrats that he hires, will have unlimited access for "statistical analysis and research" of the nation's financial institutions -- supposedly for the purpose of spotting systemic problems that will allow them to act before another meltdown.
This agency is the latest in the series of unconstitutional power grabs that Democrats have grown accustomed to since Barack Obama became president. It violates American citizens' Fourth Amendment guarantee of security in their "persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures" and its imprecise language leaves plenty of room for expanding the agency's activities without congressional approval. The type of information access that Democrats seek would not have enabled them to prevent the financial meltdown of 2008, but it would allow bureaucrats who work for this agency the opportunity to share their privileged information with the private sector one year after leaving the agency. So, ironically, the Office of Financial Research simply presents our bloated government even more opportunity for further corruption and mismanagement of the economy.
-
It makes you...... :evil: oh I won't say it but there are some refelxes riggered Reflexes Triggered. I think the republican side of this stuff either likes the victorian straight jacket this could allow, or has just given up......... I think a lot of people are letting stuff like this happen because they know they cannot fix it except in 1 way and it has to get badder before that can happen.
-
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/education/story/A37EC23F3494702D862577290006CBFD?OpenDocument
Anti-gay view costs WU prof job on oil spill
By Tim Barker
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Thursday, May. 20 2010
Just a week after being asked to join an elite team of scientists working on
the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, a controversial Washington University professor
has been dismissed from the group.
Physics professor Jonathan Katz's tenure on the team was cut short after Obama
administration officials — under pressure from gay rights groups — decided his
polarizing opinions and writings could get in the way. Katz has not been shy
about expressing his thoughts about a range of topics, including a defense of
homophobia.
His writings — which have appeared on his university website — apparently
escaped the attention of administration officials charged with putting together
the team that also included scientists from Lawrence Berkeley Labs and the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
On Wednesday, a spokeswoman for Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu
confirmed Katz had been removed.
"Dr. Chu has spoken with dozens of scientists and engineers as part of his work
to help find solutions to stop the oil spill," the spokeswoman said in a
written statement. "Some of Professor Katz's controversial writings have become
a distraction from the critical work of addressing the oil spill. Professor
Katz will no longer be involved in the Department's efforts."
Coincidentally, Chu is scheduled to speak at Washington University's
commencement Friday morning.
Katz, whose academic credentials have not been questioned, has long been known
for his controversial views. They attracted attention as early as 2005, when
several students complained about things he had written on his university
website.
Some of the criticism has centered on Katz's views questioning whether global
warming is really a threat and challenging the value of the diversity movement.
But his stance on homosexuality has brought a firestorm of complaints from
liberal and gay rights groups.
In his 1999 essay, "In Defense of Homophobia," Katz explained why some people —
for both religious and health reasons — support the belief that homosexual
behavior is wrong. He ended the essay, "I am a homophobe, and proud."
Katz could not be reached for comment Wednesday. But late Tuesday, he spoke
with Bloomberg News by phone, confirming the reason for his removal.
"I don't self-censor myself," said Katz, 59. "There's no doubt there are things
on my Web page that've been there for many years that are fairly controversial."
The university issued a statement reiterating its support for academic freedom
for students, staff and faculty.
"The views and opinions expressed by Professor Jonathan Katz on his personal
Web page are his personal statements and do not represent the opinion of
Washington University. Professor Katz clearly states this important distinction
on his page, and he has the right to express opinion in this context and under
these conditions."
Katz's removal has drawn praise from several fronts, including gay rights
organizations who say there's no room for such divisive views.
"These kinds of statements are not acceptable, and they do have repercussions
in today's society," said A.J. Bockelman, executive director of PROMO, a
Missouri gay rights advocacy group.
The move, however, has drawn criticism from some conservatives.
Kerry Messer, of the Missouri Family Network, said the ousting of Katz suggests
that President Barack Obama and his administration place politics ahead of
mobilizing the best scientific experts to address the Gulf oil spill. He said
Katz's qualifications should be based on scientific credentials, not unrelated
personal views.
"This is inexcusable," Messer said, adding that Katz's "lack of political
correctness in one area should not discredit his expertise in another."
-
You are free to have any opinion you want, so long as it's leftist.
By the way, don't all the arguments that are used to justify anti-smoking laws work just as well to justify banning gay male sexual behavior?
-
Why would we want a well credentialed professor with critical expertise working on an ongoing environmental catastrophe when his exercise of free expression left some feelings hurt? Allow this and the next thing you know goose stepping Baptists will restore Bush to power or something.
-
Make sure your arrogant, unscientific, shrill politics always trump feeding starving people and moving them toward self-sufficiency.
The Right to Choose - For Farmers in Haiti
Paul Driessen
Saturday, June 12, 2010
The Monsanto Company is learning a valuable lesson in Haiti: no good deed goes unpunished at the hands of radical anti-corporate elements of Western society.
Like so many other concerned citizens, Monsanto responded to the tragic January 12 earthquake that further devastated this impoverished country. It worked for months with Haiti’s Agricultural Ministry to select seeds best suited to local climates, needs and practices, and to handle the donation so as to support, rather than undermine, the country’s agricultural and economic infrastructure.
From Monsanto’s extensive inventory, they jointly chose conventionally bred hybrid (not biotech / genetically modified / GM) varieties of field corn and seven vegetables: cabbage, carrots, eggplants, onions, tomatoes, spinach and melons. Instead of giving the seeds to farmers, the company worked with the USAID-funded WINNER program, to donate the seeds to stores owned and managed by Haitian farmer associations. The 475 tons of hybrid seeds will then be sold to many thousands of farmers at steep discounts, and all revenues will be reinvested in local agriculture.
Other companies and donors are providing fertilizers, insecticide and herbicides that will likewise be sold at a discount. The companies, Agricultural Ministry, farmers associations and other experts will also provide technical advice and assistance – much as the USDA’s Cooperative Extension System does – on how, when and whether to use the various hybrids, fertilizers, and weed and insect-control chemicals.
The goal is simple. Help get the country and its farmers back on their feet, improve farming practices, crop yields and nutrition levels, and increase incomes and living standards.
The reaction of anti-corporate activists was instantaneous, intense, perverse, patronizing and hypocritical. Monsanto wants to turn Haiti back into “a slave colony,” ranted Organic Consumers Association founder Ronnie Cummins. Hybrid and GM seeds will destroy our diversity, small-farmer agriculture and “what is left of our environment,” raged Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, leader of the Peasant Movement of Papaye.
Other self-anointed “peasant representatives” waded in. The seeds are genetically modified and “will exterminate our people.” Farmers won’t be able to afford the seeds or feed their children. The fertilizers are carcinogenic. Fungicides on the seeds are toxic poisons. “Seeds are the patrimony of humanity.” We support “food and seed sovereignty.” Traditional seeds and farming practices “provide stable employment” for the 70% of Haitians who are small farmers. And of course, “Down with Monsanto.”
Various U.S. churches and foundations chimbed in. “Spontaneous” protests were organized in several Haitian and American cities. At one, hundreds of marchers wore identical shirts and hats, which even at a combined value of just $5 represented two weeks’ income for average Haitian farmers: 40 cents a day. One wonders how many would have shown up without these inducements.
Indeed, this abysmal income underscores the terrible reality of life in this island nation, even before the earthquake, and the perversity of this campaign against “corporate control of the food system.” Instead of “seed sovereignty,” the activists are ensuring eco-imperialism and poverty sovereignty.
Forty years ago, Haiti was largely self-sufficient in food production and actually exported coffee, sugar and mangoes. Today, the country imports 80% of its rice and 97% of the 31 million eggs it consumes monthly. Two-thirds of Haiti’s people are farmers (roughly equivalent to the United States just after the Civil War), but their crop yields are among the lowest in the Western Hemisphere.
Few of Haiti’s rural families have running water or electricity, and women spend hours a day cooking over open fires. Many contract serious lung diseases as a result, and life expectancy is twelve years lower than for people on the Dominican Republic side of the island.
Google satellite images reveal a lush green eastern DR two-thirds of Hispaniola – in stark contrast to the deforested, rutted, brown, impoverished Haitian side, from which enormous quantities of soil are washed into the ocean every year. Roads are so rutted and awful that Peace Corps workers report traveling four hours by truck to go 60 miles. Many rural people cannot afford to feed their children, leaving hundreds of kids in poor highland areas literally starving to death.
Hybrid seeds can help Haitians climb out of this morass. They’re no silver bullet, but they are one of the cheapest, easiest and best investments a farmer can make. By simply planting different seeds and adding fertilizer, farmers can dramatically increase crop yields. A similar Monsanto donation of hybrid maize (corn) seeds and fertilizer to Malawi farmers in 2006 generated a 500% increase in yields and helped feed a million people for a year.
In the United States, organic and conventional farmers alike plant numerous hybrids. They cost more than traditional, open-pollinated seeds, but the payoff in yield, revenue, and uniformity of size, quality and ripening time makes the investment decision easy. Between 1933 and 2000, U.S. corn yields likewise expanded fivefold – thanks to hybrids, fertilizer, irrigation and innovative crop management practices – and today, hybrid or GM hybrid crops are planted on virtually every American field.
Some of the Haitian corn donation will be used to improve chicken farming and egg production. Most will likely be used in staples like sauce pois – corn mush topped with black or red beans combined with coconut milk, hot peppers, onions, garlic and oil. The thickness of the bean sauce reflects a family’s income, and “wealthy” families often accompany the sauce with rice, instead of corn mush. The veggie seeds will add variety to family diets, and provide a source of income via sales at local markets.
The hybrids will also help Haiti adopt truly sustainable farming practices: higher crop yields, greater revenues and better nutrition for more people, at lower cost, from less land, using less water and fewer pesticides, requiring less time in fields, and enabling more farmers to specialize in other trades and send their children to school. In short, greater opportunity and prosperity for millions.
And yet, activists continue to spew forth invective, preposterous claims and disinformation – primarily through the Huffington Post and several other websites. Hybrid seeds don’t regenerate, they assert; wrong – they do and can be replanted, though they will not pass all their best traits down to subsequent generations, which is one reason farmers typically buy new seeds. The seeds are poisonous, they fume; false – the seeds are treated with fungicides that are used safely all over the USA, Western Europe and Latin America, to keep seeds from being destroyed by fungus before they germinate.
(For additional information and discussions, see plant geneticist Anastasia Bodnar’s Biofortified website.)
Monsanto will not force farmers to plant hybrid seeds – or say they can’t replant what they collect from previous harvests. Indeed, hybrids were widely just 30 years ago by Haitian farmers, who know what they are looking for in a crop, how to assess what they have planted and harvested, and whether they want to invest in specific seeds. They should be allowed to make their own decisions – just as others should be permitted to plant whatever traditional, heirloom or open-pollinated seeds they wish.
“We reject Monsanto seeds,” say anti-hybrid activists. They might, and that’s fine. But thousands of other Haitian farmers want to plant Monsanto seeds. Their right to choose must also be respected – not denied by intolerant protesters, who are largely funded and guided by well-fed First World campaigners.
After years of vicious assaults by agro and eco purists, Monsanto’s corporate skin is probably thick enough to survive these lies and often highly personal attacks. Other companies, however, might lack the fortitude to provide their expertise and technology after future disasters, in the face of such attacks.
That is almost certainly an objective for many of these anti-technology, anti-corporate groups. Monsanto has no maize financial interests in Haiti and only a tiny vegetable operation, and I have no financial interest in Monsanto. But for the world’s most destitute people, it would be a tragedy of epic proportions.
http://townhall.com/columnists/PaulDriessen/2010/06/12/the_right_to_choose_-_for_farmers_in_haiti?page=full&comments=true
-
Imagine if this were a Republican:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v60oNUoHBYM&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
-
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/06/14/video-rep-etheridge-assaults-student-on-street/
Pulled by youtube.
-
Running on Empty
The wheels come off the liberal juggernaut, but it’s still dangerous.
BY Fred Barnes
June 28, 2010, Vol. 15, No. 39
The Obama presidency is nearly out of gas. So are the Democratic majorities in the Senate and House. Yet the White House and congressional Democrats aren’t surrendering. They’re still intoxicated with their “historic majorities” and bent on enacting more landmark liberal legislation this year, including cap and trade, a value-added tax (VAT), and who knows what else.
Are they fantasizing? Not entirely. The odds—and the political climate—are against them. But their ideological ambitions are undiminished and they have a sense of urgency. They know their majorities will be crippled (if not eliminated) in the midterm elections on November 2, which means they must enact the remaining parts of the agenda in 2010 or put them back in the cupboard of liberal dreams, maybe for decades. So it’s now or never.
There are two time slots for passing these bills, both difficult. The first is between now and whenever Congress recesses in the fall. Prospects look bleak in this time frame for approving anything except the final version of the financial reform bill. The second is when a lame duck Congress, filled with defeated and retired senators and House members, convenes in December.
Lame duck sessions don’t ordinarily enact major policy changes, but this one could be an exception. It is likely to meet after the president’s commission on reducing the deficit announces its recommendations, which may include a VAT. Democrats insist they’re not scheming to pass what is in effect a national sales tax. But a Republican official in the Senate told me a White House aide, in a recent chat, had raised the possibility of enacting one in the December session. A VAT has obviously crossed the president’s mind.
One can imagine the pressure that might be exerted to pass a VAT in a fiscal “emergency” in December: the deficit and the national debt exploding, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner reporting purchasers of government debt are suddenly backing off because of America’s fiscal mess, the president and his commission vowing to match the tax hike with spending cuts. The result: a VAT becomes law, most of the cuts don’t. President Reagan experienced a similar squeeze in the 1980s when he agreed to a tax increase in exchange for two times that amount of spending cuts. Taxes went up, the spending cuts went away.
What encourages Obama and Democrats is Obamacare. After the victory of Republican Scott Brown in the Massachusetts Senate race in January, the health care bill was regarded as dead. His election was interpreted as a mandate to discard it. But the corpse of Obamacare rose from the grave.
It didn’t matter that the legislation was unpopular and that the president had been breathtakingly unsuccessful in selling it to the American public. With their big majorities in the Senate and House, Democrats could pass Obamacare. And they did.
“Cap and trade” climate-change legislation is even more unpopular than Obamacare. But that’s hardly an impediment to pushing for its passage—especially if you’re thrilled with the idea of being a martyr for liberalism. Besides, it passed the House a year ago. So there’s only the Senate to go and probably no more than ten Democrats who must be cajoled into voting for it (the others are already on board).
Obama, however, didn’t help with his dreary Oval Office speech last week, a third of which was devoted to promoting cap and trade. He invoked a string of clichés about “the consequences of our inaction” and the “new future that will benefit all of us . . . only if we seize the moment.” And he told us he “will not settle for . . . the idea that this challenge is somehow too big and too difficult to meet.” That’s an empty pledge if there ever was one. And who said the challenge was too big anyway?
Once again, Obama declined to deal with the discredited science on global warming which was the impetus for the bill. Cap and trade would set an arbitrary ceiling on carbon emissions in America, imposing higher energy costs on consumers and businesses while having little or no effect on reducing temperatures. The president dismissed cost concerns in a couple of sentences.
The speech bombed on Capitol Hill, where the Democrats’ majorities are fraying. Senate Democrats did defeat a bid to bar the Environmental Protection Agency, run by global warmists, from imposing a carbon cap on its own. “The White House spun it as a victory,” a Republican aide said. “The problem is they didn’t get to 60.” To pass cap and trade, Democrats would need 60 votes to overcome an expected Republican filibuster.
Another blow to Obama was the rude response to his letter to congressional leaders last week asking for another $50 billion so states can avert “massive layoffs of teachers, police and firefighters.” Charles Lane of the Washington Post demolished Obama’s pitch as inaccurate and exaggerated. At best, the president may get a portion of his request, funded (against his wishes) by unused stimulus money.
A final question: Why in the world would a Democrat facing a tough reelection challenge in November vote for cap and trade or any other such legislation? Here’s the essence of the reasoning: Republicans are bound to attack you no matter how you vote, so why not play a role in making history? It won’t kill your reelection chances.
That’s not all. There’s a story line for wavering Democrats. You’ll have more money than your Republican opponent. The tea party people will make life difficult for Republican candidates. And look what happened in May in the special House election in Pennsylvania. The Democrat won by sounding like a conservative and stressing local issues. You can do the same.
If you sense there’s something faintly familiar about this advice, you’re right. In 2006, Republican leaders assured worried incumbents they’d be loaded with campaign money, plus earmarks for their districts or states and scads of local issues to latch onto. Many Republicans were comforted by this advice and then lost their seats. A similar fate awaits Democrats in 2010.
Fred Barnes is executive editor of The Weekly Standard.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/running-empty
-
Will Obama listen to anybody?
Examiner Editorial
June 24, 2010
There is a disturbing passage in federal Judge Martin Feldman's Tuesday decision
overturning President Obama's six-month moratorium on oil and natural gas drilling
in all waters more than 500 feet deep. "The [Interior] Secretary's determination
that a six-month moratorium on issuance of new permits and on drilling by the 33
rigs is necessary does not seem to be fact-specific and refuses to take into measure
the safety records of those others in the Gulf. There is no evidence presented
indicating that the Secretary balanced the concern for environmental safety with the
policy of making leases available for development. There is no suggestion that the
Secretary considered any alternatives. ..." Feldman wrote.
Even more disturbing is Obama's response to Feldman, which was to promise both an
appeal in court and issuance of a new drilling moratorium from Interior. In other
words, Obama is forging ahead with the very policy the judge just ruled
unconstitutional. And the chief executive is challenging the thousands of Gulf Coast
oil industry employees to try and stop him in the appeals court. This response is
the latest evidence of a disconcerting pattern with this president and his cronies
in the executive branch and Congress: Their "progressive" ideological agenda comes
first; everything else, including the will of the people and the letter of the law,
is at most an obstacle on the road to "change we can believe in."
Think about it: Large and growing majorities opposed Obamacare in public opinion
survey after survey, yet Obama and his congressional allies wrote the bill behind
closed doors, made multiple corrupt bargains to gain votes, and passed it anyway.
When General Motors bondholders opposed Obama's takeover, he flouted age-old
bankruptcy law while effectively nationalizing the automaker and handing it over to
the United Auto Workers union. When auto executives expressed concern about Obama's
costly increase in fuel economy standards, his chief environmental adviser warned
them not to "write anything down" about their discussion.
The list goes on: When public worries about excessive federal spending began being
heard on Capitol Hill, Obama appointed a rubber-stamping fiscal commission and
nodded approval as congressional Democrats set aside the law that since 1974 has
required Congress to approve an annual budget. When the Senate refused to vote on
Obama's cap-and-trade energy bill, his Environmental Protection Agency administrator
issued a threat: Either pass the bill or the agency will unilaterally impose
draconian carbon emission limits on America.
Years ago, Alexander Hamilton told the New York convention considering adoption of
the Constitution that "here, sir, the people govern." We wonder what he would say
today after witnessing Obama in action.
Read more at the Washington Examiner:
<http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/Will-Obama-listen-to-anybody_-96985499.html#ixzz0rv5x85uT>
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/Will-Obama-listen-to-anybody_-96985499.html#ixzz0rv5x85uT
-
Back in the day Alexander Hamilton would have used the standard left right glove slap to the face and pistols at dawn challenge. We are more civilized about it now..........aren't we? :evil:
Yeah Obama clearly does not understand anything about the constitution or his role in government anymore that most left and extreme right congressmen/senators.
The mentality inside the beltway seems to be the equivalent of a dysfuntional father. "you do not know what you want, you do not have the EXPERIENCE to even have a clue! You will do it MY way or move out of the house!" The arcjie bunker mentality is alive and well running rampant in the progressives all across the spectrum.
-
ADAMS: Inside the Black Panther case Anger, ignorance and lies
By ByJ. Christian Adams 6:58 p.m., Friday, June 25, 2010Illustration: Black Panther justice by Alexander Hunter for The Washington Times
On the day President Obama was elected, armed men wearing the black berets and jackboots of the New Black Panther Party were stationed at the entrance to a polling place in Philadelphia. They brandished a weapon and intimidated voters and poll watchers. After the election, the Justice Department brought a voter-intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party and those armed thugs. I and other Justice attorneys diligently pursued the case and obtained an entry of default after the defendants ignored the charges. Before a final judgment could be entered in May 2009, our superiors ordered us to dismiss the case.
The New Black Panther case was the simplest and most obvious violation of federal law I saw in my Justice Department career. Because of the corrupt nature of the dismissal, statements falsely characterizing the case and, most of all, indefensible orders for the career attorneys not to comply with lawful subpoenas investigating the dismissal, this month I resigned my position as a Department of Justice (DOJ) attorney.
The federal voter-intimidation statutes we used against the New Black Panthers were enacted because America never realized genuine racial equality in elections. Threats of violence characterized elections from the end of the Civil War until the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. Before the Voting Rights Act, blacks seeking the right to vote, and those aiding them, were victims of violence and intimidation. But unlike the Southern legal system, Southern violence did not discriminate. Black voters were slain, as were the white champions of their cause. Some of the bodies were tossed into bogs and in one case in Philadelphia, Miss., they were buried together in an earthen dam.
Based on my firsthand experiences, I believe the dismissal of the Black Panther case was motivated by a lawless hostility toward equal enforcement of the law. Others still within the department share my assessment. The department abetted wrongdoers and abandoned law-abiding citizens victimized by the New Black Panthers. The dismissal raises serious questions about the department's enforcement neutrality in upcoming midterm elections and the subsequent 2012 presidential election.
The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has opened an investigation into the dismissal and the DOJ's skewed enforcement priorities. Attorneys who brought the case are under subpoena to testify, but the department ordered us to ignore the subpoena, lawlessly placing us in an unacceptable legal limbo.
The assistant attorney general for civil rights, Tom Perez, has testified repeatedly that the "facts and law" did not support this case. That claim is false. If the actions in Philadelphia do not constitute voter intimidation, it is hard to imagine what would, short of an actual outbreak of violence at the polls. Let's all hope this administration has not invited that outcome through the corrupt dismissal.
Most corrupt of all, the lawyers who ordered the dismissal - Loretta King, the Obama-appointed acting head of the Civil Rights Division, and Steve Rosenbaum - did not even read the internal Justice Department memorandums supporting the case and investigation. Just as Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. admitted that he did not read the Arizona immigration law before he condemned it, Mr. Rosenbaum admitted that he had not bothered to read the most important department documents detailing the investigative facts and applicable law in the New Black Panther case. Christopher Coates, the former Voting Section chief, was so outraged at this dereliction of responsibility that he actually threw the memos at Mr. Rosenbaum in the meeting where they were discussing the dismissal of the case. The department subsequently removed all of Mr. Coates' responsibilities and sent him to South Carolina.
Mr. Perez also inaccurately testified to the House Judiciary Committee that federal "Rule 11" required the dismissal of the lawsuit. Lawyers know that Rule 11 is an ethical obligation to bring only meritorious claims, and such a charge by Mr. Perez effectively challenges the ethics and professionalism of the five attorneys who commenced the case. Yet the attorneys who brought the case were voting rights experts and would never pursue a frivolous matter. Their experience in election law far surpassed the experience of the officials who ordered the dismissal.
Some have called the actions in Philadelphia an isolated incident, not worthy of federal attention. To the contrary, the Black Panthers in October 2008 announced a nationwide deployment for the election. We had indications that polling-place thugs were deployed elsewhere, not only in November 2008, but also during the Democratic primaries, where they targeted white Hillary Rodham Clinton supporters. In any event, the law clearly prohibits even isolated incidents of voter intimidation.
Others have falsely claimed that no voters were affected. Not only did the evidence rebut this claim, but the law does not require a successful effort to intimidate; it punishes even the attempt.
Most disturbing, the dismissal is part of a creeping lawlessness infusing our government institutions. Citizens would be shocked to learn about the open and pervasive hostility within the Justice Department to bringing civil rights cases against nonwhite defendants on behalf of white victims. Equal enforcement of justice is not a priority of this administration. Open contempt is voiced for these types of cases.
Some of my co-workers argued that the law should not be used against black wrongdoers because of the long history of slavery and segregation. Less charitable individuals called it "payback time." Incredibly, after the case was dismissed, instructions were given that no more cases against racial minorities like the Black Panther case would be brought by the Voting Section.
Refusing to enforce the law equally means some citizens are protected by the law while others are left to be victimized, depending on their race. Core American principles of equality before the law and freedom from racial discrimination are at risk. Hopefully, equal enforcement of the law is still a point of bipartisan, if not universal, agreement. However, after my experience with the New Black Panther dismissal and the attitudes held by officials in the Civil Rights Division, I am beginning to fear the era of agreement over these core American principles has passed.
J. Christian Adams is a lawyer based in Virginia who served as a voting rights attorney at the Justice Department until this month. He blogs at electionlawcenter.com.
http://www.examiner.com/x-35976-Conservative-Examiner~y2010m6d26-DOJ-official-resigns-over-Obamas-racism?cid=examiner-email
-
Hmm, maybe the polling that lead some to hyperventilate about goose stepping Baptists wasn't all it was cracked up to be. . . .
The Fall of the "American Taliban"
Michael C. Moynihan | June 29, 2010
Back in February, I wrote the following about this DailyKos/Research 2000 poll, which suggested that every conservative in America thought Obama was a Kenyan communist:
Last week Daily Kos editor Markos Moulitsas told readers that he was "putting the finishing touches on my new book, American Taliban, which catalogues the ways in which modern-day conservatives share the same agenda as radical Jihadists in the Islamic world." But the liberal Dinesh D'Souza (whose sinister claims about the left's "responsibility" for 9/11 are summarized and rebutted here by George Mason law professor Peter Berkowitz) found himself "making certain claims about Republicans that I didn't know if they could be backed up." Working backwards, Moulitsas set out to prove, via a Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll, that self-identified Republicans have much in common with the makeup-wearing, women-beating acolytes of Mullah Omar.
The poll's results obviously do not confirm Moulitsas's rather extreme judgment of rank-and-file Republicans, but are nevertheless alarming. After a quick read of the questions and methodology (areas in which I possess no expertise), I was skeptical.
Now, DailyKos founder Markos Moulitsas is admitting that the study was, in his words, “bunk”:
I have just published a report by three statistics wizards showing, quite convincingly, that the weekly Research 2000 State of the Nation poll we ran the past year and a half was likely bunk.
Since the moment Mark Grebner, Michael Weissman, and Jonathan Weissman approached me, I took their concerns seriously and cooperated fully with their investigation. I also offered to run the results on Daily Kos provided that they 1) fully documented each claim in detail, 2) got that documentation peer reviewed by disinterested third parties, and 3) gave Research 2000 an opportunity to respond. By the end of last week, they had accomplished the first two items on that list. I held publication of the report until today, because I didn't want to partake in a cliche Friday Bad News Dump. This is serious business, and I wasn't going to bury it over a weekend.
We contracted with Research 2000 to conduct polling and to provide us with the results of their surveys. Based on the report of the statisticians, it's clear that we did not get what we paid for. We were defrauded by Research 2000, and while we don't know if some or all of the data was fabricated or manipulated beyond recognition, we know we can't trust it.
Good for Moulitsas for both allowing an investigation and coming clean when the results were unfavorable to Kos and Research 2000.
http://reason.com/blog/2010/06/29/undermining-the-american-talib?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reason%2FHitandRun+%28Reason+Online+-+Hit+%26+Run+Blog%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
-
As transparent as crude oil.
Aaron Gee
The Federal Government and the Coast Guard have issued new restrictions on press access to the Gulf oil spill and clean up. Reporters are not allowed within 65 feet of any cleanup vessel, or booms on land or in water. Failure to obey these directives is a class D Felony, with fines up to $40,000. This comes on the heals of a House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform report that found that the Obama administration had repeatedly provided false information on what assets were being used in the clean up, when officials knew about the leak, and the depth of Federal involvement in the operations.
President Obama has been remarkably thin skinned and it's clear from my perspective that Obama is trying desperately to control the negative images that come from the gulf oil disaster. The Press restrictions are so egregious that even CNN's Anderson Cooper is upset. In his broadcast (embedded video) he repeatedly says "we are not the enemy here", referring to the press. The recent actions by the Coast Guard , in direct contradiction to their earlier statements, have more and more reporters hopping mad. The clear implication of these actions is that Administrations is trying to cover up government incompetence and failure.
The new restrictions on press access aren't the only issue, another problem is that the media is still reluctant to place blame for government incompetence at the feet of Obama. Instead of looking to the Obama Administration in light of the new regulations, the media is blaming Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen. It would seem that the press still doesn't understand what the term "Commander-in-Chief" actually means. The US Military has always been a favorite press target and the recent criticisms continue the trend.
Sadly, the media still doesn't "get it". They are being played just as eloquently now as they were during the 2008 campaign. Our "watchdog" press has been fawning over President Obama in spite of his unkept promises, cover ups, and incompetence. The masters of spin and distraction at the White House know this and are hard at work on a new story line for the media to swallow. In the fairy tale version of events Obama will have done nothing wrong but the bad Coast Guard (Military types) and evil BP (Corporate types) will be obstructing the President's attempt to be transparent and clean up the gulf. Expect the White House to push this storyline and expect the media to go along despite all evidence to the contrary. Expect the American people to not be so easily fooled.
Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/07/as_transparent_as_crude_oil.html at July 06, 2010 - 08:56:59 AM CDT
-
<kid chant/taunt> The MSM is gonna do the prez! The MSM is gonna do the prez! </imitation> Like I said Obama has not a single CLUE how he is supposed to be running the country. Instead of trying to manage the media like some Commissar, he should roll up his sleeves and deal with reality. Oh yeah, he is pretty dissociated from that too. The Progressive political agenda is going to take a major hit, and a lot of the liberal side of politics is gonna get impacted. I would love for some media type to "out" all the politicos who passed or supported Obamas media restrictions. The Media is a PITA, but they are as necessary as living with traffic on the daily commute to work..........
-
July 06, 2010
The Left-Fascist Axis. Again
By James Lewis
We are seeing another Left-fascist axis in our time, recapitulating Stalin's (and worldwide communism's) embrace of Hitler's Germany. The Gaza flotilla crisis was set up by the radical Left (Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, Jodie Evans and other Obama buds), in collusion with Hamas, which is about as fascist as they get. If you doubt it, watch Hamas TV on the MEMRI website. They are the worst. They teach toddlers about the glories of dying for Allah. Even Fatah thinks Hamas is a throwback to the Dark Ages.
In the Gaza flotilla, the Turks who yelled out "Khaibar! Khaibar!" as they were trying to kill Israeli soldiers, were members of the Turkish branch of Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood. They yelled out "Khaibar!" because that massacre of Jews was Mohammed's own Auschwitz. That doesn't leave any doubt about who they are. Martyrdom is just a means to an end, and that end is "Khaibar." The media always forget to tell us that part.
Words matter, which is why the Left is always making up new words for themselves, to disguise who they really are. The Left isn't Communist any more, they are "progressive" -- which leaves the rest of us back in 1776. "Progressives" always know which way to find "progress," and it always comes down to stomping on the rest of us. Because if you're not "progressive" you must be an enemy of "progress."
The radical Left hasn't changed one smidgen since Stalin. The Left still believes in global totalitarianism. Stalin is dead, but Stalinism is on the march. Listen to the stomping of their boots.
The Left is a throwback to all the ancient utopian cults, the Mayans, Genghis Khan and the Yellow Emperor of China, Idi Amin Dada and Robert Mugabe. It's the ancient Egyptian priesthood, which was also a cult run by a totalitarian clique. In ancient Egypt you had to die to get to utopia, but the psychology is always the same. Utopian cults always appeal to suckers. They are a very nasty part of the human condition. But there's nothing new there, and they are certainly not "progressive." They are a throwback.
Obama doesn't look like a normal American because he is a High Priest. Harry Truman wouldn't recognize him, but King Tut would. Obama has all the arrogance and ignorance of a Pharaoh.
So here are two ways to simplify the daily media circus. First, the media are the cult of the Left, trying to twist your mind. The "Left" equals global totalitarianism, which is Stalinism, which is Leninism, which is radical feminism, which is the hateful racism of the Reverend Wright and Louis Farrakhan. Same story, different labels. Keep it simple.
Whatever mask they try on, radical leftists are internationalists -- meaning that they are against America as a sovereign nation. That's Obama's real beef against us, and it's why he will never enforce our borders. Sure, leftists are all "patriots" in their own minds, because they worship the prairie flowers and the pretty mountains. And they all despise MacDonald's hamburgers and eat arugula, because at bottom they are the most amazing snobs. America is just one little piece of Planet Gaia, where everybody will live in peace and harmony because Obama or Algore will rule us with an iron fist. It's all for our own good.
So, the Left hasn't changed since ancient times. That's why Harvard has a "speech code," courtesy of the likes of Elena Kagan and the PC Commissars. People can't be trusted to say what's on their minds. They might hurt somebody's feelings. Speech codes are ancient ways to control people. All the prehistoric little Hitlers had speech taboos.
The second useful word is "fascist." Academics spend their lives trying to define that word. But if you believe in killing people until they surrender to your totalitarian hokum; if you want to enslave women, kids, Jews, Christians, nonconformist Muslims (like the Bahai'is), gays, Africans in the Sudan, Marxists (yes), Trotskyites, liberals, and anybody who thinks the US Constitution is a good idea, you're a fascist. Simple, reasonable definition.
So we are seeing the Hitler-Stalin Pact, Take 2. The motivation is identical. These people hate the modern world, just like the Nazis and Lenin did. Hitler wanted to go back to the Nordic gods. His utopia was in a fantasy past. Lenin placed his utopia in the distant future. If you're a coercive utopian you have to dream of a long-ago past or a misty future, as long as it's impossible to see what it's really like.
Today the Saudis want to go back to Mohammed in the 7th century, and the Twelvers in Iran want to go back to the Hidden Mahdi in the 11th century. They all want to make utopia by force and terror.
The Left-fascists are intolerant of individualism, liberty, free speech and electoral legitimacy, which is why they always try to sabotage constitutional government. Kagan on the Supreme Court. Obama as Pharaoh in the Oval. Why bow down to the King of Saudi and the Emperor of Japan? They are both medieval reactionaries. Obama bowed down to them, but he was really giving the high sign to America. That's Obama's schtick.
We are seeing a re-run of the Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1938. That Left-Fascist alliance fell apart when Hitler flipped and decided to send tanks into Poland and Russia instead.
It is what Freud called a "repetition compulsion." It happens over and over again, because these people don't live in reality. That's why they are dangerous. They can never figure out what went wrong last time, so they keep trying it again. They live in egomaniacal fantasies, and real people keep getting in their way. Off with their heads!
The last time a Left-Fascist Axis rose to power it led to World War Two and the Cold War. Maybe the only way to win is to make them fight each other. That's how we came out of it before.
I don't know how decent people will prevail this time. I think we will, because we have done so over the centuries. But we are in another Long War with some real bad hot spots. The enemy today is both the Left and the fascists.
Read the news and you'll see it every day.
They're baaaaack!
Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/07/the_leftfascist_axis_again.html at July 06, 2010 - 02:57:38 PM CDT
-
Unequal Justice
Team Obama lets the Black Panthers get away with voter intimidation.
Voters at a precinct on Philadelphia’s Fairmount Street witnessed unusual sights and sounds on Election Day, Nov. 4, 2008. Two members of the New Black Panther party, King Samir Shabazz and Jerry Jackson, stood within 15 feet of this polling station dressed in military-style black jackets, black berets, and black combat boots. Shabazz wielded a two-foot-long night stick.
“Cracker, you are about to be ruled by a black man,” one of the New Black Panthers told a white voter. They taunted others as “white devils.” Angela and Larry Counts, a black couple who served as GOP poll watchers, told authorities they felt endangered when the Panthers called them “race traitors.”
At an April 23, 2010, U.S. Civil Rights Commission hearing, Chris Hill, an eyewitness and roving poll watcher, explained under oath that he spoke with Larry Counts inside the precinct. “When I found him, he was not quite cowering, but he was definitely shook up,” Hill testified. “And he told me that he was called a race traitor by Mr. Shabazz . . . and that he was threatened if he stepped outside of the building, there would be hell to pay.”
A Dec. 22, 2008, Justice Department memorandum states that Mr. and Mrs. Counts “confirmed that they were afraid to leave the polling place until the Black Panthers had departed.” The memo adds that Angela Counts “wondered what might occur next and if someone might ‘bomb the place.’”
Legendary civil-rights attorney and liberal-Democrat activist Bartle Bull was at the Fairmount Street precinct. Bull’s left-wing credentials are not sterling. They are platinum. The former publisher of the Village Voice served as New York State campaign manager for Ted Kennedy’s 1980 presidential bid. He did the same for Robert F. Kennedy in 1968. As early as 1966, he watched polls and served Democratic candidates in such places as Midnight, Miss. “I saw nooses hung over the branches of trees,” he told the Civil Rights Commission.
Bull recalled that on the day Barack Obama was elected president of the United States, “the gentleman with the club,” King Samir Shabazz, “pointed the billy club at me and said, ‘Now you will see what it means to be ruled by the black man, Cracker.’ And the reason I recall that very well is because it struck me as ironic that having worked as a civil-rights lawyer and being threatened in Mississippi, I was now being threatened in this way here, and being called a cracker, frankly.”
So, the Panthers behaved menacingly, used some nasty language, and terrified at least two poll watchers. But did they actually intimidate voters? Eyewitnesses say they did.
• The DOJ memo states: “Attorney poll watcher Harry Lewis told us he saw voters appear apprehensive about approaching the polling location entrance behind the Black Panthers.”
• Chris Hill told that Civil Rights Commission: “As I was standing on the corner, I had two older ladies and an older gentleman stop right next to me, ask what was going on. I said, ‘Truthfully, we don’t really know. All we know is there’s [sic] two Black Panthers here.’ And the lady said, ‘Well, we’ll just come back.’ And so, they walked away.” Referring to the Panthers, Hill added: “I saw these guys. They attempted to intimidate me. I’m Army Infantry. I don’t intimidate, but they did stop those three people from voting at that second.”
Surely the Obama administration prosecuted Shabazz and Jackson for voter intimidation?
Wrong!
When they ignored late-term Bush-administration charges of Voting Rights Act violations, federal district judge Stewart Dalzell issued a default ruling against Shabazz, Jackson, the New Black Panther party, and its chairman, Malik Zulu Shabazz (no relation to the other Shabazz). Although career federal prosecutors won this case (arguing, among other things, that “there is never a good reason to bring a billy club to a polling station”), they were overruled by political appointees in Pres. Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder’s Justice Department, who ordered them to dismiss the complaints against all parties except King Samir Shabazz. He was ordered not to exhibit a weapon within 100 feet of a Philadelphia precinct through Nov. 15, 2012. Shabazz presumably would abide by this injunction if he brandished his baton at voters 105 feet from a polling place or did so in Philadelphia in 2013. Pittsburgh seems fair game.
The May 15, 2009, case dismissal was timed perfectly for Jerry Jackson. During the Election Day 2008 incident, he was an elected member of Philadelphia’s 14th Ward Democratic Committee and a credentialed poll watcher for the Democratic party and the Obama campaign. With the federal case safely behind him, Jackson watched the polls again for the Democrats in municipal elections on May 19, 2009.
This situation is even more outrageous given the unvarnished bigotry of those involved.
• “You want freedom, you gonna have to kill some crackers,” King Samir Shabazz says on a National Geographic/YouTube video. “You gonna have to kill some of they [sic] babies.”
“I’m about the total destruction of white people,” Shabazz told the Philadelphia Daily News’s Dana DiFilippo. “I’m about the total liberation of black people. I hate white people. I hate my enemy.” Shabazz likes to relax by putting on his headphones and listening to “revolutionary, cracker-killing hip-hop.”
• “F*** Whitey’s Christmas,” read a message on Jerry Jackson’s MySpace page, until it was whitewashed once Kerry Picket uncovered it in the July 30, 2009, Washington Times. “BLACK POWER, BLACK LOVE, BLACK UNITY, BLACK MINDS, KILLIN CRAKKKAS,” stated Jackson’s webpage.
• The leftist Southern Poverty Law Center calls NBPP “a hate group based on the anti-white, anti-gay, and anti-Semitic views its leaders have repeatedly expressed.” The NBPP is so bigoted, it has been repudiated even by the original Black Panthers.
• “Let’s talk about this brother,” NBPP president Malik Zulu Shabazz says at a public gathering while someone holds up a large photo of al-Qaeda chief “Sheik Osama bin Laden,” as Shabazz calls him. As crowd members shout “Allahu akbar,” Shabazz continues: “He’s standing up. He’s bringing reform to this world.” Speaking on March 22, 2002 — more than six months after the 9/11 terrorist attacks — Shabazz says: “Here’s a Muslim that’s [sic] standing up. . . . Let’s give him a hand, man.” The audience bursts into applause and cheers. “If the enemy hates him,” Shabazz concludes about bin Laden, “tangentially, logically, mathematically, he’s your friend.”
Why would the supposedly ethnically transcendent Obama administration distribute free passes to the black equivalent of Klansmen with a soft spot for al-Qaeda? Blame power-lust and unequal justice under law.
J. Christian Adams, until recently a career attorney in the Justice Department’s Voting Rights Division, testified under oath July 6 before the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. He offered an insider’s view of the politicized, radical atmosphere within Obama’s Justice Department.
• According to Adams, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Julie Fernandes last November instructed prosecutors on the “Motor Voter” law that governs voter registration. Regarding that statute’s Section 8 — which requires that local officials purge their rolls of relocated, ineligible, and dead voters — Adams recalls hearing Fernandes, an Obama political appointee, say: “We have no interest in enforcing this provision of the law. It has nothing to do with increasing turnout, and we are just not going to do it.” Such lawlessness, of course, invites ACORN-style vote fraud.
• As a July 6 Washington Times editorial (one of at least 31 that have advanced this story) noted, Adams also testified that “There is an open hostility to race-neutral enforcement of the voting-rights laws.” He added: “I was told by Voting Section management that cases are not going to be brought against black defendants on the benefit of white victims.”
Adams, who resigned from Justice in protest on June 1, encapsulated the Obama administration’s moral bankruptcy in this case: “We abetted wrongdoers and abandoned law-abiding citizens.”
— Deroy Murdock is a nationally syndicated columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service and a media fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University.
http://article.nationalreview.com/438019/unequal-justice/deroy-murdock
-
Notice only the eeeeeeevil Fox News is covering the above story. If the Bush Administration's DOJ was not prosecuting the KKK for intimidating black voters in identical circumstances, would the media be silent?
-
Lawsuit Claims College Ordered Student to Alter Religious Views on
Homosexuality, Or Be Dismissed
By Joshua Rhett Miller
Published July 27, 2010
| FoxNews.com
Jennifer Keeton, 24, has been pursuing a master's degree in school
counseling at Augusta State University since last year, but school officials
have informed her that she'll be dismissed from the program unless she
alters her "central religious beliefs on human nature and conduct,"
according to a civil complaint filed last week.
A graduate student in Georgia is suing her university after she was told she
must undergo a remediation program due to her beliefs on homosexuality and
transgendered persons.
The student, Jennifer Keeton, 24, has been pursuing a master's degree in
school counseling at Augusta State University since 2009, but school
officials have informed her that she'll be dismissed from the program unless
she alters her "central religious beliefs on human nature and conduct,"
according to a civil complaint filed last week.
"[Augusta State University] faculty have promised to expel Miss Keeton from
the graduate Counselor Education Program not because of poor academic
showing or demonstrated deficiencies in clinical performance, but simply
because she has communicated both inside and outside the classroom that she
holds to Christian ethical convictions on matters of human sexuality and
gender identity," the 43-page lawsuit reads.
Keeton, according to the lawsuit, was informed by school officials in late
May that she would be asked to take part in a remediation plan due to
faculty concerns regarding her beliefs pertaining to gay, lesbian, bisexual
and transgender issues.
"The faculty identifies Miss Keeton's views as indicative of her improper
professional disposition to persons of such populations," the lawsuit reads.
The remediation plan, according to the lawsuit, noted Keeton's "disagreement
in several class discussions and in written assignments with the gay and
lesbian 'lifestyle,'" as well as Keeton's belief that those "lifestyles" are
cases of identity confusion.
If Keeton fails to complete the plan, including additional reading and the
writing of papers describing the impact on her beliefs, she will be expelled
from the Counselor Education Program, the lawsuit claims.
Keeton has stated that she believes sexual behavior is the "result of
accountable personal choice rather than an inevitability deriving from
deterministic forces," according to the suit.
"She also has affirmed binary male-female gender, with one or the other
being fixed in each person at their creation, and not a social construct or
individual choice subject to alteration by the person so created," the
lawsuit reads. "Further, she has expressed her view that homosexuality is a
'lifestyle,' not a 'state of being.'"
In a statement to FoxNews.com, Augusta State University officials declined
to comment specifically on the litigation, but said the university does not
discriminate on the basis of students' moral, religious, political or
personal views or beliefs.
"The Counselor Education Program is grounded in the core principles of the
American Counseling Association and the American School Counselor
Association, which defines the roles and responsibilities of professional
counselors in its code of ethics," the statement read. "The code is included
in the curriculum of the counseling education program, which states that
counselors in training have the same responsibility as professional
counselors to understand and follow the ACA Code of Ethics."
David French, senior counsel at the Alliance Defense Fund, which filed the
lawsuit against Augusta State University on Keeton's behalf, said no
university has the right to force a citizen to change their beliefs on any
topic.
"The university has told Jennifer Keeton that if she doesn't change her
beliefs, she can't stay in the program," he told FoxNews.com. "She won't
even have a chance to counsel any students; she won't have a chance to get a
counseling degree; she'll be expelled."
Keeton, who is not available for interviews according to French, believes
that people have "moral choices" regarding their sexuality, he said.
"A student has a right to express their point of view in and out of class
without fear or censorship or expulsion," French said.
Thank you
Jeff Hussey
Phone. 705.879.2870 Fax. 705.438.5893
Email. hussey.jeff@northeasternaerospace.com
Web. www.northeasternaerospace.com
-
:x :x :x
SEC Says New FinReg Law Exempts It From Public Disclosure
By Dunstan Prial
Published July 28, 2010
Reuters
So much for transparency.
Under a little-noticed provision of the recently passed financial-reform legislation, the Securities and Exchange Commission no longer has to comply with virtually all requests for information releases from the public, including those filed under the Freedom of Information Act.
The law, signed last week by President Obama, exempts the SEC from disclosing records or information derived from "surveillance, risk assessments, or other regulatory and oversight activities." Given that the SEC is a regulatory body, the provision covers almost every action by the agency, lawyers say. Congress and federal agencies can request information, but the public cannot.
That argument comes despite the President saying that one of the cornerstones of the sweeping new legislation was more transparent financial markets. Indeed, in touting the new law, Obama specifically said it would “increase transparency in financial dealings."
The SEC cited the new law Tuesday in a FOIA action brought by FOX Business Network. Steven Mintz, founding partner of law firm Mintz & Gold LLC in New York, lamented what he described as “the backroom deal that was cut between Congress and the SEC to keep the SEC’s failures secret. The only losers here are the American public.”
If the SEC’s interpretation stands, Mintz, who represents FOX Business Network, predicted “the next time there is a Bernie Madoff failure the American public will not be able to obtain the SEC documents that describe the failure,” referring to the shamed broker whose Ponzi scheme cost investors billions.
The SEC didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Criticism of the provision has been swift. “It allows the SEC to block the public’s access to virtually all SEC records,” said Gary Aguirre, a former SEC staff attorney-turned-whistleblower who had accused the agency of thwarting an investigation into hedge fund Pequot Asset Management in 2005. “It permits the SEC to promulgate its own rules and regulations regarding the disclosure of records without getting the approval of the Office of Management and Budget, which typically applies to all federal agencies.”
Aguirre used FOIA requests in his own lawsuit against the SEC, which the SEC settled this year by paying him $755,000. Aguirre, who was fired in September 2005, argued that supervisors at the SEC stymied an investigation of Pequot – a charge that prompted an investigation by the Senate Judiciary and Finance committees.
The SEC closed the case in 2006, but would re-open it three years later. This year, Pequot and its founder, Arthur Samberg, were forced to pay $28 million to settle insider-trading charges related to shares of Microsoft (MSFT: 25.86 ,-0.30 ,-1.15%). The settlement with Aguirre came shortly later.
“From November 2008 through January 2009, I relied heavily on records obtained from the SEC through FOIA in communications to the FBI, Senate investigators, and the SEC in arguing the SEC had botched its initial investigation of Pequot’s trading in Microsoft securities and thus the SEC should reopen it, which it did,” Aguirre said. “The new legislation closes access to such records, even when the investigation is closed.
“It is hard to imagine how the bill could be more counterproductive,” Aguirre added.
FOX Business Network sued the SEC in March 2009 over its failure to produce documents related to its failed investigations into alleged investment frauds being perpetrated by Madoff and R. Allen Stanford. Following the Madoff and Stanford arrests it, was revealed that the SEC conducted investigations into both men prior to their arrests but failed to uncover their alleged frauds.
FOX Business made its initial request to the SEC in February 2009 seeking any information related to the agency’s response to complaints, tips and inquiries or any potential violations of the securities law or wrongdoing by Stanford.
FOX Business has also filed lawsuits against the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve over their failure to respond to FOIA requests regarding use of the bailout funds and the Fed’s extended loan facilities. In February, the Federal Court in New York sided with FOX Business and ordered the Treasury to comply with its requests.
Last year, the network won a legal victory to force the release of documents related to New York University’s lawsuit against Madoff feeder Ezra Merkin.
FOX Business’ FOIA requests have so far led the SEC to release several important and damaging documents:
•FOX Business used the FOIA to obtain a 2005 survey that the SEC in Fort Worth was sending to Stanford investors. The survey showed that the SEC had suspicions about Stanford several years prior to the collapse of his $7 billion empire.
•FOX Business used the FOIA to obtain copies of emails between Federal Reserve lawyers, AIG and staff at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in which it was revealed the Fed staffers knew that bailing out AIG would result in bonuses being paid.
Recently, TARP Congressional Oversight Panel chair Elizabeth Warren told FOX Business that the network’s Freedom of Information Act efforts played a “very important part” of the panel’s investigation into AIG.
Warren told the network the government “crossed a line” with the AIG bailout.
“FOX News and the congressional oversight panel has pushed, pushed, pushed, for transparency, give us the documents, let us look at everything. Your Freedom of Information Act suit, which ultimately produced 250,000 pages of documentation, was a very important part of our report. We were able to rely on the documents that you pried out for a significant part of our being able to put this report together,” Warren said.
The SEC first made its intention to block further FOIA requests known on Tuesday. FOX Business was preparing for another round of “skirmishes” with the SEC, according to Mintz, when the agency called and said it intended to use Section 929I of the 2000-page legislation to refuse FBN’s ongoing requests for information.
Mintz said the network will challenge the SEC’s interpretation of the law.
“I believe this is subject to challenge,” he said. “The contours will have to be figured out by a court.”
SEC Financial Regulatory Law H.R. 4173
-
PC is finally starting to bear the newspeak fruits from its planting. The secrecy mafia of another prsidency is also bearing fruit. Obviously most of our politicians have the elitist/noble attitude that a lot of the Europeon Nobility had before the industrial revolution and social revolution fixed it. I think we may see a compressed version of the Depression/French revolution take place. It will have world wide effects because of the USA's position in the center of things. The only question I have is how many are gonna die on the various idealogical altars before things take on a direction, and whether that direction is a good one or not.
The one I see right now is very scary for the america I knew even in the 80's-90's much less the one I grew up in.
-
Real Sherrod Story Still Untold
By Jack Cashill
Had Andrew Breitbart dutifully written a column detailing how an obscure USDA official, Shirley Sherrod, and her husband, Charles Sherrod, had scammed the government out of millions, the story would have had the range and lifespan of a fruit fly.
Instead, as the world knows, Breitbart released an edited version of Shirley Sherrod's speech before the NAACP that provoked national headlines and caused the NAACP to denounce her and a panicky Obama administration to fire her from her position as the Georgia Director of Rural Development for the USDA.
Then, of course, when the full version of the speech emerged -- which showed Sherrod as a recovering racist, not as a practicing one -- the Obama White House fell all over itself apologizing, and the media turned their guns on Breitbart.
Breitbart, however, had put a potentially huge story into play the only way he could -- through sheer provocation. As he knew, and as we are learning, the story goes well beyond Sherrod's long-ago racist mischief-making with a poor white farmer.
This past Sunday, in his weekly column for the San Francisco Chronicle, "Willie's World," veteran black politico Willie Brown confirmed that "there is more to the story than just [Sherrod's] remarks."
"As an old pro," Brown acknowledged, "I know that you don't fire someone without at least hearing their side of the story unless you want them gone in the first place." Brown observed that Sherrod had been a thorn in the USDA's side for years, that many had objected to her hiring, and that she had been "operating a community activist organization not unlike ACORN." Although Brown does not go into detail, he alludes to a class action lawsuit against the USDA in which she participated some years ago.
In the way of background, in 1997, a black farmer named Timothy Pigford, joined by four hundred other black farmers, filed a lawsuit against Bill Clinton's Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman, claiming that the USDA treated black farmers unfairly in all manner of ways, from price support loans to disaster payments to operating loans. Worse, they charged that the USDA had failed to process any complaints about racial discrimination.
The notion that the Clinton Ag Department had spent four years consciously denying black farmers their due defies everything we know about Clinton's use of race and should have made the media suspicious about Pigford's claims dating back to 1983.
Flush with revenue in 1999 and eager to appease this bedrock constituency, the administration settled with the farmers -- more realistically, their attorneys -- for fifty grand apiece, plus various other perks like tax offsets and loan forgiveness. If any of the presumably racist USDA offenders were punished, that news escaped the media.
After the consent decree was announced, the USDA opened the door to other claimants who had been similarly discriminated against. They expected 2,000 additional claims. They got 22,000 more, roughly 60 percent of whom were approved for this taxpayer-funded Lotto.
Despite having a year and a half to apply, some 70,000 more alleged claimants argued that they not only had been discriminated against, but also had been denied notice of the likely windfall that awaited them.
In 2008, for reasons unknown, Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa lobbied to give the alleged 70,000 "another bite at the apple." Co-sponsoring the bill was none other than U.S. Senator Barack Obama. In February of 2010, the Obama administration settled with the aggrieved 70,000 for $1.25 billion that the government did not have to give. This money, by the way, was finessed out of a defense appropriation bill.
At the time, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the agreement would close a "sordid chapter" in the department's history, a chapter in which no one seems to have been so much as reprimanded.
The major media reported the settlement as though it were the signing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. For the last forty years, as the civil rights industry has manufactured more and more absurd grievances -- most notably the Tea Party smear that incited Breitbart's reprisal -- the media have reported on them with increasingly wide-eyed innocence.
In the various stories on the settlement, not one reporter that I could identify stopped to do the math. Pajamas Media did in a detailed article by "Zombie" titled appropriately, "Pigford v. Glickman: 86,000 claims from 39,697 total farmers?"
Although 86,000 black farmers are alleged to have received payments, at no time in the last three decades have there been more than 40,000 black farmers. Nor is there much turnover in the farming business. No entrepreneurial activity involves more long-term investment.
Realistically, of the 40,000 or 86,000, how many could have applied for a USDA loan and been rejected while white farmers in comparable circumstances were getting loans? If there were hundreds, let alone thousands, the heads of loan officers should have been rolling around the USDA floors, but I know of no such purge.
More to the point, out of about $1 billion paid out so far in settlements, the largest amount has gone to the Sherrods' New Communities Incorporated, which received some $13 million. As Time Magazine approvingly reported this week, $330,000 was "awarded to Shirley and Charles Sherrod for mental suffering alone."
Unwittingly, Charles Sherrod shed light on the how and why of the settlement in a speech he gave in January 2010. As he explained, New Communities farmed its 6,000 acres successfully for seventeen years before running into five straight years of drought. Then, according to Sherrod, New Communities engaged in a three-year fight with the USDA to get the appropriate loans to deal with drought.
Said Sherrod, "They were saying that since we're a corporation, we're not an individual, we're not a farmer." Nevertheless, the Sherrods prevailed, but the late payments "caused us to lose this land." In other words, the bureaucratic delay over taxpayer-funded corporate welfare payments cost them their business.
Then, thanks to their "good lawyers," said a gleeful Sherrod, who seems to have fully recovered from his mental suffering, the Sherrods successfully sued the government for "a large sum of money -- a large sum of money." While saying this, he made hand gestures suggesting $15 million. The land itself was admittedly worth no more than $9 million.
Sherrod gave this talk to announce that the FCC had awarded New Communities a radio station in Albany, Georgia, still another race-based corporate welfare boondoggle. Before the award of this station, he added, the Sherrods "had no means of communicating with our people."
The "our people" in question, of course, are black people. With this new voice, the Sherrods will help "stop the white man and his Uncle Toms from stealing our elections. We must not be afraid to vote black."
Yes, indeed -- these are just the people we want spending the money we don't have.
Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/07/real_sherrod_story_still_untol.html at July 30, 2010 - 01:06:27 PM CDT
-
http://reason.com/blog/2010/08/05/a-webb-of-lies
Reason Magazine
A Webb of Lies
Michael C. Moynihan | August 5, 2010
A terrific documentary from the BBC World Service (episode one available for download here; episode two airs next week) asking the age old question, “why are smart people so consistently fooled by evil regimes?” The first program, predictably titled “Useful Idiots,” recounts the Sovietophilia of some very clever people, including Malcolm Muggeridge, Doris Lessing, Sidney and Beatrice Webb, Claude Cockburn, HG Wells, and Walter Duranty.
For those familiar with the invaluable academic work of Paul Hollander, the cast of characters will be familiar and the zeal with which so many American intellectuals embraced totalitarianism will be unsurprising. But the mention of the Webbs and their book Soviet Communism: A New Civilization sent me to the academic database JSTOR to gauge the general reaction to the book, an almost comic hagiography of Stalin, amongst the intelligentsia. Here are samples from just the first page of results:
“The Webbs - the name by which the authors will ever be remembered - have produced, on the threshold of their ninth decade, an astonishing book. The volumes are a most helpful survey of a vast body of literature, the sifting of which has been done with a care that makes the process more than merely one of scissors and paste. While confessing to a bias, the authors strive conscientiously to achieve objectivity.” - The Quarterly Journal of Economics (MIT Press), Vol. 51, No. 1 (Nov., 1936)
“This is a remarkable book, a fitting continuation of the documentary research and tract-writing with which the Webbs have enriched the social sciences during their long and fruitful collaboration. It is comprehensive, detailed and fully documented—an amazing piece of work, even granted the interest of the subject and the authors' mastery of technique.” - International Affairs, Vol. 15, No. 3 (May - Jun., 1936)
“The indeed must be congratulated on the achievement of a stupendous task… The goal of Soviet medicine is to create the positive health of the population, and, so far as can be judged from this book, it seems to have made remarkable progress.” The British Medical Journal, Vol. 1, No. 3917 (Feb. 1, 1936)
“The result is a most complete analysis, in the first volume, of the complicated Soviet organizational structure and, in the second volume, of the social institutions of the Soviet system in action. While practically all aspects of the revolutionary struggle and of its institutional product are touched upon, the great value of the study, in the opinion of the reviewer, is the weighting by the authors of the various facts and factors.” The Social Service Review (University of Chicago), Vol. 10, No. 2 (Jun., 1936)
“In this, their latest work, a monument of industry, written with extraordinary clarity and vivid with the ardour of perennial youth, [the Webbs] win once again our enthusiastic gratitude.” The Economic Journal, Vol. 46, No. 181 (Mar., 1936)
“The comprehensive survey that the authors here provide will go far to correct many prevailing errors in regard to different aspects of Russian life, and they are on safe ground when they stress the necessity of the picture being all-embracing…It is free from the crudeness which characterises so much of this type of literature. As a sustained effort to present the Bolshevik experiment in the most attractive colours, this work of 1,200 pages is a remarkable achievement. There is a studied moderation of tone that renders the book all the more effective for its purpose.” Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, Vol. 25, No. 97 (Mar., 1936)
“Faced with the magnitude of the task the authors have undertaken and the breadth of vision and depth of understanding with which they have accomplished it, to cavil at minor inaccuracies and to deplore the lack of a subject index seem acts of Lilliputian dimension…These criticisms are however of little importance; the two volumes composing this work constitute a synthesis of what has taken place in the Soviet Union for which the Western world cannot but be grateful.” Pacific Affairs, Vol. 9, No. 2 (Jun., 1936)
“Soviet Communism is the most balanced, scholarly and comprehensive book on Russia yet written in the English language. It has deprived all who can read English of their last excuse for prejudice born of ignorance. It should enable public opinion on Sovietism to move on to a new stage.” The Australian Quarterly, Vol. 8, No. 30 (Jun., 1936)
I found no critical reviews from 1936, the year Soviet Communism was released.
And apologies to the BBC for being pedantic, but while New York Times correspondent Walter Duranty was a repulsive Stalinist stooge, it isn’t true that he “responded [to claims of famine] with an article in the New York Times headed ‘Story of the famine is bunk.’” Duranty was more subtle than that, though only slightly. It was in private correspondence that Duranty called the stories “mostly bunk”; in print, he wrote that claims of widespread starvation were “scare stories,” “exaggerated stories,” and that previous accounts of Soviet brutality were “all bunk, of course.”
-
Couldn't find a good spot for this but I think it fits under liberal Facism. Free spech is good on college campuses as long as it is approved otherwise they call out the thought police and you go to jail. That is why the rule for conservitives and libertarians in college is go along get along and get out !
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Gr1BIDi97M[/youtube]
Boyo
-
I'm guessing this "John Bush" had no student status on the campus and had been asked to leave, refused to do so and was then arrested as a result. A press pass is not some sort of "get out of jail free" card.
-
Quoting GM: I'm guessing this "John Bush" had no student status on the campus and had been asked to leave, refused to do so and was then arrested as a result. A press pass is not some sort of "get out of jail free" card.
There were some updates here: http://www.dailypaul.com/node/142018
"John was officially booked and charged with Criminal Trespassing. He is at the Austin jail located at 500 W 10th St." Also a reply from the Univ.Texas President: "In order to mitigate any public disruption to the teaching and research mission of the institution, the University temporarily created a limited area for public protest on the East side of the Perry-Castaneda Library on August 9"
Bush did not claim to be a student, only that campuses are traditionally the center of free speech, particularly protest speech. Missing in the video is the Presidential visit. Areas are often secured for events like these, but that was not the issue here. I find a few things peculiar. As the video begins, the police are already on the scene. If he is already guilty of the criminal trespass, a serious charge, why is he offered the freedom to leave without arrest? I agree that one's free speech rights don't spill over onto my property, but is a public university really private property? I assume yes, but even the public streets and sidewalks that run through it? The video shows quite a large group of onlookers in the same "criminal trespass" location, the videographer and the chanters and so on, why are they not handcuffed and hauled off? Are protesters of other causes on other days given the same or comparable treatment? (I doubt it.) Was there really any classes in session on UTA or research being conducted within earshot of the spirited discussion on Aug. 9? Were students and staff really disrupted by the spirited discussion or was the President's security breached by the protesters? Accuweather says it was 99 degrees, and the August classroom windows would be open?
I recall the Republican convention in St. Paul MN 2008. Really the 50,000 conventioneers were the trespassers in that totally liberal, Democrat city and the civil servants enforcing the protest area designations were mostly Dems and protest sympathizers charged with doing their jobs. Public streets around the convention center and public grounds were off-limits to protesters. Real violence occurred and serious terrorist threats existed. Arrests were made and very angry protesters posted their youtubes. Everyone in this age of blogging has a press pass, but not one issued or cleared by the event. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjnIJO2-fIE[/youtube]
The question it all centers on IMO is whether the security or threat of disruption justified the location and free speech restrictions. In the St. Paul example, I think all the people arrested but not tied to violence or threats were released and not charged. The UTA example is different I think because people were allowed in those areas, with or without student/staff status, as long as they DID NOT SPEAK. :-( His arrest was about conduct not location or status from all that I can see.
-
**I think this article does a good job explaining things.**
http://www.policeone.com/columnists/Charles-Remsberg/articles/1242034-Handling-Protesters-Part-2/
IMPORTANT NOTE: As with any legal advice, be sure to check with your local advisors to be certain that the principles and precedents explained here currently apply in your jurisdiction.
1. Authorities can limit public speech, and the correlative right to protest and demonstrate, to a reasonable time, a reasonable place and a reasonable manner. You'll often see this 3-part terminology in court decisions dealing with 1st Amendment freedoms. These restrictions apply to speech (and protests) in public areas like roads, sidewalks, parks or other sites that are traditionally open for citizens to gather, talk and demonstrate.
Protest can also always be restricted because of its relationship to illegal conduct. Demonstrators do not have the right to trespass onto somebody's private property to protest or to engage in assault or disorderly conduct or any other behavior that violates the law. When free expression becomes illegal conduct, it can always be restricted.
2. Any limitation has to meet these criteria:
a) It must be content neutral, meaning that you don't restrict only those groups whose message you disagree with. In enforcing a quiet zone around a hospital, for example, you are not trying to control the message put forth by demonstrators, you're trying to control the noise that interferes with people getting well. Content neutrality is THE most important factor in keeping restrictions legal.
b) Any limitation must be narrowly tailored to serve an important interest. To continue the quiet zone analogy, the zone must not extend out farther than it has to to accomplish its purpose. It can't be clear across town where it has no reasonable relation to the hospital it supposedly protects. In other words, imposition of a restriction has to closely match the reason for it.
c) Limitations must ALLOW FOR ALTERNATIVES. If a person or group is restricted from protesting 1 place, they should have ample opportunity to demonstrate some other place in town.
3. If some group wants to protest across an interstate highway because they think that will have the biggest impact, you can easily deny that. In a recent federal case, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals supported a city in Alabama that completely banned tables set up on city sidewalks to distribute literature because they were considered too disruptive to pedestrians. You can deny the right to protest during RUSH HOUR. Many cities have statutes that prohibit demonstrations within a certain distance of a CHURCH during hours of service or shortly before or after because of anticipated traffic problems.
You can also sometimes limit the SIZE of a protest group. If a group of 500 wants to demonstrate in a park that can legitimately accommodate only 100 persons, you can stop that.
Court cases suggest that you CAN'T have a complete ban on protesting in a residential neighborhood. But you can prohibit a group from focusing on a particular resident (called "focused residential picketing"). And you can stop groups from marching through residential neighborhoods in the middle of the night when the noise would disrupt privacy.
In imposing restrictions, just remember the criteria itemized in #2. You must apply objective, content-neutral limitations based on some important consideration.
4. YES, but to do so you have to meet a VERY HIGH STANDARD.
Say you want to deny the Ku Klux Klan the right to march in your town because you're worried that you won't be able to protect against a real bloodbath. Courts have said that the police (or government in combination with the police) must prove that maintaining public safety and order is beyond the reasonable ability of your officers and administrators.
The courts will ask why you couldn't get help from neighboring jurisdictions or other sources. They will ask specific reasons why your doubt of maintaining public order is accurate. They will take a very close look because obviously a lot of jurisdictions would like to say, "Hey, we just can't be safe, so you can't come here."
It is very rare that a jurisdiction is able to place a complete ban on a group's ability to protest. You might be able to move the protest, or limit the size or delay it until you have time to recruit extra help, but a complete ban will very rarely be upheld.
5. If you are faced with a problem group, like the Ku Klux Klan or Operation Rescue, wanting to demonstrate in your community and you are concerned about your ability to maintain order because the group is known for not demonstrating peacefully and legally in other communities, you can probably obtain an INJUNCTION from a local judge that will allow you to impose specific, advance limitations on the group's right to protest/demonstrate. For example, an injunction might specify that protesters can't carry weapons, even if they have permits that ordinarily enable them to do so.
This legal tactic became a very useful arrow in law enforcement's quiver with the U.S. Supreme Court's sanction in the case of Madsen v. Women's Health Center [114 S.Ct. 2516 (1994).] In this important case, the Court upheld for the first time the use of injunctions in regards to demonstrations.
A local judge will likely be sympathetic with your position because he is not going to want his own community ripped apart by the group you're concerned about. Even if it turns out later that the judge shouldn't have issued the injunction, you and your department are fully protected from liability so long as you are acting pursuant to his order.
6. Your LOCAL PROSECUTOR. If the prosecutor doesn't agree with you on the arrests you make, he is going to abandon you when you get ready to go to trial. Be sure he participates in the planning and helps you evaluate the statutes that you may want to use as foundations for your arrests. Your department legal advisor or city attorney can guide you regarding civil liability issues, but a prosecutor's input is important where possible criminal charges against demonstrators or counter-demonstrators are concerned.
Particularly if you haven't had cause to use them for awhile, take a close and critical look at your statutes on disorderly conduct, public assembly and noise (noise can be an especially useful ground for arrest in protest situations, if the statute is specific enough). In some cases, these statutes are old, confusing and vague. The language would no longer pass court scrutiny. With sufficient notice, it may even be possible to get weak statutes updated before the protest goes down.
Once a prosecution strategy is agreed upon, officers must be informed as to what's permissible arrest-wise. When Winston-Salem PD anticipates an event with potentially troublesome protesters, officers are given a booklet clearly delineating elements of the non-routine offenses they might be called upon to arrest for. They are then trained on what they will need to show in order to get a conviction for each offense.
Take full advantage of what your laws will let you do. Your prosecutor should be oriented to telling you what you can do legally, not just hammering at what you can't do.
You also want to review physical control tactics that may be appropriate in handling demonstrators. In many departments, the command staff was trained in the '70s, while line officers were trained in the '90s. You don't want commanders encouraging an obsolete "stomp-and-drag" approach--and then later using inflammatory terminology like that in court--when more currently trained officers may know of more effective, lower profile options.
7. INSULTS, YES; SPITTING, NO.
Where exchanges between civilians are concerned, courts generally have ruled that when 1 person is right up in the face of another, close enough so that fighting could occur, and that person speaks directly to the other in an insulting, threatening, provoking manner, such speech can be considered "fighting words" and can be cause for arrest. [For an explanation of "fighting words", see Newsline No. 68.]
However, law enforcement officers, unlike ordinary citizens, are generally expected because of their professional training to restrain themselves in the face of insulting language. So if you're policing a demonstration and 1 of the protesters gives you obscene gestures and nasty talk, you're expected to have a thicker skin and not punch him in the mouth.
Spitting's a different matter. A protester even preparing to spit is committing assault and can be arrested. In 1 instance, a handcuffed subject was being walked to a police vehicle when he made a gurgling sound as if getting ready to spit. An officer immediately delivered when he later called "a straight-arm stun technique designed to redirect the head," injuring the subject but preventing officers from being spit on. A federal Court of Appeals dismissed a lawsuit against the officer, reasoning that no police officer should be left defenseless against someone preparing to spit on him and that objectively reasonable force to prevent the spitting does not violate any legal standard imposed by the constitution.
8. One of your highest liability risks--a very, very high risk--is FALSE IMPRISONMENT or FALSE ARREST, stemming from an arrest made without probable cause. This can happen easily in a confusing demonstration situation, where you have many people engaged in various types of behavior and quite likely struggling with you. Adequately documenting who in the crowd actually did what and that you had a specific reason for everyone you took in becomes difficult, especially in mass-arrest situations.
EXCESSIVE FORCE also remains a concern. While courts are becoming more and more cognizant of law enforcement realities, they still hold officers to a fairly high standard. If you're accused of excessive force, you will need to be able to articulate why you felt the level of force you used was required.
There may also be claims that you deprived would-be demonstrators of their CIVIL RIGHTS by imposing unreasonable limitations that made the protest ineffective. Your actions will then be tested against the criteria of objectivity itemized in #2. Courts will give great latitude for your regulation of free speech in public places but they do not look favorably on totally eliminating it just because it is inconvenient, unpopular or expensive, all of which it often is. If you effectively eliminate a person's chance for public expression, you need a very strong reason for doing so.
In some state courts, the accusation of FAILURE TO PROTECT is beginning to be raised. Here the court will look for evidence of a "special relationship" between you and the protesters that gives you an exceptional need to protect. Be careful not to make promises, such as: "Yes, you can demonstrate safely because we'll certainly have enough police officers there" or "We'll be fully equipped and fully prepared to protect you, you don't have to worry about a thing."
Another liability area for administrators that has started to emerge in some states is FAILURE TO PROTECT YOUR EMPLOYEE. An officer who gets injured wants to collect beyond workmen's compensation and argues, "You [the administrator] knew perfectly well you were expecting 2,000 Klansmen and you put me out there with 3 other officers and said, 'Here, guys, hold the line'--without adequate training, proper support, proper communications or proper equipment to handle the job, knowing full well that there was potential for harm to me."
9. Videotape can help you prepare tactically for managing a protest and help you defend yourself afterwards against charges of excessive force.
If you know a particular group is coming to town, contact other jurisdictions where these protesters have been previously and ask to borrow videotapes of their demonstration. Some groups try deliberately to provoke inappropriate responses from officers so they can sue or at least so they can get more publicity for their cause. Seeing some of their tactics ahead of time can help you plan your actions better. You may also be able to go on the Internet and find out what other agencies have learned when dealing with the group you're facing.
It's a good idea, incidentally, to practice and videotape crowd control tactics in role-playing exercises, just as you practice DT moves. Make and critique your mistakes with each other so you don't make them in public. Field-test your equipment beforehand, too.
If you use pain compliance or leverage techniques (like some we demonstrate in the Calibre Press Street Survival Seminar) to move people who are blocking an area, you are likely to get allegations of improper force afterwards. If the event has been taped, you can show in court that you used only an amount of force reasonably necessary to get the job done.
Departments and officers win almost all these force cases, unless the force used was clearly outrageous. More and more judges recognize that the way to evaluate an officer's use of force is to put themselves in that officer's shoes. They recognize the officer is in a tense, rapidly evolving, often dangerous situation and that he has to make split-second decisions. Even the Supreme Court has said that not every push or shove that an officer engages in that turns out to be unnecessary violates the law. There has to be room for understanding the dynamics of force confrontations...and videotape can help make the circumstances clearer.
Videotapes you make can be used for future training, too.
10. Generally, NO. Privately owned shopping malls are not considered to be public forum areas (like streets, sidewalks and public parks are) for purposes of 1st Amendment activity. People may have the right to protest outside the mall on public property, but you can keep demonstrators out of privately owned parking areas and the mall interior completely, if owners of the mall don't want people protesting there.
The same can be true regarding private universities. If it's private property it's not public-forum property. Even public buildings, like schools and police stations, are not normally open for demonstrations.
In July, 1997, a MN judge ruled that demonstrations must be permitted inside the Mall of America, the nation's largest, near Minneapolis. But that was because government funds were used in its construction. However, the judge said that the mall has the right to determine the time, place and manner of demonstrations and ruled that some animal-rights protesters must face trespassing charges because they failed to get permission from the mall before demonstrating inside last spring.
11. NO. From a legal standpoint, the media does not have any right of access to any area of public property or to your briefings or planning sessions that the public in general doesn't have. If you set up a no-person zone, with access barred by a police line, for example, the media has no legal right to say, "We're the media, we can come in there." You may decide to let them in, to give them extra access, but that's absolutely your choice.
Sometimes to cover big events, news helicopters will fly over areas where police don't want them for safety reasons. In LA this has been dealt with on occasion by a call to the FAA. The FAA, in turn, has declared the area in question a restricted zone, and news pilots who don't get out of there are subject to losing their licenses.
12. Not really. You can charge the group, but only for the cost their activities directly create. Say you have 50 Klanspeople who want to march down the middle of Main St., crossing 4 intersections. You can charge the Klan for traffic control officers at each intersection (including extra help you bring in from other jurisdictions), provided that you likewise charge other groups comparably for the same service. You can charge the cost of clean-up, but only for the clean-up activities you can actually tie to the activities of the protesting group, not those required because 2,000 onlookers trashed the area. That all has to be absorbed by your community as a cost of doing business in a democracy.
Likewise, you cannot charge protesters for the possible reaction of those observing their protest. In the case of 50 Klanspeople and 2,000 onlookers, if most of your extra resources are to keep the onlookers from bashing in the heads of the marchers, you can't charge for that protection.
Of course you can charge an administrative processing fee for a parade permit before a march-type demonstration is held, provided the fee is set and administered in a non-discriminatory, content-neutral manner. In other words, you must charge the Girl Scouts who want to stage a parade across town the same permit fee as you do the KKK. You don't favor 1 group over another because you like 1 group and don't like the other.
You can have a provision for indigent groups if you wish, but they must meet an objective test for indigence before the fee can be waived.
-
So what seems to be true, based on the above posts ,free speech is a myth unless approved by the state , in an approved location and at an approved time. On every odd thursday of every even month in every odd year...that is agian if it is approved by the state. :evil:
Boyo
-
Like that Metallica song.........been that way for YEARS. PC-ness ya' know.
-
The state's job is to balance everyone's rights, not just the protesters.
-
Looks to me like the Univ. of Texas administrators were trying to balance these rights, the students, the security of a Presidential visit, accommodate but contain the protest, etc. and just got it wrong in the sense of overly restricting the protest. The police were determined to enforce the rule but seemed like they were trying very hard not to further cause the situation to escalate.
OTOH, these campus restrictions and protest restrictions are not wholly the same thing as losing your right to free speech. In both the example of the GOP convention that I gave and with the Obama visit, the protesters are piggybacking off of the popularity of the main event. Yet they still have the same right to book the same convention center, bring 50,000 of their own people in, speak to their hearts' content, sell the networks on the idea of coverage or broadcast their own message out, even form a party, endorse a ticket and get their names on the ballot. At Univ. Texas, same thing. I assume John Bush could rent an auditorium on campus, host an event, get a park permit for an event somewhere in town, draw his own crowd and speak all day on anything short of inciting violence. To some extent the protesters are trying to take something away from the scheduled event - the easy way out - instead of throwing their own event and taking on the burden of drawing their own crowd and putting out their own message.
-
The obama vist to UNLV here in vegas had a density of police presence I have not seen before. In 1 block there was a Moto or Cruiser in every driveway into a parking lot in the campus area. Leading out to the airport, there was at least 1 on every corner........... There were some protesters and there seemed to be a 1:1 match up of cops to protesters........... The police were not actually DOING anything aside from standing around playing with sticks..........
-
Is this country becoming a banana republic right before our eyes or what?
http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/...wtc-mosque-op/
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, called for an investigation of those who are protesting the building of the Ground Zero Mosque on Tuesday. She told San Francisco's KCBS radio:
AUDIO
"There is no question there is a concerted effort to make this a political issue by some. And I join those who have called for looking into how is this opposition to the mosque being funded," she said. "How is this being ginned up that here we are talking about Treasure Island, something we've been working on for decades, something of great interest to our community as we go forward to an election about the future of our country and two of the first three questions are about a zoning issue in New York City." (h/t Kristinn)
Calls to investigate the funding for those proposing the $100 million "Cordoba House" have fallen on deaf ears, though, as New York's Mayor Mike Bloomberg has described such an investigation as "un-American."
Ms. Pelosi called the Ground Zero mosque an "urban development decision" for New Yorkers to work through. Her remarks happened on the heels of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, parting ways with President Barack Obama on the issue. Mr. Reid suggested the mosque should be built somewhere else.
-
Then explain to me the lack of security or caring ,on the balance of protestors vs speakers ,when say it is Ann Coultre speaking or David Horowitz speaking on a campus. Not only are they shouted down in the auditorium but are often physically attacked and the people who pay money to listen often do not get refiunds and the "protestors" are ignored unless there is an attack.. The Bush incident was heated but to my knowledge not physical....Agian freedom of speech if it is the right kind of speech and approved by the state or its appointed reps .
Check out the documentary from 2007 called Indoctrinate U it is quit eye opening about the treatment of dissent on campus.
Boyo
-
Here ia the Trailer for Indoctrinate U
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-zz1HwxIjg[/youtube]
Boyo
-
Boyo, I agree that an Ann Coulter event deserves the same type of protections. Shouting her down is not any kind of free speech, just a violation of someone else's rights. Even the John Bush affair wasn't about what he could say, it was about where. A campus that hires 95% liberals needs to understand that outside speakers will be required to offer any kind of balance. I frankly despise having to frequent conservative-bias sites to get the even the facts of most stories much less a conservative take, while liberals seem comfortable to build and maintain a bubble of protection around them from other views, seldom curious about why half (or more) of our society might think differently than they do.
Private Universities can rise and fall on their own reputation. There is no excuse for supporting the use of public funds in these public universities (or K-12) that won't end the indoctrination described in the documentary.
---
Update on John Bush from his own site: "Bush was held on a criminal trespass charge, a class B misdemeanor, in the Travis County jail Monday evening. He was subsequently released, and made several media appearances on Tuesday." http://tagtexas.org/
---
The pie thrower who hit Sen Carl Levin D-Mich. was arrested and charged with a felony. http://womc.radio.com/2010/08/18/accused-levin-pie-thrower-jailed/
---
To the protesters on both sides, the idea isn't to persuade or confront your opponents; the point is to organize and defeat them politically.
-
Boyo,
State schools normally have campus police that have police powers, while private schools normally have security forces that do not hold any law enforcement authority. Campus police normally answer to the college/university administration, which might explain why Ann Coulter or Michelle Malkin might not get the level of protection needed to be allowed to speak uninterrupted.
-
Ron Paul is doing a fundraiser event in Pelosi country, I await developments. I think that the Conservatives are the more tolerant as long as talk remains talk- once things get physical they get physical. The Liberals are way more likely to consider talk as "actions" and start acting in my opinion.
-
I caught the tailend of a caller speaking of "Ameraphobia" while listening to one of the great talk show hosts - Bob Grant. The left's propensity to attempt to label all opposition as a phobia - some sort of mental disorder. You know "homphobia", "Islamaphobia". So they should be called Ameriphobics because of their hatred for this country.
****The last refuge of a liberal
By Charles Krauthammer
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Liberalism under siege is an ugly sight indeed. Just yesterday it was all hope and change and returning power to the people. But the people have proved so disappointing. Their recalcitrance has, in only 19 months, turned the predicted 40-year liberal ascendancy (James Carville) into a full retreat. Ah, the people, the little people, the small-town people, the "bitter" people, as Barack Obama in an unguarded moment once memorably called them, clinging "to guns or religion or" -- this part is less remembered -- "antipathy toward people who aren't like them."
That's a polite way of saying: clinging to bigotry. And promiscuous charges of bigotry are precisely how our current rulers and their vast media auxiliary react to an obstreperous citizenry that insists on incorrect thinking.
-- Resistance to the vast expansion of government power, intrusiveness and debt, as represented by the Tea Party movement? Why, racist resentment toward a black president.
-- Disgust and alarm with the federal government's unwillingness to curb illegal immigration, as crystallized in the Arizona law? Nativism.
-- Opposition to the most radical redefinition of marriage in human history, as expressed in Proposition 8 in California? Homophobia.
-- Opposition to a 15-story Islamic center and mosque near Ground Zero? Islamophobia.
Now we know why the country has become "ungovernable," last year's excuse for the Democrats' failure of governance: Who can possibly govern a nation of racist, nativist, homophobic Islamophobes?
Note what connects these issues. In every one, liberals have lost the argument in the court of public opinion. Majorities -- often lopsided majorities -- oppose President Obama's social-democratic agenda (e.g., the stimulus, Obamacare), support the Arizona law, oppose gay marriage and reject a mosque near Ground Zero.
What's a liberal to do? Pull out the bigotry charge, the trump that preempts debate and gives no credit to the seriousness and substance of the contrary argument. The most venerable of these trumps is, of course, the race card. When the Tea Party arose, a spontaneous, leaderless and perfectly natural (and traditionally American) reaction to the vast expansion of government intrinsic to the president's proudly proclaimed transformational agenda, the liberal commentariat cast it as a mob of angry white yahoos disguising their antipathy to a black president by cleverly speaking in economic terms.
Then came Arizona and S.B. 1070. It seems impossible for the left to believe that people of good will could hold that: (a) illegal immigration should be illegal, (b) the federal government should not hold border enforcement hostage to comprehensive reform, i.e., amnesty, (c) every country has the right to determine the composition of its immigrant population.
As for Proposition 8, is it so hard to see why people might believe that a single judge overturning the will of 7 million voters is an affront to democracy? And that seeing merit in retaining the structure of the most ancient and fundamental of all social institutions is something other than an alleged hatred of gays -- particularly since the opposite-gender requirement has characterized virtually every society in all the millennia until just a few years ago?
And now the mosque near Ground Zero. The intelligentsia is near unanimous that the only possible grounds for opposition is bigotry toward Muslims. This smug attribution of bigotry to two-thirds of the population hinges on the insistence on a complete lack of connection between Islam and radical Islam, a proposition that dovetails perfectly with the Obama administration's pretense that we are at war with nothing more than "violent extremists" of inscrutable motive and indiscernible belief. Those who reject this as both ridiculous and politically correct (an admitted redundancy) are declared Islamophobes, the ad hominem du jour.
It is a measure of the corruption of liberal thought and the collapse of its self-confidence that, finding itself so widely repudiated, it resorts reflexively to the cheapest race-baiting (in a colorful variety of forms). Indeed, how can one reason with a nation of pitchfork-wielding mobs brimming with "antipathy toward people who aren't like them" -- blacks, Hispanics, gays and Muslims -- a nation that is, as Michelle Obama once put it succinctly, "just downright mean"?
The Democrats are going to get beaten badly in November. Not just because the economy is ailing. And not just because Obama over-read his mandate in governing too far left. But because a comeuppance is due the arrogant elites whose undisguised contempt for the great unwashed prevents them from conceding a modicum of serious thought to those who dare oppose them.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.****
-
Justice IG probing Black Panther case
By Jerry Seper-The Washington Times9:28 p.m., Monday, September 13, 2010
PrintEmailView 21 Comment(s)Enlarge Text|Shrink
Share
The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division — in the wake of the New Black Panther Party case — is being investigated by the department's office of inspector general to determine whether voting section employees have been harassed for participating in specific investigations or prosecutions.
In an end run around policy barring IG investigations of Justice Department litigators, Inspector General Glenn A. Fine said his office will review what types of cases are being investigated, whether there have been changes in enforcement policies and procedures, and whether the civil rights laws are being enforced in a non-discriminatory manner.
Christopher Coates, the veteran Justice Department voting section chief who recommended going forward on the civil complaint against the New Black Panther Party, was removed from his post and transferred to the U.S. attorney's office in South Carolina. New Black Panther Party members had disrupted a Philadelphia polling place in the November 2008 elections, one of whom intimidated would-be voters with a nightstick.
J. Christian Adams, the lead attorney in the case, resigned, citing what he called concerns about the Justice Department's refusal to prosecute the New Black Panther Party case after a federal judge in Philadelphia had ruled in favor of the government's case.
Mr. Adams accused Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. of dropping the charges for racially motivated reasons, saying that he and other Justice Department lawyers working on the case were ordered to dismiss it.
In a letter Monday to Republican Reps. Lamar Smith of Texas and Frank R. Wolf of Virginia, Mr. Fine said he has stated publicly "on many occasions that I believe the provision of the Inspector General's Act that removes the OIG's jurisdiction investigation of department attorneys' handling of litigation should be changed." The Washington Times obtained a copy of the letter.
"But unless and until the law is changed, I have an obligation to follow it," he said. "However, we believe we do have the authority to conduct the broader program review … regarding the Civil Rights Division's enforcement of voting rights law, and we intend to conduct such a review."
Mr. Fine noted that while the review will include information about such cases as the New Black Panther Party matter and others, it will be focused "more broadly on the overall enforcement of civil rights laws by the Voting Section rather than on a single case."
Mr. Smith and Mr. Wolf had raised concerns in July and August regarding the dismissal by the Justice Department of a civil complaint against the New Black Panther Party, in addition to broader allegations regarding the civil rights division's enforcement of federal voting rights laws.
The two lawmakers focused on "potential improprieties" in the department's dismissal of the complaint brought against the New Black Panther Party after its members disrupted the Philadelphia polling place.
Mr. Fine responded at the time in a terse letter, saying that while he should be able to conduct the inquiry, he was powerless to do so because Congress had stripped him of that authority — giving it, instead, to the office of professional responsibility (OPR). He said that, unlike all other inspectors general who have unlimited jurisdiction to investigate all claims of wrongdoing inside their agencies, his office did not.
And while Mr. Fine had advocated expanding his jurisdiction to allow him to investigate all suspected wrongdoing within the department, Congress has not seen fit to do so.
"Unfortunately, unlike all other OIGs which have unlimited jurisdiction to investigate all allegations of waste, fraud or abuse within their agencies, the Department of Justice OIG does not," he wrote. "For several years, I have expressed my position that Congress should change this jurisdiction.
"I have raised various arguments for this change including … the independence issues that arise because OPR reports to the attorney general," he said.
Mr. Wolf has noted that OPR reports directly to the attorney general, saying he did not think the office was "capable of conducting an unbiased and independent review of this case, given that it reports to a political appointee."
Mr. Smith said he was "pleased" to hear that Mr. Fine's office was looking into the matter. He said recent allegations of politicization within the Justice Department had raised "serious concerns."
"In order to preserve equality under the law, we must ensure that the Justice Department enforces the law without prejudice. I look forward to seeing the results of Inspector General Fine's review of this matter," he said in a statement.
The OPR probe of the New Black Panther Party case began in August 2009 and has never been made public.
The order giving jurisdiction to OPR to investigate the actions of attorneys in the exercise of their legal authority — up to and including the attorney general — was first issued by Attorney General Janet Reno during the Bill Clinton administration. The order was reissued by Attorney General John Ashcroft during President George W. Bush's administration.
Because the order was later codified by Congress, it requires congressional action to change.
The civil complaint was filed in January accusing the New Black Panther Party and two of its members of intimidating voters with racial insults, slurs and a nightstick. A third party member was accused of directing and endorsing their behavior. The incident was captured on videotape and gained national attention after it was shown on YouTube.com.
The charges were dismissed against the party, its chairman, Malik Zulu Shabazz, and Jerry Jackson, a Philadelphia party member. Justice later sought an injunction against Minister King Samir Shabazz, who carried the nightstick, barring him from displaying weapons at polling places until 2012.
"OPR is investigating the department's handling of the New Black Panther Party case and has been doing so for more than a year," Mr. Fine said in his most recent letter. "In response to my most recent request, OPR officials have informed us that they are near the end of their investigation and are beginning to draft their report of investigation."
Mr. Fine noted that his reluctance to investigate the New Black Panther Party case was not motivated by any hesitancy to investigate the department's senior political leadership. He said the long record of his office demonstrates its willingness to pursue investigations, audits, inspections and reviews throughout the department regardless of the potential reaction by or impact on the department's leadership.
He said he thinks his office has the authority to conduct what he described as "the broader program review" regarding the civil rights division's enforcement of voting rights laws — concerns raised by Mr. Lamar and Mr. Wolf.
Justice Department spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler has noted that as a general policy, the department does not comment on personnel matters, but she said she could confirm that Mr. Coates had begun an 18-month detail with the U.S. attorney's office in South Carolina, beginning in January.
Ms. Schmaler also said the decision to move Mr. Coates to a new position within the department had nothing to do with the New Black Panther Party case but was the result of conversations Mr. Coates initiated with officials within the civil rights division earlier this year.
She also dismissed Mr. Adams' accusations as a "good faith disagreement" with ulterior motives.
"It is not uncommon for attorneys within the department to have good faith disagreements about the appropriate course of action in a particular case, although it is regrettable when a former department attorney distorts the facts and makes baseless allegations to promote his or her agenda," she said in a statement.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/sep/13/justice-ig-probing-black-panther-case/print/
-
Woof,
Coercion of companies by these petty tyrants is just outrageous:
www.news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100910/bs_nm/us_ftse_social_1 (http://www.news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100910/bs_nm/us_ftse_social_1)
P.C.
-
Truth, Justice, or the Obama Way
The Justice Department is forced to investigate itself.
BY Jennifer Rubin
September 27, 2010, Vol. 16, No. 02
It is about to get harder for both the Obama administration and the mainstream media to downplay the New Black Panther party scandal.
The mainstream media did their best to ignore this blatant case of voter intimidation by two New Black Panther party members at a Philadelphia polling place on Election Day 2008. Though the threatening behavior was captured on videotape, Obama political appointees dismissed the case on the eve of a default judgment. When in early June a key trial team member, Justice Department attorney J. Christian Adams, resigned and then testified before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, the media grudgingly reported on his testimony.
But, despite Adams’s testimony that the case was indicative of a widespread aversion in the Voting Section to colorblind enforcement of the civil rights laws, the media framed the story as an isolated case unworthy of continuing coverage. After all, just one witness was claiming that this was the mindset in the Justice Department. And besides, the head of the Civil Rights Division, Thomas Perez, had testified before both Congress and the commission that the case was legally and factually defective. He had also insisted there was no opposition in the department to enforcing civil rights laws against minority defendants.
In fact, there is ample evidence, including Justice Department emails obtained by The Weekly Standard, that Perez testified untruthfully. There is every reason to believe, moreover, that if allowed to testify, several other Justice Department attorneys would substantiate Adams’s allegations and contradict Perez’s sworn testimony. Not to mention that the department itself acknowledged last week that the matter of biased enforcement of voting laws requires investigation.
Until now, the Justice Department has refused to allow its lawyers to testify. On April 21, Jody Hunt, director of federal programs, whose office oversees the department’s dealings with other branches of government, emailed Adams’s attorney. Hunt explained:
On behalf of the Department of Justice, I have communicated to the Commission that your client has not been authorized to give testimony at the hearing. Indeed, as I understand it, your client has not been scheduled by the Commission to provide testimony at the hearing. The Commission has accepted the Department’s offer to hear testimony from Tom Perez, the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, at a separate hearing to be scheduled in May.
Department sources say that members of the trial team objected strongly and raised their objections with Hunt in writing. On May 11, for example, Adams emailed Hunt. He challenged the basis for the department’s refusal to allow his testimony, referring to his attorney’s legal citations. He then implored the department to change its position:
I would ask you to reconsider this decision and authorize at least one of the individuals who had factual and legal familiarity with the case to provide information to the Commission, whether me, former Voting Section Chief Christopher Coates, Deputy Chief Robert Popper, Attorney Spencer Fisher, or all four of us.
Adams specifically warned Hunt of the danger to the department in allowing an attorney unfamiliar with the New Black Panther party case, Perez, to testify instead of the attorneys who had the most direct knowledge of the case:
The first reason that the decision should be reconsidered is that there is the risk that inaccurate statements will be made about the case. I do not suggest that the scheduled witness will knowingly make false statements. Rather, my concern is that the scheduled witness did not participate in the case whatsoever, and will instead rely on characterizations of the facts and law provided by other Department employees, which I have reason to believe may be wildly inaccurate at best. Over the last several months, unattributed statements about the case by Department officials have been cited in media reports that are demonstrably false. Because the statements are never attributed, it is impossible to know whether these are people entirely unfamiliar with the matter, or are individuals upon whom the scheduled witness will rely. If the latter, there is a genuine risk that the scheduled witness will unknowingly provide inaccurate and incorrect testimony about the case. This could result in an extremely embarrassing situation for both the witness and the Department. . . . If the scheduled witness were to testify that there was no evidence, or insufficient or inadmissible evidence, to support agency liability [the legal theory for holding the New Black Panther Party and its head responsible], such testimony could prove to be grossly inaccurate.
He also warned Hunt:
Commanding our silence has created an inference that the attorneys who brought the case pursed a meritless action. Indeed, any future statements that the case did not have factual and legal merit would reinforce this false inference. For example, there was testimony to the House Judiciary Committee [by Perez] that “Rule 11 [prohibiting frivolous actions] required” the dismissal of the action. Not only is this statement inaccurate, but it also calls into question the ethics of the attorneys who approved and brought the case. I can attest that my three colleagues were thoughtful, diligent, hard working, and beyond reproach throughout this case. Their experience with the Voting Rights Act is unmatched in any other part of the Department. Indeed, I would submit Christopher Coates and Robert Popper have far more experience in litigating voting law combined than just about any pair of Department attorneys you could produce.
To put it bluntly, Adams was warning the Department that Perez had already testified inaccurately before Congress and that allowing him to do so again would be an intentional attempt to mislead the civil rights commission.
Shortly thereafter Adams received a call from the Voting Section head, Chris Herren. Herren said he understood Adams wanted to meet with Perez. Adams said he had not asked for a meeting. Herren repeated, “You said you wanted to meet with Perez.” Adams reiterated that he had not. It became obvious, however, that Perez wanted to meet with him.
Hunt arranged a meeting on Tuesday, May 12, three days before Perez was to testify before the civil rights commission. Adams, Popper, Perez, Hunt, and two other department attorneys met in the 5th floor conference room in the Main Justice Department building. Coates joined them by speaker phone.
Coates, Popper, and Adams spoke for approximately 45 minutes. Coates informed Perez that the case had been dismissed because of hostility to equal enforcement of the civil rights laws. Popper went next, explaining how solid the case was. He became animated and lashed out at Perez for testifying that the attorneys had violated Rule 11—that is, committed an ethical violation. Adams spoke last, making the case that the 14th Amendment required equal enforcement of the civil rights laws and that it was dangerous for the department and the country to go down the road of unequal enforcement of the law.
During the meeting Perez said nothing. Was he taking the information to heart so he could investigate the serious allegations or simply, like an attorney in an explosive case, taking the deposition of the most powerful witnesses to see how effective they were and what damage they could do?
The answer became clear that Friday when Perez testified before the civil rights commission. He reiterated his view that the case was legally and factually deficient. Perhaps wary of Popper’s reaction, he avoided restating that the trial team had acted contrary to Rule 11.
Perez then testified under oath that the department had no attorneys opposed to the equal enforcement of the voting rights law. “We don’t have people that are of that ilk, sir,” he said in response to the questioning of commissioner Todd Gaziano. This was a blatant misstatement, as Coates and Adams had told him three days before. There was also this exchange:
Commissioner Gaziano: If someone came to you and said that someone—someone in your Division, I should say, came to you and said, “A supervising attorney” or “a political appointee” made the statement that the voting rights laws should never be enforced against blacks or other racial minorities, you would investigate that report, wouldn’t you?
Asst. Atty Gen. Perez: I would take a look at the person who made the statement. I would take a look at the statement. And we would have a conversation about it.
Commissioner Gaziano: You would want to interview the people who were supposedly present when that statement was made, wouldn’t you?
Asst. Atty Gen. Perez: Yes, sir.
But Perez conducted no investigation after being briefed by not one, but three attorneys.
Gaziano told me, “Perez’s refusal to give me a straight answer to many of my questions suggested he might be trying to hide something. If there is evidence that he knew of statements or actions in his division demonstrating hostility to the race-neutral enforcement of the civil rights laws before he testified, that would be very troubling. If so, his testimony would be misleading at best, instead of simply uninformed.”
Then suddenly last week, months after Perez’s testimony, the inspector general of the Department of Justice, who previously had refused to investigate the matter, sent a letter to representatives Lamar Smith and Frank Wolf advising them that in response to their requests in July and August the inspector general would undertake an investigation of the Voting Section’s enforcement of civil rights laws. Echoing the civil rights commission’s yearlong investigation, the inspector general’s probe will examine
the types of cases brought by the Voting Section and any changes in these types of cases over time; any changes in the Voting Section’s enforcement policies or procedures over time; whether the Voting Section has enforced the civil rights laws in a nondiscriminatory manner; and whether any Voting Section employees have been harassed for participating in the investigation or prosecution of particular matters.
It remains to be seen whether this is an effort by the department to take the investigation behind closed doors or actually to get to the bottom of a mushrooming scandal.
In any event, despite the Obama team’s best efforts to stonewall and the mainstream media’s indifference to an abuse of power in a Democratic administration, the notion that the New Black Panther party case is “no big deal” is crumbling. We know that a high ranking political appointee presented misleading testimony under oath and that multiple witnesses would testify to the Obama administration’s hostility to the equal enforcement of our civil rights laws. Now an internal investigation is exploring those issues. In a Republican administration that would be front-page news.
Jennifer Rubin is Commentary magazine’s contributing editor.
Source URL: http://www.theweeklystandard.com/articles/truth-justice-or-obama-way
-
SEPTEMBER 20, 2010 4:00 A.M.
Soros’s Anti-Human-Rights Agenda
Republicans and conservatives must stop leaving the important field of human rights to anti-American relativists.
George Soros’s enormous gift of $100 million to the non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch is a serious shot across the bow for Republicans and conservatives. Billionaire Sheldon Adelson once said he would become “the Right’s answer to George Soros,” but he has not. Although “human rights” is the most powerful political currency of our time, no one on the right has stepped up to the plate, and Soros has the playing field to himself.
The significance of his gift can be understood only by appreciating the web of connections associated with this human-rights organization and its resulting influence.
Thirty years ago, the undisputed leader among international human-rights NGOs was Amnesty International. Founded in order to shine a spotlight on individual prisoners of conscience and victims of torture, Amnesty had a focused purpose and succeeded in pressuring governments and liberating real people.
But corrupt governments in developing countries, Communist regimes, and the despotic rulers of Arab and Islamic states pushed back. Under the guise of protecting their sovereignty and natural resources from the ravages of Western imperialism, they commandeered the United Nations, disputed its foundational human-rights framework, and rolled out new and improved “human rights,” such as the right to development, the right of peoples to “international solidarity,” and the right to be free of “the adverse effects of toxic wastes.” No matter that the beneficiaries of such rights were essentially governments and not individuals, or that the rights of women and minorities were then trampled for the sake of maintaining a united front against the West.
Amnesty International jumped on the bandwagon. It expanded its original mandate to include rights violations which it says result from globalization, “business,” and a wide gambit of social issues. Amnesty’s leaders, who bear the title of secretary general, harbored an anti-Western bias and a penchant for conceiving of developing countries as sympathetic underdogs whose inability to institute the rule of law was permanently someone else’s fault. In 2005, Secretary General Irene Khan, from Bangladesh, likened Guantanamo Bay to the Soviet Gulag. In 2010, after the head of Amnesty’s gender unit criticized Amnesty for its links to a major supporter of the Taliban, Amnesty reacted by suspending and then severing its relationship with the employee, not by severing its links to the Taliban devotee.
Arab and Muslim states were masters at this form of political gamesmanship. Anxious to rid themselves of the presence of a Jewish and democratic state uncomfortably close to them, and worried about the threat that universal human-rights norms posed to their legitimacy, they recast their extremism in terms of human rights. Though one-fifth of Israel’s people are Arabs, and they have more democratic rights than they would in any Arab state, these states accused Israel of apartheid. Arab and Muslim states, meanwhile, rendered themselves Judenrein, outlawed public displays of Christianity, and turned non-Muslims into second-class citizens in the name of protecting cultural rights, religious identity, and “national particularities.” To complete the metamorphosis, the Organization of the Islamic Conference seized effective power at the U.N.’s lead human-rights body, the Human Rights Council.
As human rights were being rewritten, the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch wrongly believed it had only two options. It could find itself defending the governments of the United States, Israel, and other allegedly colonialist-imperialist regimes — a tack that seemed to be at odds with the mandate of a human-rights NGO, for which governments are supposedly the adversaries by definition. Or it could join the party, trash Israel and America, and prove its bona fides on the world stage.
As Robert Bernstein, the founder of Human Rights Watch and its active chairman for 20 years until 1998, complained in the New York Times last October, Human Rights Watch chose the latter. Bernstein lamented the fact that the organization had jettisoned the crucial distinction between open democratic societies and closed societies, between societies that are willing to acknowledge and correct abuses and ones that deny and ignore them. Distancing itself from its American roots and embracing the timeworn strategy of scapegoating Jews, the organization began to rival the made-over Amnesty.
Human Rights Watch defended the U.N.’s “anti-racism” Durban Declaration despite its blatant discrimination against Israel and cast its lot with those who have painted the defenders of Jewish self-determination as racists. HRW supported the U.N.’s Goldstone report, a modern-day blood libel that claims Israel “deliberately” aimed to murder Palestinian civilians under the guise of defending its own people against Hamas terror. HRW championed the U.N. Human Rights Council and strongly advocated U.S. membership, in the full knowledge that the council has adopted more resolutions and decisions condemning Israel than all the other 191 U.N. member states combined.
Last year, representatives of Human Rights Watch unashamedly traveled to one of the world’s worst human-rights abusers, Saudi Arabia, to raise money by casting the organization as an antidote to what they labeled “pro-Israel pressure groups.” Since HRW had, as Bernstein put it, itself produced “far more condemnations of Israel . . . than of any other country in the region,” he rightly concluded that it had turned its back on its founding mission and significantly diminished its moral force.
Why, then, did George Soros deem it worthy of the largest gift he has ever made?
Because Soros has recognized what Republicans ignore at their peril — namely, the power of human-rights claims, legitimate or not.
Soros, logged as one of President Obama’s frequent White House guests, appreciates that a human-rights mantra, particularly when amplified with the U.N.’s global megaphone, is a formidable tool for manipulating public policy. A tool, mind you, and not a principle.
President Obama has styled himself a champion of the victims of human-rights violations. But he is the president who went to Egypt and spoke in support of Muslim women who want to cover their bodies while saying nothing in defense of those who want the freedom to do otherwise. He is the president who has let Iranian dissidents die in vain. The president who keeps mumbling about reset buttons while Russian human-rights defenders are systematically eliminated.
The U.N.’s Human Rights Council — which, in its earlier incarnation, was once presided over by Eleanor Roosevelt — opened its current session this week in Geneva with Libya taking a seat as a full-fledged voting member. Next week the General Assembly, which once adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, will again permit a call for the destruction of Israel to be made from its podium, as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad delivers his annual diatribe about Jewish global domination.
And outside the General Assembly Hall, the only NGO allowed to speak at microphones reserved for states is Human Rights Watch — which has specialized in delivering congratulatory messages to the U.N.
So Soros’s acquisition of Human Rights Watch, coupled with his legendary support of the Democratic party and the United Nations, creates the perfect storm. He has brought together the unelected, unaccountable NGO claiming to represent “civil society,” the Democratic party and its sitting president, and the world’s chief global organization, each supportive of the others in a plethora of financial and personal interrelationships, and all sharing common goals: diminishing American power and mothballing the idea of unadulterated universal values.
Soros makes no attempt to hide his agenda. As he wrote in The Bubble of American Supremacy: “People have different views and . . . nobody is in possession of the ultimate truth . . . [P]eople are supposed to decide for themselves what they mean by freedom and democracy. . . . What goes on within individual states can be of vital interest to the rest of the world, but the principle of sovereignty militates against interfering in their internal affairs.” The same speech has been made by China and Cuba and thugs the world over.
Soros’s view is the antithesis of human-rights protection. It directly contradicts the vision of common, inviolable rights and freedoms, which the visionaries who founded America, the United Nations, and Human Rights Watch understood. It is high time to launch an equally well-endowed human-rights organization not beholden to the rapacious relativism and anti-Americanism of George Soros.
– Anne Bayefsky is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, teaches at Touro College, and is executive director of Human Rights Voices.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/247022/soros-s-anti-human-rights-agenda-anne-bayefsky
-
2nd post. If the Repubs take the house the investigations into this and various Demo money scandals ought to be amusing:
Political Appointees Involved in New Black Panther Case, and More DOJ Stonewalling
Jennifer Rubin writes in.
BY DANIEL HALPER
September 20, 2010 3:14 PM
SHARETHIS
Jennifer Rubin follows up on several recent stories she's written for THE WEEKLY STANDARD (see here, here, and here) with this email:
The Obama administration for over a year has insisted that the decision to dismiss an egregious case of voter intimidation against the New Black Panther Party was made by career attorneys. In a series of letters to Republican Reps. Lamar Smith and Frank Wolf, and in sworn testimony by the head of the civil rights division Thomas Perez, the Obama team stuck to its story that career attorneys made the call. (In fact the two individuals the Justice Department identified, Loretta King and Steve Rosenbaum, were then the interim head of the civil rights division and the deputy, both political positions.) THE WEEKLY STANDARD, however, previously reported that in written discovery responses to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights the Justice Department let on that both the associate attorney general (the number three man in the Justice Department) Thomas J. Perrelli and his boss Eric Holder had been consulted on the dismissal. Today, further evidence came to light indicating the Obama Justice Department has lied about the involvement of political appointees.
This morning Judicial Watch announced the results of its Freedom of Information Act request. Judicial Watch obtained the privilege log, that is, the list and description of those documents the Justice Department refused to turn over to the Civil Rights Commission in response to its subpoena. On that list were numerous documents suggesting the extensive and serious involvement of Obama political appointees, including Perrelli’s deputy Sam Hirsch who had multiple contacts with Rosenbaum. In a press release Judicial Watch explained:
[The documents listed in the log] contradict sworn testimony by Thomas Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, who testified before the U.S. Civil Rights Commission that no political leadership was involved in the decision (Judicial Watch v. Department of Justice (No. 10-851)). . .
The index describes eight email exchanges between Rosenbaum and Hirsch, taking place on April 30, 2009, the day before the Justice Department reversed course and declined to pursue much of the Black Panther case. Listed among the email correspondence:
An “Email Chain with Attachments” from Rosenbaum to Hirsch dated April 30, 2009: The email chain includes “…a detailed response and analysis of the proposed draft filings in NBPP (New Black Panther Party) litigation…The response includes a candid assessment of legal research and raises questions about the case law and proposed relief….This document also contains attorney discussion, opinions, and analyses of the draft documents and case law.”
The revelation that the Obama Justice Department had for over a year been concealing evidence of its political appointees’ interference with the decisions of the New Black Panther trial team and that Perez, as I reported last week, had testified untruthfully under oath is certainly unwelcome news for those who have been denigrating the efforts of Republican congressmen, the Civil Rights Commission and conservative news outlets to get to the bottom of the scandal. The cracks in the Obama stonewall are deepening.
http://weeklystandard.com/blogs/political-appointees-involved-new-black-panther-case-and-more-doj-stonewalling
-
BBG:
Your first post was particularly interesting. This is a theme worth keeping an eye on.
Marc
-
Extremist Thrives in Primary Fight
The party is courting its fringes, a bad omen for future policy.
You may have missed it amid all the hullabaloo surrounding Delaware, but there was another important primary last Tuesday.
The incumbent was a moderate, a pragmatist, someone who could reach across the aisle to work with those who were not traditional allies. He was willing to stand up to extremists and buck his party’s political orthodoxy. His opponent, on the other hand, appealed to the fringes of the party. He allied himself with powerful special-interest groups who poured money and manpower into his campaign. The campaign became increasingly nasty. There were even racial overtones. In the end, voters ignored the incumbent’s solid record of getting things done and tossed him out by a surprisingly large margin.
But this was not another one of those “tea party” uprisings (which are reliably misinterpreted by the mainstream media). It was the Democratic primary for mayor of Washington, D.C.
The incumbent, Adrian Fenty, was certainly no conservative, but he had shown himself willing to stand up to the special interests that have long dominated Democratic politics in this city. Example No. 1 was education. D.C. schools have long been among the nation’s worst, despite extraordinarily high per-pupil expenditures. Fenty and his school chancellor, Michele Rhee, stood up to the teachers’ union, forcing through a merit-pay contract, limiting tenure, and firing nonperforming teachers. And they achieved results: Reading and math scores were up substantially. A school system that just a few years ago didn’t know how many employees or students it had was making real, measurable progress.
Despite increased education spending and the recession, Fenty stuck to a pledge not to raise broad-based taxes. He slashed social spending and cut the city work force. As result, business investment poured into the city, and its population, which had been declining for decades, actually increased as people who had fled to the suburbs moved back.
But Fenty also incurred the enmity of the powerful teachers’ and public-employees’ unions. They rallied to the cause of Fenty’s opponent, city-council chairman Vincent Grey. Together they ran a nasty and racially charged campaign. As was the case in Delaware, this was a closed primary — independents could not vote — and Grey pitched his appeal to the liberal wing of the Democratic electorate. With turnout high among the party’s base, Grey won 54–45.
What transforms this from a local tragedy for Washington residents to something bigger is the fact that the unions were apparently able to intimidate the president into silence. Adrian Fenty was the first big city mayor to endorse Barack Obama for president. He was pursuing reforms, especially in education, that the president claims to support. According to local media reports, Fenty personally called the president and asked for his help. In an overwhelmingly African-American city, a word from Obama might have tipped the balance. The word never came, and Fenty was left twisting slowly, slowly in the wind.
The White House now says that the president doesn’t get involved in primaries, something that seems not to have occurred to the administration in the cases of, say, Pennsylvania and Colorado. (Perhaps Obama could have offered Grey a White House job, as he did in a bid to get Joe Sestak out of the race against Arlen Specter.)
In the wake of Grey’s victory, there were no front-page stories about the “civil war” in the Democratic party. You will not see evening newscasts full of worrying about Democratic extremism.
The tea parties are bringing millions of newly energized voters into the political process for the first time. In some ways, the phenomenon is similar to the 2008 Obama campaign in its ability to energize people and excite those who are not otherwise politically engaged. Conversely, the D.C. primary suggests that the Democratic party now is turning its attention to its narrowest base: the unions, the special interests, the left-wing fringe. There has not been much of a civil war in the Democratic party, because there are so few moderate Democrats around.
In the wake of the D.C. primary, there is one less.
— Michael Tanner is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and author of Leviathan on the Right: How Big-Government Conservatism Brought Down the Republican Revolution.
-
Oh my, look at what found its way into the WaPo today:
Bias led to 'gutting' of New Black Panthers case, Justice official says
By Krissah Thompson and Jerry Markon
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, September 24, 2010; 7:06 PM
The political fight over a 2008 voter intimidation case ratcheted up Friday as a Justice Department official testified before the federal civil rights commission that there were "irrational reasons" for "gutting" a case filed against a group of African Americans who allegedly discriminated against white voters.
Former voting section chief Christopher Coates, who was transferred to the U.S. attorney's office in South Carolina in the midst of a controversy over the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case, testified Friday morning before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Justice Department officials strongly dispute his allegations against the agency.
The federal panel is investigating whether the Justice Department's civil rights division mishandled a lawsuit it filed against members of the New Black Panther Party several weeks before President Obama took office. The suit was focused on the party and two of its members, who stood outside a polling place in Philadelphia on Election Day 2008 wearing paramilitary gear. They were captured on video and were accused of trying to discourage some people from voting. One carried a nightstick.
Conservatives complained last year when the Obama Justice Department narrowed the case to the man with the nightstick. The matter caught the attention of some Republican lawmakers, who for months held up the confirmation of Obama's assistant attorney general for civil rights, asking for a congressional review of the case.
The conflict intensified in June when former Justice Department lawyer J. Christian Adams, who was hired during the Bush administration and helped develop the case, told the Commission on Civil Rights that he believed the case had been narrowed because some of his colleagues in the civil rights division were interested in protecting only minorities.
On Friday, Coates, who said he was testifying before the commission as a whistleblower and in violation of his Justice supervisor's instructions, said that there is a "hostile atmosphere" in the civil rights division that did not "reflect race-neutral policies." He said the country's major civil rights organizations are also biased against race-neutral enforcement.
He joined the Justice Department during the Clinton administration and became chief of the Civil Rights Division's Voting Section in December 2007. Coates left the job in December 2009 for an 18-month transfer to South Carolina, and said he had a "rough time" with the Obama appointees, who became his bosses.
As an example, Coates, who had the practice of asking all job applicants whether they would have a problem working on claims of racial discrimination involving white voters, said that Loretta King, who was then-acting Civil Rights Division chief, told him to stop asking the question. He said he believes that she does not support equal enforcement of the Voting Rights Act.
Coates also argued that there was evidence for broader prosecution of the New Black Panther case. "We had eyewitness testimony. We had videotape. One of them had a weapon. They were hurling racial slurs," said Coates, who originally brought the Panther case. "I've never been able to understand how anyone could accuse us of not having a basis of law in this case."
The Justice Department said in a statement that it had not authorized Coates's testimony and that Coates, who has worked in the U.S. attorney's office in South Carolina since January, is not "an appropriate witness to discuss the Civil Rights Division's current enforcement policies."
Tracy Schmaler, a Justice Department spokeswoman, called the civil rights commission probe a "so-called investigation" that is "is thin on facts and evidence and thick on rhetoric.''
She said the department "makes enforcement decisions based on the merits, not the race, gender or ethnicity of any party involved. We are committed to comprehensive and vigorous enforcement of the federal laws that prohibit voter intimidation.''
She added that the Obama administration has "changed" what internal watchdogs called a politicized atmosphere in the Civil Rights Division during the Bush administration.
"The politicization that occurred in the Civil Rights Division in the previous administration has been well documented by the [Justice Department] Inspector General, and it was a disgrace to the great history of the division.'' Schmaler said. "We have reinvigorated the Civil Rights Division.''
Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.), who has criticized the Justice Department over its handling of the case, said he "strongly" supported Coates's decision to testify and warned the department not to retaliate against him.
He said Coates had contacted him before his testimony "to share similar information relating to the equal enforcement of federal voting laws." In a letter to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., dated Thursday, Wolf said he assumes "that Mr. Coates will face no repercussions" for his decision to testify and that he expects Holder "to inform political and career supervisors to respect his decision."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/24/AR2010092403873.html?hpid=topnews
-
I think we need a category for Unintended Consequences. Removing meat preservatives increases botulism. Banning DDT causes Malaria outbreaks. Raising minimum wage law increases unemployment. Raising taxes on capital unemploys labor. CFL light bulbs release Mercury when broken. Smaller car means death more likely on impact. Now reusable grocery bags breed bacteria. Who knew?? I have long argued that every new piece of legislation should require that an Impact Statement of Unintended Consequences be debated and passed first, just like the requirement for a shopping center developer to first file an environmental impact statement.
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/25181234/detail.html
DENVER -- They are good for the environment, but reusable grocery bags are also a breeding ground for bacteria.
Many responsible shoppers carefully choose their groceries and put them into the same cloth or plastic bags over and over again on every trip to the store.
-
Heartily agreed about the law of unintended consequences, but don't we already have a thread about govt. programs and regulations?
-
If at first you don't succeed, get some friends in high places to shut your opponents up. That's the latest Washington power play, as Democrats and liberals attack the Chamber of Commerce and independent spending groups in an attempt to stop businesses from participating in politics.
Since the Supreme Court's January decision in Citizens United v. FEC, Democrats in Congress have been trying to pass legislation to repeal the First Amendment for business, though not for unions. Having failed on that score, they're now turning to legal and political threats. Funny how all of this outrage never surfaced when the likes of Peter Lewis of Progressive insurance and George Soros helped to make Democrats financially dominant in 2006 and 2008.
Chairman Max Baucus of the powerful Senate Finance Committee got the threats going last month when he asked Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Douglas Shulman to investigate if certain tax exempt 501(c) groups had violated the law by engaging in too much political campaign activity. Lest there be any confusion about his targets, the Montana Democrat flagged articles focused on GOP-leaning groups, including Americans for Job Security and American Crossroads.
Mr. Baucus was seconded last week by the ostensibly nonpartisan campaign reform groups Democracy 21 and the Campaign Legal Center, which asked the IRS to investigate whether Crossroads is spending too much money on campaigns. Those two outfits swallowed their referee whistle in the last two campaign cycles, but they're all worked up now that Republicans might win more seats. Crossroads GPS, a 501(c)(4) affiliate of American Crossroads supported by Karl Rove, is a target because it has spent millions already in this election cycle.
Last Tuesday, the liberal blog ThinkProgress, run by the Center for American Progress Action Fund, reported that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce had collected some $300,000 in annual dues from foreign companies. Since the money went into the Chamber's general fund, the allegation is that it could have been used to pay for political ads, which would violate a ban on foreign companies participating in American elections. The Chamber says it uses no foreign money for its political activities and goes to great lengths to raise separate funds for political purposes.
That didn't stop President Obama from raising the issue in a Maryland speech last week, saying that "groups that receive foreign money are spending huge sums to influence American elections." Within hours of the ThinkProgress report, the bully boys at MoveOn.org asked the Department of Justice to launch a criminal investigation of the Chamber. In a letter to the Federal Election Commission, Minnesota Senator Al Franken expressed his profound concern that "foreign corporations are indirectly spending significant sums to influence American elections through third-party groups." From the man who stole his Senate election in a dubious recount, this is rich.
Even Mr. Franken admits in his letter that the Chamber's commingling of funds in its general accounts is not "per se illegal," but apparently he thinks it's fine to unleash federal investigators because the Chamber cash might contribute to the defeat of fellow Democrats.
The outrage over the Chamber is especially amusing considering the role of foreigners in U.S. labor unions. According to the Center for Competitive Politics, close to half of the unions that are members of the AFL-CIO are international. One man's corporate commingling is another's union dues.
Unions and liberal groups are hardly cash poor this year in any case. The Campaign Media Analysis Group looked at the combined spending of candidates, their parties and outside groups and found that Democrats outspent Republicans $47.3 million to $40.8 million in a recent 60-day period.
Democrats claim only to favor "disclosure" of donors, but their legal intimidation attempts are the best argument against disclosure. Liberals want the names of business donors made public so they can become targets of vilification with the goal of intimidating them into silence. A CEO or corporate board is likely to think twice about contributing to a campaign fund if the IRS or prosecutors might come calling. If Democrats can reduce business donations in the next three weeks, they can limit the number of GOP challengers with a chance to win and reduce Democratic Congressional losses.
The strategy got a test drive in Minnesota earlier this year after Target Corporation donated $100,000 cash and $50,000 of in-kind contributions to an independent group that ran ads supporting the primary candidacy of Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer. MoveOn.org accused the company of being anti-gay, organized a petition, and crafted a TV ad urging shoppers to boycott Target stores. Target made no further donations, and other companies that once showed an interest have since declined to contribute.
***
Then there's the curious reference to the tax status of Koch Industries by White House chief economist Austan Goolsbee. In a late August conference call with reporters, Mr. Goolsbee cited the closely-held Koch as an example of "really giant firms" that pay no corporate income tax because they file under other tax rules. But how in the world would Mr. Goolsbee know Koch's tax status? Could his knowledge be related to the White House-liberal campaign against Koch for contributing to Americans for Prosperity, a group that is supporting free-market candidates for Congress this year?
In an August 9 speech, Mr. Obama personally trashed Americans for Prosperity, hinting that it was funded by "a big oil company." He had to mean Koch, which makes no secret of its support for Americans for Prosperity.
The White House didn't respond to queries about Mr. Goolsbee's remark for weeks until GOP Senators requested an investigation. The Treasury's inspector general for tax matters has since announced such a probe, and last week White House spokesman Robert Gibbs finally got around to explaining that Mr. Goolsbee's statement "was not in any way based on any review of tax filings" and that he won't use the example again.
We're glad to hear it, but pardon our skepticism given the ferocity of this White House-led campaign against businesses that donate to political campaigns. Faced with electoral repudiation as the public turns against their agenda, Democrats are unleashing government power to silence their political opponents. Instead of piling on, the press corps ought to blow the whistle on this attempt to stifle political speech. This is one more liberal abuse of power that voters should consider as they head to the polls.
-
Beyond Nixonesque.
-
Political Target Practice
A case study in what Democrats really mean by campaign 'disclosure.'
The White House is escalating its assault on corporate political donors, claiming that Democrats merely favor "disclosure." To understand their real goal, consider what happened to Target Corp. when it exercised its First Amendment rights in Minnesota.
In July, the superstore retailer based in Minneapolis donated $150,000 to an independent group called MN Forward, which used the funds to support the primary candidacy of Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer. Consistent with Target's interest, the donation helped pay for an ad highlighting Mr. Emmer's positions on taxes and spending, issues relevant to the state's business climate. Because Mr. Emmer was also a critic of gay marriage, however, within weeks the retailer found itself on the national left's political hit list.
MoveOn.org led the attack, organizing a petition and crafting a TV ad telling shoppers to boycott the chain. Soliciting donations to the anti-Target crusade, MoveOn warned that "Target became one of the first corporations to take advantage of the Citizens United decision when it donated to a far-right candidate for governor in Minnesota." It added, "If we don't fight back, this will be just the tip of the iceberg." Citizen's United is the January Supreme Court decision that said unions and companies can donate to independent political groups, which is what Target did.
View Full Image
Associated Press
The attack on Target was especially dishonest because of the company's history on gay issues, which includes sponsoring gay pride events and offering benefits to domestic partners. Only months before, the company received a 100% score on Human Rights Campaign's 2010 Corporate Equality Index, which rates companies on sexual preference policies in the workplace.
So much for that goodwill. When the company declined to bow to demands from gay lobbies that it make amends for the "harm they've caused" by its donations to MN Forward, HRC President Joe Solmonese announced that the world would now "question Target's commitment to equality."
That says more about Mr. Solmonese than it does about Target. He and his group are willing to put partisanship and left-wing solidarity above their own ostensible priority of gay rights: To wit, electing a Democratic Governor apparently matters more to the Human Rights Campaign than does a corporation's support for benefits for gay couples. By the way, President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden also oppose gay marriage. Does that also make them "far-right" candidates whose "commitment to equality" is suspect?
Target's donation had to be disclosed under Minnesota's campaign-finance law, and the company's experience is especially illuminating because Democrats are touting the law as a model for other states and Congress. The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports that the Naderite Public Citizen has praised the state for having helped "lead the way" on disclosure.
Maryland State Senator Jamie Raskin, who is seeking similar legislation for his state, recently gave the game away by declaring that "The public's right of boycott is the final check against corporate dominance over our politics." In other words, the point of disclosure is not to inform the voting public. It is to turn corporate donors into political piñatas, embarrass them publicly, hurt their business—and ultimately convince them that the price of donating to non-liberal groups is too high.
Other companies also gave to MN Forward, but Target seems to have been singled out for its national profile to send other businesses a message. Target declined to answer our queries, though other sources tell us the company has stopped giving to MN Forward since it was mugged by the left. Other companies on the cusp of donating also declined once they saw what happened to Target.
That's a shame because it means Democrats and the left are succeeding in their attempt to silence business voices—unless, like Peter Lewis or Goldman Sachs executives, they support Democrats. The next time you hear a Democrat claim to favor "disclosure," keep in mind that what he really wants is more political Target practice.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704696304575538402294440806.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
-
Craig Coffey, a retiree in Nevada who invested $55,000 in bonds in the old GM that are now worthless, was outraged that the union is on its way to recovering all its money before investors get even a cent of compensation.
Mr. Coffey has had to make ends meet by finding odd jobs, which can be difficult in the hard-hit Las Vegas area. He said it wasn't only the union that benefited from getting full repayment to its pension trust fund under the White House bankruptcy plan.
"That was a way for the government to avoid having the liability put on the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation," he said. Bankruptcy courts often discharge corporate pension obligations to the government insurance fund.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
GM's union recovering after stock sale
Taxpayers and investors not as fortunate as UAW
By Patrice Hill
-The Washington Times
7:24 p.m., Thursday, November 25, 2010
General Motors Co.'s recent stock offering was staged to start paying back the government for its $50 billion bailout, but one group made out much better than the taxpayers or other investors: the company's union.
Thanks to a generous share of GM stock obtained in the company's 2009 bankruptcy settlement, the United Auto Workers is well on its way to recouping the billions of dollars GM owed it — putting it far ahead of taxpayers who have recouped only about 30 percent of their investment and further still ahead of investors in the old GM who have received nothing.
The boon for the union fits the pattern established when the White House pushed GM into bankruptcy and steered it through the courts in a way that consistently put the interests of the union ahead of many suppliers, dealers and investors — stakeholders that ordinarily would have fared as well or better under the bankruptcy laws.
"Priority one was serving the interests of the UAW" when the White House's auto task force engineered the bankruptcy, said Glenn Reynolds, an analyst at CreditSights. The stock offering served to show once again how the White House has handsomely rewarded its political allies, he said.
The union's health care and pension trust fund earned $3.4 billion through the sale of one-third of its shares in GM last week. Analysts estimate that it would break even if it sells the remaining two-thirds of its shares at an average price of $36 — close to where the stock traded shortly after the offering hit the market. GM shares closed at $33.45 on Wednesday.
For taxpayers to break even, by contrast, the stock would have to rise to at least $52 and by some estimates as high as $103 — levels that would take years to achieve.
In any event, after selling one-third of its shares last week, the U.S. Treasury has agreed not to sell any more of its GM stock for another six months, while the union fund is free to keep selling its shares.
Through the offering, the Treasury recouped $13.7 billion of its $49.5 billion cash infusion in GM, with another $1.8 billion possible by the end of the year. GM is repaying another $9.5 billion in loans from the Treasury, but that still leaves taxpayers a long way from breaking even.
Union claims ordinarily do not receive such special treatment in bankruptcies.
The generous share of GM stock given to the union trust fund under the White House deal puts it not only ahead of the Treasury but on a par with secured creditors such as banks, which normally receive the most favorable treatment from bankruptcy courts.
Perhaps the biggest losers are the investors in the old GM. None of the bankrupt company's previous stockholders got any money, while the claims of thousands of investors who purchased the company's bonds are still being kicked around in a Manhattan bankruptcy court.
"It gives outraged flashbacks to the old GM bondholders," who remain mired in the bankruptcy proceedings and are unlikely to recover more than 30 percent of their investments, Mr. Reynolds said.
He compared the deal to the corrupt crony capitalism in Russia under President Vladimir Putin.
The White House "took a page out of the Putin political asset reallocation and reward system" when it engineered the deal, he said.
Mr. Reynolds also described the White House deal as a combination of "Boss Tweed on steroids" and "Hugo Chavez on meds," as far as the bondholders are concerned.
Craig Coffey, a retiree in Nevada who invested $55,000 in bonds in the old GM that are now worthless, was outraged that the union is on its way to recovering all its money before investors get even a cent of compensation.
"We just sat and watched [the stock offering]. We got nothing," he said. "Screwed again."
Mr. Coffey has had to make ends meet by finding odd jobs, which can be difficult in the hard-hit Las Vegas area. He said it wasn't only the union that benefited from getting full repayment to its pension trust fund under the White House bankruptcy plan.
"That was a way for the government to avoid having the liability put on the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation," he said. Bankruptcy courts often discharge corporate pension obligations to the government insurance fund.
"They dodged a bullet there and pushed it back to the union," Mr. Coffey said. "Now, they've made them whole and screwed the bondholders."
Steve Rattner, the White House auto czar who engineered the deal, repeated the position he took throughout the bankruptcy — that the bondholders would have ended up with nothing if the government hadn't intervened.
"I think everybody was treated fairly," he told Bloomberg News last week. "If we had not saved General Motors, those bonds would be worth exactly zero."
UAW President Bob King celebrated the success of the stock offering last week. "We know that for the long-term viability and success of our membership, General Motors has to be successful," he said.
He hinted that the union in the next round of collective bargaining that begins next summer may seek to recoup still more of the concessions it made in bankruptcy, given GM's growing profitability.
"The best outcome is a successful GM that then shares fairly with our membership," he said.
John Paul McDuffie, a professor at the Wharton School of Business, said the full funding of the union's pension and health care trust fund through the bankruptcy process represents progress because it helped solve one of most "persistent and difficult" bones of contention between GM and its union.
GM and the UAW had been at loggerheads for years over how to deal with GM's so-called "legacy" costs — funding the generous worker health care and retirement benefits it promised in earlier eras.
The bankruptcy settlement enabled GM to proceed with a hard-won 2007 plan it negotiated with the union to spin off those huge liabilities and let them be funded in the future by the trust fund that received the stock.
Mr. McDuffie said the bankruptcy also proved useful in forcing the company to learn to survive in turbulent times.
© Copyright 2010 The Washington Times, LLC
-
http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2010/12/19/the-drunkards-progress/?singlepage=true
The Drunkard’s Progress
December 19, 2010 - by Richard Fernandez
Share |
When Lady Gaga spoke at a rally in support of repealing the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy towards gays in the military, she said: “Our new law is called ‘If you don’t like it, go home!’” That kind of speech is described as a defense of tolerance. Today the New York Times narrates the case of a University of Nebraska astronomer who was denied a position at the University of Kentucky because he was “potentially evangelical.” The department voted to deny him the position because it would look bad for the university if it hired a religious nut. Both incidents highlight the new normal, whatever that is.
… the smoking gun is an e-mail dated Sept. 21, 2007, from a department staff member, Sally A. Shafer, to Dr. Cavagnero and another colleague. Ms. Shafer wrote that she did an Internet search on Dr. Gaskell and found links to his notes for a lecture that explores, among other topics, how the Bible could relate to contemporary astronomy.
“Clearly this man is complex and likely fascinating to talk with,” Ms. Shafer wrote, “but potentially evangelical. If we hire him, we should expect similar content to be posted on or directly linked from the department Web site.”
Just what is inappropriate in modern society is a matter of intense debate. Some people say that anything goes. Recently, Ann Althouse quoted Justice Scalia in connection with a case involving incest between a Columbia professor and Huffington Post blogger. She argued that morals legislation may effectively be dead. Scalia said where once there was a belief “that certain forms of sexual behavior are ‘immoral and unacceptable’… the same interest furthered by criminal laws against fornication, bigamy, adultery, adult incest, bestiality, and obscenity,” those views were in his view increasingly untenable in view of recent jurisprudence. Scalia wrote:
The Court today reaches the opposite conclusion. The Texas statute, it says, “furthers no legitimate state interest which can justify its intrusion into the personal and private life of the individual” … The Court embraces instead Justice Stevens’ declaration in his Bowers dissent, that “the fact that the governing majority in a State has traditionally viewed a particular practice as immoral is not a sufficient reason for upholding a law prohibiting the practice.” This effectively decrees the end of all morals legislation. If, as the Court asserts, the promotion of majoritarian sexual morality is not even a legitimate state interest, none of the above-mentioned laws can survive rational-basis review.
But a cursory glance around shows that moral judgments in some form refuse to go away. In fact, they are more pervasive than ever. Lady Gaga felt herself perfectly justified in asking those who objected to the repeal of DADT to “go home,” where they could presumably languish in their bigotry. And a university department believes that it may be unacceptable to hire someone who believes in the Bible as an astronomer. They were making moral judgments and felt perfectly entitled to do so.
Hate speech laws have been enacted by Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, the Council of Europe, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, India, Ireland, Jordan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Serbia, , Singapore, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. What you say and what you do, far from being your own business, is everywhere the public’s business. Recently, the head of the soccer federation FIFA warned homosexuals against engaging in sexual behavior in Qatr because they stood a good chance of running afoul of Islamic law. The FIFA head later apologized for offending gays. But whether that will help gays in Qatr is a different matter, because one may not criticize Islamic law either. So in all likelihood then, while Qatr may beat up the gays anyhow and not have any explaining to do, any European who simply mentions that Qatr might do it is engaging in offensive behavior.
Morals legislation appears to be as pervasive as ever. Nothing in the current environment suggests there exist opinions on which you may not be lectured. The extent of what is out of bounds is growing all the time. What has changed is the contents of that proscribed area. It may now be a crime to quote the Bible. For example, in May of 2010 a British preacher was arrested for handing out leaflets saying that homosexuality was a sin. A policeman appoached “to warn him they had received complaints and that if he made any racist or homophobic comments he would be arrested.”
I told him homosexuality is a sin, and he told me “I am a homosexual, I find that offensive, and I’m also the liaison officer for the bisexual-lesbian-gay-transsexual community”,’ he said yesterday. ‘I told him it was still a sin.’
Mr Adams last year represented Cumbria Police at the Gay Pride march in Manchester. On the social networking site MySpace, he describes his orientation as gay and his religion as atheist.
After the warning, Mr Mcalpine took over preaching for 20 minutes, although he claims he did not cover homosexuality. But while he talked to a passer-by the PCSO radioed for assistance and he was arrested by uniformed officers.
He was taken to a police station, had his pockets emptied and his mobile phone taken along with his belt and shoes, and was kept in the cells for seven hours where he sang hymns to keep his spirits up.
It is exactly the same process that might have occurred fifty years ago but with a policeman warning a homosexual he could not distribute leaflets advocating sodomy. What has changed isn’t that people are being warned off for their beliefs. What is different is which beliefs they are being warned against. The Ins and the Outs have changed places, but he door remains the same. Wikipedia writes that “views on public morality do change over time,” but whether public morality itself can ever be abolished is an open question.
One of the drivers of the new public morality is who can fight back. British policemen do not go around telling Muslim imams not to preach against homosexuality because such preachers may take strenuous exception to their warnings. But the rules of the new morality are often capricious, unstated or simply arcane.
The offenses ascribed to Julian Assange illuminate what some publics regard as offensive and inappropriate. He is facing complaints from two Swedish women; both appeared to be ideological supporters of Assange. They have sworn out a complaint against him. Neither had problems with Assange’s practice of revealing classified information. “A fellow activist, she had invited Assange to stay at her flat while he was in Stockholm to address her political party, the centre-left Brotherhood Movement.” No, what deeply offended them was welshing on his promise to use a condom when engaging in sexual activity with them. The Swedish police described the crimes of the Wikileaks supremo. Miss A complained that:
She tried to reach for a condom but Assange held her arms and pinned her legs, she stated to police. He then agreed to use a condom but, Miss A alleges, he did ‘something’ to it that resulted in it becoming ripped….
Two days later, he slept with Miss W. She was a twentysomething who had attended his seminar and hung around hoping to meet him. After lunch and the cinema, she invited him to her apartment in Enkoping, near Stockholm, and he stayed.
They used a condom the first time they had sex, but the next morning he allegedly had sex with her when she was still asleep, without protection. He maintains she was ‘half asleep’ and they joked about it afterwards.
Either way, it was not long before the two women had learnt of each other, and were swapping notes. After taking stock, they took the drastic step of going to the police.
The hard part of living under the new morality is understanding what the rules actually are. Is it uncool to steal classified documents which may result in the death of hundreds of Afghans who’ve cooperated with NATO? Apparently not. Is it OK for Julian Assange to use his status as a “fugitive” to become a “babe magnet”? Why of course. Who ever said that being a fugitive meant not telling people who you were? You can be a fugitive only for public purposes and not to actually conceal your whereabouts. But it is apparently not ok not to use a condom in Sweden. This point of punctilo is apparently inviolable, and if it is not clear why to all of us, it is nevertheless evident to members of the relevant set.
Nothing so demonstrates plebeianism as the inability not to even know the rules. The real hallmark of membership in the new aristocracy is knowing all the etiquette without even having to ask — easy enough because they make the rules. What’s right is what Keith Olbermann and Lady Gaga say. Why? Well if you have to ask then you must be immoral. The new morality is above all the art of speaking in code and part of the power of political correctness springs precisely from its vagueness. The art of correct behavior today consists largely in sensing the prevailing fashion. It is a survival skill the Old Bolsheviks knew well. The important thing was to always to have opinions, but never to have opinions that were out of date.
-
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2010/12/barack-obama-michelle-obama-hail-kwanzaa-holiday.html
Barack and Michelle Obama hail Kwanzaa umoja
-
Lets break this down a bit:
President Obama's statement marking Kwanzaa
Michelle and I extend our warmest thoughts and wishes to all those who are celebrating Kwanzaa this holiday season. Today [Dec. 26] is the first of a joyful seven-day celebration of African American culture and heritage.
*Since when? It is a made up holiday. If I am not mistaken, it was created, for political reasons, in the 1970s. There is absolutely no tradition behind it whatsoever.
* Says who? Black racists and progressives.
The seven principles of Kwanzaa --
1) unity,: *In the contex here, unity means racial unity of black people. In practice, this means non-progressive blacks are called "Uncle Toms", "house niggers" "race traitors" and the like.
2) self-determination, *In the context here, this term has black separatist connotations
3) collective work and responsibility, *i.e. commonly known as communism
4) cooperative economics, *more communism
5) purpose, *I am unaware of the origin of the presence of this term here.
6) creativity *perhaps a nod to the achievement of American blacks in music and other arts
7) and faith -- *fair enough if one means the black churches such as MLK, but one suspects in the context here it means black liberation theology such as that of BO's pastor, Rev. Wright.
are some of the very values that make us Americans. *No, it makes you racist progressives.
As families across America and around the world light the Kinara today in the spirit of umoja, or unity, *again, racial solidarity
our family sends our well wishes and blessings for a happy and healthy new year.
-
http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=20535
Happy Kwanzaa
By: Paul Mulshine
FrontPageMagazine.com | Thursday, December 26, 2002
On December 24, 1971, the New York Times ran one of the first of many articles on a new holiday designed to foster unity among African Americans. The holiday, called Kwanzaa, was applauded by a certain sixteen-year-old minister who explained that the feast would perform the valuable service of "de-whitizing" Christmas. The minister was a nobody at the time but he would later go on to become perhaps the premier race-baiter of the twentieth century. His name was Al Sharpton and he would later spawn the Tawana Brawley hoax and then incite anti-Jewish tensions in a 1995 incident that ended with the arson deaths of seven people.
Great minds think alike. The inventor of the holiday was one of the few black "leaders" in America even worse than Sharpton. But there was no mention in the Times article of this man or of the fact that at that very moment he was sitting in a California prison. And there was no mention of the curious fact that this purported benefactor of the black people had founded an organization that in its short history tortured and murdered blacks in ways of which the Ku Klux Klan could only fantasize.
It was in newspaper articles like that, repeated in papers all over the country, that the tradition of Kwanzaa began. It is a tradition not out of Africa but out of Orwell. Both history and language have been bent to serve a political goal. When that New York Times article appeared, Ron Karenga's crimes were still recent events. If the reporter had bothered to do any research into the background of the Kwanzaa founder, he might have learned about Karenga's trial earlier that year on charges of torturing two women who were members of US (United Slaves), a black nationalist cult he had founded.
A May 14, 1971, article in the Los Angeles Times described the testimony of one of them: "Deborah Jones, who once was given the Swahili title of an African queen, said she and Gail Davis were whipped with an electrical cord and beaten with a karate baton after being ordered to remove their clothes. She testified that a hot soldering iron was placed in Miss Davis' mouth and placed against Miss Davis' face and that one of her own big toes was tightened in a vise. Karenga, head of US, also put detergent and running hoses in their mouths, she said."
Back then, it was relatively easy to get information on the trial. Now it's almost impossible. It took me two days' work to find articles about it. The Los Angeles Times seems to have been the only major newspaper that reported it and the stories were buried deep in the paper, which now is available only on microfilm. And the microfilm index doesn't start until 1972, so it is almost impossible to find the three small articles that cover Karenga's trial and conviction on charges of torture. That is fortunate for Karenga. The trial showed him to be not just brutal, but deranged. He and three members of his cult had tortured the women in an attempt to find some nonexistent "crystals" of poison. Karenga thought his enemies were out to get him.
And in another lucky break for Karenga, the trial transcript no longer exists. I filed a request for it with the Superior Court of Los Angeles. After a search, the court clerk could find no record of the trial. So the exact words of the black woman who had a hot soldering iron pressed against her face by the man who founded Kwanzaa are now lost to history. The only document the court clerk did find was particularly revealing, however. It was a transcript of Karenga's sentencing hearing on Sept. 17, 1971.
A key issue was whether Karenga was sane. Judge Arthur L. Alarcon read from a psychiatrist's report: "Since his admission here he has been isolated and has been exhibiting bizarre behavior, such as staring at the wall, talking to imaginary persons, claiming that he was attacked by dive-bombers and that his attorney was in the next cell. … During part of the interview he would look around as if reacting to hallucination and when the examiner walked away for a moment he began a conversation with a blanket located on his bed, stating that there was someone there and implying indirectly that the 'someone' was a woman imprisoned with him for some offense. This man now presents a picture which can be considered both paranoid and schizophrenic with hallucinations and elusions, inappropriate affect, disorganization, and impaired contact with the environment."
The founder of Kwanzaa paranoid? It seems so. But as the old saying goes, just because you're paranoid it doesn't mean that someone isn't out to get you.
ACCORDING TO COURT DOCUMENTS, Karenga's real name is Ron N. Everett. In the '60s, he awarded himself the title "maulana," Swahili for "master teacher." He was born on a poultry farm in Maryland, the fourteenth child of a Baptist minister. He came to California in the late 1950s to attend Los Angeles Community College. He moved on to UCLA, where he got a Master's degree in political science and African Studies. By the mid-1960s, he had established himself as a leading "cultural nationalist." That is a term that had some meaning in the '60s, mainly as a way of distinguishing Karenga's followers from the Black Panthers, who were conventional Marxists.
Another way of distinguishing might be to think of Karenga's gang as the Crips and the Panthers as the bloods. Despite all their rhetoric about white people, they reserved their most vicious violence for each other. In 1969, the two groups squared off over the question of who would control the new Afro-American Studies Center at UCLA. According to a Los Angeles Times article, Karenga and his adherents backed one candidate, the Panthers another. Both groups took to carrying guns on campus, a situation that, remarkably, did not seem to bother the university administration. The Black Student Union, however, set up a coalition to try and bring peace between the Panthers and the group headed by the man whom the Times labeled "Ron Ndabezitha Everett-Karenga."
On Jan. 17, 1969, about 150 students gathered in a lunchroom to discuss the situation. Two Panthers—admitted to UCLA like many of the black students as part of a federal program that put high-school dropouts into the school—apparently spent a good part of the meeting in verbal attacks against Karenga. This did not sit well with Karenga's followers, many of whom had adopted the look of their leader, pseudo-African clothing and a shaved head.
In modern gang parlance, you might say Karenga was "dissed" by John Jerome Huggins, 23, and Alprentice "Bunchy" Carter, 26. After the meeting, the two Panthers were met in the hallway by two brothers who were members of US, George P. and Larry Joseph Stiner. The Stiners pulled pistols and shot the two Panthers dead. One of the Stiners took a bullet in the shoulder, apparently from a Panther's gun.
There were other beatings and shooting in Los Angeles involving US, but by then the tradition of African nationalism had already taken hold—among whites. That tradition calls for any white person, whether a journalist, a college official, or a politician, to ignore the obvious flaws of the concept that blacks should have a separate culture. "The students here have handled themselves in an absolutely impeccable manner," UCLA chancellor Charles E. Young told the L.A. Times. "They have been concerned. They haven't argued who the director should be; they have been saying what kind of person he should be." Young made those remarks after the shooting. And the university went ahead with its Afro-American Studies Program. Karenga, meanwhile, continued to build and strengthen US, a unique group that seems to have combined the elements of a street gang with those of a California cult. The members performed assaults and robberies but they also strictly followed the rules laid down in The Quotable Karenga, a book that laid out "The Path of Blackness." "The sevenfold path of blackness is think black, talk black, act black, create black, buy black, vote black, and live black," the book states.
In retrospect, it may be fortunate that the cult fell apart over the torture charges. Left to his own devices, Karenga might have orchestrated the type of mass suicide later pioneered by the People's Temple and copied by the Heaven's Gate cult. Instead, he apparently fell into deep paranoia shortly after the killings at UCLA. He began fearing that his followers were trying to have him killed. On May 9, 1970 he initiated the torture session that led to his imprisonment. Karenga himself will not comment on that incident and the victims cannot be located, so the sole remaining account is in the brief passage from the L.A. Times describing tortures inflicted by Karenga and his fellow defendants, Louis Smith and Luz Maria Tamayo:
"The victims said they were living at Karenga's home when Karenga accused them of trying to kill him by placing 'crystals' in his food and water and in various areas of his house. When they denied it, allegedly they were beaten with an electrical cord and a hot soldering iron was put in Miss Davis' mouth and against her face. Police were told that one of Miss Jones' toes was placed in a small vise which then allegedly was tightened by one of the defendants. The following day Karenga allegedly told the women that 'Vietnamese torture is nothing compared to what I know.' Miss Tamayo reportedly put detergent in their mouths, Smith turned a water hose full force on their faces, and Karenga, holding a gun, threatened to shoot both of them."
Karenga was convicted of two counts of felonious assault and one count of false imprisonment. He was sentenced on Sept. 17, 1971, to serve one to ten years in prison. A brief account of the sentencing ran in several newspapers the following day. That was apparently the last newspaper article to mention Karenga's unfortunate habit of doing unspeakable things to black people. After that, the only coverage came from the hundreds of news accounts that depict him as the wonderful man who invented Kwanzaa.
LOOK AT ANY MAP OF THE WORLD and you will see that Ghana and Kenya are on opposite sides of the continent. This brings up an obvious question about Kwanzaa: Why did Karenga use Swahili words for his fictional African feast? American blacks are primarily descended from people who came from Ghana and other parts of West Africa. Kenya and Tanzania—where Swahili is spoken—are several thousand miles away, about as far from Ghana as Los Angeles is from New York. Yet in celebrating Kwanzaa, African-Americans are supposed to employ a vocabulary of such Swahili words as "kujichagulia" and "kuumba." This makes about as much sense as having Irish-Americans celebrate St. Patrick's Day by speaking Polish. One possible explanation is that Karenga was simply ignorant of African geography and history when he came up with Kwanzaa in 1966. That might explain why he would schedule a harvest festival near the solstice, a season when few fruits or vegetables are harvested anywhere. But a better explanation is that he simply has contempt for black people.
That does not seem a farfetched hypothesis. Despite all his rhetoric about white racism, I could find no record that he or his followers ever raised a hand in anger against a white person. In fact, Karenga had an excellent relationship with Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yorty in the '60s and also met with then-Governor Ronald Reagan and other white politicians. But he and his gang were hell on blacks. And Karenga certainly seems to have had a low opinion of his fellow African-Americans. "People think it's African, but it's not," he said about his holiday in an interview quoted in the Washington Post. "I came up with Kwanzaa because black people in this country wouldn't celebrate it if they knew it was American. Also, I put it around Christmas because I knew that's when a lot of bloods would be partying." "Bloods" is a '60s California slang term for black people.
That Post article appeared in 1978. Like other news articles from that era, it makes no mention of Karenga's criminal past, which seems to have been forgotten the minute he got out of prison in 1975. Profiting from the absence of memory, he remade himself as Maulana Ron Karenga, went into academics, and by 1979 he was running the Black Studies Department at California State University in Long Beach.
This raises a question: Karenga had just ten years earlier proven himself capable of employing guns and bullets in his efforts to control hiring in the Black Studies Department at UCLA. So how did this ex-con, fresh out jail, get the job at Long Beach? Did he just send a résumé and wait by the phone? The officials at Long Beach State don't like that type of question. I called the university and got a spokeswoman by the name of Toni Barone. She listened to my questions and put me on hold. Christmas music was playing, a nice touch under the circumstances. She told me to fax her my questions. I sent a list of questions that included the matter of whether Karenga had employed threats to get his job. I also asked just what sort of crimes would preclude a person from serving on the faculty there in Long Beach. And whether the university takes any security measures to ensure that Karenga doesn't shoot any students. Barone faxed me back a reply stating that the university is pleased with Karenga's performance and has no record of the procedures that led to his hiring. She ignored the question about how they protect students.
Actually, there is clear evidence that Karenga has reformed. In 1975, he dropped his cultural nationalist views and converted to Marxism. For anyone else, this would have been seen as an endorsement of radicalism, but for Karenga it was considered a sign that he had moderated his outlook. The ultimate irony is that now that Karenga is a Marxist, the capitalists have taken over his holiday. The seven principles of Kwanzaa include "collective work" and "cooperative economics," but Kwanzaa is turning out to be as commercial as Christmas, generating millions in greeting-card sales alone. The purists are whining. "It's clear that a number of major corporations have started to take notice and try to profit from Kwanzaa," said a San Francisco State black studies professor named "Oba T'Shaka" in one news account. "That's not good, with money comes corruption." No, he's wrong. With money comes kitsch. The L.A. Times reported a group was planning an "African Village Faire," the pseudo-archaic spelling of "faire" nicely combining kitsch Africana with kitsch Americana.
With money also comes forgetfulness. As those warm Kwanzaa feelings are generated in a spirit of holiday cheer, those who celebrate this holiday do so in blissful ignorance of the sordid violence, paranoia, and mayhem that helped generate its birth some three decades ago in a section of America that has vanished down the memory hole.
-
Unlearning the Lessons Being Taught
by Ann Snyder • Dec 9, 2010 at 10:49 am
http://www.legal-project.org/blog/2010/12/unlearning-the-lessons-being-taught
Islamists aren't the only threat to speech critical of Islam. Many European states, for example, have criminalized speech acts through legally enforced "political correctness" embodied in "hate speech" laws. In America, where it still remains (more or less) legal to think and speak, the assault on free expression is being waged on a different front, our universities. The target? The minds of America's youth.
Far from being bastions of free thought and critical inquiry, our universities, through speech codes, security fees, and other tactics, begin the "political correctness" indoctrination process early, teaching young Americans what they may and may not say (READ: think). Naturally, included in the realm of the verboten is expression deemed critical of Islam.
One Philadelphia organization, the Foundation for Individual Rights In Education (FIRE), an organization dedicated to protecting individual rights on America's campuses, is fighting back and has handled a few cases that will be of particular interest to our readers:
Student group slapped with "security fee" for Wilders event: In October of 2009, the student organization, Temple University Purpose (TUP), sponsored an event with Dutch politician, Geert Wilders, who currently faces prosecution for "hate speech" in the Netherlands. Several weeks later, the group received charges for an additional "security fee" for the event. Charging extra security fees for a controversial event because of a potential hostile reaction from the audience has been deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court because it financially burdens speech. Citing this precedent and through dogged persistence, the FIRE succeeded in having the fee withdrawn.
College Republicans investigated for fake flag "desecration" at anti-terrorism event: In 2007, San Francisco State University's College Republicans were subjected to disciplinary action for stepping on mock Hezbollah and Hamas flags as part of an anti-terrorism event. With help from the FIRE, the witch-hunt was ended and students escaped punishment. Later, with the assistance of the FIRE's Speech Codes Litigation Project and the Alliance Defense Fund, the College Republicans delivered a little disciplinary action of their own, raising and winning a constitutional challenge to the university's speech code.
"Portraits of Terror" art exhibit censored: In 2006, then Penn State student, Joshua Stulman's exhibit "Portraits of Terror" was pulled by the university just three days before its opening. According to FIRE President, Greg Lukianoff, the exhibit was censored "twice: first because administrators didn't like what it had to say, and later out of fear that violence would ensue if his artwork were shown on campus." The FIRE has helped raise awareness of the incident through writing and a short documentary. Is there anyone out there with the courage to show this exhibit?
Through cases like those enumerated above related to expression concerning Islam, and through countless others directed more generally at protecting individual liberty on our campuses, the FIRE is helping students to unlearn some dangerous lessons they are being taught at our colleges and universities about the scope of individual liberty. To paraphrase Judge Learned Hand, liberty lies in the hearts and minds of men and women; if it dies there, no laws can save it. Those at the FIRE understand this proposition and are fighting to keep liberty alive in one of the places it counts the most.
For our readers in Philadelphia, the FIRE will be presenting its work on December 10, 2010 at a CLE course they developed titled, "Free Speech 101: Protecting Free Expression and the First Amendment at our Nation's Colleges and Universities."
-
Thanks for the piece on the origins of Kwanzaa GM.
-
What I find interesting is how almost all of the Karenga legal records have disappeared. I assume California has laws like most every state requiring that all these records be archived and preserved as public records.
-
May I tease you by pointing out that such suspicion of the integrity of government/state action is normally mocked by you? :lol:
-
I would point out that there is a big difference between some documents getting purged and "9/11 was an inside job" or other conspiracy theories.
-
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/no-three-week-vacations-for-the-hajj-dont-worry-the-dojs-on-it/?singlepage=true
No Three-Week Vacations for the Hajj? Don’t Worry, the DOJ’s On It
The DOJ throws its weight behind a middle-school teacher who claims her rights were violated when she wasn't allowed the time to go to Mecca.
December 27, 2010 - by Mike McDaniel
Two interesting poll results have come to light in recent days. The first was Barack Obama’s lowest ever approval rating, and the second was a poll commissioned by ABC News and the Washington Post that revealed that only 43% were in favor of ObamaCare with 52% opposed. Other polls have indicated as much as a 60% level of disapproval. However, Jake Tapper of ABC did mention the poll, calling it the “lowest level of popularity ever.” The Washington Post did not publish the results of its own poll.
Such selective publishing has also infected a very interesting story relating to a Muslim teacher and Eric Holder’s Justice Department, a story which has received little mainstream media press, but reasonable play in the blogosphere. In December of 2008, Safoorah Khan, a middle school teacher in the Berkeley school district (a Chicago-area district), asked her principal to give her three weeks off during the school year so she could make the hajj, a ritual journey to Mecca, the most holy city of Islam, that all Muslims are expected to make once in their lifetime if possible. Her principal refused because the request was not related to her professional duties and exceeded the union contract under which the school operates. He no doubt also refused because to grant her request would have disrupted the continuity of the educations of her students (Khan apparently offered to take the time without pay). Enter Eric Holder.
The Department of Justice has filed a lawsuit under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 alleging that the school district violated Khan’s civil rights by refusing to accommodate her religious practices. The DOJ is demanding an order forcing the Berkeley district to adopt policies that would allows such religious observances, and is also seeking back pay, compensatory damages, and reinstatement for Kahn, whose actions led to her dismissal. “Employees should not have to choose between their religious practice and their livelihood,” said Thomas Perez, assistant attorney general for the Civil Right Division. The Equal Employment OpportunityCommission is also involved in the case. This is the first such case ever brought by the DOJ.
Many readers will no doubt remember Mr. Perez as instrumental in dismissing the voter intimidation case against the New Black Panthers, a case that was actually won, and arguably committing perjury to cover the fact that political appointees such as himself ruled the decision-making process. They will also no doubt recall that the Civil Rights Division has adopted an unwritten — though widely known — policy against protecting the civil rights of whites. All of this was brought to light by past and present Civil Rights Division attorneys and was documented and confirmed in a recent report of the United States Civil Rights Commission.
It is tempting, and likely correct, to believe that Mr. Holder’s DOJ is involved primarily because Ms. Khan is a Muslim, in the hope of righting what they see as anti-Muslim attitudes and prejudice rampant in the American population. That such rampant prejudice is essentially nonexistent seems to bother them not at all. For example, several years ago, NBC enlisted men in obviously Muslim garb to attend a NASCAR race in Virginia, making their presence obvious, even provocative, in the hope of obtaining incendiary footage of racist race fans, but the planted Muslims were treated no differently than anyone else. No racism; no footage. Mr. Obama’s support and rhetoric in favor of Muslim ideals and Muslim organizations, even those with clear links to terrorism, are equally well-known, so the DOJ’s involvement should hardly be a surprise to the well-informed.
But by entering into this case, the DOJ seeks to do much mischief in the support of Muslim tradition and Sharia (Islamic law). Schools have of late become primarily political footballs, when they’re not farm teams for professional football teams. All but ignored is that they exist to provide a free, common education for American children, an education not only in reading, writing, and arithmetic, but in shared American values and responsibilities, values and responsibilities that if actually taught and enforced will enable most children to one day become responsible citizens. Anything that interferes with this process should and must be resisted.
Competent educators know that the most important factor in student success is having competent, dedicated, hardworking teachers in each classroom. Such teachers do not want to be absent from their students, even for a single day. In this case, apparently Ms. Kahn did not attempt to organize her trip in advance of the school year, giving her principal the chance to determine if it would be possible to obtain a long-term substitute teacher. Even so, few if any principals would be disposed to allow any teacher to leave school for three successive weeks for what amounts to personal business, no matter how deeply felt the teacher’s need might be, religious or otherwise. This is particularly true in December, during which the final few weeks of the first semester fall. What many fail to realize is that a teacher’s summer vacation, which by the way grows shorter each year, is largely used by teachers to obtain state mandated re-certification credits (usually at their own expense), and to conduct the kind of personal business that is just not possible during the school year. In fact, most teachers would not make such a request, particularly on the spur of the moment, understanding it to be inherently unreasonable.
Teachers certainly do upon occasion have to leave the classroom for weeks at a time due to unexpected illness or family emergencies such as deaths or the unexpected needs of elderly parents, but such matters are understood and accepted and are commonly written into the polices of school districts, particularly those like the Berkeley district with a unionized work force. In this case, the union contract apparently did not allow such absences.
The courts, and the Justice Department, have traditionally extended substantial deference toward school authorities in such matters recognizing that interference would be far more likely to be harmful than helpful and that local control was of paramount importance. Of course, the Obama administration knows best, in this and in every other facet of our lives, so DOJ involvement in this matter likely represents only the nose of the camel under the tent.
The determining factor in this case will likely be encapsulated in one word: reasonable. In other words, was the Berkeley district unreasonable in failing to fully accommodate Kahn’s desire for a religious pilgrimage? By throwing the full weight and resources of the federal government behind Ms. Kahn, it is clear that the DOJ under Mr. Holder and Mr. Obama believe that the district was unreasonable, at least so far as the desires of Muslims are concerned. It is not unreasonable to believe that a Christian teacher suddenly struck with the idea of a religious pilgrimage to Jerusalem would not be accorded the same federal support.
Should the courts rule in favor of Ms. Kahn (and by extension, the DOJ and Mr. Obama), it is hard to imagine which Muslim religious observance would not have to be accommodated. After all, if it is legally reasonable for Muslim teachers to be given three weeks off for religious reasons upon request, what lesser imposition on public time and money — and the uninterrupted learning environments of their students — could be deemed unreasonable? Foot washing stations? Segregation of male and female students and wearing of the hijab for female teachers and students? Students being able to disrupt class when they please, laying down prayer rugs, facing Mecca and loudly praying? Should any of this sound farfetched, keep in mind that these matters, and more, have already been discussed and/or litigated in schools and colleges across the nation.
But perhaps this is really nothing but a tempest in a teapot. Perhaps this is nothing more than Mr. Obama’s continuing “outreach” to the Muslim world. After all, NASA’s primary new mission is to help Muslims to feel good about centuries old scientific accomplishments. After all, what’s a little Sharia among friends?
Mike McDaniel is a former police officer, detective, and SWAT operator.
-
In a world where we are not allowed to use the word Christmas in public and especially not Hannakah, punditry happened to notice that an 'After Holiday Sale' began December 26th and comment that we finally learn what holiday they were referring to. I wonder if Kwanzaa shoppers in the White House and across the fruited plain find the timing of such a sale offensive.
-
http://www.scribd.com/doc/14990220/Chrysler-Debtholders-Motion-to-File-Under-Seal
-
what it has been advocating all these years leads to this , , ,
By RACHEL DONADIO
NYTimes
Published: January 1, 2011
LECCE, Italy — Francesca Esposito, 29 and exquisitely educated, helped win millions of euros in false disability and other lawsuits for her employer, a major Italian state agency. But one day last fall she quit, fed up with how surreal and ultimately sad it is to be young in Italy today.
It galled her that even with her competence and fluency in five languages, it was nearly impossible to land a paying job. Working as an unpaid trainee lawyer was bad enough, she thought, but doing it at Italy’s social security administration seemed too much. She not only worked for free on behalf of the nation’s elderly, who have generally crowded out the young for jobs, but her efforts there did not even apply to her own pension.
“It was absurd,” said Ms. Esposito, a strong-willed woman with a healthy sense of outrage.
The outrage of the young has erupted, sometimes violently, on the streets of Greece and Italy in recent weeks, as students and more radical anarchists protest not only specific austerity measures in flattened economies but a rising reality in Southern Europe: People like Ms. Esposito feel increasingly shut out of their own futures. Experts warn of volatility in state finances and the broader society as the most highly educated generation in the history of the Mediterranean hits one of its worst job markets.
Politicians are slowly beginning to take notice. Italy’s president, Giorgio Napolitano, devoted his year-end message on Friday to “the pervasive malaise among young people,” weeks after protests against budget cuts to the university system brought the issue to the fore.
Giuliano Amato, an economist and former Italian prime minister, was even more blunt. “By now, only a few people refuse to understand that youth protests aren’t a protest against the university reform, but against a general situation in which the older generations have eaten the future of the younger ones,” he recently told Corriere della Sera, Italy’s largest newspaper.
The daughter of a fireman and a high school teacher, Ms. Esposito was the first in her family to graduate from college and the first to study foreign languages. She has an Italian law degree and a master’s from Germany and was an intern at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg. It has not helped.
“I have every possible certificate,” Ms. Esposito said dryly. “I have everything except a death certificate.”
Even before the economic crisis hit, Southern Europe was not an easy place to forge a career. Low growth and a corrosive lack of meritocracy have long posed challenges to finding a job in Italy, Greece, Spain and Portugal. Today, with the added sting of austerity, more people are left fighting over fewer opportunities. It is a zero-sum game that inevitably pits younger workers struggling to enter the labor market against older ones already occupying precious slots.
As a result, a deep malaise has set in among young people. Some take to the streets in protest; others emigrate to Northern Europe or beyond in an epic brain drain of college graduates. But many more suffer in silence, living in their childhood bedrooms well into adulthood because they cannot afford to move out.
“They call us the lost generation,” said Coral Herrera Gómez, 33, who has a Ph.D. in humanities but still lives with her parents in Madrid because she cannot find steady work. “I’m not young,” she added over coffee recently, “but I’m not an adult with a job, either.”
There has been a national debate for years in Spain about “mileuristas,” a nickname for college graduates whose best job prospects may well pay just 1,000 euros a month, or $1,300.
Ms. Herrera is at the lower end of the spectrum. Fed up with earning 600 euros a month, or $791, under the table as a children’s drama teacher, Ms. Herrera said she had decided to move to Costa Rica this month to teach at a university.
As she spoke in a cafe in Madrid, a television on the wall featured a report on the birthday of a 106-year-old woman who said that eating blood sausage was the secret to her longevity.
The contrast could not have been stronger. Indeed, experts warn of a looming demographic disaster in Southern Europe, which has among the lowest birth rates in the Western world. With pensioners living longer and young people entering the work force later — and paying less in taxes because their salaries are so low — it is only a matter of time before state coffers run dry.
“What we have is a Ponzi scheme,” said Lawrence Kotlikoff, an economist at Boston University and an expert in fiscal policy.
He said that pay-as-you-go social security and health care were a looming fiscal disaster in Southern Europe and beyond. “If these fertility rates continue through time, you won’t have Italians, Spanish, Greeks, Portuguese or Russians,” he said. “I imagine the Chinese will just move into Southern Europe.”
==========
The problem goes far beyond youth unemployment, which is at 40 percent in Spain and 28 percent in Italy. It is also about underemployment. Today, young people in Southern Europe are effectively exploited by the very mechanisms created a decade ago to help make the labor market more flexible, like temporary contracts.
Because payroll taxes and firing costs are still so high, businesses across Southern Europe are loath to hire new workers on a full-time basis, so young people increasingly are offered unpaid or low-paying internships, traineeships or temporary contracts that do not offer the same benefits or protections.
“This is the best-educated generation in Spanish history, and they are entering a job market in which they are underutilized,” said Ignacio Fernández Toxo, the leader of the Comisiones Obreras, one of Spain’s two largest labor unions. “It is a tragedy for the country.”
Yet many young people in Southern Europe see labor union leaders like Mr. Fernández, and the left-wing parties with which they have been historically close, as part of the problem. They are seen as exacerbating a two-tier labor market by protecting a caste of tenured older workers rather than helping younger workers enter the market.
For Dr. Kotlikoff, the solution is simple: “We have to change the labor laws. Not gradually, but quickly.”
Yet in Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain, any change in national contracts involves complex negotiations among governments, labor unions and businesses — a delicate dance in which each faction fights furiously for its interests.
Because older workers tend to be voters, labor reform remains a third rail to most politicians. Asked at a news conference last year about changing Italy’s de facto two-tier system, Italy’s center-right finance minister, Giulio Tremonti, said simply, “You can’t make violent changes to the system.”
New austerity measures in Spain, where the unemployment rate is 20 percent, the highest in the European Union, are further narrowing the employment window. Spain has pledged to raise its retirement age to 67 from 65, but incrementally over the next 20 years.
“Now people are being sent into early retirement at age 55,” said Sara Sanfulgencio, 28, who has a master’s degree in marketing but is unemployed and living in Madrid with her mother, who owns a children’s shoe store. “But if I haven’t started working by age 28 and I already have to stop at 55, it’s absurd.”
In Italy, Ms. Esposito is finishing her lawyer traineeship at a private firm in Lecce. It pays little but sits better on her conscience than her unpaid work for the government.
“I’m a repentant college graduate,” she said. “If I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t go to college and would just start working.”
-
Woof,
Oh if we only had a one world government no one would go hungry because food would be free and plentiful. :-P Right www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41062817/ (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41062817/)
P.C.
-
Or just maybe, the Fed's flooding of the world with dollars has something to do with it , , ,
-
Woof,
We are being herded into colapse, me thinks.
P.C.
-
Yes, droughts freezes and floods, the Fed flooding dollars, how much fertile farm land is lost from food production by convoluted incentives to grow energy instead of food while leaving ready energy in the ground, and are we still really paying farmers to not grow at all??
We are collectively so slow and so stupid about correcting public policies regarding ongoing self inflicted wounds.
In the context of the torture distinction discussion I am hesitant to call misguided democratic policies fascism, but if/when we keep doing it until people are starving then maybe that is what it is.
-
Well, Ralph Nader is really low on my list as a general rule, but here he describes a situation worth consideration.
===================
By RALPH NADER
I have long fought against the systemic disempowerment of investors in large public corporations, but the mistreatment of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shareholders, including me, is uniquely reprehensible.
For decades Fannie and Freddie behaved like other large, publicly held financial corporations. They were profit-seeking companies, listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). They displayed an unfettered drive for greater sales, profits, executive bonuses and stock options for the top brass. Their shareholders received dividends and rising stock values.
These so-called government sponsored enterprises (GSEs) dominated the secondary mortgage market. The implied government backstop slightly lowered their borrowing costs in return for a poorly enforced obligation to facilitate a mortgage market for lower-income home buyers. Otherwise, the GSE moniker meant little, since everybody knew that, like Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street giants, Washington viewed them as "too big to fail."
With the onset of the subprime mortgage collapse, Fannie and Freddie went down with the rest of the financial industry. The federal government moved into high bailout gear during the latter half of 2008 with three distinct rescue models for Wall Street and Detroit.
One model provided capital and credit lines to Bank of America, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan Chase and AIG, leaving their shareholders beaten down but intact to start recovering value.
The second model dispatched General Motors into a well-orchestrated, stunningly quick bankruptcy process. While the bankruptcy court treated the common shareholders like flotsam and jetsam, GM emerged well subsidized and tax-privileged with a clean balance sheet under temporary ownership by the U.S. and Canadian governments and the United Auto Workers.
View Full Image
Getty Images
.The third model placed Fannie and Freddie under an indeterminate conservatorship scheme that kept but abused its common shareholders, who had already lost up to 99% of their investment. Neither vanquished nor given an opportunity to recover, the institutional and individual shareholders are trapped in limbo.
Here is how the scheme congealed. In return for providing an open credit line, the government received warrants to buy up to 79.9% of the GSEs' common stock for $0.00001 per share. The government's share stayed under 80% to avoid forcing the liabilities of these two behemoths onto the government's books. Treasury achieved this by having the common shareholders nominally own the other 20%.
Here's the rub: The zombie common shareholders have no rights or remedies against Fannie and Freddie, both operationally active companies, or their regulator—the Federal Housing Finance Agency. FHFA ordered the Fannie and Freddie boards and executives to suspend communications with shareholders and abolish the annual stockholders meeting.
In 2008, then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told Fannie and Freddie investors that the companies "are adequately capitalized." Moreover, another regulator, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (Ofheo), assured investors—including many mutual funds, pension trusts and small banks—of the soundness of their investment.
Fannie Mae's then-Senior Vice President Chuck Greener, backed by his then-CEO Daniel Mudd, said, "We are maintaining a strong capital base, building reserves for credit losses and generating solid reserves as our business continues to serve the market." That was on July 11, 2008.
These former officials (both have since left Fannie Mae) should have known better. On Sept. 8, 2008, when Treasury announced the conservatorship, the GSEs' common stock dropped to pennies and the shareholders realized they were misled.
Such statements by private executives controlling a publicly traded corporation should have prompted a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation. Such was the betrayal of trust of investors who were told for years that putting their money in these GSEs was second only to investing in Treasury bonds.
Still, some faithful shareholders, including me, held on, believing that they might have a chance to recover something—as did their counterparts in Citigroup, AIG and the rest of the rescued.
Then came the cruelest and most unnecessary diktat of all. On June 16, 2010, the FHFA directed Fannie and Freddie to delist their common and preferred stock from the NYSE. The exchange did not demand this move. True, Fannie had dropped slightly below the $1 per share threshold stipulated by NYSE rules, but the Big Board is quite flexible with time either to get back over $1 or to allow companies to offer a reverse stock split. Freddie was comfortably over the $1 level. Why delist with one irresponsible stroke of the government's pen and destroy billions of dollars of remaining shareholder value? This move took the shares down to the range of 30 cents, chasing away many institutional holders.
FHFA Director Edward J. DeMarco said: "A voluntary delisting at this time simply makes sense and fits with the goal of a conservatorship to preserve and conserve assets." What nonsense! Real people were affected. As always, shareholders were powerless to challenge management practices, and they were treated like bureaucratically useful apparitions whose last clinging value could be shredded arbitrarily without due process.
In the next few weeks, the Obama administration is sending Congress its proposals regarding the future of the GSEs. The common shareholders of Fannie and Freddie need to organize and make their voices heard in Washington. Clearly, they should have a say in how Fannie and Freddie are managed—in the board room and in Congress—from here onward. It would be the equitable thing to do given the unprecedented delisting, political manipulations and discriminatory abuses heaped on GSE investors.
Mr. Nader is a consumer advocate and the author of "Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us" (Seven Stories Press, 2009).
-
Well I was intrigued by the last line of your post, "Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us" by Ralph Nader.
I found this op ed. LOL the image of Warren Buffet leading the charge of supplies into New Orleans during Katrina.
The twisted logic of Nader is reflective of the twisted logic of all super rich progressives. Of course he chooses all the big super rich liberals and writes a fictional account of them having meetings and looking for ways to stop the big corporations from ruining the world.
Of course these same people think big government is the only thing that can save us. Buffett who thinks he should be taxed more. Soros, what can I say. Phil Donahue is on this list?
Ralph Nader: Only the Super Rich Can Save Us!
At a little noticed meeting with Senate Democrats, Warren Buffett, the famous investors' guru, told the lawmakers that rich people are not paying enough taxes.
A tax increase for the very wealthy? Many of the Senators backed away from that recommendation, even though it came from the world's second richest man.
That is just one reason why Mr. Buffett plays a central role in my first work of fiction, Only the Super Rich Can Save Us! The title is derived from an exchange between Buffett and a woman from New Orleans.
Buffett is leading a convoy of critical supplies right after Katrina to help the fleeing poor stranded on the highways without food, water, medicine and shelter. At one stop, Buffett was distributing supplies when a grandmother clasped his hands, looked right into his eyes and cried out: "Only the super-rich can save us!"
Her words jolted Buffett to his core. Arriving back at his modest home in Omaha, he knew what he had to do.
The next scene is early January 2006. Buffett and 16 enlightened super-rich elders gather at a mountaintop hotel in Maui, and devise an elaborate strategy to take on the corporate goliaths and their Washington allies, and to redirect the country toward long overdue changes.
What follows is a top-down, bottom-up mobilization of Americans from all backgrounds in a head-on power struggle to break the grip of the corporate titans on our government.
With four out of five Americans believing that the U.S. is in decline, imagining the super-rich powerful engine revving up an organized citizenry is a precondition to revitalizing democracy.
Tom Peters, the best selling author of In Search of Excellence summed up my book's objective by calling it a work of fiction that he would love to see become nonfiction.
Step by step, week by week, Buffett's super-rich, who call themselves "the Meliorists" build their campaigns--first privately and then openly launching their initiatives during the 4th of July weekend with media, fanfare and parades.
Turning real, well-known people into fictional roles does not mean that their past achievements and beliefs are overlooked. To the contrary, I extend their achievements and beliefs to a much more intense level of what I believe they wish to see our country become.
Over the years, I have spoken to many super-rich and found many of them discouraged and saddened about our nation's inability to solve major problems--a society paralyzed because the few have too much political and economic power over the many.
Buffett, in my "political science fiction,' to use my colleague Matt Zawisky's phrase, selected people like George Soros, Ted Turner, Ross Perot, Sol Price, Yoko Ono, William Gates Sr., Barry Diller, Bill Cosby, Joe Jamail, Bernard Rapoport, Leonard Riggio, Phil Donahue, and others because each brought unique experience, determination, money and rolodexes to that secluded Maui hotel where they met every month.
The "Meliorists" address the enormous mismatch of resources between citizen groups and the corporate supremacists. This time the entrenched CEOs are challenged by the retired or elderly billionaires and megamillionaires who know the ways and means of business and political power, and can throw the resources, smarts and grassroot organizing talent against the corporate behemoths, who are not reluctant to counterattack.
In 1888, a Bostonian by the name of Edward Bellamy published a tremendous bestseller about a utopian U.S. in the year 2000 called "Looking Backward." The book inspired the then-growing progressive movement.
1 | 2
-
There are many areas where the far left, distrustful of big business, and the far right distrustful of bug government, should be able to find agreement. All we seek is a fair and level playing field and that is at least partly their objective as well. GSE's are inherently corrupt enterprises. I cringe when I hear the term public-private partnerships or whatever version of that concept Obama was describing at the State of the Union. Remember that Nader is far to the left of Obama, and even more so now that Obama is faking toward the middle. The buyout he describes is unfair to put it mildly, buying 79.9% at $.000001/per share because 80% would have a reporting requirement! Then trashing the value of it for their own purposes. Using the clout of size to disproportionate squish those whose stake is financially smaller. Same goes for unfair debt rearrangements in other government meddling, besides the illegality and unconstitutionality. It doesn't seem to me that shareholders have control over companies, though I would prefer to disagree with Nader. Ownership comes and goes but professional management is entrenched as long as things go acceptably well. The only freedom or power the individual shareholder really has is to not buy the shares.
-
2011 SOTU: The Patriot Response
"As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible [and] not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burthen which we ourselves ought to bear." --George Washington
Barack Hussein Obama delivered his third State of the Union address this week. The good news: We can remove this man and his dangerously inept Leftist regime in two years.
The bad news: He still has two years left, and according to his ObamaPrompter, he intends to stay the course toward economic implosion.
By way of decoding Obama's message to America, Reps. Paul Ryan and Michelle Bachmann provided good rebuttals. However, they were constrained by certain standards of collegiality, so I have taken the liberty of providing The Patriot Post's unvarnished response to select excerpts of the SOTU.
First, some general observations:
1. Obama is the least qualified person to be president in any room he enters, so he looked particularly juvenile and incompetent at the House chamber podium.
2. Obama is still making political fodder of the Tucson tragedy, eager for another undignified pep rally like the "memorial service" he headlined at the University of Arizona. There, he was constantly cheered by sycophantic students whom he never once attempted to silence in due respect for what should have been a solemn occasion. For the record, in the 24 hours prior to Obama's SOTU, there were 11 law enforcement officers wounded or killed by sociopathic products of Socialist policies ... but they received no mention on Tuesday night.
3. The "date-night" seating arrangements were a great touch, particularly with serious men like Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) sitting next to that bucktoothed moron, Al Franken (D-MN).
Here is the abbreviated version of the SOTU: "I want ... I believe ... I've seen ... I've heard ... I said ... I will be ... I'm asking ... I don't know ... I challenge ... I urge ... I set ... I know ... I'm proposing ... I ask ... I took ... I made ... I would ... I intend ... I've ordered ... I will not ... I've heard ... I am eager ... I'm not ... I'm not ... I'm not ... I am ... I've proposed ... I care ... I recognize ... I'm willing ... I've proposed ... I created ... I don't agree ... I am prepared ... I hear ... I will submit ... I ask ... I will veto ... I will travel ... I call on all ... I know ... I stand..."
For a more in-depth analysis, what follows are Barack Obama claims with The Patriot's rebuttals, keeping in mind that nothing Obama proposed has an authorizing provision in our Constitution:
Barack Obama: "We have to make America the best place on Earth to do business. ... That's how our people will prosper. That's how we'll win the future. ... We know what it takes to compete for the jobs and industries of our time."
The Patriot's Response: Obama's objective to socialize our economy is completely antithetical to "winning the future." After $850 billion in Keynesian "stimulus" spending, unemployment is higher than when Obama took office, and our national debt has grown by almost three TRILLION dollars, now bumping up against the $14.29 trillion debt ceiling just enacted in December. Here's a real stimulus plan: Reduce taxes and regulations, which will grow the economy, which will increase tax revenues, which will provide more government funding for legitimate expenditures.
BO: "To reduce barriers to growth and investment, I've ordered a review of government regulations."
TPR: This administration, which has implemented record government regulations, will now consider removing just a few of them but only if such revisions would not affect "values that are difficult or impossible to quantify, including equity, human dignity, fairness, and distributive impacts." Obama's taxes and regulations have, to this point, demoted our great nation to ninth place in Heritage Foundation's 2011 Index of Economic Freedom.
BO: "At stake right now is not who wins the next election -- after all, we just had an election."
TPR: Election, what election? As the Left is so fond of trying to forget.
BO: "Instead of re-fighting the battles of the last two years, let's fix what needs fixing and let's move forward."
TPR: Clearly, Obama lost the battle in last November's election. Losers always say things like "let's move forward."
BO: "Now that the worst of the recession is over, we have to confront the fact that our government spends more than it takes in. That is not sustainable. Every day, families sacrifice to live within their means. They deserve a government that does the same."
TPR: Bold words for a prez who has outspent all his predecessors, and who is now proposing more "stimulus spending," though he dared not use that term this time around, lest it be confused with the last colossal heap of Recovery.gov waste.
BO: "Our government has provided cutting-edge scientists and inventors with the support that they need. That's what planted the seeds for the Internet."
TPR: And all this time we thought it was Al Gore.
BO: "We will make sure this is fully paid for ... and pick projects based on what's best for the economy, not politicians."
TPR: Obama is not interested in "what's best for the economy"; he's interested in picking economic "winners."
BO: "Over the next 10 years, nearly half of all new jobs will require education that goes beyond a high school education. And yet, as many as a quarter of our students aren't even finishing high school. The quality of our math and science education lags behind many other nations. America has fallen to ninth in the proportion of young people with a college degree. And so the question is whether all of us are willing to do what's necessary to give every child a chance to succeed."
TPR: And the answer is ... YES! Start by eliminating the Department of Education and its unconstitutional mandates. Encourage school choice and privatization. Sit back and watch education standards rise.
BO: "This is our generation's Sputnik moment."
TPR: Whoever wrote that line for the ObamaPrompter needs a one-way ticket into space.
BO: "I'm asking Democrats and Republicans to simplify the [tax] system. Get rid of the loopholes. Level the playing field. ... In fact, the best thing we could do on taxes for all Americans is to simplify the individual tax code."
TPR: How about eliminating the U.S. tax code altogether and replacing it with a flat or national sales tax? Of course, our voluminous tax code is the hammer that Democrats use to control the free market, reward their friends, and punish their enemies. They're not about to lay down that hammer.
BO: "If you have ideas about how to improve [ObamaCare] by making care better or more affordable, I am eager to work with you."
TPR: You mean like he "listened" during the original ObamaCare debate? Repeal it. Take that and work with it.
BO: "Invest ... investing ... investments ..."
TPR: As mentioned earlier, this is ObamaSpeak for unrestrained unconstitutional spending, in a year that the Congressional Budget Office projects a whopping $1.5 trillion deficit. The preamble for Obama's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform concluded: "After all the talk about debt and deficits, it is long past time for America's leaders to put up or shut up. The era of debt denial is over, and there can be no turning back." Obama threw those commissioners under the train.
BO: "Let's make sure that we're not [cutting government programs for] our most vulnerable citizens. ... If we truly care about our deficit, we simply can't afford a permanent extension of the tax cuts. ... We should ask millionaires to give up their tax break. It's not a matter of punishing their success. It's about promoting America's success."
TPR: Ah, yes, redistributing wealth is always about "promoting America's success."
BO: "We shouldn't just give our people a government that's more affordable. We should give them a government that's more competent and more efficient. We can't win the future with a government of the past. ... In the coming months, my administration will develop a proposal to merge, consolidate, and reorganize the federal government."
TPR: This is ObamaSpeak for further centralization of government power.
BO: "And so we must defeat determined enemies, wherever they are, and build coalitions that cut across lines of region and race and religion. And America's moral example must always shine for all who yearn for freedom and justice and dignity. And because we've begun this work, tonight we can say that American leadership has been renewed and America's standing has been restored."
TPR: So, Obama embarked on a worldwide apology tour, bowing to foreign dictators, and now "America's standing is restored"?
BO: "Now, the final critical step in winning the future is to make sure we aren't buried under a mountain of debt."
TPR: (Feel free to add your own rebuttal here, but don't mention the Red Chinese!)
BO: "We will argue about everything. The costs. The details. The letter of every law. Of course, some countries don't have this problem. If the central government wants a railroad, they build a railroad, no matter how many homes get bulldozed. If they don't want a bad story in the newspaper, it doesn't get written."
TPR: One of Obama's fundamental transformations of the U.S. Obama has never hidden his admiration for countries that "don't have this problem."
BO: "And we must always remember that the Americans who have borne the greatest burden in this struggle are the men and women who serve our country."
TPR: Obama begrudgingly delivered this tribute to the longest standing ovation of the evening.
BO: "Starting this year, no American will be forbidden from serving the country they love because of who they love."
TPR: No standing ovation for gays in the military.
BO: "We may have differences in policy, but we all believe in the rights enshrined in our Constitution. ... We share common hopes and a common creed."
TPR: Apparently the original Constitution we use has been replaced with a "new and improved version" Obama uses.
Finally, Obama proclaimed, "It makes no sense."
This was the only thing Obama said that actually made sense.
Evaluating Obama's SOTU performance, commentator Charles Krauthammer summed it up best: "This is a president who can give great speeches, and has. This was not one of them."
But Obama's speech was not designed to impress savvy political analysts and serious-minded Patriots. It was designed to play to popular polls, and it played well.
Commentator Mark Levin had this observation: "Obama was trying to deliver a 'best of' moment in his State of the Union Address, yet it looks as if he tried plagiarizing past speeches from Reagan and JFK. We know that Obama is an ideologue and his positions on cap and trade, entitlements, social security, et al., are not going to change, no matter how moderate he desperately tries to appear. Obama's future for America will deliver us misery and poverty; it's not progressive, it's regressive. Why is it that liberals continue to mess up words like, 'Social, justice, and reform?'"
For the record, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan's rebuttal said all that needed to be said in just a few minutes. As chairman of the House Budget Committee, Ryan has far more credibility and a far better grasp of our nation's fiscal peril than does Obama. Here are some excerpts:
"These budget debates are not just about the programs of government; they're also about the purpose of government. ... The principles that guide us are anchored in the wisdom of the Founders; in the spirit of the Declaration of Independence; and in the words of the American Constitution. They have to do with the importance of limited government; and with the blessing of self-government. We believe government's role is both vital and limited... We believe, as our Founders did, that 'the pursuit of happiness' depends upon individual liberty; and individual liberty requires limited government. ... Whether sold as 'stimulus' or repackaged as 'investment,' [Democrats'] actions show they want a federal government that controls too much; taxes too much; and spends too much in order to do too much. ... Our nation is approaching a tipping point. ... We need to chart a new course. ... We believe a renewed commitment to limited government will unshackle our economy and create millions of new jobs and opportunities for all people, of every background, to succeed and prosper. Under this approach, the spirit of initiative -- not political clout -- determines who succeeds. ... We need to reclaim our American system of limited government, low taxes, reasonable regulations, and sound money, which has blessed us with unprecedented prosperity. And it has done more to help the poor than any other economic system ever designed. That's the real secret to job creation -- not borrowing and spending more money in Washington. Limited government and free enterprise have helped make America the greatest nation on earth."
Amen.
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
Mark Alexander
Publisher, The Patriot Post
-
http://townhall.com/columnists/terryjeffrey/2011/02/16/socialisms_trajectory_obamas_hhs_bigger_than_lbjs_government/page/full/
Anyone who doubts the trend toward socialism is pushing America toward ruin should examine the historical tables President Obama published Monday along with his $3.7 trillion budget.
In fiscal 2011, according to these tables, the Department of Health and Human Services will spend $909.7 billion. In fiscal 1965, the entire federal government spent $118.228 billion.
What about inflation? According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' inflation calculator, $118.228 billion in 1965 dollars equals $822.6 billion in 2010 dollars. In real terms, the $909.7 billion HHS is spending this year is about $87.1 billion more than the entire federal government spent in 1965.
1965 was a key year in the advancement of socialism in the United States.
From 1776 until 1965, Americans generally did not rely on the federal government for health care unless they served in the military or worked in some other capacity for the federal government.
But in 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson and a Democratic Congress enacted two massive federal entitlement programs -- Medicare and Medicaid -- that fundamentally altered the relationship between Americans and the federal government by making tens of millions dependent on the government for health care.
Prior to 1937, the Supreme Court correctly understood the Constitution to deny the federal government any power to create and operate social-welfare programs. The Constitution held no such enumerated power, and the 10th Amendment left powers not enumerated to the states and the people.
From George Washington's administration to Franklin Roosevelt's, Americans took care of themselves and their own communities without resorting to federal handouts.
FDR sought to change what he believed was an unrealistic reliance on families in American life.
He used the crisis of the Great Depression to pass the Social Security Act of 1935, compelling Americans to pay a payroll tax in return for the promise of a federal old-age pension. This was blatantly unconstitutional. That same year, in Railroad Retirement Board v. Alton, the Supreme Court had justly slapped down a law mandating what amounted to a Social Security program for the railroad industry alone.
FDR attempted to defend the railroad pension law as a legitimate regulation of interstate commerce, justifiable under the Commerce Clause -- the same argument the Obama administration has used to defend the individual mandate in Obamacare.
The Court scoffed, suggesting that if the federal government could mandate a federal pension for railroad workers, the next thing it would do would be to mandate health care.
"The question at once presents itself whether the fostering of a contented mind on the part of an employee by legislation of this type is, in any just sense, a regulation of interstate transportation," the Court said answering FDR's argument. "If that question be answered in the affirmative, obviously there is no limit to the field of so-called regulation. The catalogue of means and actions which might be imposed upon an employer in any business, tending to the satisfaction and comfort of his employees, seems endless. Provision for free medical attention and nursing, for clothing, for food, for housing, for the education of children, and a hundred other matters, might with equal propriety be proposed as tending to relieve the employee of mental strain and worry."
When Social Security went to the Court in 1937, FDR used a different strategy. He argued that Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1 of the Constitution, which gave Congress the power to levy taxes to "provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States," meant the federal government could do virtually anything it deemed in the "general welfare" of Americans even if it was otherwise outside the scope of the Constitution's other enumerated powers.
FDR's interpretation of the General Welfare Clause effectively rendered the rest of the Constitution meaningless.
To persuade the same court that ruled against him in the railroad case to rule for him in the Social Security case, FDR proposed the Judicial Reorganization Act. This would allow him to pack the court by appointing an additional justice for each sitting justice who had reached age 70 and six months and not retired.
Faced with a potential Democratic takeover of the court, and thus a federal government controlled entirely by FDR's allies, Republican Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes and Associate Justice Owen J. Roberts flip-flopped from their position in the railroad case. They quietly voted in favor of Social Security and took the steam off FDR's court-packing plan.
That year, federal spending was 8.6 percent of gross domestic product, according to President Obama's historical tables.
When LBJ enacted Medicare and Medicaid -- and began fulfilling the court's prophecy in the 1935 railroad-pension case -- federal spending was 17.2 percent of GDP.
When George W. Bush expanded Medicare with a prescription drug benefit in 2003, federal spending was 19.7 percent of GDP.
This year, federal spending will be 25.3 percent of GDP.
In 2014, when Obamacare is scheduled to be fully implemented, HHS will become the first $1-trillion-per year federal agency. That year, Medicare and Medicaid will cost $557 billion and $352.1 billion respectively, or a combined $909.1 billion -- about what all of HHS costs this year.
In other words, when Obamacare is just getting started, Medicare and Medicaid will cost more than the $822.6 billion in 2010 dollars than the entire federal government cost in 1965 when LBJ signed Medicare and Medicaid into law.
-
Second post of the morning
http://townhall.com/columnists/benshapiro/2011/02/16/shirley_sherrods_unconstitutional_attack_on_andrew_breitbart/page/full/
On Thursday, Feb. 10, 2011, Internet entrepreneur Andrew Breitbart, the impresario of the ACORN scandal and a growing investigative force in the conservative media, held a press conference at the Conservative Political Action Conference. At that press conference, he laid out evidence of a concerted effort by government officials, race-baiting lawyers and certain black non-farmers to defraud the federal government of millions of dollars by exploiting a legal settlement called Pigford. On Saturday, Feb. 12, 2011, Shirley Sherrod, the single largest recipient of cash from the Pigford settlement, filed a lawsuit against Breitbart for defamation.
Sherrod, you may remember, was a ranking Department of Agriculture official in Georgia. Breitbart released a video of Sherrod speaking to the NAACP, where she told a story about discriminating against a white farmer before realizing that such discrimination was wrong. The purpose of releasing the video, as Breitbart clearly stated, was to demonstrate that the same NAACP that labeled the tea party racist tolerated racism within its own ranks. The video accomplished that purpose -- members of the NAACP cheer and laugh as Sherrod describes her past racism in the video.
After the video broke, due to pressure from the Obama administration, Sherrod resigned; the NAACP also condemned her. Shortly thereafter, the NAACP released the full tape, which showed that Sherrod had in fact helped the white farmer at issue. In full attack mode, the leftist media went after Breitbart, accusing him of selectively editing the tape in order to target Sherrod. This despite the fact that Breitbart himself said he cared nothing about Sherrod and that his actual target was the NAACP; this despite the fact that Sherrod herself said the real problem was the Obama administration.
No matter what you think of the original Sherrod incident, Breitbart's commentary falls squarely within the protections of the First Amendment. Freedom of political speech lies at the core of the Constitution; we attack our political officials all the time without fear of reprisal. Sherrod was an outspoken public figure, one that unapologetically stated that she saw the world through the framework of Marxism.
Sherrod had indeed made racist statements in the past. In June 2009, for example, she explained to a group of college students that school integration was one of the "worst things that happened to black people" because integration undermined black self-sufficiency. She was quoted in 1996 as explaining that the federal government's role was "to be a force for keeping blacks on the land." Even in the NAACP speech at issue, she explained, "it is about black and white, but it's not."
Whether Breitbart is wrong isn't the issue here. It's whether Shirley Sherrod and her group of well-funded thug lawyers should be able to silence political opposition. Let's be frank: Sherrod's lawsuit is probably being backed by someone larger than Sherrod. Her lawyers are the famed law firm of Kirkland & Ellis. They wrote a 40-page complaint to lead things off. If Kirkland & Ellis charge Sherrod their usual rates, such a complaint probably would cost a minimum of $40,000 to produce. A full-scale lawsuit would cost Sherrod hundreds of thousands of dollars -- if she were paying.
In all likelihood, she isn't. Kirkland & Ellis just happens to be the second largest donor, through its employees, to President Barack Obama's 2008 campaign committee and leadership political action committee. Its lawyers are committed liberals, and as a Chicago-based firm, it is heavily tied in to the Democratic Party. As Andrew Breitbart drew the left's spotlight in 2009 and 2010 by defending the tea party, intensely pursuing Obama administration corruption and exposing liberal allies from unions to Hollywood, the left took notice. And they went to their favorite firm, Kirkland & Ellis, to deliver the knockout punch.
Unfortunately for the left, the Constitution stands in the way of such efforts. Sherrod's lawsuit is frivolous in the extreme. She can demonstrate no malice, because no malice existed; she can demonstrate no libel, because Breitbart's writings were fair comment on matters of public interest. Further, Sherrod has no damages -- she has been offered a promotion and made a cottage industry out of playing the victim.
The incredible cynicism of this lawsuit is obvious. The real culprits here are the members of the Obama administration who forced Sherrod's resignation -- and Sherrod even acknowledges that inconvenient fact in her lawsuit. Yet nobody in the Obama administration is a named defendant.
Andrew Breitbart has vowed that he will not be silenced. Thank God for the Constitution, which will allow him to continue his work, despite the legal bills he will have to incur. And shame on Shirley Sherrod for allowing herself to be used as a pawn in a chess match designed to shut down conservative criticism of the Obama administration once and for all.
-
Democratic Socialism
Political Consequence of the Looming Debt Bomb Shockwave
"I place economy among the first and most important virtues and public debt as the greatest dangers to be feared." --Thomas Jefferson
Socialist EvolutionParaphrasing the noted economist and philosopher F.A. Hayek, Future Freedom Foundation President Jacob Hornberger wrote, "There is no difference in principle, between the economic philosophy of Nazism, socialism, communism, and fascism and that of the American welfare state and regulated economy."
Not only is there no economic distinction between socialist systems in different political wrappers, ultimately there is no consequential societal distinction between Marxist Socialism, Nationalist Socialism, or the most recent incarnation of this beast, Democratic Socialism. The conclusion of socialism by any name, once it has replaced Rule of Law with the rule of men, is tyranny.
Noted Russian dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn, no stranger to the consequences of statism, wrote, "Socialism of any type leads to a total destruction of the human spirit."
Democratic Socialism, like Nationalist Socialism, is nothing more than Marxist Socialism repackaged. Likewise, it seeks a centrally planned economy directed by a single-party state that controls economic production by way of regulation and income redistribution. The success of Democrat Socialism depends upon supplanting Essential Liberty -- the rights "endowed by our Creator" -- primarily by refuting such endowment.
So what do these observations have to do with the current state of economic and political affairs in our great nation? Unfortunately, more than most Americans currently realize.
However discomforting this fact might be, there is abundant and irrefutable evidence that Barack Hussein Obama and his socialist cadre are endeavoring to "fundamentally transform the United States of America" by planting a debt bomb, the future shockwave of which, they surmise, will break the back of free enterprise. From the ashes of that cataclysm, Obama and his ilk envision restructuring our nation as the USSA.
If you think such assertions are just rhetorical hyperbole, think harder.
As the direct result of Obama's "economic recovery plan," the central government budget forecast for the current fiscal year includes a historic $1.65 trillion deficit. Given the economic consequences of continued growth in unfunded government spending (including ObamaCare), the potential inflation on our immediate horizon (prompted primarily by increasing energy costs), and diminished confidence in the U.S. dollar, the deficit proportion of fiscal-year 2012's $3.73 trillion budget will set yet another appalling record.
More perilous for consumers is the potential for "stagflation," a remnant from the Carter era that combines static or decreasing wages (stagnant economic growth) with increasing commodity prices (inflation).
In February alone, Obama's central government accrued a record $223 billion deficit for one month. To put this in perspective, that single-month deficit exceeds the entire 2007 budget deficit under George W. Bush -- you know, the one that was Demo-gogued during the 2008 campaign cycle.
Republicans scraped together a few more cuts for their feeble $61 billion in proposed 2011 budget reductions, but Obama and his Senate Democrats declared they would approve only $4.7 billion in additional cuts. "Do we want jobs?" asked Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). "If we do, then we simply cannot pass the plan the Tea Party has already pushed through the House."
Indeed, the Senate voted down the House budget, which was to be expected. Reid went so far as to declare it "mean-spirited." Obama's Senate protagonist, John Kerry, defined the meager Republican cuts as an "ideological, extremist, reckless statement" that "would contribute to the reversal of our recovery. It might even destroy our recovery."
Since Democrats have lambasted and voted against any cuts proposed by Republicans, the Republican "leadership" should stand true to last fall's elections and propose those deep cuts promised on the campaign trail.
What is needed, if we're to have jobs in five years, is $4.7 billion in additional cuts for every day of this year's budget, and those that follow. There are budget solutions, but these require political courage and resolve, a rare commodity in our nation's Capital.
"Deficit spending," concluded Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors (1987-2006), "is simply a scheme for the hidden confiscation of wealth." And that is precisely the prescription necessary to establish Democratic Socialism.
If the future shock of this debt bomb set by Obama and his Useful Idiots does not yet cause you considerable heartburn, consider the implication of these statistics: Of total U.S. wages and employee benefits paid in 2010, 35 percent were paid by the central government as wages, or in fulfillment of entitlement programs. Read that again and let it sink in.
In 1960, wages and entitlement program distributions by the central government were 10 percent of total U.S wages and benefits. Over the next 40 years, that figure doubled to 20 percent. In just one decade since, that figure has increased to 35 percent, with the baby boomer wave yet to fully draw on government income and social services. This explains, in part, why federal spending has increased from $1.86 trillion in 2001 to $3.82 this year. Social welfare spending alone has increased by $514 billion since Obama took office.
Some 8 percent of the total work force is government employed, which is to say that the remaining 27 percent of government wages and benefits doled out by the welfare state is the foundation for Democratic Socialism.
Both political parties are resorting to tired old political formulas when asked about the challenge of balancing the national budget. Both suggest that it will take more than a decade -- a pathetic excuse that we have heard for decades. (As for those claims of surpluses in the Clinton years resulting from the economic growth set in motion during the Reagan years: not so when one takes into account the Social Security "lock box IOUs.")
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) concludes, "It is very difficult to balance the budget within 10 years without cutting seniors' benefits now, and as I said before, our vision of entitlement reform will protect today's seniors and those nearing retirement."
House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) insists, "We're not going to [have a balanced budget] in 10 years, but we have to be on a very considered path to get there, certainly, within the next decade and a half or two decades."
Any pretense that Obama has any intention of balancing the budget is spurious, as the smallest estimated annual deficit that his budget will run during the next decade is $615 billion.
Meanwhile, he continues to recycle these prevarications: "Not only were we able to yank this economy out of the recession, not only were we able to get this economy going again, but in the last 15 months we've seen the economy add jobs. We didn't just rescue the economy; we put it on the strongest footing for the future."
As it stands now, Congress is borrowing 40 cents of every dollar it spends and our national debt is now at $14 trillion, which is about 97 percent of our nation's gross domestic product (economic production) in 2010.
So what are the political consequences when the money runs out, when the lenders withdraw, when the smoke clears and the mirrors shatter from the debt bomb shockwave?
Some will settle for the institution of Democratic Socialism.
However none should underestimate the potential groundswell of protest across our nation, composed primarily of legions of Patriots fully capable of intervening on behalf of the Rule of Law enshrined in our Constitution.
If those elected to national office, regardless of political affiliation, fail to abide by their oaths to Support and Defend our Constitution, particularly its limitations on the central government which have been disregarded for much of the last century, then we, the people, will restore the integrity of our Constitution, as is our right and obligation. Rest assured, there will come a time for choosing as outlined by Ronald Reagan, and that time must come.
One might recall that our Declaration of Independence and Constitution were the product of civil disobedience and revolution against a lesser form of tyranny than that imposed today. In the words of Founding Father Thomas Jefferson, "The tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
For those whom such notions offend, I offer these words of parting from Samuel Adams: "If ye love wealth better than Liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animating contest of freedom, go from us in peace. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen!"
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
Mark Alexander
Publisher, The Patriot Post
-
How Vittorio Arrigoni Went to Gaza Hoping to Die
Is it really still a mystery why political pilgrims are exterminated by the totalitarian entities they worship?
April 18, 2011 - by Jamie Glazov Share |
Bit by bit, decorate it, arrange the details, find the ingredients, imagine it, choose it, get advice on it, shape it into a work without spectators, one which exists only for oneself, just for the shortest little moment of life.
—Michel Foucault, describing the pleasure of preparing oneself for suicide.
The Italian cheerleader for Hamas, Vittorio Arrigoni, has died at the hands of the Islamic terrorism that he venerated throughout his life. The fellow traveler journeyed to the Gaza Strip to prostrate himself before his secular deity, Hamas, and to assist its venture of perpetrating genocide against Israelis. Islamic terrorists, who call themselves “Salafists,” showed their gratitude to Arrigoni by kidnapping, mercilessly beating, and executing him.
This episode was, of course, all part of an expected script: even though the media and our higher literary culture never discuss the reasons, the historical record reveals one undeniable fact: like thousands of political pilgrims before him, Vittorio Arrigoni went to Gaza to die. Indeed, consciously or unconsciously, in their unquenchable quest for sacrificing human life on the altar of their utopian ideals, fellow travelers always lust for death, and if not the death of others, then of their own.
It is no coincidence that a short while before “Salafists” killed Arrigoni, Juliano Mer-Khamis, a cheerleader of terrorism in Israel who, like Arrigoni, dedicated his life to praising the Palestinian death cult and working for the annihilation of Israel, was murdered by Islamic terrorists in Jenin. It is no coincidence that Rachel Corrie, the infamous enabler of the International Solidarity Movement, a group that disrupts anti-terrorism activities of the Israel Defense Forces, committed suicide in protecting Hamas terrorists by throwing herself in front of an Israeli bulldozer. And it is no coincidence that female leftist “peace” activists are routinely raped, brutalized, and enslaved by the Arabs of Judea and Samaria that they come to aid and glorify in their Jew-hating odyssey against Israel. And don’t hold your breath, by the way, waiting for leftist feminists to protest this phenomenon; they are faithfully following in the footsteps of American fellow traveler Anna Louise Strong and the Stalinist German writer Bertolt Brecht, two typical leftist believers who were completely undisturbed by the arrests and deaths of their friends in the Stalinist purges — having never even inquired about them after their disappearance.
Beneath the leftist believer’s veneration of the despotic enemy lies one of his most powerful yearnings: to submit his whole being to a totalist entity. This psychological dynamic involves negative identification, whereby a person who has failed to identify positively with his own environment subjugates his individuality to a powerful, authoritarian entity, through which he vicariously experiences a feeling of power and purpose. The historian David Potter has succinctly crystallized this phenomenon:
. . . most of us, if not all of us, fulfill ourselves and realize our own identities as persons through our relations with others; we are, in a sense, what our community, or as some sociologists would say, more precisely, what our reference group, recognizes us as being. If it does not recognize us, or if we do not feel that it does, or if we are confused as to what the recognition is, then we become not only lonely, but even lost, and profoundly unsure of our identity. We are driven by this uncertainty into a somewhat obsessive effort to discover our identity and to make certain of it. If this quest proves too long or too difficult, the need for identity becomes psychically very burdensome and the individual may be driven to escape this need by renouncing his own identity and surrendering himself to some seemingly greater cause outside himself.
This surrender to the totality involves the believer’s craving not only to relinquish his individuality to a greater whole but also, ideally, to sacrifice his life for it. Lusting for his own self-extinction, the believer craves martyrdom for the idea. As Eric Hoffer points out in his classic The True Believer, the opportunity to die for the cause gives meaning to the believer’s desire to shed his inner self: “a substitute embraced in moderation cannot supplant and efface the self we want to forget. We cannot be sure that we have something worth living for unless we are ready to die for it.”
Thus, Vittorio Arrigoni, Juliano Mer-Khasin, and Rachel Corrie were simply just faithfully continuing the long suicidal tradition of their political faith. We are well aware, after all, of the dark fate of the believers who journeyed to Russia after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution to build communism; we are well versed of what happened to the leftist Iranians who returned to their country after the 1979 Iranian Revolution to aid Khomeini in building the Islamic paradise. Only those who cannot accept the true motivations of utopian believers can still deny what those political pilgrims were searching for in their odyssey to shed themselves of their own unwanted selves.
Does one need to excessively explain why “progressive” feminist Naomi Klein called out for bringing “Najaf to New York” in her infamous 2004 column in The Nation, in which she reached her hand out in solidarity to Muqtada al-Sadr and his Islamofascist Mahdi Army in the Iraqi Shi’ite stronghold of Najaf? Bringing Najaf to New York would mean that the Iraqi Shi’ite stronghold, where Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army at one time ran their torture chambers and sowed their terror, would be replicated on America’s shores. What could Naomi Klein possibly see admirable in the vicious nihilistic terror of the Mahdi Army? Would she remain alive for more than sixty seconds upon contact with it?
Is it possible that Klein’s impulses are related to those of Noam Chomsky, a Jew, who has distinguished himself, among other intriguing ways, by traveling to Lebanon to personally embrace the leaders of Hezbollah, whose stated top priority is to rid the world of Jews?
The murder by Iraqi terrorists of American hostage Tom Fox in March 2006 was a perfect example of this pathological phenomenon. Fox was among four members of the leftist group Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) who were kidnapped by Islamic terrorists in Iraq in November 2005. Aside from voicing support for the terrorists, one of the group’s most powerfully articulated themes entailed the longing for death. In the 1984 speech, “God’s People Reconciling,” for example, which gave rise to the formation of the Christian Peacemaker Teams, Mennonite minister Ron Sider urged his listeners: “We must be prepared to die by the thousands.”
It is not unsurprising that when British and American troops rescued the other three CPT hostages and saved their lives, the freed captives refused to thank their liberators — who had risked their own lives participating in the rescue — or to cooperate in a critical debriefing session with intelligence officers. Doug Pritchard, the co-chairman of CPT, went out of his way to tell the world that the kidnapping itself (and by implication Fox’s murder) was America’s fault, not the kidnappers’ or the executioners’. “The illegal occupation of Iraq by multinational forces,” he affirmed, was the “root cause” of the kidnappings. In other words, the devil made them do it.
The freed captives resented the fact that they had been liberated by the very forces they despised. And the rescuers had robbed the remaining hostages of the idealized fate suffered by Fox. Jan Benvie, an Edinburgh teacher who was getting ready to go to Iraq with the group in the summer of 2006, learned the lesson well. She announced before her departure: “We make clear that if we are kidnapped we do not want there to be force or any form of violence used to release us.”
To the end of his life, the French philosopher Michel Foucault, who supported and adored Khomeini’s killing fields, adamantly defended “everyone’s right to kill himself.” Suicide, he boastfully wrote in a 1979 essay, was “the simplest of pleasures.” Is it a coincidence that Foucault, who had attempted to kill himself several times out of guilt feelings regarding his homosexuality, passionately supported an Islamic death cult that murdered homosexuals?
Gaza terrorists have a long history of kidnapping and abusing, raping and killing those who come to aid and abet them.
Vittorio Arrigoni knew that very well.
In the end, Arrigoni’s story is the story of the Left – a story best summarized by the dictum of Goethe’s devil, which Marx perpetually invoked, as he did in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon: “All that exists deserves to perish.”
Arrigoni is the contemporary poster boy for the political pilgrims who traveled to despotisms to help build the paradises in which they hoped to shed themselves of their own unwanted selves. They paid the ultimate price. And no lesser cost must be paid for the momentous transformation of sterilizing the unclean earth. Such disinfection can be made possible only by the purifying power of human blood — blood which, in the utopian enterprise, must, in the final chapter, become one’s own.
Jamie Glazov is the editor of FrontPageMag.com. He is the author of the new book United in Hate: The Left’s Romance with Tyranny and Terror.
-
By DAVID MARSTON AND JOHN YOO
Suppose that during the civil rights movement segregationist governors ordered all state contractors to disclose their political donations in an attempt to expose civil rights supporters to harassment and retaliation. The Supreme Court would have had none of it.
In NAACP v. Alabama (1958), the court barred Alabama from forcing the NAACP to disclose its members. Those justices would have struck down a similar effort to force the release of the NAACP's financial supporters. They would have rightly viewed it as an infringement of the constitutional right to free association and free speech.
Today President Obama is ignoring the lessons of the civil rights era he claims to revere. According to a draft executive order leaked last week, Mr. Obama plans to require any company seeking a federal contract to disclose its executives' political contributions over $5,000—not just to candidates, but to any group that might make "independent expenditure" or "electioneering communication" advertisements.
If a small businesswoman wants to sell paper clips to the Defense Department, Mr. Obama would force her to reveal contributions to groups such as Planned Parenthood or the National Rifle Association. These donations are obviously irrelevant to whether she made the most reliable bid at the lowest price. The only purpose of the executive order is to dangle the specter of retaliation (by losing her contracts) and harassment (from political opponents).
It would be comforting if this order had been some aberration produced from somewhere deep in the bowels of the federal bureaucracy. Unfortunately, it was not. This order represents the latest salvo in the Obama administration's war on the First Amendment rights of its political opponents.
The conflict goes back to January 2010, with the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. The court held as unconstitutional the McCain-Feingold Act's limits on the political spending of corporations, unions and other groups. Mr. Obama struck back, claiming that the decision "strikes at our democracy itself." He trotted out the usual suspects—"big oil, Wall Street banks, health-insurance companies and other powerful interests"—as the winners. He promised that the White House would "talk with bipartisan congressional leaders to develop a forceful response to this decision."
View Full Image
Getty Images
.There was no bipartisanship, but there was certainly a forceful response. Democrats proposed the Disclose Act, which would have muzzled political speech by prohibiting federal contractors from making contributions to federal candidates or parties. Though the act failed to overcome a filibuster last year in the Senate, its supporters remain undeterred.
Having failed to undo Citizens United by legislation, Mr. Obama apparently believes that he can veto the Supreme Court by naked presidential fiat. But before the administration barrels through with this attempt to suppress corporate political activity, it would do well to revisit NAACP v. Alabama.
The court declared that the privacy of group membership and political activity were critical to the "effective advocacy of both public and private points of view, particularly controversial ones." Privacy can be critical for free speech. "Inviolability of privacy in group association may in many circumstances be indispensable to preservation of freedom of association, particularly where a group espouses dissident beliefs," Justice John Marshall Harlan wrote for a unanimous court.
The court went on to recite a litany of potential retaliation—"economic reprisal, loss of employment, threat of physical coercion, and other manifestations of public hostility"—that could deter people from publicly supporting the NAACP. It did not matter, the justices observed, that the harassment would likely come from "private community pressures." What mattered is that such pressure would be prompted by "the initial exertion of state power."
Our era of instant mass communication exponentially multiplies this threat. Supporters of California's Proposition 8, which bars gay marriage, have faced relentless harassment after a federal court refused to bar the disclosure of their identities in 2009. Opponents promptly created a website that used the Prop 8 list to create a map of donors' homes. Widespread intimidation followed: Some Prop 8 supporters were fired from their jobs, and several of their businesses were boycotted.
Mr. Obama's executive order threatens to replicate the Prop 8 experience on a nationwide scale. In fact, it requires the release of contractors' political contributions in a publicly available electronic database to be posted online as soon as possible. It shouldn't matter here that disclosure would be the price for doing business with the government. In B oy Scouts of America v. Dale (2000), the Supreme Court made it clear that a group did not have to give up its right to associate in exchange for some government benefit.
Civil libertarians and liberals have so far been mum in the face of Mr. Obama's executive order. They're likely justifying their silence on the basis that businesses—not unions—will suffer. But if the president succeeds in reducing the free-speech rights of business today, it will be far easier to limit the same rights of other Americans tomorrow.
Imagine the outcry we'll hear from self-described First Amendment supporters when every professor applying for a government research grant has to disclose his political donations.
Mr. Marston is a lawyer and former U.S. attorney in Philadelphia. Mr. Yoo, a law professor at the University of California Berkeley and a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, served in the George W. Bush Justice Department.
-
From the Left: The Enemies List
The Obama administration, fearful of the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United ruling in favor of free speech, is looking to change the rules of the campaign game for 2012. The administration is demanding that potential federal contractors make known any political donations over $5,000 made by the contracting company or its executives. Government contractors are already required to disclose political contributions to candidates, but this order will expand that to include independent groups, a category in which conservatives outspent liberals in the last election cycle.
The implications are obvious: If a company wants to win a federal contract while Obama is in the White House, it had better have a campaign donation record that reflects greater support for Democrats. Leftists attempted to rig the corporate donation game in 2010 with the Disclose Act, but it failed to pass. Now the White House is again extra-constitutionally taking matters into its own hands with the same intent -- reduce the overall dollar amount received in donations by independent conservative groups. Federal labor unions don't have to worry, though. The SEIU, AFL-CIO and other groups that brought Obama some $200 million worth of support in 2008 are conveniently exempted from the new disclosure rules in the executive order. Perhaps they slipped the president's mind.
-
I'd go further than this editorial. It seems to me like there's a real separation of powers problem here:
=============
No one in Washington does moral indignation better than Elizabeth Warren, the de facto head of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. And yesterday she was in high dudgeon on Capitol Hill attempting to repel efforts to hold her new bureaucracy more accountable. We hope Republicans keep at it.
As George Mason University law professor Todd Zywicki explained at the same hearing yesterday, the consumer bureau's structure "may be unprecedented in American history." It has a single director, accountable only to the President. Its annual budget isn't subject to Congressional appropriations. Its regulations may be overturned by the new Financial Stability Oversight Council—a point Mrs. Warren likes to repeat—but only with the very high bar of a two-thirds vote.
That's why a May 2 letter from 44 Senate Republicans to President Obama deserves attention. The Senators propose three reforms: a board of directors to oversee the bureau; submitting the agency's budget to annual Congressional appropriations; and letting other regulators assess the implications of new bureau rules on the safety and soundness of the financial system.
Under the Dodd-Frank law, the bureau's director reports only to the President and can only be removed for "inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance." So a single person who's very hard to fire would have regulatory authority over consumer financial products and services ranging from mortgages to credit cards. Other financial regulatory agencies, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, are governed by a board.
The bureau's director can also set the agency's budget annually, with a ceiling of several hundred million dollars. As the Senators point out, there's no mechanism to ensure those taxpayer monies are used prudently. Other consumer protection agencies face annual Congressional budget scrutiny—an ever more important democratic check amid ballooning deficits. Mrs. Warren yesterday evaded this criticism by calling the bureau a "banking regulator" and comparing it to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), which isn't subject to Congressional appropriations.
But her bureau isn't a traditional banking regulator like the Federal Reserve or OCC that ensure the safety and soundness of the financial system. The bureau's mandate is to regulate consumer-financial products, while the impact on bank health is someone else's problem. For precisely this reason, House Republicans want to let the Financial Stability Oversight Council overturn a bureau rule with a simple majority, rather than two-thirds.
Mrs. Warren's response to these efforts has been to say her critics want to "stick a knife in the ribs" of the agency; release a statement claiming Congress intends to "defund, delay, and defang" her agency "before it can help one family"; and in written testimony yesterday, declare that, "While making baseless claims might be shrewd tactics for those who want to undermine the Bureau's work, they are flatly wrong."
Mrs. Warren knows all about shrewd. Though her bureau doesn't assume full powers until July and President Obama still hasn't formally nominated a bureau director, she has been among those trying to extort $20 billion from banks for their mortgage foreclosure mistakes. She's also stacking her agency with liberals who want to allocate credit and punish the banks.
The political betting is that Mr. Obama will continue to evade Senate scrutiny by giving her a recess appointment as director. If Republicans won't put her agency out of business, the least they can do is rein it in.
-
http://mises.org/daily/5313/Out-of-Business
Out of Business
Mises Daily: Thursday, May 26, 2011 by A Manufacturer
The last few years as an executive in a manufacturing company gave me a frighteningly close look at the inner workings of regulators in our government. Maybe I'm just naïve, but what I discovered was shocking.
In the past, I realized our leaders were disingenuous when they spoke about "creating jobs" and "improving the economy." Now, I have a slightly different take. After my experiences this year, and after giving this a lot of thought, I am adamant that our leaders have no business in the first place "creating jobs," or "improving the economy," or even claiming they have the ability to do so.
In fact, I have witnessed the loss of jobs as a direct result of regulations by unnamed and unelected bureaucrats, who are backed up by threats of prosecution from the government. Our government is stifling job creation.
Although I am not a conspiracy theorist, I am certain that if I wrote about my experience with specifics, the company for which I work would suffer retribution by our government. I do not have the right to put them in jeopardy. And if the legal department of my employer knew I was writing this, they would "lose it." For these reasons, I feel it necessary to write anonymously and with some imprecision.
This fear of retribution, in and of itself, is a powerful statement about the sad conditions in which we live and do business in the United States.
So, here is the sanitized version of my story:
My employer makes very expensive pieces of equipment for use in an industry that has itself sustained undeserved attacks by our government and by unscrupulous so-called environmentalists.[1]
In any case, our pieces of equipment (let's call them tractors) use expensive components (let's call them engines) made and sold by Americans. The engines are used by American workers in multiple states and they make more energy available for Americans. That fact alone attracts the ire of some. But the fact that our service is very valuable and produces large profits makes the industry and the service an irresistible target.
This year, I learned that one agency of the federal government has created and is enforcing rules that strictly limit the types and numbers of engines we can buy to make our tractors. They limit how many of each type of engine we can buy in a year, and they limit the grand total we can buy. This is offensive for many reasons — not the least of which is that we would hire more people if we were allowed to make more tractors.
I could make an endless list of the unseen and damaging effects of their nonsense. But here is a short list:
Without these rules, we would hire more welders, assemblers, and accountants. This would result in the improvement of our local economy, because the new employees and their families would all need food, clothing, housing, entertainment, etc.
To keep up with our increased demand for the tractor engines we need, the engine manufacturers, their employees, and their families would benefit. The companies to which we sell tractors would hire more operators. Their families and the places they shop at would benefit.
The companies who request our product would become more profitable, resulting in expansions, bonuses, etc.
And, last (and totally forgotten) are the American citizens. Each and every citizen would benefit from the larger supply of energy and the resultant lower prices.
Some people might say that it is good to limit the numbers of these engines in order to protect the environment. But that argument only holds water long enough for a ten-second sound bite. The reality is that this destructive government agency also has rules that permit smaller versions of the same engines. What that means is that we would be permitted to create 50 tractors using the (approved) smaller engines instead of 20 using the larger ones. It is true that the larger engine pollutes more than the smaller one. But using the smaller engines would require more tractors to be built and more fuel to bring them to the job sites. In other words, using fewer tractors with the larger (evil) engines produces fewer net emissions than more tractors with the smaller (approved) engines would.
So, who is causing all this, and why are they doing it?
$25$20
You can answer that question for yourself by discovering who benefits from the regulations. The list includes the politicians who use these issues to their advantage regardless of the truth. It includes the government bureaucrats who want more power to justify their own salaries and positions. It also includes reporters who can't wait for the next "breaking news" about an "environmental threat," or "dire emergency." And it includes university professors and other academic elites who come in to petition for huge government grants and to get paid to speak as "experts." The dark irony is that all these supposed protectors are really engaging in a self-serving round robin of deceit.
The truth is they are horrifically destructive to the prosperity and well-being of all Americans. But because their public faces hide the despicable truth, they have been able to get away with it.
Our only hope is to get these people out of business — literally and figuratively. I've got to be honest, though. It won't be easy. They are fighting for their livelihoods, too.
-
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-marxian-worm/?singlepage=true
The Marxian Worm
For the last forty years in the U.S. — longer in other places — a worm has been gnawing at the roots and sickening the tree of civilization. That worm is the philosophy of Karl Marx.
May 27, 2011 - 12:03 am - by Sarah Hoyt
In ancient Norse myth the universe was a tree at whose roots a worm gnawed. When the worm brought the tree down, the ultimate battle between good and evil would happen.
Lately I’ve been wondering if they were mostly right.
Our own civilization is a sort of tree, with its roots in property rights and the rule of law, and its branches lifting the rarefied heights of science, technology, arts, and literature.
For the last forty years in the U.S. — longer in other places – a worm has been gnawing at the roots and sickening the tree. That worm is the philosophy of Karl Marx.
Karl Marx is described as a nineteenth century philosopher (which is true) but also as an economist, a historian, and a sociologist (which are only true if prefaced with “very bad.”)
Marxist theory is now applied to all those fields and more. (In the 70s, in Portugal, I studied it in history, sociology, economics, literature, art, and philosophy. They were only waiting for the proper choreography to teach Marxist interpretive dance in Phys Ed). Because of its many permutations, and how it has been interpreted, it would take me a small tome to take Marx to the woodshed properly and cut through the Gordian knot Marxists have woven around his thought. (These disciples now, like a restaurant changing its name after a case of food poisoning, call themselves Marxian, instead of Marxist.)
I don’t have a small tome, so I’ll have to be brutally simplistic. At his most basic, Marx believed history could be described as a struggle between classes, in which each class rose to the top with each new change in the means of production and ownership of said means. He believed in the future the proletariat — urban workers — would seize the means of production and thereby institute a dictatorship. After that a miracle would occur, the state would naturally wither away, and this would lead to a utopian, classless society, where everything worked on the basis of “From each according to his ability and to each according to his need.” (I’ve always suspected this last step involved unicorn flatulence and, possibly, skittles.)
We were never told how this miracle would occur, though at least in the Soviet interpretation, it entailed the appearance of a new creature, a Homo Sovieticus, devoid of greed and egoism. Which shows you that even those trying to bring Marxist paradise to fruition realized that it required every man to be a combination saint and ant.
But it is worse than that. Even if the Homo Sovieticus had issued forth from Lenin’s laboring over Marx, neither this fabled creature nor its minions could make a Marxist society work.
Marx’s problems extend to the whole definition of “class.” He might have seen it as a purely economic concept, which is how it was taught to me in economics in Portugal. It might be he thought those who labored for others were always proletarians. But in the real world, things have become a lot more complex. Are farmers proletarian or not? What about tenant farmers? How about tenant farmers who own a cow? (Marx, the blood of the Kulaks is on your hands.)
More importantly — more damagingly — though, Marx managed to be an economist who did not understand the most fundamental concept of economics: value.
It is thought he based his theory of value on David Ricardo, who was already considered erroneous and out of date when Marx used it. Which is no wonder, because no functional economy can be built on Marx.
Marx believed that raw materials + labor = value. The more the raw materials were worth or the more labor put into transforming them, the more the end product would be worth. No other considerations applied.
Clearly Marx never taught a child to cook. You start with raw materials worth something, you spend hours on cooking (and putting out small fires), and the result is, more often than not, a mess that has to be thrown away. This disproves his theory, which is not exactly hard as it’s a very silly theory. It doesn’t take into account such things as distribution. Because to Marx, value is value is value. Marx thought an Appalachian quilt would be worth the exact same thing in the small town where it was made as in the most artsy areas of New York City — and no monetary reward should go to anyone who transports and resells the thing. More importantly, since no one should resell, if a NYC resident wants a quilt, he’d best intuit they exist and travel to the Appalachians to buy it. At least, according to Uncle Karl.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, where people don’t often wander the countryside looking for products they never heard of, value is based on what someone is willing to pay. Therefore, a quilt might be worth time and materials in the Appalachian, combined with its value as something to keep warm under. But it will be worth that plus a sizable premium for craft collectors in NYC. This means the middle-man who serves that market deserves the fee he pockets and — if he’s smart — goes back to the Appalachians and offers more money for better quilts so he can make more money.
Again in the real world, someone can invent a process that takes raw materials, up till then considered useless, and turns them into something valuable. (Gas powered engines. Various kinds of cosmetic mud. For that matter, going back far enough in history, pottery-clay and metal.)
In the Marxist world this makes no sense. First, his predictions for the future never took into account the possibility of technological innovation beyond his own era. Manufacturing would always be massive and labor-intensive, and the only way to make life more equitable was for the workers to own the means of production. Second, it never occurred to him that something valueless can be made valuable through innovation and invention.
This is why societies driven by Marxist principles only produce an abundance of turnips and, perhaps, size 52 shoes for the left foot — because value is value and what people want doesn’t matter.
But famines and the abject poverty of Marxian paradises notwithstanding, the damage is yet deeper.
His world was a closed economy of limited value. If raw materials + labor = value, then there is a finite amount of both and therefore a finite amount of value in the world and all we can do is slice it into ever thinner slices.
This lead Marx and his followers to believe that old prophet of doom, Malthus, and therefore view humans as a net drain on society. No matter how much they labored, after all, there was an upper limit to how productive they could be and besides they’d all have to use the same, dwindling, raw materials. It also lead them to believe anyone who had more than the bare necessities had “stolen” the wealth from others. Also, since value was viewed as raw materials + labor, his theory now leaves all those who work in non-material products, like software, or books, or music, or movies (now that they’re divorced of the physical object) feeling like thieves who don’t do anything and yet get compensation.
Of course this is nonsense, but Marxist precepts are so imbued in society they’ve become the unexamined basis of many people’s thought. So, this explains the left’s twin obsessions with ridding the Earth of surplus humans (and in its ultimate iteration of all humans save for a chosen few living in harmony or something, aka Homus Avataricus) and the guilt of intellectuals over getting goods they didn’t “produce.”
But no one can live with guilt forever. Or at least no one – except for a few monks — can live in guilt and holy poverty for very long. So our university indoctrinated/educated intellectuals eventually turn it around.
It goes like this — if all excess wealth is theft, then of course we should all have only the bare minimum. But in this corrupt modern society, with so many people, there’s always going to be theft. So, if someone is going to steal, why shouldn’t I? At least I feel guilty about it. And I’m a good person and — insert proof of “goodness” here — donate to progressive causes or eat organic food or volunteer at the homeless shelter or drive a Prius or…
People who perform acts of Marxian “atonement” feel like they have a license to steal. Everyone is doing it. And besides, they deserve it. And furthermore, ALL wealth is theft.
This attitude has corrupted both our government and our business to the point where capitalism works only by fits and starts and in the spaces between. People who believe they are in a world of thieves try to steal before they’re stolen from, to backstab before they’re stabbed in the back. And the government tries to oversee the theft in the serene belief its job is to distribute to those who have less and, of course, favor themselves and their friends, who look out for the “little people.”
Respect for private property erodes. Wealth is seen as evil and humans as drains on the system. Our finances lurch from crisis to bubble to crisis under the aegis of crony capitalism. Movies and books demonize business people and extol “selfless” bureaucrats.
Forget Ragnarok and the great battle between good and evil after the fall of the world tree. The battle is now and we’re in it.
I believe wealth can be created. I believe this is best facilitated by removing the Marxians from any power over the economy. I believe each human brings within himself the possibility of making an invention which can give us infinite wealth.
Who is with me?
Sarah Hoyt lives in Colorado with her husband, two sons and too many cats. She has published Darkship Thieves and 16 other novels, and over 100 short stories. Writing non-fiction is a new, daunting endeavor. For more on Sarah and samples of her writing, look around at Sarah A. Hoyt.com or check out her writing and life blog at According to Hoyt.com.
-
He believed in the future the proletariat — urban workers — ...
I stopped taking her seriously after this. clearly miss Hoyt should stick to writing fiction novels and take another hard look at what they tought her about Marx in Portugal. Or better yet, read another book about it.
There are so many holes in this article Im a bit reluctant to even comment it.
Proletariat is a very specific concept in raw Marx theory and it sure isnt blue collar urban workers. Like most of the heresay marxists "critics" she takes the term proletariat and understands it in its original, Roman use, of people who were landless and without property. Wrong to the bone. The notion of class, and implicitly of class strugle has nothing to do with social or economical classes or otherwise, it is a unique, basic premise, built on Hegelian dialectic.
Marx managed to be an economist who did not understand the most fundamental concept of economics: value.
Marx was an economist as much as mrs. Hoyt is a philosopher with this subpar reflecting on Marx.
Respect for private property erodes. Wealth is seen as evil and humans as drains on the system
She hasnt the slightest clue about what abolition of private property means.
And furthermore, ALL wealth is theft.
Even more, the lone notion of marxian private property is unknown to her.
Marx managed to be an economist who did not understand the most fundamental concept of economics: value.
It is thought he based his theory of value on David Ricardo, who was already considered erroneous and out of date when Marx used it. Which is no wonder, because no functional economy can be built on Marx.
Marx believed that raw materials + labor = value. The more the raw materials were worth or the more labor put into transforming them, the more the end product would be worth. No other considerations applied.
hahahaha, excellent. Im sure she read the whole 3 parts of Das kapital, where the only thing he is analysing is how the owner, the worker, value and surplus value is generated and acclaimed. Funny how she puts it so simple again, when in reality there are myriads of controversies, empirical and counter empirical evidence supporting both sides of the falling profit rate fiasco. And the Ricardo pun, oh my god. Such voluntaristic claims are worthy of the most hardline freshwater economists, who think economy is one big balanced whole that can live on its own, where laws of physics apply.
This holistic critic of supposedly "what marx really said" is making her look even more dubious than those who look at Marx holistically today and take him seriously. What is timeless and incredibly deep in marxist philosophy is his method of understanding time and mans place within his creations. But there are countless people who, 200 years later, take specifics of his studies, who cannot even be taken as current empiry, and just shun him like a kid on the block. Narrowminded blobs in my opinion.
These types of articles of semi read, self thought and proclaimed critics, should be read with supreme caution, or maybe even not at all. Before you can even start to grasp the sum of his philosophy, you have to be at least partly knowledgable on the german transcendental idealism of Hegel, Schelling and to an extent Kant and Fichte on which Marx basis lies. It is really not the time nor the place to seriously debate this topic, because hardcorde philosophy underlines it, which is hard to talk about even in real life, let alone on an internet forum, where anyone can play and act the connoseur with google opened up in another tab.
And lastly, debating philosophy is not about giving answers, its not about who is right or wrong.
I provide a link to one of the most famous Slovenian thinkers of all times, marked by Times as one of the most influential thinkers in the world, besides Noam Chomsky. In my terms he is the true modern Marxist, and also one of the easiest entries to start reading seriously about Marx, without getting bored to death at page 5.
He is a true philosopher. Opens up crazy problems, is incredibly fun to listen to, provocative and isnt afraid to defend his wild claims.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MVOKesg4wc&feature=related
-
Glad you cleared that up for us, Andrew. I was wondering why Cuba and North Korea were such economic powerhouses..... :wink:
-
"Marxism is the opiate of academics".
-
"Marxism is the opiate of academics".
That is actually true. I had to smoke a bowl of "Marxism" before I got any of my degrees. Too bad it was laced with research, data, and critical thinking.
-
I haven't had a chance to watch the clip yet, but this is very, very funny:
"Marxism is the opiate of academics".
-
"That is actually true. I had to smoke a bowl of "Marxism" before I got any of my degrees. Too bad it was laced with research, data, and critical thinking."
Really? The history I know is filled with epic failure after epic failure to create worker's paradises. They did manage to create gulags and starvation and mass graves quite well though. Is there some marxist success story I've missed out on?
-
I think you missed my point.
-
I might have.
-
Yep :-D
-
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1835
Former Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder
Regards the victims of 9/11 as “little Eichmanns”
Considers America to be a genocidal nation
Falsely claimed to be an American Indian, in order to qualify for an affirmative action teaching position in Ethnic Studies
Plagiarist
Ward Churchill was a professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder from 1990 until 2007, when he was fired for research misconduct. Churchill became a nationally known figure in January 2005, when public attention was drawn to a September 2001 essay he had written characterizing the 9/11 terrorist attacks as an instance of “chickens coming home to roost,” and vilifying the victims who had died in the World Trade Center as “little Eichmanns.”
Churchill was born October 2, 1947 in Elmwood, Illinois. In the late 1960s he served in the U.S. Army and fought in the Vietnam War. Accounts vary as to the details of his military experience. In a 1987 article appearing in the Denver Post, it was reported that Churchill had attended paratrooper school and eventually volunteered for duty in Vietnam, where he served a 10-month tour as Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol. A later Denver Post piece in 2005 reported that Churchill had been trained as a projectionist and light truck driver. Churchill’s own resume claims that he was drafted in 1966, and that he served as a public-information specialist who “wrote and edited the battalion newsletter and wrote news releases.”
The Denver Post has also reported that in the late 1960s Churchill became involved with the Students for a Democratic Society and its sister organization, the Weather Underground. The Post, quoting Churchill, stated that he briefly taught Weather Underground members how to make bombs and to fire weapons -- “Which end does the bullet go, what are the ingredients, how do you time the damned thing.”
In the mid-1970s, Churchill attended Sangamon State University, an “experimental” school for student radicals in Illinois, which later became the University of Illinois at Springfield. There, Churchill received his B.A. in Technological Communications in 1974 and an M.A. in Communications Theory in 1975. By 1978, he had found employment as an affirmative action officer at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Beginning in 1983, Churchill became active in the American Indian Movement (AIM) of Colorado, a chapter of the AIM National. Today he serves as the chapter’s co-director.
In April 1983, Churchill traveled to Tripoli and Benghazi as an AIM representative to meet with de facto dictator Muammar al-Qadhafi of Libya. The purpose of the meeting was to persuade Qadhafi to support AIM's assertion that the U.S. government was violating Indian treaties.
In 1990 Churchill was hired as an associate professor at UC Boulder, though he lacked the proper credentials for the position. After being turned down by both the Sociology and Political Science departments, in 1991 he was granted early tenure in the Communications department on the basis of his claim to be a member of the Ketoowah Cherokee tribe. (Documents in Churchill’s University personnel file explain that he was granted tenure in a “special opportunity position,” with the intention of facilitating the recruitment of “a more diverse faculty.")
At various times over the years, Churchill has claimed his Indian ancestry in different ways and by varying percentages. He once stated, "I am myself of Muscogee and Creek descent on my father's side, Cherokee on my mother's, and am an enrolled member of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians." On other occasions he has professed to be one-eighth Creek and one-sixteenth Cherokee; one-sixteenth Creek and Cherokee; and three-sixteenths Cherokee.
Churchill describes himself in the following way: "Although I'm best known by my colonial name, Ward Churchill, the name I prefer is Kenis, an Ojibwe name bestowed by my [Native American] wife's uncle." In a speech in Vancouver, Churchill told his audience: "I have to say, I have to bring you greetings from the elders of the Keetoowah Band of Cherokee, my people."
The United Keetoowah Band would later clarify that Churchill had never been an authentic member of the tribe, but that he was awarded an honorary associate membership in 1994, as were Bill Clinton and a number of other people. The Keetoowah Band further states that while it has never rescinded Churchill's associate membership, it stopped recognizing such memberships in 1994.
In 2005 the Rocky Mountain News published a genealogy of Churchill, and reported "no evidence" that he had even "a single Indian ancestor." A Denver Post genealogical investigation drew the same conclusion.
In 1993 Churchill broke away from the national American Indian Movement, claiming that all AIM chapters were autonomous.
Churchill was made a Professor of Ethnic Studies in 1996, was promoted to full professor in 1997, and finally became Chair of the department in 2002 -- though he did not (and still does not) possess a Ph.D.
Professor Churchill's academic career and academic oeuvre was built around the theory that the United States is a genocidal nation, worse than Nazi Germany because its genocides began with its settlement and have continued to the present. Churchill regards American history as one unbroken procession of genocidal tyranny, beginning in 1492, which "unleashed a process of conquest and colonization unparalleled in the history of humanity." He routinely equates Columbus with Gestapo chief Heinrich Himmler.
In 1997 Churchill published the book, A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust and Denial in the Americas, 1492 through the Present. Other Churchill books similarly liken the United States to Nazi Germany. Among these are Fantasies of the Master Race (1992) and Colonization and Genocide in Native North America (1994).
Some of Churchill's former UC Boulder students have reported that his conception of America as the newest rendition of the Third Reich invariably finds its way into his lectures, particularly in his undergraduate class titled "American Holocaust."
On September 12, 2001, the day after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Churchill published a short essay titled “Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens,” which was later expanded into the book On the Justice of Roosting Chickens: reflections on the consequences of U.S. imperial arrogance and criminality (2003). In the essay, Churchill disclosed his belief that the 9/11 attacks were reprisals for unjust U.S. foreign policy measures vis a vis the Middle East, and for the alleged ravages of global capitalism as spearheaded by America. In this regard, Churchill claimed that no U.S. citizen could be considered genuinely innocent. He wrote:
“As for those in the World Trade Center ... Well, really, let's get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break. They formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America's global financial empire -- the ‘mighty engine of profit’ to which the military dimension of U.S. policy has always been enslaved -- and they did so both willingly and knowingly… If there was a better, more effective, or in fact any other way of visiting some penalty befitting their participation upon the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers, I'd really be interested in hearing about it.”
In the April 2004 edition of Satya Magazine, a monthly publication "focusing on vegetarianism, environmentalism, animal advocacy, and social justice," Churchill said:
"One of the things I've suggested is that it may be that more 9/11s are necessary. This seems like such a no-brainer that I hate to frame it in terms of actual transformation of consciousness -- Hey those brown-skinned folks dying in the millions in order to maintain this way of life, they can wait forever for those who purport to be the opposition here to find some personally comfortable and pure manner of affecting the kind of transformation that brings not just lethal but genocidal processes to a halt. They have no obligation -- moral, ethical, legal or otherwise -- to sit on their thumbs while the opposition here dithers about doing anything to change the system. So it's removing the sense of -- and right to -- impunity from the American opposition.... I want the state gone: transform the situation to U.S. out of North America. U.S. off the planet. Out of existence altogether."
In 2003 Churchill and his political allies attempted to obstruct a Columbus Day Parade in Denver. He was acquitted by likeminded judges who accepted his claim that a parade celebrating Columbus was tantamount to "hate speech."
"When I started out it was 'U.S. out of Vietnam,'" Churchill declared in an August 2004 speech, "and then that was changed and it became 'U.S. out of Indochina,' and then it became 'U.S. out of Southern Africa,' and it was 'U.S. out of the Caribbean and Central America,' and then it became 'U.S. out of the Persian Gulf.' I agreed with every one of those, but ultimately there's only one way that any of them will be possible and that is: US out of North America, U.S. off the planet, and take Canada with you when you go!"
As with his claims of his Indian ancestry, imposture is likewise a distinguishing feature of Churchill's academic work. In 2004 the Rocky Mountain News conducted a two-month investigation of the professor's scholarly portfolio and found that Churchill had a long history of inventing historical facts to suit his polemical purposes, and that on numerous occasions he had passed off the work of others as his own. Among the paper's findings: (a) Churchill baselessly accused the U.S. army of spreading smallpox among Missouri Indians in 1837, inexplicably citing sources that expressly contradict his claims; (b) Churchill published a 1992 essay taken almost verbatim from the work of Canadian professor Fay Cohen, over Cohen's objections. (c) On at least four other occasions, he had claimed credit for the work of others.
Churchill could produce no evidence to disprove the News’ findings. Instead, he sought to explain away his serial plagiarism as harmless creative editing -- not dissimilar, according to Churchill, to the efforts of a "rewrite man" at a newspaper who edits articles as he sees fit.
In 2006 a UC Boulder academic committee confirmed that Churchill was indeed guilty of academic misconduct, including plagiarism. Consequently, in an 8 to 1 vote the University of Colorado Board of Regents elected to fire him from the Ethnic Studies Department in July 2007, as school President Hank Brown had recommended. After the decision was announced to the public, Churchill, reluctant to vacate his high-paying position, declared: "I am going nowhere. This is not about break, this is not about bend, this is not about compromise."
In December 2006, Churchill gave a lecture at the New School University in New York, where he condemned Israel for its alleged atrocities against Palestinians, and he suggested that U.S. aid to Israel was a major cause of anti-Americanism in the Middle East. He said:
"Maybe it has something to do with 12- and 13-year-old Palestinian kids getting shot down in the street for the egregious offense of throwing a rock at an IDF [Israeli Defense Forces] soldier? There's that little thing which is pretty well known about Israel being the 51st state in terms of funding and support. There's that little thing about when that bullet strikes that Palestinian kid, the bullet was manufactured in Massachusetts at the Springfield Armory. There's that little thing about where these helicopters come from, where those mini-guns come from, where those rockets come from."
In May 2007, UC Irvine's Muslim Student Union (MSU) sponsored a talk by Churchill in which he characterized Israel as a terrorist state and urged MSU students to go to the pro-Israel booth near the lecture hall, take a slice of cake, and eat Israel symbolically.
During his years as a tenured Ethnic Studies professor, Churchill had received a $115,000 annual salary (for teaching three hours per week), apart from benefits and speaking fees.
On July 25, 2007, Churchill filed a First Amendment lawsuit against the University of Colorado, seeking reinstatement of his faculty position and an unspecified amount of money.
He thereafter established the Ward Churchill Solidarity Network, which characterized “the attacks on Ward Churchill not only as retaliation for constitutionally protected speech, but as part of a larger movement to suppress critical thinking, dismantle ethnic and gender studies programs, and eliminate the perspectives of indigenous peoples from mainstream education and scholarship.” The Network solicited donations to cover Churchill's legal expenses, as well as volunteers to undertake legal, educational, and fundraising efforts.
After Churchill’s ouster from the UC Boulder faculty, a number of notable individuals and organizations voiced support for him, including: Gil Anidjar; Molefi Kete Asante; Bill Ayers; Brett de Bary; Derrick Bell; Noam Chomsky; Dana Cloud; Kathleen Cleaver; Hamid Dabashi; Richard Falk; Mumia Abu Jamal; Robert Jensen; Peter Kirstein; Dean Saitta; Howard Zinn; and the American Civil Liberties Union.
In April 2009 a Denver jury ruled that Churchill had been wrongly fired from his job. According to the jury, the real (and insufficient) reason for which the professor had been fired was because of the "Roosting Chickens" essay he had written disparaging the victims of 9/11. Though the court awarded Churchill only $1 in damages (the minimum allowed by law), the possibility remained open that the University would be liable for hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees and might have to reinstate Churchill on the faculty.
In July 2009, however, Judge Larry J. Naves of Denver District Court refused to reinstate Churchill. In his ruling, Naves said that the university's governing Board of Regents' decision to dismiss Churchill had “occurred with sufficient procedural protections.”
-
ahhh GM, again you use the same train of thought I have tried to approach again and again and again, but yet you dont wish to hear it, or what ?
things are of course much more complex than you would like them to see.
I think I have written to some legnth about your implication of Marx with epic failures, havent I ? Marxism /= Stalinism /= Leninism /= Maosim....
lets make a simple logical test :
1) Do you blame st Augustine for all the wrong doings in history in the name of the church and Christianity with all its branches ? Since he is its theological and ideological father, he is surely also guilty of all the crimes of the inquisition, the protestants, the Zwinglians, the Luterans, the Anglicans, Calvinisits, the orthodox...
Funny you should mention economic failures of Cuba, then again which country is the one that everyone and their mother is talking about in the USA and the world ? Is it China ? OH yes. Which makes it very funny actually, since their version of a most radical corporate communism is starting to prove something really serious to everyone. And people are getting scared.
Marxism is the opiate of academics
hehe, nice quote. I guess it works the other way around too
Capitalist maxim : The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate.
Bertrand Russell
And what exactly GM, should I clear up ? Write 700 words long posts only to be bombarded by divergent articles by some blogger or a failed journalist ? There are several ways with which you must look at Marx today, and the weakest version of them all is the revolutionary, which ironically, of course, is what everyone ever only looks at, because its the easiest one to make fun of. The versions which have resounding effect even today and where people tend to get scared and start to freak out, because you actually need to have serious background from the philosophical era that preceeded him are Marx as a humanist, critic of capitalism, philosopher of history and his supplement of Hegels transcendental idealism.
These debates have an inherent flaw. Under the pretense of objective "critical thinking", they are still just vulgarily dogmatic. If I am defending an opinion, it doesnt mean I am 100% for it and against the other. I have said this several times. I am not for socialism, I am not for communism in any manner they were "implemented". I think the way they were approached was too naive. I lived through it, although most of my memories from the time are potent with images of great cameradery, national spirit and just pure nostalgia, there werent really much differences to the way we live now. Well, maybe its harder to find a job today.
a while ago when I was studying Keynes, I also picked up as much as I could from Schumpeter, Mises, Hayek, Friedman. This is not science, nor fact, that you can somehow prove. Truth is a constellation.
What I am trying, is to open up the situation so that I can pave way for more appropriate questions. The wrong questions are far more dangerous than wrong answers. Which incidentally, in traditional dogmatic tone worthy of preety much any text on religion, is what you are trying to prove I provide all the time, wrong answers. This is in a nutshell, what I am trying to do with all my postings. Not convince you to form an opinion the same as me, but to widen your opinion with others, that you may not have heard or come across yet.
And this is also why I hate this talking through a medium of articles and references, because it is at its core, a simple clash of dogma, reminiscent of the old rhetoric, "this is true, because my pater said so", "no that is wrong, because MY pater said different". Theres nothing "debating" about that. Nor is it critical. Its just providing what you think holds true, but lacking the ability to formulate it yourself. You remind me of the old party nomenclatura that held speeches in the countryside and always started the talks with : "Gentlemen, the international situation is getting worse!" ....."why, comrade, is it getting worse ?"....." Because it is not getting better".
But here you go, articles from Erich Fromm on Marx.
its the shortest, most concise link I can provide that has a more serious tone. I doubt anyone will get halfway even into the first article, but at least my consciousness will be at rest, since there is no way of getting anything across here with writing your heart out.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/fromm/works/1961/man/index.htm
-
Is it China ? OH yes. Which makes it very funny actually, since their version of a most radical corporate communism is starting to prove something really serious to everyone. And people are getting scared.
I hate to break this to you Andrew, but China is getting rich though capitalism. They like and want WEALTH. The Chinese laugh at "worker's paradise" slogans. True that they still have the political oppression and lack of individual freedoms commonly found where a a communist party still holds power, but even the party members in China are getting rich through business deals and buying luxury cars and wearing Rolex watches. The Chinese saw just how communist economic theory does not work and dropped it like the garbage it is.
-
[False] "implication of Marx with epic failures, ... Marxism /= Stalinism /= Leninism /= Maosim...."
It seems to me that we could resolve this dispute by referring to the failed, oppressive economic and governmental systems of these failed states as 'Stalinist' rather than socialist, communist or Marxist. Same goes for describing or warning about any the same moves here and elsewhere toward a more powerful central government and away from the constitutionally limited government we once knew, based on individual liberties explicitly including economic liberties and thankfulness to God. I, for one, would be happy to start referring to these programs, policies and proposals as Stalinist and quit smearing the confusing and misunderstood work of Karl Marx.
If the real thrust of Marx's work would give us specific insights into how to solve current economic problems, please post.
I can't imagine that the bizarre state of affairs in China today is any closer to Marx's true vision than the other failed examples. (I see GM covered that!)
From the link: "[Marxism] is opposed to the Church because of its restriction of the mind, and to liberalism (the meaning of liberalism in 1961?) because of its separation of society and moral values. It is opposed to Stalinism and Krushchevism, for their authoritarianism as much as their neglect of humanist values."
Earlier in that same chapter: "Marx fought against religion exactly because it is alienated, and does not satisfy the true needs of man. Marx's fight against God is, in reality, a fight against the idol that is called God. Already as a young man he wrote as the motto for his dissertation "Not those are godless who have contempt for the gods of the masses but those who attribute the opinions of the masses to the gods." Marx's atheism is the most advanced form of rational mysticism, closer to Meister Eckhart or to Zen Buddhism than are most of those fighters for God and religion who accuse him of "godlessness."
Why would anyone who is rational fight against other people's religion if it is peaceful and consensual?
-
Woof AB:
Thank you for your responses.
Concerning your first response:
Before responding, I would like to remind you that we are Americans and as such are often quite ignorant of certain things taken for granted in educated Euro circles. For example, you mention "Hegelian dialectic". I have heard of this more than once, and would LOVE to be able to drop into conversation as you have here. Would you
please help me out? :lol:
More seriously now, as I read your response I am impressed with your rip-snorting condescension, (rather inconsistent with your mission "to open up the situation so that I can pave way for more appropriate questions" yes?) but as best as I can tell, you offer the youtube clip of that Slovenian professor as your substance. That said, I found very
little in it beyond a rather superficial, glib, vacuous psuedo-wittiness e.g. unable to distinguish Bill Gates and Bernie Madoff or Hollywood movies and real life. Perhaps a less fawning interviewer would have been of help? Perhaps the man has the substance to which you ascribe him; for example I would be more interested in hearing why he considers himself a marxist and a supporter of mass murderer Stalin?
Concerning your second response:
I share GM's response to your example of China's successes as being those of Marxism. (IMHO the more accurate term would be "fascism", but that is not really the point) Also I would most certainly add a) China's extraordinary rape of the environment and b) the many good reasons to wonder if it is in a huge bubble.
IMHO to serve your stated mission, the Fromm URL would have been a better place to start, particularly if you were to have deleted "I doubt anyone will get halfway even into the first article, but at least my consciousness will be at rest, since there is no way of getting anything across here with writing your heart out."
Despite the comment :lol: I have started to read it anyway.
TAC!
-
Crafty,
I'd point out as examples of how using capitalism had a direct impact on very poor Chinese farmers who have been farming the same rice paddies for generations. When the farming was state run on state owned lands, the production of rice was minimal. When the lands were turned over to the farmers and they could enjoy the profits from their efforts, amazingly enough the amount of rice produced skyrocketed and the standard of living for these pesants radically improved. They are still by most measures poor, but much less than before and they see opportunities for a better lives for their children.
Let's look at Hong Kong. After WWII, Hong Kong was in ruins. It is a small area with a large population and very little in the way of natural resources. Their only assets being a free market economy with the British concept of the rule of law combined with a ethic of hard work and education in it's population. The same people that were living on muddly hills in shacks made of wood scraps and corrigated tin now watch their children and grandchildren live in a gleaming, ultramodern city.
Let's look at the Koreas. The same ethnicity and culture, only a difference in government and economic policy. S. Korea is a technological and industrial giant, North Korea, a land of mindboggling poverty, oppression and starvation.
-
"When the farming was state run on state owned lands [in China], the production of rice was minimal. When the lands were turned over to the farmers and they could enjoy the profits from their efforts, amazingly enough the amount of rice produced skyrocketed and the standard of living for these peasants radically improved."
Didn't the Pilgrims discover the same thing in this country early in that venture?
Yet we keep turning back.
We await the examples of when and where utopia succeeded.
-
@ guro Crafty,
For example, you mention "Hegelian dialectic". I have heard of this more than once, and would LOVE to be able to drop into conversation as you have here. Would you
please help me out?
Its a huge topic. But all in all, like with most thinkers, their output changes with age, and so did Marx'. Young Marx was different to late Marx and both took ground in the roaring times of the Hegelian „end of philosophy“. The ontologic base of Marx is taken from Hegel, but turned upside down. Not to go too deep for my own good here, I hope these two examples will provide easiest understanding, I quote wiki, because the examples are perfectly sufficient :
Hegel describes a dialectic of existence: first, existence must be posited as pure Being (Sein); but pure Being, upon examination, is found to be indistinguishable from Nothing (Nichts). When it is realized that what is coming into being is, at the same time, also returning to nothing (in life, for example, one's living is also a dying), both Being and Nothing are united as Becoming. It is Hegel's account of how being is ultimately comprehensible as an all-inclusive whole. Hegel asserted that in order for the thinking subject (human reason or consciousness) to be able to know its object (the world) at all, there must be in some sense an identity of thought and being.
Here is Marx' response, Hegelian philosophy supposedly being too much of an abstract ideal, not in the sense of perfection but in the sense of the idea, the Platonic eidos.
The mystification which dialectic suffers in Hegel’s hands, by no means prevents him from being the first to present its general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner. With him it is standing on its head. It must be turned right side up again, if you would discover the rational kernel within the mystical shell.
My dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian, but is its direct opposite. To Hegel, the life-process of the human brain, i.e. the process of thinking, which, under the name of ‘the Idea’, he even transforms into an independent subject, is the demiurgos of the real world, and the real world is only the external, phenomenal form of ‘the Idea’. With me, on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind, and translated into forms of thought. (Capital, Afterword, Second German Ed., Moscow, 1970, vol. 1, p. 29).
More seriously now, as I read your response I am impressed with your rip-snorting condescension, (rather inconsistent with your mission "to open up the situation so that I can pave way for more appropriate questions" yes?) but as best as I can tell, you offer the youtube clip of that Slovenian professor as your substance
True, guilty as charged, the condescending tone might have been intentional, for which I appologize. Sometimes, situation gets the best of me, more so when reading articles that shun ideas to the trashbin like its nobodys business, especially ideas that are based on the pinnacle of Western tradition of thought.
Žižek wasnt used only as a substance. Do not underestimate him, he is an incredibly deceiptful thinker, lightning fast and productive like noone Ive never seen. Had the honor of lisening to him at the university before he became senior researcher. You have to dig through videos a bit, because his radical TV persona is based on shocking the listener early on, since talking pure philosophy tends to scare people away too soon. If you have the chance, and the ear (some people find him impossible to listen to, because of his speaking disorder and the trance that begets him when speaking) I encourage you to watch some of his interviews and speeches, just keep in mind though, he can be really brutal sometimes, when putting his point across.
I share GM's response to your example of China's successes as being those of Marxism. (IMHO the more accurate term would be "fascism", but that is not really the point) Also I would most certainly add a) China's extraordinary rape of the environment and b) the many good reasons to wonder if it is in a huge bubble.
and
I hate to break this to you Andrew, but China is getting rich though capitalism.
No harm done GM. And I agree with the rest of the quote, apart from the thing cited below this.. Thats why I said radical corporate communism. My whole sentence was somewhat of a pun to trick you a bit (since China is communist only by way of the ruling party), which you have duly noticed yourselves, but main point was, Marxist economy doesnt exist. If you find such a thing, I will gladly seek it through. What you DO have however, is Marxist analysis of not only capitalism, but of all socio-economical formations. And then you have political figures, who have (ab)used Marx' findings, and started making their utopias. Marx himself said „ I have no intention of being a prophet“.
The Chinese laugh at "worker's paradise" slogans.
Marx notion of worker is not a phyiscal worker. Blue collar mexican doing 8 to 2000. A worker in his view is anyone who lives off the fruits of his work. From janitor to a soldier to a university teacher. A capitalist is someone who lives off the surplus of someone elses work. Workers paradises were constructs of later men, who sought to „unite the proletariat“. If they misread it intentionally or just as a means to an end, I do not know.
Did you know that, all but one decree of the Communist manifesto have already been incorporated.Only the abolition of private property has remained off charts, but even that is starting to manifest itself in a modern form through cybernetic commodites and the problem of ownership on the Internet. The nordic states,the social states, are the closest version to what „Marxist economy“ could be said to imply, based on its inherent critiques of capitalism..
IMHO to serve your stated mission, the Fromm URL would have been a better place to start, particularly if you were to have deleted "I doubt anyone will get halfway even into the first article, but at least my consciousness will be at rest, since there is no way of getting anything across here with writing your heart out."
Again, guilty as charged. I digress, the tone was misplaced. Doubting anyone will get halfway was meant beacuse I thought you would find it that boring, not in the manner that you would not understand it or anything.
@ Doug
It seems to me that we could resolve this dispute by referring to the failed, oppressive economic and governmental systems of these failed states as 'Stalinist' rather than socialist, communist or Marxist. Same goes for describing or warning about any the same moves here and elsewhere toward a more powerful central government and away from the constitutionally limited government we once knew, based on individual liberties explicitly including economic liberties and thankfulness to God. I, for one, would be happy to start referring to these programs, policies and proposals as Stalinist and quit smearing the confusing and misunderstood work of Karl Marx.
Nicely written.
If the real thrust of Marx's work would give us specific insights into how to solve current economic problems, please post.
I dare not to write about stuff, that even current Noble prize winners, and economical hardliners cannot rightfully predict. To top it off, I am not really knowledgable on it. What can be said though, is that the problem of the falling profit rate (in marx' terms), is to some extent, one of the indicators that started to plunge the crisis into next gear in 2007/08. And Marx, after Ricardo, wrote to oblivion about it, how it is the demise of capitalism, already 200 years ago. If you agree with it, or find it problematic, I strongly suggest you study the topic on your own, and make respectful conclusions, as it is with all serious work, you must absorb it yourself.
Why would anyone who is rational fight against other people's religion if it is peaceful and consensual?
Look up the notion of Alienation, and what it implies. In short, it was one of his critiques, that human relations are degraded to relations between objects, because of capital, and man is slowly becoming alienated to his natural sein. Like you cited, Marx' fight against God is that against the Idol. The symbol of the religion as institution, the Church.... „those who attribute the opinions of the masses to the gods“
kind regards to all
Andraz
-
Thanks Andraz, That was a great reply. We are very lucky to have one who respects Karl Marx on our
Marxism Stalinism thread!
Shifting quickly to where we disagree, or at least where I don't buy Marxism:
"A capitalist is someone who lives off the surplus of someone elses work."
No. That is false in 2011 (IMO) and I would also say false in 1867 as well. He or she employs and CREATES the surplus of another's work. A capitalist is one who (long sentence coming) accepts and enters a risk/reward relationship investing in a faith in the value of other peoples work and procures the machinery and real estate and research and investment in labor agreements, directs orchestrates, innovates and competes for one thing to secure a reward for his troubles but also as a consequence brings advancement, employment, opportunity, fruits of labor and benefits and security and bread and bacon and retirement dollars, kids racing skis and traveling soccer fees and gas for the family vehicle etc. to everyone he hires, by successfully betting on the success of the others he invests in. A capitalist is also one who bets wrong, takes on risks and loses. Then he reverts back to laborer if he can - in a world without a government paying out a thousand and fifty distinct social spending programs making all those choices so much more confusing.
Laborers without capital would be like a roomful of musicians - without instruments, music or a conductor.
A digger for example has no capability whatsoever without a shovel and no competitiveness or productivity without something something made by Caterpillar or equivalent. If you want to win contracts burying cable you will need $20,000 for the machine. If you have that and want to be an independent, you can be the capitalist and the laborer, just like I am in my industry. If you are strictly a worker and not the capitalist, then you need to hook up with the capital and the capitalist by applying for a job from someone who sees enough reward to choose that business over opening a bakery or a butcher shop etc.
One of the beautiful things is that in a free society, you can switch from laborer to capitalist in less than one lifetime. We don't have tatoos, piercings or other markings to say which class you are, unless you choose to have one. I used to work at least 2 jobs at a time, tuck away what I could until I could afford to borrow and invest enough to get started and duplicate that success doubling and quadrupling what I had. Now I work twice as hard and age twice as quickly from the stress.
Show me where capital isn't equally important to labor. Labor is nothing without capital and capital is nothing without labor. Even the public sector is loaded with capital and they are NOT any more efficient with it. The balance of power shifts sometimes, mostly to the side of labor as they have more votes. When the power imbalance is too far off, the excess guarantees and benefits to labor collapse the capital structure until failure sets in for all.
What I learned so far about Marx is that he was more of a philosopher of the human spirit than he was a designer of the specific economic systems falsely attributed to him: "Marxist economy doesn't exist". To us, a successful Marxist economy may be a fiction, achieving the creative energy of Hollywood or the innovative energy of the old Silicon Valley without the involvement of business owners, venture capitalists, commercial bankers, business brokers, risk capital, mutual funds, excess profits, losses, bankruptcies or capital gains. To Andraz, perhaps it is something still possible but difficult to design and achieve.
-
Hi Doug. Thanks for the kind words.
Your argument is perfectly valid. It is also along the lines of many of marx' critiques, especially coming from people of anglosaxon thought tradition and also, to a point, lifestyle.
Before I go further, you have to take into account that to some extent, the word „capitalist“ used today is an anachronism compared to 1867 or so. Today capitalist means a whole lot more than it did before, and on the other hand, the word „burgeois“ practically doesnt even exist anymore. The catch here is, the term „capitalist“ meant several other stuff about ownership and production relations compared to what it means today. It was less "layered", if you will.... the „entrepreneurial“ use of the word „capitalist“ that you mostly described, and is generally in use today, was packed into that same context also.
If you look at Marx' 3 main production factors, they are work, land and entrepreneurship, which takes into account mostly everything that you have written above. Marx goes further, when he even says, to use an anachronism, that managers actually contribute and support to the improvment and advancement of production and forces of production.
The other part of your answer can be tackled with the fact that marx generally understands two types of work, simple and complex. Complex work is work with inherent need of subsequent knowledge to sustain it. Simple work is work, without the need of knowledge to sustain it, i.e. You only need to be shown one, or two times how to dig a ditch, whereas to be an IT engineer you need to constantly educate, and evolve to keep up with the stream.
So when I say "A capitalist is someone who lives off the surplus of someone elses work." the capitalist is used in historicist terms. Perhaps it was insufficient explaining on my part. In the terms of the times, so to speak. So after this brief explanation, let me continue upon that quote
The capitalist, or the burgeois (the evil bad ones) are those that get reciprocally far more output than they have invested, and do so on the account of the worker, or the proletariat, or anyone who offers his expertise on the labor market. Here comes the connection with the failing profit rate. Simply speaking, it implies that the circle of the owners will get narrower, and the dispersion a lot greater, hence after a while the owners will have more and more problems finding people who would buy their product. This consist part of the argument that the Austrians use a lot, that crisis is the kernel of capitalism, where through marxist prism it really does reverse the situation, because it erases parts of the products that cannot be sold anymore, and lets say rebalances the equation.
Generically put, Marx' point was just, that the relation worker-capital-owner is gravely unfair for the worker, compared to what each party puts in and that the respectful distribution of wealth is even less fair. Today this rings more true than even 100 years ago, where average salary ratio within a big company was cca 1:20, today it is 1:300.
This points one of the more viable critics of his analysis, which I am also currently reading up on in Leszek Kolakowski's, Main Currents of Marxism, that he didnt explain or progress the term of „value“ of the input enough, which he merely grazed with his concept of communitiy viable product (im not entirely sure the translation is correct, basically it should mean products that the community needs, values).
hope more is clear, I will have a hard time responding in the next 14 days again, due to obligations, but make no mistake, I will read everything :)
regards
-
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybh9JzdFT_U&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybh9JzdFT_U&feature=player_embedded
Not a zero-sum game.
-
The Stossel piece is EXCELLENT. I wish our new Governor, ready to shut government down over keeping a tax increase promise on the rich, could see the segment on Maryland where the same policy cost their state revenues, jobs and millionaires.
Amazing how so many highly educated people and highly important organizations - OMB, CBO, DNC, NYT, POTUS, all liberals and most conservatives - can keep basing policies, predictions and arguments on the patently false, fixed pie theory.
The statements on camera of Prof. Arthur Laffer, saying (paraphrasing)that this economy has an amazing potential for new growth right now if only we could get the policies right, tells us once again that many famous and influential people out there are reading the forum. :wink:
-------------
Economist Art Laffer says we “can bring the fiscal situation back under control pretty quickly” by privatizing Fannie, Freddie, AIG and GM, cutting back on entitlements and instituting a flat tax. If we do that, says Laffer, we’ll have “huge economic growth.”
But huge economic growth is the antithesis to the current governing agenda.
-
Good conversation going here. My apologies for the brevity of what follows, but there are many demands on my time right now.
I reject separating Marx from what his followers have done with considerable consistency. The pattern of the extraordinarily murderous nature of Leninism, Stalinism, the Soviet Empire, Maoism, the Kymer Rouge, North Korea, etc is no accident. It ineluctably flows from the nature of concept such as "dictatorhip of the proletariat" and "the vanguard" and so forth. The nature of Marxist logic becomes a feedback loop that repeatedly leads to mass evil. How many did Lenin murder? Stalin? the rest of the Soviet Empire? Mao? the Kymer Rouge? etc etc etc And let us not forget the evils of a lives lived with freedom suppressed.
Rachel's post today on "The Power of Word" thread opens with "He is a self-made man who worships his creator." This captures quite a bit IMHO.
-
I reject separating Marx from what his followers have done with considerable consistency. The pattern of the extraordinarily murderous nature of Leninism, Stalinism, the Soviet Empire, Maoism, the Kymer Rouge, North Korea, etc is no accident. It ineluctably flows from the nature of concept such as "dictatorhip of the proletariat" and "the vanguard" and so forth. The nature of Marxist logic becomes a feedback loop that repeatedly leads to mass evil. How many did Lenin murder? Stalin? the rest of the Soviet Empire? Mao? the Kymer Rouge? etc etc etc And let us not forget the evils of a lives lived with freedom suppressed.
It's not a bug, it's a feature!
-
Stossel: "For the first time since the founding of the Republic, people are visibly mad. They are pushing back against the growth of government." This is only true if one counts the founding of the Republic as being around 2000, rather than the late 1700's. The push back against the Alien and Sedition Acts, the nullification crisis, the Civil War, most of the elections in the early 1900's, and there goes the Reagan Revolution. I guess conservatives can put his false impact to rest. Reagan Democrats? Never happened. RR landslide in 1984. Down the conservative wormhole, I guess.
Art Laffer's version of facts (admittedly not taken from his discussion within the video): http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/06/art-laffer-make-up-your-own-facts-here/
Laffer on the housing market bubble: http://realestaterecord.blogspot.com/2008/03/art-laffer.html
People get elected or reelected all the time by criticising government. Look at congressional elections for evidence. On this Gary Johnson isn't all that special. His willingness to use the veto is noteworthy, but it is also worth noting that as governor he had the use of the line item veto, which presidents do not have.
Stossel: "The Founders knew [where government should end and personal responsibility begins]. Government should end at keeping the peace, enforcing contracts, and property rights." I wonder if Stossel has read Article I, section 8 and the vesting clause of Article II.
He sure talks a good game, though.
-
"For the first time since the founding of the Republic, people are visibly mad. They are pushing back against the growth of government."
Good catch by BD on that erroneous statement. People have been visibly mad many other times and conservatives have been pushing back unsuccessfully for a very long time.
More accurately stated from my point of view, those of us who are mid-fifties and any other age have ALMOST never seen a successful or meaningful push back against the growth of government, not during Reagan and not during Bush, and we aren't likely to see one now.
My point in commendation was regarding the exposure of fixed pie thinking.
From the first Laffer link: "But considering all this occurred with their man in the White House for 8 years..."
G.W. Bush is "their man in the White House" ?? When did George Bush rein in the size or scope of government? George Bush gave supply side economics a bad name without ever trying it, IMHO.
"Reagan had the good fortune to take office at the tail end of a 16 year secular bear market..."
This passes for political economic analysis of the Reagan era. Wow.
For the second link: "Art Laffer, Economist, B.A. Econ Yale '63, MBA/Ph.D. Econ Stanford '65/'71 His last name says it all--his views on the economy are a 'laffer'." - We haven't moved very far past Weiner jokes. In spite of his wrongheadedness about bullishness expressed in the video while the economy was moving full speed ahead, I can't think of a single cause of the Housing bubble and collapse that Laffer favored or supported in terms of policies.
The implication of playing a summer 2006 video in hindsight of a fall 2008 collapse is to suggest that this mess wasn't avoidable. (?)
That economists can't and don't predict recessions accurately is a fact. I look to economists for policies and their effects, not predictions. Obviously Schiff got that one right and Laffer got it wrong. In the 25 years leading up to it the crash predictors were generally the ones that were wrong. Give Schiff some credit here but he isn't exactly pushing the agenda that followed as the anti-Laffer, bigger yet government policies very soon took center stage.
The first thing Laffer got wrong was his premise, saying that we aren't raising taxes anytime soon, yet the 100% clear message sent and received 3 months after that with the election sweep of the Pelosi-Reid-Obama congress was that yes, in fact we are. The announcement of serious tax rate hikes coming along with all the uncertainty about when and by how much was the trigger IMO for what was about to happen next, hardly Laffer's doing. At the time of the video, we were in the midst of 50 months of continuous job growth. Laffer made some now embarrassing statements about inherent strength, but I doubt he favored the federal government taking over 90% of private mortgages or favored the increasing push to have those loans made with cash back instead of money down, or favored making any of those loans on any factors other than creditworthiness. I doubt he even favors the mortgage deduction! Laffer'ss opponents, Barney Frank, young Barack, and all the Dems and all the willing RINOs who watched over those expansions and abuses (not Schiff) favored or at least tolerated all of that.
I reject the notion that all of this collapse was necessary and inevitable (in August 2006) and that we then needed the big government push to lock our private economy in at the lowest point for 3 or more years following the collapse.
-
http://www.cato.org/pubs/policy_report/cpr-19n5-5.html
Market Reforms for China
On June 15-18, 1997, the Cato Institute held its second conference in Shanghai, China. The first was in September 1988. Conference panels dealt with economic development, the rule of law, international affairs, the environment, and the welfare state. Following are excerpts from the remarks of James A. Dorn, Cato's vice president for economic affairs and conference organizer; Ted Galen Carpenter, vice president for defense and foreign policy studies; Jerry Taylor, director of natural resource studies; Yeung Wai Hong, publisher of Hong Kong's Next magazine; Fan Gang, director of the China Reform Foundation; and Kate Xiao Zhou, author of How the Farmers Changed China.
James A. Dorn: The Soviet system failed because it disregarded reality. It denied that individuals wish to improve themselves and pursue happiness; that information is costly, constantly changing, and widely dispersed and cannot be usefully centralized; and that voluntary exchange leads to mutual gain. Soviet-style planning destroyed the institutions of property and contract that underpin the free market and created a rigid economic system that ultimately collapsed of its own weight. The fatal conceit inherent in the Soviet vision was that government planners could run an economy like a machine and create long-run prosperity.Although China has recognized the error of Soviet-style central planning and has introduced a market system, that system is still half-baked. The question is, Will China move all the way to a genuine free private market?
In making that transition, China could learn from the West and also from its own ancient culture. The philosophy of Lao-tzu, found in the Tao Te Ching, written some 2,000 years before Adam Smith's TheWealth of Nations, contains many parallels to Smith's work in its emphasis on nonintervention and the principle of spontaneous order. In 1776 Smith argued that if "all systems either of preference or of restraint" were "completely taken away," a "simple system of natural liberty" would evolve "of its own accord." Each individual would then be "left perfectly free to pursue his own interest his own way, and to bring both his industry and capital into competition with those of any other man, or group of men," provided "he does not violate the laws of justice."
In the free-market system advocated by Smith, people get rich by serving others and respecting their property rights. Thus, the system of natural liberty has both a moral foundation and a practical outcome. Private property and free markets make people responsible and responsive. By allowing individuals the freedom to discover their comparative advantage and to trade, market liberalism has produced great wealth wherever it has been tried, with no better example than Hong Kong.
The notion that a laissez-faire system will be harmonious if government safeguards persons and property is the foundation of the West's vision of a market-liberal order, but, as I mentioned before, it is also inherent in the ancient Chinese Taoist vision a self-regulating order--an order we might call "market Taoism." Just as the principle of spontaneous order is central to economic liberalism, the principle of wu-wei (nonaction) is fundamental to Taoism.
"The philosophy of Lao-tzu," writes Wing-Tsit Chan, "is not for the hermit, but for the sage-ruler, who does not desert the world but rules it with noninterference." In the Tao Te Ching, it is written: "Take no action and the people of themselves are transformed. . . . Engage in no activity and the people of themselves become prosperous." Moreover, "when the government is non-discriminative and dull, the people are contented and generous." On the other hand, "the more laws and orders are made prominent, the more thieves and robbers there will be."
Like bamboo, the free market is resilient, and like water, the market will seek its natural course--a course that will be smoother, the wider the path the market can take and the firmer the institutional banks that contain it. The challenge for China is to widen the free market and provide the institutional infrastructure necessary to support private markets.
It's time for China to reclaim her heritage and once again cultivate the idea of spontaneous order. That order is market Taoism, not market socialism.
-
"That economists can't and don't predict recessions accurately is a fact."
But economists can predict with absolute certainty that tax cuts will produce X in increased revenue/jobs/etc.? Of course not, but the willingness to believe that is undeterred. There are models, with margins of error, standard deviations, error terms (not that those are included enough) and even the models that include a dozen or more variables can only predict a small portion of the outcome.
-
We can see that additional taxes and regulation harm tax revenue and economic growth. "No society has ever taxed it's self into prosperity." We might debate smaller policies, but free markets work best.
-
I think you should look at GDP (by population) of other countries, notably Scandavian countries (but a few others) with higher tax rates and more per capita wealth.
You know why? Variables.
We can see that additional taxes and regulation harm tax revenue and economic growth. "No society has ever taxed it's self into prosperity." We might debate smaller policies, but free markets work best.
-
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-603.pdf
As
seen in Figure 2, measures of per capita GDP
from the World Bank, the OECD, the IMF,
and the CIA all show that Americans have
about $6,000 of additional economic output
per person, significantly more than $20,000
for each family of four.
Although per capita GDP is an excellent
measure of overall economic output relative
to population, it does not necessarily measure
living standards. Comparing U.S. and
Nordic living standards requires numbers for
disposable income or personal consumption.
Fortunately, both types of numbers are available.
In both cases, the figures demonstrate
that GDP statistics actually understate the
degree to which people in Nordic nations
have lower living standards compared to
their American counterparts.
The OECD, for instance, has two data
series for disposable income, both included in
Figure 3. According to a study using 2003
data, the average person in the United States
had more than $27,000 of disposable income,
while the average person in Nordic nations
(no data available for Iceland) had disposable
income of barely $14,300, less than 53 percent
of the U.S. level.10 Even Norwegians, bolstered
by oil wealth, had per capita disposable
income of less than $16,800, barely 62 percent
of the American level. Danes and Finns are at
the bottom, with less than 50 percent of the
disposable income of the average American. A
separate data series, which includes numbers
for Iceland, is more flattering to Nordic
nations. Per capita disposable income in
America barely changes, but the average disposable
income for Nordic nations climbs by
more than $3,000.11 But even if this data
series is more accurate, the average resident of
a Nordic nation has only 65 percent of the
disposable income of the average American.
-
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2007/08/cross-country-c.html
"Cross-Country Comparisons of Inequality in Market and Disposable Income: Policy Matters"
Stephen Gordon looks at the relationship between inequality and government policy:
Cross-country comparisons of inequality in market and disposable income: Policy matters, Worthwhile Canadian Initiative: This graph is taken from a recent Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) working paper (45-page pdf):
Click on graph to enlarge
The countries are arranged in ascending order of inequality in disposable income, and the Nordic countries take four of the top five positions. What strikes me is the extent to which this is due to government policy: the Gini coefficient for market income in Canada is the same as Denmark's, and is quite a bit lower than in Sweden. Indeed, Sweden is closer to the US than it is to any of the other Nordic countries.
A recurrent theme in discussions of the Nordic model takes the form of "That's all very well, but those policies won't work here without [insert some feature of Nordic countries here]." Libertarian types who would otherwise approve of the free market dynamism of the Nordics assert that the Nordic model can only work in small, homogeneous countries. As a general argument, I'm not convinced - but I can see why it would be hard to export the Nordic model to the US.
At the other end of the spectrum - those who would otherwise approve of Nordic levels of spending on social programs - some (eg: this commenter) point to the role of trade unions. But it's hard to conclude from this chart that union density matters much when it comes to reducing inequality. For example, look at Germany (where unions play a crucial role in setting wages) and the US (where they are decidedly less important): both have identical levels of inequality of market income. The distribution of disposable income is lower in Germany because of its redistributive policies, not because unions are more powerful.
That's not to say that cross-country institutional/cultural idiosyncrasies aren't important; they are. But there's little reason to believe that these factors have to be changed before the Nordic model can work
-
So, if I understand correctly, the lower living standards found in the Scandinavian nations are less unequal than the higher standards of living in the US?
-
http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/HDR_2010_EN_Tables_reprint.pdf
Number 1. Norway
Number 4. U.S.
http://hdrstats.undp.org/en/indicators/66706.html
Savings of Norwegians is more than 16x that of Americans (might explain the disposable income)
GDP of Norway is about $12,000 more than for US http://hdrstats.undp.org/en/indicators/62006.html
GNI of Norway is higher http://hdrstats.undp.org/en/indicators/90406.html
Unemployment rate is lower http://hdrstats.undp.org/en/indicators/44006.html (So much for higher taxes leading to job cuts, you know, automatically)
When I built my own dataset, with nothing included but income factors, Luxenbourg is 1, Norway 2, Hong Kong is 3, Iceland is 9, Denmark 11, Finland is 14. Can't find the US on the list. Literally.
-
http://mises.org/daily/2259
The reason Sweden no longer trails the rest of Europe is that these reforms, which have not been implemented in most continental European countires, have made the Swedish economy relatively freer.
And even with these reforms, Sweden has not, in fact, performed better than the rest of Europe. While headline GDP growth has been slightly higher, this advantage disappears when taking into account that Sweden's terms of trade have deteriorated significantly.
And if we exclude heavy-weight laggards Germany and Italy, Sweden has in fact continued to fall behind the Continent, event with Europe's dismal performance compared to most other parts of the world.
If we look beneath the aggregate production figures, we can see deep structural problems. The number of people employed is now 6% lower than in 1990, a weaker development than in any other western economy. By contrast, even with the weak job growth in recent years (by American standards), employment in the United States is 20% higher than in 1990.
And the number of people employed in Sweden is actually lower than in 1980, too. You have to go back to the mid-1970s to find employment numbers lower than the current ones. While total employment has been roughly unchanged since 1975, it masks a significant decline in male employment. And if you look only at the private sector, employment is now at a level lower than in 1950.
Social Democrats still often claim that Sweden has a comparatively high employment rate, but this claim is based on deceptive employment statistics that count as employed many who have been on long-term sick leave or in some other way on the receiving end of transfer payment programs, even though they don't actually work.Moreover, the "stay at home mom" is very rare in Sweden. Because of the incentives created by the feminist construction of the Swedish welfare system, mothers mostly leave their children at government day care centers. Even if you believe that mothers who stay home to take care of their children are the victims of patriarchical oppression, you cannot deny the childcare takes a lot of work, but only those who take care of other people's children count as employed. By shifting childcare from the home to the public sector, the government further exaggerates Swedish employment figures.
The headline unemployment rate in Sweden is only 5–5.5%, but this number is extremely misleading as it only includes a small number of the people who the government pays not to work. Many unemployed are sent to so-called "labor market political activities" — activities whose only purpose is to reduce the official unemployment rate.
If we ignore this ruse, unemployment is 8%. And if you also include the enormous number of early retirees and people who live off sickness benefits, the real unemployment rate is more like 25%. The number of early retirees is 540,000, more than double the number of officially unemployed. Among non-Western immigrants, the real unemployment rate is higher than 50%.All of this is exactly what we should expect from transfer payment benefits to people who don't work, from massive payroll taxes, income taxes, and value-added taxes. This has greatly inhibited the growth of a labor-intensive private-service sector that could have provided jobs for many of the unemployed immigrants.
-
The same basic argument can be made about the unemployment rate in the US, where that statistic is based on people are looking for work. Many give up before finding a job, so the unemployment rate in the US is not a real indication of the number people working. Next argument, please.
-
The Swedish model, when it was successful, was based on a homogeneous society with a universally strong cultural work ethic. Free services and high taxes made more sense when everyone had a stake in it. That hardly comparable with the USA with more than half the people not producing.
Sweden now faces it its own immigration influx with its own cultural problems and is quickly backing away from the so-called Swedish model.
All that said, not everyone agrees with the conclusion that Europe or Sweden is richer than the U.S. Per capita income comparisons vary greatly based on exchange rates and purchasing power. Adjusted for purchasing power parity using 2008 data, Sweden would actually be the 43rd richest state in the union, if part of America. Germany would be 46th and France or Belgium would be 48th. Data Sources: GDP by state (BEA), state population (Census), European GDP-PPP per capita (World Bank via Wikipedia).
http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2010/01/paul-krugman-extols-europes-economic.html (University of Michigan)
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_otfwl2zc6Qc/S1C7-ttdD0I/AAAAAAAAMeo/CpePjzdmx1o/s1600/eu2008new.jpg)
-
"But economists can predict with absolute certainty that tax cuts will produce X in increased revenue/jobs/etc.? Of course not, but the willingness to believe that is undeterred."
Here's what I believe. Efficient taxation has some optimal tax rate for maximizing revenue and minimizing damage to the economy based on the disincentive to produce that it inflicts. We can't know that exact rate with exact certainty. If we are already below that rate, cutting taxes costs revenue. If we are above the rate, as is usually the case, revenues surge in a sustained way when tax rate cuts are implemented.
Examples:
1) JFK tax rate cuts spurred economic growth and increased revenues
2) Reagan cuts from 70% to 28% and revenues doubled in the 1980s
3) Capital gains tax rate cuts under Clinton-Gingrich - 20 million new jobs(?)
4) Bush Tax rate cuts: 50 months continuous job growth until impending expiration became a certainty.
All of these examples above acted to grow the economy and grow revenues to the Treasury. Not shown in these numbers is that revenues to the STATE treasuries also surge with tax cut inspired economic growth. I have read economists who say otherwise but I prefer to believe my lying eyes. http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy09/pdf/hist.pdf p.22
"There are models, with margins of error, standard deviations, error terms (not that those are included enough) and even the models that include a dozen or more variables can only predict a small portion of the outcome."
Yes, and in the most important analysis, we don't use them. CBO/OMB are still stuck on static analysis, pretending to deny that an incentive/disincentive effect comes into play. After the implementation of the 2003 tax rate cuts, actual revenues realized surpassed official revenue predictions by as much as a hundred billion dollars per year:.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/09/washington/09econ.html
Surprising Jump in Tax Revenues Is Curbing Deficit
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
Published: July 9, 2006
WASHINGTON, July 8 — An unexpectedly steep rise in tax revenues from corporations and the wealthy is driving down the projected budget deficit this year, even though spending has climbed sharply because of the war in Iraq and the cost of hurricane relief. On Tuesday, White House officials are expected to announce that the tax receipts will be about $250 billion above last year's levels (11.6% increase in one year! - DM) and that the deficit will be about $100 billion less than what they projected six months ago.
-----------
BD, Would you contend that the fact that economic growth started exactly with the tax rate cuts, lasted 50 consecutive months, and ended exactly at the moment that Dems took congress promising higher tax rates on employers and the unemployment curve headed decidedly upward - is strictly a COINCIDENCE?
(http://i603.photobucket.com/albums/tt114/dougmacg/unemployment.gif)
-
DMG: Excellent posts. I would note that Norway would be the 6th ranked state. I'm not sure that undermines my argument, since I had been focusing on Norway as a point of comparison.
I'm not sure what you mean about not using models for the most important analysis.
Perhaps I've not been clear, but my point was not that tax cuts can't/don't/won't lead to jobs. It's that it doesn't necessarily lead to jobs. There are other issues at hand.
Are you contending that the tax cuts led directly to the recession? If not, there is one pretty obvious issue.
-
http://www.heritage.org/index/Ranking
Economic freedom rankings.
-
GM: "Economic freedom rankings." USA = no. 9. (44th in the freedom to produce our own energy.) What medal does one get in the Olympics for 9th place, or 44th? We can put a man on the moon. Can't we set a national priority of moving up that list?
Bigdog: "I'm not sure what you mean about not using models for the most important analysis." - We have serious politicians and political arms like CBO/OMB that refuse to include the best tools available to include changes in behavior in their predictions of outcomes. In other words they will say that a tax hike of 1% on a million will bring new revenues of $10,000, when in fact some people will move assets, change economic activity, retire early or leave like in Maryland where a tax tax rate increase moved revenues backwards. The rich in particular have the greatest ability to change their economic behavior and you never grow jobs by chasing away investment.
I have long proposed requiring an unintended consequences statement approved with new taxes or renewed spending along the lines of an environmental impact statement required of developers. We need to discuss publicly what are the other effects of our policies, not only the intended or stated ones. One obvious impact of some current policies is the flight to unproductive assets like gold and silver and out of job creation investments.
------------
"It's that [tax rate cuts] doesn't necessarily lead to jobs. There are other issues at hand."
True, although they have a pretty stellar record in my lifetime; I listed 4 large examples. Other issues is the point I was trying to make saying that George W. Bush gave supply side economics a bad name without ever trying it. Yes, he cut tax rates (did one thing right) and then let everything else run in the direction of bigger and bigger government consuming more and more resources in the economy, controlling the private sector, starving the private sector of those resources and burdening the private sector with that cost whether it is taxed or not. Hardly supply side economics unless one believes big government is the supplier. :-(
"Are you contending that the tax cuts led directly to the recession? If not, there is one pretty obvious issue."
I think I said that the certainty of tax rate increases coming is what triggered the collapse. Tax increases coming, also symbolic of other anti-employment policies meant the end of job growth. The end of job growth meant that high priced, highly leveraged homes were now over-priced and over-leveraged. A tax increase certain for later means not only that investors have to sell before the tax increase ... each investor knew he/she had to selloff before the other investors do or they will lose all those gains anyway. And they did.
-
I wish we could talk things out over some beers DougMacG. I often feel like we take different approaches to addressing the same issues. I think we should run on the same ticket some time.
Denmark, a Scandanavian country, is number 8.
-
Canada is doing much better than us, didn't used to be the case. We are headed in the wrong direction.
-
Our national expeiments with welfare-stateism have left us with our current financial nightmare and the ticking medicare and social security timebombs. To quote our president's spiritual advisor of twenty years "Chickens are coming home to roost". How much more is the Obamacare debacle going to cost?
-
Bigdog: "I wish we could talk things out over some beers DougMacG. I often feel like we take different approaches to addressing the same issues. I think we should run on the same ticket some time."
I would be honored to have a beer summit with you, no preconditions. In the meantime I would like to learn all I can about your approach to the issues. When we get to the point of running on the same ticket, I'm hope the discussion will have moved beyond the liberal fascism thread. :wink:
-
A beer summit could lead to excellent photo ops, and serve as a launching pad for the campaign! Maybe we can even rent a big bus with ours names on it, drive it around, and say we are on vacation???
Bigdog: "I wish we could talk things out over some beers DougMacG. I often feel like we take different approaches to addressing the same issues. I think we should run on the same ticket some time."
I would be honored to have a beer summit with you, no preconditions. In the meantime I would like to learn all I can about your approach to the issues. When we get to the point of running on the same ticket, I'm hope the discussion will have moved beyond the liberal fascism thread. :wink:
-
Ok, BD. You are the new president to be sworn in 1/2013. What policies would you want to dig us out of our economic crisis.
-
An outstanding question. May I suggest the Poltical Economics thread for its discussion?
In the context of a conversation about some chilling color photos of Hitler, Nazi rallies, etc. in the 1930s that recently surfaced, an internet friend writes:
===================
I am reading about another "picture" of 1939 Nazi Germany -- a verbal picture that is even more frightening. This ePub formatted book, The Vampire Economy, was written in 1939. It paints a detailed picture of what living under National Socialism (the Nazi government) was like from the business man's point of view. I haven't finished the book yet, but the opening chapters are enough to demonstrate that we don't ever want to "go there."
More frightening than this history itself is the light that it shines on contemporary economies in the US and around the world. Almost everywhere, people are accepting a version of "state capitalism" as their definition of "capitalism" or even their definition of "free markets." The growing number of economic "features" we share with Nazi Germany is, for me, a very disturbing development. Most of the bureaucratic details enumerated in the attached book are not to be seen in the 2011 USA, but far too many are right here, front and center. Consider the author's discussion of the "contact man":
"THE business organization of private enterprise has had to be reorganized in accordance with the new state of things. Departments which previously were the heart of a firm have become of minor importance. Other departments which either did not exist or which had only auxiliary functions have become dominant and have usurped the real functions of management.
Formerly the purchasing agent and the salesmanager were among the most important members of a business organization. Today the emphasis has shifted and a curious new business aide, a sort of combination “go-between” and public relations counsel, is now all-important. His job ... is to maintain good personal relations with officials in the Economic Ministry, where he is an almost daily caller; he studies all the new regulations and decrees, knows how to interpret them in relation to his particular firm and is able to guess at what may be permitted or forbidden. In other words, it is his business to know how far one can go without being caught."
As the author explains this role in detail, it becomes clear that it isn't so different from that of our lobbyists and our tax attorneys. As to the importance of government connections, consider Dick Cheney's importance to Halliburton.
Could the US ever reach Nazi Germany's demented depths of state capitalism (i.e. fascism)? I would like to think that is impossible, but who knows? As this book makes clear, Nazi Germany would have been a horror even if genocide had never been on its agenda. Consider also that in the 1930s the US implemented a system that was a virtual copy of Italy's fascist government -- take a look at The Sources of New Deal Regime Uncertainty (http://mises.org/daily/5271/The-Sources-of-New-Deal-Regime-Uncertainty). A shocking number of Nazi Germany's economic methods were on display in the USA in this very same 1937-1939 period.
-
http://www.daybydaycartoon.com/2011/05/31/ and http://www.daybydaycartoon.com/2011/06/01/ on the race baiting tactics of the left
-
THINK LIKE US - OR ELSE
Last Updated: 5:00 AM, June 4, 2007
Posted: 5:00 AM, June 4, 2007
COLUMBIA University's Teachers College is one of America's most prestigious education schools. For many students, it's proba bly the best - but not if you don't buy the school's definition of "social justice."
Teachers College evaluates students in part on the basis of so-called "dispositions," defined as "observable behaviors" that "involve the use of certain skills." One "disposition" is the student's "Respect for Diversity and Commitment to Social Justice."
This warps the discussion of whether a student might make a good teacher into whether that student has the "correct" personal, religious or political beliefs. Evaluating students' aptitude for teaching based on their commitment to "social justice" necessarily means that only one definition of "social justice" counts: Teachers College's definition, which demands that students recognize how "the legitimacy of the social order [is] flawed."
School materials call adherence to the college's definition of "social justice" a "critical" part of student performance. The definition requires students to accept, for example, that belief in the importance of "merit, social mobility and individual responsibility" is a merely a justification for "social inequalities." That is, a student who considers individual responsibility to be good would be a "bad" teacher.
Potentially great teachers with different opinions on what "social justice" means - devout Christians, Orthodox Jews or Randian atheists, for example - might be deemed insufficiently "correct" to graduate.
Unfortunately, reliance on politically loaded grading criteria to assess student performance isn't limited to Teachers College - it's a national problem. Until June 2006, the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education required education schools seeking accreditation to consider "dispositions" like "a candidate's commitment to social justice" when evaluating students. NCATE has since dropped the requirement under criticism that it constituted a political litmus test.
Students whose understanding of "social justice" doesn't match that of their instructors have faced punishment across the country.
* Washington State University student Ed Swan received negative evaluations after telling a professor he was a conservative Christian, opposed gun control and believed that "white privilege and male privilege do not exist." He also had to attend mandatory diversity training and sign a "contract" agreeing to abide by the views of his professors or face expulsion.
* Le Moyne College in Syracuse expelled Scott McConnell after he stated in a writing assignment that he supported corporeal punishment and opposed "multicultural education."
Social-work students have faced similar problems.
* Emily Rooker, a student at Missouri State University, was required to send a signed letter to the Missouri Legislature supporting homosexual foster parenting and adoption. When she refused, faculty members attacked her for violating the school's policies.
* A prof at Rhode Island College told conservative student Bill Felkner that he'd get a lower grade if he refused to lobby the state Legislature on behalf of "progressive social change."
* At Brooklyn College School of Education, Professor K.C. Johnson was threatened with an official school investigation after publicly speaking out against the use of "dispositions."
Under pressure, Teachers College President Susan Fuhrman has claimed that the school doesn't evaluate students on their beliefs. However, she also recently indicated that Teachers College might change its written policies to match what she insists are its neutral practices.
If Teachers College really does believe that good teachers can come from all backgrounds and beliefs, it must change its policies. Until then, it doesn't deserve any accolades.
Written by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (thefire.org).
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/item_YUXWJrUXuVZyNcmxshCvaJ
-
Well, it's not like they supported the death penalty for apostates under sharia..... :roll:
-
:-o :-o :-o
That certainly conflicts with my first impression of the school. I was a high school senior dating a woman about to graduate. I would ditch school and go up to Columbia and she and I would have great sex all day long, then I would go home. :-D :-D :-D
More seriously now, although I graduated from Columbia Law School, which in some circles is a fairly prestigious thing, there have been so many anti-patriotic liberal fascist things that I have seen coming out of the various schools at Columbia that I no longer feel pride in it. :cry:
-
Also posted on the UN thread:
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/does-the-new-white-house-rural-council-uns-agenda-21/
-
Cornyn: Obama Bypassing Congress on Debt Limit is 'Crazy Talk'
Published July 03, 2011
FoxNews.com
Schools and universities across the country on Friday will celebrate the signing of the U.S. Constitution, a portion of which is seen here. But plans to commemorate the day at many federal agencies contacted by FoxNews.com remain unclear.
Sen. John Cornyn warned President Obama on Sunday to not even consider interpreting the Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment to bypass Congress and raise the debt limit without its approval.
"That's crazy talk. It's not acceptable for Congress and the president not to do their job and to say somehow the president has the authority then to basically do this by himself," Cornyn, R-Texas, a former judge on the Texas Supreme Court, told "Fox News Sunday."
The proposal that Obama re-interpret Section 4 of the Fourteenth Amendment to justify raising the $14.3 trillion debt limit has been gaining traction in Democratic circles since Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner told reporters that the Constitution's language could support the president's raising the limit without congressional approval.
'The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for the payments of pension and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion' -- this is the important thing -- 'shall not be questioned,' " Geithner read during a discussion hosted by Politico in May.
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and others on Capitol Hill reportedly acknowledged that the idea is percolating, and had been presented to the president.
"It's certainly worth exploring. I think it needs a little more exploration and study," he said during a conference call with reporters held Friday.
Without addressing efforts to invoke the Constitution, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said Sunday the president and congressional negotiators shouldn't even be discussing a debt deal privately.
"Congress is the constitutional place for this to be decided," said Sessions, who is the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee.
Asked during a press conference Wednesday whether the debt limit was constitutional, the president glossed over the question, saying, "I'm not a Supreme Court justice, so I'm not going to put my constitutional law professor hat on here."
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/07/03/cornyn-obama-bypassing-congress-on-debt-limit-is-crazy-talk/#ixzz1R5XfXq8F
-
Is there anything
Emperor Caliph Buraq can't do?
-
It's an interesting issue.
http://money.cnn.com/2011/06/30/news/economy/debt_ceiling_constitution/?hpt=po_bn1
-
Oy fg vey JDN , , ,
-
I only said, "interesting". :-)
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0311/52235.html
-
http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/archives/37192
Remember when the rule of law meant something?
-
Actually, I guess the rules of law still do mean something. It's "perfectly legal", albeit a bit "unseemly", but "they all do this.....
GM, that's the trouble with quoting from fringe right wing blogs, often no facts to support their opinions. Odd, it seems even your referenced CNS News now agrees it is legal.
Even Melanie Sloan of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), called the activities, "unseemly, but perfectly legal. And they all do this.”
(CNSNews.com) – White House visitor logs reveal that President Obama’s political organization, Obama for America, filmed two campaign videos featuring the president--inside the White House.
Federal law prohibits fundraising by the president in offices used for official business. The White House contends that the mansion’s residential areas do not fall under this prohibition, pointing out that presidents have used the White House for fundraising before without violating the law.
According to the logs, two “OFA Taping” were conducted in November 2010, in the White House Map Room--in the residential area of the mansion. The tapings happened before Obama announced his candidacy for reelection.
OFA is the abbreviation for Obama for America, the official name of the president’s campaign. While he was not officially a candidate for reelection when the tapings were made in November, Obama has maintained his political operation throughout his presidency.
The tapings were conducted on November 1 and November 3, 2010 in the Map Room. The logs indicate that the meetings were scheduled to be with “POTUS” (President of the United States).
The Map Room, currently used as a private meeting room, also has been used for official business. On June 13, Obama used the room to record a video announcing his Campaign to Cut Waste – an effort to eliminate wasteful spending in government.
According to federal law, “It shall be unlawful for an individual who is an officer or employee of the Federal Government, including the President, Vice President, and Members of Congress, to solicit or receive a donation of money or other thing of value in connection with a Federal, State, or local election, while in any room or building occupied in the discharge of official duties.” (Title 18, subsection 607 U.S.C.)
According to background information provided by the White House, President George W. Bush also filmed part of a campaign ad in the residential portion of the White House. President Bush also used a picture of himself in the Oval Office in a fundraising email from the RNC.
Recently, OFA released a video message from Obama announcing that Vice President Joe Biden had been added to a contest for donors to have dinner with the President. That video also was filmed in the Map Room.
In that video, first reported by CNSNews.com, Obama asked supporters to participate in a raffle for the dinner. The raffle is part of an OFA fundraising drive, and supporters who give to the president’s campaign can enter to win the dinner with Obama and Biden.
While the videos are not illegal – presidents have often used the White House as a setting for political material – they do show Obama continuing a controversial practice of using the White House to raise campaign funds as well as for other political functions.
-
**I guess you didn't read to the end, JDN.
If the video was filmed in the Map Room, as it appears to be, then there is no question it violates the law, von Spakovsky explained, because it is clearly part of a fundraising pitch, precisely the type of activity prohibited under the law.
“The video is clearly designed to get people to participate in this raffle and the video takes you directly to a web site – directs you to a web site – where there’s an immediate solicitation for funds,” he said.
Von Spakovsky further said that, at best, Obama was “bending, if not breaking the law” in making the video in the White House.
Cleta Mitchell was more blunt, saying, “it’s a criminal offense.”
-
:?
I read it; I also read other sources. It was made in the residential part of the White House.
"...appears to be the Map Room, located in the mansion area of the White House."
Everyone, even your election watch dog groups acknowledge it's perfectly legal albeit unseemly, but done
before by Bush and others.
Legal. Got it? Next subject
:-D
-
:?
I read it; I also read other sources. It was made in the residential part of the White House.
"...appears to be the Map Room, located in the mansion area of the White House."
Everyone, even your election watch dog groups acknowledge it's perfectly legal albeit unseemly, but done
before by Bush and others.
Legal. Got it? Next subject
:-D
"If the video was filmed in the Map Room, as it appears to be, then there is no question it violates the law, von Spakovsky explained, because it is clearly part of a fundraising pitch, precisely the type of activity prohibited under the law."
Not legal. I can imagine you are eager to move on though.
-
I'm eager to move on because this is a "Non Sequitur".
"unseemly" but hardly illegal. Check it out....
It's quite clear. Only a few fringe players to whom no one is listening complain.
Even your election watchdogs say it's legal - got it?
Not to mention Republicans have done the same....
unseemly.... :-o
Remind me to call you "Don Quixote" chasing mythical dragons. :-D
You don't give up and move on, even in the face of irrefutable facts.
-
Yes, there is no pattern of conduct here. Ignore the new black panther party's voter suppression, ignore the "gunwalker" scandal, ignore the debt limit, ignore the war powers act, ignore any law Obama doesn't like, right?
-
(http://bigjournalism.com/files/2011/06/Blago-Obama.jpg)
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/12/questions-arise.html
And, it should be pointed out, Mr. Obama has a relationship with Mr. Blagojevich, having not only endorsed Blagojevich in 2002 and 2006, but having served as a top adviser to the Illinois governor in his first 2002 run for the state house.
In the Democratic gubernatorial primary that year, then-state sen. Obama endorsed former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris. But after Blagojevich won, Obama came around enthusiastically. At the same time, meanwhile, Axelrod had such serious concerns about whether Blagojevich was ready for governing he refused to work for his one-time client.
According to Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., Mr. Obama's incoming White House chief of staff, Emanuel, then-state senator Obama, a third Blagojevich aide, and Blagojevich's campaign co-chair, David Wilhelm, were the top strategists of Blagojevich's 2002 gubernatorial victory.
Emanuel told the New Yorker earlier this year that he and Obama "participated in a small group that met weekly when Rod was running for governor. We basically laid out the general election, Barack and I and these two."
-
We're drifting a bit afield here, e.g. Blagojevich more properly belongs in the Corruption thread, ditto the fund raising in the WH issue. The subject at hand is whether the ignoring the debt ceiling is C'l or a fascist type above-the-law action.
-
Time magazine: Has Nancy Pelosi Been Marginalized in the Debt Debate?
By Jay Newton-Small Friday, July 8, 2011
...Nancy Pelosi asked: Why couldn’t the debt ceiling be decoupled from deficit reduction?...
Obama politely informed the House Minority Leader, those same sources say, that that train had left the station weeks ago.
-------------
http://swampland.time.com/2011/07/08/has-nancy-pelosi-been-marginalized-in-the-debt-debate/#ixzz1RuVh7gm0
-
Short video, minute and a half exposes by Glen Beck's 'the blaze': Keith Ellison speaking to Campus Progress Conference July 6, 2011. Good to Keith getting his confidence back to his incite violence in Minneapolis days, 'we don't get no justice, you don't get no peace'. A luncheon not a riot, this is a little more civil. Who is their enemy now and the applause line? Michele Bachmann, lol.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JiPJkahZ_Q&feature=player_embedded#at=65
"The hour is such, the hour is such - that that group of people who have always been afraid of change.
They didn't want to end slavery. They wanted states' rights. They didn't want women to vote. They didn't want people to organize on the job. These people, they didn't want to see our country get bigger and stronger and increase who was included.
I'm tellin you, these folks, these so-called conservative have only wanted to conserve the status quo. they have been against change for a long time. They have ideological forebearers, do you understand what I'm trying to say to you?
These same people that want to shrink government until you can drown it in a bath tub, also want mom to get back in the kitchen, take her shoes off and get pregnant. Do ya understand, they are offended by a strong powerful woman. And here's the sad part. Some of them are women themselves. Michelle Bachmann would be an example, APPLAUSE. So let's stand up for women's rights..."
-
Pathological Economics:
(Why do they say they have been in "business' three years when they hnave been government supported for 3 years?)
http://www.ksbw.com/money/28586219/detail.html#ixzz1SmjEFBvJ
Electric Car Maker Folds, Salinas Loses $500,000
[EMAIL: Electric Car Maker Folds, Salinas Loses $500,000] Email [PRINT: Electric Car Maker Folds, Salinas Loses $500,000]
A Salinas car manufacturing company that was expected to build environmentally friendly electric cars and create new jobs folded before almost any vehicles could run off the assembly line.
The city of Salinas had invested more than half a million dollars in Green Vehicles, an electric car start-up company.
All of that money is now gone, according to Green Vehicles President and Co-Founder Mike Ryan.
PHOTOS: Green Vehicles Flops In Salinas
The start-up company set up shop in Salinas in the summer of 2009, after the city gave Ryan a $300,000 community development grant.
When the company still ran into financial trouble last year, the city of Salinas handed Ryan an additional $240,000. Green Vehicles also received $187,000 from the California Energy Commission.
Salinas Mayor Dennis Donohue said he was "surprised and disappointed" by the news. City officials were equally irked that Ryan notified them through an email that his company had crashed and burned.
Salinas Economic Development Director Jeff Weir said Green Vehicles flopped because of a lack of investors.
Donohue said he will work with the state to try to get at least $240,000 back from the now-defunct company.
Mike Ryan
YouTube
Green Vehicles President and Co-Founder Mike Ryan
Last year, Salinas city officials said they were excited about Green Vehicles moving from San Jose to Salinas because they wanted to turn Salinas into a hub for alternative energy production.
City leaders wooed Green Vehicles to jump-start the sputtering local company and turn Salinas into an "electric valley." Donohue and Weir both voiced their high hopes for Green Vehicles.
The start-up company promised city leaders that it would create 70 new jobs and pay $700,000 in taxes a year to Salinas.
Green Vehicles was supposed to be up and running by March 2010 inside their 80,000-square-foot space at Firestone Business Park off of Abbot Street.
Ryan had lofty goals, listing his company's mission as: "To make the best clean commuter vehicles in the world; To manufacture with a radical sense of responsibility; To engage in deep transparency as an inspiration for new ways of doing business."
Green Vehicles designed two vehicles, the TRIAC 2.0 and the MOOSE, which it planned to manufacture.
On July 12, Ryan wrote a blog post announcing that his company was closing.
"The truth is that not realizing the vision for this company is a huge disappointment," Ryan wrote.
Ryan outlined three mistakes he made while steering his company into a brick wall. All three reasons boiled down failing to generate enough capital.
Click the video below to watch Ryan being interviewed last year.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cs7crWLL268&feature=player_embedded
-
"The new requirements would call for funds to report information about the assets they manage, potential conflicts of interest, and information on investors and employees."
Insider info cover up? Oh he is so for the "poor".
***By Robert Holmes 07/26/11 - 08:04 AM EDT
(TheStreet) -- George Soros, the billionaire hedge-fund manager and philanthropist best known for breaking the Bank of England in 1992, will return capital to investors in order to avoid reporting requirements under the Dodd Frank reform act.
Soros will return money to investors by the end of the year, Bloomberg reported Tuesday, citing two people briefed on the matter. Soros Fund Management will focus on managing assets for his family, according to a letter to the firm's investors. Soros will turn 81 on August 12.
George Soros
"We wish to express our gratitude to those who chose to invest their capital with Soros Fund Management LLC over the last nearly 40 years," the letter to investors reads, according to the Bloomberg report. "We trust that you have felt well rewarded for your decision over time."
Initial media reports trumpeted the end of Soros' 40-year career as a hedge-fund manager, although the billionaire investor's firm is far from being done. Soros will return less than $1 billion to external investors, a drop in the bucket compared to the firm's total assets of more than $25 billion.
The reason? Under new requirements from the Dodd Frank act, hedge funds are required to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission by March 2012 if the fund continues to manage more than $150 million in assets for outside investors. The new requirements would call for funds to report information about the assets they manage, potential conflicts of interest, and information on investors and employees. The act allows an exemption for what the Commission considers "family office" advisers.
"We have relied until now on other exemptions from registration which allowed outside shareholders whose interests aligned with those of the family investors to remain invested in Quantum," the letter continued, according to the Bloomberg report. "As those other exemptions are no longer available under the new regulations, Soros Fund Management will now complete the transition to a family office that it began eleven years ago."
While less than $1 billion is small compared to the firm's overall assets, some positions will have to be trimmed through the end of the year. According to Soros' last 13F filling with the SEC for the quarter ended March 31, his firm's top 10 holdings included Adecoagro(AGRO_), InterOil(IOC_), Motorola Solutions(MSI_), Monsanto(MON_), Citigroup(C_) and Wells Fargo(WFC_), among others.
-- Written by Robert Holmes in Boston.***
-
I don't understand the whole electric car thing. We have a Prius, which is really nice. It recaptures heat from the breaks to charge the battery, and uses the battery to improve the fuel economy. Nothing powers the car besides the gas. It doesn't plug in.
Do people think electric cars get their power magically from the sky? For the most part, nuclear power plants, solar, wind, and hydro are all producing the maximum amount of power they are going to produce. Most places, if you plug a car into a wall, the power plant is just going to burn more coal. I don't see how that is really green.
I guess the coal plant could have modern scrubbers and at least you aren't ruining Yellow Stone with your oil spills - but burning something is still running your car and it isn't healthy.
-
You can drive almost anywhere in the state of Michigan — pick a point at random and start moving — and you will soon come upon the wreckage of American industry. If you happen to be driving on the outer edge of Midland, you’ll also come upon a cavern of steel beams and ductwork, 400,000 square feet in all. When this plant, which is being constructed by Dow Kokam, a new venture partly owned by Dow Chemical, is up and running early next year, it will produce hundreds of thousands of advanced lithium-ion battery cells for hybrid and electric cars. Just as important, it will provide about 350 jobs in a state with one of the nation’s highest unemployment rates.
Over the last two years, the federal government has doled out nearly $2.5 billion in stimulus dollars to roughly 30 companies involved in advanced battery technology. Many of these might seem less like viable businesses than scenery for political photo ops — places President Obama can repeatedly visit (as he did early this month) to demonstrate his efforts at job creation. But in fact, the battery start-ups are more legitimate, and also more controversial, than that. They represent “the far edge,” as one White House official put it, of where the president or Congress might go to create jobs.
For decades, the federal government has generally resisted throwing its weight —and its money — behind particular industries. If the market was killing manufacturing jobs, it was pointless to fight it. The government wasn’t in the business of picking winners. Many economic theorists have long held that countries inevitably pursue their natural or unique advantages. Some advantages might arise from fertile farmland or gifts of vast mineral resources; others might be rooted in the high education rates of their citizenry. As the former White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers put it, America’s role is to feed a global economy that’s increasingly based on knowledge and services rather than on making stuff. So even as governments in China and Japan offered aid to industries they deemed important, factories in the United States closed or moved abroad. The conviction in Washington was that manufacturing deserved no special dispensation. Even now, as unemployment ravages the country, so-called industrial policy remains politically toxic. Legislators will not debate it; most will not even speak its name.
By almost any account, the White House has fallen woefully short on job creation during the past two and a half years. But galvanized by the potential double payoff of skilled, blue-collar jobs and a dynamic clean-energy industry — the administration has tried to buck the tide with lithium-ion batteries. It had to start almost from scratch. In 2009, the U.S. made less than 2 percent of the world’s lithium-ion batteries. By 2015, the Department of Energy projects that, thanks mostly to the government’s recent largess, the United States will have the capacity to produce 40 percent of them. Whichever country figures out how to lead in the production of lithium-ion batteries will be well positioned to capture “a large piece of the world’s future economic prosperity,” says Arun Majumdar, the head of the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). The batteries, he stressed, are essential to the future of the global-transportation business and to a variety of clean-energy industries.
We may marvel at the hardware and software of mobile phones and laptops, but batteries don’t get the credit they deserve. Without a lithium-ion battery, your iPad would be a kludge. The new Chevrolet Volt and Nissan Leaf rely on big racks of lithium-ion battery cells to hold their electric charges, and a number of new models — including those from Ford and Toyota, which use similar battery technology — are on their way to showrooms within the next 18 months.
This flurry of activity comes against a dismal backdrop. In the last decade, the United States lost some five million manufacturing jobs, a contraction of about one-third. Added to the equally brutal decades that preceded it, this decline left large swaths of the country, the Great Lakes region in particular, without a clear economic future. As I drove through the hollowed-out cities and towns of Michigan earlier this year, it was hard to tell how some of these places could survive. Inside the handful of battery companies that I visited, though, the mood was starkly different. Many companies are working on battery-pack designs for dozens of car models. At the Johnson Controls factory in Holland, Mich., Ray Shemanski, who is in charge of the company’s lithium-ion operation, said, “We have orders that would fill this plant right now.” Every company I visited not only had plans to get their primary factories running full speed by 2012 or 2013 but also to build or expand others. Jennifer Granholm, Michigan’s former governor, has predicted that advanced batteries will create 62,000 jobs over the next decade.
============
(Page 2 of 6)
It is tempting to see in this the stirrings of an industrial revolution. These days, confidence is itself a rare and precious fuel, and in Michigan’s nascent battery belt, there is no shortage of it. As the country’s jobless rate hovers above 9 percent, could this manufacturing revival be part of the answer to the jobs crisis? Or is it merely an expensive government bet on a lost cause?
About 30 minutes northwest of Detroit, just off the Interstate, in Livonia, sits the modern, red brick automotive headquarters of A123 Systems, a beneficiary of about $375 million in federal stimulus funds and matching state grants. (Later in the article it is stated that a plant should generate 300-400 jobs. If my math is correct this is about $1,000,000 per job) A123 provides the cells for a new electric car called the Fisker Karma, as well as various electric bus and truck projects around the world. A123 is also the first large-scale lithium-ion manufacturer whose domestic operations are up and running, though its pedigree is international. Its battery technology was developed at M.I.T., and for the last several years, the company had been making its lithium-ion cells in factories in Korea and China. When I asked Jason Forcier, the head of A123’s automotive division, why the company went to Asia to make its products, Forcier said he had no choice. “That’s where the supply base was,” he said. “That’s where the know-how was — it was nonexistent in the U.S.”
Repatriating a high-tech manufacturing plant to the United States is not simply a matter of hiring the local talent. It requires good-old foreign know-how. “We call it ‘copy exact,’ ” Forcier said. “We bought a company in Korea that had the technology around this type of battery and had developed the manufacturing process there. We basically brought that here, copied it exactly and scaled it up.” A123 also brought a team of six Korean engineers to help transfer the technology to the U.S. and sent a team of Americans to Korea to learn.
I heard a similar story at LG Chem Power — a battery start-up and an American subsidiary of LG Chem, a Korean firm. LG Chem is building a factory in Holland, Mich., to make batteries for the Chevy Volt. Production depends on replicating the company’s lithium-ion plants abroad, down to the smallest detail. “In fact, we’re making it like a copy — cut and pasted from Korea to here,” Prabhakar Patil, the C.E.O. of LG Chem Power, said.
Neither Forcier nor Patil made any apologies. Each told me that the moves to Michigan provided them with a skilled work force and operating expenses that are largely competitive with factories abroad. (Only 5 to 10 percent of the cost of a battery cell, Patil told me, comes from labor; material accounts for the bulk of expenses.) Each also saw his company’s strategy of importing manufacturing technology to the United States as imperative. A state-of-the-art lithium-ion battery plant is as different from an automobile plant as a science lab is from a gymnasium. Cell-making — the automated administration of thin chemical coatings on the batteries’ inner components; the mechanized cutting and folding of metal parts; the workers in sanitary “bunny suits” overseeing conveyor belts that move pristine cells through sealed assembly chambers — is painstakingly precise. A stray hair or a drop of sweat can ruin a lithium-ion cell. “Don’t touch anything,” Forcier advised me as we began to walk through the factory at A123.
Lithium-ion cells like the ones made at A123 probably don’t look like any battery you’ve ever used. They are stiff, rectangular, metallic-colored envelopes, roughly the dimensions of a thin trade paperback, with two small tabs. Individually, the cells aren’t much use for a car; they must be stacked with others in modules or packs. The Chevy Volt, for instance, has a pack of 288 cells, wired together and running down the center of the car. The pack is the most expensive and sophisticated element of the car, much in the way the processor is the most important element of a computer. Everything about the cell pack — its interior chemistry, its unifying electronics, its cooling systems — is variable and made to order. “With G.M., we’ve been working for two years on their exact requirements for the next-generation Volt,” Michael Sinkula, a founder of a battery-component company called Envia Systems, explained. “They say: ‘We want it to perform this way. Is that possible?’ And then we tell them if it’s possible.”
=========================
(Page 3 of 6)
The Volt is just one car, of course — one whose sales are unremarkable. Still, the global automobile market is so large that even modest gains in market share could spark tremendous growth for battery-makers. “If you look at the year 2016, and you say, ‘Only 5 percent of the market is electrified?’ Well, that’s a $14 billion market for lithium-ion batteries,” Forcier says. “To hit 5 percent is a huge number of vehicles. And the business around making lithium-ion batteries for 5 percent of the world’s cars is a huge, huge business.”
In the late ’80s, Patil, of LG Chem Power, was working at Ford, trying to build a pure electric-battery vehicle called the ETX and getting nowhere. He was using a more primitivelead-acid battery technology. Automotive engineers tend to use two distinct measures — power and energy — to evaluate battery chemistries. Power relates to acceleration; energy relates to how far a car can travel before it needs to be recharged. The ETX wasn’t good by either yardstick. “The car went 0 to 60 in 12 seconds,” Patil recalls. “Its range was 60 miles on a good day.” The lead-acid batteries were so heavy that the cars were nicknamed lead sleds. With a performance and range so inferior to a typical gasoline vehicle, how could you expect a consumer to pay a premium — what was then about $10,000 — for it?
Eventually, lead-acid batteries yielded to nickel-metal hydride, which was incorporated into the Toyota Prius and, later, a range of hybrid vehicles. At the same time, a more promising battery chemistry based on lithium — with far greater potential for both power and energy — was being developed by various scientists, notably John Goodenough at the University of Texas. Sony was the first company to broadly adapt the lithium technology at its factories in the early 1990s; the company consistently improved the product and began incorporating it into consumer-electronic devices. But automakers couldn’t figure out how to cost-effectively adapt the technology. Patil recalls a “chicken-and-egg problem” as he tried to build a Ford Escape hybrid in the late 1990s. “I used to get thrown out of C.E.O.’s’ battery offices regularly,” he said. “They said: ‘Show me the market. Otherwise, leave.’ ” Patil knew there could be no market in the United States without significant drops in the batteries’ price and significant increases in their performance. But it was a Catch-22. Improvements in price and performance were impossible unless companies became serious about manufacturing.
Federal agencies like the Department of Energy have long financed scientific research — through university grants, for instance — on technologies like lithium-ion batteries. But a basic feature of government policy is to allow corporations and entrepreneurs to pick through the results of that research, commercialize the promising ideas and let the market sort things out. In other countries, it often works differently. Governments are more willing to help companies pool information about a new industry or technology and (especially in Korea and China) assist with the early-stagecommercialization of products, including the construction of plants. While Patil was getting booted from executive offices at Ford, companies in Asia, in some cases with a boost from their governments, focused on streamlining the manufacturing process. Battery performance steadily improved, and costs dropped. By the mid-2000s, it was clear that if the lithium-ion battery continued to get better at the same rate, the product might soon be suited for automobiles.
In January 2009, two weeks before Barack Obama’s inauguration, Senator Carl Levin of Michigan sent a letter to Obama and his advisers — Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod and Lawrence Summers — about the promise of lithium-ion technology. “The country or region that controls and dominates the production of batteries will also ultimately control green-vehicle production,” Levin said in a speech he later gave to the Senate. Levin’s efforts effectively laid the groundwork for battery grants to be part of the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
===================
(Page 4 of 6)
“It was a calculated risk — a lot of money, to be sure, but given the stakes, I think it was a pretty thoughtful bet,” says Ron Bloom, who recently served as an assistant to President Obama for manufacturing policy. “If vehicle electrification really does take off, as many, many people think it will, and we’re not part of it, then we could lose our leadership of the global automobile industry.” Which would be catastrophic. By some estimates, as much as 20 percent of all manufacturing jobs are directly or indirectly related to the automobile industry. Bloom points out that the United States is not the only country betting on batteries; a number of Asian countries have done so as well.
On both sides of the world, the fundamental appeal of expanding manufacturing is jobs. It is a curiosity of modern life that information companies can create extraordinary social disruptions and vast shareholder wealth but relatively few jobs. Facebook has about 2,000 employees worldwide. Google has about 29,000. Even in its new, slimmed-down state, General Motors, a decidedly less valuable company, has about 200,000 employees. What’s more, that number represents only a fraction of the people behind the production of a G.M. car. “When you’re manufacturing anything, even if the work is done by robots and machines, there’s an incredible value chain involved,” Susan Hockfield, the president of M.I.T., says. “Manufacturing is simply this huge engine of job creation.” For batteries, that value chain would include scientists researching improved materials to companies mining ores for metals; contractors building machines for factory work; and designers, engineers and machine operators doing the actual plant work. By some estimates, manufacturing employs about 65 percent of America’s scientists and engineers.
Hockfield recently assembled a commission at M.I.T. to investigate the state of American manufacturing and to offer a plan for its future. “It has been estimated that we need to create 17 to 20 million jobs in the coming decade to recover from the current downturn and meet upcoming job needs,” she said at a conference this past March. “It’s very hard to imagine where those jobs are going to come from unless we seriously get busy reinventing manufacturing.” This logic has been endorsed by Jeffrey Immelt, General Electric’s C.E.O.; Andy Grove, the former chairman of Intel; and Andrew Liveris, Dow Chemical’s C.E.O. A widely circulated 2009 Harvard Business Review article — “Restoring American Competitiveness,” by two Harvard professors, Gary Pisano and Willy Shih — has become one of the touchstones of the manufacturing debate. In the article, Pisano and Shih maintain that U.S. corporations, by offshoring so much manufacturing work over the past few decades, have eroded our ability to raise living standards and curtailed the development of new high-technology industries.
When I spoke with Pisano, he noted that industries like semiconductor chips — the heart of computers and consumer electronics — require the establishment of “an industrial commons,” the skills shared by a large, interlocking group of workers at universities and corporations and in government. The commons loses its vitality if crucial parts of it, like factories or materials suppliers, move abroad, as they mostly have in the case of semiconductors. At first the factories leave; the researchers and development engineers soon follow.
The most punishing effect, however, may be the one that can’t be measured — the technologies and jobs that aren’t created because the industrial ecosystem is degraded. The semiconductor industry, for example, led to the LED-lighting and solar-panel industries, both of which are mostly based in Asia now. “The battery is another fascinating example,” Pisano told me. “The center of gravity is Asia. But why?” If you go back to the 1960s, he says, the American consumer-electronics companies decided they were better off in Japan, and then Korea, where costs were lower. “And then you have to ask: Who had the incentives to make batteries smaller or more powerful or last longer? Not the car industry. The consumer-electronics industry did.” This explains why the U.S. is now playing catch-up with lithium-ion batteries. It also underscores the vulnerability of an economy with a shrinking manufacturing sector. “When one industry moves,” Pisano says, “there can be other industries in the future that follow it that you couldn’t even anticipate.”
======================
(Page 5 of 6)
Even in the battery industry, there are skeptics. Menahem Anderman, a California-based consultant, says that transforming 10 percent of the world’s automobiles into either plug-in hybrids or electric vehicles by 2020 is a pipe dream. His projection is for less than 2 percent. U.S.-based factories, he says, are at a disadvantage. The U.S. industry, he told me, “was not ready to take in $2 billion from the government and spend it wisely. And so now we will build a lot of plants, and we will create overcapacity, and a lot of the companies will fail.” He has no ideological objection to federal support, he adds, “but the status of the technology and the market were incompatible with the desire of the government to create manufacturing jobs.” For pure electric vehicles in particular, which will likely need an expensive battery replacement within 10 years, Anderman still sees the dilemma Patil faced at Ford in the ’90s, when he questioned whether consumers would pay $10,000 more for an inferior car. As Anderman puts it: “Has there ever been, in the modern history of capitalist countries, a new product for which the mainstream customer paid more for less?”
By his math, gas prices have to reach about $7 a gallon to make plug-in electric-hybrid vehicles attractive to consumers. To create demand for fully electric vehicles, gas prices would have to rise even higher. Which means generous government subsidies for purchases of these vehicles. Currently, Chevy Volt owners receive a tax break that brings the cost of the car down to about $33,500, from $41,000. In Washington, several people told me that unless there is consistent and increasing demand, taxpayers will have helped build an industry to nowhere. This fear is what turned so many politicians and policy makers against industrial policy in the first place. When government-backed ventures fail, taxpayers are left on the hook.
For now, battery makers think they can bring down costs quickly enough to be competitive. Improvements in the manufacturing process — spreading a better chemical coating on the sensitive elements inside the batteries, for instance, or raising the plant’s conveyor belt speed ever so slightly — will increase quality and efficiency. I also heard talk of start-ups in California working on new cost-effective chemistries. “We see prices over the next five years coming down 50 percent,” A123’s Forcier told me. “And it’s easy to say that, because we’re quoting 2014 business, and we know what the prices are.”
Whether this adds up to American jobs is less clear. The hope is that lithium-ion plants will seed a network of new chemical and equipment providers. To some extent, this has already happened. Some Japanese and Korean companies have set up shop in the United States, and local colleges are offering training courses for aspiring lithium-ion-battery factory workers. But it’s a fragile ecology. Job numbers are small relative to the huge plants of Detroit’s past. As the former labor secretary Robert Reich pointed out, high-tech manufacturing is increasingly automated. At capacity, the lithium-ion factories in Michigan will each employ between 300 and 400 people. Even the most optimistic forecasts — enough hybrid- and electric-car demand to necessitate several dozen factories — suggest the battery industry can’t significantly offset declines in American manufacturing.
Which doesn’t mean that it’s a bad investment. If nothing else, the Obama administration’s efforts in Michigan reawaken the conversation about industrial policy. To a large extent, this is an old war among Washington politicians. In the 1970s, it was fought over the federal bailouts of Lockheed and Chrysler — and a few years later during debates over whether the country needed to assist domestic companies in their efforts to gain ground on the Japanese in the semiconductor industry. By the time George H. W. Bush ascended to the presidency, the move away from industrial policy was clear.
===================
Published: August 24, 2011
(Page 6 of 6)
“All you had to do in the 1980s was say, ‘That’s industrial policy,’ and it killed anything it was hurled at,” says Senator Levin, who along with Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio is now among the most vocal advocates of such a policy. “It was the kiss of death. And it set us back 10 to 20 years in terms of manufacturing in America.” What is different now, Levin argues, is that “our companies are not competing with those companies in Korea and Japan. They’re competing with those governments that are supporting them. It’s naïve to believe that we just have to let the markets work and we’ll have a strong manufacturing base in America.” In his view, the lithium-ion investments are tantamount to repairing a kind of market failure.
The battery executives I spoke to viewed the stimulus money as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. None seemed to think a federal windfall would come their way again. None saw their business endeavors as inherently political or ideological. And none seemed to believe they could survive if they didn’t drive battery costs down and demonstrate that they could compete with the best lithium-ion factories abroad. “My own feeling is this will happen just as the government incentives wear off,” Patil told me. “By then it has to become a self-sustaining business, and we actually see a line of sight to get there.”
If the battery stimulus ultimately succeeds, does it demonstrate that expanding the United States’ economy only through knowledge and services is no longer a viable strategy? “All of the great new American companies of the past few decades,” says Suzanne Berger, a chairwoman of M.I.T.’s panel on the future of American manufacturing, “have focused on research and development and product definition — Apple, Qualcomm, Cisco.” These were technology companies that could take full advantage of what she calls the “modularity” of the global economy. Their genius resided in the design of their gadgets and information systems; offshoring the industrial work did not leave them at a disadvantage. It did the opposite, greatly reducing costs and raising profits. “Now I think we’re at a really different moment,” Berger says. “We’re seeing a wave of new technologies, in energy, biotechnology, batteries, where there has to be a closer integration between research, development, design, product definition and production.”
One challenge to moving in this direction may be that our banks, hedge funds and venture capitalists are geared toward investing in financial instruments and software companies. In such endeavors, even modest investments can yield extraordinarily quick and large returns. Financing brick-and-mortar factories, by contrast, is expensive and painstaking and offers far less potential for speedy returns. Berger maintains that for the economy to get “full value” from our laboratories’ ideas in energy or biotech — not just new company headquarters but industrial jobs too — we must aspire to a different business model than the one we have come to admire.
Which is to say, companies that have a passing resemblance to A123 Systems in Livonia, Mich. Or to use a more familiar example, a business that looks less like Google and more like Ford.
-
Crafty, I see why you put that POTH article in this category; it fits nicely with the other current MSM / left wing takes that I call 'clueless'. For one thing they quoting Gov. Granholm with her vision of the future without pinning her for her role in the region's demise.
While the central planners were raising taxes and piling on work rules, regulations and litigation costs, companies and comparative advantages were leaving. Now they mourn an economic death and still have no clue or curiosity as to what killed it.
6 pages of evidence that industrial policy doesn't work and they are still pondering how it got a bad name - and where to target next.
I offer this clue to them. Since we don't know where, by looking in the rear view mirror, the next great things will come from or what they will look like, why don't we just make the playing field level and competitive and as unobstructing as possible and let creativity and innovation happen - in a private, freedom-based enterprise system. Imagine THAT!
-
There is a consensus that Obama both over-reached with leftism and is incompetent. From a left point of view, over-reaching left is not good because it energized the opposition and potentially killed the movement. And incompetence is never good.
Answering the 'clueless' series, this is a piece in the daily caller today with ten specific things Obama could have differently (better) and still be a progressive Democrat IMO. I don't agree with all these, but I'm not a moderate Dem. At the end he writes: "Would doing these 10 things have revived the economy? Who knows. Probably not. (Still clueless? - DM) FDR didn’t really revive the economy either until World War II began, as Alter knows. But Obama would have shown leadership and creativity. He wouldn’t be both unsuccessful and disdained." (I still say switch parties and switch directions. Heading off the cliff at 60 mph vs. 80 mph have similar consequences!)
http://dailycaller.com/2011/08/28/top-10-things-obama-should-have-done-differently/
Top 10 Things Obama Could Have Done Differently: Excessively well-sourced Obama boosters are now channeling, not just White House spin but White House self-pity. Both Ezra Klein and Jonathan Alter wonder aloud why our intelligent, conscientious, well-meaning, data-driven President is taking a “pummeling.” ”What could Obama have done?” (Klein) “What, specifically, has he done wrong .. .?” (Alter)
They’re kidding, right? There are plenty of things Obama could have done differently. Most of these mistakes were called out at the time. Here, off the top of my head, are ten things Obama could have done:
1. Not subcontracted out the details of the 2009 stimulus to interest-group-addled Congressional Democrats. Instead, he could have drawn up his own plan that relied more on large, quick payroll tax cuts rather than the ”shovel ready” infrastructure projects that, as Obama later admitted, weren’t shovel ready and (in the case of home-weatherization efforts) were delayed most of the year while bureaucrats figured out how to apply union-backed “prevailing wage” regulations. And why do we think aid to state and local governments–a stimulus centerpiece–had such a big Keynesian “multiplier”? Didn’t many states use the money to pay down their debts rather than retain workers?
2. Sold his health care reform as a valuable benefit for voters that would give them security (they’d be covered) and freedom (they could leave their jobs without losing insurance) rather than as an eat-your-peas plan that would not only “bend the cost curve” by denying treatments but somehow actually reduce the deficit–a sales pitch that assured Obamacare would be unpopular and vulnerable long after Dems rammed it through Congress. At the time, New Yorker‘s Ryan Lizza said that Obama had “staked his presidency” on Budget Director Peter Orszag’s notion that “health care reform is deficit reduction.” It was a stupid bet. He lost it.
3. Made the UAW take a pay cut. Whoever else is to blame, the UAW’s demands for pay and work rules clearly contributed to the need for a taxpayer-subsidized auto bailout. To make sure that future unions were deterred from driving their industries into bankruptcy, Obama demanded cuts in basic pay of … exactly zero. UAW workers gave up their Easter holiday but didn’t suffer any reduction in their $28/hour base wage. Wouldn’t a lot of taxpayers like $28 hour jobs? Even $24 an hour jobs?
4. Pivoted! In 2010, after the health care bill passed, Obama was going to “pivot” to jobs but wasn’t able to do that when … yeah, I don’t remember what prevented him from doing it either. What’s that FDR quote Alter likes to trot out, about “bold, persistent experimentation”? That is not the attitude the Obama White House gives off when it comes to jobs. Maybe the Weitzman profit-sharing plan isn’t the answer. Maybe a use-it-or-lose-it credit card won’t work. Maybe a neo-WPA paying minimum wages wouldn’t attract unemployed middle class workers–though it could be tried in one or two states. But Obama’s attitude has been: “I tried A. I proposed B. So I propose B again. And again. And again.”
5. Not pursued a zombie agenda of “card check” and “comprehensive immigration reform”–two misguided pieces of legislation that Obama must have known had no chance of passage but that he had to pretend to care about to keep key Democratic constituencies on board. What was the harm? The harm was that these issues a) sucked up space in the liberal media, b) made Obama look feckless at best, delusional at worst, when they went nowhere; c) made him look even weaker because it was clear he was willing to suffer consequence (b) in order to keep big Democratic constituencies (labor, Latinos) on board.
6. Dispelled legitimate fears of “corporatism“–that is, fears that he was creating a more Putin-style economy in which big businesses depend on the government for favors (and are granted semi-permanent status if they go along with the program). I don’t think Obama is a corporatist, but he hasn’t done a lot to puncture the accusations. What did electric carmaker Tesla have to promise to get its Dept. of Energy subsidies? Why raid GOP-donor Gibson’s guitars and not Martin guitars? We don’t know. At this point, you have to think the president kind of likes the ambiguity–the vague, implicit macho threat that if you want to play ball in this economy, you’re better off on Team Obama. That’s a good way to guarantee Team Obama will be gone in 2013.
7. Stolen some populist Tea Party thunder by going vigorously after Wall Street. Even Alter says Obama “neglected to use his leverage over the banks and failed to connect well with an angry public.” (Alter was also the first to get Obama’s admission of “shovel-ready” ignorance. How many does it take, Jon?)
8. Not appointed pro-union innovators to NLRB who try to hamstring our biggest remaining industrial exporter by preventing it from opening a non-union factory in South Carolina–and then not had his spokesman say there’s nothing the president can do about it because, hey, the NLRB is “independent.”
9. Faced with Republican demands for leaner government, embraced them! Instead of letting GOPs make him the champion of bigger government and higher taxes, Obama could have said he thought higher taxes are probably inevitable but that he wasn’t going to raise them or cut a penny from benefits until he was sure all the fat has been wrung out of Washington. Become Dr. Cut-the-Bloat! Instead of letting his top management official advertise for a new $80,000-a-year ”deputy speechwriter,” tell him to lead a government-wide diet of the sort private companies conduct all the time. Publicize and promote the agency heads who cut their staffs and lower their budget requests instead of those who protect their turf. Have some “RIFs”–actual layoffs of redundant bureaucrats. The goal would not just be to reduce the deficit but to shrink the government to a level that’s … how do they put it … sustainable. This would be the greatest gift Obama could give to liberalism, and it would leave the Republicans gasping for air, speechless, Don’t they teach “co-optation” in Alinsky School? Given the choice between a triangulator and someone who acts like a triangulator, people will vote for the real triangulator every time.
10. Defend the core of Medicare, a popular universal program that works and (according to Orszag) is cutting costs, rather than proposing to shrink Medicare by raising the eligibility age from 65 to 67. It seems like only yesterday Democrats were trying to lower the Medicare eligibility age to 55–a political winner. Now the party has to defend a standard bearer who wants to raise taxes but who has no sympathy for the most valuable things those taxes pay for. (Screw granny for “green jobs”!).
**********
Would doing these 10 things have revived the economy? Who knows. Probably not. FDR didn’t really revive the economy either until World War II began, as Alter knows. But Obama would have shown leadership and creativity. He wouldn’t be both unsuccessful and disdained.
P.S.: I’m also not saying that Obama is necessarily headed towards a failed presidency in the larger judgment-of-history sense. Just a single-term presidency. If his health care reform sticks, he’ll go down as a success in a way Jimmy Carter won’t. One day soon we may look back on 2011 with fond longing. But that’s not the question Klein and Alter asked.
-
The saying something rotten in Denmark seems appropo here. When we have such a big political supporter/investor in bed with the most powerful pol in the world affecting policy and naturally investing accordingly well...:
****The Examiner Washington Is Barack buddy Buffett betting on bank bailout?
Is Barack buddy Buffett betting on bank bailout?
byTimothy P. Carney Senior Political Columnistposted18 hours ago at8:06pmwith19 Comments
President Barack Obama presents the 2010 Medal of Freedom to Warren Buffett during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House in in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 15, 2011. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)If you're looking for proof that Too Big to Fail is still alive, and that Washington won't leave large financial institutions to the mercies of capitalism, consider billionaire Obama fundraiser Warren Buffett's $5 billion bet on struggling Bank of America.
Buffett, who recently won plaudits for advocating higher taxes, has spent four years betting on bailouts and big government -- and tilting the playing field in that direction by putting his money and prestige at the service of Barack Obama.
Buffett gave the maximum donation to Obama in 2007 -- $4,600 to his campaign, and $28,500 to the Democratic National Committee -- and also hosted a fundraiser for Obama in Omaha. By mid-2008, Obama had tapped Buffett as an official economic adviser to the campaign.
When Wall Street nearly collapsed in September 2008, Buffett rallied behind the Troubled Asset Relief Program, and bet big on its passage. He put $5 billion into failing investment bank Goldman Sachs. "If I didn't think the government was going to act, I would not be doing anything this week," Buffett said on CNBC at the time.
Obama had campaigned against policies that mainly serve wealthy Americans, belittling the notion that "somehow prosperity will trickle down." Obama was the only man in position to block the bailout, but he voted aye and took much of his party with him.
As Congress was passing TARP and Republicans were falling in the polls, Buffett made another investment in Obamanomics, taking a $3 billion stake in General Electric.
Goldman got $10 billion in TARP funds, and by late 2009 was reporting record profits. Buffett made more than $3.6 billion in profit off the investment.
GE never got TARP money, but a month after the Buffett investment, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation gave GE a $139 billion guarantee on its debt, and GE was a regular recipient of other Federal Reserve bailouts besides TARP. Then GE forged an intimate alliance with the Obama administration, boosting investments in greenhouse-gas credits, embryonic stem cells, wind power, battery technology, and trains -- all technologies subsidized by Obama. GE Chief Executive Officer Jeff Immelt, who lauded Obama's "reset capitalism" in which government would be an "industry champion," became Obama's "job czar."
More recently, Buffett said he's considering investments in ethanol pioneer Archer Daniels Midland, nuclear-power king Exelon, and government contracting giant General Dynamics. ADM was built on close ties to politicians, as was Exelon. ADM relies on ethanol subsidies for profits, while Exelon lobbies for greenhouse-gas restrictions that will profit the company's nuclear-power holdings. And General Dynamics, with $139 billion in federal contracts since 2000, is also cozy with government.
In this light, and recalling his Goldman-bailout profit, consider Buffett's investment last week in Bank of America.
Investors had been dumping Bank of America shares, presumably over worries about the mortgages it holds. But B of A holds ugly mortgages mostly because it bought Countrywide in 2008 -- a move government officials encouraged because they thought it would stabilize the financial sector. Similarly, B of A bought up Merrill Lynch with some nudging from the Treasury Department.
Finally, the Obama administration is simultaneously siding with struggling mortgage-holders against their banks while also trying to promote more lending. You could say Uncle Sam owes Bank of America.
At least Moody's, the credit-ratings agency, seems to think so. In a June 2 announcement, Moody's (owned by Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, by the way) wrote that Bank of America's credit rating "currently incorporates an unusual amount of 'uplift' from Moody's systemic support assumptions that were increased during the financial crisis." In other words, Moody's -- and thus most creditors -- assumes the government will not let Bank of America fail.
By putting $5 billion in B of A, Buffett seems to be following his mantra: "Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful." But does the Oracle of Omaha, as he did in 2008, find his courage in the promise of a bailout? And does he have good reason to expect one?
Last week, when Buffett spoke with Obama and decided to invest in Bank of America, we learned that he is hosting another Obama fundraiser. This all sounds familiar.
It's beginning to look a lot like 2008, which is bad news economically -- unless you know how to profit off bailouts.
CORRECTION: This column originally understated the size of Buffett's investment in Bank of America. The correct figure is $5 billion, not $3 billion.
Timothy P.Carney, The Examiner's senior political columnist, can be contacted at tcarney@washingtonexaminer.com. His column appears Monday and Thursday, and his stories and blog posts appear on ExaminerPolitics.com.****
-
Very interesting!
-
A very savy market friend (Rick N. for those in the know) comments:
Buffett negotiated a new issue of perpetual cumulative preferred stock paying a 6% dividend. A cumulative preferred issue means that all unpaid dividends must be paid to Buffett before BAC can pay any dividend to its common shareholders. Right now, Treasury has prohibited BAC from paying any dividend to its common shareholders. Once Treasury permits such a dividend to the common stock, BAC must first pay Buffett all past dividends that it was prevented from paying due to TARP, Treasury and FinReg.
The perpetual nature of the preferred stock makes BAC’s liability to Buffett infinite. Treasury could prohibit BAC from paying dividends for decades, but BAC’s liability to Buffett/Berkshire Hathaway would still grow. That liability accrues at $75 million per quarter starting from the end of the quarter after the issue date of the preferred shares.
I don’t think Buffett is betting on another bank bailout. I believe that he is betting that BAC will extricate itself from TARP and will be permitted eventually to pay a dividend on its common shares. Buffett has just stepped ahead of all of the little people by negotiating a dividend preference for his shareholders. Treasury had to have approved this deal because it involves an accrued, perpetual dividend liability. The cronyism exists in the regulatory approval of this deal, not in a likely bailout of BAC from its Countrywide acquisition.
-
Here's a novel idea: Have Congress create a "bank" that could borrow huge sums with only a small federal outlay and would be independent of any political interference. If you believe in this miracle, you probably thought Fannie Mae was a private company that wouldn't cost taxpayers a dime.
We're referring to Washington's latest marketing tool to sell spending to a skeptical public, a new federal "infrastructure bank." For the low, low price of $30 billion or so, President Obama says Congress can conjure hundreds of billions in new "grants and loans" to rebuild "roads, bridges, and ports and broadband lines and smart grids."
He says the bank would put "all those construction workers" back to work and "be good for the economy not just for next year or the year after that, but for the next 20 or 30 years." In a cats and dogs living together moment, the Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO are both in favor. Since both unions and construction companies would be beneficiaries, this alone ought to give taxpayers pause.
This is the Fannie Mae model applied to public works. The new bank would be a government-sponsored enterprise, or GSE, whether or not anyone admits it. The bank would have an implicit subsidy for its debt because it is backed by the government. And the debt it issued would be "off-budget," which means it wouldn't show up in annual outlays. When she first proposed the concept in 2008, Connecticut Democrat Rosa DeLauro explicitly described the bank as a "public private partnership like Fannie Mae."
Such an outfit will inevitably be politicized, as similar examples have been all over the world. Japan's postal bank has been used for decades to finance public works. Japan's roads and bridges are grand but its economy has grown little in 20 years. Agribanks, regional development banks, Brazil's BNDES national bank have all become vehicles for the political allocation of credit.
Ms. DeLauro's bill admits as much, stating that the bank must take into account the "economic, environmental, social benefits and costs" of the projects seeking financial assistance. Among the considerations: responsible employment practices, use of renewable energy, reduction in carbon emissions, poverty and inequality reduction, training for low-income workers and public health benefits.
No one disputes that American public works need improving, and government has been spending huge sums to do so. As the nearby table shows, between 2001 and 2011 federal "public physical capital investment outlays" more than doubled to $330 billion from $142 billion. Every major area of infrastructure—transportation, Army Corps of Engineers, energy—is up by at least 75% in a decade.
The scandal is that we buy so little brick and mortar with all this money. Earmarking has wasted billions and is an inevitable byproduct of a system that collects federal taxes and allows Congressmen to send it back to their districts. The bank is supposed to eliminate earmarking, but the Members will surely find a way to influence the bank's lending too.
Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro described the infrastructure bank as a 'public private partnership like Fannie Mae.'
Taxpayers also get less for their money because federal projects must follow Davis-Bacon Act rules that require "prevailing wages." This law has come to mean de facto union wages on all public projects, inflating costs by 10% to 30%, depending on the project and location. Democrats and Republicans both refuse to relax Davis-Bacon rules, and the infrastructure bank would require them. The bank would also divert dollars to the mass transit lobby, which favors rail projects that serve a tiny fraction of commuters.
Instead of a Washington-centric bank that picks winners and losers, Congress would be wise to move in the opposite direction: devolving most public-works decisions to the state and local levels so users decide whether they want to finance a new school, bridge or water system. The feds can focus on maintaining the interstate highway system and then let states and localities choose what to fund. Arizona Rep. Jeff Flake and others have bills that would let states opt out of the federal highway program in return for getting back the federal gas tax money that its residents send to Washington.
GOP Congressman John Mica of Florida, Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, is no fan of a federal infrastructure bank. He says he wants more state and local control of funds because "that way they won't have to come to Washington to get approval."
Mr. Mica is dealing with a reality that eludes many in both parties: With a $1.28 trillion deficit, Uncle Sam can't afford to keep serving as paymaster to states and localities. The infrastructure bank is merely a new gimmick to maintain the old system.
-
Interesting analysis from RN.
This is a perfect example of what I was trying to explain that we have do not have fairness in our system.
The guys at the top ARE ripping us all off big time. The system IS rigged. Republicans could, I think, win over the independents by putting stops to this kind of crap (at least giving the effort of trying).
If the government has any role it is not to penalize the successful but it could be to at least try to keep the system fair for all to succeed.
This game Buffett is playing is a perfect example of how the game can be rigges and those "at the top" are simply robbing the rest of us. The Democrats certainly do have a point here but the Republican answer is not to turn around and rob the rich (as the Dems want to do) and redistribute. It should be to try to make the system fair for all. The government must not be a position to play favorites. It is so corrupt. The cans simply seem to ignore all of this. Continue to ignore this and thus continue to have millions resent the Rep party. What else can I say?
-
If I have my numbers right, the 1100 now vaporized jobs were created at a cost of $486,364 each (i.e. $535,000,000) this "public-private partnership" (a.k.a. economic fascism) :roll: :x :cry:
POTH
By MATTHEW L. WALD
Published: August 31, 2011
WASHINGTON — A Silicon Valley maker of solar power arrays that was started with high hopes and $527 million in loans from the federal government said on Wednesday that it would cease operations. The failure of the company — and the loss to taxpayers — is likely to renew the debate in Washington about the wisdom of clean energy subsidies and loan guarantees.
Employees work on equipment used to produce innovative cylindrical solar cell modules at the Solyndra plant in Fremont, Calif.
President Obama praised the company, Solyndra, for its advanced technology during a visit last year. But in a statement on Wednesday, Solyndra said its business had run into trouble because of difficult global business conditions, including slowing demand for solar panels, and stiff competition.
The Energy Department, which approved the funding, said China’s subsidies to its solar industry were threatening the ability of Solyndra and other American manufacturers to compete. The price of a solar array, measured by cost per watt of capacity, has fallen 42 percent since December 2010, the agency said.
Two other American solar companies, Evergreen Solar and SpectraWatt, also sought bankruptcy protection in August, and both said competition from Chinese companies had contributed to their financial problems.
In the case of Solyndra, some experts said that regardless of the competition, the company’s unique designs, which were expensive to manufacture, were to blame for its failure.
Solyndra was promised loans of up to $535 million under a guarantee program authorized by Congress as part of the 2009 stimulus package. The Energy Department has made more than 40 promises of guarantees, of which Solyndra was the first. It has committed $18 billion in guarantees and expects to allocate several billion dollars more by the time the program finishes at the end of September.
The government calculates premiums for the guarantees, essentially a loan fee based on the risk of default, but it picks up the cost of the premiums for the companies in the subsidy program. By that yardstick, it has spent $2.4 billion in credit subsidies for the program.
Solyndra’s troubles have been growing for some time. Republican budget-cutters in Congress have viewed it as a model of poor government investment.
“In an apparent rush to push stimulus dollars out the door, the Obama administration wasted $535 million in taxpayer funds in guaranteeing a loan to a firm that has proven to be unviable in the global market,” said Representative Cliff Stearns, the Florida Republican who is chairman of an investigative subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
He said the Energy Department might have authorized the guarantee because an Oklahoma oil man who was a donor to the Obama campaign, George Kaiser, was an investor in the project. In a joint statement, Mr. Stearns and Representative Fred Upton of Michigan, the chairman of the committee, said, “We smelled a rat from the onset.”
But the Energy Department dismissed that assertion, saying that Solyndra applied for federal help during the Bush administration and that Obama-era officials merely finished the process the Republicans had begun.
The department says government subsidies are essential to keep the United States competitive in renewable energy, and not all companies will succeed.
“The project that we supported succeeded,” insisted Damien LaVera, a spokesman for the Department of Energy.
“The facility was producing the product it said it would produce, and consumers were buying the product,” he said. “The company struggled because the market has changed dramatically.”
Although the government typically guarantees loans made to a company by a commercial bank, that was not the case for Solyndra. Solyndra borrowed the money from the Federal Financing Bank, part of the Treasury Department, so in effect, the government was lending the money to the company directly. The Energy Department gave Solyndra a conditional guarantee for $535 million, in multiple stages, contingent on reaching a variety of milestones, and to date, it had received $527 million.
===============
Mr. LaVera held out the hope that in a bankruptcy reorganization, Solyndra or some other company would run the factory profitably and that not all the taxpayer investment would be lost. In addition to the government, private investors put about $1 billion into the company. More than 1,000 employees were laid off.
Although the Obama administration is under pressure from energy companies to extend the guarantee program, it is a likely target for Congressional budget-cutters.
“Solyndra is a black eye for the program,” said Matthew A. Feinstein, an analyst at Lux Research. “And that means bad things for the solar industry in the United States.”
Solyndra, which once had plans to sell stock to the public, was a darling of policy makers. When it broke ground in Fremont, Calif., Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was then governor, and Steven Chu, the federal secretary of energy, wielded ceremonial gold-colored shovels.
Solyndra’s problem, according to outsiders, was that the product looked better when it was conceived than when it hit the market. Solyndra’s design avoids the use of silicon, a commodity that was selling at very high prices in 2009 when the loan guarantee was approved but that has crashed since then.
The design also sought to cut costs with an innovative cylindrical design that reduced the labor required for installation. As the sun moves across the sky, the light hits a different facet of the cylinder. But the capital costs for manufacturing were high.
Barry Cinnamon, the chief executive of Westinghouse Solar, a competitor, said Solyndra and Evergreen Solar had tried new designs that turned out not to be as good as standard flat panels.
“In both cases, they made a bad bet,” he said.
Evergreen, based in Massachusetts, received tens of millions of dollars in state loans and grants in exchange for opening a factory there. In January, it announced that it was closing that factory and moving manufacturing to China. But a few weeks ago, it concluded that even the move offshore was not enough to save the company.
SpectraWatt, a small solar company near Poughkeepsie, N.Y., ceased operations earlier this year and declared bankruptcy on Aug. 19. The company, which was created as a spinoff from Intel, the computer chip maker, cited poor market conditions created by China’s subsidies to its manufacturers.
Ken Zweibel, director of the Solar Institute at the George Washington University, said solar companies in China and Germany were receiving big subsidies from their governments and were pressuring American companies.
“There’s definitely a crisis in traditional technology,” he said. But Solyndra, he said, was “a wild-card technology,” and both Solyndra and Evergreen products had “questionable attributes.”
==========
Note that POTH failed to mention the connection with a donor , , , :roll:
------------------------------
Another day, another stimulus burnout. On Wednesday, solar panel maker and White House favorite Solyndra announced plans to suspend business and file for bankruptcy. Its demise is a reminder of the perils of politically directed investment.
This wasn't supposed to be the storyline. In March 2009, Solyndra was the first company to get an Energy Department loan guarantee, worth $535 million. Vice President Joe Biden spoke via closed circuit TV at the groundbreaking of the company's Fremont, California plant, and President Obama touted the thousands of jobs the stimulus money would create. Such investments were all the better, Mr. Obama said at a visit to the plant last spring, because "The true engine of economic growth will always be companies like Solyndra." You know, "green jobs."
View Full Image
Bloomberg
.Lots of venture capital companies bought into the hype, investing in green technology to piggyback their own capital on federal favoritism. Solyndra's relationship with the White House came under special scrutiny because of Solyndra backer and Tulsa billionaire George Kaiser's history as an Obama fundraiser. In a letter to Energy Secretary Steven Chu in February, the House Energy and Commerce Committee raised concerns about the loan, noting that the company had suffered "financial setbacks," and asking for information about "whether Solyndra was the right candidate" for the loan guarantee.
The Department of Energy marched on anyway, and yesterday it said it has "always recognized that not every one of the innovative companies supported by our loans and loan guarantees would succeed." Well, sure, businesses fail, but most failures don't saddle taxpayers with as much as $535 million in potential losses.
Solyndra's story is more evidence that trendy, politically directed investments don't make for efficient allocation of capital. Beyond the immediate losses, they mean the money wasn't available for market-directed investment with a better chance to succeed. This is how you get a 1% recovery.
-
"If I have my numbers right, the 1100 now vaporized jobs were created at a cost of $486,364 each (i.e. $535,000,000) this "public-private partnership" (a.k.a. economic fascism)"
In our elaborate system of checks and balances, I wonder if that 'investment' was properly vetted by the other branches of government like the Jobs Czar, the Auto Recovery Czar, the California Water Czar, the Car Czar, the Climate Czar, the Economic Czar, the Energy and Environment Czar, the Government Performance Czar, the Green Jobs Czar, the Health Czar, the Information Czar, the Pay Czar, the Regulatory Czar, the Science Czar, the Stimulus Accountability Czar, the TARP Czar, the Technology Czar, or the Urban Affairs Czar. With all that oversight you would think that someone watching the public hearings on CSPAN would have smelled a rat!
(Those were only 19 of the 32 Czars listed at http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/29391/)
Might I add my opinion that even if the subsidy of the federal government singling out and unequally helping one specific enterprise over all others was just $10 per job and even if the venture went on to become world champion, it is still a violation of founding principles and the constitutional concept of equal protection.
There is something sinister about injecting 'investment' into a 'market', where it is therefore in fact not a market. Why not just go whole hog Soviet style state enterprise to the produce desired goods if you truly believe central government knows best?
At $486,364 each and $535,000,000 total over 1100 jobs, none of which materialized, could we at least get a full recap of political contributions that led to it or came from it?
-
Contrast the Obama administration with what we find for Dem governance elsewhere across the fruited plain. Kind of a fluff piece by George Will today but he points out that Colorado's new Dem Governor has a business background, and a more relaxed view of placating his state's divided electorate; he seems to be governing so far without Washington style, firebrand liberal activism.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/colorados-fresh-brew/2011/08/30/gIQAOqexsJ_story.html
“We are such a purple state” — Colorado is about one-third Republican, one-third Democrat and one-third unaffiliated — “we can avoid the big fights.”
----
From the NYT: In the 2010 midterms (when Hickelooper was elected), Coloradans sent four Republicans and three Democrats to the U.S. House. In 2008 the split was five to two in favor of Democrats.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/magazine/09Hickenlooper-t.html?pagewanted=all
-
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/maxine-waters-gangster-banks-must-modify-loans-or-were-gonna-tax-them-out-of-existence/
-
second post of afternoon:
Feds raid Gibson Guitar:
Caveat: I've only read what is at this page and not yet listened to the clips.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/update-gibson-guitar-ceo-says-feds-told-him-to-outsource-labor-to-madagascar/
-
Long detailed piece linked below on the Solyndra fiasco by Steven Hayward
From my point of view it is important to note that the problem here is not that it failed. We are actually worse off when this fascism appears to succeed because then it will never end. It is important to oppose all this governmental cronyism in its concept and in all its iterations. When the friends of the public officials get goodies and preferences that the rest of us don't get and have to pay for, it is morally and constitutionally wrong before we find out its failure and all the scandalous details.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/president-solyndra_594151.html
-
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/report-ford-pulls-anti-bailout-ad-after-pressure-from-obama-admin/
-
"File this in the random-things-politicians-say file. Speaking to a Cary Rotary Club today, N.C. Gov. Bev Perdue suggested suspending Congressional elections for two years so that Congress can focus on economic recovery and not the next election.
"I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won't hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover. I really hope that someone can agree with me on that," Perdue said. "You want people who don't worry about the next election."
The comment -- which came during a discussion of the economy -- perked more than a few ears. It's unclear whether Perdue, a Democrat, is serious -- but her tone was level and she asked others to support her on the idea. (Read her full remarks below.)
Later Tuesday afternoon, Perdue's office clarified the remarks: "Come on," said spokeswoman Chris Mackey in a statement. "Gov. Perdue was obviously using hyperbole to highlight what we can all agree is a serious problem: Washington politicians who focus on their own election instead of what’s best for the people they serve."
The Republicans sure are taking it seriously as they look to score political points. Here's a statement from GOP spokesman Rob Lockwood:
“Now is a time when politicians need to be held accountable more than ever. To suspend an election would be removing the surest mechanism that people have to hold politicians accountable: the right to vote. Does the Governor not believe that people of North Carolina have the ability to think for themselves about whether or not the actions of elected officials are working?"
UPDATED: GOP House candidate Paul Coble didn't think much of Democratic Gov. Bev Perdue's idea that congressional elections be suspended for two years so Congress can concentrate on the economy.
“That’s a proposal that only the politicians that have worsened our economic mess could appreciate,” said Coble, who is chairman of the Wake County commissioners. “Governor Perdue and the politicians in Washington may fear the message voters send next November.”
Perdue's full statement:
"You have to have more ability from Congress, I think, to work together and to get over the partisan bickering and focus on fixing things. I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won't hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover. I really hope that someone can agree with me on that. The one good thing about Raleigh is that for so many years we worked across party lines. It's a little bit more contentious now but it's not impossible to try to do what's right in this state. You want people who don't worry about the next election."
Read more: http://projects.newsobserver.com/under_the_dome/perdue_suggests_suspending_congressional_elections_for_two_years_was_she_serious#ixzz1ZD8TdMMN"
_____________________________________________________
Sounds like a probe doesn't it?
-
I doubt it's a probe, but it's just a reminder how the left isn't real big on voters, especially when the political winds aren't blowing their way. They think of themselves as god-kings and are unhappy when their divinity is questioned.
-
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
C. S. Lewis
English essayist & juvenile novelist (1898 - 1963)
-
Pasting here CCP's post from the Cognitive Dissonance thread.
Crony Socialism: Obama Gives $737 Million to Solar Firm Linked to the Pelosi Clan
Posted by Jim Hoft on Wednesday, September 28, 2011, 12:14 PM
It’s as if Solyndra never happened. The Obama Administration is giving $737 million to a Tonopah Solar, a subsidiary of California-based SolarReserve. PCG is an investment partner with SolarReserve. Nancy Pelosi’s brother-in-law happens to be the number two man at PCG.
Team Obama is spending $737 million to create 45 permanent jobs.
The Hill reported, via Free Republic:
The Energy Department announced Wednesday that is has finalized a $737 million loan guarantee for a Nevada solar project.
The decision comes several weeks after a California-based solar manufacturer that received a $535 million loan guarantee from the Obama administration in 2009 filed for bankruptcy and laid off 1,100 workers, setting off a firestorm in Washington.
The $737 million loan guarantee will help finance construction of the Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project, a 110-megawatt solar-power-generating facility in Nye County, Nev. The project is sponsored by Tonopah Solar, a subsidiary of California-based SolarReserve.
Crescent Dunes is the latest solar project to receive a loan guarantee from the Energy Department in recent weeks. The department announced a $1.2 billion loan guarantee to Abengoa Solar for a solar generation project in California and a $150 million loan guarantee to 1366 Technologies for a Massachusetts solar manufacturing project earlier this month.
The Energy Department says the project will result in 600 construction jobs and 45 permanent jobs.
-
http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/bobbeauprez/2011/09/29/doe_trying_to_use_$65_billion_in_loans_to_create_283_jobs/page/full/
Repeatedly throughout the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama made the claim that he would "create 5 million 'green jobs; will invest $150 billion over ten years to deploy clean technologies, protect our existing manufacturing base and create millions of new jobs."
The growing Solyndra scandal focused renewed attention on Obama's go-green obsession, and has sparked at least five high-profile investigations, including the FBI.
If there is any good news, it would be that thus far Obama hasn't blown through $150 billion – yet. But, he's also well short of creating 5 million green jobs.
According to Investor's Business Daily, about $10 billion has been committed. The Department of Energy says just over 2300 permanent jobs are or will be created as a result. That amounts to about $4.3 million per job. In fairness, a number of construction jobs also benefitted from the funding, but are temporary, rather than permanent funding.
The program that has funded green loans like Solyndra and others expires on September 30, so the DOE is scrambling to get billions more out the door. As the following graphic represents, the DOE is busy processing nine more applications totaling $6.5 billion. Estimated numbers of permanent jobs to be created are required from applicants as part of the application program. As the chart shows, just 283 permanent jobs would result – at an average of nearly $23 million per job.
Source: http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/586155/201109271759/DOE-Mulls-Loans-For-Green-Projects-At-23-Mil-Per-Job.htm
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
Obama's Red October Uprising
The Resurgence of the American Socialist Movement
"We must make our election between economy and Liberty, or profusion and servitude." --Thomas Jefferson
By now, you're aware that the seeds of socialist dissent are being sown across our great nation, mostly within the fetid soil of urban centers, where cadres of activists coalesce under the aegis of "Occupy [fill in the blank]." It would be difficult to avoid the fanfare, given the amount of Leftmedia coverage (read: promotion) that these protests receive.
According to my colleague Brent Bozell at Media Research Center, the protests were the subject of "more broadcast network stories in the first nine days than the Tea Party drew in the first nine months."
Typical of the adoring coverage was this missive from ABC's Diane Sawyer, who claimed the occupiers "have spread to more than 250 American cities, more than a thousand countries -- every continent but Antarctica." (Seriously, this drama queen actually said "more than a thousand countries.")
In stark ideological contrast to the Tea Party Movement, which seeks to restore Liberty and Rule of Law as enshrined in our Constitution, the socialist "Flea Party" movement occupying city blocks across our nation is composed of the latest generation of useful idiots and debauched opportunists.
Conservative political observers have uniformly written off these protests because they're populated by the usual suspects -- a mix of leftist protagonists supported by Ivy League ignorati, collegiate lemmings, paid union thugs, the socially disenfranchised, and a handful of unwitting poor folks. Though these protestors exhibit limited "intellectual occupancy," I would caution that underestimating the threat to Liberty that these Occupier protests pose is a serious error. Reputable polling firms find that more than 35 percent of likely voters support the protests.
Post your opinion
Just who is behind the Occupiers?
Here's the short answer: Barack Hussein Obama and his socialist bourgeoisie.
As our editors have comprehensively revealed through the pages of The Patriot Post, from the time Obama first emerged on the national political scene in 2004, to the rise of his present-day regime, Team Obama has crafted a perilous national security crisis bent on "fundamentally transforming the United States of America" by imploding free enterprise and replacing it with Democratic Socialism.
So, while the Occupiers are of many guises their common thread is a storm-trooper adherence to Obama's Marxist agenda.
The mob movement was organized by "Occupy Wall Street," a front for the Marxist General Assembly movement, whose communications director, Brian Phillips, clearly articulated the organization's primary objective "to overthrow the government."
That goal has been echoed in the last two weeks from coast to coast, as affirmed by an Occupy LA leader, who proclaimed that nonviolence is not an option: "[T]he bourgeoisie won't go without violent means. Revolution! Yes, revolution that is led by the working class. Long live revolution! Long live socialism!"
Their populist national slogan, "99 percenters v. 1 percenters," implies that the American people are 99-to-1 in favor of forcibly redistributing the possessions of the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans to the other 99 percent.
This slogan, and its underlying message, is being promoted by William Ayers, the former Weather Underground radical. Ayers issued a "collective statement" for the Occupiers concluding "that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power."
Post your comments
As you may recall, Ayers is a close friend and former neighbor of Obama back in Barack's "community organizer" days in the fashionable Hyde Park section of Chicago. It was Ayers who hosted, in his own home, the first fundraiser for Obama's successful 1996 Illinois State Senate campaign, thus launching BO's political career.
This latest rash of socialist protests has crafted its classist message around the revolution-tested politics of disparity, under the leadership of old-school radicals like Ayers.
They are building on Obama's classist theme of "asking people who have benefited the most over the last decade to share in the sacrifice." Of the current 99-percenter protests, Obama concludes, "I think it expresses the frustrations the American people feel."
Obama's DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz was a bit more candid: "The protests are symbolic of the frustration that middle class folks and working people feel. ... We understand their frustration, we applaud their activism and hopefully they're going to help get the Republicans in Washington's attention so we shift the Republicans' focus from just Barack Obama's job, to everyone's job."
Nancy Pelosi added, "The message of the protesters is a message for the establishment everyplace. No longer will the recklessness of some on Wall Street cause massive joblessness on Main Street. ... God bless them for their spontaneity. It's independent ... it's young, it's spontaneous, it's focused. And it's going to be effective."
Obama's "Red October" uprising takes its inspiration from the 1917 Social Democratic Labour Party protests in Russia, which gave rise to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Then, as now, the economy was in serious decline. Then, as now, Bolshevik revolutionaries were young, some 85 percent of them under age 30. Then, as now, they issued decrees giving rise to "the most militant and class-conscious" protests.
When their protests had grown to sufficient strength, the Socialist Democrats concluded, "an armed uprising is inevitable, and that the time for it is fully ripe."
It was a brief and bloody revolution, and at its conclusion, the protestors implemented policies that mirror proposals advocated by SDLP of today, the Occupiers: All real property was seized and redistributed, companies and factories were nationalized, all private wealth was confiscated by the state, Church properties were seized, and debts were repudiated.
Fast-forward about 100 years to the "99 percenters v. 1 percenters."
Today, almost 35 percent of Americans are dependent upon government subsidies, and 40 percent of Americans pay no income tax and thus have no stake in the cost of government. Consequently, most are predisposed to vote for the redistribution of others' incomes rather than work for their own. Further, if the Supreme Court rules that ObamaCare comports with the so-called "living constitution" rather than strikes it down based upon Rule of Law, by 2013 the number of Americans who depend on the largess of the central government will swell to well over 50 percent.
Combine the dependent ranks, the sprouting seeds of socialist unrest and the grim reality that the American economy is at serious risk of collapsing altogether under the Obama "debt bomb", and we have all the ingredients for an even bigger Red October uprising today and just before the election of 2012.
Should Barack Hussein Obama be re-elected in 2012, a prospect that, admittedly, seems rather inconceivable today, it would create the proverbial "perfect storm" to finish transforming the national landscape from one characterized by Liberty to one smothered by tyranny.
America is a great nation with a resilient economy and political system, but it is only kept so to the extent that the American people uphold the principles and values upon which that greatness is founded. However, for those who remain complacent in the belief that Liberty is self-perpetuating, that the question of transition of power by bullets rather than ballots is archaic, I remind you that those who do not know history are condemned to repeat it. Of such complacency, Samuel Adams wrote, "If ye love wealth better than Liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animating contest of freedom, go from us in peace. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen!"
Tell me what you think
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
Libertas aut Mortis!
Mark Alexander
Publisher, The Patriot Post
-
It will be interesting on the left to see who owns and who dis-owns the message that will come out of the 'Occupy' movement.
GM posted the purple hair and nose ring lady. BD advised to look past a few kooks for validity in their points. Over time we will see what are their points. I predict from past similar movements it will devolve into anti-capitalism which puts Obama the mainstream anti-capitalist in a tricky situation about taking sides.
"Fast-forward about 100 years to the "99 percenters v. 1 percenters."
Today, almost 35 percent of Americans are dependent upon government subsidies, and 40 percent of Americans pay no income tax and thus have no stake in the cost of government. Consequently, most are predisposed to vote for the redistribution of others' incomes rather than work for their own."
Our own CCP has persuasively made this point. '35% of Americans' understates the influence. Normally I have seen it written more like '53% of households' receive federal transfer of wealth payments. I understand helping the oldest and weakest among us who cannot get help from their own family, church, county, state or neighborhood, but not defining the weakest among us who have no chance as the lower 99%!
Which hurts you more financially if you are middle class, the people who are taking from you or the people who pay taxes in dollars about 40 times more than you are?
-
"[D]emocracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy, such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eyes and no man's life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure, and every one of these will soon mould itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit and science, to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable cruelty of one or a very few." --John Adams, An Essay on Man's Lust for Power, 1763
-
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/car-company-us-loan-builds-cars-finland/story?id=14770875
-
http://www.fantasticalandrewfox.com/2011/10/19/fisker-karma-solyndra-on-wheels/
Fisker Karma: Solyndra on Wheels?
Fisker Karma: can you say, "crony capitalism?"
Our tax dollars at work… a half-billion dollar loan (actually $529 million) from the U.S. Department of Energy to develop a hybrid toy for the wealthy and/or celebri-licious (like Leonardo DiCaprio, one of the first customers) that, in real world driving, won’t get much better mileage than your average crossover utility vehicle. Not only that, but the cars are manufactured in Finland — that’s right, Finland – and shipped here for sale, where their purchasers will then receive a $7,500 tax credit for buying one (the “cheap” base model starts at $96,895, with the full-zoot Eco Chic model going for a bargain $108,900).
I generally try to keep this blog pretty much clear of politics. But I’ll make an exception for this. Staring out the windows of my lunch room this afternoon, I saw something intriguing enough to get me to scarf down my lunch and get myself out into a gray, drizzly afternoon to check it out. Across the street from my building, a very large automotive transport truck with a fully enclosed trailer unloaded four cars of a type I had never seen before. They looked somewhat like big, four-door Chevy Corvettes, with voluptuous curves leading to a sleek rear end. People on the sidewalk next to the cars crowded around them and took photos with their camera phones.
I headed downstairs to see what the heck the cars were. I thought they might be one of the new four-door luxury electric models from either Tesla or Fisker, which I’d read about but hadn’t yet seen pictures of. What threw me, though, was spotting a round gas tank door on the rear driver’s side flank, plus dual exhausts. Not electric, I thought. By the time I got downstairs and across the street, the cars had been moved a block away, to the front of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, a luxury hotel in Southwest Washington, DC. I spotted the driver of the auto transport rig and asked him what he’d been hauling. He said four of the brand-new Fisker Karma performance hybrid sedans. Oh, gas-electric hybrids, I thought; that explains the gas tank and the exhausts. He said he’d had the devil of a time getting into this corner of Southwest Washington. Most of the city’s highways had been off-limits to his giant truck, and then he had found several local streets blocked by Occupy DC protests taking place at MacPherson Square, our local version of Occupy Wall Street. He said this was Fisker’s big roll-out. The head of the company, Mr. Fisker himself, was present at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel to do a press conference.
I walked over to the front of the hotel to get a look at the cars. Pretty damned nice, I’ll certainly admit, with a sleek roof lined with solar panels that, according to the company’s claims, give up to five additional miles per week of all-electric driving. While I was standing there admiring the four identical silver cars’ lines, a cabby exited his ratty old Crown Victoria and wandered over next to me, a look of rapt admiration on his face. “Nice, but it’s not for the likes of you and me,” I said. He nodded a little sadly, circled the cars, then returned to his cab.
I recalled reading that the Federal government had become a major financial partner in Fisker Automotive. That would explain the official rollout taking place in Washington. When I got back to my computer, I looked up the specifics. We the taxpayers are on the hook for more than half a billion dollars, about the same amount that got loaned to Solyndra, another “green manufacturer,” before they went bankrupt. At least Solyndra was manufacturing their products in this country, providing American manufacturing jobs (if short-lived jobs), and making a product that average Americans could conceivably afford. Fisker is manufacturing these gorgeous Leonardo DiCaprio toys in Finland. And the kicker, for those of you who would still claim that the risk of half a billion tax dollars is justified by environmental gains… contrary to the company’s initial hype, the Karma will only run for thirty-two miles on its electric motors before its turbocharged gasoline engine needs to kick in (as opposed to the initial estimate of fifty miles). Once that occurs, the Karma gets about the same mileage as a Ford Explorer. Not the new Explorer, even. The older, gas-hog, body-on-frame model. We’re talking twenty miles per gallon, folks. So much for your “green investment.”
Those Occupy Wall Street-types in their tents at MacPherson Square? If they really, truly are bugged by corporate welfare, they need to schlep their signs and their chants and their anger over to the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. Right now. Because the Fisker Karma is where the rubber meets the road when it comes to corporate welfare.
I have no problem with a group of entrepreneurs raising money from private investors to build a hundred thousand dollar toy for rich folks who want to flaunt their eco-consciousness. When and if that’s the case, may they have all the mazel in the world. But damn, it steams me up when my family and every family in America are forced to pay for it.
Al Gore is on the list of customers waiting to receive their Fisker Karmas, having put in his order before the DOE signed off on the company’s half-billion dollar loan. Oh, and by the way, it just so happens that several major investors in the company are also major donors to the Democratic Party. And here’s information on John Doerr, an advisor to President Obama who is also a major investor in Fisker Automotive. Can you say, “crony capitalism?”
Update: The analysts at Green Car Reports, “the ultimate guide to cleaner, greener driving,” worry that the Fisker Karma may discredit the entire Department of Energy loan program. Given that, in a comparison of EPA mileage ratings between the two “American made” (scare quotes present due to the Karma being manufactured in Finland, with its electric motors and batteries being sourced from China) plug-in hybrids now on the market, the Chevrolet Volt and the Fisker Karma, the Volt is “rated at 94 MPGe in electric mode, and 37 mpg on gasoline, with an electric range of 35 miles,” whereas the Karma is rated at “54 MPGe in electric mode; 20 mpg in range-extended mode,” with an electric range of just 32 miles, they may well be right to worry. Oh, and Fisker conveniently left out that little detail about “20 mpg in range-extended mode” in their press releases sent out in the last few days. Details are for the little people, don’t you know…
-
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2011/October/Witness-to-Evil-Mothers-Kill-Children-to-Survive/
Inside N. Korea’s Prisons: Moms Kill Children to Survive
By George Thomas
CBN News Sr. Reporter
Friday, October 21, 2011
SEOUL- South Korea -- Meet a woman who has witnessed unspeakable evil and lived to tell about it.
For 28 years, Kim Hye Sook languished as a prisoner inside North Korea's oldest concentration camp. She saw daily executions, mass starvation, and mothers killing their children to survive.
Kim granted CBN News the first American television news interview. We must warn you that the images and content of this report are not suitable for children.
Languishing in Prison
Kim is perhaps the longest serving prisoner ever to escape from North Korea.
"I went to the prison camp when I was only 13 years old and I got out when I was 41," she said.
The year was 1975. One morning North Korean government agents burst into her home and dragged away all the members of her family.
"My entire family went to prison," she recalled. "Some were taken to the mountains; others were put in different labor camps all because of my grandfather's one mistake: he escaped to South Korea during the Korean War."
Re-Education Center No. 18
Kim and some of her family were sent to Re-Education Center No. 18, also known as "Bukchang."
"I lost seven members of my family, including my grandmother, mother, brother, and my husband," Kim said.
Today she wears dark glasses to conceal her identity.
"I wear these glasses because I have family in the camp," she said. "Two of my sisters and brother are still in there."
Bukchang holds some 50,000 prisoners. It's one of six political prison camps operated by the North Korean government.
Human rights groups estimate some 200,000 North Koreans are languishing behind the walls of these secret internment camps.
"I attended indoctrination classes in the morning," Kims said. "In the afternoon the children were sent to push trolleys in the coal mines, often without any safety gear."
Treated Like Slaves
Kim said she was forced to work 16 to 18 hour work days with no rest.
"People were dying in the mines. There were numerous mine collapses, so many injuries, people who lost their legs, many who were buried alive," she recalled. "It was horrible."
"I was treated like a slave and worse. I hardly slept. It was inhuman," she said. "But I never complained. I just followed all the rules. I had to find a way to survive."
Prisoners didn't have enough food to eat. Kim said a family of seven was usually given just 10 pounds of corn a month.
Widespread Famine
"1996 was horrible. That year many people died of starvation. There was nothing to eat. There was no grass, no plants were growing," Kim said.
"You looked around and there were bodies littered throughout the camp," she said. "At first I was shocked but then you become numb to it all."
CBN News asked Kim if there were days when she felt that perhaps it was not worth living. Perhaps she thought of killing herself.
"Yes, I thought of committing suicide hundreds of thousands of times in those 28 years," she admitted. "But the way the camp is set up there is always someone watching you."
"Each prisoner is assigned to watch four or five other prisoners," she said. "So if anything happens, the other prisoners would alert the guards because they didn't want to get into trouble themselves."
Public Executions
Kim told CBN News that she witnessed countless public executions.
"Often these prisoners were killed over petty things like stealing food," she explained.
"The guards would always gather other prisoners to watch the execution. It was a form of intimidation," she said. "The command was then given to fire at the prisoners."
Perhaps most chilling is Kim's account of fellow prisoners killing their own children to stave off hunger.
Mothers Killing Children
"One time a mother put her 9-year-old daughter in this big cast iron pot and boiled her," she said. "She was a too big for the pot so the mother had to chop her legs and head to fit the body in the pot."
"On another occasion, a lady killed her 16-year-old son, chopped him into pieces and took him to a butcher shop to get some corn in exchange," she said.
Kim said talking about these gruesome details isn't easy.
"It is hard to talk about but I want the world to see these images and to hear my testimony," she said.
Retold in Tears
She escaped from Bukchang in 2003. The details of which are being kept confidential for security reasons. Now she lives in South Korea.
This summer Kim released her memoir called, A Concentration Camp Retold in Tears. It includes images seen in this story that she drew from memory of the horrors witnessed.
"I'm thankful to be alive but I can't get over the fact that I've lost half my life," she said.
Tear Down These Walls
In September, Kim flew to Washington, D.C., to testify before a United States congressional panel about the beatings, starvation, and brutal executions that she witnessed in Bukchang camp.
"My message to the world is that we have to shut down these labor camps and set the prisoners free," Kim testified.
"Every day people are dying. Every day people are killing each other," she said. "I am living proof that there are no human rights in North Korea."
-
That's hardcore. I did a paper in college once on North Korean "Reeducation" Camps.
One of their favourite things to do is shackle you to a floor by your wrists, with just enough room to squat, but not stand up, over a stool with protruding raised squares cut in the surface of it so that as you fatigued, gradually over time, one would begin sitting on the surface of the seat, with the squares digging into one's skin and after days of this, they would begin to fester.
There were instances of women being violated in the most heinous of ways with the bladed end of a full size gardening shovel. Of course, these women died.
It makes the idea of them placing rectangular objects between one's fingers, clamping the fingers together and rotating the object back and forth seem like very small potatoes.
-
How George Soros benefitted from the 2009 Stimulous Package
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PICKET: New book shows how Soros set up and financially benefited from '09 stimulus
Peter Schweizer, a Hoover Institution fellow, explores in his new book, "Throw Them All Out" how Capitol Hill lawmakers financially benefit from their own legislation and manage to sidestep insider information laws. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is under fire for allegedly buying $1 million to $5 million of Visa stock during the credit card company's initial public offering (IPO) phase and later blocked credit card legislation reform two years later. As a result, her investment took off 203 percent. Big Government's Wynton Hall writes:
Despite Pelosi’s consistent railing against credit card companies, on March 18, 2008, the Pelosis bought between $1 million and $5 million (politicians do not have to report the exact amounts, only ranges) worth of Visa stock at the IPO price of $44 per share. Two days later, the stock price rocketed to $65 per share, yielding a 50% profit. The Pelosis then bought Visa twice more. By their third purchase on June 4, 2008, Visa was worth $85 per share.
How did Nancy Pelosi snag one of the most coveted initial public offerings in history? The facts are still emerging. Yet according to Schweizer, corporations that wish to build congressional allies will sometimes hand-pick members of Congress to receive IPOs. Pelosi received her Visa IPO almost two weeks after a potentially damaging piece of legislation for Visa, the Credit Card Fair Fee Act, had been introduced in the House.
If passed, the bill would have cut into Visa’s profits substantially by lowering so-called “interchange fees,” the 1% to 3% charge retailers pay Visa when customers use Visa cards for purchases. Interchange fees are a critical source of revenue for the four credit card companies–$48 billion in 2008, to be exact.If the Credit Card Fair Fee Act had been passed into effect, it would have amended antitrust laws to require credit card companies to enter negotiations with merchants over interchange fees, and it would have given the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission the power to arbitrate if the two sides failed to come to an agreement. For that reason, Visa and the other credit card companies strongly opposed the bill.
It is not just the lawmakers on Capitol Hill who can make a killing. Their rich and powerful cronies can also financially benefit from intel they receive from Washington D.C. politicians. According to Schweizer's book, George Soros made his way into the Obama White House by becoming one of candidate Obama's "first big catches."
Mr. Soros donated more than $60,000 to Obama's 2004 Senate campaign and helped build the Obama 2008 war chest substantially. Soros gained amazing access to the president and the president's economic agenda immediately after the 2008 election, according to Schweizer, who writes in his book:
"Days after President Obama was elected, Soros was helping to set the agenda. Soros had regular meetings with senior White House officials. He met with Obama’s top economist, Larry Summers,on February 25, 2009. He also had meetings in the Old Executive Office Building with senior officials on March 24 and 25 asthe stimulus was being forged. He was later involved in private discussions concerning widespread financial reform."
"Soros was also a financial backer of the Center for American Progress, which functioned as Obama’s think tank. John Podesta,who headed CAP, was Obama’s transition director. Several CAP policy ideas became part of Obama’s agenda. Soros said at the time, 'I think we need a large stimulus package, which will provide funds for state and local government to maintain their budgets, because they are not allowed by the constitution to run a deficit. For such a program to be successful, the federal government would need to provide hundreds of billions of dollars. In addition, another infrastructure program is necessary. In total, the cost would be in the 300 to 600 billion dollar range.'”
Schweizer found that after "tens of billions" of tax payer dollars were invested in the Democrat backed 2009 stimulus package, in the first quarter of 2009, Soros made a financial windfall by investing in stimulus winners like: Hologic, a maker of diagnostic equipment, which gained from federal funding of medical systems, Emulex, a government contractor that designs fiber channels and software products, and EMC, a data storage company.
I spoke with Schweizer on Sunday night about his book and asked about how the rich and powerful can legally obtain insider information from insider Capitol Hill activity and financially benefit.
Schweizer calls the scheme that Steve Eisman, Warren Buffett, and Soros use the "Baptist and bootlegger strategy."
"What a lot of these guys do like Buffett and Soros or Eisman, in the case of for-profit education, is present themselves as reformers. They present these grand ideas and they're sort of statesman who are just interested in improving the situation in our country, but the reality is, as I point out in the book, at the same time, they're often aggressively trading stocks," Schweizer said.
As I have covered in previous Water Cooler posts, Steve Eisman, a New York hedge fund manager, was brought forth to Capitol Hill to testify before Senator Tom Harkin’s Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee to support the Department of Education's Gainful Employment (GOE) rule.
Supporters of the GOE rule and of Eisman will say he was needed at the hearings, because Eisman provided valuable warnings and insight about the mortgage crisis. Many said Mr. Eisman was only trying to help the country stave off another financial crisis that would stem from the student loan defaults in the for profit school industry.
His participation in the hearings have been severely questioned, though, as the education regulation would financially cripple for profit schools. Evidence that the D.C. based organization CREW found showed that Mr. Eisman was short-selling for-profit schools.
If these schools failed he would financially profit. Congressman Darrell Issa, California Republican, and Senator Mike Enzi, Wyoming Republican, urged the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) to probe into whether or not there were any laws broken, but the SEC has yet to act.
"The Senate confirms the SEC commissioner and they set the budgets for the SEC," says Schweizer who thinks the model of having the SEC investigate such matters is unworkable.
"Warren Buffett, for example during the financial crisis, helped establish the public-private partnership and at the same time, that was going to bail out banks and he helped design it. As he was doing it, he was buying billions of shares in bank stocks," Schweizer added.
Schweizer also explained that Buffett financially profited off the bank stock investments, and it was completely legal, "because for some reason if you do this with government money or with government institutions it's okay. But were he to do that in a scenario with a merger taking place, he would face insider trading laws."
http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/...nd-financiall/
-
http://theothermccain.com/2011/11/19/indoctrination-what-the-occupiers-believe-and-why-they-believe-it/
Indoctrination: What the Occupiers Believe and Why They Believe It
Posted on | November 19, 2011
NYPD arrest Occupy Wall Street protesters on the Brooklyn Bridge, Oct. 1
“In the hands of a skillful indoctrinator, the average student not only thinks what the indoctrinator wants him to think . . . but is altogether positive that he has arrived at his position by independent intellectual exertion. This man is outraged by the suggestion that he is the flesh-and-blood tribute to the success of his indoctrinators.”
– William F. Buckley Jr., Up From Liberalism (1959)
“We have a class called 21st Century Challenges and Choices. They’re studying the current world. They went on a field trip to see Occupy Denver.”
– Dierdre Cryor, principal, St. Mary’s Academy
“We want them to see the democratic process in action.”
– Celia Bard, Social Studies Department chair, St. Mary’s Academy
“You’re f–king up our future. . . . What do you think we learn at school? This is what we learned about. . . . We’re the 99 percent.”
– 17-year-old student, St. Mary’s Academy
Workers World Party national conference, New York, Oct. 8
“An epic battle is underway for the direction of our country. The Occupy movement is not alone. . . . We stand with the courageous young people who have sparked this movement and join with the occupiers who are putting themselves on the line to transform our nation and achieve a secure and sustainable future. . . . The time has come to put people before profits.”
– “Communist Party heralds Occupy Wall Street movement,” Oct. 18, 2011, CPUSA.org
“How do you tell a Communist? Well, it’s someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It’s someone who understands Marx and Lenin.”
– Ronald Reagan, Sept. 25, 1987
During today’s first anniversary broadcast of Da Tech Guy‘s radio show on WCRN, Jeff Goldstein of Protein Wisdom was discussing his video of Catholic schoolgirls who took part in an Occupy Denver protest against last weekend’s BlogCon:
In discussing the beliefs of the Occupiers, including these 17-year-old girls who attend a private Catholic academy where the tuition is $14,000 a year, Jeff suggested they had been “indoctrinated.” This called to mind Buckley’s description of indoctrination in Up From Liberalism, and made me wonder how these girls were taught that they are “the 99 percent” on whose behalf the Occupiers claim to speak.
Born in 1994, these girls cannot possibly have any useful memory of political events prior to the Bush presidency. They were in first grade during the 2000 election and were 14 when Obama was elected. Therefore whatever “knowledge” they have of history is what they have been taught, and the content of that curriculum undoubtedly accounts for their sympathy with the Occupy movement.
These girls are scarcely alone in that regard. An entire generation of youth has been taught to view the radical protest movements of the Sixties as unquestionably righteous. Young people may never have heard of Mario Savio, Tom Hayden, Stokely Carmichael, Bill Ayers or Abbie Hoffman, but they have been rigorously indoctrinated with the worldview of the 1960s New Left. And so when they behold the spectacle of left-wing protests like the Occupy movement, it touches a chord that resonates, evoking the heroic conception of revolutionary struggle instilled in them by their teachers, by TV and movies, and by the news media.
‘Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out’
Hagiographic treatment of Sixties radicalism convinces young people, who can know nothing of that long-ago era except what they have been taught, that the New Left represented all that was good and right, and that the protest movements of the 1960s were a glorious triumph. One wishes these kids could be de-programmed by exposure to such eyewitness testimony as Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts About the Sixties by Peter Collier and David Horowitz, Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers by Tom Wolfe, or perhaps even some seminal gonzo journalism:
“In 1965 Berkeley was the axis of what was just beginning to be called the ‘New Left.’ Its lenders were radical, but they were also deeply committed to the society they wanted to change.
“Now, in 1967, there is not much doubt that Berkeley has gone through a revolution of some kind, but the end result is not exactly what the original leaders had in mind. Many one-time activists have forsaken politics entirely and turned to drugs. . . .
“The hippies, who had never really believed they were the wave of the future anyway, saw the [1966] election results as brutal confirmation of the futility of fighting the establishment on its own terms. There had to be a whole new scene, they said, and the only way to do it was to make the big move — either figuratively or literally — from Berkeley to the Haight-Ashbury, from pragmatism to mysticism, from politics to dope. . . . The thrust is no longer for ‘change’ or ‘progress’ or ‘revolution,’ but merely to escape, to live on the far perimeter of a world that might have been.”
– Hunter S. Thompson, “The Hashbury is the Capital of the Hippies,” May 1967, collected in The Great Shark Hunt (1979)
Thompson was always a man of the Left, but harbored no illusions about the Left’s failures. He watched young idealists follow the New Left downward, as the movement splintered and descended into a futile festival of drugged and disorganized (yet ironically herdlike) “non-conformity” that became known as the counter-culture.
Not everyone in the New Left followed Timothy Leary’s advice to “tune in, turn on and drop out,” however. Many of the radicals made the Long March Through the Institutions. This is how Bill Ayers, a terrorist leader who spent years as a fugitive wanted by the FBI, eventually became an influential academic, along with many others who shared his revolutionary vision if not his penchant for revolutionary violence.
“We are a guerrilla organization. We are communist women and men . . . deeply affected by the historic events of our time in the struggle against U.S. imperialism.”
– Bill Ayers, et. al., “Prairie Fire: The Politics of Revolutionary Anti-Imperialism,” manifesto of the Weather Underground, 1974
In all the 2008 uproar about Ayers’s association with Barack Obama, few seemed to take alarm at the thought that, from 1987 onward, Ayers was a professor of education — a teacher of teachers — at the University of Illinois. Ayers’s acceptance within academia suggests that many other administrators and faculty were sympathetic to his radicalism. And if, for the past quarter-century, admirers of Marxist revolutionaries have been so influential in our nation’s most prestigious educational institutions, are we surprised to find 17-year-olds sympathizing with the Occupy mobs?
**Read it all.
-
By T.J. RODGERS
At the end of the recently released film "Margin Call," the chairman of the fictional investment bank that triggered the mortgage-backed securities meltdown sits in his executive dining room, looking down on the Hudson River sunset while enjoying a steak and an expensive bottle of Bordeaux. Why not? He has just saved billions for his shareholders by dumping the firm's entire "toxic loan" portfolio in one hectic trading day. Just before giving a bonus to the brilliant analyst who foresaw the meltdown only hours in advance, the chairman predicts, "There's going to be a lot of money made coming out of this mess."
Wall Street understands how to make money, up-market or down. "Margin Call" may fuel Occupy movement ire, but in creating mortgage-backed securities, Wall Street did nothing other than facilitate home-financing access to the next tier of less-qualified home buyers, as demanded by every president since Bill Clinton. After that, the bankers did exactly what their shareholders wanted: bundle those risky loans into securities, sell them to lock in the profits, and dump the risk right back onto the federal government—where it belonged.
My purpose is not to debate the morality of mortgage-backed securities but to update the Law of Unintended Consequences with the corollary Law of Misguided Subsidies: Whenever Washington disrupts a market by dumping subsidies into it, Wall Street will find a way to pocket a majority of the money while the intended subsidy beneficiaries are harmed by the resulting market turmoil.
The recent crash in mortgage-backed securities was a near-repeat of the savings-and-loan crash of the 1980s, in which Washington insured the S&L industry but failed to set limits on high-risk loans. When the bubble burst, Washington paid Wall Street the insurance money while homeowners lost huge sums in real-estate hell. Wall Street understands how to manage risk; the federal government and consumers do not.
Enlarge Image
CloseGetty Images
.Consider the current 30% federal solar energy subsidy. A home solar system with 60 solar panels produces about 15,000 watts of power, enough to completely offset the $6,000 annual electricity bill of a typical upscale California home. The system costs about $90,000 prior to the 30% federal income-tax credit, which reduces its cost to $63,000. After a simple payback period of about 10 years, the homeowner literally enjoys free electricity for the remainder of the guaranteed 20-year system life, a very profitable 10 years.
But what if that $27,000 tax credit, the accelerated-depreciation tax savings, and most of the hefty post-payback profits went to Wall Street firms with a "tax appetite," not the homeowner? That's just what happens with the majority of new home solar-system installations today.
Washington and consumers are both notoriously shortsighted investors. Washington thinks in two-year election cycles, and consumers will usually choose a financially unfavorable option if it offers no money down. Today's most successful pitch for home solar financing goes like this: "Why pay a lot of money when you can get your solar system installed free and immediately reduce your utility bill?" Most homeowners find that proposition compelling. They ignore the fine print: "You must give your tax credit and depreciation to us and sign a long-term contract to buy power from us at prices just below market."
Today, most new home solar systems are purchased by special Limited Liability Corporations (LLCs) that are specifically created by Wall Street firms to purchase home solar systems and to sell power to the homeowner on a cell-phone-like contract. The homeowner does not mind giving up the tax benefits as long as the "free" system reduces utility bills.
However, when the system is paid off and the monthly LLC profit jumps to 100% of the electricity bill, the LLC solar electricity price to the homeowner is maintained just below market—and the profit really begins to roll into the LLC. Since the risks to the LLC grow as the solar systems age, many banks offload their risk by selling the LLCs before their 20-year lifetime is up, locking in much of the long-term profit. There is now a growing market for what might be called "solar-backed securities." Wall Street understands the time-value of money; the federal government and consumers do not.
One of the largest solar-system installers in the U.S., SolarCity Corp., uses the LLC strategy and currently buys a majority of its solar panels from the low-cost Chinese supplier, Yingli. Thus when President Obama said that we must subsidize our solar industry to remain competitive with the Chinese, it would have been more accurate to say that we subsidize Wall Street to create employee-less corporations that buy and install Chinese solar panels in the U.S. Wall Street and consumers understand that free markets are borderless; Washington does not.
Just last week, the U.S. International Trade Commission found the Chinese solar industry guilty of "dumping" solar panels in the U.S. Tariffs are likely to be levied against Yingli and others. Here then, is a practical guide to the Obama administration's nonsensical solar policy: Washington gives tax breaks to Wall Street to fund LLCs that buy solar panels from the Chinese to "help" the American solar industry, while the ITC threatens to levy a tariff on those solar panels, which would raise the price of solar energy to U.S. homeowners. In short, Wall Street pockets the money and consumers get higher solar-energy prices.
We should stop reflexively indicting Wall Street "greed" and focus instead on Washington as the disruptive force in one market meltdown after another. Solyndra, the poster child of the Law of Misguided Subsidies, borders on irrelevancy compared to the full impact of bad economic policy.
Mr. Rodgers is the founder, president and CEO of Cypress Semiconductor.
-
Democrats have spent years arguing that private lenders created the housing boom and bust, and that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac merely came along for the ride. This was always a politically convenient fiction, and now thanks to the unlikely source of the Securities and Exchange Commission we have a trail of evidence showing how the failed mortgage giants turbocharged the crisis.
That's the story revealed Friday by the SEC's civil lawsuits against six former Fannie and Freddie executives, including a pair of CEOs. The SEC says the companies defrauded investors because they "knew and approved of misleading statements" about Fan and Fred's exposure to subprime loans, and it chronicles their push to expand the business.
The executives deny the charges, and we hope they don't settle. The case deserves to play out in court, so Americans can see in detail how Fan and Fred were central to the bubble. The lawsuits themselves, combined with information admitted as true by Fan and Fred in civil nonprosecution agreements with the SEC, are certainly illuminating.
The Beltway story of the crisis claims that Congress's affordable housing mandates had nothing to do with it. But the SEC's lawsuit shows that Fannie degraded its underwriting standards to increase its market share in subprime loans. According to the SEC suit, for instance, in 2006 Fannie Mae adjusted its widely used automated underwriting system, "Desktop Underwriter." Fannie did so as part of its "Say Yes" strategy to "provide more 'approve' messages . . . for larger volumes of loans with lower FICO [credit] scores and higher LTVs [loan-to-value] than previously permitted."
The SEC also shows how Fannie led private lenders into the subprime market. In July 1999, Fannie and Angelo Mozilo's Countrywide Home Loans entered "an alliance agreement" that included "a reduced documentation loan program called the 'internet loan,'" later called the "Fast and Easy" loan. As the SEC notes, "by the mid-2000s, other mortgage lenders developed similar reduced documentation loan programs, such as Mortgage Express and PaperSaver—many of which Fannie Mae acquired in ever-increasing volumes."
Mr. Mozilo and Fannie essentially were business partners in the subprime business. Countrywide found the customers, while Fannie provided the taxpayer-backed capital. And the rest of the industry followed.
As Fannie expanded its subprime loan purchases and guarantees, the SEC alleges that executives hid the risk from investors. Consider Fannie's Expanded Approval/Timely Payment Rewards (EA) loans, which the company described to regulators as its "most significant initiative to serve credit-impaired borrowers."
Related Video
Mary Kissel on the SEC's suit against Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac executives.
.
.By December 31, 2006, Fannie owned or securitized some $43.3 billion of these loans, which, according to the SEC, had "higher average serious delinquency rates, higher credit losses, and lower average credit scores" than Fannie's disclosed subprime loans. By June 30, 2008, Fannie had $60 billion in EA loans and $41.7 billion in another risky program called "My Community Mortgage," but it only publicly reported an $8 billion exposure.
The SEC says Fannie executives also failed to disclose the company's total exposure to risky "Alt-A" loans, sometimes called "liar loans," which required less documentation than traditional subprime loans. Fannie created a special category called "Lender Selected" loans and it gave lenders "coding designations" to separate these Alt-A loans from those Fannie had publicly disclosed. By June 30, 2008, Fannie said its Alt-A exposure was 11% of its portfolio, when it was closer to 23%—a $341 billion difference.
All the while, Fannie executives worked to calm growing fears about subprime while receiving internal reports about the company's risk exposure. In February 2007, Chief Risk Officer Enrico Dallavecchia told investors that Fannie's subprime exposure was "immaterial." At a March 2007 Congressional hearing, CEO Daniel Mudd testified that "we see it as part of our mission and our charter to make safe mortgages available to people who don't have perfect credit," adding that Fannie's subprime exposure was "relatively minimal." The Freddie record is similarly incriminating.
***
The SEC's case should embarrass Congress's Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, which spent 18 months looking at the evidence and issued a report in January 2011 that whitewashed Fan and Fred's role. Speaker Nancy Pelosi created the commission to prosecute the Beltway theory of the crisis that private bankers caused it all, and Chairman Phil Angelides delivered what she wanted.
Far from being peripheral to the housing crisis, the SEC lawsuit shows that Fan and Fred were at the very heart of it. Private lenders made many mistakes, but they could never have done as much harm if Fan and Fred weren't providing tens of billions in taxpayer-subsidized liquidity to lend on easy terms to borrowers who couldn't pay it back.
Congress created the two mortgage giants as well as their "affordable housing" mandates, and neither the financial system nor taxpayers will be safe until Congress shrinks the toxic twins and ultimately puts them out of business.
-
"Thanks for your support, Warren. I will make it up to you."
___________________________________
Warren Buffett cleans up after Keystone XL- The Sage of Omaha is one lucky guy. by John Hayward 01/24/2012262
When President Obama, who is normally a great proponent of “infrastructure” projects, made his bizarre decision to block the Keystone XL pipeline project, I wondered if he might have been induced to create those thousands of American jobs if the oil could be moved by his beloved high-speed rail.
As it turns out, oil is already moved from northern latitudes, such as the booming oil fields of North Dakota, down to the Gulf of Mexico by rail of the old, low-speed variety. Fortunately, as Newt Gingrich pointed out during the Monday night Republican debate in Florida, the oil is on private land, so Obama can’t shut production down.
Shipping the oil with a pipeline would have significantly reduced costs, as an Associated Press report explains:
Billions of dollars of infrastructure improvements have been made in recent years to allow North Dakota's oil shipping capacity to keep pace with the skyrocketing production. North Dakota is the nation's fourth-biggest oil producer and is expected to trail only Texas in crude output within the next year.
Alison Ritter, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Mineral Resources, said the state's so-called takeaway capacity is adequate, though producers and the state were counting on the on the Keystone XL to move North Dakota crude.
Shipping crude by pipeline in North Dakota adds up to $1.50 to its cost, compared to $2 or more a barrel for rail shipments, producers say.
"Oil that would have moved by the Keystone XL is now going to shift to rail transportation," Ritter said.
Amusingly, a spokesman for the Sierra Club admitted “there is no question that [transporting] oil by rail or truck is much more dangerous than a pipeline,” but that didn’t stop the zero-growth Eco-fanatics from calling in their chips with President Downgrade to kill that pipeline.
Those rail shipments are expected to “increase exponentially with increased oil production and the shortage of pipelines,” according to Justin Kringstad, director of the North Dakota Pipeline Authority. That’s going to be quite a windfall for the railroad companies, isn’t it?
As it happens, 75 percent of the oil currently shipped by rail out of North Dakota is handled by Burlington Northern Santa Fe LLC… which just happens to be a unit of Warren Buffett’s company, Berkshire Hathaway Inc. What a coincidence!
For some reason, nobody from BNSF or Berkshire Hathaway would return the AP’s telephone calls, but oilman Harold Hamm told them he was sure this was just a wonderful “lucky break” for Barack Obama’s favorite billionaire, who is “certainly favored by this decision.” I’ve heard Buffett’s famously overtaxed secretary will be a guest at the State of the Union address tonight. Maybe someone could ask her about it.
The “tax me more” refrain from liberal billionaires is one of the oldest sucker games in the book. For the well-connected, the money that can be made through government power – whether by influencing corrupt politicians, or merely predicting what they’re going to do - dwarfs whatever income they offer to cough up.
Http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=49036
-
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/01/warren-buffett-shut-up-he-explained.php
Posted on January 28, 2012 by Scott Johnson in Obama administration, Taxes
Warren Buffett: Shut up, he explained
We tried to back into an estimate of the income of Warren Buffett’s secretary, Debbie Bosanek, in “Analyze this.”Ms. Bosanek was one of the stars of President Obanma’s State of the Union address. Buffett and Obama portray her as the victim of an unfair tax code.
As I noted in an update to the post, it turns out that Ms. Bosanek reportedly makes about $60,000 a year. When they suggest that she pays 35 percent of her income in federal income taxes, Obama and Buffett are apparently taking her federal marginal tax rate, adding both sides of the payroll tax, and comparing it to what must be Buffett’s effective tax rate. Megan McArdle observed: “That comparison is beyond bizarre.” It is a farcical mistake to take anything these folks say at face value.
Buffetts’s hometown paper tried to follow up on the questions left hanging:
Debbie Bosanek and her boss both declined Thursday to disclose how much she’s paid, saying it’s private.
In an interview with The World-Herald, Buffett also said none of the online guesses about Bosanek’s salary is right, and the critics are missing his point.
“I’m saying she is being treated unfairly in the tax code, as are tens of millions of others, compared to me,” Buffett said. “They shouldn’t change the rates on all the other people. They should change mine.”
The pseudonymous Jim Treacher expertly translates: “No fair asking why we should take his word for any of this. No fair asking why, if he’s so worried about not paying enough taxes, he doesn’t pay the $1 billion — that’s $1,000,000,000 — he already owes. No fair. No fair. Shut up.” Citing Politico, Treacher adds that the White House isn’t much interested in exploring details either. Politico explains that “for the moment, the White House wants to keep the attention focused on Obama’s argument that it’s unfair to tax Buffett’s secretary at a higher rate than her boss.” My translation: The White House wants to keep the propaganda undiluted.
-
From a book entitled Throw Them All Out, by Peter Schweizer. With respect to Buffett, Schweizer describes Buffett's heavy lobbying for government bailout money and then notes that
“Buffett needed the TARP bailout more than most. In all, Berkshire Hathaway firms received $95 billion in bailout cash from the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Berkshire held stock in Wells Fargo, Bank of America, American Express, and Goldman Sachs, which received not only TARP money but also $130 billion in FDIC backing for their debt. All told, TARP-assisted companies constituted a whopping 30% of his entire publicly disclosed stock portfolio. As one investigation by the Houston Chronicle put it, Buffett was "one of the top beneficiaries of the banking bailout."
-
"OAKLAND, Calif. - Dozens of police maintained a late-night guard around City Hall following daylong protests that resulted in 300 arrests. Occupy Oakland demonstrators broke into the historic building and burned a U.S. flag, as officers earlier fired tear gas to disperse people throwing rocks and tearing down fencing at a convention center.
Saturday's protests — the most turbulent since Oakland police forcefully dismantled an Occupy encampment in November — came just days after the group said it planned to use a vacant building as a social center and political hub and threatened to try to shut down the port, occupy the airport and take over City Hall." - http://www.newsday.com/news/nation/300-arrested-flag-burned-at-occupy-oakland-1.3487271
This sort of thing really pisses me off. The whole point of a protest isn't to convert other people to your side. It is to gather like minded people to your side. No one is like this besides the 20 people who did it. It is ignorant. It is basically begging no one else to come and help.
Tea Party and OWS could be the same group if they focused on small government instead of their liberal and conservative wish lists. Even if the OWS would shut up about getting the government to pay off their student debt, they aren't going to get a bunch of straight laced Christians to show up with a bunch of lawn crapping flag burners hanging around. Of course the tons of people with jobs that just show up to march in protest of the government are in your shadow.
-
Just a reminder, the gov't doesn't have money to pay off current debts, much less new bills like student loans.
-
Just a reminder, the gov't doesn't have money to pay off current debts, much less new bills like student loans.
Student loans aren't so scary if you actually graduate and with a degree in something marketable. 50,000 in debt for a computer science or accounting degree from state college is a lot better deal than 100,000 in debt to private college for a history degree.
-
Just a reminder, the gov't doesn't have money to pay off current debts, much less new bills like student loans.
Student loans aren't so scary if you actually graduate and with a degree in something marketable. 50,000 in debt for a computer science or accounting degree from state college is a lot better deal than 100,000 in debt to private college for a history degree.
Agreed.
-
President Obama keeps pushing the (Warren) Buffett rule that nobody making more than $1 million a year should pay less than 30% in taxes. He'd do better by the economy if he adopted a Solyndra Rule, in which no company touting unproven and expensive technology should receive millions in taxpayer subsidies.
After the demise of Solyndra (with its $535 million loan guarantee) and Beacon Power ($43 million loan guarantee), last week saw the bankruptcy of Indiana-based lithium-ion battery maker Ener1. In 2009 an Ener1 subsidiary was awarded a grant worth up to $118 billion from the Energy Department, with Vice President Joe Biden touring and touting its factory a year ago.
Like Solyndra, Ener1 was a foolhardy bet for taxpayer cash. Founded in 2002, Ener1 had not turned a profit by the time of its grant and has proceeded to hemorrhage the $55 million of the DOE money it has received to date. Its losses in fiscal 2010 were $165 million.
The company has had to compete in a market with a glut of battery makers, all of which are selling into a lackluster electric-car market. This battery glut was created in substantial part by the Obama Administration, which handed out money to no fewer than 48 different battery technology and electric vehicle projects in 2009.
In the small favors department, defenders of the White House's green corporate welfare are noting that, unlike Solyndra, Ener1 is not closing its doors while in bankruptcy. Then again, Ener1 has created fewer than 400 of the 1,700 jobs it had promised by this year, and a successful restructuring is by no means assured.
Mr. Obama is undeterred. In last week's speech, he defended his taxpayer "investments" in private commercial companies, noting that "some technologies don't pan out, some companies fail." He would know. Though perhaps if Mr. Obama weren't throwing hundreds of millions down the green sinkhole, he wouldn't have to target the nation's real job creators for higher taxes to foot his losses.
-
Olson is a major heavyweight attorney, regularly arguing major cases in front of the Supreme Court.
By THEODORE B. OLSON
How would you feel if aides to the president of the United States singled you out by name for attack, and if you were featured prominently in the president's re-election campaign as an enemy of the people?
What would you do if the White House engaged in derogatory speculative innuendo about the integrity of your tax returns? Suppose also that the president's surrogates and allies in the media regularly attacked you, sullied your reputation and questioned your integrity. On top of all of that, what if a leading member of the president's party in Congress demanded your appearance before a congressional committee this week so that you could be interrogated about the Keystone XL oil pipeline project in which you have repeatedly—and accurately—stated that you have no involvement?
Consider that all this is happening because you have been selected as an attractive political punching bag by the president's re-election team. This is precisely what has happened to Charles and David Koch, even though they are private citizens, and neither is a candidate for the president's or anyone else's office.
What Messrs. Koch do, in fact, is manage businesses that provide employment to more than 50,000 people in North America in legitimate, productive industries. They also give millions of dollars to medical researchers, hospitals and cultural institutions. Their biggest offense, apparently, is that they also contribute generously to nonprofit organizations that promote personal liberty and free enterprise, and some of those organizations oppose policies advocated by the president.
Richard Nixon maintained an"enemies list" that singled out private citizens for investigation and abuse by agencies of government, including the Internal Revenue Service. When that was revealed, the press and public were outraged. That conduct will forever remain one of the indelible stains on Nixon's presidency and legacy.
When Joseph McCarthy engaged in comparable bullying, oppression and slander from his powerful position in the Senate, he was censured by his colleagues and died in disgrace."McCarthyism," defined by Webster's as the "use of unfair investigative and accusatory methods to suppress opposition," will forever be synonymous with un-Americanism. Army counsel Joseph Welch's "Have you no sense of decency?" are words that evoke the McCarthy era and diminish the reputations of his colleagues who did nothing to stand up to him.
In this country, we regard the use of official power to oppress or intimidate private citizens as a despicable abuse of authority and entirely alien to our system of a government of laws. The architects of our Constitution meticulously erected a system of separated powers, and checks and balances, precisely in order to inhibit the exercise of tyrannical power by governmental officials.
Our Constitution even explicitly prohibits bills of attainder so that Congress may not single out individual citizens or groups for disfavored treatment or unequal application of the force of government. Prosecutorial power is rigidly constrained and judicially supervised so that government may not accuse private citizens of crimes or investigate them without good cause.
Whoever may be the victim of such abuse of governmental authority, the press and public almost invariably unify with indignation against it. If a journalist, labor-union leader or community organizer on the left can be targeted today, an academic or business person on the right can be the target tomorrow. If we fail to stand up against oppression from one direction, we abdicate the moral authority to challenge it when it comes from another.
This is why it is exceedingly important for all Americans to respond with outrage to what the president and his allies are doing to demonize and stigmatize David and Charles Koch. They have been the targets of the multiyear, carefully orchestrated campaign of vituperation and assault described above—and much more. It has been choreographed from the very top. When the president personally takes leadership, his political surrogates and army of allies in the press and Congress quickly and surely follow the direction and tone he sets.
The misuse of government power to damage or demean one's political enemies is abhorrent and the very antithesis of a free society and a government of laws, not men. It is time for the public to ask those engaged in these practices, "Have you no sense of decency?"
Mr. Olson, a lawyer in Washington, D.C., and a former solicitor general of the United States, represents Koch Industries.
-
"Have you no sense of decency?"
They do not.
-
GM,
Often we read what a "disappointment" Obama is. He had such "promise".
Are people who make these statements serious?
I don't get it.
Obama is EXACTLY what he represented himself to be. He was the MOST liberal Senator by voting record. He associated himself with radical left groups. He sat in a church for 2 decades while listening to a reverand who hates America, Jews, and whites.
What hope and change did these people think he was offering?
Indeed, the only (very modestly) refreshing aspect of his tenure is that he kept up the fight in Iraq and Afghanistan begun by W.
Of course this was almost certainly for political reasons and not in sinc with what are obviously (by now) core beliefs.
-
And he's done his best to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in those two wars.
-
Lets keep our fingers crossed Mitt can come through.
If he does and barring some major economic turnaround, or wag the dog's tail trick like bombing Iran a week before election day (I wouldn't put it past him nor did I with Clinton) this guy will be back at Harvard pretending to be a Constitutional scholar.
-
*barring some major economic turnaround*
Let me clarify. I AM definitely against a turnaround before the election if would get Obama get re-elected. Absolutely and undeniably and unabashedly. This guy cannot get a second term.
IF a Democrat wants to point out I am betting against the economy of the US for political reasons the answer is - YESIREE!
-
IF a Democrat wants to point out I am betting against the economy of the US for political reasons the answer is - YESIREE!
why?
-
I am not short,
but prefer the economy stay slow till after the election.
If it picks up before hand I fear Obama might get re elected.
I know this is very cynical, but this is how I feel.
In the long run it is better for the country that Obama lose.
-
"Olson is a major heavyweight attorney, regularly arguing major cases in front of the Supreme Court. ...
Mr. Olson, a lawyer in Washington, D.C., and a former solicitor general of the United States, represents Koch Industries."
Neither of these descriptions do him justice.
http://www.gibsondunn.com/lawyers/tolson
Additionally, his wife, Barbara, was on the plane that was hijacked and hit the Pentagon on 9/11. He is also a damn nice guy.
-
:-o :-o :-o
-
CCP, Andrew, In my opinion, the Obama opponent will not need to pull against the economy nor will your inner thoughts on that do any good - or harm. The laws of economics are somewhat predictable, like laws of gravity.
We won't have an optimized economy while we have artificially high energy prices, an amazingly over-bloated regulatory scheme (mandating mercury in light bulbs?), marginal tax rates more than double what they need to be, or with the bureaucratic sector chewing up 40-50% of our productive resources.
A song and a dance even under Greek columns won't change the underlying fundamentals.
If the growth rate is 2.5% in November 2012, you can be sure that it should be about double that at that point in a recovery. If the unemployment rate dips under 8% (or U6 under 15%) you can be sure that it should be about half of that.
You will still need to execute a successful national campaign that involves persuasion in the face of obfuscation, no matter what the most recent headlines will say come November.
-
Lets take this over to the 2012 Presidential thread.
-
Clint Eastwood is receiving grief for his Super Bowl ad for Chrysler, which many saw as an Obama campaign ad trumpeting the president's Detroit bailout.
Mr. Eastwood's previously recorded remarks on the subject were: "We shouldn't be bailing out the banks and car companies."
A further complication is that Chrysler is now owned by Fiat, an Italian company, which received its stake largely as a gift of the U.S. taxpayer in return for meeting fuel-economy goals, not financial goals.
No political party would have let GM go under because of Lehman, and a column uninformed by political realism is uninteresting to read or write. But a decent bailout would have addressed the structural burdens that Congress, mostly for its own convenience, inflicted on the homegrown auto makers. That didn't happen.
If the U.S. president told the bank holding your mortgage to cancel your debt and hand you the house free, it wouldn't make you more productive or efficient. It just screwed someone you owed money to. And clearer than ever is that GM could have survived the Lehman episode with a simple bridge loan. America's biggest auto maker could have returned to the slog without dishonoring billions of dollars in obligations to bondholders and other creditors.
But the most egregious aspect of the Obama bailout is its annexation of the auto sector to the administration's green energy schemes. It's no exaggeration to say the auto industry is being used to fulfill a throwaway line in an Obama speech calling for one million electric vehicles on the road by 2015.
We've often noted the direct handouts, in the form of billions of dollars in subsidies to both manufacturers and buyers of green cars. But these are only half the story. Mr. Obama made a splash last year when he announced that, by 2025, the U.S. fleet would be required to get 54.5 miles per gallon.
The corollary of an implausible mandate is a steady traffic in auto industry lobbyists to Washington, campaign check in hand, to water it down. Of these, the most important are very large mileage credits awarded to electric cars (though they basically run on coal), and then the doubling of these credits as an "incentive multiplier." In effect, auto makers have been virtually required to build electric cars and dump them on the public at a loss in order to create headroom for the cars that actually earn a profit.
The latter, of course, are pickups in the case of U.S manufacturers. Lo, pickups have also been quietly showered with special breaks under the broad rule Mr. Obama announced.
Just ask Volkswagen and Daimler: Here we have almost a parody of public choice theory, which in raw form holds that whatever the stated purpose of government policy, it usually devolves into an excuse for politicians and bureaucrats to grant favors and extort tribute from special interests. The Germans are among the few willing to say publicly that CAFE has degenerated into a favor factory to protect Detroit's pickup franchise while giving Mr. Obama subsidized green cars to flaunt in a campaign ad. One measure of the absurdity: When the loopholes are factored in, a 54.5 miles-per-gallon standard has become a 40 mpg standard.
The coming Obama campaign will make a fuss over the Detroit bailout, helped by slenderly informed commentators who declare it an amazing success. Car sales are up 20% in two years, even if still below pre-crash levels. Detroit is adding shifts. GM, Ford and even Chrysler are reporting profits. Unmentioned in any Obama campaign ad, though, will be that today's modest sales boom is essentially a horsepower boom. SUVs and pickups are selling strongly. A run-of-the-mill Ford Fusion would have been a muscle car two decades ago. Detroit is bouncing back because it's selling cars the public wants to buy.
This, in fact, is a great way to run a car business, but will soon become all but impossible if Mr. Obama's new fuel-mileage rules are not further rolled back. Hence a glaring anomaly amid the happy talk: GM's stock price is still down 22% from its public reflotation a year ago.
As we noted last year, the auto industry's strategy for dealing with the administration that bailed it out has been to pray for the madness to pass. That the Lord has partly answered those prayers with pickup loopholes, and now talk of a mandatory "midterm review" of the mileage targets, was politically predictable. And yet a mystery remains.
No president in three decades has embraced fuel-economy regulation so fulsomely, and for good reason: Every study has found the rules to be costly, ineffectual and perverse. There is little evidence that Mr. Obama himself has ever given intelligent analysis to what he's doing or why. His one big speech advanced a perfectly silly claim that Detroit's troubles stem from building "bigger, faster" cars that the public manifestly wants and that earn Detroit most of its profits.
One explanation for the fuel-economy circus is that President Obama is content to be a point man for shibboleths. He takes for granted the wisdom of liberal policy clichés.
A more likely answer, we suspect, is to be found in public choice theory.
-
Mitts can't say much; he came out in favor of the car bailout! :-)
As for giving incentives and/or penalties to increase milage I'm not sure that is all bad.
I think everyone agrees that we need to conserve gas/oil.
I think everyone agrees that cars running on gasoline are a terrible cause of pollution.
Ergo, more electric cars or some form of alternative energy versus big gas guzzlers is good.
You can approach the the solution from different angles. For example, Japan has a very progressive expensive annual tax
on engine size thereby giving an incentive? to purchase a smaller engine - saving gas. Further, their annual? smog check
is very strict; again, weeding out older cars and polluters. Also, it increases new car sales. Much of the money raised in
taxes is poured into mass transit. As a country, I think they are better off.
Frankly, I don't see the need for a family of 4 or less to have a Suburban, but IF you want one, fine, but I see no problem
taxing the heck out of them. And if you still want one, fine....
A similar example is I had a friend who manufactured furniture here in LA. He employed over 3000 people. But fumes etc.
from his factory polluted the air. Finally, the OASHA rules became so onerous that he packed his bags and moved his factory to
Mexico. We had dinner and I told him, "Sorry, but I'm glad it's gone; I don't want to breath that air.". He understood.
For the greater good sometimes you have to make laws...
-
On point amongst many possibilities: Electricity is made in great part from coal. Whoops!
-
A similar example is I had a friend who manufactured furniture here in LA. He employed over 3000 people. But fumes etc.
from his factory polluted the air. Finally, the OASHA rules became so onerous that he packed his bags and moved his factory to
Mexico. We had dinner and I told him, "Sorry, but I'm glad it's gone; I don't want to breath that air.". He understood.
For the greater good sometimes you have to make laws...
So as long as it's Mexicans and not you, pollution is ok? Must be nice to be an entitled white liberal.
-
Frankly, I don't see the need for a family of 4 or less to have a Suburban, but IF you want one, fine, but I see no problem
taxing the heck out of them. And if you still want one, fine....
So it's ok to use the powers of taxation and law enforcement to penalize lifestyles you don't like? So if social conservatives want to use those powers to penalize homosexuals, that's ok too, right? The gay male lifestyle poses costs to the health care system, so we need to make that money back....
-
I'm not sure this year that the gay lifestyle will cost any more than the obese lifestyle of many straight Americans. For that matter I don't think the number of gays who don't have health insurance coverage and therefore increases costs to the public taxpayer is greater than straight Americans.
I like to drive fast, but law enforcement will penalize me. I'm told it's for the greater good and safety. :-)
So is eliminating air pollution.
-
But you are ok with using government power to penalize people who make choices you don't approve of, like driving SUVs, right?
I'm not sure this year that the gay lifestyle will cost any more than the obese lifestyle of many straight Americans.
Really, HIV drugs aren't cheap, neither is surgery for prolapsed rectums, foreign object removal. It's ok to penalize that unhealthy behavior, right?
So is eliminating air pollution.
You mean exporting it to Mexico or China or the Navajo reservation. Hey, you're an enlightened white liberal, those poor people elsewhere need you to look out for them, so they're just breathing in those toxins that valuable people like you need to avoid, right?
-
Pope John Paul II, surveying from his seat in the eternal hereafter the battle between the American Catholic Church and the Obama administration over mandated contraception services, must be permitting himself a sad smile. The pope knew more than most about the innate tensions between the state and its citizens.
The Obamaites will object that it is unfair to liken their government to the Communist Party of Poland. That is not the point. What the former Karol Wojtyla knew is that any state will claim benevolence on behalf of doing whatever it thinks it needs to do in pursuit of its goals.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney invoked the good in defense of the Obama law's universal reach: "The administration decided—the president agrees with this decision—that we need to provide these services that have enormous health benefits for American women and that the exemption that we carved out is appropriate."
The American Catholic Church, from left to right, is now being handed a lesson in the hierarchy of raw political authority. One hopes they and their supporters will recognize that they have not been singled out. The federal government's forcings routinely touch other groups in this country—schools, doctors, farmers, businesses. The church's fight is not the whole or the end of it.
Since he appeared, no other word has been invoked more often to describe Barack Obama's purposes than "transformative." Last year, Mr. Obama began to be criticized by some of his supporters for being insufficiently transformative while holding the powers of the presidency—this despite passing the biggest social entitlement since 1965, an $800 billion stimulus bill, raising federal spending to 24% of GDP and passing the Dodd-Frank restructuring of the U.S. financial industry. Naturally an interviewer this week asked Mr. Obama why he hadn't been more "transformative." The president replied that he deserved a second term, because "we're not done." In term two, it will be Uncle Sam, Transformer.
For many years, Catholic Charities U.S.A. has taken federal money to enlarge its budget. The people who run the Catholic Church, though not everyone in the pews, thought this was a good bargain. Here is the head of Catholic Charities, in 1997, describing the relationship: "We have been partners with government to help government do what it wants to do and what we believe it should do."
This 1997 statement was in response to criticism leveled at Catholic Charities back then by freshman U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, who attacked the organization for its opposition to welfare-reform legislation. Mr. Santorum said welfare hurt rather than helped poor families.
Over decades, this deal with the federal government didn't change, even as Catholic bishops closed churches and parochial schools across the country for lack of funds. Here is Sr. Carol Keehan's statement when the House in 2009 passed the Obama health-care bill with only one Republican aye vote: "The Catholic Health Association applauds the U.S. House of Representatives and President Obama for enacting health care legislation that will bring security and health to millions of American families." Let the record show that the Catholic bishops opposed the legislation, fearing a conflict with the church's beliefs.
So here we are, with the government demanding that the church hold up its end of a Faustian bargain that was supposed to permit it to perform limitless acts of virtue. Instead, what the government believes the deal is about, more than anything else, is compliance.
Related Video
Columnist Dan Henninger on the Catholic church and government.
.
.Politically bloodless liberals would respond that, net-net, government forcings do much social good despite breaking a few eggs, such as the Catholic Church's First Amendment sensibilities. That is one view. But the depth of anger among Catholics over this suggests they recognize more is at stake here than political results. They are right. The question raised by the Catholic Church's battle with ObamaCare is whether anyone can remain free of a U.S. government determined to do what it wants to do, at whatever cost.
Older Americans have sought for years to drop out of Medicare and contract for their own health insurance. They cannot without forfeiting their Social Security payments. They effectively are locked in. Nor can the poor escape Medicaid, even as the care it gives them degrades. Farmers, ranchers and loggers struggled for years to protect their livelihoods beneath uncompromising interpretations of federal environmental laws. They, too, had to comply. University athletic programs were ground up by the U.S. Education Department's rote, forced gender balancing of every sport offered.
With the transformers, it never stops. In September, the Obama Labor Department proposed rules to govern what work children can do on farms. After an outcry from rural communities over the realities of farm traditions, the department is now reconsidering a "parental exemption." Good luck to the farmers.
The Catholic Church has stumbled into the central battle of the 2012 presidential campaign: What are the limits to Barack Obama's transformative presidency? The Catholic left has just learned one answer: When Mr. Obama says, "Everyone plays by the same set of rules," it means they conform to his rules. What else could it mean?
Anyone who signs up for more of this deal by assuming that it will never force them to fall into line is getting what they deserve.
-
WSJ:
By JOHN H. COCHRANE
When the administration affirmed last month that church-affiliated employers must buy health insurance that covers birth control, the outcry was instant. Critics complained that certain institutions should be exempt as a matter of religious freedom. Although the ruling was meant to be final, presidential advisers said this week that the administration might look for a compromise.
Critics are missing the larger point. Why should the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) decree that any of us must pay for "insurance" that covers contraceptives?
I put "insurance" in quotes for a reason. Insurance is supposed to mean a contract, by which a company pays for large, unanticipated expenses in return for a premium: expenses like your house burning down, your car getting stolen or a big medical bill.
Insurance is a bad idea for small, regular and predictable expenses. There are good reasons that your car insurance company doesn't add $100 per year to your premium and then cover oil changes, and that your health insurance doesn't charge $50 more per year and cover toothpaste. You'd have to fill out mountains of paperwork, the oil-change and toothpaste markets would become much less competitive, and you'd end up spending more.
How did we get to this point? It all leads back to the elephant in the room: the tax deductibility of employer-provided group insurance.
If your employer pays you $100 less in salary and buys $100 of group insurance for you, you don't pay taxes on that amount. Hence, the more insurance costs and covers, the less in taxes you seem to pay. (Even that savings is an illusion: The government still needs money and raises overall tax rates to make up the difference.)
Enlarge Image
CloseCorbis
.To add insult to injury, this tax deduction does not apply to portable, guaranteed-renewable individual insurance. You don't get the tax break if your employer gives you the $100 and you buy a policy—a policy that will stay with you if you get sick, leave employment or get divorced. The pre-existing conditions crisis is largely a creature of tax law. You don't lose your car insurance when you change jobs.
Why did HHS add this birth-control insurance mandate—along with "well-woman visits, breast-feeding support and domestic-violence screening," and "all without charging a co-payment, co-insurance or a deductible"—to its implementation of a provision of the new health-care reform law? "Because it promotes maternal and child health by allowing women to space their pregnancies," says the HHS advisory panel. Because these "historic new guidelines" will make sure "women have access to a full range of recommended preventive services," says the original HHS announcement. To "increase access to important preventive services," echoes White House Press Secretary Jay Carney.
Notice the doublespeak confusion of "access" and "cost." I have "access" to toothpaste because I have two bucks in my pocket and a competitive supplier. Anyone who can afford a cell phone can afford pills or condoms.
Poor women who can't afford birth control are a red herring in this debate. HHS isn't limiting this mandate to the poor anyway. We all have to pay. The very poor typically don't have employer-provided health insurance in the first place. "Allowing women to space their pregnancies"? Was there some sort of federal ban on birth control before this?
It's not about "access" and it's not about "insurance." It's because Americans, when paying even modest co-payments, choose to spend their money on other things. They prefer a new iPod to a "wellness visit" to the doctor. As the HHS unwittingly admits: "Often because of cost, Americans used preventive services at about half the recommended rate."
Remember, we're supposed to be worrying about skyrocketing health-care expenses. Doubling the number of wellness visits and free pills sounds great, but who's going to pay for it? There is a liberal dream that by mandating coverage the government can make something free.
Sorry. Every increase in coverage means an increase in premiums. If your employer is paying for your health insurance, he could be paying you more in salary instead. Or, he could be lowering prices and selling his product to you and all consumers more cheaply. Someone is paying. Not even HHS tries to claim that these "recommended preventive services" will lower overall costs.
Here's a good mandate: Let's mandate that every time a government official says that the government is going to "help" some category of voter, he or she has to say who they are going to hurt in the same sentence. Because it has to be someone.
But what about the fact, you may ask, that unwanted children are a burden on society as well as to their mothers? Perhaps there is a social interest in subsidizing birth control? Perhaps there is—but if so, this is an awful way to do it.
Related Video
Editorial board member Joe Rago on how HHS's contraception rules reflect the inherent problems with ObamaCare and government-mandated health care.
.
.The minute pills are "free," under insurance, the incentive for drug companies to come up with cheaper versions vanishes. So does their incentive to develop safer, more convenient, male-centered or nonprescription birth control. And by making pills free but not condoms, the government may inadvertently be contributing to an increase in sexually transmitted diseases.
The taxes and spending we argue about are the tip of the iceberg. Salting mandated health insurance with birth control is exactly the same as a tax—on employers, on Catholics, on gay men and women, on couples trying to have children and on the elderly—to subsidize one form of birth control.
If the government wants to subsidize birth control, OK, pass an explicit tax, and sensibly subsidize all birth control. And face the voters on it. The tax rate and spending debates that occupy the media are a small part of the effective taxes and spending that the government achieves by these regulatory mandates.
There is also the issue of religious freedom. Our nation is divided on social issues. The natural compromise is simple: Birth control, abortion and other contentious practices are permitted. But those who object don't have to pay for them. The federal takeover of medicine prevents us from reaching these natural compromises and needlessly divides our society.
The critics fell for a trap. By focusing on an exemption for church-related institutions, critics effectively admit that it is right for the rest of us to be subjected to this sort of mandate. They accept the horribly misnamed Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and they resign themselves to chipping away at its edges. No, we should throw it out, and fix the terrible distortions in the health-insurance and health-care markets.
Sure, churches should be exempt. We should all be exempt.
Mr. Cochrane is a professor of finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute.
-
There is caselaw that supports Obamacare, and from a dem icon to boot!
http://libertylawsite.org/post/the-ppaca-mandate-the-governments-best-case/
Feb 9, 2012
The PPACA Mandate: The Government’s Best Case
Michael S. Greve /federal mandate, Hirabayashi v. United States, individual mandate, Korematsu v. United States, Obamacare, PPACA/1 Comment
The Obamacare plaintiffs, I’ve noted here, have a point: a federal mandate to purchase health insurance raises enumerated powers problems of a sort that mere prohibitory regulations—“don’t do X”—do not. Today, let’s hear it for the feds.
With the exception of narrowly cabined “mandates” that ensure the operation of the federal government’s own institutions (such as juries and the armed forces), say plaintiffs, the federal government has never compelled performance as a condition of lawful residence in the United States. That’s a pretty potent argument. The government’s response is that a congressional failure to exercise a particular power doesn’t mean that Congress lacks that power. That’s technically true but substantively lame.
A much better answer is that the plaintiffs’ argument is in fact wrong. We are all familiar with an individual mandate that was authorized by the U.S. Congress and notoriously upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court: the affirmative duty of persons of Japanese descent to report to a Civil Control Station. Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1943).
The distinction between mere prohibition and command played a large role in the internment cases. In an earlier case, Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U.S. 81 (1943), plaintiff had been convicted on two counts: (1) failure to report of a Civil Control Station; (2) violation of an 8:00pm – 6:00am curfew. Chief Justice Stone’s opinion for the unanimous Court carefully addressed only the curfew violation, ostensibly on the grounds that the three-months prison terms for each violation were running concurrently. Technically, that left the constitutionality of the report-for-detention order up for grabs.
Strikingly, even the Korematsu Court sought to avoid that question. The military authorities had artfully issued concurrent orders excluding the plaintiff and others from the military area in question, while also prohibiting them from leaving that area; the only way to avoid punishment was to report to an assembly center. Seizing on the (plainly pretextual) formal distinction between the prohibitions and an affirmative command to report, the Court again declined to rule on the constitutionality of the mandate. Korematsu, 323 U.S. at 222. Justices Roberts and Jackson, in separate dissents, sharply criticized the majority and, insisting on the difference between the curfew and the detention regime, opined that the latter was a bridge too far.
Obviously, the racial classification in Hirabayashi and Korematsu has long been impermissible, and Mr. Korematsu’s conviction has been overturned, 584 F.Supp. 1406 (N.D. Cal. 1984). Moreover, Korematsu does not quite clinch the government’s case. Putting aside the Court’s technical evasion of the mandate issue, there was a war on at the time (a real war, not a Sebelius war over who pays for contraceptives), and it’s hard to contend with the logic that says that the power to wage war encompasses the power to wage it successfully. Still, Korematsu is a perfectly fine precedent: it has never been overruled. Moreover, it is the feds’ best and only precedent.
So why don’t they cite it?
-
So, JDN,
Are there any limits to federal powers over American citizens? If so, what are they?
-
Thank you GM, great post IMO, WOW!. One of my both favorite and least favorite aspects of participating in the forum is being proven wrong. I hate being wrong but knowing it sooner rather than later helps keep my foot out of my mouth as much as possible as I go about my day. I have many times said and many times written that there is absolutely no precedent for anything like the individual mandate. Dead F-ing wrong. What could be more similar to the individual mandate than having you and your family rounded by your 'liberal' government for internment and more constitutional than having that particular law 'reviewed' by a Court packed by that same President. This is barely an inconvenience compared to that - hardly breaking new ground.
"So why don’t they cite [this law and this decision]?" Great question!!
Just like slaughtering your young, it is all "settled law". If we are going to 'successfully' wage a war against self insurance and market based economics, then it follows that it is 'constitutional' to use every government power necessary win that war! Instead of fining those who won't insure, maybe we ought to round them up for internment until the war is won.
i was also wrong about the right to an abortion being the only 'constitutional right' that we would want to be rare. Hardly anyone favors internment anymore for people who have done nothing wrong.
-
NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE www.nationalreview.com PRINT
The Church of Obama
By Mark Steyn
February 11, 2012 5:00 A.M.
Announcing his support for Commissar Sebelius’s edicts on contraception, sterilization, and pharmacological abortion, that noted theologian the Most Reverend Al Sharpton explained: “If we are going to have a separation of church and state, we’re going to have a separation of church and state.”
Thanks for clarifying that. The church model the young American state wished to separate from was that of the British monarch, who remains to this day supreme governor of the Church of England. This convenient arrangement dates from the 1534 Act of Supremacy. The title of the law gives you the general upshot, but, just in case you’re a bit slow on the uptake, the text proclaims “the King’s Majesty justly and rightfully is and ought to be the supreme head of the Church of England.” That’s to say, the sovereign is “the only supreme head on earth of the Church” and he shall enjoy “all honors, dignities, pre-eminences, jurisdictions, privileges, authorities, immunities, profits, and commodities to the said dignity,” not to mention His Majesty “shall have full power and authority from time to time to visit, repress, redress, record, order, correct, restrain, and amend all such errors, heresies, abuses, offenses, contempts, and enormities, whatsoever they be.”
Welcome to Obamacare.
The president of the United States has decided to go Henry VIII on the Church’s medieval ass. Whatever religious institutions might profess to believe in the matter of “women’s health,” their pre-eminences, jurisdictions, privileges, authorities, and immunities are now subordinate to a one-and-only supreme head on earth determined to repress, redress, restrain, and amend their heresies. One wouldn’t wish to overextend the analogy: For one thing, the Catholic Church in America has been pathetically accommodating of Beltway bigwigs’ ravenous appetite for marital annulments in a way that Pope Clement VII was disinclined to be vis-à-vis the English king and Catherine of Aragon. But where’d all the pandering get them? In essence President Obama has embarked on the same usurpation of church authority as Henry VIII: As his Friday morning faux-compromise confirms, the continued existence of a “faith-based institution” depends on submission to the doctrinal supremacy of the state.
“We will soon learn,” wrote Albert Mohler of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, “just how much faith is left in faith-based institutions.” Kathleen Sebelius, Obama’s vicar on earth, has sportingly offered to maintain religious liberty for those institutions engaged in explicit religious instruction to a largely believing clientele. So we’re not talking about mandatory condom dispensers next to the pulpit at St. Pat’s — not yet. But that is not what it means to be a Christian: The mission of a Catholic hospital is to minister to the sick. When a guy shows up in Emergency bleeding all over the floor, the nurse does not first establish whether he is Episcopalian or Muslim; when an indigent is in line at the soup kitchen the volunteer does not pause the ladle until she has determined whether he is a card-carrying papist. The government has redefined religion as equivalent to your Sunday best: You can take it out for an hour to go to church, but you gotta mothball it in the closet the rest of the week. So Catholic institutions cannot comply with Commissar Sebelius and still be in any meaningful sense Catholic.
If you’re an atheist or one of America’s ever more lapsed Catholics, you’re probably shrugging: What’s the big deal? But the new Act of Supremacy doesn’t stop with religious institutions. As Anthony Picarello, general counsel for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, put it: “If I quit this job and opened a Taco Bell, I’d be covered by this mandate.” And so would any of his burrito boys who object to being forced to make “health care” arrangements at odds with their conscience.
None of this should come as a surprise. As Philip Klein pointed out in the American Spectator two years ago, the Obamacare bill contained 700 references to the secretary “shall,” another 200 to the secretary “may,” and 139 to the secretary “determines.” So the secretary may and shall determine pretty much anything she wants, as the Obamaphile rubes among the Catholic hierarchy are belatedly discovering. His Majesty King Barack “shall have full power and authority to visit, repress, redress, record, order, correct, restrain, and amend all such errors, heresies, abuses, offenses, contempts, and enormities whatsoever they be.” In my latest book, I cite my personal favorite among the epic sweep of Commissar Sebelius’s jurisdictional authority:
“The Secretary shall develop oral healthcare components that shall include tooth-level surveillance.”
Before Obama’s Act of Supremacy did the English language ever have need for such a phrase? “Tooth-level surveillance”: from the Declaration of Independence to dentured servitude in a mere quarter-millennium.
Henry VIII lacked the technological wherewithal to conduct tooth-level surveillance. In my friskier days, I dated a girl from an eminent English Catholic family whose ancestral home, like many of the period, had a priest’s hiding hole built into the wall behind an upstairs fireplace. These were a last desperate refuge for clerics who declined to subordinate their conscience to state authority. In my time, we liked to go in there and make out. Bit of a squeeze, but it all adds to the fun — as long as you don’t have to spend weeks, months, and years back there. In an age of tooth-level surveillance, tyranny is subtler, incremental but eminently enforceable: regulatory penalties, denial of licenses, frozen bank accounts. Will the Church muster the will to resist? Or (as Archbishop Dolan’s pitifully naïve remarks suggest) will this merely be one more faint bleat lost in what Matthew Arnold called the “melancholy, long, withdrawing roar” of the Sea of Faith?
In England, those who dissented from the strictures of the state church came to be known as Nonconformists. That’s a good way of looking at it: The English Parliament passed various “Acts of Uniformity.” Why? Because they could. Obamacare, which governmentalizes one-sixth of the U.S. economy and micro-regulates both body and conscience, is the ultimate Act of Uniformity. Is there anyone who needs contraception who can’t get it? Taxpayers give half a billion dollars to Planned Parenthood, who shovel out IUDs like aspirin. Colleges hand out free condoms, and the Washington Post quotes middle-aged student “T Squalls, 30” approving his university’s decision to upgrade to the Trojan “super-size Magnum.”
But there’s still one or two Nonconformists out there, and they have to be forced into ideological compliance. “Maybe the Founders were wrong to guarantee free exercise of religion in the First Amendment,” Melinda Henneberger of the Washington Post offered to Chris Matthews on MSNBC. At the National Press Club, young Catholics argued that the overwhelming majority of their coreligionists disregard the Church’s teachings on contraception, so let’s bring the vox Dei into alignment with the vox populi. Get with the program, get with the Act of Uniformity.
The bigger the Big Government, the smaller everything else: First, other pillars of civil society are crowded out of the public space; then, the individual gets crowded out, even in his most private, tooth-level space. President Obama, Commissar Sebelius, and many others believe in one-size-fits-all national government — uniformity, conformity, supremacy from Maine to Hawaii, for all but favored cronies. It is a doomed experiment — and on the morning after it will take a lot more than a morning-after pill to make it all go away.
-
Brief • February 13, 2012
The Foundation
"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State." --Thomas Jefferson, letter to a Committee of the Danbury Baptist Association, 1802
For the Record
We're not buying what the president's selling
"t would be a mockery of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment if, for example, the Catholic Church were required by law to freely provide such 'health care services' ... as contraception, sterilization and pharmacological abortion -- to which Catholicism is doctrinally opposed as a grave contravention of its teachings about the sanctity of life. Ah. But there would be no such Free Exercise violation if the institutions so mandated are deemed, by regulatory fiat, not religious. And thus, the word came forth from [Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen] Sebelius decreeing the exact criteria required.... Criterion 1: A 'religious institution' must have 'the inculcation of religious values as its purpose.' But that's not the purpose of Catholic charities; it's to give succor to the poor. That's not the purpose of Catholic hospitals; it's to give succor to the sick. Therefore, they don't qualify as 'religious' -- and therefore can be required, among other things, to provide free morning-after abortifacients. Criterion 2: Any exempt institution must be one that 'primarily employs' and 'primarily serves persons who share its religious tenets.' Catholic soup kitchens do not demand religious IDs from either the hungry they feed or the custodians they employ. Catholic charities and hospitals -- even Catholic schools -- do not turn away Hindu or Jew. Their vocation is universal, precisely the kind of universal love-thy-neighbor vocation that is the very definition of religiosity as celebrated by the Gospel of Obama. ... The contradiction is glaring, the hypocrisy breathtaking. But that's not why Obama offered a hasty compromise on Friday. It's because the firestorm of protest was becoming a threat to his re-election. Sure, health care, good works and religion are important. But re-election is divine." --columnist Charles Krauthammer
-
Must give Crafty credit for recognizing that the administrations assault on Catholic teachings is not a Catholics-only issue. it is not a birth control method question, it is not a religious issue. It is a limited government issue.
Luckily for us we have a firewall called the constitution to stop any encroachments by the government on our liberties and we have 9 justices sworn to make sure that can never happen. (Why does that sound like sarcasm in 2012?)
-
WSJ: Green Eye Shades
The Obama Administration is claiming vindication after Friday's release of its "independent review" of the Department of Energy's loan program. May we also sell you some Solyndra shares?
Looking to outflank a Congressional investigation, the White House last October retained banker and former Treasury official Herb Allison to review the loan program that had dispensed $535 million to Solyndra, a failed solar panel maker under investigation by the FBI.
It seems the White House's idea of an review is a highly technical and uninformative snapshot of the financial status of the Energy Department's existing loan portfolio. Mr. Allison examined 30 loans and loan guarantees that the Obama Administration has awarded to green-energy companies, worth $24 billion. The bulk of the report explains the complex methodologies Mr. Allison used to assign credit ratings to broad groups of these government "investments." It's not a page-turner.
This narrow approach suits the White House, especially Mr. Allison's finding that at current market conditions taxpayers could lose only $2.7 billion on the loans. Since this is $200 million less than Energy's own estimate, and some $7 billion less than what Congress was required by financial rules to set aside for blow-ups, the White House has declared victory.
Only in Washington is $2.7 billion in losses considered performing "well." But the bigger problem is that the Allison report addresses none of the main issues. Because Mr. Allison's brief was to examine only current loans, the report failed to investigate the bankruptcies of Solyndra or Beacon Power, an energy-storage company. So apart from its biggest failures, the program is a success.
Mr. Allison also didn't investigate whether political influence was brought to bear on behalf of certain loans, a major question in the Solyndra case. His report doesn't examine if government dollars have distorted the energy marketplace, and it doesn't judge whether government assistance is even needed given private venture capital and corporate dollars. Mr. Allison's remit was to don the green eyeshades.
But even by that standard he may be wrong. Because the green-energy industry depends so heavily on subsidies and unproven technology, a company that is surviving today may be in trouble next year. Ask Solyndra.
Because of privacy concerns, Mr. Allison didn't release his credit ratings for individual loan recipients. Instead, he gave ratings for categories of loans, such as those that went to companies producing power for utilities. The report provides zero information about which borrowers are in trouble.
Mr. Allison concludes with a call for more transparency and a new "chief risk officer" to monitor the program. But what were the Administration's current bureaucrats doing if not assessing risk? Congress's Solyndra investigation has found that these risk assessors were pushed by the White House to quickly sign off on the loan, so that Vice President Joe Biden could announce a sexy green project.
Politics will trump economics in government handouts because they are made for political reasons. Taxpayers still deserve a genuine probe, and Congress should keep digging into green corporate welfare.
-
Fairly long article and I don't think it is fair to summarize. If you are interested, read it start to finish. Many examples of buying in, advancing the public argument to have ntaxpayer money follow his to bolster his position, and profit to no end. This is the opposite of a free market, opposite of equal protection under the law, and proves false the perception that big investment, big business, big banks, big favoritism is a uniquelyRepublican phenomenon. This guy is a big liberal with no apologies.
There is nothing conservative (or constitutional) about government favoring one business over another.
http://reason.com/archives/2012/02/09/warren-buffett-baptist-and-bootlegger
-
By KARL ROVE
Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher once said that the problem with socialism is that eventually you "run out of other people's money." And it's not just tax dollars she was talking about, as the Obama presidency has shown.
Take the decision to force Catholic institutions to provide health-insurance coverage for sterilization, contraception and abortion-inducing drugs. When this decision caused an outcry, Mr. Obama offered the following compromise: Insurance companies will be ordered to provide such coverage "free" to employees of Catholic churches and organizations.
But of course, this coverage won't be free. Insurance companies will pass the cost on to policyholders, including those same Catholic institutions. In short, Other People's Money will be used.
Another example: To appear empathetic about housing foreclosures, the Obama administration pressured five banks to cough up $25 billion—$3 billion to the federal and state governments, and nearly $22 billion for payments to people foreclosed upon and to reduce the principal of mortgages with balances greater than the home's current value.
This will bail out no more than 10% of homeowners whose mortgages are underwater, according to an estimate by Chris Papagianis of the nonpartisan policy-research institute e21, who notes there is roughly $700 billion in residential negative equity across the country.
But the political optics are good—the banks can be tarred because of their paperwork foul-ups—and the $25 billion isn't from the federal budget. This also constitutes a use of Other People's Money, paid by all bank customers through bigger fees and higher interest rates.
Similarly, when Mr. Obama set up a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2010 to make sure people are treated fairly, he wanted to hide the new bureaucracy's cost and limit congressional budget oversight. So he gave it an automatic draw on the Federal Reserve's balance sheet. Now the massive new financial regulatory agency will take money collected from every bank and institution (and, in turn, their customers) that does business with the Fed.
Enlarge Image
CloseReuters
.This tactic should no longer surprise anyone. Consider the provision in the president's health-care law that prohibits insurers from charging younger, healthier policyholders substantially less than older, less healthy policyholders. The upshot: Healthy 30-year-olds who go to the gym pay higher prices for health insurance than they should, thereby subsidizing the insurance of older policyholders who drink and smoke. The subsidies are all "free"!
Candidate Obama promised to cut taxes for 95% of Americans. But according to the Tax Policy Center, some 76 million Americans who file income-tax returns, or 46.4% of the total, won't pay any taxes. No problem. Through 2018, according to the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, the administration's "Making Work Pay" program—if it is made permanent—would take $640 billion from people who do pay income taxes and give to those who don't in the form of a refundable tax credit.
In other words, the government will cut them a check. That was once called "welfare." Using Other People's Money allows Mr. Obama to call it "tax cuts."
Mr. Obama used taxpayer dollars for most of his auto industry bailout—with $37 billion still outstanding, most of which is probably lost forever. Even then, he still needed Other People's Money. About $20 billion was taken from bondholders and given to the United Auto Workers, which ended up owning a slug of GM and Chrysler. Fairness, at least to the president's union supporters.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, those two failed government-sponsored enterprises, will cost taxpayers as much as $333 billion—according to the Congressional Budget Office—as Mr. Obama gave them an unlimited draw on the Treasury. Everyone whose mortgage isn't securitized by Fannie or Freddie ends up paying higher interest rates and larger fees as a result.
Government spends taxpayer dollars and liberals want to spend more of them. But what sets Mr. Obama apart—what places him in a category of one—is how eager he is to find ways outside the normal appropriations process to fund his schemes in the name of fairness, or to make them appear free.
For Mr. Obama, helping political supporters and those he believes deserving, while shifting the costs onto those he considers undeserving, may be jolly good fun. But the question is how deep of a hole he'll leave all of us to dig out of when he vacates the Oval Office.
Mr. Rove, the former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush, is the author of "Courage and Consequence" (Threshold Editions, 2010).
-
Rove is right on this. It is all targeted politically as other people's money. They had it all planned out many times over how they were going to spend the money from letting the Bush tax cuts expire - raising rates only on the rich.
Pres. Obama includes himself as among the 'fortunate' who can afford to pay more, partly to brag, but he never took a risk that involved employing people or even held a full-time private sector job. He wasn't fortunate (lucky), he was clever, leveraging his public fame into personal wealth.
They don't target the rich because they can afford to pay more. They pretend to target the rich to make the lower 98% think that their recklessness won't affect them.
Rich with other peoples' money means entitled to staff - up to the point where they don't even know how many they have. The first lady denies the Glen Beck claim that she has 43 staff. She says (through a staff person) that it is closer to 25. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/mar/04/glenn-beck/glenn-beck-says-first-lady-michelle-obama-has-43-h/ If this is a math problem, 33 is closer to 25 than to 43, not counting staff that are not called staff and not counting the ones hired since. She has had 3 chiefs of staff, "The turnover, greater than under recent first ladies, underscores the pressure and high expectations of working in an operation known for its polish and discipline" [with other peoples money]. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0511/55832.html#ixzz1mbNmWVEt
-
http://news.investors.com/Article.aspx?id=601602&p=1&ibdbot=1
Brokest Nation In History Fusses Instead About Sex
By MARK STEYN Posted 02/17/2012 06:14 PM ET
(http://www.investors.com/image/ISSdebt_120221.png.cms)
Have you seen the official White House version of what the New York Times headline writers call "A Responsible Budget"? My favorite bit is Chart 5-1 on Page 58 of their 500-page appendix on "Analytical Perspectives." This is entitled "Publicly Held Debt Under 2013 Budget Policy Projections."
As shown above, it's a straight line going straight up before disappearing off the top right-hand corner of the graph in the year 2084 and continuing northeast straight through your eye socket, out the back of your skull and zooming up to rendezvous with Newt's space colony on the moon circa 2100.
Just to emphasize, this isn't the doom-laden dystopian fancy of a right-wing apocalyptic loon like me; it's the official Oval Office version of where America's headed.
In the New York Times-approved "responsible budget" there is no attempt even to pretend to bend the debt curve into something approaching re-entry with reality.
As for us doom-mongers, at the House Budget Committee last Thursday, Chairman Paul Ryan produced another chart, this time from the Congressional Budget Office, with an even steeper straight line showing debt rising to 900% of GDP and rocketing off the graph circa 2075.
America's Treasury Secretary, Timmy Geithner the TurboTax Kid, thought the chart would have been even more hilarious if they'd run the numbers into the next millennium: "You could have taken it out to 3,000 or to 4,000" he chortled, to supportive titters from his aides.
Has total societal collapse ever been such a nonstop laugh riot?
"Yeah, right." replied Ryan. "We cut it off at the end of the century because the economy, according to the CBO, shuts down in 2027 on this path."
The U.S. economy shuts down in 2027? Had you heard about that? It's like the ultimate President's Day Sale: Everything must go — literally!
At such a moment, it may seem odd to find the political class embroiled in a bitter argument about the Obama administration's determination to force Catholic institutions (and, indeed, my company and your company, if you're foolish enough still to be in business in the United States) to provide free prophylactics to its employees.
The received wisdom among media cynics is that Obama has engaged in an ingenious bit of misdirection by seizing on a pop-culture caricature of Republicans and inviting them to live up to it: Those uptight squares with the hang-ups about fornication have decided to force you to lead the same cheerless sex lives as them.
© Mark Steyn, 2012
I notice that in their coverage NPR and the evening news shows generally refer to the controversy as being about "contraception," discreetly avoiding mention of sterilization and pharmacological abortion, as if the GOP have finally jumped the shark in order to prevent you jumping anything at all.
It may well be that the Democrats succeed in establishing this narrative. But anyone who falls for it is a sap. In fact, these two issues — the Obama condoms-for-clunkers giveaway and a debt-to-GDP ratio of 900% by 2075 — are not unconnected.
In Greece, 100 grandparents have 42 grandchildren — i.e., an upside-down family tree. As I wrote in this space a few weeks ago, "If 100 geezers run up a bazillion dollars' worth of debt, is it likely that 42 youngsters will ever be able to pay it off?"
Most analysts know the answer to that question: Greece is demographically insolvent. So it's looking to Germany to continue bankrolling its First World lifestyle.
But the Germans are also demographically exhausted: They have the highest proportion of childless women in Europe. One in three fraulein have checked out of the motherhood business entirely.
A nation that did without having kids of its own is in no mood to maintain Greece as the ingrate slacker who never moves out of the house.
As the European debt crisis staggers on, these two countries loathe each other ever more nakedly: The Greek president brings up his war record against the German bullies, and Athenian commentators warn of the new Fourth Reich.
The Germans, for their part, would rather cut the Greeks loose. In a post-prosperity West, social solidarity — i.e., socio-economic fictions such as "Europe" — are the first to disappear.
The United States faces a mildly less-daunting arithmetic.
Nevertheless, the Baby Boomers did not have enough children to maintain mid-20th century social programs. As a result, the children they did have will end their lives in a poorer, uglier, sicker, more divided and more violent society.
How to avert this fate? In 2009 Nancy Pelosi called for free contraceptives as a form of economic stimulus.
Ten thousand Americans retire every day, and leave insufficient progeny to pick up the slack. In effect, Nancy has rolled a giant condom over the entire American economy.
Testifying before Congress, Timmy Geithner referred only to "demographic challenges" — an oblique allusion to the fact that the U.S. economy is about to be terminally clobbered by 100 trillion dollars of entitlement obligations it can never meet.
And, as Chart 5-1 on page 58 of the official Obama budget "Analytical Perspectives" makes plain, your feckless, decadent rulers have no plans to do anything about it.
Instead, the Democrats shriek, ooh, Republican prudes who can't get any action want to shut down your sex life! According to CBO projections, by midcentury mere interest payments on the debt will exceed federal revenues.
For purposes of comparison, by 1788 Louis XVI's government in France was spending a mere 60% of revenues on debt service, and we know how that worked out for His Majesty shortly thereafter.
Not to worry, says Barry Antoinette. Let them eat condoms.
This is a very curious priority for a dying republic. "Birth control" is accessible, indeed ubiquitous, and, by comparison with anything from a gallon of gas to basic cable, one of the cheapest expenses in the average budget. Not even Rick Santorum, that notorious scourge of the sexually liberated, wishes to restrain the individual right to contraception.
But where is the compelling societal interest in the state prioritizing and subsidizing it? Especially when you're already the Brokest Nation in History. Elsewhere around the developed world, prudent politicians are advocating natalist policies designed to restock their empty maternity wards.
A few years ago, announcing tax incentives for three-child families, Peter Costello, formerly Geithner's counterpart Down Under, put it this way: "Have one for Mum, one for Dad, and one for Australia."
But in America an oblivious political class, led by a president who characterizes young motherhood as a "punishment," prefers to offer solutions to problems that don't exist rather than the ones that are all too real.
I think this is what they call handing out condoms on the Titanic.
Glenn Reynolds, the Instapundit, distills the current hysteria thus: "It's as if we passed a law requiring mosques to sell bacon and then, when people objected, responded by saying 'What's wrong with bacon? You're trying to ban bacon!!!!'"
Americans foolish enough to fall for the Democrats' crude bit of misdirection can hardly complain about their rendezvous with the sharp end of that page 58 budget graph.
People are free to buy bacon, and free to buy condoms. But the state has no compelling interest to force either down your throat.
The notion that an all-powerful government would distract from its looming bankruptcy by introducing a universal contraceptive mandate would strike most novelists as almost too pat in its symbolism.
It's like something out of "Brave New World." Except that it's cowardly, and, like so much else about the sexual revolution, very old and wrinkled.
-
Occupy?? Ha!
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/morning-jay-democrats-inc_629969.html?page=1
Democrats, Inc.
Feb 17, 2012 • By JAY COST
Two news stories from this week underscored the most important development in Democratic party politics in the last thirty years. First, from the Washington Free Beacon:
Politico Influence reports that House minority leader Nancy Pelosi and minority whip Steny Hoyer raised $400,000 last night at a fundraiser held at the home of Democratic lobbyists Heather and Tony Podesta. Heather Podesta runs the firm Heather Podesta and Partners.
Heather Podesta’s clients include liberal bogeymen such as the for-profit education industry and Brookfield Asset Management, the real-estate company that owns Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan and which ultimately gave the NYPD the green light to evict the Occupy Wall Street movement from its grounds in November 2011. Pelosi is a vocal supporter of the occupiers, having once said, “God bless them.”
Second, from Bloomberg:
President Barack Obama returns to New York on March 1 for his first campaign fundraiser with investment bankers and hedge fund managers since asking Congress in his 2013 budget to increase taxes on the wealthy.
The president’s hosts include Ralph Schlosstein, chief executive officer at Evercore Partners Inc. (EVR), and his wife, Jane Hartley, co-founder of the economic and political advisory firm Observatory Group LLC, who were assured last week by Jim Messina, Obama’s campaign manager, that the president won’t demonize Wall Streetin his re-election pursuit.
The $35,800-per-person dinner at ABC Kitchen, the first of the evening’s four fundraising events, is being hosted by many of Obama’s top Wall Street donors, according to a person familiar with the matter. Sponsors include Blair W. Effron, partner and co-founder of Centerview Partners LLP; Marc Lasry, managing partner and founder of Avenue Capital Group; Mark Gallogly, a managing principal of Centerbridge Partners; James Rubin, managing director of BC Partners; Robert Wolf, UBS AG’s chairman for the Americas; and Antonio Weiss, global head of investment banking at Lazard Ltd.
The Democratic party used to be the party opposed to big business. Andrew Jackson was reviled by business elites, and William Jennings Bryan scared the living daylights out of them. Neither of those men would be caught dead asking for money from such lobbyists and bankers, who would never give them a dime, anyway!
But that is obviously no longer true. What we have instead is a party whose leaders simultaneously press the case for “fairness” while giving unfair access to wealthy donors such as these. And that has basically been the way of the world for the last 30 years; since the mid-1980s, the Democrats in Congress have usually matched or exceeded the GOP in terms of contributions from business and professional PACs.
Why has this happened? It has to do with the two sided nature of the modern Democratic party. On the one hand, the party promotes progressivism as its public-spirited governing philosophy. This is the ideology that animates the pages of The New Republic, The Nation, and well-intentioned liberals everywhere: The idea that a powerful central government can bring about social justice and true equality. But there is another side of the coin, less commented upon and much less noble: The Democratic party is also a massive patronage operation that uses the vast regulatory and redistributive powers of the federal government to attract and maintain political clients, whose loyalty stems not simply from the party’s public-spirited philosophy but also the special benefits they enjoy for being coalition members.
This is why politicians in the liberal party do so many illiberal things. Railing against “millionaires and billionaires” on one day then ponying up to them, hat in hand, on the other is one such example. Another is preening about the undue influence of the pharmaceutical industry during the 2008 campaign, and then giving them a sweetheart deal in Obamacare.
And let’s be clear, those “millionaires and billionaires” are getting something for their campaign contributions. Consider, for instance, this great article by Peter Schweizer in Reason about Warren Buffett. He’s now the Democratic party’s number one talking point in pushing for equality. It isn’t fair that he gets taxed at such a lower rate than his secretary. He doesn’t need the money! But Schweizer demonstrates that Buffett has in fact made a killing off his access to the higher-ups in the Democratic party. A modest increase in his tax rate is a small price to pay for the ability to influence public policy.
And he is no exception. As Charles Gasparino argues about the Dodd-Frank regulations:
The trade-off for all this regulation is government protection, which is what makes the crony capitalism of the modern banking business really work . . . mplicit in just about every facet of the bill was that “too big to fail”—the notion that Citigroup, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, and Morgan Stanley are so large and intertwined in the global economy that they need to be monitored and propped up no matter how much money they lose—was here to stay.
This signals the core problem of the Democratic party: It has become the opposite of what its founders intended it to be, and indeed opposite of what it claims to be today. The party presents itself as the party of the people against the powerful, of political and economic equality for all, of true social justice. But the reality is that the party now offers special benefits, sometimes amounting to billions of taxpayer dollars, for those who contribute to its political success.
Last week I compared the modern party to Tammany Hall, and its coziness with Wall Street is probably the most striking example of the parallel between the two. Tammany didn't win elections merely through the support of the Irish, but also by keeping its financial sponsors on Wall Street happy. So, year after year, Tammany pols would enorse the Democratic party platform, which inevitably railed against the GOP's coziness with special interests, while they themselves were cozy with those very same interests. That is the modern Democratic party in a nutshell.
-
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204653604577251461989702208.html?mod=opinion_newsreel
President Obama appeared at a United Auto Workers tent revival meeting Tuesday, and he made several notable claims. Critics of the Detroit bailout of 2008-09 are motivated, apparently, by their antipathy to American workers. The alternative to a government rescue was letting the entire auto industry "die." But one particular claim stood out. Mr. Obama said the bailouts succeeded not "because of anything the government did."
The lacuna in this account is the $81.8 billion that taxpayers surrendered to General Motors and Chrysler, and we detailed the many other costs in a February 25 editorial "Halftime in Detroit." As it happens, however, we missed one big thing the government did that deserves more attention: GM's tax gift courtesy of the U.S. Treasury.
Corporations in the red, as GM was for years, are allowed to carry forward net operating losses that reduce their future tax liability when they are making money. GM had accumulated about $45 billion in such profit-shielding chits by 2008, with a book value of about $18 billion. When companies enter bankruptcy, carry-forwards disappear or are greatly limited under IRS section 382, which kicks in when ownership changes by more than 50 percentage points.
The point is to prevent companies from buying assets solely for tax arbitrage or tax avoidance. But starting in 2009, Treasury began to issue regulatory "notices" that suspend this law when it comes to Treasury-owned stock. The provisions also apply to AIG and Citigroup.
So when GM entered bankruptcy in June 2009, the government swapped the debt the auto maker owed it as a creditor for 61% of "new GM," while handing another chunk to the United Auto Workers. But new GM also inherited the accumulated net operating losses that would have turned into a pumpkin in normal bankruptcy.
Editorial board member Joe Rago on President Obama's speech today to the United Auto Workers.
.In a 2011 working paper, J. Mark Ramseyer of Harvard and Eric Rasmusen of Indiana University argue that by manipulating corporate tax rules by fiat, "Treasury gave the firm (and its owners, including the UAW) $18 billion more in assets." Thus a Democratic Administration gave "a massive tax benefit to one of the party's biggest supporters." The other problem is that the move put Ford and GM's other competitors at a disadvantage, as bailouts always do.
Mr. Obama crowed yesterday about GM's "highest profits in its 100-year history." We'd be interested to hear how its effective tax rate compares with Warren Buffett's secretary's.
-
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203753704577255570396264602.html?mod=opinion_newsreel
Mitt Romney recently argued that campaign rival Rick Santorum was responsible for ObamaCare because the former Pennsylvania Senator had, years before its passage, supported Arlen Specter, his homestate colleague and one of the 60 Senators who later voted for the bill. Mr. Romney's Massachusetts creation of the prototype for President Obama's signature law appears to be the greater sin against free health-care markets. But after March 15, even Mr. Romney may agree that the blame for the 60th vote really belongs to the U.S. Justice Department.
That's the day a federal court has ordered the release of an independent report on Justice's "systematic concealment" of evidence. Specifically, the report ordered by Judge Emmet Sullivan found that federal attorneys prosecuting the late Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska hid "significant exculpatory evidence which would have independently corroborated [his] defense and his testimony, and seriously damaged the testimony and credibility of the government's key witness."
That much we know from sections of the report already made public, but several of the offending prosecutors have been trying to prevent the release of the full 500 pages chronicling the extent of their misconduct. Judge Sullivan recently and to his great credit denied their requests and so Americans will see the panorama of abuse.
These prosecutors, working in Justice's ironically named Public Integrity Section, trampled on Stevens's rights by ignoring the Brady rule, which requires prosecutors to share exculpatory evidence with the defense. The feds then won a conviction on ethics charges less than two weeks before Election Day in 2008.
Stevens, a Republican who had been highly popular in Alaska prior to the prosecution, lost a close race to Democratic challenger Mark Begich. Mr. Begich went on to become, yes, one of the 60 Senate votes for ObamaCare in 2009.
Within months of the election, as the federal abuses came to light, Stevens' conviction was set aside. But the election result, highly influenced by the bogus conviction, never was. As Judge Sullivan recently noted in explaining all the reasons that the report should be made public, the Stevens loss "tipped the balance of power in the United States Senate." And in favor of ObamaCare.
-
http://vimeo.com/36128486
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/03/04/obama-alinsky-love-song
-
second post: Moving GM's post here:
http://pjmedia.com/jchristianadams/2012/03/02/eric-holder-wants-race-preferences-and-benefits-forever/?singlepage=true
Holder Wants Race Preferences and Benefits . . . Forever
March 2, 2012 - 4:32 pm - by J. Christian Adams
Eric Holder has gone all-in supporting race-based hiring preferences and race-based benefits. Given that the majority of Americans despise this rot, surely the presidential candidates will pounce.
In a little noticed interview at the “World Leaders Forum,” Holder makes statements that should be the subject of a direct mail piece in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Virginia:
Holder expressed support for affirmative action, saying that he “can’t actually imagine a time in which the need for more diversity would ever cease.”
“Affirmative action has been an issue since segregation practices,” Holder said. “The question is not when does it end, but when does it begin. … When do people of color truly get the benefits to which they are entitled?”
Let me repeat: When do people of color truly get the benefits to which they are entitled? Again, the benefits to which they are entitled.
Ponder a moment the layers of rubbish in this philosophy.
Some are surprised by Holder’s brazenness. I am not. As I like to say, I wrote a bestseller about Holder’s racialist DOJ. Nothing surprises me anymore. The only surprise is the dumbfounded, stuck, GOP response — which would be none.
If the GOP nominee does not make this a presidential campaign issue because he is afraid to talk about such unpleasantries, then shame on him. In tough economic times, the last thing middle America wants to hear is the attorney general grousing about people of color getting benefits because of their color.
The Obama administration obviously exercises no restraint on racial issues, or perhaps has the courage of their convictions. What price is paid for this racial radicalism? None.
Instead, we have a whole assortment of Republicans, inside the government (oh and I could name so many names), afraid to pound Obama for this. Let’s hope they come out of their shells and fight.
Obama has paid no price for this rotted, unfair, and un-American employment philosophy, and continued GOP silence will preserve this peace.
-
SEIU's exceedingly close connections with the President are a matter of public record.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/video-reveals-occupy-strategy-to-abolish-capitalism-with-seiu-help/
-
Abdicating the rule of law
James S. Cole | 7 March 2012
no assertion of copyright in the original
The Attorney General of the United States has again abdicated his duties; he has notified Congress that he will not defend a duly enacted law in the courts. He did this in February of last year, too, when he stepped back from upholding the federal Defense of Marriage Act. This time, he refuses to defend a military and veterans' benefits law, 31 U.S.C. §§ 101(3) & (31), that defines “surviving spouse” and “spouse” to refer to persons of the opposite sex.
The Attorney General is not doing this on his own; he specifically says the notification reflects the policy of the President.
I wrote last year that this policy is a mixed blessing, in that by abdicating his responsibilities, Mr Holder may open the door to a more vigorous and more effective defense of the laws in the courts. The same holds true this year. But I am concerned with a more fundamental problem, and that is how this Administration and like-minded state officials flout the legislatures in our country.
In recent years, chief executives of the states and the federal government appear to have abandoned the very concept of representative governance by their legislatures in favor of rule by decree. They have adopted an attitude that if they are right in their policies—and they always believe that they are--then they will forge ahead with them no matter if they receive the authorization of the legislature or not. They will even forge ahead if instructed otherwise by their legislatures.
This concern goes beyond the problem of delegation-of-legislative-power-run-wild that was described on MercatorNet recently by Angelo M. Codevilla. Here are a few examples, culled from hundreds that could be cited.
Illinois. In 1997, Illinois enacted the Health Care Right of Conscience Act, providing perhaps the broadest protection of health-care conscience rights of any jurisdiction in the United States. Nevertheless, in 2005, the then-Governor of Illinois ordered his Administration to promulgate a regulation forcing pharmacists to sell contraceptive and abortifacient drugs or face disciplinary proceedings. A member of the Governor's cabinet wrote a letter to a Chicago newspaper stating, “We are telling pharmacies... they can't let an individual pharmacist's personal beliefs delay or hinder a woman's ability to have her prescription for birth control filled...” After six years of litigating against the State of Illinois, pharmacists finally won a permanent injunction in the trial court. Incredibly, the Attorney General of Illinois has appealed.
Missouri. In Missouri, a 2011 statute on funding certain bio-science research and start-ups, which Missouri Right to Life pointed out could allow funding of embryonic stem-cell research, was enacted with a clause that it would not go into effect unless another specific bill was enacted during the same session. The other bill was not enacted. Nevertheless, the Governor of Missouri announced that he would implement the bio-science funding program anyway, despite the clear language of the statute that it was not to go into effect. A judge recently issued a permanent injunction against the Governor. Incredibly, the Attorney General of Missouri has announced he will appeal.
Federal Government. On December 19, 2011, the President of the United States issued an Executive Order instituting a “National Action Plan on Women, Peace, and Security.” This Plan describes how the United States will put more women into diplomatic and other official efforts to avoid wars, to bring a woman's point of view to efforts to maintain peace, and to ensure women are not forgotten in ameliorating the suffering and damage caused by armed conflicts. Of course, “reproductive health,” which for this Administration in particular means abortion services, is not forgotten, either. The Plan proudly announces at one point, “We have supported the development of a toolkit on reproductive health in emergencies, and training modules for NGOs on the prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) of beneficiaries.” No US law enacted by Congress is cited as authority for this “toolkit” or the Plan as a whole; the Plan is based, it says, on UN Security Council Resolutions beginning in the year 2000.
4. In the fall of 2011, the President initiated several Executive Branch initiatives under the rubric, “We Can't Wait.” Explicitly admitting that Congress refused to enact such programs, the President announced that he and his Administration would initiate them, anyway. Such programs include “energy upgrades” to commercial buildings toward which the sum of $2 billion of taxpayer money is committed, a commitment of another $1 billionof the public's money toward the financing of start-up companies, and expanded federal spending in rural areas, particularly expanding the “rural health information technology workforce.” It seems not to bother the President that the people's representatives have not approved spending the people's money for these initiatives and that the federal government is currently gushing out torrents of borrowed money that it does not have any idea how to repay.
These examples illustrate how the governors and the President are flouting the will of their legislatures, whether the legislative intent is expressed in enacting bills or in refusing to enact bills. The President's Attorney-General refuses to defend laws that Congress enacted, and the President initiates programs that Congress refuses to enact. Governors issue Executive Orders that contradict the terms of statutes of their state legislatures.
I learned in school that the executive branch of government can propose new programs, but it is for the legislative branch to enact them, and then the executive enforces the laws enacted by the legislature. As an adult, my examination of the Constitution of my home state, Missouri, and the Constitution of the United States reinforces what I learned in school. The last couple of decades indicate that the governors and President are not abiding by this arrangement. Who has authorized them to arrogate legislative powers to themselves?
Perhaps Americans ought to refresh our memories about the principles we have inherited from the Founders of our country. Times have changed since they strove for our independence and freedom, but human nature has not. It is to the Founders' insights into human nature, and the mechanisms of limited government that they created with human nature in mind, that we owe the freedoms we enjoy more than 200 years later.
It was profitable to begin my own review with American Cicero, Bradley J. Birzer's 2010 biography of Charles Carroll, signer of the Declaration of Independence. As a Catholic, Carroll was actually disqualified before the Revolution from citizenship in his home province, Maryland. He could not vote or hold public office. Nevertheless, he contributed what he could, beginning with written public newspaper columns against abuses of the provincial governor. What were those abuses? They began with issuance of a gubernatorial decree that imposed public fees after the Maryland Assembly refused to enact them.
Among the principles that Carroll invoked against the governor's decree was this one: “Fees are taxes [and] taxes cannot be laid out but by the legislature.” Carroll further wrote, “The pursuits of government in the enlargement of its powers, and its encroachments on liberty, are steady, patient, uniform, and gradual.” His campaign against unauthorized executive decrees made Carroll famous throughout the colonies and helped launch the cause of independence in Maryland.
Maryland was not unique. The royal governors' flouting of the people's legislatures was prominent among the reasons our colonial ancestors finally rose up against the British. In the Declaration of Independence, the recitation of grievances that justified severance of allegiance to Great Britain included the following:
He [the King] has refused to pass other Laws for the Accommodation of large Districts of People, unless those People would relinquish the Right of Representation in the Legislature, a Right inestimable to them, and formidable to Tyrants only. * * *
He has kept among us, in Times of Peace, Standing Armies, without the consent of our Legislatures. * * *
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with Power to legislate for us in all Cases whatsoever.
The current Attorney General's refusal to uphold the enactments of Congress is bad news for the rule of law in a republic. The expanding practice of governors and presidents to rule by royal decrees that we now call “executive orders,” sometimes even flouting contrary acts of their legislatures, is nothing else than the groundwork for a virtual dictatorship.
Unlike the colonists of 1776, we have elections available to cut this process short. “A Prince,” said our Declaration of Independence, “whose Character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the Ruler of a free People.” So is such a state governor, and so is such a President.
James S. Cole graduated from Harvard Law School in 1978 and practices law in St. Louis, Missouri.
-
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/298859/julia-kevin-d-williamson#
By Kevin D. Williamson
May 3, 2012 2:15 P.M. Comments
155Alas, Team Obama has omitted a few milestones from the life of Julia:
4 months: Julia’s mother decides that giving birth will be hard on her figure. She kills Julia. Under Barack Obama, her right to do so is absolutely nonnegotiable.
10 years: Trapped in a failing and dangerous public school, Julia (another Julia, not the dead one) is terrified and miserable. Under the Obama administration, protecting the government education monopoly from competition and accountability is almost as sacrosanct as abortion. School-choice programs are severely constrained or eliminated. Julia falls behind.
21 years: After barely completing her high-school degree in her god-awful school, Julia goes looking for a job. There aren’t many, especially for people without college degrees. Julia kicks around the food-service and hospitality industries for a while, and ends up getting a job as a bartender. Even at her relatively low level of income, she pays a host of direct and indirect taxes to help subsidize Obama donors and supporters at politically connected businesses. She can’t quite figure out why President Obama’s pet millionaires and billionaires need her money more than she does.
22 years: After working in the bar for a while, Julia decides she likes it and wants to open her own place. But she’ll need capital to get that done. Under Obama, there is little or no credit available to small entrepreneurs, because we never got around to fixing the problems in the banking system, instead choosing to futz around with things like the disclosures on credit-card offers and micromanaging swipe fees and grandstanding about bonuses. Julia does not open her new business, and she doesn’t hire any other Julias to build, decorate, supply, or staff it.
23 years: Being a bartender, Julia works late at night. Under Obama, the federal government supports laws that make it difficult or impossible for a private citizen to own a gun in many places. Leaving her bar one night, the defenseless Julia is killed in the street. Ironically, the gun used to kill her was sold to a Mexican drug cartel under a program run by President Obama’s Department of Justice.
57 years: Julia (different Julia, not one of the dead ones) has been paying very high taxes for most of her life, mainly to support three federal programs: Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. In fact, the payroll tax diverts about 12 percent of her income — income she might have saved — into the entitlements. Under President Obama, stubborn refusal to reform these unsustainable entitlements means that the programs have to be radically cut or entirely eliminated, and Julia and her whole generation get hosed in spite of the fact that they have been taxed for decades under the phony promise that they were “paying into” the programs. The only alternative to massive cuts was an 88 percent increase in all federal taxes, which already have been rising to offset costs from Obamacare, which were wildly underestimated.
88 years: Julia (different Julia) passes away in 2022. And she got out just in time: Policies adopted by the Obama administration sent the national debt to $71,000 per person and climbing.
-
Brief • May 7, 2012
The Foundation
"Of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing demagogues and ending tyrants." --Alexander Hamilton
Government
Obama's 'The Life of Julia'
"Barack Obama has a new composite girlfriend, and her name is Julia. Her story is told in an interactive feature titled 'The Life of Julia' on the Obama campaign website. ... As a toddler, she's in a head-start program. Skip ahead to 17, and she's enrolled at a Race to the Top high school. Her 20s are very active: She gets surgery and free birth control through ObamaCare regulations, files a lawsuit under the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, and pays off her student loans at a low interest rate. We get updates at age 31, 37 and 42 -- and then the narrative skips ahead 23 years when she enrolls in Medicare. Two years later, she's on Social Security, at which point she can die at any time. ... [N]othing happens to Julia between 42 and 65. That period includes the typical peak earning years -- the time at which, assuming Julia is gainfully employed, she will be paying the biggest price for 'Obama's' generosity. ... The most shocking bit of the Obama story is that Julia apparently never marries. She simply 'decides' to have a baby, and Obama uses other people's money to help her take care of it. ... In 1999 Lionel Tiger coined the word 'bureaugamy' to refer to the relationship between officially impoverished mothers of illegitimate children and the government. 'The Life of Julia' is an insidious attack on the institution of the family, an endorsement of bureaugamy even for middle-class women." --Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto
"Alas, Team Obama has omitted a few milestones from the life of Julia." --National Review's Kevin D. Williamson, who has them covered here.
-
"A just security to property is not afforded by that government, under which unequal taxes oppress one species of property and reward another species." --James Madison, Essay on Property, 1792
-
Here's what happens when the president of the United States publicly targets a private citizen for the crime of supporting his opponent.
Frank VanderSloot is the CEO of Melaleuca Inc. The 63-year-old has run that wellness-products company for 26 years out of tiny Idaho Falls, Idaho. Last August, Mr. VanderSloot gave $1 million to Restore Our Future, the Super PAC that supports Mitt Romney.
Three weeks ago, an Obama campaign website, "Keeping GOP Honest," took the extraordinary step of publicly naming and assailing eight private citizens backing Mr. Romney. Titled "Behind the curtain: a brief history of Romney's donors," the post accused the eight of being "wealthy individuals with less-than-reputable records." Mr. VanderSloot was one of the eight, smeared particularly as being "litigious, combative and a bitter foe of the gay rights movement."
Enlarge Image
CloseAssociated Press
.About a week after that post, a man named Michael Wolf contacted the Bonneville County Courthouse in Idaho Falls in search of court records regarding Mr. VanderSloot. Specifically, Mr. Wolf wanted all the documents dealing with Mr. VanderSloot's divorces, as well as a case involving a dispute with a former Melaleuca employee.
Mr. Wolf sent a fax to the clerk's office—which I have obtained—listing four cases he was after. He would later send a second fax, asking for three further court cases dealing with either Melaleuca or Mr. VanderSloot. Mr. Wolf listed only his name and a private cellphone number.
Some digging revealed that Mr. Wolf was, until a few months ago, a law clerk on the Democratic side of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. He's found new work. The ID written out at the top of his faxes identified them as coming from "Glenn Simpson." That's the name of a former Wall Street Journal reporter who in 2009 founded a D.C. company that performs private investigative work.
The website for that company, Fusion GPS, describes itself as providing "strategic intelligence," with expertise in areas like "politics." That's a polite way of saying "opposition research."
When I called Fusion's main number and asked to speak to Michael Wolf, a man said Mr. Wolf wasn't in the office that day but he'd be in this coming Monday. When I reached Mr. Wolf on his private cell, he confirmed he had until recently worked at the Senate.
When I asked what his interest was in Mr. VanderSloot's divorce records, he hesitated, then said he didn't want to talk about that. When I asked what his relationship was with Fusion, he hesitated again and said he had "no comment." "It's a legal thing," he added.
Fusion dodged my calls, so I couldn't ask who was paying it to troll through Mr. VanderSloot's divorce records. Mr. Simpson finally sent an email stating: "Frank VanderSloot is a figure of interest in the debate over civil rights for gay Americans. As his own record on gay issues amply demonstrates, he is a legitimate subject of public records research into his lengthy history of legal disputes."
Related Video
Columnist Kim Strassel on President Obama's enemies list. Photo: Associated Press
.
.A look through Federal Election Commission records did not show any payments to Fusion or Mr. Wolf from political players, such as the Democratic National Committee, the Obama campaign, or liberal Super PACs. Then again, when political groups want to hire researchers, it is not uncommon to hire a less controversial third party, which then hires the researchers.
This is not the first attack on Mr. VanderSloot. While the executive has been a force in Idaho politics and has helped Mr. Romney raise money, he's not what most would consider a national political power player. Through 2011, nearly every mention of Mr. VanderSloot appeared in Idaho or Washington state newspapers, often in reference to his business.
That changed in January, with the first Super PAC disclosures. Liberal bloggers and media have since dug into his past, dredging up long-ago Idaho controversies that touched on gay issues. His detractors have spiraled these into accusations that Mr. VanderSloot is a "gay bashing thug." He's become a national political focus of attention, aided by the likes of partisan Salon blogger Glenn Greenwald and MSNBC host Rachel Maddow. Bloggers have harassed his children, visiting their social media accounts and asking for interviews and information.
Mr. VanderSloot has said his attackers have misconstrued facts and made false allegations. In February he wrote a long reply, publicly stating that he has "many gay friends whom I love and respect" who should "have the same freedoms and rights as any other individual." The Obama campaign's response, in April, was to single out Mr. VanderSloot and repeat the slurs.
Political donations don't come with a right to privacy, and Mr. VanderSloot might have expected a spotlight. Then again, President Obama, in the wake of the Gabby Giffords shooting, gave a national address calling for "civility" in politics. Yet rather than condemn those demeaning his opponent's donors, Mr. Obama—the nation's most powerful man—instead publicly named individuals, egging on the attacks. What has followed is the slimy trolling into a citizen's private life.
Mr. VanderSloot acknowledges that "when I first learned that President Obama's campaign had singled me out on his 'enemies list,' I knew it was like taping a target on my back." But the more he's thought it through, "the public beatings and false accusations that followed are no deterrent. These tactics will not work in America." He's even "contemplating a second donation."
Still. If details about Mr. VanderSloot's life become public, and if this hurts his business or those who work for him, Mr. Obama will bear responsibility. This is what happens when the president makes a list.
-
Dodd-Frank's Too-Big-to-Fail Dystopia
The government expands crony capitalism to insurers, securities firms and other non-banks.
By PETER J. WALLISON
With the recent publication of its final rule, the federal government's Financial Stability Oversight Council is now in position to designate certain nonbank firms as "systemically important financial institutions" (SIFIs). Under the Dodd-Frank Act, that label can be attached to nonbank financial institutions—insurers, financial holding companies, hedge funds, finance companies, securities firms, perhaps even money-market mutual funds and private-equity firms—that will "pose a threat to the financial stability of the United States" if they fail.
This process has received relatively little attention in the media, but there is probably no aspect of the Dodd-Frank Act that will have more damaging effects on competition in the U.S. financial system.
Almost daily, we hear politicians and commentators complaining that large banks like J.P. Morgan Chase are too big to fail and put the taxpayers at risk. But few seem to recognize that the Oversight Council's designations will spread the too-big-to fail problem beyond banking to every other financial industry.
The capital markets are not populated by fools. When the council has declared that a firm is "systemically important"—that its failure poses a threat to U.S. financial stability—the U.S. government is effectively saying that it will do whatever it takes to prevent the firm from failing. This means that a loan to a "systemically important" institution is going to be safer than a loan to a smaller competitor without that designation.
This is not speculation. The banking industry is already made up of a host of smaller banks and a few huge banks that are widely considered too big to fail—and the biggest banks have a lower cost of funds than their small competitors, as Thomas Hoenig (then of the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank, now of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) and others have shown. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, thanks to their government backing, also had advantageous funding, so much so that they drove even the biggest banks from much of mortgage market.
In testimony last week to a House subcommittee, MetLife executive William Wheeler put it clearly: "A SIFI designation would be the federal government's signal that we are indeed 'too big to fail,' and that if we got into financial trouble, federal funds would be used to rescue the firm. The implicit backing of the federal government could strengthen perceptions of our creditworthiness and may give us a significantly cheaper cost of funds than our peers."
It's not difficult to imagine what would happen to competition in the U.S. after SIFIs are designated in nonbank financial industries. These industries would consolidate, with larger companies using their funding advantage to absorb the smaller.
Defenders of the SIFI designation say it will do no harm. All such institutions will be turned over to the Federal Reserve for "stringent" regulation, they argue, and this will be so costly that any funding advantage will be overcome. That certainly hasn't happened in the Fed's regulation of the biggest banks, but even if it does happen in the case of SIFIs it wouldn't be much consolation.
Logic says that one of two things is likely to be true: Either the funding benefits realized by SIFIs will be larger than the regulatory costs, or the regulatory costs will overwhelm the funding advantages. The chance that they will balance out is negligible.
Either we will have large, successful, government-backed firms that swallow up smaller competitors, or we will have large, unprofitable, heavily regulated giants that are gradually driven to failure by their more nimble and less regulated competitors. In the former case, small firms are the victims. in the latter case, taxpayers will pay for the bailouts. Pick your dystopia.
One of the most surprising things about the SIFI designation process is how little attention it's received from smaller firms. They seem to think that this is a potential problem only for the firms that are in danger of being labeled systemically important. But both the big and the small could have a major stake in what the government's Oversight Council ultimately does, and their Washington representatives should be saying so to Congress.
Crony capitalists and their government mentors will be the biggest winners. Concentrated and heavily regulated markets are fine with supporters of the Dodd-Frank Act. They are comfortable with a financial industry made up of a few large firms responsive to government direction. If the government's SIFI designation is allowed to continue, that's precisely what we'll get.
Mr. Wallison is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
-
"WSJ: Dodd-Frank's too-big-to-fail dystopia
The government expands crony capitalism to insurers, securities firms and other non-banks."
Without crony capitalism and too big to fail would there even be a venue (Bank of America Stadium, Charlotte, NC) large enough to bring the big government people together with the Occupy Wall Street people for the 2012 Obama Acceptance Speech: We all gather here today in the unified fight against big business and big money, now a word from our sponsor, lol.
-
A very long piece, I will be reading this with some care.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/readymeet-soros-funded-domestic-terrorist-brett-kimberlin-whose-job-is-terrorizing-bloggers-into-silence/
-
- Cato @ Liberty - http://www.cato-at-liberty.org -
Apple: Too Big Not to Nail
Posted By David Boaz On May 29, 2012 @ 10:56 am In General,Government and Politics,Telecom, Internet & Information Policy | Comments Disabled
In Sunday’s New York Daily News, I deplore [1] the efforts of politicians and regulators to drag successful companies into the parasite economy of Washington, the most recent example being Apple. As the article says,
Heard of “too big to fail”? Well, to Washington, Apple is now too big not to nail.
I was prompted to these reflections by a recent article [2] in Politico. The Wall Street Journal used to call itself “the daily diary of the American dream.” Politico is the daily diary of the rent-seeking class. And that class is very upset with Apple for not hiring many lobbyists, as illustrated by Politico‘s front-page cartoon:
The story [2] begins:
Apple is taking a bruising in Washington, and insiders say there’s a reason: It’s the one place in the world where the company hasn’t built its brand.
In the first three months of this year, Google and Microsoft spent a little more than $7 million on lobbying and related federal activities combined. Apple spent $500,000 — even less than it spent the year before.
The nerve of them! How do they expect lobbyists to feed their families? Then comes my favorite part:
The company’s attitude toward D.C. — described by critics as “don’t bother us” — has left it without many inside-the-Beltway friends.
“Don’t bother us”—yes! Don’t tread on me. Laissez nous faire. Leave us alone. Just let us sit out here in Silicon Valley, inventing cool stuff and distributing it to the world. We won’t bother you. Just don’t bother us.
But no pot of money can be left unbothered by the regulators and rent-seekers.
Apple is mostly on its own when the Justice Department goes after it on e-books, when members of Congress attack it over its overseas tax avoidance or when an alphabet soup of regulators examine its business practices.
And what does the ruling class say to productive people who try to just avoid politics and make stuff? Nice little company ya got there, shame if anything happened to it:
“I never once had a meeting with anybody representing Apple,” said Jeff Miller, who served as a senior aide on the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Antitrust Subcommittee for eight years. “There have been other tech companies who chose not to engage in Washington, and for the most part that strategy did not benefit them.”
As I noted in the Daily News, back in 1998 Microsoft was in the same situation—a successful company on the West Coast, happily ignoring politics, getting too rich for politics to ignore it—and a congressional aide told Fortune‘s Jeff Birnbaum, “They don’t want to play the D.C. game, that’s clear, and they’ve gotten away with it so far. The problem is, in the long run they won’t be able to.” All too true.
Watch out, aspiring entrepreneurs. You too could become too big not to nail.
Article printed from Cato @ Liberty: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org
URL to article: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/apple-too-big-not-to-nail/
URLs in this post:
[1] deplore: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/a-bite-apple-article-1.1084829?localLinksEnabled=false
[2] recent article: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0512/76073.html
Click here to print.
Copyright © 2009 Cato-at-liberty. All rights reserved.
-
I only use Apple products; what a marvelous company. Excellent quality, design, and superb customer service. Isn't that what it's all about? We need more companies like Apple.
I don't like/read ebooks, but it's my understanding that Apple actually opened up competition. Before, Amazon had a monopoly.
I hope they don't change. Government interference with Microsoft was what killed them.
-
http://www.dickmorris.com/origins-of-the-welfare-state-dick-morris-tv-history-video/
-
Perhaps you thought that the Affordable Care Act is all about making insurance more affordable. Too bad no one told Americans that the law also turned the Health and Human Services Department into a giant venture capital investor for health care. This won't turn out well.
Awash in ObamaCare dollars, HHS has a growing investment portfolio that includes everything from new insurance companies to health-care start-ups to information technology. Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is rushing out loans and subsidies like nobody's business in case the Supreme Court overturns the law or Mitt Romney wins.
.
."We're moving forward with implementing this law, including moving forward with this very important commitment by the President, by the Administration, to community health centers and the people they serve," said senior White House aide Cecelia Munoz on a recent conference call with reporters. She was referring to $728 million in seed money for new clinics that HHS dispensed last month.
HHS already makes more grants than all other agencies combined, and it is the purchaser of health care for about one of three Americans via Medicare, Medicaid or both. The problem is that HHS spends its money—$788 billion for entitlements in 2012 and another $78 billion to run HHS's 300-odd programs—so badly.
Ernst & Young's annual outside audit of the HHS balance sheet last November was considered a triumph because several material weaknesses were downgraded merely to significant deficiencies. But on a "day-to-day or even monthly basis" HHS cannot accurately track its spending, according to the audit. The agency is in violation of numerous federal accounting rules written specifically for the bureaucracy, to say nothing of the financial reporting required of public companies.
The HHS inspector general revealed this year that his team can barely monitor HHS because its staff is too busy chasing the criminals exploiting HHS's incompetence. Experts disagree about how much is stolen from taxpayers through entitlement fraud—the Government Accountability Office puts it at $48 billion annually—but one sign of the problem is that Medicare allows doctors (or "doctors") to register for billing privileges as "other."
One particular ObamaCare boondoggle that needs fly-specking is the HHS decision to finance nonprofit insurance companies with up to $7.25 billion in ultra-low-cost loans. These co-ops were a consolation prize for liberals after Democratic opposition killed the government-run public option, and the co-ops are supposed to be managed by and for consumers. But it turns out that running an insurance company is hard for amateurs who can't attract private financing.
HHS officially estimates that the default rate on the loans will hit between 35% and 40%, which would be bad enough. But White House budget documents show that HHS expects to lose $3.1 billion of the $3.4 billion appropriated so far—which implies a default rate of 91%. The lack of accountability to shareholders or capital markets may help explain this propensity for failure.
Another problem is the way HHS chose to structure the co-op loans. To protect the insured, states require insurers to maintain reserves in the event they go bankrupt—and debts that are supposed to be repaid are viewed as liabilities. To end run these solvency requirements, HHS is issuing "surplus notes" that subordinate the taxpayer to everyone else for repayment if a co-op fails.
That seems likely, given the challenges of building a provider network and attracting members when expertise in such matters is legally prohibited under HHS rules. Any organization that wrote insurance policies prior to 2009—as it were, the pre-existing insurers of the Bush era—is barred from applying for loans or any significant role in the operations of a co-op. So the co-ops can't benefit from the business experience that might give them a chance to succeed.
Then there's Medicare's so-called "innovation center" and its $10 billion kitty to make grants to companies and providers to test new methods for improving care. Democrats included language that bars administrative or even judicial review of the center's financial decisions. Without any checks, this model replicates the rushed and haphazard loan process that led to the Energy Department's Solyndra fiasco. (For an insider's account of how HHS vets some of these grants, see Steven Greer's op-ed nearby.)
President Obama says he wants the election to be about the failed investments of private-equity firms, but Bain Capital has nothing on the politicized investments of the Obama Administration. At least Bain is investing private money. HHS is squandering yours.
-
WSJ
Crony Capitalism and the Crisis of the West
In Italy and Greece, the most talented don't get ahead. That's also increasingly true in the United States.
By LUIGI ZINGALES
As Greece sinks toward a financial abyss—and Portugal, Italy and Spain sit on the edge—can we in the United States consider ourselves safe?
Fundamental economic numbers offer little reassurance. At 8.6% of gross domestic product, the U.S. budget deficit is just under Greece's (9.1%) and equal to Spain's. U.S. debt, at 103% of GDP, is just below Portugal's—which first asked for a European Union bailout in 2011—and 58% larger than Spain's, which might soon need one.
Yet Americans should be concerned for a deeper reason. High deficits, high debt and unsustainable entitlements are symptoms of a common disease infecting Southern Europe and the U.S. That's crony capitalism, a problem with which I, having lived in Italy, am unfortunately familiar.
Cronyism has a long history in Italy, where historically the Catholic Church enjoyed tremendous influence. Popes and other members of the hierarchy wielded—and often abused—enormous power, including that of placing their children and friends in positions of influence, regardless of merit. A truly competitive market has no place for favoritism, but when one company or institution dominates a market, such practices become inevitable.
In Italy today, even emergency-room doctors gain promotions on the basis of political affiliation. Instead of being told to study, young people are urged to "carry the bag" for powerful people in the hope of winning favors. Mothers push their daughters into the arms of the rich and powerful, seeing it as the only avenue of social promotion. The nation's talent-selection process is broken: One routinely finds highly intelligent people employed in menial jobs while mediocre people often hold distinguished positions.
Once an incompetent appointee finds himself in a powerful position, he tends to hire only subordinates of equal or lower quality, since more talented people pose a threat to him. After a few years, a firm's human capital will become so eroded that it won't be able to compete without some form of protection. The more protection it can gain from government, the greater the scope of the cronyism, which in turn makes protection even more necessary. Crony capitalism creates a vicious circle.
Between 2001 and 2011, Italian per capita GDP dropped 4%. A low—or in Italy's case, negative—growth rate makes it difficult to meet basic social obligations. When growth is high, it's much easier to satisfy everyone without burdening future generations. But when the pie shrinks, the temptation to shift the burden onto someone else is irresistible—hence growing future entitlements and expanding budget deficits. During the 10 years of negative growth, the Italian debt-to-GDP ratio increased to 120% from 109%.
The worst consequence of crony capitalism is political. The more a system is dominated by cronies, the more it generates resentment. To maintain consensus, the insiders must distribute privileges and subsidies—and the more they dole out, the greater the demand becomes.
Traditionally, the U.S. has enjoyed a relatively honest democracy and transparent form of capitalism, which encouraged robust economic growth and contained the hunger for entitlements. This is less and less true. The U.S. tax code is filled with loopholes and special exemptions. Political connections increasingly count more than innovative ideas; young entrepreneurs often learn to lobby before they learn how to run a business.
Seven out of the 10 richest counties in the U.S. are in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., which produces little except rules and regulations. Even worse, the slow growth and decreased social mobility of the last decade have damaged the free market's reputation as a creator of prosperity. The hundreds of millions of dollars awarded for disastrous economic performance—from Robert Rubin's salary as chairman of almost-bankrupt Citigroup to government loans for the actually bankrupt solar company Solyndra—have in turn weakened public belief in the system's fairness.
For the U.S., the moment to act is now, before the cancer of crony capitalism metastasizes. The tax code needs an overhaul that eliminates special treatment and bans any form of corporate subsidy—starting with too-big-to-fail banks. We must find ways to introduce more competition into sectors such as education and health care, while expanding economic opportunity for those at the lower end of the income spectrum. And we must curb the political power that large industry incumbents have over legislation. Not only does it distort legislation, it also forces new entrants to compete on lobbying instead of concentrating on making more innovative and cheaper products.
It is not too late for the United States, but the clock is ticking. We have already begun to look like Italy. If we don't do something to stop that soon, we will end up like Greece.
Mr. Zingales is a professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a contributing editor to City Journal. His book, "A Capitalism for the People: Recapturing the Lost Genius of American Prosperity," was published this week by Basic Books.
-
Income Redistribution: Biden Buddy Snags Energy Loan
BrightSource Energy secured the largest federal loan of any solar energy company at $1.6 billion, and it's largely due to -- surprise -- its connections with the White House. As the Energy Department considered BrightSource's application for a loan for its Ivanpah solar farm in the Mojave Desert, the company hired Bernie Toon to lobby for it. Toon is the former chief of staff for then-Senator Joe Biden. His $40,000 payday (for one month of work) was just part of the half-million dollars BrightSource spent on lobbying for its loan.
According to The Wall Street Journal, "White House spokesman Eric Schultz said the Department of Energy made the loan-approval decision, not Mr. Biden nor other White House officials. A Department of Energy spokeswoman said it chose BrightSource, whose solar power plant in California continues to move ahead, based on the project's merits." Nothing to see here; move along.
The Obama administration promised to be transparent in its operations. They also said that lobbyists would not determine policy, yet here they are succumbing to lobbying by cronies and doling out billions of dollars for alternative energy as a way Forward™.
Patriot Post
-
Meanwhile, in New Mexico, a Christian photographer who declined to photograph a same-sex commitment ceremony (New Mexico recognizes nether same-sex marriage nor civil unions) was found guilty by the NM Human Rights Commission of "sexual orientation" discrimination. Now, the state Court of Appeals has sided with the Commission, ruling that the photographer must pay almost $7,000 in fines and it's ludicrously claiming that forcing the photographing of the wedding in violation of the photographer's conscience counts among "reasonable regulations and restrictions."
Given the pervasive homosexual agenda, one would think the homosexual population must be quite large. Indeed, a 2011 Gallup poll showed that more than one-third of respondents thought that more than 25 percent of Americans are homosexual. The truth, however, is that fewer than 5 percent of Americans identify themselves as such. This, however, is a reality that neither the homosexual lobby nor the Leftmedia want America to acknowledge.
Patriot Post
-
Couple of comments. On the homosexual question, I think the proportion is between 2 and 3%. As Obj suggests, yes they deserve the right to empower each other for emergency decisions, inheritance, etc. They deserve enough respect to at least possibly notice that it is the right side of politics actually offering them the most freedoms, not gay specific, but overall including economic freedoms etc.
"Crony capitalism should say Economic Fascism"
I think I will just say Cronyism. Not capitalism or fascism.
Fascism is a term tied to Hitler and Nazis. Under Pelosi-Obama et al we have way too many encroachments on our freedoms and too many burdens on our economy, but day to day even with all the Solyndra-like bullsh*t, we still mostly live our lives in a spirit of freedom.
Cronyism is not capitalism. It is not a form of capitalism. It is how things work in third world Kleptocracies and in fascist and other totalitarian states. It is about who you know, who you bribe, who you have something on. It is the opposite of equal protection under the law and consent of the governed. The money going to Biden's buddy is a diversion from what it is we say we do in America. The people didn't say they wanted that. You and I don't get what they got. We also don't get rounded up and incinerated either but we certain don't govern according to our own founding principles.
Whatever the terms are, let's keep fighting to stop it.
-
Cronyism is an inevitable consequence of when the private means of production are directed by the public sector i.e. economic fascism-- see e.g. Mussolini, Hitler (and this is apart from his race hatred theories), Franco, and much of Latin America e.g. Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, or whomever it is right now in Argentina.
-
Socialist or Fascist?
Posted By Thomas Sowell On June 13, 2012
It bothers me a little when conservatives call Barack Obama a “socialist.” He certainly is an enemy of the free market, and wants politicians and bureaucrats to make the fundamental decisions about the economy. But that does not mean that he wants government ownership of the means of production, which has long been a standard definition of socialism.
What President Obama has been pushing for, and moving toward, is more insidious: government control of the economy, while leaving ownership in private hands. That way, politicians get to call the shots but, when their bright ideas lead to disaster, they can always blame those who own businesses in the private sector.
Politically, it is heads-I-win when things go right, and tails-you-lose when things go wrong. This is far preferable, from Obama’s point of view, since it gives him a variety of scapegoats for all his failed policies, without having to use President Bush as a scapegoat all the time.
Government ownership of the means of production means that politicians also own the consequences of their policies, and have to face responsibility when those consequences are disastrous — something that Barack Obama avoids like the plague.
Thus the Obama administration can arbitrarily force insurance companies to cover the children of their customers until the children are 26 years old. Obviously, this creates favorable publicity for President Obama. But if this and other government edicts cause insurance premiums to rise, then that is something that can be blamed on the “greed” of the insurance companies.
The same principle, or lack of principle, applies to many other privately owned businesses. It is a very successful political ploy that can be adapted to all sorts of situations.
One of the reasons why both pro-Obama and anti-Obama observers may be reluctant to see him as fascist is that both tend to accept the prevailing notion that fascism is on the political right, while it is obvious that Obama is on the political left.
Back in the 1920s, however, when fascism was a new political development, it was widely — and correctly — regarded as being on the political left.
Jonah Goldberg’s great book “Liberal Fascism” cites overwhelming evidence of the fascists’ consistent pursuit of the goals of the left, and of the left’s embrace of the fascists as one of their own during the 1920s.Mussolini, the originator of fascism, was lionized by the left, both in Europe and in America, during the 1920s. Even Hitler, who adopted fascist ideas in the 1920s, was seen by some, including W.E.B. Du Bois, as a man of the left.
It was in the 1930s, when ugly internal and international actions by Hitler and Mussolini repelled the world, that the left distanced themselves from fascism and its Nazi offshoot — and verbally transferred these totalitarian dictatorships to the right, saddling their opponents with these pariahs.
What socialism, fascism and other ideologies of the left have in common is an assumption that some very wise people — like themselves — need to take decisions out of the hands of lesser people, like the rest of us, and impose those decisions by government fiat.
The left’s vision is not only a vision of the world, but also a vision of themselves, as superior beings pursuing superior ends. In the United States, however, this vision conflicts with a Constitution that begins, “We the People…”
That is why the left has for more than a century been trying to get the Constitution’s limitations on government loosened or evaded by judges’ new interpretations, based on notions of “a living Constitution” that will take decisions out of the hands of “We the People,” and transfer those decisions to our betters.
The self-flattery of the vision of the left also gives its true believers a huge ego stake in that vision, which means that mere facts are unlikely to make them reconsider, regardless of what evidence piles up against the vision of the left, and regardless of its disastrous consequences.
Only our own awareness of the huge stakes involved can save us from the rampaging presumptions of our betters, whether they are called socialists or fascists. So long as we buy their heady rhetoric, we are selling our birthright of freedom.
Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: Click here.
-
Objectivist:
Via Thomas Sowell you touch on a theme near and dear to me. I too have read and been influenced by Jonah Goldberg's "Liberal Fascism" book, indeed it would be fair to consider it the intellectual father of this thread :-)
TAC!
Marc
-
To illustrate the problem for special interest seekers, Bastiat wrote the following tongue-in-check and brutally honest appeal for special consideration:
"I am dissatisfied at the proportion between my labor and my enjoyments. I should like, for the sake of restoring the desired equilibrium, to take part of the possessions of others. But this would be dangerous. Could not you facilitate the thing for me? Could you not find me a good place? or check the industry of my competitors? or, perhaps, lend me gratuitously some capital, which you may take from its possessor? … By this means I shall gain my end with an easy conscience, for the law will have acted for me, and I shall have all the advantages of plunder, without its risk or its disgrace!"
-
http://american.com/archive/2012/june/its-not-a-welfare-state-its-a-special-interest-state
-
Government
"According to the report by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, which is part of the U.S. Department of Energy, Section 1503 of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (aka the stimulus), the part that covers green energy projects got some $9 billion in stimulus cash for 2009-11 and created a whopping 910 direct jobs -- those involved in the ongoing operation of the wind and solar projects that were funded. Now, the report doesn't come right out and say this. You have to pick through it and look past the 'indirect' jobs said to have been created by the manufacture and installation of the bird-chopping wind turbines and water-cleansed solar panels. The administration has a most curious way of describing what a green job is, but if you count just the 'direct' jobs, it cost taxpayers $9.8 million to create each of those long-term jobs. Throw in the indirect jobs supporting the direct jobs estimate of 4,600 (we're confused too) and there are 5,510 total jobs (direct and indirect). Starting with the $9 billion in grants, the result to establish 5,510 jobs averages out to $1.63 million per job. ... While campaigning four years ago, Sen. Barack Obama promised that $150 billion in government spending on renewable energy projects would create 5 million green-collar jobs over 10 years. Near the end of this administration's first year in office, Vice President Joe Biden promised 722,000 green jobs would be generated by the stimulus. To this end, avowed Marxist and wealth redistribution advocate Van Jones was appointed as green jobs czar. The wealth redistribution part has gone very well. But where, gentlemen, are the jobs?" --Investor's Business Daily
-
Fascinating discussion. Contrasts the financial resources of leftist vs. conservative organizations:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=78NQRDNlUsQ&feature=youtu.be
-
http://www.dennisprager.com/columns.aspx?g=44f26fde-6a87-4802-a6df-2a4614481937&url=roberts_blankenhorn_and_the_power_of_liberal_intimidation
-
Not the clearest of writing but eventually it makes a rather good point worth remembering:
http://pjmedia.com/eddriscoll/2012/07/10/ap-embraces-corporatism/?singlepage=true
-
Two friends comment:
===========================
Here's a quick look into the three former Fannie Mae executives who brought down Wall Street.
Franklin Raines - was a Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Fannie Mae. Raines was forced to retire from his position with Fannie Mae when auditing discovered severe irregularities in Fannie Mae's accounting activities. Raines left with a "golden parachute valued at $240 Million in benefits. The Government filed suit against Raines when the depth of the accounting scandal became clear. The Court ordered Raines to return $50 Million Dollars he received in bonuses based on the miss-stated Fannie Mae Profits.
Tim Howard - was the Chief Financial Officer of Fannie Mae. Howard "was a strong internal proponent of using accounting strategies that would ensure a "stable pattern of earnings" at Fannie. Investigations by federal regulators and the company's board of directors since concluded that management did manipulate 1998 earnings to trigger bonuses. Raines and Howard resigned under pressure in late 2004. Howard's Golden Parachute was estimated at $20 Million!
Jim Johnson - A former executive at Lehman Brothers and who was later forced from his position as Fannie Mae CEO. Investigators found that Fannie Mae had hidden a substantial amount of Johnson's 1998 compensation from the public, reporting that it was between $6 million and $7 million when it fact it was $21 million." Johnson is currently under investigation for taking illegal loans from Countrywide while serving as CEO of Fannie Mae. Johnson's Golden Parachute was estimated at $28 Million
WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
FRANKLIN RAINES?
Raines works for the Obama Campaign as his Chief Economic Advisor.
TIM HOWARD?
Howard is a Chief Economic Advisor to Obama under Franklin Raines.
JIM JOHNSON?
Johnson was hired as a Senior Obama Finance Advisor and was selected to run Obama's Vice Presidential Search Committee.
Kinda makes you sick to your stomach. Our government is rotten to the core!
Are we stupid or what? Vote in 2012..it is the most important election of our lives...
==============
While you are at it, Thomas Lawler was Exec VP of Fannie Mae. He created his own housing consulting firm. He is a big advocate of housing turning around right now. Any chance his views have something to do with money?
-
No offense but your "two friends" are full of camel dung.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/fanniemae.asp
-
Thank you for catching this.
I readily believed it because of Raines being selected for the Commission that was to oversee the market for Cap & Trade credits-- which forunately never came into being because C&T didn't pass the Congress.
-
Does Snopes have any correction for the much larger allegation, that the number one recipient in congress of all Fannie Mae political contributions made during the year of the collapse, is still involved in Obama administration economic policy and the reelection effort?
-
1) Also IIRC in 18 months Obama himself became the #2 all-time recipient-- who was #1?;
2) I am hearing that snopes is owned by a big Obama donor, but have no citation.
-
"in 18 months Obama himself became the #2 all-time recipient-- who was #1?"
That was my point. If he became #2 for all-time during that year, he was certainly number one for that year. (I searched but don't have a link or report to support that.)
"2) I am hearing that snopes is owned by a big Obama donor, but have no citation."
No, I don't think there is a smoking gun on them.
You may be thinking of Factcheck.org, 'a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center. Barack Obama served as Chairman of the Board for the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, whatever that means. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Annenberg_Challenge The bias shows up in which statements they choose to write about and that their conclusions are really just another biased opinion to add to the mix. Take their coverage of the 'you didn't build that' scandal. After you parse out the context, the President is still saying that in the larger picture the business did not build the business because the government, and not even his federal $4 trillion government, enabled it. In the political context, that is complete bullshit. There isn't a federal program opposed by Republicans or business owners anywhere within sight of the President's misleading straw argument. There was no serious political point. He was rambling with his 'Harry, I have a gift' confidence while exposing his own distaste for private enterprise and accomplishment and America saw it, on the long clip or the short clip. He was also very nearly plagiarizing the plagiarist Elizabeth Warren. The rant we thought was ridiculous he thought was promising and repeatable.
It is a lie (IMO) for Obama to say or infer that a job creating, money making business is not paying it's share of everything around them, roads, schools, you name it, and for him to pretend in Presidential fashion that he is having a debate with opponents who want the business to pay nothing and keep everything by keeping federal tax rates the same. The federal government is much more likely holding back that business than enabling it. Yet factcheck.org puts it back on the Republicans for twisting his words. http://factcheck.org/2012/07/you-didnt-build-that-uncut-and-unedited/ That is their opinion, but not necessarily the last word.
-
Doug:
Your analysis seems sound to me.
-
Following up on the Snopes issue of a few posts ago:
http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/internet/a/snopes_exposed.htm
About.com is owned by Pravda on the Hudson (the New York Times...... )
-
Following up on the Snopes issue of a few posts ago:
http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/internet/a/snopes_exposed.htm
About.com is owned by Pravda on the Hudson (the New York Times...... )
Snopes.com is not owned by or affiliated with the N.Y. Times. Anyone who has spent even a few minutes browsing Snopes.com knows that the website is owned by two people. They are husband and wife David and Barbara Mikkelson of southern California. This is stated on the website and has been common knowledge for quite some time.
Moreover, Barbara Mikkelson is a Canadian citizen, and as such cannot vote in U.S. elections or contribute to political campaigns. David Mikkelson said his "sole involvement in politics" is voting on election day. In 2000 he registered as a Republican and in 2008 Mikkelson didn't declare a party affiliation at all. Says Mikkelson: "I've never joined a party, worked for a campaign, or donated money to a candidate"
The left and the right looks to Snopes.com to clarify and find the truth versus the garbage printed by rumor mills.
http://snopes.com/info/articles.asp
-
I suppose I could post this in the Housing thread, but I think the deeper point is better made here:
==============
http://spectator.org/archives/2012/07/27/and-you-thought-the-housing-cr
And You Thought the Housing Crisis Was Over!
By William Tucker on 7.27.12 @ 6:09AM
The Community Reinvestment Act is back, as if 2008 never happened
Do you remember that thing about how the banks wouldn't lend to blacks and Hispanics because they were racists? And do you remember how they passed the Community Reinvestment Act so that banks were forced to reduce down payments practically to zero and lend to a lot of people they knew were bad credit risks? And do you remember how Wall Street bundled all these risky subprime mortgage and sold them to investors around the world so that when it became clear that those people weren't going to be able to pay their mortgages banks everywhere were left holding the bag and all five of the Wall Street investment houses either went under or had to be bailed out by the federal government?
And do you remember how, when it was all over, liberals said it was actually the banks' fault for "deceiving" all those people into thinking they could afford to buy homes and that the banks should be punished for it and some of those people be allowed to keep their homes anyway? And do you remember how all this cost the government close to a trillion dollars and put the whole economy in a hole that we really haven't begun to dig ourselves out of yet?
Well, get ready because the whole thing is about to happen again.
Yes, believe it or not, the federal government is now starting another initiative to force banks to lend to low-credit-rated blacks and Hispanics -- not just anybody but specifically blacks and Hispanics -- and is threatening -- and already imposing -- huge punitive fines if they don't. Moreover, this time they're going even further. They're going to take over the credit rating agencies and force them to change their standards to accommodate blacks and Hispanics so that nobody will have any idea who is a bad credit risk and who is not. In so many words, the government is about impose its will on the whole home-lending market and force another round of bad loans so that the banks are going to be looted once again so that even the federal government may not be able to bail them out this time.
The principle instrument this time is not the Justice Department, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as it was last time, but the brand-new Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, designed by good old Elizabeth "Nobody-Ever-Made-It-On-Their-Own" Warren, which should really be called the Bureau for Bringing Down the Entire Economy. As reported in last Sunday's New York Post by Hoover Institution Media Fellow Paul Sperry, the CFPB has just announced that it is adopting a 20-page "Policy Statement on Discrimination in Lending" issues by the Interagency Task force on Fair Lending in 1994 that kicked off Attorney General Janet Reno's draconic enforcement of the Community Renewal Act. Part of the policy statement reads, "Applying different lending standards or offering different levels of assistance to applicants who are members of a protected [i.e., minority] class is permissible in some circumstances. Providing different treatment to applicants to address past discrimination would be permissible if done in response to a court order." There are already plenty of court orders sitting around.
Just two weeks ago Wells Fargo caved to a Justice Department offensive and paid $175 million for alleged past discriminating against minority borrowers. All this occurred even though the bank received an "outstanding" grade in its most recent Community Reinvestment Act exam. The government did not even bother to prove discrimination in a single instance but relied instead on statistics showing lower rates of homeownership in minority neighborhoods. Thomas Perez, the Justice Department honcho who is spearheading this campaign, says banks discriminate "with a smile" and "fine print" and are "every bit as destructive as the cross burned in a neighborhood." Nice objective evaluation there.
As in most such cases, Wells Fargo chickened out about going to court and refused to admit any wrongdoing but agreed to all kinds of diversity training and sensitivity counseling. The bank will have to "prominently display" a notice informing minority customers that they cannot be turned down for loans just because they are receiving public assistance such as unemployment benefits, welfare payments or food stamps. (Maybe they can even use food stamps for the down payment.) Wells Fargo must provide minority customers $50 million for down-payment and closing-cost assistance, including "Borrower Assistance Grants" of up to $15,000 per individual. It was also ordered to pay $125 million to as yet unnamed victims of previous discrimination. But get this! If those past victims don't show up, the money must be handed over to community organizing groups. President Obama, you have a job waiting for you if you lose office this fall.
Almost a dozen banks are under similar investigation and will be soon falling like dominoes unless one of them musters the courage to stand up to the Justice Department in court.
But the real destruction is going to be wrought by CFPB, created by Dodd-Frank and just getting started. Last week Richard Cordray, who is serving as a disputed recess appointee without the consent of the Senate, announced that not only will CFPB be going after banks but will also target the credit rating agencies that evaluate people's creditworthiness based on past performance in paying debts. They too will be vetted for racial discrimination. In May 2011, the non-partisan Policy and Economic Research Council completed what it described as the first evaluation of Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion, the three credit rating agencies. The report concluded that in less than 1 percent of cases was a score changed by more than 25 points after a dispute process and that "consequential inaccuracies are rare." Moreover, "95 percent of disputing participants were satisfied with the outcomes of their disputes, suggesting widespread satisfaction" with the process. In other words, credit ratings are pretty accurate. Banks rely heavily on them and say that, if anything, the agencies tends to underestimate the rate at which minority buyers will default on mortgages.
So guess what happens next? Under the pretext of "regulating" the agencies, CFPB will hammer away, forcing them to upgrade the scores of blacks and Hispanics. Standards will be diluted or abandoned entirely and within a few years the banks will be flying blind with no reliable information on who is a good credit risk and who isn't. Does that sound like the formula for another mortgage meltdown? It sure does to me.
At this point in my story, it is customary for the journalist to proclaim that he isn't trying to protect the lenders but is really concerned with those unfortunate minority individuals who will end up with bad loans. Sperry follows this pattern by declaring, "In the end, it will be the minorities Obama and [Eric] Holder are trying to help who will be hurt most."
I think I'm going to have to depart from the tradition. I think what we are witnessing is the looting of America on behalf of minorities in a way that better end soon or we are going to bring the whole system down upon our heads.
With the current administration in power, the perception is growing among minorities that everything in the economy can be had for free and that President Obama and his administration are going to provide it for them. For instance, there is a scam going on around the country right now where con artists call up homeowners and tell them that President Obama has a new program where he is going to pay their electrical bills. All the homeowner has to do is provide his Social Security number and other personal information. The con game started in Michigan among minority populations in depressed cities such as Flint and Grand Rapids. It has now spread as far as far as Florida and Mississippi. More than 2,300 people in Michigan were bilked out of $1 million, another 10,000 have been swindled in New Jersey.
What is amazing is that all these people actually believe that President Obama is ready to pay their electrical bills. It is symptomatic of a rising tide of dependency and the growing sense that nobody has to be responsible for anything anymore and we can all live off "the rich." If we don't get these people out of office soon, there isn't going to be much left to pick over in the American economy.
-
The government is selling $4.5 billion of AIG stock, par value of $2.50 a share.
In Jan 2012, with TARP, with TARP funds about $50b, AIG stock was about
$25 per share, with the government cost at about $28.75 per share.
BOHICA
(Not to mention that billions went out AIG's back door to Euro banks)
-
http://frontpagemag.com/2012/arnold-ahlert/obamas-gm-success-story-headed-for-bankruptcy/print/
-
Gibson Is Off the Feds' Hook. Who's Next?
The guitar company settlement reveals a disturbing effort by federal prosecutors to silence their corporate targets.
By HARVEY SILVERGLATE
Gibson Guitar Corp. got lucky. Its looming federal prosecution for claimed violations of vague, protectionist export regulations involving imports from Madagascar and India ended abruptly after the absurdity and unfairness of the case spread virally. Apparently the Justice Department couldn't handle the heat of news reports on how armed federal agents twice in two years dramatically raided guitar factories full of unarmed luthiers.
On Aug. 6 prosecutors agreed not to prosecute Gibson provided the company adheres to some remedial measures meant to assure that it never again violates regulations—regulations that it likely didn't violate in the first place. The company also agreed to pay a modest (as these things go) $300,000 monetary penalty to the government, along with a $50,000 contribution to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. (The Justice Department always looks for an opportunity to portray itself as benign and even philanthropic—with other people's money, of course.)
Did Gibson acquiesce in this settlement solely to end the expense, distraction, danger and agony of a federal criminal prosecution—the usual reasons for shouting "uncle" to Uncle Sam? We will never know. Why? Because federal prosecutors required, as part of the "criminal enforcement agreement," that Gibson not only "accept and acknowledge responsibility for the conduct" alleged, but also that the company's "public statements regarding this Agreement will not contradict the statement of facts" set forth in an appendix to the settlement agreement.
Enlarge Image
image
image
Associated Press
Gibson Guitar CEO Henry Juszkiewicz
Put another way, Gibson is now forbidden to tell the world the whole truth about its conduct and its reasons for settling a case it previously claimed publicly, including in an opinion piece in this newspaper, involved no criminal conduct on its part. In exchange for agreeing to read the government's script, Gibson regained its ability to conduct business without a federal sword of Damocles dangling over its corporate head.
This naked effort by federal prosecutors to control both news and outcomes, not to mention their own reputations, does not surprise those familiar with the modern federal criminal justice system. The accounting firm KPMG was strong-armed into a similar agreement in 2005 when threatened with indictment. In exchange for not being prosecuted for its role assisting lawyers in devising aggressive tax shelters that many experts at the time deemed lawful, the firm agreed not only to cooperate with the government in going after former clients and partners involved in the shelters, but it also signed a stipulation that the firm, its employees and its lawyers would not "make any statement, in litigation or otherwise, contradicting the Statement of Facts" set forth in the settlement agreement.
Federal prosecutors, in other words, wrote the script that anyone connected with KPMG had to follow, even while under oath in court. If anyone other than a federal prosecutor suggested, much less imposed such a stipulation on a party, he would promptly be indicted on a charge of obstruction of justice.
This obsession with controlling the "truth" is not limited to federal prosecutors offering to settle a threat of indictment against a vulnerable corporation or individual. The FBI has a formal, binding policy that forbids its agents from conducting witness or target interviews with the aid of electronic recording—in contrast to the practice of recording custodial interviews, which is now in wide use by law enforcement officials on the state and local levels.
Columnist Kim Strassel on the Obama administration's shakedown of Gibson Guitar. Photo: Getty Images.
Instead, one federal agent does the questioning while the other takes notes. Those notes, once typed up in a "Form 302 report," become the official version of what the interviewee said. A witness deviating from that version risks up to five years imprisonment for making a false statement to a federal official, even if the statement was not made under oath. In this way, it is the FBI agent, not the witness, who controls the witness's official story.
Through these and myriad other techniques, federal investigators and prosecutors create an alternative reality that favors their own institutional interests, regardless of the truth or of justice. All citizens and companies have become subject to the Justice Department's essentially unfettered power.
Remedying this problem cannot be left to the victims of this governmental extortion, because their risks are too high if they fight; nor will their lawyers likely blow the whistle, since the bar makes a tidy living by playing the game. It is up to the rest of civil society to let the Justice Department emperor know that we see he is not wearing clothes.
Mr. Silverglate, a lawyer and writer, is the author of "Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent" (Encounter Books, updated edition 2011.)
-
Obama, Axelrod, Jarrett's communist connections. I was trying to find if David Axelrod who is the offspring of Russian Jewish immigrants and whose mother worked for a radical right newspaper funded by Marshall was in any way related to the marxist/communist Pavel Axelrod who was associated with Vladimir Lenin. I cannot find if there is an ancestral link or not but this piece has some other interesting communist links between some of the players:
http://spectator.org/archives/2012/08/03/all-in-the-political-family
-
I never thought I would see a sitting President so obviously promote a socialist/communist agenda. I am reading a condensed biography of Lenin and the comparisons today are wide and broad. The only difference that rather than force of arms the present revolutionary left is using taxpayer funds to simply bribe a majority. Every time they need a few more votes they come up with another group to put in the victim category to increase their voting share.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorw%C3%A4rts
-
Income Redistribution: The Truth About GM
Look what the government's done for you! That was the message this week at the Democratic National Convention. Thanks to Big Labor and the "huge success" of the auto bailout, GM has come roaring back. If only those Republicans would stop the lies and get out of the way, the economy could get rolling again. That's the gist of the pabulum peddled by the donkey party.
Columnist Michelle Malkin points out, "GM still owes nearly $30 billion of the $50 billion it received, and its lending arm still owes nearly $15 billion of the more than $17 billion it received." According to National Legal and Policy Center's Mark Modica, that doesn't include foreign investment: "In addition to U.S. taxpayers anteing up, Canada put in over $10 billion, and GM was relieved of about $28 billion of bondholder obligations while UAW claims were protected. That's an improvement of almost $90 billion to the balance sheet, and the company still lags the competition." In fact, GM could file for bankruptcy again.
Just how bad are sales? National Review's Kevin D. Williamson sums it up: "It is true that sales have improved at U.S. makers -- but those increases have far lagged the increases seen by overseas competitors such as Volkswagen and Kia. GM's August sales are up about 10 percent over last year; Kia's are up 21 percent. Volkswagen is up 37 percent. Hell, Porsche is up 40 percent. ... The Democrats are not exactly telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but when it comes to the auto bailout." Some recovery!
Additionally, amid all the talk about how Romney and Ryan want to outsource American businesses, the demagogue-in-chief has done enough of that himself. With $7 billion invested in China, $1 billion in Mexico, $1 billion in Brazil, and a $600 million sponsorship with the UK's Manchester United soccer team, GM is about to invest another $1 billion in Russia. But nothing to see here folks, move along.
-
Second post:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbfEkhcXbGg&feature=share
-
Obama Thugs Rough Up Gallup For Polls They Don't Like
By DICK MORRIS
Published on DickMorris.com on September 10, 2012
Printer-Friendly Version
The Obama Administration's Justice Department announced, on August 22nd, that it was joining a lawsuit by a former Gallup employee and whistleblower against the Gallup Corporation for allegedly overcharging the government on polling work.
The announcement comes on the heels of a confrontation between Gallup staffers and Obama strategist David Axelrod in which he accused the company of using out of date sampling methods which, he said, generated polling data negative to the president.
The whistleblower's lawsuit has been kicking around since 2009, but the Justice Department joined the suit only after the run-in between Axelrod and Gallup in April of this year.
In a scene right out of a typical authoritarian regime, Fox News reports that "employees at the venerable Gallup polling firm suggested they felt threatened by Obama campaign adviser David Axelrod when he questioned the methodology of a mid-April poll showing Mitt Romney leading the president - according to internal emails published Thursday."
That poll that sent Axelrod ballistic showed Romney leading Obama 48-43 percent.
The Daily Caller published e mails that started when Axelrod sent a tweet to Gallup saying the tracking poll was "saddled with some methodological problems" and directing followers to a National Journal story in which a professor suggested outdated sampling.
According to the email chain titled "Axelrod vs. Gallup," the White House in addition asked that a Gallup staffer "come over and explain our methodology," which was apparently perceived as a subtle threat.
Fox News reported that "a Gallup official said in an email he thought Axelrod's pressure 'sounds a little like a Godfather situation.'"
Gallup refused to change its methodology to suit the White House.
And the Justice Department intervention in the whistleblower suit came three months later. The whistleblower, Michael Lindley, claims that Gallup violated the False Claims Act by overcharging the federal government for its services to the U.S. Mint, the State Department and other federal agencies. The Justice Department plans to add Gallup's work with FEMA to the list of alleged overcharges covered in the lawsuit.
Lindley charged that Gallup overestimated the number of hours of field work that the government surveys would require and that it billed the feds based on the inflated estimates.
According to the Washington Times, Lindley worked for the Obama campaign in 2008 as an Iowa field organizer based out of Council Bluffs, Iowa.
As the election progresses, this blatant effort to influence Gallup's data and its poll numbers is an example of Chicago political thugs at their worst.
-
Charles G. Koch: Corporate Cronyism Harms America
When businesses feed at the federal trough, they threaten public support for business and free markets. .
By CHARLES G. KOCH
"We didn't build this business—somebody else did."
So reads a sign outside a small roadside craft store in Utah. The message is clearly tongue-in-cheek. But if it hung next to the corporate offices of some of our nation's big financial institutions or auto makers, there would be no irony in the message at all.
It shouldn't surprise us that the role of American business is increasingly vilified or viewed with skepticism. In a Rasmussen poll conducted this year, 68% of voters said they "believe government and big business work together against the rest of us."
Businesses have failed to make the case that government policy—not business greed—has caused many of our current problems. To understand the dreadful condition of our economy, look no further than mandates such as the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac "affordable housing" quotas, directives such as the Community Reinvestment Act, and the Federal Reserve's artificial, below-market interest-rate policy.
Far too many businesses have been all too eager to lobby for maintaining and increasing subsidies and mandates paid by taxpayers and consumers. This growing partnership between business and government is a destructive force, undermining not just our economy and our political system, but the very foundations of our culture.
With partisan rhetoric on the rise this election season, it's important to remind ourselves of what the role of business in a free society really is—and even more important, what it is not.
The role of business is to provide products and services that make people's lives better—while using fewer resources—and to act lawfully and with integrity. Businesses that do this through voluntary exchanges not only benefit through increased profits, they bring better and more competitively priced goods and services to market. This creates a win-win situation for customers and companies alike.
Only societies with a system of economic freedom create widespread prosperity. Studies show that the poorest people in the most-free societies are 10 times better off than the poorest in the least-free. Free societies also bring about greatly improved outcomes in life expectancy, literacy, health, the environment and other important dimensions.
So why isn't economic freedom the "default setting" for our economy? What upsets this productive state of affairs? Trouble begins whenever businesses take their eyes off the needs and wants of consumers—and instead cast longing glances on government and the favors it can bestow. When currying favor with Washington is seen as a much easier way to make money, businesses inevitably begin to compete with rivals in securing government largess, rather than in winning customers.
We have a term for this kind of collusion between business and government. It used to be known as rent-seeking. Now we call it cronyism. Rampant cronyism threatens the economic foundations that have made this the most prosperous country in the world.
We are on dangerous terrain when government picks winners and losers in the economy by subsidizing favored products and industries. There are now businesses and entire industries that exist solely as a result of federal patronage. Profiting from government instead of earning profits in the economy, such businesses can continue to succeed even if they are squandering resources and making products that people wouldn't ordinarily buy.
Because they have the advantage of an uneven playing field, crony businesses can drive their legitimate competitors out of business. But in the longer run, they are unsustainable and unable to compete internationally (unless, of course, the government handouts are big enough). At least the Solyndra boondoggle ended when it went out of business.
By subsidizing and mandating politically favored products in the energy sector (solar, wind and biofuels, some of which benefit Koch Industries), the government is pushing up energy prices for all of us—five times as much in the case of wind-generated electricity. And by putting resources to less-efficient use, cronyism actually kills jobs rather than creating them. Put simply, cronyism is remaking American business to be more like government. It is taking our most productive sectors and making them some of our least.
The effects on government are equally distorting—and corrupting. Instead of protecting our liberty and property, government officials are determining where to send resources based on the political influence of their cronies. In the process, government gains even more power and the ranks of bureaucrats continue to swell.
Subsidies and mandates are just two of the privileges that government can bestow on politically connected friends. Others include grants, loans, tax credits, favorable regulations, bailouts, loan guarantees, targeted tax breaks and no-bid contracts. Government can also grant monopoly status, barriers to entry and protection from foreign competition.
Whatever form these privileges take, Americans are rightly suspicious of the cronyism that substitutes political influence for free markets. According to Rasmussen, two-thirds of the electorate are convinced that crony connections explain most government contracts—and that federal money will be wasted "if the government provides funding for a project that private investors refuse to back." Some 71% think "private sector companies and investors are better than government officials at determining the long-term benefits and potential of new technologies." Only 11% believe "government officials have a better eye for future value."
To end cronyism we must end government's ability to dole out favors and rig the market. Far too many well-connected businesses are feeding at the federal trough. By addressing corporate welfare as well as other forms of welfare, we would add a whole new level of understanding to the notion of entitlement reform.
If America re-establishes the proper role of business in society, all kinds of benefits will accrue. Our economy will rebound. Our liberties will be restored. And when President Obama tells an entrepreneur "You didn't build that," everyone will know better.
Mr. Koch is chairman and CEO of Koch Industries, Inc., which includes manufacturing and energy-related businesses.
-
Pentagon buying up Chevy Volts:
http://freebeacon.com/great-green-car-fleet/
-
Banks have been widely castigated for causing the housing bust by lending too much to borrowers who couldn't repay, but now Eric Holder's Department of Justice has taken its antidiscrimination campaign to new lengths by whacking a bank for having been too prudent.
In a complaint filed Wednesday and settled the same day, Justice claimed that California-based Luther Burbank Savings violated the 1968 Fair Housing Act and 1974 Equal Credit Opportunity Act by setting a policy that had a "disparate impact" on minorities. Between 2006 and mid-2011, 5.2% of Luther's single-family residential mortgage loans went to African-Americans and Hispanics, compared to an average of 41.7% for other lenders in the area. The complaint doesn't cite evidence of intentional discrimination because there wasn't any.
Luther Burbank might not have been in this business were it not for government. The bank was largely focused on multi-family mortgages until its regulator, the former Office of Thrift Supervision, asked the lender to diversify its portfolio in the mid-2000s. Luther Burbank then hired a team to do "nontraditional" loans such as interest-only or option adjustable-rate mortgages that the bank would keep on its own books. Yes, this is the same stuff that eventually blew up the housing market.
Luther Burbank wasn't a fly-by-night operator that marketed those loans to any and all. The bank insisted on a minimum $400,000 loan amount and made loans with an average 680 FICO score and 67% loan-to-value. Over the period that Justice examined, Luther Burbank foreclosed on a mere 11 borrowers out of 629 loans outstanding—a loss ratio of 1.75%. In a normal world, Luther Burbank would get a medal from regulators for its risk management, having chosen borrowers even at the height of the housing mania who could meet their monthly payments.
But Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Thomas Perez has a different priority: He wants banks to meet lending quotas to minorities—regardless of whether those borrowers can afford the loans. Many minority borrowers have low incomes that make them riskier lending bets. Is that a bank's fault?
Luther Burbank admitted no guilt and said it settled to avoid costly litigation, which makes sense for a small, local lender that has to worry about its reputational risk. The bank has agreed to ratchet down its minimum loan to $20,000 and will now commit $2.2 million to a "special financing program" for "qualified borrowers," payouts for local community groups, and "consumer education programs." Justice has the final say on who gets that money.
Bankers can be forgiven if they can't figure out this regulatory whipsaw. They get punished if they make loans that are too risky, but they also get fined if they don't make risky loans to enough minority borrowers based solely on some Washington quota. The courts need to address Justice's use of disparate impact against banks because it is turning into nothing more than a government order to make certain loans—or else.
-
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2012/09/chick-fil-ends-anti-gay-donations-moves-chicago/57005/
:cry: :cry: :cry:
-
"Liberals have never answered the question: what of those who do not choose to join in a 'common end' that government has chosen for them? What of those who refuse to 'belong to government'? These unfortunate souls must be dealt with, as Obama's departments and agencies are dealing with them: by silencing them, litigating against them, jailing them, and ruining their businesses and reputations. Those tactics, and more, were exactly what European leftists from Mussolini to Stalin resorted to. ... Obama's rationale for a second term is that he wants to govern, and that should be enough. Or as Jay Carney suggested, just shut up. ... George Washington called government 'a dangerous servant and a fearful master.' Thomas Paine called it 'a necessary evil.' For Obama, government is the thing we all belong to, the thing that 'made this country great.' Four more years of Obama will not make this country great, but it will ensure that we belong to government to an unimaginable extent. Obama's message is: 'You and everything you own belong to me.'" --columnist Jeffrey Folks
-
Liberalism’s Glass Jaw
By ROSS DOUTHAT
Last month, Republicans staring at defeat in November alternated between blaming Mitt Romney and blaming the American people, when they should have been looking harder at the flaws in contemporary conservatism. Now that Romney has surged back into contention, liberals are making a similar mistake. They’re focusing too intently on the particular weaknesses of President Obama’s debate performance, rather than on the weaknesses in Obama-era liberalism that last Wednesday’s Denver showdown left exposed.
Four years ago, the Obama presidency was hailed as the beginning of an extended liberal renaissance — a new New Deal, a resurrected Camelot, a return to the glory days of Lyndon Johnson before Vietnam wrecked his presidency. Health care reform was the highest priority, but it was supposed to be only the beginning. With the Democrats enjoying huge Congressional majorities, everything seemed to be on the table: immigration reform, a program to combat climate change, card-check legislation, a wave of trust-busting in the banking sector — and at the least, the very least, a return to Clinton-era tax rates.
There is no world in which all of these hopes could have been perfectly realized. But the ways in which they’ve been disappointed have delivered some hard lessons. It isn’t just that Obama failed to live up to the (frankly impossible) standard set by his 2008 campaign and the media adoration that accompanied it. It’s that the nature of his failures speak to the limits of the liberal project, and the tensions and contradictions within the liberal coalition.
Liberals have rallied behind a White House whose only real jobs program is “stay the course.”
.
Sometimes Obama-era liberalism has disappointed because it has failed outright. The defeat of cap-and-trade legislation and the stillborn push for immigration reform exposed the deep fissures within the Democratic Party, and particularly the divide between the enlightened do-goodism of the party’s upper-middle-class supporters and the economic interests of its remaining blue-collar constituents.
The steadily worsening deficit picture, meanwhile, has been a reminder that an expanding government balance sheet makes sense only if you can persuade taxpayers to pay more to cover it, which Obama’s party hasn’t done. More important, given the limit to how much money can be extracted from the wealthy, it makes sense only if you persuade middle class taxpayers to pay more, which Obama’s party hasn’t even tried to do.
But the Obama administration’s legislative successes have offered hard lessons to liberals as well. Indeed, it’s the failures of the successes, if you will, that have cast the longest shadow across his re-election effort.
First, there was the failure of stimulus bill to deliver anything like the kind of rebound that Obama’s technocrats confidently projected. This failure isn’t necessarily an indictment of the theory behind Keynesian economics. But at the very least it exposes two limitations on Keynesianism in practice: the difficulties that even experts can have assessing the true state of the economy, and the ways in which the push and pull of democratic politics makes it difficult to simply keep throwing money at a problem.
Then came the White House’s failure to sell the public on its health care bill, which exacerbated the stimulus’s underperformance — by leading to months of wrangling when Washington should have been reckoning with the economy instead — and then cost the Democrats dearly at the polls in 2010. This failure of salesmanship doesn’t in and of itself discredit the bill’s provisions. But at the very least it demonstrates that the redistributive policies liberals favor will be accepted only if they’re founded on a secure base of economic growth — growth that Obama’s policies, unlike F.D.R.’s or L.B.J.’s, have conspicuously failed to produce.
More broadly, all of Obama’s signature accomplishments have tended to have the same weakness in common: They have been weighed down by interest-group payoffs and compromised by concessions to powerful insiders, from big pharma (which stands to profit handsomely from the health care bill) to the biggest banks (which were mostly protected by the Dodd-Frank financial reform). It may have been an empty rhetorical gesture, but the fact that Romney could actually out-populist the president on “too big to fail” during the last debate speaks to the Obama-era tendency for liberalism to blur into a kind of corporatism, in which big government intertwines with big business rather than restraining it.
Again, every administration has its share of disappointments, and every ideology has to make concessions to political reality. But what we don’t see in this campaign cycle is much soul-searching from Democrats about the ways in which their agenda hasn’t worked out as planned.
Instead, in a country facing a continued unemployment crisis and a looming deficit crunch, liberals have rallied behind a White House whose only real jobs program is “stay the course” and whose plan to deal with long-term deficits relies on the woefully insufficient promise to tax the 1 percent. When Obama insiders wax optimistic about what a second term might bring, they mostly talk about pursuing legislation on climate change and immigration yet again, without explaining why things will turn out differently this time around.
This lack of a plausible vision, more than his stutters and missed opportunities, is what doomed the president in last week’s debate. His responses to Romney were strikingly backward-looking — alternating between “we’re already doing that” and “we tried that under Republicans, and it didn’t work,” and rarely pivoting effectively to “here’s what we should do next.”
It’s not that Romney offered some detailed, brilliantly persuasive alternative. He didn’t, and couldn’t, because his party has at best a sketch of a policy agenda rather than a blueprint. But Romney isn’t running for re-election, and this was a case where merely seeming forward-looking, energetic and reassuring was enough to remind Americans of all the ways that the Obama era has disappointed them — and in so doing, sent shivers down liberalism’s glass jaw.
-
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/virginia-teacher-charged-with-assault-girls-hand-cut-in-forced-islamic-hand-sign-drill/
-
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/virginia-teacher-charged-with-assault-girls-hand-cut-in-forced-islamic-hand-sign-drill/
Islam+someone bleeding=shocking!
-
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/report-reveals-obama-campaign-borrowed-15-million-from-bank-of-america/
-
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/report-reveals-obama-campaign-borrowed-15-million-from-bank-of-america/
Strange, usually Buraq is so good with money....
-
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204530504578076680514724050.html?mod=WSJ_hps_LEFTTopStories
This is the sort of nonsense that goes on when the govt. gets involved where it shouldn't.
-
Oliver Stone’s Unbelievable Crap
Posted By David Horowitz On October 31, 2012 - www.frontpagemag.com
Originally published at Breitbart.com.
On the evidence of his new Showtime mini-series and companion book, Oliver Stone is both a communist and political moron, a redundancy to be sure. Having previously celebrated a trio of evil-doers – Castro, Arafat and Hugo Chavez – Stone now adds The Untold History of the United States to the cinematic garbage heap he has been piling up since J.F.K. and Born on the 4th of July. Like them, this latest contribution is an unrelenting (and unrelentingly perverse) attack on America as history’s Great Satan, the root cause of worldly evil.
The heroes of this latest Stone fantasy are — I kid you not — Vladimir Lenin and Henry Wallace. Wallace is cast by Stone as the visionary of a planet without capitalism and war, and consequently as America’s missed opportunity to change the world. Along the way, Stone composes nauseating apologetics for Joseph Stalin and other historical villains including even Saddam Hussein, all of which are necessary to sustain his preposterous narrative of America as the great villain of a century in which America in fact defeated the two most monstrous regimes on human record – the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany – liberating more than a billion people in the process.
For those too young to remember, Henry Wallace was a former Vice President who was snookered by American Communists into running for the White House in 1948 as the anti-Cold War candidate of the Progressive Party. The Progressive Party was a political front the Communists had created to help Stalin drag millions of East Europeans into his Soviet gulag and slaughterhouse. Two years later, when the Communists invaded South Korea, a chastened and pathetic Wallace went on television to concede that he had been duped into lending his name to a malevolent cause. Wallace died soon after in disgrace. Now Stone is attempting to resurrect his most shameful hour and present it to the uninformed as the second coming.
By contrast, every step of America’s way in Stone’s fabrication is portrayed in the worst imaginable light, up to and including the Islamist attacks of 9/11, which he describes as merely an excuse America used to conduct criminal wars “against two Islamic nations” that caused “far more damage to the United States than Osama bin Laden ever could,” while “shredding the U.S. Constitution and the Geneva Convention” in the process.
Even the title of Stone’s rant is a lie, since his narratives of the Bolshevik Revolution (idealists whose noble vision was thwarted by capitalist pigs), World War II (Stalin won it) and the Cold War (launched by American imperialists but ended by peace-loving Mikhail Gorbachev) are a twice-told story: the first time by Kremlin propagandists and their minions, the second by leftwing diehards who can’t handle the truth, and who have now been joined by the executives at Showtime in airing a miniseries that is malignant and unbelievable crap.
-
I just read a condensed biography of Lenin and am in process of reading montiofore's incredidibly detailed biography of Stalin. At least the one of his pre 1917 days.
What Lenin unleashed on the planet is unbelievable. He was not about change in Tsarist Russia. At the climax of his life when he jumped on to the armored car and screamed to his followers who brought him back from hiding in Finland to Russia, He exclaimed, "long live the **worldwide** communist revolution" to the cheers of thousands. It was a remarkable moment in history. He spent nearly his entire life since around the time his elder brother was executed by the Tsar evolving into the revolutionary who along with Stalin and Trotsky brought a new power to Russia. Yet from what I read, that as he was becoming more and more feeble before his death in 1924 from a series of strokes , he could see how Stalin was working behind the scenes consolidating power - and he was absolutely aghast at what he saw. Indeed the biogrpher I read believes he felt Stalin's vision of Communism was unlike what was intended. Instead of a government ruled by the workers (90% of the people) Russia got one of the most oppressive, ruthless, violent, mafia style governments run by just a relative few with Stalin the supreme terror magnate. Even Lenin concluded at the end this was far worse then any oppression of the Tsars. Yet he was too weakened to do anything about it, and Stalin whos genius lay in a combination of street wise thuggery and intellectual ability at organizing, leading and supreme dedication to his brand of communism (with him at the top) was, I can tell you, a 1,000,000,000 times worse then Al Capone.
I hate to say it, but I am no longer really proud to be Jewish. There are simply too many Jews like Oliver Stone. Indeed many of the socialists of Europe and Russia were of my faith.
One of my grandfathers came here to escape the communist revolution I was told. He was proud of America. In fact eh rarely, so I am told spolke Yiddish or Russian becasue he wanted to be an American Unlike many immigrants of today. As for the socialist revolutions in Europe many Jews were part of it. I guess they had some justification with regards to fighting an opressive Tsarist culture but unlike many who came to America and fell in love with captilism and Democracy too many persist in communist dogma. I still question if the Axelrods of communist Russia are ancestors to David Axelrods communist parents.
Again as I have noted on this board for years I say too many Jews including those who would aplogize for Stalin, hold the Republican party in lower regard to the Nazi party. Stone is one. David Axelschmuck is another. Brockman knows this too well. Shame on fellow Jews for supporting this American hating monstrosity in the WH.
They are not too stupid to think he is not using them - they just don't care. Anything for the beloved Democarat party. I am no longer proud of many of my brethren.
I suggest people read Palmer's bio on Lenin and Montiofore's on Stalin. I am sure George Soro's woudl say that the ideology of communism or its variants are good - what he would call "GOOD GOVERNMENT". Just that communism got a bad rap by some selfish power hungry psychopaths in Russia. I say he is wrong - dead wrong - without checks and balances there is NO such thing as "good" government. Not now or ever in the history of mankind. Nor will there ever be. The ONLY difference between what we are seeing now in the US with Obama and his puppet masters and Russia of the 20th century is the lack of violence. That they are almost to succeed without violence is a sight to behold by me.
Thank God there are some brilliant Jews left like David Horowitz.
-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHNBr3PZQaE
-
Great Cspan book review presentation on John Fonte's Sovereignty vs. Submission.
I cannot post but suggest all those interested in the one world government movement (it is far more advanced than I knew - more elites carving up the world unbeknowned to the other 7 billion of us) read this.
Elites from liberal think tanks like Brooking Institute, those who really run the EU behind the scenes, ACLU, and apparantly many universities and in particular law schools like Yale, international lawyers have already decided what is best for the world, for you , and for me.
America should lead the way before the rise of China while it can.
In other words America should hasten it's own demise according to the do gooders in these groups of elites.
If Americans really understood what this is about would they still vote Brock?
Many still would. I am hearing more and more stories about people on the dole actually laughing their heads off about those who work and are paying for all this.
I don't know if we can turn it all around without a total collapse.
You know it used to be that small numbers of people ruled the world. Reading CDhurchill 's own early biography he writes how several families ruled England for centuries. It is that way in Latin American countries.
Globally, It still is that way. And the liberals are making it far far worse.
-
http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/maritanoon/2012/11/25/exclusive_doe_corruptionappointed_and_elected_officials_should_face_prison_time/page/full/
-
http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/maritanoon/2012/11/25/exclusive_doe_corruptionappointed_and_elected_officials_should_face_prison_time/page/full/
I'm sure Holder will get right on it.
-
:x :x :x
Gag u
By GEORGE F. WILL
Posted: 9:59 PM, December 1, 2012
In 2007, Keith John Sampson, a middle-aged student working his way through Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis as a janitor, was declared guilty of racial harassment. Without granting Sampson a hearing, the university administration — acting as prosecutor, judge and jury — convicted him of “openly reading [a] book related to a historically and racially abhorrent subject.”
“Openly.” “Related to.” Good grief.
The book, “Notre Dame vs. the Klan,” celebrated the 1924 defeat of the Ku Klux Klan in a fight with Notre Dame students. But some of Sampson’s co-workers disliked the book’s cover, which featured a black-and-white photograph of a Klan rally. Someone was offended, therefore someone else must be guilty of harassment.
This non sequitur reflects the right never to be annoyed, a new campus entitlement. Legions of administrators, who now outnumber full-time faculty, are kept busy making students mind their manners, with good manners understood as conformity to liberal politics.
Liberals are most concentrated and untrammeled on campuses, so look there for evidence of what, given the opportunity, they would do to America. Ample evidence is in “Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate” by Greg Lukianoff, 38, a graduate of Stanford Law School who describes himself as a liberal, pro-choice, pro-gay rights, lifelong Democrat who belongs to “the notoriously politically correct Park Slope Food Co-Op in Brooklyn” and has never voted for a Republican “nor do I plan to.”
But as president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) he knows that the most common justifications for liberal censorship are “sensitivity” about “diversity” and “multiculturalism,” as academic liberals understand those things.
In recent years, a University of Oklahoma vice president has declared that no university resources, including e-mail, could be used for “the forwarding of political humor/commentary.” The College at Brockport in New York banned using the Internet to “annoy or otherwise inconvenience” anyone. Rhode Island College prohibited, among many other things, certain “attitudes.”
Texas Southern University’s comprehensive proscriptions included “verbal harm” from damaging “assumptions” or “implications.” Texas A&M promised “freedom from indignity of any type.” Davidson banned “patronizing remarks.” Drexel University forbade “inappropriately directed laughter.”
Western Michigan University banned “sexism,” including “the perception” of a person “not as an individual, but as a member of a category based on sex.” Banning “perceptions” must provide full employment for the burgeoning ranks of academic administrators.
Many campuses congratulate themselves on their broad-mindedness when they establish small “free speech zones” where political advocacy can be scheduled. At one point, Texas Tech’s 28,000 students had a “free speech gazebo” that was 20 feet wide. And you thought the First Amendment made America a free speech zone.
At Tufts, a conservative newspaper committed “harassment” by printing accurate quotations from the Koran and a verified fact about the status of women in Saudi Arabia. Lukianoff says Tufts may have been the first American institution “to find someone guilty of harassment for stating verifiable facts directed at no one in particular.”
He documents how “orientation” programs for freshmen become propaganda to (in the words of one orthodoxy enforcer) “leave a mental footprint on their consciousness.” Faculty, too, can face mandatory consciousness-raising.
In 2007, Donald Hindley, a politics professor at Brandeis, was found guilty of harassment because when teaching Latin American politics he explained the origin of the word “wetbacks,” which refers to immigrants crossing the Rio Grande. Without a hearing, the university provost sent Hindley a letter stating that the university “will not tolerate inappropriate, racial and discriminatory conduct.”
The assistant provost was assigned to monitor Hindley’s classes “to ensure that you do not engage in further violations of the nondiscrimination and harassment policy.” Hindley was required to attend “anti-discrimination training.”
Such coercion is a natural augmentation of censorship. Next comes mob rule. Last year, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the vice provost for diversity and climate — really; you can’t make this stuff up — encouraged students to disrupt a news conference by a speaker opposed to racial preferences. They did, which the vice provost called “awesome.” This is the climate on an especially liberal campus that celebrates “diversity” in everything but thought.
“What happens on campus,” Lukianoff says, “doesn’t stay on campus” because censorship has “downstream effects.” He quotes a sociologist whose data he says demonstrate that “those with the highest levels of education have the lowest exposure to people with conflicting points of view.” This encourages “the human tendency to live within our own echo chambers.”
Parents’ tuition dollars and student indebtedness are paying for this. Good grief.
georgewill@washpost.com
NEW YORK POST is a registered trademark of NYP Holdings, Inc.
-
Obama Pushing Federal Control of Public Schools
Posted By Arnold Ahlert On December 10, 2012 - www.frontpagemag.com
The effort to turn public school classrooms into laboratories for government propaganda has reached a new milestone. Common Core State Standards in English is a program already adopted by 46 states and the District of Columbia. It calls for an increase in the reading of “informational text” instead of fictional literature. When the new standards are fully implemented in 2014, nonfiction texts will comprise 50 percent of reading assignments in elementary schools, with a required increase to 70 percent by grade 12. Thus, timeless literature such as Of Mice and Men, or Catcher in the Rye will be replaced by recommended nonfiction works such as “Executive Order 13423: Strengthening Federal Environmental, Energy, and Transportation Management,” or “Recommended Levels of Insulation by the the US Environmental Protection Agency.”
Proponents of Common Core, including the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, claim U.S. students have grown used to easy reading assignments that leave them unprepared to comprehend complex nonfiction. This leaves too many students unprepared for the rigors of college and the demands of the workplace, experts say. And while some of the recommended texts are legitimate, such as Alexis de Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America,” those mentioned in the first paragraph, or a New Yorker essay titled “The Cost Conundrum,” which would give students the impression that the Affordable Healthcare Act is good policy, are little more than thinly-veiled efforts to promote a progressive agenda masquerading as education.
Jamie Highfill, an eighth-grade English teacher at Woodland Junior High School in Fayetteville, AK reveals some of the “unintended consequences” of the rollout. “I’m struggling with this, and my students are struggling,” said the Arkansas 2011 middle school teacher of the year. “With informational text, there isn’t that human connection that you get with literature. And the kids are shutting down. They’re getting bored. I’m seeing more behavior problems in my classroom than I’ve ever seen,” she added.
David Coleman, the chief architect of the Common Core, who led the effort to write the standards with a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, said educators are overreacting as the standards move from concept to classroom. “There’s a disproportionate amount of anxiety,” he contended.
There ought to be, but not just for the concerns expressed by teachers such as Ms. Highfill. As National Review’s Stanley Kurtz explains, there is a good reason why control over public schools was kept out of federal hands by the Founding Fathers. They realized that one political party or ideology shaping the curriculum in public schools was a direct route to tyranny. What the Obama administration has done has conditioned Department of Education funding and regulatory waivers on state acceptance of Common Core. That such a move is constitutionally suspect at best, and another naked power grab at worst, should infuriate Americans who still believe an education is about teaching children how to think, not what to think. (Furthermore, considering the reality that this is being sold as an alternative to “easy reading assignments,” they should ask themselves how and why the public school curriculum was dumbed-down in the first place).
Accuracy in Media’s (AIM) Mary Grabar reveals how 48 state governors were lured into entering a contest called “Race to the Top” for a portion of $4.35 billion of funds made available by the stimulus package. “It was one of the many ‘crises’ exploited by the Obama administration,” she writes. “While the public was focused on a series of radical moves coming in rapid-fire succession, like the health care bill and proposed trials and imprisonment of 9/11 terrorists on domestic soil, governors, worried about keeping school doors open, signed on.”
Far more importantly, she reveals the players involved. The educational component of Common Core is controlled by Linda Darling-Hammond, a radical left-wing educator and close colleague of William Ayers, former member of the domestic terrorist group the Weather Underground, who became a professor of education — and a friend of Barack Obama’s. Both Darling-Hammond and Ayers have advocated ending funding disparities between urban and suburban schools, ending standardized testing, and attacking “white privilege.” The big picture here is to eliminate objective measurement of knowledge and skills, and replace them with teachers offering up subjective appraisals of students’ attitudes and behavior.
In a 2009 article for the Harvard Educational Review, Darling-Hammond extolled these initiatives as the Obama administration’s “opportunity to transform our nation’s schools.” Grabar reveals what such “transformation” is intended to achieve. ”When these dangerous initiatives are implemented, there will be no escaping bad schools and a radical curriculum by moving to a good suburb, or by home schooling, or by enrolling your children in private schools,” she warns.
Some state governors have wised up. Virginia opted out when Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell was elected. Georgia, Indiana, Utah, South Carolina, and others have also begun, or completed, the effort to do the same. Last February, Republican South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley explained her rationale for doing so. “Just as we should not relinquish control of education to the Federal government,” she wrote in a letter to a state lawmaker, “neither should we cede it to the consensus of other states.” U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan characterized Haley’s fear of losing control as “a conspiracy theory in search of a conspiracy.” Yet when Utah dumped the program, Duncan was far more conciliatory. “States have the sole right to set learning standards” he wrote in a letter.
Legally they do, but the federal Race to the Top (RTTT) application says exactly the opposite, noting that any applicant is required to adopt “a set of content standards…that are substantially identical across all States in a consortium.” In other words, any states that wish to compete for RTTT school funding must embrace Common Core. Thus, a portion of federal funding for schools is nothing less than an effort to coerce the states into adopting a de facto national educational system. In many instances, such coercion is hardly necessary: the public school system is dominated by progressive-supporting unions who contribute virtually all of their campaign dollars to Democrats. Thus, the progressive agenda is already welcomed in many public schools. The Common Core curriculum is nothing less than an effort to coordinate that agenda on a national level.
In 2009, Bill Ayers was one of three keynote speakers at a conference sponsored by the Renaissance Group. The other two speakers were Secretary of Education Duncan and U.S. Under Secretary of Education, Martha Kanter. The Renaissance Group is purportedly interested in finding ways to educate the “New American Student,” part of which deals with the alleged inability of white teachers to deal with the issues of poverty, diversity and multiculturalism that affect their students. While some Americans might contend that the emphasis on such obvious progressive talking points is overblown, they should still ask themselves why those in charge of overseeing the federal government’s education programs would associate with a terrorist thug whose contempt for American culture, tradition and history is well-documented.
Just before he was elected in 2008 President Obama told his followers, “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” It would appear that he and his progressive minions intend to make good on that promise, state by state, school by school–and child by child.
-
Fcuk :x
Please post this in the Education thread on the SCH forum as well Obj.
-
Ed Asner’s ‘Occupy’ Attack on the Rich
Posted By Mark Tapson On December 11, 2012 - www.frontpagemag.com
Like other notable entertainment biz hypocrites such as race-baiter Russell Simmons, rapper Kanye (“Bush doesn’t care about black people”) West, and documentary propagandist Michael Moore, actor/activist Ed Asner threw in his lot with the anarchic Occupy Wall Street movement, supplying the narration for a cartoon condemning wealthy Americans for not paying their “fair share” of taxes.
Asner, 83, former gruff-but-lovable TV star of The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Lou Grant, and now gruff-and-hateful self-admitted socialist, narrated a nearly eight-minute video created and posted online last week by the California Federation of Teachers (CFT) called Tax the Rich: An Animated Fairy Tale. The site’s brief description of the plot includes the ludicrous claim that “Things go downhill in a happy and prosperous land after the rich decide they don’t want to pay taxes anymore.”
You have to see this outrageous and amateurishly animated video to believe just how blatant and exaggerated is its class warfare propaganda. It’s shot through with the Occupy movement’s language about the decent 99 percent versus the insanely greedy 1 percent. It asserts that the heartless rich (all white men, of course, as opposed to the diverse commoners) became wealthy through tax loopholes, tax cuts and tax evasion; they are blamed for causing the decline of public services and crashing the economy, for buying politicians and suppressing votes, and for controlling the media which then hypnotizes the people into believing there is no alternative to capitalism. The rich are then depicted blaming the poor, public servants and teachers for the economic collapse of society.
As the video hit the internet, conservatives denounced its hypocrisy and its caricature of the wealthy. GatewayPundit.com warned that the video “could be playing in your child’s classroom as we speak” and noted that “it was written by CFT staffer Fred Glass (2011 compensation: $139,800) and narrated by proud leftist actor (and 1 percenter) Ed Asner.” Fox News’ Sean Hannity played clips from the video on his show for his guests. Conservative Tucker Carlson said, “There’s really no overstating how dumb this is. The idea that there are any California teachers currently in classrooms in charge of children who agree with that, is horrifying.” Hannity’s Democrat guest Kirsten Powers acknowledged, “It was pretty bad. I have to say, even I found it offensive. It was too much demonizing for my taste.”
As long as Asner is demonizing rich white men, let’s look at this rich white man’s own résumé in leftist political activism, which began when he led a 1980 strike by the Screen Actors’ Guild, an organization he would later head twice as President. He was a vocal critic of the Reagan administration, condemning our involvement in Central America and participating in a fundraiser to aid guerrillas fighting against the Reagan-backed government in El Salvador. He also lent his name to a rebel-supporting direct-mail piece.
For his efforts on behalf of the progressive agenda, he has received the ACLU‘s Worker’s Rights Committee Award, the Anne Frank Human Rights Award, the Eugene Debs Award, the Organized Labor Publications Humanitarian Award, and the National Emergency Civil Liberties Award.
Asner and his wife have contributed financially to a number of Democratic political campaigns and progressive organizations, including MoveOn.org. As a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) he has said: “Socialist means a thing that will curb the excesses of capitalism: the increasing wealth of the rich and decreasing wealth of the poor… For me, solidarity, civil liberty, and social justice can all be summed up with three simple letters – DSA.”
Predictably an advocate of gun control and opponent of the death penalty, Asner testified as a character witness for accused cop killer Kenneth Gay and has spoken out publicly on numerous occasions protesting the death sentence of the celebrity set’s favorite cop-killer, Mumia Abu Jamal. Asner was also a member of the International Committee to Free Geronimo Pratt of the vile Black Panther Party, arrested in 1970 for murdering a Los Angeles schoolteacher.
In addition to lending his support to murderers, the actor avidly cheers the celebrity set’s favorite murdering dictator Fidel Castro and cluelessly blames the U.S. for pushing him into the sphere of Soviet influence. He claimed that Castro has been forced into “excesses” because of Cuba being “constantly embargoed by the United States.” Poor misunderstood Castro.
An unsurprising critic of the Bush administration, the Iraq War, the Patriot Act, and American foreign policy in general, Asner has advocated for the 9-11 Visibility Project, which promotes the idea that our government knew the terrorist attacks were coming and did nothing to stop them, and he has stated that “9-11 has been used to justify ‘endless war’ and a continual rollback in civil liberties that seems to have no end in sight.” He has said that George Bush “is making us an imperialist government.” Parroting the irrational, fact-free, race-obsessed mindset of his progressive brethren, Asner added, “that there is a strong streak of racism whenever we engage in foreign adventures. Our whole history in regime change has been of people of different color.” Perhaps he thinks we should be deposing the dangerous dictators of Norway or Canada instead.
Speaking of regime change, Asner was a signatory to the 2002 Not In Our Name petition organized by the Revolutionary Communist Party, which calls for the overthrow of the U.S. government and its replacement with a Communist dictatorship.
Yes, how much better off Americans would be if we did away with rich businessmen (but only the white males, not the Oprahs or the Russell Simmonses) and embraced the likes of angry socialist Ed Asner, Fidel Castro, 9/11 truthers, the Black Panthers, the Revolutionary Communist Party, and the Occupy movement. What a fairy-tale ending that would be for America.
-
Welcome to the Salazar Wilderness
Shame on the Interior Department for trying to drum a family-owned enterprise out of business..
By MICHAEL MORITZ
After a seaside area has been designated as wilderness, when is it considered pristine enough by Washington's standards? Is it after airplanes have been banned from flying over it? After electricity pylons and telephone cables have been removed, cars and bikers prohibited, the roads torn up? When hikers are forbidden access to trails, and kayakers, sailors and snorkelers banished from the water? When eucalyptus trees and other foreign species are eradicated? Or only after Miwok Indians' arrowheads have been excavated and placed in a museum?
Apparently it is none of the above, at least according to Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar. Instead, he seems to think that turning a tiny portion of the lovely coastline of California's Marin County (part of the National Seashore) into the first marine wilderness in the continental United States also requires destroying a family-run oyster operation that has conducted business in the same spot for eight decades.
So Mr. Salazar recently ordered the business to close within 90 days—a decision that will spell ruin for the Lunny family, owners of Drake's Bay Oyster Farm, which supplies 40% of California's oysters.
The Lunny family, which has made major improvements to the farm operation it took over in 2004, has been hounded for years by a National Park Service with a vendetta so chilling that any rancher on federal lands should be alarmed. Goaded by a clutch of environmental groups, the Park Service has resorted to tactics that might have come straight from Nixon's dirty-tricks department. For instance, the Park Service alleged that the farm's oyster boats disturbed the quiet of the area, but the measurements used were revealed to have been taken in New Jersey—and involved jet skis.
For years, Park Service officials have colluded with the California Coastal Commission to hammer the small oyster company with allegations about purported abuses and violations of some of the many overlapping, confusing and contradictory permits with which it is supposed to comply.
Enlarge Image
Close
Reuters
An employee farms oysters at Drakes Bay Oyster Company, in Inverness, California.
.California Sen. Dianne Feinstein has for years been sounding the alarm about the behavior of the Park Service. In a May letter to the California Fish and Game Commission, she outlined her worries—including a mention of the jet-ski episode—and said: "I became concerned about this issue when I found that the science regarding the impacts of the oyster farm had been manipulated, and that the oyster farm operator had been treated in a biased and unfair manner. The Park Service has repeatedly misrepresented the scientific record since 2006 to portray the farm as environmentally harmful, and it is my belief that the Park Service is doing everything it can to justify ending the oyster farm's operations."
Unable to use its doctored studies to close the farm, the Park Service changed tack and resorted to even more dubious arguments. It claimed that a lease signed 40 years ago wasn't renewable. There are only two snags with this argument.
First, the lease doesn't say that it isn't renewable. Second, the congressmen who helped form the Point Reyes National Seashore have firmly stated that their intention was to ensure the continued operation of the small farms that were occupying the land. Yet the Interior Department has ignored the statements of former California Reps. Pete McCloskey (no staunch right-winger, by the way, but a pro-choice advocate and backer of stem-cell research and assisted suicide) and John Burton (a former California Democratic Party chairman).
The Park Service ignored another inconvenient fact: It doesn't control fishing rights in the disputed area. Those are controlled by the State of California. So last week the Lunnys sued Mr. Salazar, the Department of the Interior, the National Park Service and its director. Now a U.S. judge gets to decide whether the federal government can bully this small business out of existence.
Mr. Moritz is chairman of Sequoia Capital.
-
In fairness, we note http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323339704578172960483282372.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTWhatsNewsCollection
The feds have sold out their position in AIG.
-
http://www.ftportfolios.com/Commentary/EconomicResearch/2012/12/12/aig---not-a-government-success
-
Kwanzaa: Holiday Brought to You by the FBI
Posted By Ann Coulter On December 27, 2012 @ www.frontpagemag.com
Is it just me, or does Kwanzaa seem to come earlier and earlier each year? And let’s face it, Kwanzaa’s gotten way too commercialized.
A few years ago, I suspended my annual Kwanzaa column because my triumph over this fake holiday seemed complete. The only people still celebrating Kwanzaa were presidential-statement writers and white female public school teachers.
But it seems to be creeping back. A few weeks ago, House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., complained about having to stick around Washington for fiscal cliff negotiations by accusing Republicans of not caring about “families” coming together to bond during Kwanzaa. The private schools have picked up this PC nonsense from the public schools. (Soon, no one will know anything.)
It is a fact that Kwanzaa was invented in 1966 by a black radical FBI stooge, Ron Karenga — aka Dr. Maulana Karenga — founder of United Slaves, a violent nationalist rival to the Black Panthers. He was also a dupe of the FBI.
In what was ultimately a foolish gamble, during the madness of the ’60s, the FBI encouraged the most extreme black nationalist organizations in order to discredit and split the left. The more preposterous the group, the better.
By that criterion, Karenga’s United Slaves was perfect. In the annals of the American ’60s, Karenga was the Father Gapon, stooge of the czarist police.
Despite modern perceptions that blend all the black activists of the ’60s, the Black Panthers did not hate whites. They did not seek armed revolution (although some of their most high-profile leaders were drug dealers and murderers). Those were the precepts of Karenga’s United Slaves.
United Slaves were proto-fascists, walking around in dashikis, gunning down Black Panthers and adopting invented “African” names. (That was a big help to the black community: How many boys named “Jamal” are currently in prison?)
It’s as if David Duke invented a holiday called “Anglika,” which he based on the philosophy of “Mein Kampf” — and clueless public school teachers began celebrating the made-up, racist holiday.
Whether Karenga was a willing dupe, or just a dupe, remains unclear.
Curiously, in a 1995 interview with Ethnic NewsWatch, Karenga matter-of-factly explained that the forces out to get O.J. Simpson for the “framed” murder of two whites included: “the FBI, the CIA, the State Department, Interpol, the Chicago Police Department” and so on. Karenga should know about FBI infiltration. (He further noted that the evidence against O.J. “was not strong enough to prohibit or eliminate unreasonable doubt” — an interesting standard of proof.)
In the category of the-gentleman-doth-protest-too-much, back in the ’70s, Karenga was quick to criticize rumors that black radicals were government-supported. When Nigerian newspapers claimed that some American black radicals were CIA operatives, Karenga publicly denounced the idea, saying, “Africans must stop generalizing about the loyalties and motives of Afro-Americans, including the widespread suspicion of black Americans being CIA agents.”
Now we know that the FBI fueled the bloody rivalry between the Panthers and United Slaves. In one barbarous outburst, Karenga’s United Slaves shot to death two Black Panthers on the UCLA campus: Al “Bunchy” Carter and John Huggins. Karenga himself served time, a useful stepping-stone for his current position as a black studies professor at California State University at Long Beach.
Karenga’s invented holiday is a nutty blend of schmaltzy ’60s rhetoric, black racism and Marxism. The seven principles of Kwanzaa are the very same seven principles of the Symbionese Liberation Army, another charming legacy of the Worst Generation.
In 1974, Patricia Hearst, kidnap victim-cum-SLA revolutionary, posed next to the banner of her alleged captors, a seven-headed cobra. Each snake head stood for one of the SLA’s revolutionary principles: Umoja, Kujichagulia, Ujima, Ujamaa, Nia, Kuumba and Imani — the exact same seven “principles” of Kwanzaa.
Kwanzaa praises collectivism in every possible area of life — economics, work, personality, even litter removal. (“Kuumba: Everyone should strive to improve the community and make it more beautiful.”) It takes a village to raise a police snitch.
When Karenga was asked to distinguish Kawaida, the philosophy underlying Kwanzaa, from “classical Marxism,” he essentially said that, under Kawaida, we also hate whites. (Kawaida, Kwanzaa and Kuumba are also the only three Kardashian sisters not to have their own shows on the E! network.)
While taking the “best of early Chinese and Cuban socialism” — excluding, one hopes, the forced abortions, imprisonment of homosexuals and forced labor — Karenga said Kawaida practitioners believe one’s racial identity “determines life conditions, life chances and self-understanding.” There’s an inclusive philosophy for you.
Kwanzaa was the result of a ’60s psychosis grafted onto the black community. Liberals have become so mesmerized by multicultural nonsense that they have forgotten the real history of Kwanzaa and Karenga’s United Slaves — the violence, the Marxism, the insanity.
Most absurdly, for leftists anyway, they have forgotten the FBI’s tacit encouragement of this murderous black nationalist cult founded by the father of Kwanzaa.
Kwanzaa emerged not from Africa, but from the FBI’s COINTELPRO. It is a holiday celebrated exclusively by idiot white liberals. Black people celebrate Christmas. (Merry Christmas, fellow Christians!)
Sing to “Jingle Bells”:
Kwanzaa bells, dashikis sell
Whitey has to pay;
Burning, shooting, oh what fun
On this made-up holiday!
-
http://datechguyblog.com/2013/01/03/the-meida-and-democrats-flexible-defination-of-the-rich/
The Media & Democrats Flexible Definition of “The Rich”
by Datechguy | January 3rd, 2013
It all depends on what the meaning of the word “is” is
Remember the media meme that tax increases were necessary to be sure the rich pay their fair share? Well apparently to democrats, the party of the little guy and the media “The Rich” doesn’t include General Electric, Citigroup, Diageo (makers of Puerto Rician Rum) Citi, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, American Wind Energy Association and The Motion Picture Association of America.
Apparently they wanted a big batch of tax credits and favors and paid millions to lobbyists to achieve them, they put these credits into a Senate bill called the Family and Business Tax Cut Certainty Act of 2012.
Now as the GOP didn’t support this massive tax giveaway and a House of Representatives with a strong Tea Party presence wasn’t about to pass it. In fact according to the site Govtrack.us…
Status:
Introduced Aug 28, 2012
Reported by Committee Aug 28, 2012
Passed Senate (not yet occurred)
Passed House (not yet occurred)
Signed by the President (not yet occurred)
The committees assigned to this bill sent it to the House or Senate as a whole for consideration on August 28, 2012.
Prognosis: 19% chance of being enacted.
Or at least that would have been the odds but according to Tim Carney of the Washington Times:
A Republican Senate aide familiar with the cliff negotiations tells me the White House wanted permanent extensions of a whole slew of corporate tax credits. When Senate Republicans said no, “the White House insisted that the exact language” of the Baucus bill be included in the fiscal cliff deal. “They were absolutely insistent,” another aide tells me. (The White House did not return requests for comment.)
Sure enough, Title II of the fiscal cliff legislation is nearly a word-for-word replication of the Family and Business Tax Cut Certainty Act of 2012.
So the Democrats,the protectors of the little guy, the people who were going to make sure that the rich paid their fair share and President Obama their champion managed to do what corporate lobbyists couldn’t add this unpassable bill into the fiscal cliff legislation, passed it in the senate and sent to the house where democrats voted for it en masse and enough establishment Republicans could make sure their corporate friends had their reward.
There was a time when media would have screamed foul, there was a time when such a bill once read and known to the public would not have been possible, but the media has already defined the villain as the GOP and the heroes as the Democrats in general and this President in particular and no amount of truth could change it.
We get the government we deserve, I really thought we deserved better.
Update: The Wall Street Journal adds to the list:
In praising Congress’s huge new tax increase, President Obama said Tuesday that “millionaires and billionaires” will finally “pay their fair share.” That is, unless you are a Nascar track owner, a wind-energy company or the owners of StarKist Tuna, among many others who managed to get their taxes reduced in Congress’s New Year celebration.
and they have a solution for the GOP
Republicans who are looking for a new populist message have one waiting here, and they could start by repudiating the corporate welfare in this New Year disgrace.
and even better they can ask where the MSM were when this happened?
-
http://dailycaller.com/2013/01/21/bill-ayers-to-keynote-national-teacher-conference-in-february/
-
http://pjmedia.com/michaelledeen/2013/01/22/food-fascism-and-obama-rules/
John Mackey, the feisty CEO of Whole Foods, says Obamacare is “fascist economics” and he regrets having said it, even though he insists — correctly — that it’s a textbook case of Mussolini-style corporate statism. Private property continues to exist, but the state controls all business. That’s why the fascists called their totalitarian system a “third way” between unbridled capitalism and Soviet-style Communism.
Back in the twenties and early thirties, before German National Socialism became the archetypal “fascist” doctrine, Mussolini’s call for a new kind of national economy intrigued many serious thinkers and leaders, including Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Mr. Mackey was also right to regret using the term “fascist,” because it invokes so many passions and stereotypes that it hinders, rather than advances, understanding. But “fascism” was a very successful mass movement in Western Europe for an entire generation, and it flourishes in many countries today. It behooves us to understand why it was so popular, and how most of our politics differ from it. We have fascist economics, but certainly not fascist politics or foreign policy in America today, even though there are echoes of it every so often.
There are many varieties of fascism, but the principal elements are:
•A single party dictatorship, headed by a charismatic leader.
•A politics of enthusiasm, involving the masses in ritual public celebration, and direct exchanges between the leader and his followers en masse.
•Hypernationalism, or, in the Nazi case, racism, based on the claim that the nation or race is unique, superior, and entitled to play a major role in world affairs.
•The aforementioned “corporate state” in which private property is legitimate, but the state dictates its proper use.
Fascism was created by the generation that fought, and died in historically unprecedented numbers, in the First World War. It was very much a war ideology: the post-war world, they insisted, must not be governed by the effete and corrupt ruling classes of the past, but by those who had demonstrated courage and virtue in the trenches. The elevation of war heroes to national leadership was seen as a guarantee that future generations would be shaped by the best the nation (or, in the case of the Third Reich, the race) could offer, and they vowed to fight, and destroy, those who had opposed the war, and sapped the nation’s virility thereafter.
As they extended their control over their countries, the fascists bragged of having created a new polity, a totalitarian state that controlled everything and everybody. Fascists’ heroic virtues were incarnated in a charismatic leader. Mussolini’s mass appeal was remarkable — you can see it in the monster crowds that gathered under his balcony in Piazza Venezia — as was Hitler’s, and that of others, from Romania to Spain (the charismatic leader there was not Franco, but Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, the founder of the Falange). It was common to speak of such leaders as “men of destiny,” world-historical individuals who had imposed their will on history and would reshape the world.
-
Reliability unknown
http://www.examiner.com/article/effort-to-abolish-local-sheriffs-a-stealth-federal-power-grab
A news report has been quietly making its way around the alternative media, under the radar screen, concerning a Delaware legal decision to strip county sheriffs of their arrest powers in the state.
The mainstream media has not reported the story, but the son of Vice President Joe Biden, who serves as Attorney General for the state of Delaware, has issued a mandate to county commissioners informing them that sheriffs in the state's three counties no longer have arrest powers.
When the information reached this reporter late yesterday evening, further investigation revealed that there is a nationwide effort to strip local sheriffs of most of their enumerated powers that are mandated in the state constitutions of the various states. Such a move would have the net effect of abolishing local sheriffs departments and strengthening the power of federal law enforcement agencies.
And this is not the first time such an effort has been launched.
In the 1970s an initiative was launched by county supervisors in California to eliminate the office of sheriff, but one supervisor instead was able to persuade two state legislators to get a question placed on the California ballot as to whether or not the office of the sheriff should be an elected office. The measure passed overwhelmingly, and the mandate for elected sheriffs was placed in the state constitution.
And in 1935 President Franklin D. Roosevelt was set to eliminate all of the 48 states in order to implement nine regional governments that would operate as extensions of the federal government. All local law enforcement would be eliminated. The plan failed, but the fact that it was attempted points to an ever present, insidious stealth plan on the part of some within the federal government to take away the right of the people and the states to elect their own local law enforcement and to vastly strengthen the hand of the numerous federal law enforcement agencies that currently operate throughout America.
Proponents of such unconstitutional measures desire to forge a world government of sorts under the control of the United Nations. Various methods are used to expedite this plan, including the infamous 'Agenda 21' that has raised the alarm among some citizens.
The key to the success of the implementation of such plans is enforcement. How would the federal government insure compliance among the states and their citizens?
Dozens of federal agencies have their own law enforcement divisions, and those divisions are growing quickly under the Obama Administration. Homeland Security is purchasing 450 million rounds of hollow point bullets. The IRS will need roughly 16,500 new employees to implement ObamaCare. The White House has just sent $500 million to the IRS to enforce the new healthcare law. The EPA's recent penchant for using heavy handed tactics outside the authority given to it by Congress has placed businesses under the gun and stymied economic recovery. Citizens complain that the agency regularly violates private property rights.
And then there are such agencies as the FBI, ATF, DEA, ICE, and others that are under suspicion for widespread corruption in the Fast and Furious scandal, a fact that has not hampered Congressional Democrats from calling for massive new funding and expanded powers for these agencies.
The move to weaken and dismantle sheriffs offices around the country is viewed by Constitutional watchdogs as an ominous signal in a broader attempt to usurp the rights of citizens on the local level in lieu of an expanded nationalized police force under the control of a federal bureaucracy.
Notice! My latest entry in what is turning into a regular, ongoing series of musings after midnight at my blog, The Liberty Sphere, is now posted. I present more in depth personal reflections delineating the acute danger America faces at this hour. It is a dire warning to the serious reader who loves freedom and the principles handed down to us by the Framers. Don't miss it.
Visit my ministry site at Martin Christian Ministries.
.
Subscribe by clicking the links at the top of the page, or below, and you will receive free notifications of new articles plus a free newsletter.
A FREE, COMPREHENSIVE EDUCATION IN CONSERVATIVE POLITICS.
You will find it each week at WFHT-AM 1390 in Orlando-Avon Park, Florida, and on WKFL-AM 1170 in Bushnell, Florida, on the weekly program 'A Voice for Freedom.' Join Lori Hendry and Ginger Carlisle each Saturday morning from 11 AM to 12 Noon for interesting guests and news of vital importance to conservatives. Those living outside the station's listening area can listen via the Internet.
-
Crafty, if you haven't seen this give it a glance......The HEAD of the FBI in a hearing of congress.......Answers the question of whether it had been addressed in recent hearings that he's not SURE if it's been addressed whether the government has the authority to assassinate US Citizens INSIDE the US.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaWyPsD5eEA
-
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jan/25/federal-court-obama-broke-law-recess-appointments/
In a case freighted with major constitutional implications, a federal appeals court on Friday overturned President Obama’s controversial recess appointments from last year, ruling he abused his powers and acted when the Senate was not actually in a recess.
The three-judge panel’s ruling is a major blow to Mr. Obama. The judges ruled that the appointments Mr. Obama made to the National Labor Relations Board are illegal, and the board no longer has a quorum to operate.
But the ruling has even broader constitutional significance, with the judges arguing that the president’s recess appointment powers don’t apply to “intrasession” appointments — those made when Congress has left town for a few days or weeks.
The judges signaled the power only applies after Congress has adjourned sine die, which is a legislative term of art that signals the end to a long work period. In modern times, it means the president could only use his powers when Congress quits business at the end of a year.
“The dearth of intrasession appointments in the years and decades following the ratification of the Constitution speaks far more impressively than the history of recent presidential exercise of a supposed power to make such appointments,” the judges wrote.
“Recent presidents are doing no more than interpreting the Constitution. While we recognize that all branches of government must of necessity exercise their understanding of the Constitution in order to perform their duties faithfully thereto, ultimately it is our role to discern the authoritative meaning of the supreme law.”
The case is likely to end up before the Supreme Court, and it turns on the definition of what the Constitution means when it says “recess.”
Last January Mr. Obama named union lawyer Richard Griffin and Labor Department official Sharon Block, both Democrats, and a Republican, NLRB lawyer Terence Flynn, to the labor board using his recess powers. He also named Richard Cordray to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, using those same powers.
Noel Canning, a bottling company, sued the NLRB, arguing that a rule issued by the new board was illegal since the recess appointments were unconstitutional. Senate Republicans, led by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, joined in the suit.
The appeals court panel, which sits in Washington, D.C., was skeptical of Mr. Obama’s case during oral argument in early December, with Chief Judge David B. Sentelle and Judge Thomas B. Griffith peppering the administration lawyers with questions.
The Constitution gives the president the power to nominate judges and executive branch officials, but the Senate must vote to confirm them before they take office. Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution grants the president powers “to fill up all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate.”
Those powers have produced centuries of give-and-take, with senators regularly slow-walking nominees and the White House looking for ways to get its way — including the recess appointment.
Mr. Obama’s move, though, appeared to break new ground by acting at a time when the Senate was meeting every third day, specifically to deny him the chance to make appointments.
The problem is the word “recess” has several meanings in legislative-speak. It can mean a short break during the day, it can mean a break of days or weeks for a holiday, or it can mean the end of a yearly session.
The president argued that even though the Senate was convening every three days, the pro forma sessions didn’t allow any business, and nearly every senator was absent from the chamber, signaling that the Senate wasn’t able to perform its confirmation duties and should be considered essentially in recess.
His opponents had warned that if Mr. Obama’s stance prevailed, then presidents could make appointments when the Senate takes its recess for weekly party caucus lunches.
The judges on Friday ruled that the only clear bright line is when the Senate recesses at the end of the year
Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jan/25/federal-court-obama-broke-law-recess-appointments/?page=2#ixzz2J0cyePbk
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter
-
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/01/25/rahm-emanuel-urges-major-banks-to-stop-serving-gun-makers-unless-they-support-common-sense-gun-control/
-
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/03/business/banks-at-least-had-a-friend-in-geithner.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130203
-
Obama's Government By Talking Points Morphs Into Orwell's Newspeak
By Betsy Mccaughey
Posted 02/19/2013 06:26 PM ET
In his famous novel "1984," George Orwell warned that it doesn't take a military
boot against your neck to oppress you.
Government can do it by using talking points — what Orwell called "newspeak" — to
hide truth, distort language, and keep the public in the dark. Orwell cautioned that
this manipulation poses the biggest threat to freedom, whether the government doing
the manipulating is right wing or left wing.
President Obama seems to be taking a page from "1984." The novel's main character is
a young bureaucrat living in a fictional totalitarian country and working in its
Ministry of Truth — a bureaucracy that produces the opposite of truth. It creates
"newspeak" to obscure the true state of things. The Obama administration has a
comparable operation.
Manipulating the truth is precisely what the Obama administration did in the hours
after the attack on the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya. Draft talking
points were shuttled among several intelligence agencies, including the FBI and CIA,
as agency bureaucrats concocted a story blaming the attack on a video.
These talking points were given to Congress and used by U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice
on Sunday talk shows to deceive the public.
People on all sides of political issues want the truth. Last Friday, Comedy
Central's Daily Show host Jon Stewart grilled Rice on the talking points. Rice
indignantly dismissed the question: "We've spent all these months trying to figure
out the origin of these talking points, which were cleared at the highest levels of
the intelligence community, and not enough time doing the service that we owe to our
fallen colleagues."
The studio audience erupted with applause, but Stewart wasn't bamboozled.
He zeroed in on how the talking points were "passed up and down the chain of command
to determine what should be said."
Why, asked Stewart, "is there a bureaucratic system in place that is so tenacious
with the explanation, but yet seemingly abdicates responsibility for the initial
situation?" In other words, why did the Obama administration give so much more
attention to deceiving the country than defending it? We need to know.
Orwellian signs of danger also pervaded the president's State of the Union talk on
Feb. 12.
It was crafted to conceal the state of the union and lull the public with
mind-numbing humbug. The address never once mentioned the biggest issue facing the
nation, its $16.5 trillion debt. It could have been Orwell's psycho-manipulator Big
Brother speaking.
The president pledged that in the future, his administration will be "even more
transparent about its counterterrorism efforts."
Orwell warned that government bureaucracies will use words to mean their opposite.
In the novel's oppressive state, war is peace. Freedom is slavery. In the Obama
administration,transparent means secret.
The Obama administration is battling to keep its drone program secret and has
actually gone to court to resist the American Civil Liberties Union's demand for
drone documents.
The president's nominee for CIA director, John Brennan, refused to answer California
Senator Dianne Feinstein's question last week, whether the administration could
conduct drone strikes inside the U.S., saying only that "it did not intend to do
so." No matter what your position on drones, the nation deserves a straight answer,
not these weasel words.
Most of Obama's State of the Union was a catalogue of new spending projects — $50
billion to fix bridges and roads, $15 billion to refurbish vacant city properties,
$1 billion for manufacturing hubs, as well as new solar, wind and geothermal energy
projects without price tags.
Then in a statement that Big Brother could have uttered, Obama announced that
"nothing I am proposing tonight should increase our deficit by a single dime."
Orwell shocked the world with his warnings that government would distort language
and hide truth. But he was not a prophet of doom.
In "1984" he suggested that the destruction of free political discourse would be
gradual.
And it doesn't have to happen at all if brave people persist in demanding the truth.
That's what we want, Mr. Obama, the truth.
• McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York and author of "Beating
Obamacare."
-
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323978104578330401584732368.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLETopOpinion
Liberal Racists Warn of Chaos
Only the left has a problem with an interracial political marriage..
By JAMES TARANTO
"A Democratic group is under sharp criticism for controversial online messages about Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell's wife," reports WFPL-FM, an NPR station in Louisville, Ky. For months Progress Kentucky, a liberal super PAC, has been stalking McConnell, the Bluegrass State's senior senator, holding "demonstrations at his offices and home."
Enlarge Image
Associated Press
The McConnells
.
But the attack on Mrs. McConnell, who in public goes by her maiden name of Elaine Chao, took place on Twitter. The station quotes a Progress Kentucky tweet dated Feb. 14: "This woman has the ear of (Sen. McConnell)—she's his wife. May explain why your job moved to China!" That was followed by a link to what WFPL describes as "a website run by conspiracy theorist and radio host Jeff Rense, alleging Chao, who was born in Taiwan, discriminated against American workers during her tenure." Chao served as labor secretary from 2001 through 2009.
The station quoted Curtis Morrison, a spokesman for Progress Kentucky: "It's not an official statement. It's a tweet. And we will remove it if it's wrong," he said. "I follow Ashley Judd on Twitter and she removed a Tweet the other day, she tweeted to you Phillip. People make mistakes in Tweets. It happens. Inferring that Elaine Chao is not a U.S. citizen was not our intention." (Ashley Judd is a loopy actress who is supposedly thinking about running against McConnell next year; Phillip Bailey is the WFPL reporter on the story.)
To judge by this quote, Morrison is a very confused man. Not only does he have difficulty distinguishing between implication and inference, but he misses the point of the complaints about his organization's tweet. The issue isn't Chao's citizenship status but the racially invidious nature of Progress Kentucky's attack on her.
Finally Shawn Reilly, Progress Kentucky's executive director, acknowledged the problem, telling Bailey in a follow-up report that the tweet "included an inappropriate comment on [Chao's] ethnicity." He added: "We apologize to the secretary for that unnecessary comment and have deleted the tweets in question. In addition, we have put a review process in place to ensure tweets and other social media communications from Progress Kentucky are reviewed and approved prior to posting." Maybe they should seek preclearance from the Justice Department.
McConnell and Chao have been married since 1993, and in all that time we don't remember a conservative or a Republican making an issue of her race or national origin. Since the wedding, McConnell has won re-election three times, suggesting that neither Republicans nor general-election voters in Kentucky--a state where slavery wasn't abolished until 1865--are bothered that their senator is in an interracial marriage.
Other than conspiracy nuts, the only people who seem bothered by it are the liberals at Progress Kentucky.
-
As regulars here know, one of the things we try to do with this forum is organze threads so that this forum serves as a research tool, empowering us in the struggle against Orwellian memory hole techniques of the Pravdas. Therefore GM's post in the Euro Matters thread seems to me quite important and deserving of duplication here.
In my use of the term fascism for the progressive forces here in the US I always team it up with the adjective "economic" so as to distinguish it from the additional and deeply ugly connotations the word correctly holds in its history in the European context.
Amongst its several virtues, this article reminds of us this point.
Dangerous Times: How Euro-socialism Set off a Fascist Bomb
By James Lewis and Justine Aristea
In the terrible economic crisis of 1922 Benito Mussolini got 25% of the vote in Italy. Two years later he had more than a majority.
You know the rest.
In the economic crisis of 2013, Beppe Grillo received 24% of the vote (see last week's analysis of Grillo's political beliefs). This week he blocked a government from forming. Grillo now controls the Senate, but he is going for a majority in both houses in the upcoming vote in June.
That's in Italy, but in Greece the Golden Dawn party is following the same path. So is the new Hungarian fascist resurgence. In Germany it's called the "Pirate Party."
Europe's political class is shocked and panicked. They are pretending Grillo is just a "populist" and a "reformer" -- but he also wants to "process" all the Jews in the world, who are responsible for all the evil. Grillo wants to nationalize the banks and abolish interest rates, "just like the Islamic Development Bank."
To understand the new upsurge of European fascism, you have to imagine what it's like to live in Rome.
Imagine the US government being sunk in red ink. The United Nations suspends the US Constitution and compels us to adopt a new UN currency called the UNO, designed to favor other countries. The United States no longer runs its own currency. Our economy tanks and our deficit keeps getting worse.
Therefore the UN unilaterally appoints a caretaker president for the US named Monti, who imposes radical budget cuts on our dependent welfare state.
1. Social Security is cut by half. People have to live on 700 euros per month.
2. ObamaCare is cut by half. Two hospitals in Rome do not pay their medical staffs for six months.
3. Taxes on income and sales are raised to an average of 50%.
4. Small business taxes are increased -- but big businesses taxes are lowered, "because big business is more efficient." (Meaning it has bigger unions).
5. Politicians and bureaucrats get major pay raises. The figurehead President of the US doubles his salary.
Government at all levels is corrupt. It's the only way people can survive. Everybody is playing double games. People are doing two jobs and running their own businesses out of government offices. Everybody cheats on taxes. The mafia controls half the country. Survival depends on the black market, the black economy. The currency is kept artificially high, so exports crash.
It's happened to Italy under the European Union. Don't think it can't happen here. Obama is a Euro socialist, representing faculty lounge socialism in America, so completely arrogant and cocksure that Paul Krugman just knows how to run the trillion-dollar US economy. Nobody else can figure it out, but Krugman knows that he knows. Our new rulers are control freaks, just as free market economists have said since Adam Smith. They are six year olds steering the family car and thinking they are in control until...
... until it all blows up.
This week Europe blew up. The media haven't caught up yet, because they are what they are. But the markets are catching up fast.
This is a huge event for the United States, because our political elite is bound and determined to turn us into Europe. Hasn't the EU found the answer to war and peace and prosperity forever?
Our Democrats believe it. Europe is their model. Every batty new idea they have is copied from the glorious European Union. Twenty years ago they still celebrated the Soviet Union, until that house of cards crumbled. Now they have shifted their fantasy paradise to Europe.
Over there, fifty years of increasingly centralized control have made it impossible for voters to be heard. The political parties are stuck in GroupThink. Only the fascist "protest" parties agitate for reform. The ruling class doesn't listen. They don't have to -- they don't have to run for election.
So European voters fled to the fascists to express their rage and despair. Imagine one out of four US voters going for Lincoln Rockwell, and you get the idea.
In Italy, Beppe Grillo the Clown just received 24% of the vote, the biggest percentage a single party has received since Benito Mussolini, Il Duce, in 1922, another economic crisis year.
The Italian vote gives the Clown control of the Senate, and the biggest voice in the lower house. The Grillini now speak for the capital city of Rome. Since fascism is illegal in Italy, the Five Star Party pretends not to be fascist; but scratch the surface and that old grinning ghost stares back at you.)
The EU and US media are still in denial, but Italian party politicians instantly flew to Berlin to talk with Angela Merkel, and came back to build a common front against Grillo the Clown. But the Joker refused to play. He wants another election in June.
Currency markets are signaling panic. Don't believe the media. Believe the markets.
Europe is our future. It's Obama style of Chicago "governance," and as long as the people were inundated by EU propaganda they believed that Europe had discovered the secret of peace and welfare forever. Talk to any European and that's what you hear. They keep wondering why we don't follow them to Never-Neverland. If you tell question them they turn a deaf ear. They're mentally stuck.
As long as America defends Europe, they will keep hating us and pretending they are running the ocean liner, like kids with plastic steering wheels.
The key to the whole farce is Europe's "democracy deficit," which means that the people can vote for the European Parliament -- but it has no legislative powers at all. The Parliament is a Potemkin front. It has no power to pass binding laws.
On the other hand, the unelected ruling class has centralized more and more power in "Commissions" -- which is what the word "Soviets" used to mean. But the EU has no electoral legitimacy. Nobody votes for the people who really run the place. That means the EU receives no feedback about the impact of its cult-like policy fantasies. When the people wanted a public referendum on the EU, the political class arrogantly told them to go... yes.
In France, the Grand Corps of the State ("Enarques") run the government. Germany and Britain are similar. Together they appoint the European ruling elite. This is the EU socialist Apparat, the Political Machine that controls everything. And yes, there are capitalists, but they work hand-in-glove with the Apparat. It's Crony Social Capitalism (technically the same as fascism).
As a result normal people feel totally powerless. As long as the Ponzi scheme lasts, the victims loved it. The media churned out neo-imperialist propaganda about how Europe had finally discovered peace and welfare forever, and everybody wanted to believe.
Today, southern and eastern Europe are running into a brick wall, designed by Europe's ruling class in its delusional way. The north blames the south, and vice versa. Nobody can stop the ruling class from its mad rush to destruction, so we are seeing a 'protest vote" in Germany, Poland, eastern Europe, and the PIIGS -- the Mediterranean coastal countries plus Ireland.
The only protest party people can vote for are barely disguised fascists: The Five Star party in Italy, Golden Dawn in Greece, Pirate Party in Germany, and fascist insurgents in Hungary.
Here's how it's done. In Italy Beppe Grillo ran as a sly comedian, spinning off conspiracy theories about 'chemtrails" (jet contrails) that poison the Italian people, the Rockefellers, Rothschilds and Illuminati who run the world to oppress the poor, and all the usual paranoid fantasies. But he also attacked massive corruption (which is true) and self-serving politicians (also true), and the euro currency that killed Italian exports (also true). Grillo voiced criticisms that other politicians avoided. Everybody knows about massive corruption, for example. Grillo said it.
Now the Clown has his own sources of money and ideology, which lead straight to Tehran, as we have pointed out. The Clown hates the Jews, and his website mentions "Jews" 2,500 times, and "Iran" 2,500 times. The Islamic Development Bank doesn't charge interest, the Clown tells us. This is pure Islamic fascist propaganda. Banks that loan free money don't exist in the real world, because they can't survive. But demagogues tell sucker lies, and this is a good one. Beppe tells his followers that he will nationalize the banks (like Il Duce) and give away free loans. It's like Obama phones, straight from Obama's stash. The suckers love it.
The Jews run the world by charging "usury" (this is an old, old story in Europe). In Beppe's Fantasyland money comes free, exactly what Islamist propaganda says. Beppe tells the world that "Everything I know about the Middle East I've learned from my father-in-law" Parvin Tajik, who runs a major construction business in Tehran, and therefore has to be in cahoots with the super-corrupt mullahs.
Guess who plays the scapegoat in this age-old drama? Yup.
People laughed at old Beppe the Clown for fifteen years.
Today the joke's on them.
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/03/how_euro-socialism_set_off_a_fascist_bomb.html
-
http://polliter.com/2013/03/15/exclusive-aust-govt-bans-political-comment-on-twitter/
-
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/mar/25/nyc-mayor-bloomberg-government-has-right-infringe-/
-
First, bringing this post over from Cognitive Dissonance of the Left thread:
Continuing in our get to the know the left series.
It’s For Your Own Good!
Cass R. Sunstein
Left thinker Sunstein reviews "Against Autonomy: Justifying Coercive Paternalism"
by Sarah Conly which explains with a straight face why a system of "paternalist" government-based decision making is better than individual free choices. I kid you not.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/mar/07/its-your-own-good/
"Conly convincingly argues that behavioral findings raise significant questions about Mill’s harm principle [coersion can only be to prevent harm to others]. When people are imposing serious risks on themselves, it is not enough to celebrate freedom of choice and ignore the consequences."
Yesterday Sarah Conly argued her points in the New York Times:
Three Cheers for the Nanny State
By SARAH CONLY
Published: March 24, 2013
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/25/opinion/three-cheers-for-the-nanny-state.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0
In today's online WSJ and linked at Real Clear Politics Opinion Journal Editor James Taranto taking her to task, pointing out a little cognitive dissonance in the choices of liberal left nanny state advocates. In our continuing, content sharing agreement with the WSJ I thank them for generously listing yours truly in the credits at the end of the column. )
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324105204578382572446778866.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLETopOpinion
Don't Nudge Me There
If government may dictate soda size, why not sexual behavior?
By JAMES TARANTO
If you want to get published on the op-ed page of a major newspaper, a good way to go about it is to make a reasonable, or at least reasonable-sounding, case for an unpopular and outlandish position. It's important that the issue be trivial, so that readers will get riled up but no one will really feel offended or threatened.
Philosopher Sarah Conly, author of a new book called "Against Autonomy: Justifying Coercive Paternalism," has discovered the formula. In a New York Times op-ed titled "Three Cheers for the Nanny State," she defends Mayor Michael Bloomberg's almost universally ridiculed (and judicially enjoined) ban on large sodas and other sugary beverages.
Conly's argument doesn't seem unreasonable, though it is incoherent in places. In a parenthetical aside, for example, she mocks opponents for objecting over such a trivial matter: "Large cups of soda as symbols of human dignity? Really?" (Note to the editors: That "Really?" is lazy writing. Why not let a rhetorical question stand on its own? See what we mean?) But of course she wants us to take her defense of this silly policy as a serious philosophical argument.
Then there's this priceless passage: "Do we care so much about our health that we want to be forced to go to aerobics every day and give up all meat, sugar and salt? No. But in this case, it's some extra soda. Banning a law on the grounds that it might lead to worse laws would mean we could have no laws whatsoever."
Oddly, Conly bases her reductio ad absurdum on false empirical premises. The benefits and risks of exercise, and of particular forms of exercise, vary from individual to individual. And giving up all meat and salt, unlike sugar, is likely to harm your health.
The best part is that conclusion. Essentially she's saying that if you accept one slippery-slope argument, you have to accept all slippery-slope arguments. Therefore, slippery-slope arguments are unsound.
We police the front seat. Why not the back seat?
But wait, that's a slippery-slope argument! You've heard of the liar's paradox? Its simplest form is the statement "This statement is false." Conly's greatest contribution to philosophy may be the slippery-slope argument against slippery-slope arguments. Call it the slipper's paradox.
We're less impressed with Conly's argument in favor of the soda ban and measures like it. She rebuts John Stuart Mill, the 19th-century liberal philosopher who established the "harm principle"--the idea that coercion is generally justified only to prevent individuals from harming others. Mill also allowed that there were unusual cases in which government would be justified in restricting an individual's behavior for his own good--"when we are acting out of ignorance and doing something we'll pretty definitely regret." Since it's common knowledge that large quantities of refined sugar are bad for you, that wouldn't justify the soda ban.
Conly thinks Mill didn't go far enough in justifying coercion. Science has shown "that we often don't think very clearly when it comes to choosing the best means to attain our ends," she writes. "We make errors. . . . We are all prone to identifiable and predictable miscalculations." Thus we should surrender a measure of autonomy and yield to rules promulgated by experts, who presumably know what's good for us: "Giving up a little liberty is something we agree to when we agree to live in a democratic society that is governed by laws."
Again she brings up the slippery slope: "What people fear is that this is just the beginning: today it's soda, tomorrow it's the guy standing behind you making you eat your broccoli, floss your teeth, and watch 'PBS NewsHour' every day."
Crazy, right? Maybe not. Conly's op-ed never mentions smoking, but in a sympathetic review in the New York Review of Books, Cass Sunstein reports that in "Against Autonomy" she argues "that because the health risks of smoking are so serious, the government should ban it." (Sunstein, a legal scholar and former Obama administration official, is coauthor of the 2008 book "Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness," which makes an argument similar to Conly's.)
What's interesting about the smoking-ban proposal is that while it is culturally radical, it is not philosophically radical. Is there any doubt that if cigarettes were a new invention, lawmakers would quickly ban them? Libertarians would object, on the same ground that they argue for the legalization of other drugs. But their point of view would command little public support, at least unless and until illicit cigarette smoking became as widespread as illicit marijuana use is today.
That is to say that a moderate form of Conly's philosophy has long prevailed, even in as freedom-loving a country as America. While we may bridle at being told we can't do something we are used to doing or didn't realize we weren't supposed to do, generally we don't do so as a matter of principle. (Libertarians, you're off the hook on that observation.) Generally speaking, Americans accept a wide variety of regulations on their personal behavior that are designed to be in their own good.
So what does Conly have to say that is original? Well, her book is called "Against Autonomy" and subtitled "Justifying Coercive Paternalism." That makes it sound as if she is advocating aggressive and thoroughgoing government intrusion into individual decision-making. Her positions on the soda ban and tobacco prohibition seem to bolster that. But those take her only slightly beyond the views that today prevail among the left-liberal elite.
Similarly, according to Sunstein, she endorses Bloomberg's ban on trans fats as well as "regulations designed to reduce portion sizes"--presumably of solid food as well as dissolved sugar. But in areas in which her philosophy would seem to conflict with prevailing left-liberal views, she's less adventurous than Bloomberg:
She is far more ambivalent about Mayor Bloomberg's effort to convince the US Department of Agriculture to authorize a ban on the use of food stamps to buy soda. She is not convinced that the health benefits would be significant, and she emphasizes that people really do enjoy drinking soda.
You'd think the logic of "coercive paternalism"--of government-imposed restrictions designed to promote individual welfare--would apply more strongly when individuals are dependent on government for financial support of their welfare. To put it another way, someone who is financially autonomous has a stronger argument that he ought to be personally autonomous. We're not sure what Conly thinks of that argument--the $95 cover price (0% off at Amazon) has nudged us away from acquiring her book--but we suspect she adheres less strongly to "coercive paternalism" than to the orthodoxies of contemporary left-liberalism.
An even better example is this observation from Sunstein's review: "Because hers is a paternalism of means rather than ends, she would not authorize government to stamp out sin (as, for example, by forbidding certain forms of sexual behavior)."
What a staggering cop-out. The past 50 years or so have seen a massive deregulation of personal behavior in the sexual sphere, a revolution of law, technology, custom and economics, all in the name of personal autonomy. Never mind "sin"--this has had bad consequences for public health (AIDS and other new sexually transmitted diseases), for children (far more of whom are born out of wedlock and reared without fathers), and even for the future of the welfare state (since declining fertility makes old-age entitlements unsustainable).
It may be that the sexual revolution is irreversible and the concomitant problems are intractable. If Conly lacks the imagination to come up with policy solutions, so do we. But if she dismisses this enormous question as a matter of "sin" and focuses instead on trivia like soda-size regulations, why should we take her philosophy seriously?
-
One correction "sin"-- this has had bad consequences for public health (Aids ...)
Whoa! I didn't know sexual "deregulation" [gays] transmitted AIDS - I thought Ronald Reagan did.
-
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/04/02/want-to-see-what-cscope-and-common-core-even-homeschooling-lessons-look-like-these-parents-opened-up-to-theblaze/
-
http://hotair.com/archives/2013/04/02/of-course-former-weather-underground-radical-convicted-of-felony-murder-now-an-adjunct-professor-at-columbia/
Of course: Former Weather Underground radical convicted of felony murder now an adjunct professor at Columbia
posted at 6:01 pm on April 2, 2013 by Allahpundit
I have little sympathy for Ward Churchill but it does feel strange that his sins are grounds for banishment from academia when Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn, and now Kathy Boudin graduated from the Weathermen — and, in Boudin’s case, prison — to jobs in the ivory tower. Is Churchill’s real problem that he wasn’t militant enough? He talked a good game about how the U.S. had 9/11 coming but he never tried to blow anyone up to make the point. The same could be said of virtually any two-bit campus radical. Why hire him when you could hire someone made famous by their links to a group known for its willingness to kill for the cause?
Remember all of this the next time Chris Matthews or whoever airs a special tut-tutting Republicans for welcoming tea-party “radicals” into the fold.
Former Weather Underground radical Kathy Boudin — who spent 22 years in prison for an armored-car robbery that killed two cops and a Brinks guard — now holds a prestigious adjunct professorship at Columbia University’s School of Social Work, The Post has learned…
Boudin’s status of perp-turned-prof outraged the widow of one of her victims, Brinks guard and dad of three Peter Paige, who was gunned down by her accomplices from the Black Liberation Army on Oct. 20, 1981, in Rockland County.
Boudin acted as a getaway driver in the heist.
“She doesn’t deserve a job at all,” said Josephine Paige, 74, when told of Boudin’s posts. “She doesn’t deserve anything, nothing at all. I think she should be back in an institution.”…
Of the hundreds of students Boudin has taught, Yoshioka said, just three have expressed qualms about her criminal background, and only one “switched out” of a class because of those concerns.
I was just reading the part of Ayers’s Wikipedia bio that describes how he became a radical. Quote: “To stand still was to choose indifference. Indifference was the opposite of moral.” That’s a nice counterpoint to Columbia students shrugging off Boudin’s history. Incidentally, there’s another reason why the Weathermen honor roll may have gotten a little more leeway from liberal intellectuals than, say, Ward Churchill has: To varying degrees, they’re all children of privilege. Ayers’s father went on to become the head of one of Illinois’s biggest utilities; his friendship with the head of a major Chicago law firm later helped Dohrn land a job during her post-Weathermen phase. Boudin grew up in Manhattan, went to Bryn Mawr, and then wrangled a lighter sentence for herself then her accomplices in the Brinks job got thanks to help from one of her father’s law partners. These connections were their conduit back into polite liberal society (polite enough for Ayers to make the acquaintance of a future president) and made them “respectable” enough to employ at places like Columbia. Class warriors that they are, I wonder how much they enjoy the irony.
-
Yet another shameful episode from my alma mater:
=======================
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/04/02/where-is-the-former-weather-underground-radical-who-spent-22-years-in-prison-for-robbery-that-left-2-cops-dead-teaching-at-columbia-of-course/
Education
Where Is the Former Weather Underground Radical Who Spent 22 Years in Prison for Robbery That Left 2 Cops Dead? The Answer May or May Not Surprise You
Former Weather Underground radical Kathy Boudin (New York Post)
Following in the footsteps of Weather Underground founder Bill Ayers, a domestic terrorist-turned respected academic thinker, former Weather Underground radical Kathy Boudin — who spent 22 years in prison for her involvement in an armored car robbery that left two cops and a Brinks guard dead — currently holds a prestigious adjunct professorship at Columbia University, the New York Post reports.
In addition to her new professorship at Columbia’s School of Social Work, Boudin, 69, also earned another academic achievement this year, being named the Sheinberg Scholar-in-Residence at NYU Law School. She reportedly gave a lecture on “the politics of parole and re-entry” at the university last month.
As the New York Post reports in a story headlined “Outrage 101: Radical jailed in slay now Columbia prof,” Boudin was paroled in 2003 after acting as the getaway driver in the deadly $1.6 million heist. Less than 10 years later she found herself mingling among the nation’s academic elite at Columbia University.
“Boudin’s status of perp-turned-prof outraged the widow of one of her victims, Brinks guard and dad of three Peter Paige, who was gunned down by her accomplices from the Black Liberation Army on Oct. 20, 1981, in Rockland County,” the New York Post reports.
“She doesn’t deserve a job at all,” Josephine Paige, 74, told the Post. “She doesn’t deserve anything, nothing at all. I think she should be back in an institution.”
The New York Post has the exclusive on this story:
.
John Hanchar, the nephew of another victim of the robbery, Nyack Police Officer Edward O’Grady, said that while Boudin “has a right to do whatever she wants . . . I just hope the people that she’s lecturing are smart enough to question why [she felt] like killing people is an acceptable choice to forward their goals.”
“It’s easy to forget that violence is never the answer. Nine children grew up without their dads because of her actions,” said Hanchar, whose uncle O’Grady was shot with automatic weapons
Boudin did not respond to a request for comment.
[...]
One Friday, a criminal-justice conference at the school will feature keynote address by Angela Davis, another infamous radical, and later this month Boudin is scheduled to speak at Columbia Law School’s conference on child and family advocacy.
Boudin reportedly teaches students about the issues facing convicts and their families when a criminal is released from prison — a topic she is well versed in.
This is the front page of a Chicago Police Department Daily Bulletin issued April 9, 1970, showing eight members of the Weathermen faction of the SDS who are being sought on warrants charging aggravated battery on police officers. All except Cathy Wilkerson, upper left, and Robert Roth, lower left, have been indicted by a Federal Grand Jury on charges of crossing state lines to incite riots in connection with demonstrations in Chicago last fall. (AP Photo/Chicago Police Dept.)
Weather Underground member Katherine Boudin is led from Rockland County Courthouse in New City, New York, by sheriff’s officers in this Nov. 21, 1981 file photo. Boudin learned her son, Chesa, had been named a Rhodes Scholar in a phone call to prison, where she has spent all but 14 months of his life. Chesa Boudin, a 22-year-old Yale senior and activist who speaks widely on the problems of children with incarcerated parents, was among the 32 American college students selected Sunday, Dec. 8,2002, for Rhodes scholarships. (AP Photo/Handschuh)
Kathy Boudin, left, waves as she leaves the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility escorted by a corrections officer, Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2003 in Bedford Hills, N.Y. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
Marianne Yoshioka, associate dean for academic affairs and associate professor of professional practice in social work at Columbia University, told the NY Post that only three student have expressed concerns with Boudin’s criminal history and just one student switched classes because of her radical past. Boudin was reportedly hired by Yoshioka in 2008.
Yoshioka said Boudin has been “an excellent teacher who gets incredible evaluations from her students each year.”
Robert Van Cura, Rockland County’s undersheriff, said he was glad that Boudin was trying to do something positive with her life following her sketchy history, however, he added that “I believe there’s probably other people that are available to provide education beyond someone who is on parole for murder.”
“Boudin’s bounce-back into respectability after her 2003 parole comes to light a week before the release of Robert Redford’s movie ‘The Company You Keep,’ loosely based on the $1.6 million heist,” the Post notes.
Bill Ayers was recently named the 2013 College of Education and Human Services “visiting scholar” by Minnesota State University. He also speaks at various schools across the country.
-
The Goldberg File
By Jonah Goldberg
April 12, 2013
Dear Reader (including those of you still languishing behind the veil of ignorance),
So earlier this week MSNBC released one of its "Lean Forward" ads, this time with a woman named Melissa Harris-Perry.
Before we get to all that, a word about the ad campaign itself. In one sense these ads are like the question, "You want extra?" from the masseuse at a shady Vietnamese massage parlor -- proof that all pretense at propriety is exactly that, pretense. This is supposed to be a news network. Moreover, it is supposed to be a news network that constantly boasts of its professional and philosophical superiority to Fox News (and it's true; except for ratings, influence, quality, and profit MSNBC kicks Fox's butt). And yet, they run testimonials to state power with a frequency that rivals North Korean TV.
But in another sense these ads are the "extra" itself -- a rather sad and perfunctory attempt to satisfy urges that barely rise above the masturbatory. The self-love oozes from the screen as the hosts' inner-15-year-olds realize this is their chance to prove they're as great as their favorite social-studies teacher told them they were!
Thanks to the magic of Hollywood, they preen for the cameras with an almost post-coital glow as they deliver their little sermonettes that amount to pointless verbal onanism. Hey, look. There's no-necked Ed Schultz at a diner, looking like he's having one last cup of coffee before he has to work up a sweat burying the corpse of a dissident union official still moldering in the trunk of his ten-year-old Coupe de Ville. And there's Rachel Maddow (looking a bit like that aforementioned dead union official) trying to give her Stakhanovite commitment to infrastructure projects a romantic hue.
All Your Children Belong to Us
And now there's Melissa Harris-Perry. By now you've heard of or seen the ad, but just in case here it is. In short, she thinks the idea that your kids are, well, yours is outdated and counterproductive.
Rich Lowry, praise be upon him, offers a fine summary of what Harris-Perry is getting at here. Actually, no disrespect to the guy who signs my paycheck (who is not only a powerful man, but a handsome one) but Harris-Perry herself was more than clear enough about what she's after. The thing is only 30 seconds long, very highly produced, and straight to the point.
This is important because Harris-Perry is now simultaneously insisting she won't apologize and insisting that she didn't say what she so obviously said. In the ad she's talking about the role of government, government investments, and ridiculing the idea of "private" ownership of kids. "We have to break through," she urged, "our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents or kids belong to their families." Now she claims she was talking about civil society and voluntarism?
As the guy who took Obama to his first stable said when the president was about to step in some equine feces, "Oh, that's horses***."
The Wayback Machine
Like Sisyphus said on day 12,092 of his sentence, "forgive me for getting a little frustrated here."
The whole point of her commercial was to explain, in the condescending tones we usually expect from baristas with two graduate degrees, This Is How The Smart People See Things. And, on that level, I am utterly unsurprised she was surprised by the controversy. The notion that we need to solve the "problem" of private ownership of children is an ancient idea among progressives. The whole reason the ad made it on air is that Harris-Perry doesn't know anyone who thought it was controversial.
Lots of folks have been citing Hillary Clinton's It Takes a Village, (which I've actually read for reasons that have to do with original sin and the tragic nature of the universe) but the more relevant text is actually Clinton's address to the United Methodist General Conference in 1996. "As adults we have to start thinking and believing that there isn't really any such thing as someone else's child . . . For that reason, we cannot permit discussions of children and families to be subverted by political or ideological debate."
This quote can be found in Liberal Fascism -- along with many, many, pages on this eternal progressive dream of grabbing the kids. For instance, from page 326:
Since Plato's Republic, politicians, intellectuals, and priests have been fascinated with the idea of "capturing" children for social-engineering purposes. This is why Robespierre advocated that children be raised by the state. Hitler, who understood as well as any the importance of winning the hearts and minds of youth—once remarked, "When an opponent says 'I will not come over to your side,' I calmly say, 'Your child belongs to us already . . . You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time they will know nothing but this new community.'" Woodrow Wilson candidly observed that the primary mission of the educator was to make children as unlike their parents as possible. Charlotte Perkins Gilman stated it more starkly. "There is no more brilliant hope on earth to-day," the feminist icon proclaimed, "than this new thought about the child . . . the recognition of 'the child,' children as a class, children as citizens with rights to be guaranteed only by the state; instead of our previous attitude toward them of absolute personal [that is, parental] ownership—the unchecked tyranny . . . of the private home."
But, as that aforementioned Vietnamese masseuse likes to say, wait, there's more. Clinton's line actually gets closer to the point I make in The Tyranny of Clichés, out in paperback at the end of the month. ("We knew that was coming" -- The Couch). In Tyranny, one of my main arguments is that liberals are -- what's the right word? Oh, that's right, lying when they say they aren't ideological. Well, here's Hillary Clinton blithely telling the world that we need to get beyond the antiquated idea that you have more claim on your kid than anyone else and, then, in the same breath insisting that anyone who disagrees is being subversively "ideological" or "political." Think about that. It's like saying, "We as a country must move beyond the idea that the avant-garde of the proletariat as represented by the Politburo doesn't have the uncontestable right to invoke prima nocta and steal the virtue of your maiden daughters," and then claiming, without missing a beat, that any objections to this eminently reasonable and pragmatic point of view amounts to nothing more than political or ideological subversion. (Am I going to get any credit for that Leninist-Braveheart mash-up?).
Seriously, according to Clinton, you are a subversive if you think your kid is yours. And let's be clear: The collective ownership of the "village," that Clinton, Harris-Perry, et al. have in mind, is ownership by the state, guidance by the state. Mussolini's definition of fascism was the idea that everything is within the state, nothing outside the state. For Clinton & Co. everything is within the village; nothing is outside of it.
Anyway, I don't want to go all Red Dawn here ("Wolverines!" -- The Couch), but I'm pretty sure we have a Second Amendment precisely to recognize the fact that my kids are mine.
Moreover, it really needs to be pointed out that as a matter of policy and pragmatism, the idea that collective ownership of kids is smarter, better, or more enlightened than private ownership of kids (i.e. traditional parenting) is incandescently stoopid. Of course, the government has an obligation to step in when there's criminal abuse or gross irresponsibility. But there's no way, bureaucrats can do a better job of caring for kids than actual parents can. As I say in pretty much every speech I give: The government cannot love you. And, by extension, it sure as Hell can't love your children, never mind love them more than you do.
Lowry, in his philosopher-king wisdom, beat me to one of my favorite stories about Phil Gramm. He once told a woman, "My educational policies are based on the fact that I care more about my children than you do."
The woman, in full Melissa Harris-Perry mode, responded, "No, you don't."
Gramm shot back, "Okay, what are their names?"
-
second post of the morning
Strassel: Terry McAuliffe's Solyndra Running for governor of Virginia, the Democrat's main business credential is fast turning into a crony-capitalist embarrassment.
By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL
WSJ
Turn over any green-energy rock, and wiggling underneath will be the usual creepy mix of political favoritism and taxpayer-funded handouts. Add to this the Clintons, Mississippi and a murky visa program, and you've got a particularly ripe political embarrassment for Terry McAuliffe.
Everyone remember The Macker? Best Friend of Bill. Chairman of Hillary's 2008 presidential campaign. Famed money-tree shaker. Former Democratic Party chief. Failed 2009 contender for the Virginia governorship but now back as the party's nominee for that position in this fall's election. Oh—and in Mr. McAuliffe's words—"a Virginia businessman" intent on "creating jobs."
Or at least that was the image Mr. McAuliffe sought to portray in 2009, when he became chairman of a car company called GreenTech Automotive, with plans to produce golf-cart sized electric vehicles. The former DNC chief is no stranger to moneymaking, having once used a friendly union pension fund to spin a $100 investment in a Florida land deal into $2.45 million. GreenTech, however, was designed to shed the moneyman image and to reposition Mr. McAuliffe as a (clean) job creator the way Mark Warner and Bob McDonnell used their pro-business credentials to win office in Virginia.
To this end, Mr. McAuliffe got out the political Rolodex and went on the money hunt. By October 2009, GreenTech announced it would build a plant in Tunica, Miss., after the state (under Republican then-Gov. Haley Barbour) promised at least $5 million in public loans and grants to aid the company moving in.
GreenTech bragged that in its first phase alone it would invest $1 billion, employ 1,500 and produce 150,000 cars annually. Mr. McAuliffe grandly unveiled his signature MyCar last July at a rock-star event attended by Messrs. Clinton and Barbour. Business creds in hand, he then announced his run for governor—and the problems began.
Among the first questions he was asked was why, as a proud "Virginia" businessman, he'd located his business in Mississippi. Scrambling, Mr. McAuliffe stated that he had wanted to bring his jobs home but the Virginia Economic Development Partnership "didn't want to bid on" GreenTech—whereas Mississippi had offered incentives. He went so far as to criticize the state for not going after manufacturing jobs like his, suggesting he'd change that.
After an investigation, media outlets discovered that Virginia never received enough information from GreenTech to proceed. The Associated Press reported that the state agency worried that "GreenTech lacked brand recognition; had not demonstrated vehicle performance; had no federal safety and fuel-economy certification; no emissions approval . . . no distribution network" and (ouch) "no demonstrated automotive industry experience within the executive management team." Rather than respond to these concerns, GreenTech moved on with Mississippi (which perhaps wasn't asking annoying questions).
Virginia was particularly alarmed by GreenTech's use of an opaque visa program, called EB-5, to fund itself. Part of a 1990 immigration law, EB-5 lets foreigners who invest at least $500,000 in a U.S. company receive green cards. A federal immigration agency approves "regional centers" that administer the program.
While these centers can be run by local government, GreenTech proposed running a Virginia center itself. One official at the Virginia development agency wrote to colleagues that she couldn't view Greentech's EB-5 program as "anything other than a visa-for-sale scheme with potential national security implications."
GreenTech is today using its own investment vehicle to run a regional center in Mississippi. The president and CEO of Gulf Coast Funds Management is Anthony Rodham, the youngest brother of Hillary Clinton. Its board is composed of Democratic Party insiders, from former Clinton IRS Commissioner Margaret Richardson to former Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco. Neither the immigration agency, nor GreenTech or Gulf Coast, has divulged how much money the company has raised via EB-5, or how many visas it has issued.
This is of particular interest, since GreenTech looks to be a lemon. Despite promising production in 2011, there is no evidence the company is manufacturing any cars in volume. It is operating out of a temporary site and has yet to begin building its flagship factory in Tunica. GreenTech is the latest proof (after Solyndra, Fisker, A123 and others) that the political class is adept at hooking up cronies and investors with taxpayer dollars. But creating jobs? No can do.
This may explain the latest news bomblet. Mr. McAuliffe continued flogging his GreenTech credentials this year, appearing in January at a trade show under the title "chairman of GreenTech Automotive." Recent media reports have also used that title—with no protest from the candidate. But as the heat mounted, his campaign last week released a letter that claims Mr. McAuliffe had resigned from GreenTech by Dec. 1, 2012. The company, Mr. McAuliffe would now like everyone to know, has nothing to do with him.
The Democratic pol may not shake the story so easily, given the degree to which he made the firm central to his gubernatorial run. Green crony capitalism is proving to be one of the more politically toxic stories of our time. And in this case, just in time for an election.
Write to kim@wsj.com
-
A Euro socialist struggles with the implications of fascism , , ,
There is no alternative
Governments now answer to business, not voters. Mainstream parties grow ever harder to distinguish. Is democracy dead?
by Henry Farrell
Last September, Il Partito Democratico, the Italian Democratic Party, asked me to talk about politics and the internet at its summer school in Cortona. Political summer schools are usually pleasant — Cortona is a medieval Tuscan hill town with excellent restaurants — and unexciting. Academics and public intellectuals give talks organised loosely around a theme; in this case, the challenges of ‘communication and democracy’. Young party activists politely listen to our speeches while they wait to do the real business of politics, between sessions and at the evening meals.
This year was different. The Italian Democratic Party, which dominates the country’s left-of-centre politics, knew that it was in trouble. A flamboyant blogger and former comedian named Beppe Grillo had turned his celebrity into an online political force, Il Movimento 5 Stelle (the Five Star Movement), which promised to do well in the national elections. The new party didn’t have any coherent plan beyond sweeping out Old Corruption, but that was enough to bring out the crowds. The Five Star Movement was particularly good at attracting young idealists, the kind of voters who might have been Democrats a decade before.
Worries about this threat spilt over into the summer school. The relationship between communication and democracy suddenly had urgent political implications. The Democratic Party had spent two decades suffering under the former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s stranglehold on traditional media. Now it found itself challenged on the left too, by internet-fuelled populists who seemed to be sucking attention and energy away from it.
The keynote speaker at the summer school, the Democratic Party leader and prospective prime minister Pier Luigi Bersani, was in a particularly awkward position. Matteo Renzi, the ‘reformist’ mayor of Florence, had recently challenged Bersani’s leadership, promising the kind of dynamism that would appeal to younger voters. If Bersani wanted to stay on as party leader, he had to win an open primary. The summer school gave him a chance to speak to the activists in training, and try to show that he was still relevant.
I was one of two speakers warming up the crowd for Bersani. The party members and reporters endured us patiently enough as they waited for the real event. However, when Bersani started talking, he gave a speech that came strikingly close to a counsel of despair. He told his audience that representative democracy, European representative democracy in particular, was in crisis. Once, it had offered the world a model for reconciling economy and society. Now it could no longer provide the concrete benefits — jobs, rights, and environmental protection — that people wanted. In Italy, Berlusconi and his allies had systematically delegitimized government and undermined public life. The relationship between politics and society was broken.
Bersani knew what he didn’t want — radical political change. Any reforms would have to be rooted in traditional solidarities. But he didn’t know what he did want either, or if he did, he wasn’t able to describe it. His speech was an attack, swathed in the usual billowing abstractions of Italian political rhetoric, on the purported radicalism of both his internal party opponent and the Five Star Movement. He didn’t really have a programme of his own. He could promise his party nothing except hard challenges and uncertain outcomes.
Why do social democrats such as Bersani find it so hard to figure out what to do? It isn’t just the Italians who are in trouble. Social democrats in other countries are also in retreat. In France, Francoise Hollande’s government has offered many things: a slight softening of austerity (France’s deficit this year will be somewhat higher than the European Commission would like); occasional outbursts of anti-business rhetoric (usually swiftly contradicted by follow-up statements); higher taxes on the very rich (to be rolled back as soon as possible). What it has not offered is anything approaching a coherent programme for change.
Germany’s Social Democrats are suffering, too. The Christian Democrat-led government can get away with austerity measures as long as it convinces voters that it will do a better job of keeping their money safe from the Spaniards, Italians and Greeks. And the Social Democratic Party’s candidate for Chancellor, Peer Steinbrück, is not well placed to object. In 2009 he helped introduce a constitutional measure to limit government spending, hoping that this would make his party look more responsible. He now appears like a weaker, less resolute version of his opponent, Chancellor Angela Merkel, and has 32 per cent job approval.
Greece’s mainstream socialist party, Pasok, won only 12.3 per cent of the vote in the election in June last year. Spain’s social democrats are perhaps in even greater disarray than the conservative government. Ireland’s Labour Party, a junior party in the current government, saw its vote collapse from 21 per cent to 4.6 per cent in a by-election in March.
Where they are in opposition, European social democrats don’t know what to offer voters. Where they are in power, they don’t know how to use it. Even in the United States, which has never had a social democratic party with national appeal, the Democrats have gradually changed from a party that belonged ambiguously to the left to one that spans the limited gamut between the ever-so-slightly-left-of-centre and the centre-right. It, too, has had enormous difficulty in spelling out a new agenda, because of internal divisions as well as entrenched hostility from the Republican Party.
This isn’t what was supposed to happen. In the 1990s and the 2000s, right-wing parties were the enthusiasts of the market, pushing for the deregulation of banks, the privatisation of core state functions and the whittling away of social protections. All of these now look to have been very bad ideas. The economic crisis should really have discredited the right, not the left. So why is it the left that is paralysed?
Colin Crouch’s disquieting little book, Post-Democracy (2005), provides one plausible answer. Crouch is a British academic who spent several years teaching at the European University Institute in Florence, where he was my academic supervisor. His book has been well read in the UK, but in continental Europe its impact has been much more remarkable. Though he was not at the Cortona summer school in person, his ideas were omnipresent. Speaker after speaker grappled with the challenge that his book threw down. The fear that he was right, that there was no palatable exit from our situation, hung over the conference like a dusty pall.
Crouch sees the history of democracy as an arc. In the beginning, ordinary people were excluded from decision-making. During the 20th century, they became increasingly able to determine their collective fate through the electoral process, building mass parties that could represent their interests in government. Prosperity and the contentment of working people went hand in hand. Business recognised limits to its power and answered to democratically legitimated government. Markets were subordinate to politics, not the other way around.
At some point shortly after the end of the Second World War, democracy reached its apex in countries such as Britain and the US. According to Crouch, it has been declining ever since. Places such as Italy had more ambiguous histories of rise and decline, while others still, including Spain, Portugal and Greece, began the ascent much later, having only emerged from dictatorship in the 1970s. Nevertheless, all of these countries have reached the downward slope of the arc. The formal structures of democracy remain intact. People still vote. Political parties vie with each other in elections, and circulate in and out of government. Yet these acts of apparent choice have had their meaning hollowed out. The real decisions are taken elsewhere. We have become squatters in the ruins of the great democratic societies of the past.
Crouch lays some blame for this at the feet of the usual suspects. As markets globalise, businesses grow more powerful (they can relocate their activities, or threaten to relocate) and governments are weakened. Yet the real lessons of his book are about more particular forms of disconnection.
Neo-liberalism, which was supposed to replace grubby politics with efficient, market-based competition, has led not to the triumph of the free market but to the birth of new and horrid chimeras. The traditional firm, based on stable relations between employer, workers and customers, has spun itself out into a complicated and ever-shifting network of supply relationships and contractual forms. The owners remain the same but their relationship to their employees and customers is very different. For one thing, they cannot easily be held to account. As the American labour lawyer Thomas Geoghegan and others have shown, US firms have systematically divested themselves of inconvenient pension obligations to their employees, by farming them out to subsidiaries and spin-offs. Walmart has used hands-off subcontracting relationships to take advantage of unsafe working conditions in the developing world, while actively blocking efforts to improve industry safety standards until 112 garment workers died in a Bangladesh factory fire in November last year. Amazon uses subcontractors to employ warehouse employees in what can be unsafe and miserable working conditions, while minimising damage to its own brand.
Instead of clamping down on such abuses, the state has actually tried to ape these more flexible and apparently more efficient arrangements, either by putting many of its core activities out to private tender through complex contracting arrangements or by requiring its internal units to behave as if they were competing firms. As one looks from business to state and from state to business again, it is increasingly difficult to say which is which. The result is a complex web of relationships that are subject neither to market discipline nor democratic control. Businesses become entangled with the state as both customer and as regulator. States grow increasingly reliant on business, to the point where they no longer know what to do without its advice. Responsibility and accountability evanesce into an endlessly proliferating maze of contracts and subcontracts. As Crouch describes it, government is no more responsible for the delivery of services than Nike is for making the shoes that it brands. The realm of real democracy — political choices that are responsive to voters’ needs — shrinks ever further.
Politicians, meanwhile, have floated away, drifting beyond the reach of the parties that nominally chose them and the voters who elected them. They simply don’t need us as much as they used to. These days, it is far easier to ask business for money and expertise in exchange for political favours than to figure out the needs of a voting public that is increasingly fragmented and difficult to understand anyway. Both the traditional right, which always had strong connections to business, and the new left, which has woven new ties in a hurry, now rely on the private sector more than on voters or party activists. As left and right grow ever more disconnected from the public and ever closer to one another, elections become exercises in branding rather than substantive choice.
Crouch was writing Post-Democracy 10 years ago, when most people thought that things were going quite well. As long as the economy kept delivering jobs and growth, voters didn’t seem to mind about the hollowing out of democracy. Left-of-centre parties weren’t worried either: they responded to the new incentives by trying to articulate a ‘Third Way’ of market-like initiatives that could deliver broad social benefits. Crouch's lessons have only really come home in the wake of the economic crisis.
The problem that the centre-left now faces is not that it wants to make difficult or unpopular choices. It is that no real choices remain. It is lost in the maze, able neither to reach out to its traditional bases of support (which are largely dying or alienated from it anyway) nor to propose any grand new initiatives, the state no longer having the tools to implement them. When the important decisions are all made outside of democratic politics, the centre-left can only keep going through the ritualistic motions of democracy, all the while praying for intercession.
Most left-wing parties face some version of these dilemmas. Cronyism is less a problem than an institution in the US, where decision-makers relentlessly circulate between Wall Street, K Street, and the Senate and Congress. Yet Europe has some particular bugbears of its own. Even if national political systems were by some miracle to regain their old responsiveness, the power of decision has moved to the European Union, which is dominated by a toxic combination of economic realpolitik and bureaucratic self-interest. Rich northern states are unwilling to help their southern neighbours more than is absolutely necessary; instead they press for greater austerity. The European Central Bank, which was deliberately designed to be free of democratic oversight, is becoming ever more important, and ever more political. Social democrats once looked to the EU as a bulwark against globalisation — perhaps even a model for how the international economy might be subjected to democratic control. Instead, it is turning out to be a vector of corrosion, demanding that weaker member states implement drastic economic reforms without even a pretence of consultation.
Let’s return to Italy, the laboratory of post-democracy’s most grotesque manifestations. Forza Italia, Silvio Berlusconi’s elaborate simulacrum of a political party, is a perfect exemplar of Crouch’s thesis: a thin shell of branding and mass mobilisation, with a dense core of business and political elites floating free in the vacuum within.
After the Cortona summer school, Bersani won his fight with Renzi in November last year and led his party into the general election. His coalition lost 3.5 million votes but still won the lower house in February, because the Italian electoral system gives a massive bonus to the biggest winner. It fell far short of a majority in the upper house and is doing its hapless best to form a government. Grillo’s Five Star Movement, on the other hand, did far better than anyone expected, winning a quarter of the votes. Grillo has made it clear that his party will not support the Democratic Party. Renzi has tried to advance himself again as a compromise leader who might be more acceptable to Grillo, so far without success. In all likelihood there will be a second general election in a few months.
‘We die if a movement becomes a party. Our problem is to remain a movement in parliament, which is a structure for parties. We have to keep a foot outside’
The Italian Democratic Party is caught on one tine of the post-democratic dilemma. It is trying to work within the system as it is, in the implausible hope that it can produce real change within a framework that almost seems designed to prevent such a thing. As the party has courted Grillo, it has started making noises about refusing to accept austerity politics and introducing major institutional reforms. It is unclear whether senior Democratic figures believe their new rhetoric; certainly no one else does. If the party does somehow come to power, the most it will do is tinker with the system.
The Five Star Movement has impaled itself on the other tine, as have the Indignados in Spain, Occupy in the US and UK, and the tent movement in Israel. All have gained mass support because of the problems of post-democracy. The divide between ordinary people and politicians has grown ever wider, and Italian politicians are often corrupt as well as remote. The Five Star Movement wants to reform Italy’s institutions to make them truly democratic. Yet it, too, is trapped by the system. As Grillo told the Financial Times in October: ‘We die if a movement becomes a party. Our problem is to remain a movement in parliament, which is a structure for parties. We have to keep a foot outside.’
The truth is, if the Five Star Movement wants to get its proposals for radical change through the complex Italian political system, it will need to compromise, just as other parties do. Grillo’s unwillingness even to entertain discussions with other parties that share his agenda is creating fissures within his movement. Grillo is holding out for a more radical transformation, in which Italian politics would be replaced by new forms of internet-based ‘collective intelligence’, allowing people to come together to solve problems without ugly partisan bargaining. In order to save democracy, the Five Star Movement would like to leave politics behind. It won’t work.
The problems of the Italian left are mirrored in other countries. The British Labour Party finds itself in difficulty, wavering between a Blairite Third Wayism that offers no clear alternative to the present government, and a more full-blooded social democracy that it cannot readily define. The French left has mired itself in scandal and confusion. The Greek left is divided between a social democratic party that is more profoundly compromised than its Italian equivalent and a loose coalition of radicals that wants to do anything and everything except find itself in power and be forced to take decisions.
All are embroiled, in different ways, in the perplexities of post-democracy. None has any very good way out. Ever since France’s president François Mitterrand tried to pursue an expansive social democratic agenda in the early 1980s and was brutally punished by international markets, it has been clear that social democracy will require either a partial withdrawal from the international economy, with all the costs that this entails, or a radical transformation of how the international economy works.
It is striking that the right is not hampered to nearly the same extent. Many mainstream conservatives are committed to democracy for pragmatic rather than idealistic reasons. They are quite content to see it watered down so long as markets work and social stability is maintained. Those on the further reaches of the right, such as Greece’s Golden Dawn, find it much easier than the Five Star Movement or Syriza, the Greek radical-left coalition, to think about alternatives. After all, they aren’t particularly interested in reforming moribund democratic institutions to make them better and more responsive; they just want to replace them with some version of militaristic fascism. Even if these factions are unlikely to succeed, they can still pull their countries in less democratic directions, by excluding weaker groups from political protection. The next 10 years are unlikely to be comfortable for immigrants in southern Europe.
Post-democracy is strangling the old parties of the left. They have run out of options. Perhaps all that traditional social democracy can do, to adapt a grim joke made by Crouch in a different context, is to serve as a pall-bearer at its own funeral. In contrast, a new group of actors — the Five Star Movement and other confederations of the angry, young and dispossessed — have seized a chance to win mass support. The problem is, they seem unable to turn mass frustration into the power to change things, to create a path for escape.
Perhaps, over time, they will figure out how to engage with the mundane task of slow drilling through hard boards that is everyday politics. Perhaps, too, the systems of unrule governing the world economy, gravely weakened as they are, will fail and collapse of their own accord, opening the space for a new and very different dispensation. Great changes seem unlikely until they happen; only in retrospect do they look inevitable. Yet if some reversal in the order of things is waiting to unfold, it is not apparent to us now. Post-democracy has trapped the left between two worlds, one dead, the other powerless to be born. We may be here for some time.
Henry Farrell is an associate professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University. His latest book is The Political Economy of Trust (2009).
-
http://dailycaller.com/2013/04/30/changes-in-gdp-measurement-create-growth-out-of-thin-air/
The art of measuring the size of the economy just got a new box of crayons.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis announced last week it would be changing the guidelines with which it calculates Gross Domestic Product, more familiarly known as the GDP, the standard by which the size and growth of the economy is measured.
The change comes after more than five years of economic stagnation that, despite frequent claims of a strengthening recovery, have seen high unemployment and extremely slight growth in the size of the economy.
GDP is calculated by adding up the total amount of private consumption, investment, government spending, and net exports. The new changes, which will include definitional changes to expand what is counted in GDP, are expected to add 3 percent to the GDP report, while not changing the actual output of the economy.
The agency claims the changes in calculation “more accurately portray the evolving U.S. economy and to provide for consistent comparisons with data for the economies of other nations.”
Outspoken investment broker and financial commentator Peter Schiff describes the change as “propaganda” in his radio show.
“That’s what the government does. Whenever they don’t like the results, they change the methodology for calculating those results,” Schiff says in a new SchiffRadio report.
“Now it doesn’t mean that the economy is actually any bigger, but it means they can pretend it’s bigger,” he added.
Schiff, the CEO of Euro Pacific Capital, asserts that the underlying reason behind making the GDP looking bigger is so that the debt looks smaller. Economists agree that if public debt continues to exceed GDP past sustainable levels, economic growth will suffer because more and more of the economy is dedicated to paying interest on loans rather than spending on investment or consumption or things that create growth within an economy.
“f you have a BS GDP, that’s artificially inflated based on creative accounting, than it means the economy isn’t generating enough income to service all of that debt,” Schiff says.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/04/30/changes-in-gdp-measurement-create-growth-out-of-thin-air/#ixzz2S4B6YVTF
-
Graduates, Your Ambition Is the Problem
Obama's commencement speech at Ohio State on Sunday would have perplexed the Founders.
by ROGER PILON
Civic education in America took a hit on Sunday when President Obama, giving the commencement address at The Ohio State University, chose citizenship as his theme. The country's Founders trusted citizens with "awesome authority," he told the assembled graduates. Really?
Actually, the Founders distrusted us, at least in our collective capacity. That's why they wrote a Constitution that set clear limits on what we, as citizens, could do through government.
Mr. Obama seems never to appreciate that essential point about the American political order. As with his countless speeches that lead ultimately to an expression of the president's belief in the unbounded power of government to do good, he began in Columbus with an insight that we can all pretty much embrace, at least in the abstract. Citizenship, Mr. Obama said, is "the idea at the heart of our founding—that as Americans, we are blessed with God-given and inalienable rights, but with those rights come responsibilities—to ourselves, to one another, and to future generations."
Well enough. But then he took that insight to lengths the Founders would never have imagined. Reading "citizenship" as standing for the many ways we can selflessly "serve our country," the president said that "sometimes, we see it as a virtue from another time—one that's slipping from a society that celebrates individual ambition." And "we sometimes forget the larger bonds we share, as one American family."
Not for nothing did he invoke the family, that elemental social unit in which we truly are responsible to one another and to future generations—by law, by custom, and, ideally, in our hearts. But only metaphorically is America a family, its members bound by tendrils of intimacy and affection. Realistically, the country is a community of individuals and private institutions, including the family, with their own interests, bound not by mutual love but by the political principles that are set forth in the Constitution, a document that secures and celebrates the freedom to pursue those interests, varied as they might be.
Alas, that is not Mr. Obama's vision. "The Founders left us the keys to a system of self-government," he went on, "the tool to do big and important things together that we could not possibly do alone." And what "big and important things" cannot be done except through government? On the president's list are railroads, the electrical grid, highways, education, health care, charity and more. One imagines a historical vision reaching as far back as the New Deal. Americans "chose to do these things together," he added, "because we know this country cannot accomplish great things if we pursue nothing greater than our own individual ambition."
Notice that twice now Mr. Obama has invoked "individual ambition," and not as a virtue. For other targets, he next counseled the graduates against the "voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that's the root of all our problems, even as they do their best to gum up the works."
The irony here should not go unnoticed: The opponents that the president disparages are the same folks who tried to save the country from one of the biggest pieces of gum now in the works: Mr. Obama's own health-care insurance program, which today is filling many of its backers with dread as it moves toward full implementation in a matter of months.
None of that darkens Mr. Obama's sunny view of collective effort. What does upset him, still, is the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis: "Too many on Wall Street," he said, "forgot that their obligations don't end with their shareholders." No mention of the Federal Reserve, or Fannie Mae, FNMA +12.20% Freddie Mac, FMCC +12.71% the Community Reinvestment Act, or the many other "big and important things" government undertook before the crisis hit, things that explain the disaster far better than any Wall Street greed. None of that fits in Mr. Obama's morality play. For that matter, neither do the Constitution's checks and balances. When the president laments that "democracy isn't working as well as we know it can," he is not talking about those big, misbegotten public projects but about the Washington gridlock that has frustrated his grander plans.
From George Washington to Calvin Coolidge, presidents sought mostly to administer the laws that enabled citizens to live their own lives, ambitiously or not. It would have been thought impertinent for a president to tell a graduating class that what the country needs is the political will "to harness the ingenuity of your generation, and encourage and inspire the hard work of dedicated citizens . . . to repair the middle class; to give more families a fair shake; to reject a country in which only a lucky few prosper."
A more inspiring message might have urged graduates not to reject their own country, where for two centuries far more than a lucky few have prospered under limited constitutional government—and even more would today if that form of government were restored.
Mr. Pilon is vice president for legal affairs at the Cato Institute and director of Cato's Center for Constitutional Studies.
-
Interesting piece along with some Fox news displays of leftists arguing we should do away with the concept of marriage altogether. WE can redefine marriage between two People for now whether homo or hetero before we move to the next step in the progression of arguing against marriage altogether. We are all wards of a collectivism with rules and regulations dictated by a single worldly government.
So there will be no nuclear family as we know it. We are like on the Kibbutz. Children raised in collective gov controlled societies.
Folks this is a science fiction nightmare. How can we get the average American to see this? Would even the immigrants from socialistic societies be ok with this? Are our young this stupid to see what they are giving into?
Why can't the republicans get their message straight? How do we stop the Axelrod machine from lying about their intentions. Obama poking fun at those who call him a socialist - as though he is not and they are crazy.
-
The State allocating interest rates according to which sector from which someone comes is certainly economic fascism, but one has to admire the political logic of the sales pitch:
http://occupydemocrats.com/senator-warrens-1st-bill-gov-should-offer-same-loan-rates-to-students-as-big-banks/
-
The State allocating interest rates according to which sector from which someone comes is certainly economic fascism, but one has to admire the political logic of the sales pitch:
http://occupydemocrats.com/senator-warrens-1st-bill-gov-should-offer-same-loan-rates-to-students-as-big-banks/
"one has to admire the political logic of the sales pitch"
The other half of this clever strategy is hinted at on Education thread. The government injects massive amounts of money into higher education to keep the price high for one constituency, while causing the majority of young adult voters to come out of college deep in debt and dependent on people like Elizabeth Warren instead of on their own negotiating and earning power for solvency.
-
"Legal plunder can be committed in an infinite number of ways; hence, there are an infinite number of plans for organizing it: tariffs, protection, bonuses, subsidies, incentives, the progressive income tax, free education, the right to employment, the right to profit, the right to wages, the right to relief, the right to the tools of production, interest free credit, etc., etc. And it the aggregate of all these plans, in respect to what they have in common, legal plunder, that goes under the name of socialism." --French economist Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850)
-
Democrats, doing for America what they did for Detroit!
http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2013/05/31/detroit-heads-to-the-pawn-shop/
May 31, 2013
Detroit Heads to the Pawn Shop
Desperation has hit a new low in Detroit.
Last week, Emergency Manager (and bankruptcy lawyer) Kevyn Orr decided to list the holdings of the Detroit Institute of Arts among the city’s assets in preparation for a possible bankruptcy. If the city goes through with it, it could be forced to sell off any of its assets—which now include the museum’s collection.
Museum administrators are outraged, but the choice may be keeping the art or paying for vital public services. According to Orr, the city has “long-term obligations of at least $15 billion, unsustainable cash flow shortages and miserably low credit ratings that make it difficult to borrow.” But as the WSJ reports, the city may not have a choice:
“Kevyn Orr doesn’t want the collection sold,” Mr. Nowling said. “But in bankruptcy, it could be eyed by creditors.” [...]
But legal experts say that in a municipal bankruptcy, it is possible for a city to sell assets, even cultural icons. James Spiotto, a bankruptcy attorney and author on municipal-finance issues based in Chicago, said that “in order to provide essential government services like public safety, roads and education, certain other programs are going to be curtailed or eliminated. So it’s not surprising that the sale of art is on the table.”
The collection, which include treasures by Bruegel, Rodin and van Gogh as well as Diego Rivera’s famous “Detroit Industry” murals, is ostensibly worth billions of dollars, but those measures can’t really capture what such artistic treasures mean to a community.
Unfortunately the city is already struggling to keep the lights on. Local businesses recently had to step in to buy the city police cars and ambulances. Meanwhile, Detroit has closed nearly a quarter of the city’s firehouses, and the department’s equipment is beginning to fall apart. At this point, the city may need the money more than it needs the art.
This is another grim reminder of just how destructive Detroit’s corrupt machine politics have been. At one time, Detroit was the manufacturing capital of America and one of the country’s great cities; today it’s trying to stave off a kind of modern-day bonfire of the vanities.
Every time Detroit seems like it’s about to hit rock bottom, a trap door opens to reveal yet another howling abyss.
-
" those measures can’t really capture what such artistic treasures mean to a community."
One suspects that the collected works of Tupac Shakur (pronounced "two pack shaker"?) have more meaning to the present denizens of Detroit.
-
http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2013/05/new-york-city-shop-fined-60000-for-selling-gun-shaped-lighters-2637184.html
http://www.gopusa.com/theloft/2013/06/05/excuse-me-did-you-just-say-gun/?subscriber=1
-
second post
http://worldtruth.tv/hr-748-require-all-young-americans-to-enlist-in-a-national-service-program/
-
second post
http://worldtruth.tv/hr-748-require-all-young-americans-to-enlist-in-a-national-service-program/
An alternative to requiring all people to enlist and work for the government in peace time would be to 'enlist' all young people when they turn 18 to work 52 weeks, 40 hours per week in the private sector and pay taxes before they are eligible to vote, secure student loans, receive government benefits, etc.
BTW, "require to enlist", they will require you to volunteer? Besides fascist, isn't that a bit Orwellian, and oxymoronic? Reminds me of when Al Gore accused his opponents of making an explicit implication: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123678882987596665.html
-
I don't usually post directly off Drudge. I figure anyone here can simply see it themselves. But this I feel compelled to post. No one can say it like Rush. This is prime example why he is who he is. I love the comparison of Obama to all these scandals with Hitler and the holocaust. I totally forgot the fact that there is NO SINGLE DOCUMENT that links Hitler to the holocaust in writing. There isn't. No tapes, no signatures. Yes we have Mein Kampf with his rants about Jews. But there is nothing about him putting his stamp of approval on the genocide in writing. Just no proof.
Rush draws the same parallel to Brock the "terrible". He is obviously in a huge conspiracy to take over the country by increasing government power. Yet nothing in writing can be found. He pretends not to know, to downplay, to blame Bush, to deny. Yet anyone with a brain can see he is part of this new world order agenda.
Sad to say our Republican leaders in DC deny it.
The only part I disagree with is that he does not seem to it if it is private enterprise that is doing this ("Colonel Sanders"). I do. I don't want Google, Yahoo, Drug companies, pharmacies, or anyone else mining by data without my permission and with no consequences to my privacy. But back to the Communist takeover of the US.....
******America in the Midst of a Coup d'Etat
June 07, 2013
******BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Late yesterday afternoon I was sitting in the library at home, and I was just swamped. It seemed like every 90 seconds somebody needed something, or somebody had a question or somebody had a comment, requiring my response. It was during the period of time that I generally devote to reading my tech blogs, you know, where I abandon all of this and get away from it and start spending time on, quote, unquote, my hobby.
But it was one of those days. I'm sure you have them. They may happen every day, but if I had been watching a TV show I would have hit the pause button every minute to deal with something. It would have taken me two hours yesterday to watch a 40 minute program. So in the midst of all of this, I hear about Prism. Not the NSA sweep of telephone records. In fact, let me start before I heard about Prism. Even before I heard about Prism, I am hearing from the intelligentsia in Washington that there's nothing to be really concerned about here with what we had learned, the NSA demanding and getting every phone record from Verizon. And, by the way, we now know T-Mobile and AT&T have been added to it.
But the intelligent people were saying, "Nothing to see here. The reaction is way overblown." Those of us who think there's something worrisome here are overreacting and we're too oriented in politics. And the mature thinkers that weighed in and sound reason and levelheadedness assured us that there was nothing to fear here because this was just metadata, and in fact this is something we should all be thankful that the government is able to do.
I have to tell you when I'm listening to all the smart people tell me this, my mind is about to explode, and I'm saying, "Do these people not realize what we just learned in the last three weeks?" We got the IRS starting in 2010 taking action to suppress the political involvement and ultimately votes of Tea Party people and conservative Republicans. This regime, this government, on the orders of the highest level. In fact, that investigation is ongoing. We have Fast and Furious. We have Obamacare. The evidence of the totalitarian nature or the authoritarian nature of this administration is on display undeniably every day and yet in the midst of this, "Well, don't go off half cocked on this, Rush. Be very levelheaded. Nothing really to see," as though there's no context here.
It made me once again understand, folks, what you and I are up against here. There are just way too many people -- and I'm talking about on our side -- who do not want to admit what we face, who do not want to engage or admit or whatever what we really face here. It matters. This kind of stuff matters because of who the people doing it happen to be. It's one thing if Colonel Sanders would be collecting all this data, but it's not Colonel Sanders. It's Barack Obama and everybody that works for him, and we know who they are and we know what their goals are. We know what their intentions are.
Folks, here's the thing, I guess, that gets me. I mentioned Herbert Meyer. We interviewed him for the Limbaugh Letter a few short months ago. Herbert Meyer was in the national security apparatus during the Reagan administration. He was a good friend of Ronald Reagan, and was instrumental in establishing Reagan administration policies that brought down the Soviet Union. The big news to him that's really noteworthy, we talked about it, is that he thinks that the world's coming out of poverty. And it is a big story, The Economist in London had a big story on it recently. We mentioned it to you, and it's a great testament to capitalism.
It's not socialism, it's not welfare, it's not compassion and it's not the redistribution of wealth. It's not high taxes that are bringing people out of poverty. It's capitalism, and none other than a leftist publication in London had to admit it. Well, Herb Meyer was the first to sound this notice some months ago. I also mentioned he wrote a piece that currently is in the American Thinker earlier this week, and it had the potential to be controversial because he used Adolf Hitler and Nazism in it, and it was his way of explaining, he made a point in the piece that nowhere, you know, people looking for a smoking gun to nail Obama on all these scandals, Herb says, "Ain't gonna be one."
He said whether you believe it or not, there is not one document linking Adolf Hitler to the holocaust. Adolf Hitler never put it on paper what he intended to do. There is no smoking gun. And yet what happened? We know that the Nazis engaged in the Holocaust. Herb Meyer's point was that the people Hitler hired didn't have to be told. They didn't have to be given instructions. All they had to do was listen to what Hitler was saying. All they had to do was listen to what his objectives were. And he said the same thing's happening here with this administration. He went to great pains to say: I'm not calling this administration a bunch of Nazis. I'm just using this as an illustration. I know people will get my point if I use something this notorious, the Nazi regime.
It's a point that I've made here about the IRS. They say, "Well, you can't link it in to Obama." You don't need to link Obama to it. He hired these people. Lois Lerner and everybody at the IRS who's doing this is doing everything they can to please Obama. There's not gonna be a smoking gun, but you don't need a smoking gun to know where this administration's doing what it's doing.
Obama puts people in positions that mirror him. Eric Holder, you name it, they're doing Obama's bidding. Everybody. Susan Rice and Samantha Power, they are Obama, and there's a context for what's happening. Herbert Meyer, if I may quote him again, asserted that essentially what's taking place in the United States right now is a coup, not a violent coup, and not a million artistic coup, but nevertheless a takeover of a government, and it's being done by the Obama administration.
He referred to it as a coup. I don't know if he used the word "peaceful," but clearly there's a coup d'etat going. You know it and I know it. This is what animates us. This is why the Tea Party exists. This country was founded on certain concepts, principles, beliefs -- and they're under assault. Chief among them under assault is the right to privacy, and that's what all this is about. So in the midst of this coup d'etat... I happen to like that formulation.
In seeking ways to persuade, for example, the low-information voters of what's going on, this happens. These are the people continuing to prop Obama up with high approval numbers. The Limbaugh Theorem. How do we reach 'em? How do we tell them? How do we explain what's going on when they have, perhaps, almost an idolatrous relationship with the president? Well, maybe you tell 'em there's a coup going on.
There are people attempting to take over this country and to make it something that it wasn't founded as; turn it into something that it wasn't intended to be. That is happening. You know it and I know it. It's peaceful, nonviolent. The military isn't involved. But nevertheless it's a coup. So in the context of that and the realization that's happening, in the midst of learning that the National Security Agency is literally "Hoovering," vacuuming every telephone record they can, what do we hear?
"Nothing to see here, Rush. Calm down! Slow down, Rush. This is nothing to get concerned about. There's nothing illegal here. The Fourth Amendment's not being violated or breached. This is nothing whatsoever to get concerned about." How can I...? (sigh) I don't know how people can look at this in context and say that. The people doing this are what make it a big deal. Their motives and their intentions and their clear assault on the whole notion of privacy make it interesting.
I'm sorry for the long detour there, but in the midst of being told that I need to be more levelheaded -- and not just me, but all of us who are a little bit concerned here about this Verizon story. We are all being told, "Back off, back off. Nothing to see here. We're not really, really concerned." It was in the midst of that that I heard about Prism. That was a Washington Post story that posted on their website around five or six o'clock yesterday afternoon.
The basic tenet of this story is that somebody in the intelligence community -- NSA, somewhere -- is so concerned over what he's seeing take place that he went to the Washington Post and took with him a little PowerPoint slide presentation and gave it to the Post and their reporters, and they wrote a story up and put it on their website. The story is that practically every major tech group and company in this country is participating with the government in allowing the government access to their servers.
E-mails, texts, phone calls, photographs. Virtually any communication that's taking place via the Apple servers, the Microsoft servers, the Google servers, the NSA is able to look at in real time. This is the story now. The guy that went to the Washington Post said, "It was so scary. They can watch us as we type." The Washington Post published some of the PowerPoint slides. I'm reading this after being told that the Verizon thing is no big deal. "It's nothing to get concerned about.
"Nothing to see here. Don't get too worried about that. Don't go off half cocked!" Here comes the Prism story, and then shortly after the Prism story hits, all of these tech firms start denying it. Apple says, "I never heard of Prism. We don't know what this is about. We never let anybody have access to our servers without a warrant, without a court order. We never!" Google said the same thing. Microsoft said the same thing. Facebook said the same thing.
They're all out there denying it. So I thought, "Did the Washington Post get set up?" I'm asking myself, "Did they get set up by somebody walking in and telling them something that wasn't true?" But then I saw that Prism reported someplace else by this Glenn Greenwald guy at the UK Guardian. So there were two sources for the Prism story, but the tech firms involved continue to deny it. "Nope, it's not happening." Now we've got audio sound bites.
These guys from the tech firms like Greenwald and some of these others, are blaming Bush for all of this, still. Today! Still today, all of this is the fault of Bush. Bush is the guy that got this ball rolling. So there must be something to it if the left is circling the wagons around Obama and trying to make all of us think that all of this is the fault of George W. Bush. I just gotta tell you something, folks. Richard Nixon never even dreamed of this kind of stuff, and yet most people in this country think that Nixon did 10 times as bad as what's happening now.
The fact is, Nixon never dreamed of this.
Whatever he wanted to cook up, he never even came up with this. So there is clearly -- somewhere, somehow, in some form or another -- a coup taking place, and there is an assault on privacy, and there are assaults on people because of their politics and their ideology. It is taking place; it's undeniable. Yet many of the people we would hope would be pushing back against this and doing their best to join us and warning everybody say, "Nothing to see here! Don't get all crazy about this. We must be level headed."
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: So Obama's in California. Why? Fundraising. He's also got a meeting with the Chinese communist premier, but it's fundraising. That's why they go to California. Anyway, he got out there to speak. There was no prompter, and he didn't have any notes, and he just stood there. He didn't know what to do. Honestly, folks. Forty-eight seconds or something. Nothing happened. He finally shouted, "People!" and somebody on his staff brought him his notes. He was clueless.
Now, a lot of people yesterday who were saying, "Rush, Rush, don't get all upset about this. There's nothing to see here in this NSA business and Verizon. Nothing's going on." Look, one of the accusations was that people are just getting upset because it was Obama and just trusting Obama, and it's not reasonable enough to get concerned about this. My point is, speaking about you and me, we're not all stupid out here.
We're not all stupid about this and this is not simply because we don't trust Obama. I don't want my government doing this. I do not want my government preoccupied with paying this close attention to what every citizen is doing every minute of the day. This government's already too big, it's too damn powerful, and it's too unforgiving -- and this doesn't have anything to do with competent intelligence gathering. Throwing wide nets like this is BS. It's assuming way too much to think that this is not a big deal. Left-wing overreaction, my backside.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: There was a time when the United States government earned the trust of its people. There was a time when most people believed that the United States government was protecting them. There was a time when most people believed that the United States government was spying on the bad guys, that the United States government was in fact earning the trust of the people. But this current data collection, scanning, whatever you want to call it, unfortunately has to be judged in context: the IRS leaks, the now unquestionable, undeniable, admitted-to-it IRS tactic of suppressing the vote of Tea Party conservatives, denying them their First Amendment rights.
The regime and its tricks with the Associated Press and Fox reporter James Rosen, the Benghazi cover-ups, the Fast and Furious operation, suing the state of Arizona for simply endorsing essentially federal immigration law. You can't just try to be the smartest guy in the room and say, "Well, we must be levelheaded about this and understand that this is just metadata." We cannot take the motives and intelligence guided by experience watching this administration over the last four-and-a-half, five years, and what their express purpose is.
I was reminded this morning, we had a sound bite of Maxine Waters back on February 3rd of this year. She was on a TV show, some network, TV One. It was a show hosted by Roland Martin, who used to be, may still be, a personality at CNN. He was interviewing Maxine Waters, and every time she speaks, you know, we have a good laugh about it because clearly she's insane. And we nevertheless will play the sound bites. Her natural existence is such that she gives away the game. She will give away what the administration's all about. She will give away the fact that they want to nationalize all these companies. And she did it again on this Washington Watch with Roland Martin show back on February 3rd of 2013. He said to her, "The reality is like anything else: You'd better get what you can while he's there, because, look, come 2016, that's it."
WATERS: Well, you know, I don't know, and I think some people are missing something here. The president has put in place an organization that contains the kind of database that no one has ever seen before in life. That's going to be very, very powerful. That database will have information about everything on every individual in ways that it's never been done before.
RUSH: See, she gives it up. Now, I remember playing that sound bite, and we made a big deal about it at the website, Rush 24/7, and we thought, "Well, it's just Maxine being Maxine." But in this case now going back, looking at it in hindsight, what in the world was she talking about? At the time we thought she was talking about all of his high-tech campaign advancements. But maybe she wasn't.
I'll tell you, the New York Times yesterday, this was kind of funny, too, the New York Times decided it was time to get really mad. They wrote an editorial really ripping into Obama over this. They called it: President Obama's Dragnet. The editors at the New York Times were hopping mad, or at least they're pretending to be. And they really got carried away. They had to change their original editorial. They reissued it. The original editorial said: "The administration has now lost all credibility." They changed that in their second issuance to: "The administration has now lost all credibility on this issue." But the point is they were right the first time. I don't know, maybe they don't want shock their readers with so much truth. But they went so far as to say at the New York Times, "Mr. Obama is proving the truism that the executive branch will use any power it is given and very likely abuse it."
Now, keep in mind this was written by people who are the loudest proponents of the expansion of government. These are people who don't believe the government can possibly get too big. It's not possible for it to get too big. It's not possible for the government to get too powerful. It's not possible. And yet they are worried at the New York Times about what is happening to it under the guidance of the presidency and Mr. Obama. What everybody knows and nobody wants to really come to grips with is that we are in the midst of a coup taking place.
Now, I know what's gonna happen. The people on the other side of the glass: "Will you dial that coup talk back?" That's all the headlines are gonna be. I don't care. In fact, it's almost on par with: "I hope he fails." How does that sound now, by the way: "I hope he fails"? I'm constantly looking for ways here to persuade people of what I passionately believe, and I'm not in it to lie to anybody. There's nothing to be gained by lying to you about what I really think. There's nothing to be gained here by lying about facts. There's nothing to be gained here by gaining ground under false pretense.
So if the Constitution exists as it is, the country was founded as it was, and an administration comes along and doesn't like that and is doing everything it can to overturn that Constitution without a convention, doing everything it can to change direction of this country, and what's the word, transform it, what's wrong with calling this a coup? "Mr. Limbaugh, a coup is when rebels join forces with the military and start launching military attacks and shooting people." No, no, no. Not always. And that's my point.
When I was a kid, my dad kept saying, "Son, if things don't change, the Soviets are gonna take over this country without firing a shot." What he was talking about was a coup. Anyway, folks, there's a lot here to be concerned about. And you know it as well as I do. I get a little perplexed when people that I think see the world as I do and are, in my opinion, on my side, want to come along for reasons I can't fathom to excuse things that need not be excused. Now, Obama went out there today, he's in Palm Springs, and he addressed this NSA story. He defended the spy programs as legitimate because Congress has been consistently informed about 'em. He didn't get mad, but he sort of complained about all the hype over the phone data gathering, because it's approved by the FISA court. It's approved by the Congress.
He said (paraphrasing), "Nobody's listening to your phone calls. They're looking at megadata," he meant metadata, "and tracking terrorists. Nobody's listening to content. Modest encroachments on privacy are worth doing. We're gonna have to make some choices as a society. You can't have 100% security and have 100% privacy." This is what he said today out in Palm Springs. This is the guy, don't forget, who got elected convincing people that this kind of stuff was never gonna happen anywhere. This is the guy who got elected mischaracterizing the kind of intelligence gathering that was ongoing with the Bush administration.
This is the guy who got elected president by telling us that what is happening now was never going to happen when he was president. This is a guy who got elected telling us in 2007, 2008 that what's going on now was going on then. Bush was doing this, identical stuff, that's what they're trying to tell us, even now. He got elected warning us that what's happening now was happening in 2007, 2008, and promising us, this was not gonna happen. And everything that was happening in 2007 has only grown. There's only more of it. It's more sweeping than it's ever been.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Have we already forgotten what this regime has done to the donors to the Mitt Romney campaign, all of the IRS harassment and audits and attention paid them by the EPA, if necessary? This is clearly an administration that wants to identify its enemies and then take action against them somehow, to intimidate them or what have you. You can't take that context out. The Wall Street Journal has a story here about PRISM. You know, PRISM is a code name, too.
So when these companies like Microsoft and Google and Apple say, "Oh, well, we never heard of it." Well, they may not have heard of it. It may be called something else, and they say, "Well, we don't let anybody have access for our servers without court orders." Well, maybe there have been court orders. If there is a program like this going on, a part of it would have to be that the companies involved would have to be able to deny it. They could not talk about it.
Put it this way: They were sworn to secrecy. They could not broadcast their involvement in it because it's taking place under the guise of national security. Do you realize what a vacuum cleaner that is? I mean, they can Hoover up everything they want under the guise of national security. Anyway, the Wall Street Journal: "US Collects Vast Data Trove -- NSA monitoring includes three phone companies as well as online activity," and then there's this:
"The National Security Agency's monitoring of Americans includes customer records from the three major phone networks as well as emails and Web searches, and the agency also has cataloged credit-card transactions, said people familiar with the agency's activities." Now, would anybody who thought maybe the phone company sweep wasn't any big deal, maybe want to say that cataloging credit card transactions might be news?
I'm just asking.
END TRANSCRIPT.
-
https://twitter.com/chanesteiner/status/308989142266699776/photo/1
-
http://www.the-spearhead.com/2013/03/29/antifeminism-might-become-illegal-in-the-nordic-countries/
-
http://www.the-spearhead.com/2013/03/29/antifeminism-might-become-illegal-in-the-nordic-countries/
For all but the religion of peace.
-
is politically incorrect in Sweden.
Sweden is on some sort of anti gender kick. Perhaps all the Nordic countries are close behind. I don't normally read slate but in searching under gender neutrality and Sweden this came up:
http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2012/04/hen_sweden_s_new_gender_neutral_pronoun_causes_controversy_.html
We know what the N word is. The F word (slang for gay). Soon there will be the H word (he) and the S word (she).
The L word lying actually has become politically ok. Remember how I lamented that no one had the courage to call someone else a liar on TV (for fear of a slander suit, I guess). Now I hear people calling brock and team liars all the time. Doesn't seem to faze the Democrats at all though.
Weiner in the lead. Indeed, it seems being a world class liar is an asset to a Democrat. Something to marvel in. To relish. To be proud of. The rough and tumble of "hardball" politics from a warrior hell bent on doing good in the world.....
I wonder if it is a resume requirement when applying for a job in the Democratic party.
-
http://www.gopusa.com/theloft/2013/07/09/more-people-getting-government-food-than-actually-working/
-
second post
http://rt.com/usa/white-house-systems-order-142/
-
http://radio.foxnews.com/toddstarnes/top-stories/airman-punished-for-objecting-to-gay-marriage-in-military-chapel.html
-
With Hillary as their point woman we will be barraged with the feminism infatada, like the gay one we have been subjected to over the next couple of yrs.
CNN, and the rest of the liberal media will be waging propaganda campaigns like we have never seen. It will be NOW style feminism on steroids. It will use the gay infatada mass media tactics as a template. "shame", "bullying", "disgrace", "sexist", "civil rights", will all be part of it. Every single thing a woman does will be celebrated. Like the woman UFC fighter. Like the woman nascar racers. They are the first this the first that. All to coincide with the sudden need for the first woman president; guess who. There was never a peep when Sarah was a VP candidate. Why? Because it could not be a Republican. It has to be a liberal staunch believer in the Democrat party and the socialist elite taking over the world. For all our own good, of course.
-
With Hillary as their point woman we will be barraged with the feminism infatada, like the gay one we have been subjected to over the next couple of yrs.
CNN, and the rest of the liberal media will be waging propaganda campaigns like we have never seen. It will be NOW style feminism on steroids. It will use the gay infatada mass media tactics as a template. "shame", "bullying", "disgrace", "sexist", "civil rights", will all be part of it. Every single thing a woman does will be celebrated. Like the woman UFC fighter. Like the woman nascar racers. They are the first this the first that. All to coincide with the sudden need for the first woman president; guess who. There was never a peep when Sarah was a VP candidate. Why? Because it could not be a Republican. It has to be a liberal staunch believer in the Democrat party and the socialist elite taking over the world. For all our own good, of course.
ccp, Yes, and they won't see the hypocrisy that the year of the woman needs to follow the year we ended all gender distinctions, eliminating terms like wife, bride and motherhood.
Hillary fatigue will set in about 3 minutes after she re-takes the stage. She does not have the magnetism of Bill and Barack. She is no Maggie Thatcher to be sure. McCain was (allegedly) too old people to relate to young people and Dems follow the lessons learned with Obama by putting forward one of their old fossils? My view is don't worry, 2016 will get interesting on both sides and she won't be a nominee. Frontrunner status will be a curse. Benghazi is unanswerable. She has no accomplishments, no plan, can't run against the status quo nor differentiate herself from Obama. Most important for a very long campaign, she has no charm.
-
Doug writes,
"Yes, and they won't see the hypocrisy that the year of the woman needs to follow the year we ended all gender distinctions, eliminating terms like wife, bride and motherhood."
Excellent point. I hadn't thought of that. As for Hillary fatigue I sure hope you are right. No sooner did I post my comments above when I get this weeks Economist with this article in it.
*****The Economist
World politics
Sexual politics
More than half the electorate
Will the “war on women” rhetoric help Democrats?
Jul 13th 2013 | WASHINGTON, DC |From the print edition
The battleground
IT HAS been a busy few weeks for Republican foes of abortion. The House of Representatives has passed a bill banning it after 20 weeks of pregnancy; a similar one is expected to be introduced in the Senate soon. A bill imposing a 20-week limit on the District of Columbia is pending in the Senate, backed by 34 Republicans.
There is action in the states, too. Republican-led legislatures in Texas and North Carolina are considering various restrictions; the one in Wisconsin recently approved some, only to have them suspended by a court. All told, the first half of the
Democrats like to describe these measures as part of a Republican “war on women”. As further evidence, they point to foot-dragging from Republicans in Congress over measures aimed at promoting equal pay for women and preventing domestic violence, along with the outlandish comments about sex made by Republican politicians every now and again. Trent Franks, the congressman who sponsored the 20-week limit in the House, argued against an exemption for victims of rape, claiming that the number of rapes that led to pregnancy was “very low”. A colleague, Michael Burgess, suggested that fetuses are already masturbating by 20 weeks—although only male ones.
Similar comments probably cost Republicans two Senate seats in last year’s election, and seem to have lost the party votes more broadly, argues Charlie Cook of the Cook Political Report. Although Barack Obama’s support among men dropped by four percentage points compared with 2008, to 45%, it fell by only one point among women. His lead there, of 11 points, was much bigger than his deficit among men, of seven points. In fact, the “gender gap” favoured the Democrats even more, since women cast 53% of votes. Democratic charges of Republican sexism seem to have boosted turnout among young, single women (a strongly left-leaning group). They have also given married suburban women with misgivings about Mr Obama’s economic stewardship reason to hesitate before voting Republican.
Yet Republicans are unfazed, continuing to push abortion curbs that have little or no chance of becoming law. The Senate, for example, is sure to squelch the House’s 20-week limit on abortions. Even if it did not, Mr Obama would veto it. Legislatures in North Dakota and Arkansas have approved laws banning abortions from six and 12 weeks respectively. The Supreme Court is unlikely to let either law stand.
Jonathan Collegio of American Crossroads, a conservative campaign outfit, argues that this persistence simply reflects the priorities of the party’s supporters: “Christian voters are still a major part of the Republican coalition, often the most intense and likely to vote, and it’s foolish to pretend they don’t exist.”
Republicans scoff at the idea that they are waging war on women. They favour equal pay, they say, but not rules that make it too easy to sue employers. The Democrats’ rhetoric will backfire, they add, if they use it to oppose policies many women support, including certain curbs on abortion. Polls show that most favour keeping abortion legal, but support drops off dramatically the later in a pregnancy it occurs. A narrow majority seems to support a 20-week limit; a large one opposes late-term abortions. Similarly, argues Stu Rothenberg, an election analyst, laws that impose stricter medical standards on abortion clinics mark an attempt by Republicans to placate their base without offending the majority of voters.
Relatively few voters, however, base their votes on abortion or other “social issues”. Just 4% of respondents to the latest Economist/YouGov poll rated abortion as “the most important issue”; 31% chose the economy. Linda DiVall, a Republican pollster, argues that Democrats keep banging on about the war on women purely as a distraction from the disappointing state of the economy. If Republicans were to find a more compelling way to talk about that, she believes, it would render the Democratic attacks moot.*****
-
My understanding is that we already have equal pay and that the measures being pushed now under the guess of equal pay are actually "comparable worth". Do I have this right?
-
My understanding is that we already have equal pay and that the measures being pushed now under the guess of equal pay are actually "comparable worth". Do I have this right?
Correct. You of course cannot pay males and females at different rates for performing the same job under current law. The push for more legislation is about setting up government panels, instead of markets, to determine private sector compensation for different jobs, creating the artificial standard of 'comparable worth'. They can do studies on things like what percentage of your time do you spend on the phone and what percentage talking to clients in person and determine that the receptionist and the CEO are performing comparable tasks and deserving the same pay. The fact is that these jobs are no longer gender stereotyped. Secretaries are obsolete, men are nurses, and women are rising to the highest levels. Women in their late 30s to early 40s in equal circumstance are now making 108 cents on a man's dollar. http://dogbrothers.com/phpBB2/index.php?topic=490.msg73090#msg73090 (Where else have you read that?) Nothing in the Republican or conservative movement supports gender discrimination or holding back the earnings of women. The facts are exactly the opposite.
A 20 week limit on late term abortions is not a war against women or even against so-called reproductive choice. There is no Republican or conservative movement to prohibit abortion for rape victims; we just keep finding morons who provide a new quote to perpetuate that myth.
The biggest war against women in the world today is the reality of gender selection abortion, in the hundreds of millions, of which American liberals obsessed with convenience abortion rights do not condemn.
-
"The point of a government that obeys the law is that it helps keep the opposition from crawling over broken glass to get to the polling booth at the next election and change its ruling class for another one. That is the central problem of 'czars' in the White House, of EPA closing down coal-fired electric generation, or Obamacare waivers, or Obamacare voided deadlines. It feeds the natural suspicion of any non-liberal American that their federal government is up to no good, and will make it difficult or impossible for the ordinary citizen to get a fair shake. ... Liberals in the Obama administration and elsewhere are so convinced of the truth of their issues, from health care to climate change that any means to advance their progressive agenda seems justified to them. The fact that they are forced to change a few deadlines, or push climate change through the EPA rather than Congress doesn't seem like anything to get worked up about. Liberals are wrong about this, as about so many things on which they refuse to listen to other voices. ... A ruling class that that doesn't faithfully execute the law is provoking the opposition into raising a head of rebellion." --columnist Christopher Chantrill
-
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2012/03/19/bloomberg-strikes-again-nyc-bans-food-donations-to-the-homeless/
-
Daniel Henninger: Obama's Creeping Authoritarianism
Imposed law replaces checks and balances.
By DANIEL HENNINGER
If we learned anything about Barack Obama in his first term it is that when he starts repeating the same idea over and over, what's on his mind is something else.
The first term's over-and-over subject was "the wealthiest 1%." Past some point, people wondered why he kept beating these half-dead horses. After the election, we knew. It was to propagandize the targeted voting base that would provide his 4% popular-vote margin of victory—very young voters and minorities. They believed. He won.
The second-term over-and-over, elevated in his summer speech tour, is the shafting of the middle class. But the real purpose here isn't the speeches' parboiled proposals. It is what he says the shafting of the middle class is forcing him to do. It is forcing him to "act"—to undertake an unprecedented exercise of presidential power in domestic policy-making. ObamaCare was legislated. In the second term, new law will come from him.
Please don't complain later that you didn't see it coming. As always, Mr. Obama states publicly what his intentions are. He is doing that now. Toward the end of his speech last week in Jacksonville, Fla., he said: "So where I can act on my own, I'm going to act on my own. I won't wait for Congress." (Applause.)
The July 24 speech at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., has at least four references to his intent to act on his own authority, as he interprets it: "That means whatever executive authority I have to help the middle class, I'll use it." (Applause.) And: "We're going to do everything we can, wherever we can, with or without Congress."
Every president since George Washington has felt frustration with the American system's impediments to change. This president is done with Congress.
The political left, historically inclined by ideological belief to public policy that is imposed rather than legislated, will support Mr. Obama's expansion of authority. The rest of us should not.
The U.S. has a system of checks and balances. Mr. Obama is rebalancing the system toward a national-leader model that is alien to the American tradition.
To create public support for so much unilateral authority, Mr. Obama needs to lessen support for the other two branches of government—Congress and the judiciary. He is doing that.
Mr. Obama and his supporters in the punditocracy are defending this escalation by arguing that Congress is "gridlocked." But don't overstate that low congressional approval rating. This is the one branch that represents the views of all Americans. It's gridlocked because voters are.
Take a closer look at the Galesburg and Jacksonville speeches. Mr. Obama doesn't merely criticize Congress. He mocks it repeatedly. Washington "ignored" problems. It "made things worse." It "manufactures" crises and "phony scandals." He is persuading his audiences to set Congress aside and let him act.
So too the judiciary. During his 2010 State of the Union speech, Mr. Obama denounced the Supreme Court Justices in front of him. The National Labor Relations Board has continued to issue orders despite two federal court rulings forbidding it to do so. Attorney General Eric Holder says he will use a different section of the Voting Rights Act to impose requirements on Southern states that the Supreme Court ruled illegal. Mr. Obama's repeated flouting of the judiciary and its decisions are undermining its institutional authority, as intended.
The three administration nominees enabled by the Senate's filibuster deal—Richard Cordray at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Thomas Perez at the Labor Department and EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy—open a vast swath of American life to executive authority on steroids. There won't be enough hours in the day for Mr. Obama to "act on my own."
In a recent Journal op-ed, "Obama Suspends the Law," former federal judge Michael McConnell noted there are few means to stop a president who decides he is not obligated to execute laws as passed by Congress. So there's little reason to doubt we'll see more Obamaesque dismissals of established law, as with ObamaCare's employer mandate. Mr. Obama is pushing in a direction that has the potential for a political crisis.
A principled opposition would speak out. Barack Obama is right that he isn't running again. But the Democratic Party is. Their Republican opponents should force the party's incumbents to defend the president's creeping authoritarianism.
If Democratic Senate incumbents or candidates from Louisiana, Alaska, Missouri, Arkansas, North Carolina, Montana and Iowa think voters should accede to a new American system in which a president forces laws into place as his prerogative rather than first passing them through Congress, they should be made to say so.
And to be sure, the other purpose of the shafted middle-class tour is to demolish the GOP's standing with independent voters and take back the House in 2014. If that happens—and absent a more public, aggressive Republican voice it may—an unchecked, unbalanced presidential system will finally arrive.
A final quotation on America's system of government: "To ensure that no person or group would amass too much power, the founders established a government in which the powers to create, implement, and adjudicate laws were separated. Each branch of government is balanced by powers in the other two coequal branches." Source: The White House website of President Barack Obama.
Write to henninger@wsj.com
-
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/congress-to-get-obamacare-exemption-report-2013-08-02?dist=tcountdown
-
Think Government Is Intrusive Now? Wait Until E-Verify Kicks In
There's a monster lurking in proposed immigration reform, one that bureaucrats will find irresistible.
By JOHN H. COCHRANE
WSJ
Massive border security and E-Verify are central provisions of the Senate immigration bill, and they are supported by many in the House. Both provisions signal how wrong-headed much of the immigration-reform effort has become.
E-Verify is the real monster. If this part of the bill passes, all employers will be forced to use the government-run, Web-based system that checks potential employees' immigration status. That means, every American will have to obtain the federal government's prior approval in order to earn a living.
E-Verify might seem harmless now, but missions always creep and bureaucracies expand. Suppose that someone convicted of viewing child pornography is found teaching. There's a media hoopla. The government has this pre-employment check system. Surely we should link E-Verify to the criminal records of pedophiles? And why not all criminal records? We don't want alcoholic airline pilots, disbarred doctors, fraudster bankers and so on sneaking through.
Next, E-Verify will be attractive as a way to enforce hundreds of other employment laws and regulations. In the age of big data, the government can easily E-Verify age, union membership, education, employment history, and whether you've paid income taxes and signed up for health insurance.
The members of licensed occupations will love such low-cost enforcement of their cartels: We can't let unlicensed manicurists prey on unsuspecting customers, can we? E-Verify them! And while the government screens employee applications, they can also check on employers' compliance with all sorts of regulations by looking at the job applications they submit for verification.
E-Verify proponents imagine some world in which a super-accurate government database tracks each person's legal status, and automatically enforces straightforward rules. Maybe on Mars. In our world, immigration and employment law is a complex mess, and our government's website-building capacity (see under: "health-insurance exchanges") can't possibly handle millions of people who are trying to evade the law. Permission to work inevitably will rely at least in part on the judgment calls of an army of bureaucrats.
Political abuse is just as inevitable. Consider Catherine Engelbrecht, reportedly harassed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Internal Revenue Service, the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, all for starting a tea-party group. But the E-Verify bureaucrats would never cause her trouble in getting a job or hiring someone, right?
Soon, attending a meeting of a group that is a bit too enthusiastic about the Constitution or gun rights—or being arrested at an Occupy Wall Street rally—could well set off a "check this person" when he applies for a job. If the government can stop you from working, how can you be free to speak out in opposition?
It's the need for prior permission rather than ex-post prosecution that makes E-Verify so dangerous. A simple delay in processing or resolving an "error" in your data is just as effective as outright denial, cheap to do, and easy to cover up.
Every tyranny silences opponents by controlling their ability to earn a living. How is it that so many supposedly freedom-loving, small-government Republicans want to arm our nation's politicized bureaucracy—fresh from the scandals at the IRS and elsewhere—with the power to do just that? Why are we so afraid of immigrants that we would jeopardize this most basic guarantee of our political liberties?
Many opponents of immigration worry that immigrants will overuse expensive social services. The fear is misplaced. The Congressional Budget Office estimates more than $100 billion of net fiscal benefit from the limited expansion of immigration that's allowed by the Senate bill. And this fear does not make any sense of the system's preferences for current citizens' family members—who are less likely to work and more likely to consume services—over workers and entrepreneurs.
Perhaps some Republicans worry that immigrants will vote Democratic. But then limiting entrepreneurs and workers makes even less sense. These Republicans should have confidence that their ideas on freedom will attract ambitious, hard-working migrants.
Others say they want to protect the wages of American workers. Like all protectionism, that is demonstrably ineffective. Migrants come for jobs Americans won't or can't do, and businesses build factories abroad if workers can't come here.
The Senate bill promises higher caps for "guest workers." Ponder what "guest worker" really means. Come to America, pick our vegetables, clean our bathrooms and tend our gardens at the invitation of a powerful employer. Pay taxes. And when your visa runs out, go back where you came from—there is no place for you here. This is how Middle East sheikdoms treat Filipino maids and Palestinian construction workers. Is this America?
In the current vision of immigration reform, millions will still be trying to sneak in, and millions more will remain here working illegally. E-Verify and the border security wall prove it. If people could work legally, there would be no need for a system that endangers everyone's liberty to "verify" them. And there would be no need to build a $45-billion monument to imperial decline— our bid to outdo the walls of Hadrian, China and Berlin—to stop them.
Here is the crucial question for genuine immigration reform: How do we respond when someone says, I have heard of your freedom. I am tired of the corrupt police in my country, the bought-off courts, the oppression of rulers, the tyranny of the religious or ethnic majority. I want to join the one country on earth defined by an idea, not by conquest, religion or ethnic identity. No, I don't have a special skill or a strong back useful to your politically connected employers. I want to come, drive a cab, open a convenience store in a poor neighborhood, work long hours, pay taxes, send my children to school and, eventually, vote.
The answer in the Senate bill and emerging House debate remains: Stay home. America is closed.
Mr. Cochrane is a professor of finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, and an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute.
-
http://worldtruth.tv/collecting-rainwater-now-illegal-in-many-states-as-big-government-claims-ownership-over-our-water/
-
An Aug. 8 letter from John A. Allison, president and CEO of the Cato Institute, replying to one of more than 300 letters sent by Sen. Dick Durbin (D., Ill.) to companies and other organizations asking about their relationship with the American Legislative Exchange Council:
Dear Senator Durbin:
Your letter of August 6, 2013 is an obvious effort to intimidate those organizations and individuals who may have been involved in any way with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).
While Cato is not intimidated because we are a think tank—whose express mission is to speak publicly to influence the climate of ideas—from my experience as a private-sector CEO, I know that business leaders will now hesitate to exercise their constitutional rights for fear of regulatory retribution.
Your letter thus represents a blatant violation of our First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. It is a continuation of the trend of the current administration and congressional leaders, such as yourself, to menace those who do not share your political beliefs—as evidenced by the multiple IRS abuses which have recently been exposed.
Your actions are a subtle but powerful form of government coercion.
We would be glad to provide a Cato scholar to testify at your hearing to discuss the unconstitutional abuse of power that your letter symbolizes.
Sincerely,
John A. Allison
-
Washington Examiner's Timothy P. Carney: "While Obama won't admit it, federal student-loan subsidies have driven up tuitions and helped create a near-crisis of recent graduates drowning in debt, after getting educations that don't justify the expense. Here's the analogy to the crack dealer: If you lobby for and receive federal subsidies, the money comes at first with no strings, or few strings attached. But over time, politicians and bureaucrats will recognize that you're hooked on the taxpayer dole, and they'll start imposing conditions on you. And they'll be justified: He who pays the piper calls the tune. Colleges shouldn't be surprised by this turn of events, because this is exactly what happened to student lenders. ... Manufacturers, energy companies, drug companies, and all businesses currently seeking federal handouts should take to heart the lesson that student lenders learned in 2009 and colleges are learning today: if you enter into a deal with the devil, you're the junior partner."
Columnist Dennis Prager: "I cannot count the number of times I heard liberal professors and liberal writers quote the phrase: 'When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.' The phrase is brilliant. There is actually no threat to America of fascism coming from the right. The essence of the American right, after all, is less government; and fascism, by definition, demands ever larger government. Therefore, if there is a real fascist threat to America, it comes from the left, whose appetite for state power is essentially unlimited."
-
http://news.yahoo.com/perils-homeschooling-german-police-storm-home-seize-four-191829555.html
-
Chick-Fil-A hating Chicago alderman now attacking proposed car dealership
Published by: Herman Cain
Politics over prosperity, always.
Remember last year when Chick-Fil-A wanted to build a new restaurant in Chicago? Chick-Fil-A serves delicious chicken sandwiches and is a good, job-creating corporate citizen, but the proposal did not sit well with Chicago Alderman Proco "Joe" Moreno. Because Chick-Fil-A CEO Dan Cathy is a Christian who opposes gay marriage - consistent with his Christian faith - Moreno went to war against the proposal and Chick-Fil-A decided it wasn't worth the trouble to build in Chicago.
Today the property where Chick-Fil-A proposed to build sits vacant, weeds growing and a dilapidated chain link fence surrounding it. No one is working there. No one is eating there. But Alderman Moreno succeeded at preventing the opening of a business whose owner does not support the prevailing orthodoxy on homosexuality. There's a victory for politics over prosperity if I've ever seen one.
Well, the people of the 1st Ward in Chicago will be happy to know that Alderman Moreno remains committed to this cause.Crain's Chicago Business reports Moreno is now going after a company that wants to open a Ford dealership in the city. The $57 million proposed development would employ 200 people and would put 17 acres of currently vacant land on the tax rolls. So what's Moreno's problem with that? He is upset because he thinks Chicago needs a Latino-owned car dealership. Fox Motors, which is based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, is owned by the DeVos family that is associated with Amway Corporation and with Republican politics.
Somewhere in Chicago there are 200 people who could use jobs, and if Moreno has his way they won't find any with Fox Motors. They won't be taking their lunch break at Chick-Fil-A, either. Prosperity suffers another blow, but politics triumphs. The people of the 1st Ward must be proud of their representation on the City Council.
-
I do not pretend to be particularly informed about the issues here and certainly the WSJ has its blind spots, but its argument here seems worth noting.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324619504579026860113942236.html?mod=opinion_newsreel
-
http://hackersnewsbulletin.com/2013/09/apple-admits-iphone-5s-fingerprint-database-shared-nsa.html
-
Crony Capitalism
October 1, 2013 | Author Pater Tenebrarum
A Growing Sense of Awareness – Public Opinion is Catching On
A friend pointed us to two recent Rasmussen Reports polls. These are actually quite interesting: in one poll it was found that “70% Think Government, Big Business Often Work Together Against Consumers, Investors”, with only 13% of respondents voicing disagreement and 17% 'not sure'. In another poll that was worded slightly differently (although it actually asks a very similar question), it was found that “34% Say U.S. Has Crony Capitalist Economic System”, with only a slim majority of 36% still calling it a “system of free market capitalism”.
The first poll employed slightly more general terms and was therefore probably more accessible to a larger percentage of respondents, which may explain the lower share of 'don't knows'. To some extent negative knee-jerk reactions to the term 'corporation' are probably conditioned by leftist views, but no supporter of free market capitalism would deny that the current system is a far cry from a true free market economy.
It is of course well known that large corporations lobby to obtain privileges from the State; however, in a way many also have little choice in the matter, since they may otherwise become the victims of regulations that could severely hamper their business. It is often difficult to tell where a legitimate attempt to ward off statist intrusion ends and crony capitalism begins. It is certainly a fuzzy line that is separating the two. It would also be an error to condemn big business merely on account of it being big. Economies of scale have after all made the mass-market consumer economy possible. It is often difficult for defenders of the market economy to make the difference between crony or State capitalism and a free market clear, especially as the media have depicted the existing system as somehow representing a free market economy. However, it should be clear that if there were no State and State officials that could be petitioned ('bribed' probably is the more accurate description) to grant privileges, there could also be no 'State capitalism'.
The growth of the State and the thicket of costly regulations it issues benefits large corporations by making it difficult or impossible for upstarts on a shoestring budget to compete. It happens relatively rarely that a company grows from a 'garage business' to a huge concern in well-established business lines. Most of the success stories of upstarts are these days in branches where simply very few or no established businesses exist – think e.g. of Google. Who knew in 1990 what a 'search engine' was? Whenever new technologies are invented or become marketable, there has been no time yet to regulate the sector to death. The internet was referred to as the 'intertubes' by a Congressman as recently as two years ago. Make no mistake though: bureaucrats all over the world are certainly dreaming of regulating it to death, and established big businesses are unlikely to stand in their way – this is a well-worn pattern.
Still, it is interesting to see that the public at large is beginning to realize that we have arrived in what one might term 'Fascism light', or a corporatist State. The 2008 crisis and the associated bailouts may have served as an eye-opener in this regard.
________________________________________
________________________________________
The Mainstream Media Message May Have Fallen on Deaf Ears
These poll results are heartening news, in view of the 'official line' regarding what the current system represents.
Immediately after the 2008 crisis and ever since, the storyline sold to the hoi-polloi by the controlled media (or 'presstitutes' as Paul Craig Roberts and Gerald Celente so colorfully refer to them) was that the crisis was an example of a 'market failure' and that government had to step in to 'save the market economy from itself'. We have previously remarked on what a travesty this narrative represents.
For one thing, without government-directed interventions, there would have been no crisis in the first place (at least not of such magnitude). The media were and are falling over each other singing the praises of our 'saviors', rarely expending a drop of ink on the fact that these allegedly so praiseworthy minions of the State were in essence the same people that were responsible for the mess in the first place. It is deeply ironic that the law that is supposed to make future crashes 'impossible' by drenching one of the most over-regulated sectors of the economy in even more regulations, is named after two of the biggest apologists of the housing bubble related activities of the GSEs; men who regularly denounced critics of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as heartless fear-mongers whose only goal it was to deprive the underprivileged from getting their hands on their fair share of the American dream. For another thing, it is simply erroneous to characterize the present-day system as a 'free market economy'.
In a recent favorable critique of Hunter Lewis' book 'Crony Capitalism', David Gordon writes:
“Those who condemn the free market do so by considering bad features of the present economy, both in the United States and elsewhere in the world. In judging the free market in this way, they rely on an unexamined assumption. They take for granted that the present order of things is the free market in action.
As Lewis explains and documents to the hilt, this assumption is false. What we have today is not the free market but “crony capitalism,” an altogether different matter. Government and business are in a predatory partnership that extracts wealth to its own benefit. The fact that many suffer under the present system should occasion no surprise. Predatory “cronyism” has existed throughout history and has been the main block to economic progress.
Lewis states his arresting thesis in this way: “indeed it may be argued that cronyism is as old as recorded human history and has always been the dominant system. This is precisely why the human race has made so little progress in overcoming poverty. For most of human history, there has been no economic growth at all. People born poor died poor. Whenever economic capital began to be accumulated, it was generally stolen by rulers or their friends or allies.”
(emphasis added)
As the free market stood falsely accused in the press shortly after the crisis, George Reisman wrote a heartfelt defense oflaissez faire capitalism, inter alia noting:
“The mentality displayed in these statements is so completely and utterly at odds with the actual meaning oflaissez faire that it would be capable of describing the economic policy of the old Soviet Union as one of laissez faire in its last decades. By its logic, that is how it would have to describe the policy of Brezhnev and his successors of allowing workers on collective farms to cultivate plots of land of up to one acre in size on their own account and sell the produce in farmers' markets in Soviet cities. According to the logic of the media, that too would be "laissez faire" — at least compared to the time of Stalin.”
Reisman's article is well worth reading in its entirety. At the time it was written and published it was clearly a minority opinion. Hatred of free market capitalism was whipped up by the press and politicians alike, as the etatistes decided to go down the well-worn path of blaming the usual suspects: entrepreneurs, speculators, anyone connected with what's left of the market economy, so as to deflect blame from themselves.
The polls discussed above are a sign that the public is no longer prepared to simply swallow the official story hook, line and sinker. Although it is a good bet that a fair amount of confusion remains, a change in thinking has to start somewhere.
________________________________________
________________________________________
Privileged Über-Cronies
As an aside, the governmental cronies in the banking cartel that was at the center of the crisis never suffered any visible harm, in spite of being the target of well-deserved public scorn. With very few exceptions, CEOs that had to step down for negligence (that occasionally seemed to border on fraud) received generous 'golden handshakes', while all the rest soon began collecting giant bonuses again with nary a pause for effect. This would be nothing worth getting exercised over if their compensation were merely a matter concerning shareholders. However, these rent-seekers profit at the expense of every user of the central bank issued currency, not to mention that they received direct tax payer funded support as well (and probably will receive it again next time). The costs inflicted on the wider economy by the fractionally reserved banking cartel cannot be simply shrugged off as an accident akin to an unexpected earthquake or a similar calamity inflicted by nature: rather, it is a direct result of the extraordinary privilege to create money from thin air.
It is noteworthy in this context that this particular aspect of the system's workings is practically never discussed in the mainstream media. Central banks are never portrayed as institutions that might be less than beneficial for society as a whole. If there is critique, it usually confines itself to the discussion of concrete plans that may or may not be implemented. The legitimacy of such institutions per se is considered beyond the pale of debate. Fractional reserve banking and the credit expansion it makes possible usually don't even rate a mention (it should also be noted that financial journalism on how the system works is often marked by ignorance; to wit, the giant amount of nonsense that has been written in publications like Reuters and Bloomberg about excess reserves that pile up on central bank balance sheets in the course of 'QE', 'LTROs' and similar measures). And yet, as J.H. De Soto argues, rightly in our opinion, the existence of the practice is in conflict with property rights in more ways than one. It conflicts directly with them as the promise to pay deposits that are not backed by standard money on demand cannot possibly be kept, and indirectly by inflicting losses on society at large by causing the boom-bust cycle.
It is argued by some defenders of the practice that it is a bulwark against 'unexpected increases in the demand for money', as if society-wide sudden increases in the demand for money were falling from the sky unbidden (in reality, they usually only happen when a credit expansion inevitably resolves in a bust), while others argue that if not for the ability to expand money and credit willy-nilly, the 'growing needs of commerce' for currency could not possibly be satisfied (a favorite canard of defenders of inflationism).
However, as Rothbard rightly remarked, society at large has nothing to gain from money supply inflation (Mises already pointed out that any money supply is as good as any other to do all the work that money is expected to do). It is what money can buy that is the decisive point. One thing is however certain: inflation does benefit a small part of the population at the expense of everybody else. It is not a policy indulged in for the sheer heck of it – there are definitely profits to be made from it. In short, there are very tangible reasons for the official state of the debate (i.e, its literal non-existence).
________________________________________
________________________________________
Conclusion:
It must be regarded as progress that such a large number of respondents has realized that what we have by no means deserves to be called a free market economy. Crony capitalism is indeed a far more apt description. However, one must be careful not to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Historically, economic crises have often led to rather disturbing backlashes against both capitalism and liberty more generally. One has to keep in mind that history often rhymes and guard against an unreflected populism. However, there is nothing that says the mistakes of the past have to be always repeated. Just as free market capitalism (to quote/paraphrase Israel Kirzner) ultimately “does away with the scarcity framework” and thereby both ensures progress and makes it impossible for us to chart its future with certainty, so it is with how society deals with adversity and the realization that the current economic system is far from the ideal one. It all depends on current and future states of knowledge, which it is in everyone’s power to influence in his own environment to some extent.
-
And with special attention to this:
****The media were and are falling over each other singing the praises of our 'saviors', rarely expending a drop of ink on the fact that these allegedly so praiseworthy minions of the State were in essence the same people that were responsible for the mess in the first place.****
My response is this:
The mass media is made up of large conglomerates that are often public companies. They are linked to Wall street and DC.
Look at the Press Club dinner. It was always a bit obnoxious but even that adjective does not describe the disgusting corrupt odor emanating from the place settings anymore.
It is a celebrity event. It is a big money DC version of MTV, or the CMA awards, or Miss America.
Also look at the revolving door of news people rotating through their favorite government jobs, as employees, advisors, and propagandists.
The so called journalists advance their own careers by sucking up to and getting close to their favorite pols and later add this to their resumes to increase their celebrity status and command higher paid salaries as pundits.
The "journalist-government" ties mirror the Wall Street Goldman Sachs Federal employee revolving door of influence, and insider control.
To date Republicans only speak of the government side of this two sided coin. They err. And that is why they are not trusted.
-
"[D]emocracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy, such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eyes and no man's life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure, and every one of these will soon mould itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit and science, to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable cruelty of one or a very few."
–John Adams, An Essay on Man's Lust for Power, 1763
-
http://www.ktnv.com/news/local/226557661.html
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/10/05/Feds-Try-to-Close-the-OCEAN-Because-of-Shutdown
-
"We're from the government, and we're here to help" - not
County Shuts Rustic Preserve; Self-Sufficiency Doesn't Meet Code
VALERIE BAUERLEIN
Eustace Conway has been living in the wilderness for 30 years, growing food and making shelter according to the laws of nature. But lately, he has gotten crosswise with the laws of man. WSJ's Valerie Bauerlein reports from Turtle Island Preserve.
BOONE, N.C.—Eustace Conway says he has stared down a grizzly bear, wrestled a thrashing buck and ridden a horse from coast to coast. But he may have met his match in the Watauga County planning department.
Mr. Conway, 51 years old, is best known as "The Last American Man," the title character of a 2002 biography and National Book Award finalist by Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of "Eat, Pray, Love." He has lived in the wilderness since the early 1980s.
He traps, shoots and grows much of his own food, makes pants out of buckskin and stitches his own wounds. He bathes in the cold creek that rolls through his 1,000-acre Turtle Island preserve in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. And he teaches others how to live off the land. But now, Mr. Conway is devoting most of his time to the type of meetings, red tape and compromises he went to the woods to avoid.
Last fall, a team of health, construction and fire officials showed up for an unannounced inspection of the preserve, acting on an anonymous tip. Escorted by two sheriffs' deputies, they executed what Mr. Conway describes as a "SWAT-team raid"—peering into outhouses, stomping around log cabins, and climbing hand-hewn ladders.
Their findings are compiled in a 78-page report with a bullet-point list of violations. Mr. Conway's sawdust urinal and outhouses? Unpermitted, according to the officials. The wood he used to erect two dozen buildings? Built with lumber that isn't "grade-marked," meaning it doesn't specify the mill where it was produced.
The open-air kitchen, with its crates of potatoes and stacks of pots? "Not protected from insects and animals," according to the report. "It is, in fact, outdoors."
The health department has shut down Turtle Island (which isn't an actual island) to outsiders who flock to Mr. Conway for lessons on how to rough it. He says on his website he teaches people how to "break rocks to make stone tools, bend bark to fashion baskets, and spin sticks to create fire," as well as "wash the dust off by standing in the rain, watching the deer come closer, listening to the wren's call."
Visitors include scouts, school groups and interns who stay for 14 months. Costs range from $65 for a two-hour, horse-drawn carriage tour with Mr. Conway to $1,400 for a two-week camp for teens. Turtle Island operates as a not-for-profit educational organization. Mr. Conway has run programs there for more than 20 years.
The county says Mr. Conway must rebuild or tear down his cabins, barn, kitchen, blacksmith shop and sawmill, and create a septic system before hosting any more classes and camps.
"These buildings aren't fit for public use," says Joseph A. Furman, county planning director.
Mr. Conway says primitive facilities are precisely the point.
"Modern inspectors know how to measure a board, but not how to build a building," he says as he tours one of the structures deemed fit for condemnation. The lumber's not stamped with a grade because he produced it himself at his own sawmill, from trees felled nearby, he says.
He likens his construction techniques—such as interlocking corner notches and cantilevered roofs—to those of frontiersman Daniel Boone, namesake of the county seat.
"Codes don't apply to what we're doing," he says.
Mr. Conway has attracted supporters, including Don Carrington, vice president of the John Locke Foundation, a libertarian-leaning Raleigh, N.C.-based think tank. "Why can't you do what you want on your own land?" he asks. "Shouldn't you be able to have guests come in, and say here's where you go to the bathroom, here's where you eat, and if you don't want to do that, don't come?"
State building officials say they would like to help Mr. Conway and are considering changes. Local officials say their hands are tied because the codes are written by the state. They also say even amending building codes wouldn't address fire and health issues at Turtle Island.
Mr. Furman, the county official, says it is simple. The cabin built and slept in by campers last summer needs a bathroom, fire sprinklers and smoke detectors. "Does anyone sleep there? Then it has to meet the residential code," he says.
Mr. Conway can't sell his $10 Turtle Island T-shirts, either, unless the common area where they are on display has a restroom. As for the old trucks used on the property, parked by a maintenance shed? "That could be considered an automobile garage, but let's not go there," Mr. Furman says.
Watauga County Commissioner Perry Yates said the problem isn't Mr. Conway's primitive methods but rather his less primitive ones, like using an oven range in the outdoor kitchen. "If we are going to teach 1776, let's teach it the way it really was," Mr. Yates says.
"There needs to be give and take on both sides," he says. "We need to respect our ancestors' way of life, but we also need to do it in a sanitary manner."
Last year, Mr. Conway was featured on the History Channel's "Mountain Men," a reality TV show about what it is like to "shed the complications of modern society." He and two other men, in Montana and Alaska, are depicted facing hungry animals, bad weather and contentious assistants. The second season started filming last month at Turtle Island.
Mr. Conway questions why the local government is acting now. "Maybe we were oblivious, but we had no reason to think about it," Mr. Furman says. "We're liable for it now that we know."
Mr. Conway says his property is safe because visitors spend most of their time outdoors. "People say, 'think outside the box,' and I say, 'just think outside,' " he says. "I mean, really, go outside! Think!"
Retired history teacher David Gould took nearly 2,000 ninth-graders over the years on retreats to Turtle Island from Durham Academy, a prep school. "Most of these kids come from privileged backgrounds and have virtually no knowledge of the out-of-doors," he says. They learn how to trek through the woods in the dark, use a hunting knife and make their own meals. "The girls in particular come back way more self-confident and empowered," he says.
More than 11,000 people have signed a petition from the change.org website asking the N.C. Building Code Council to exempt primitive structures like those at Turtle Island. Mr. Conway is answering supporters by email. "I write something on a piece of paper, then I tell it to someone and then they email it," he says. The computer in the camp office is solar powered, as the camp doesn't have electricity.
"I believe our founding fathers would do anything to come back and get in on this one," he said in the email.
Write to Valerie Bauerlein at valerie.bauerlein@wsj.com
http://online.wsj.com/...
-
http://www.ktnv.com/news/local/226557661.html
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/10/05/Feds-Try-to-Close-the-OCEAN-Because-of-Shutdown
I miss the National Park Service. Not so fond of the National Socialist Park Service. Fundamental transformation of America and all that.
-
http://hotair.com/archives/2013/10/08/report-armed-rangers-forced-senior-citizen-tourists-to-stay-inside-their-hotel-during-yellowstone-visit-because-of-shutdown/comment-page-1/#comments
Report: Armed rangers forced senior-citizen tourists to stay inside their hotel during Yellowstone visit because of shutdown
posted at 2:41 pm on October 8, 2013 by Allahpundit
Via Breitbart and Ace, who’s demanding that the National Park Service pay some sort of price for serving as “the shock troops of the punitive bureaucracy” through all of this. I’ve written similar things over the past week, and right now I can’t understand why either of us would bother. They’re not going to pay any price. We all know it. Issa will haul the director and his deputies before the Oversight Committee and they’ll mouth the requisite perfunctory regret and warnings not to judge the whole department by the behavior of a few “overzealous” rangers. Maybe someone will receive a few weeks or months of “administrative leave,” i.e. paid vacation, a la Lois Lerner, but then he’ll be quietly reinstated when no one’s paying attention anymore. News outlets and bloggers will get a few days of content out of it when the hearings are being held and then that’ll be that. Nothing will change. No lessons will be learned. No scalps will be taken. That’s how it goes now. If anything, the White House will be more reluctant to fire someone over this than they were over the IRS scandal because ranger-enforced shutdown theater helps them spread the liberal message that closing the government is an unconscionable hardship.
No one’s going to pay for this. Even if it involves a ranger with a gun warning your grandma to get back in her hotel and away from the scenery.
The bus stopped along a road when a large herd of bison passed nearby, and seniors filed out to take photos. Almost immediately, an armed ranger came by and ordered them to get back in, saying they couldn’t “recreate.” The tour guide, who had paid a $300 fee the day before to bring the group into the park, argued that the seniors weren’t “recreating,” just taking photos.
“She responded and said, ‘Sir, you are recreating,’ and her tone became very aggressive,” Vaillancourt said.
The seniors quickly filed back onboard and the bus went to the Old Faithful Inn, the park’s premier lodge located adjacent to the park’s most famous site, Old Faithful geyser. That was as close as they could get to the famous site — barricades were erected around Old Faithful, and the seniors were locked inside the hotel, where armed rangers stayed at the door.
“They looked like Hulk Hogans, armed. They told us you can’t go outside,” she said. “Some of the Asians who were on the tour said, ‘Oh my God, are we under arrest?’ They felt like they were criminals.”
Supposedly, on their way out of the park, the tour guide wanted to pull over at a dude ranch inside the perimeter so that the seniors onboard could use the restrooms there — but couldn’t, because the park rangers told the dude ranch that its license would be revoked if they permitted it. So unbelievable is all this, even by the standards of NPS behavior over the past week, that I doubted whether it was true. But there’s corroborating evidence for at least some of it: The tour guide was interviewed by a different newspaper a few days ago and accused the Park Service of — wait for it — “Gestapo tactics.”
Hodgson said in a phone interview Monday that a ranger pulled up behind the bus and told him he would have to get everyone back on the bus — recreation in Yellowstone was not allowed.
“She told me you need to return to your hotel and stay there,” Hodgson said. “This is just Gestapo tactics. We paid a lot to get in. All these people wanted to do was take some pictures.”
Hodgson said the ranger told him he could be convicted of trespassing if he disobeyed.
“The national parks belong to the people,” he said. “This isn’t right.”
He didn’t mention armed rangers outside the hotel, but he was told that “his group would not be allowed to walk on any of the boardwalks located just outside their hotel, or visit any other geyser basins in the area.” All they could do, per Hodgson, was eat dinner in the dining room, which squares with the claim that rangers wouldn’t let guests inside leave until they were ready to leave the park altogether. “We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can,” said an anonymous ranger to Wesley Pruden last week. Mission accomplished.
The only redress here, I think, is for tourists to sue. They’d probably lose, but it’ll be useful to know as a matter of law that national parks belong to the National Park Service and not to the public. I’m curious as can be to see a judge explain how trespassing laws don’t apply to park visitors who are engaged in “First Amendment activities” but do apply to tourist photography, which, as a somewhat artistic endeavor, would seem to fall pretty squarely within the First Amendment. At the very least, the bad press from the suit would do some much-deserved damage to the agency’s reputation. Which, it seems, they’re increasingly worried about:
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BWErFcrIUAAFR7w.jpg)
Good news. Keep blogging the ugly stuff and maybe there’ll be more.
-
Yeah. Were a nation of laws. :x
-
There may be other threads where this could fit, but I put it here. IF this is true (and I have no idea as to this site's reliability) then I find myself with serious doubts about a military response to a peaceful protest.
http://www.redflagnews.com/headlines/just-in-obama-to-use-national-guard-to-close-beltway-to-thwart-3-day-trucker-protest
-
http://www.ijreview.com/2013/10/86527-msnbc-host-constitution-flawed-obama-democrats-need-absolute-power/
-
http://www.forbes.com/sites/billflax/2011/09/01/obama-hitler-and-exploding-the-biggest-lie-in-history/
The line between fascism and Fabian socialism is very thin. Fabian socialism is the dream. Fascism is Fabian socialism plus the inevitable dictator.” John T. Flynn
Numerous commentators have raised alarming comparisons between America’s recent economic foibles and Argentina’s fall “from breadbasket to basket case.” The U.S. pursues a similar path with her economy increasingly ensnared under the growing nexus of government control. Resources are redistributed for vote-buying welfare schemes, patronage style earmarks, and graft by unelected bureaucrats, quid pro quo with unions, issue groups and legions of lobbyists.
In Argentina, everyone acknowledges that fascism, state capitalism, corporatism – whatever – reflects very leftwing ideology. Eva Peron remains a liberal icon. President Obama’s Fabian policies (Keynesian economics) promise similar ends. His proposed infrastructure bank is just the latest gyration of corporatism. Why then are fascists consistently portrayed as conservatives?
In the Thirties, intellectuals smitten by progressivism considered limited, constitutional governance anachronistic. The Great Depression had apparently proven capitalism defunct. The remaining choice had narrowed between communism and fascism. Hitler was about an inch to the right of Stalin. Western intellectuals infatuated with Marxism thus associated fascism with the Right.
Later, Marxists from the Frankfurt School popularized this prevailing sentiment. Theodor Adorno in The Authoritarian Personality devised the “F” scale to demean conservatives as latent fascists. The label “fascist” has subsequently meant anyone liberals seek to ostracize or discredit.
Fascism is an amorphous ideology mobilizing an entire nation (Mussolini, Franco and Peron) or race (Hitler) for a common purpose. Leaders of industry, science, education, the arts and politics combine to shepherd society in an all encompassing quest. Hitler’s premise was a pure Aryan Germany capable of dominating Europe.
While he feinted right, Hitler and Stalin were natural bedfellows. Hitler mimicked Lenin’s path to totalitarian tyranny, parlaying crises into power. Nazis despised Marxists not over ideology, but because they had betrayed Germany in World War I and Nazis found it unconscionable that German communists yielded fealty to Slavs in Moscow.
The National Socialist German Workers Party staged elaborate marches with uniformed workers calling one another “comrade” while toting tools the way soldiers shoulder rifles. The bright red Nazi flag symbolized socialism in a “classless, casteless” Germany (white represents Aryanism). Fascist central planning was not egalitarian, but it divvied up economic rewards very similarly to communism: party membership and partnering with the state.
Where communists generally focused on class, Nazis fixated on race. Communists view life through the prism of a perpetual workers’ revolution. National Socialists used race as a metaphor to justify their nation’s engagement in an existential struggle
=================================
Page 2 of 4
As many have observed, substituting “Jews” for “capitalists” exposes strikingly similar thinking. But communists frequently hated Jews too and Hitler also abhorred capitalists, or “plutocrats” in Nazi speak. From afar, Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany each reeked of plutocratic oligarchy. Both were false utilitarian Utopias that in practice merely empowered dictators.
The National Socialist German Workers Party is only Right if you are hopelessly Left. Or, ascribe to Marxist eschatology perceiving that history marches relentlessly towards the final implementation of socialist Utopia. Marx predicted state capitalism as the last desperate redoubt against the inevitable rise of the proletariat. The Soviets thus saw Nazis as segues to communism.
Interestingly, almost everywhere Marxism triumphed: Russia, China, Cuba, Vietnam, etc., all skipped the capitalist phase Marx thought pivotal. Instead, they slid straight from pre-industrial feudal conditions into communism; which essentially entailed reversion back to feudalism supplanting the traditional aristocracy with party cronyism – before dissolving into corrupted variants of state capitalism economically similar to fascism.
As usual, Marx got it backwards.
It’s also ironic that even as orthodox Marxism collapsed due to economic paralysis, cultural Marxism predicated on race, sex and identity politics thrives in “Capitalist” America. The multiculturalists substituted race where the Soviets and Maoists saw only class. America’s civic crusade has become political correctness, aka cultural Marxism, preoccupied with race. Socialism wheels around again.
While political correctness as manifest in the West is very anti-Nazi and those opposing multiculturalism primarily populate the Right, it’s false to confuse fascism with conservatism. Coupling negatives is not necessarily positive. Because the Nazis would likely detest something that conservatives also dislike indicates little harmony. Ohio State hates Michigan. Notre Dame does too, but Irish fans rarely root for the Buckeyes.
America’s most fascistic elements are ultra leftwing organizations like La Raza or the Congressional Black Caucus. These racial nationalists seek gain not through merit, but through the attainment of government privileges. What’s the difference between segregation and affirmative action? They are identical phenomena harnessing state auspices to impose racialist dogma.
The Nation of Islam and other Afrocentric movements, like the Nazis, even celebrate their own perverse racist mythology. Are Louis Farrakhan and Jeremiah Wright conservatives? Is Obama?
Racism does not exclusively plague the Right. Many American bigots manned the Left: ex-Klansman Hugo Black had an extremely left wing Supreme Court record, George Wallace was a New Deal style liberal – he just wanted welfare and social programs controlled by states. Communists always persecute minorities whenever in power.
The Nazis’ anti-Semitism derived indirectly from Karl Marx, who despite Jewish ancestry was deeply anti-Semitic. Bankers and other capitalists were disproportionately Jewish. Elsewhere, Jews played prominent roles. Before falling under Hitler’s sway, Mussolini’s inner circle was overly Jewish. Peron was the first leader to let Jews hold public office in Argentina. Franco, a Marana, welcomed Jews back into Spain for the first time since 1492 and famously thwarted Hitler by harboring Jewish refugees.
Very little of Hitler’s domestic activity was even remotely right wing. Europe views Left and Right differently, but here, free markets, limited constitutional government, family, church and tradition are the bedrocks of conservatism. The Nazis had a planned economy; eradicated federalism in favor of centralized government; considered church and family as competitors; and disavowed tradition wishing to restore Germany’s pre-Christian roots.
Despite Democrats’ pretensions every election, patriotism is clearly a conservative trait so Nazi foreign policy could be vaguely right wing, but how did Hitler’s aggression differ from Stalin’s? The peace movement evidenced liberals being duped as “useful idiots” more than pacifistic purity. Note the Left’s insistence on neutrality during the Hitler/Stalin pact and their urgent switch to militarism once Germany attacked.
====================================
After assuming power, Nazis strongly advocated “law and order.” Previously, they were antagonistic thugs, which mirrored the communists’ ascension. The Nazis outlawed unions perceiving them as competitors for labor’s loyalties, i.e. for precisely the same reason workers’ paradises like Communist China and Soviet Russia disallowed unions. To Nazis, the state sustained workers’ needs.
Even issues revealing similarity to American conservatism could also describe Stalin, Mao and many communists. This is not to suggest liberals and fascists are indistinguishable, but a fair assessment clearly shows if any similarities appear with American politics they reside more on the Left than Right.
On many issues the Nazis align quite agreeably with liberals. The Nazis enforced strict gun control, which made their agenda possible and highlights the necessity of an armed populace.
The Nazis separated church and state to marginalize religion’s influence. Hitler despised biblical morality and bourgeois (middle class) values. Crosses were ripped from the public square in favor of swastikas. Prayer in school was abolished and worship confined to churches. Church youth groups were forcibly absorbed into the Hitler Youth.
Hitler extolled public education, even banning private schools and instituting “a fundamental reconstruction of our whole national education program” controlled by Berlin. Similar to liberals’ cradle to career ideal, the Nazis established state administered early childhood development programs; “The comprehension of the concept of the State must be striven for by the school as early as the beginning of understanding.”
Foreshadowing Michelle Obama, “The State is to care for elevating national health.” Nanny State intrusions reflect that persons are not sovereign, but belong to the state. Hitler even sought to outlaw meat after the war; blaming Germany’s health problems on the capitalist (i.e. Jewish) food industry. The Nazis idealized public service and smothered private charity with public programs.
Hitler’s election platform included “an expansion on a large scale of old age welfare.” Nazi propaganda proclaimed, “No one shall go hungry! No one shall be cold!” Germany had universal healthcare and demanded that “the state be charged first with providing the opportunity for a livelihood.” Obama would relish such a “jobs” program.
Nazi Germany was the fullest culmination of Margaret Sanger’s eugenic vision. She was the founder of Planned Parenthood, which changed its name from the American Birth Control Society after the holocaust surfaced. Although Nazi eugenics clearly differed from liberals’ abortion arguments today, that wasn’t necessarily true for their progressive forbears.
Germany was first to enact environmentalist economic policies promoting sustainable development and regulating pollution. The Nazis bought into Rousseau’s romanticized primitive man fantasies. Living “authentically” in environs unspoiled by capitalist industry was almost as cherished as pure Aryan lineage.
National Socialist economics were socialist, obviously, imposing top-down economic planning and social engineering. It was predicated on volkisch populism combining a Malthusian struggle for existence with a fetish for the “organic.” Like most socialists, wealth was thought static and “the common good supersede[d] the private good” in a Darwinist search for “applied biology” to boost greater Germany.
The Nazis distrusted markets and abused property rights, even advocating “confiscation of war profits” and “nationalization of associated industries.” Their platform demanded, “Communalization of the great warehouses” (department stores) and presaging modern set aside quotas on account of race or politics, “utmost consideration of all small firms in contracts with the State.”
Nazi Germany progressively dominated her economy. Although many businesses were nominally private, the state determined what was produced in what quantities and at what prices. First, they unleashed massive inflation to finance their prolific spending on public works, welfare and military rearmament. They then enforced price and wage controls to mask currency debasement’s harmful impact. This spawned shortages as it must, so Berlin imposed rationing. When that failed, Albert Speer assumed complete power over production schedules, distribution channels and allowable profits.
=====================================
age 4 of 4
Working for personal ends instead of the collective was as criminal in Nazi Germany as Soviet Russia. Norman Thomas, quadrennial Socialist Party presidential candidate, saw the correlation clearly, “both the communist and fascist revolutions definitely abolished laissez-faire capitalism in favor of one or another kind and degree of state capitalism. . . In no way was Hitler the tool of big business. He was its lenient master. So was Mussolini except that he was weaker.”
Mussolini recognized, “Fascism entirely agrees with Mr. Maynard Keynes, despite the latter’s prominent position as a Liberal. In fact, Mr. Keynes’ excellent little book, The End of Laissez-Faire (l926) might, so far as it goes, serve as a useful introduction to fascist economics.” Keynes saw the similarities too, admitting his theories, “can be much easier adapted to the conditions of a totalitarian state than . . . a large degree of laissez-faire.” Hitler built the autobahn, FDR the TVA. Propaganda notwithstanding, neither rejuvenated their economies.
FDR admired Mussolini because “the trains ran on time” and Stalin’s five year plans, but was jealous of Hitler whose economic tinkering appeared more successful than the New Deal. America wasn’t ready for FDR’s blatantly fascist Blue Eagle business model and the Supreme Court overturned several other socialist designs. The greatest dissimilarity between FDR and fascists was he enjoyed less success transforming society because the Constitution obstructed him.
Even using Republicans as proxies, there was little remotely conservative about fascism. Hitler and Mussolini were probably to the right of our left-leaning media and education establishments, but labeling Tea Partiers as fascists doesn’t indict the Right. It indicts those declaring so as radically Left.
-
the rest is in line with this thread :lol:
http://jakeshannon.tumblr.com/post/65349969597/is-american-football-fascist-i-am-afraid-so
-
http://thelibertarianrepublic.com/told-racist-college-kid-rejects-diversity-training/#at_pco=smlwn-1.0&at_tot=1&at_ab=per-2&at_pos=0
-
http://www.examiner.com/article/report-obamacare-provision-will-allow-forced-home-inspections-by-gov-t-agents
-
Atlanta Hawkers
The mayor defies court orders letting street vendors earn a living.
Nov. 3, 2013 6:54 p.m. ET
For overbearing city government, Northeasterners claim a special expertise. But for sheer hostility to small business, it's hard to compete with Kasim Reed.
The Atlanta mayor won't even permit commerce that's entirely legal. Even after a judge ordered him to allow vendors to return to city streets—and then clarified her order in response to his defiance—Mr. Reed still won't allow these sellers to seek willing buyers. On Monday he faces a contempt hearing in Georgia's Fulton County Superior Court.
The problem began in 2008 when the city passed an ordinance to allow a single contract for sales in all public areas. In 2009 the contract was awarded to Chicago-based General Growth Properties, GGP -0.77% which could then force vendors to pay up to $20,000 a year to rent one of the company's new kiosks—or else be barred from selling in public spaces.
(Demonstrators pile signs by the door to City Hall before entering the Council Chambers to protest the city's policy on selling items on public property, Monday, July 1, 2013, in Atlanta. Associated Press)
Since we're talking about public property, some might wonder why a city doesn't have the authority to set the terms for commercial use. The answer is that Georgia's state constitution bars a city government from creating this type of monopoly, unless it is specifically authorized in the city's charter. In Atlanta it is not. So in 2012 Fulton County Superior Court Judge Shawn LaGrua voided the ordinance and the contract, restoring the previous law that allowed Atlantans to hawk.
General Growth accepted the court's decision, but Mayor Reed still insists on preventing longtime street vendors from making a living. Earlier this year, the city gave new meaning to the term "March Madness" when it launched a crackdown—complete with threats of fines and arrests—before Atlanta hosted the NCAA men's basketball championship. Preventing small vendors from doing business outside the Final Four was like telling mall owners that Christmas has been cancelled.
Last summer Judge LaGrua clarified her ruling and emphasized that the vendors should be allowed back to work. The mayor chose not to follow that ruling either. Vendors have now missed an entire Braves baseball season in the public areas outside Turner Field. Many vendors have struggled to pick up odd jobs to feed their families, but they haven't accepted the mayor's denial of their rights.
Aided by attorneys from the Institute for Justice, vendors Stanley Hambrick and Larry Miller have continued to challenge the mayor in court. Earlier this month the judge issued a writ of mandamus ordering the mayor to obey the law. Since he hasn't followed that judgment either, the mayor's lawyers will have to appear in court to explain why he should not be held in contempt.
Mayor Reed has also taken to denouncing our former colleague Kyle Wingfield, now a columnist at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, for daring to report on this bizarre campaign to keep vendors out of work. Way to go, Kyle. Politicians aren't above the law, at least not yet, and Mr. Reed's persistent disregard for court orders suggests that sanctions are overdue.
-
http://nationalreport.net/maryland-middle-school-requires-children-cross-dress-lgbtq-appreciation-day/
-
http://nationalreport.net/maryland-middle-school-requires-children-cross-dress-lgbtq-appreciation-day/
Funny, Charles Manson and several serial killers I can think of were humiliated by being forced to cross dress at school as children.
-
Thank You, Hobby Lobby
By Michelle Malkin - November 27, 2013
Comments Religious liberty is front and center on the nation's Thanksgiving table. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court agreed to hear Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. The family-owned craft store company is intrepidly challenging the constitutionality of Obamacare's abortion coverage mandate. Hobby Lobby's faithful owners deserve our thanks and praise as they defend freedom of conscience for all Americans.
The privately held retail chain's story is the quintessential American Dream. Founder David Green started out making mini picture frames in his Oklahoma garage in 1970. He recruited his two sons, Mart and Steve, to pitch in at an early age. The family's first establishment took up a tiny 300 square feet of retail space. Hobby Lobby now runs nearly 600 stores across the country, employs 13,000 people and topped $2 billion in sales in 2009.
The Greens' Christian faith is at the heart of how they do business. They are dedicated to integrity and service for their customers and their employees. The debt-free company commits to "honoring the Lord in all we do by operating the company in a manner consistent with biblical principles," as well as "serving our employees and their families by establishing a work environment and company policies that build character, strengthen individuals and nurture families."
The company donates more than 10 percent of its income every year to charity. All stores are closed on Sundays to allow employees more family and worship time. It's the company's dedication to biblical principles that led Hobby Lobby in April to raise full-time employees' starting minimum wage to $14 an hour at a time when many other firms have been forced to slash both wages and benefits.
"We believe that it is by God's grace that Hobby Lobby has endured, and he has blessed us and our employees," CEO David Green pointed out. "We've not only added jobs in a weak economy; we've raised wages for the past four years in a row. Our full-time employees start at 80 percent above minimum wage."
Many of Hobby Lobby's employees are single moms working two jobs. Green doesn't need federal mandates to tell him how to treat and retain good employees. He does it because it is the "right thing to do." While countless businesses have been forced to drop health insurance for their shrinking workforces during the Age of Obama, Hobby Lobby headquarters opened an onsite comprehensive health care and wellness clinic in 2010 with no co-pays.
Hobby Lobby employees are covered under the company's self-insured health plan, which brings us back to the company's legal case. Last September, Hobby Lobby sued the feds over Obamacare's "preventive services" mandate, which forces the Christian-owned-and-operated business to provide, without co-pay, abortion-inducing drugs including the "morning after pill" and "week after pill" in their health insurance plan. The company risked fines up to $1.3 million per day for defying the government's coercive abridgement of their First Amendment rights.
As Lori Windham, senior counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is representing Hobby Lobby in its court battles, said at the time: "Washington politicians cannot force families to abandon their faith just to earn a living. Every American, including family business owners like the Greens, should be free to live and do business according to their religious beliefs." Amen.
This summer, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals exempted Hobby Lobby from the abortion mandate and allowed the business to avoid those crippling fines while pursuing its case. Now, the Supreme Court will decide whether Democratic Party pandering trumps bedrock constitutional principles.
Planned Parenthood femme-a-gogues, Senate Democratic leaders, Christian-bashing celebs and atheist bullies immediately attacked Hobby Lobby for "denying women access to birth control." The lies and religious persecution, especially on the eve of America's national holiday commemorating the pilgrims' escape thereof, are unconscionable. Hobby Lobby's company health insurance plan covers 16 of the 20 FDA-approved contraceptives required under the Obamacare mandate -- at no additional costs to employees. What Hobby Lobby refuses to do is to be forced to cover abortifacients that violate the owners' faith and conscience.
Every employee is aware of the founders' history, devout work ethic and faith. No one is forced to work at Hobby Lobby. If workers want birth control, they can pay for it themselves. (And unlike so many other service workers, they have more take-home pay to spend on the "preventive services" of their choice.)
The intolerant control freaks at the White House took to Twitter right after the Supreme Court announcement to pile on the pander to the Sandra Fluke/Lena Dunham wing of the Democratic Party. "Birth control should be a woman's decision, not her boss's," Team Obama tweeted. That's precisely the argument against federally mandated health care benefits enforced by government in violation of religious liberty and subsidized by employers and taxpayers against their will. Let's pray the Supreme Court sees the light.
Copyright 2013, Creators Syndicate Inc.
-
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304384104579143622939183810?mod=WSJ_hps_LEFTTopStories
Worth noting is how the term 'fascism' is used here and how if differs from the way we use it when we speak of liberal fascism.
Speaking of liberal fascism, UCLA (a CA state university) appears to be turning it's English Lit department into an organ of propaganda:
http://capoliticalnews.com/2013/12/01/ucla-junks-english-literature-for-english-majors-becomes-second-class-department-promotes-the-politics-of-sex-and-race/
-
My thanks to the college Republicans at Fordham University, where I spoke this week on Liberal Fascism. I was a bit rusty, but it went well and the kids were very impressive.
Anyway, speaking of Liberal Fascism, folks on Twitter have been tweeting around a passage from my book on the minimum wage that might be of interest:
Consider the debate over the minimum wage. The controversy centered on what to do about what Sidney Webb called the "unemployable class." It was Webb's belief, shared by many of the progressive economists affiliated with the American Economic Association, that establishing a minimum wage above the value of the unemployables' worth would lock them out of the market, accelerating their elimination as a class. This is essentially the modern conservative argument against the minimum wage, and even today, when conservatives make it, they are accused of — you guessed it — social Darwinism. But for the progressives at the dawn of the fascist moment, this was an argument for it. "Of all ways of dealing with these unfortunate parasites," Webb observed, "the most ruinous to the community is to allow them unrestrainedly to compete as wage earners."
Ross put it succinctly: "The Coolie cannot outdo the American, but he can underlive him." Since the inferior races were content to live closer to a filthy state of nature than the Nordic man, the savages did not require a civilized wage. Hence if you raised minimum wages to a civilized level, employers wouldn't hire such miscreants in preference to "fitter" specimens, making them less likely to reproduce and, if necessary, easier targets for forced sterilization. Royal Meeker, a Princeton economist and adviser to Woodrow Wilson, explained: "Better that the state should support the inefficient wholly and prevent the multiplication of the breed than subsidize incompetence and unthrift, enabling them to bring forth more of their kind." Arguments like these turn modern liberal rationales for welfare state wage supports completely on their head.
-
second post
nature.com
Better fathers have smaller testicles
Study finds evolutionary trade-off between mating prowess and parenting involvement.
• Sarah Zhang
09 September 2013
Men with larger testes were rated lower in surveys of their parenting involvement, and brain scans showed they had lower activity in an area that is part of the brain's reward system.
Sam Edwards/Alamy
Fathers with smaller testes are more involved in child care, and their brains are also more responsive when looking at photos of their own children, according to research published online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences1.
Evolutionary biologists have long observed a trade-off in male primates between mating efforts to produce more offspring and the time males spend caring for their progeny. For instance, male chimpanzees, which are especially promiscuous, sport testes that are twice as big as those of humans, make a lot of sperm and generally do not provide paternal care. By contrast, male gorillas have relatively small testes and protect their young. The latest study suggests that humans, whose paternal care varies widely, show evidence of both approaches.
The analysis1 incorporates measures of testicular volume, brain activity and paternal behaviour, notes Peter Gray, an anthropologist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, who was not involved in the study. “We’ve got something that pulls those strands together, and it does so in a really interesting way.”
The research team — led by James Rilling, an anthropologist at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia — set out to investigate why some fathers are more involved in child care than others. The researchers recruited 70 fathers of children aged between one and two years, and scanned the men’s brains and testes in a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine. The fathers and the children's mothers also filled out surveys rating the fathers' commitment to child care.
When men were shown photos of their own children, those rated as better fathers by their female partners had more activity in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) of the brain, part of its reward system. Men with larger testes were rated lower in surveys of their parenting involvement and had less activity in the VTA. Because testes size is correlated with sperm count, Rilling and his team took the size as a measure of mating effort.
The researchers also analysed the men’s testosterone levels, confirming a previous finding that fathers involved in caring for their children have lower levels of the hormone2.
“It’s a very provocative and important step,” says Sarah Hrdy, an emeritus anthropologist at the University of California, Davis. She adds that more research is needed to establish whether certain men are predisposed by biology to be more nurturing. The study’s authors say that even if men are predisposed to a certain style of parenting, nurturing dads can be made as well as born. That levels of testosterone changed as a father spent more time with his child suggest flexibility in a man's inclination toward fatherhood.
Charles Snowdon, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, points out that the paper’s own statistics show testes size explains only a fraction of the variation in paternal care. “There are lots of other variables that affect fatherhood,” he says, citing as examples social environment and prior experience looking after younger siblings when the men were children themselves.
Rilling and his team plan to test how testicular size is affected by factors such as genetics or the man having an absent father. They were surprised to find little research on how testes size changes in response to life events. “Testicular imaging is sort of a unique niche right now,” says Rilling.
Journal name:
Nature
DOI:
doi:10.1038/nature.2013.13701
References
1. Mascaro, J. S., Hackett P. D. & Rilling, J. K. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1305579110 (2013).
Show context
2. Gettler, L. T., McDade, T. W., Feranil, A. B. & Kuzawa, C. W. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 108, 16194–16199 (2011).
-
Income Redistribution: A Litany of Section 1705 Failure
An obscure portion of Department of Energy loan guarantees in Section 1705 of the overall American Recovery and Reinvestment Act -- better known as the "stimulus" -- was supposed to jumpstart the renewable energy industry, but the law has proven to be a cesspool of failure and cronyism. A Reason Foundation study released last week details the program's lack of tangible results with the only successes apparently being those of enriching politically connected investors.
Among the more spectacular and well-documented failures such as Solyndra and Abound Solar, most of the other 24 companies that benefited from Section 1705 loans were already mired in junk-bond status prior to receiving the infusion of taxpayer cash, according to the Reason study. Study authors Victor Nava and Julian Morris also blasted the federal government for a lack of diversity in selecting recipients, noting that 83% of the project funding went to solar projects, with most of the rest supporting wind-based energy.
Rather than investing in new ideas for improving existing technology, such as improvements in electrical transmission infrastructure or in hydropower, which were allowed in the authorizing legislation, those who selected Section 1705 recipients seemed to lean on the all-important criteria of political connection. The study notes that larger loan recipients tended to spend more on lobbying, but those who spent nothing on lobbying had something even more important: a senator to back their project. Maine "Independent" Sen. Angus King founded Independence Wind, a company that received $102 million in loan guarantees for the Record Hill Wind project; meanwhile, all three Nevada-based projects (of 26 eventually selected) had backers who collectively funneled over $58,000 in campaign cash to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
Instead of a system riddled with questionable investments and cronyism, the authors suggest a different approach: a prize system based on the ongoing X Prize project in which competitors come up with solutions based on a set of specific criteria. One example given in the study is a competition to remove oil from the surface of seawater, with seven of the 10 finalists exceeding the given criteria and the winner besting the existing industry standard fourfold.
The only standard the government seems to exceed under the current system is largess for the well-connected, and that's not a direction we need to take.
-
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303497804579239970456967130?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
-
Art of the BIG Lie
'Distorting the Truth Infamously'
By Mark Alexander • December 12, 2013
"I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." --Article II, Section 1, Constitution of the United States (1787)
No president since Franklin Roosevelt has mastered the art of the "Big Lie" as effectively as Barack Hussein Obama.
In my last Memo to Demos, I outlined Obama's litany of lies to win passage of ObamaCare, or as an increasing number of Democrats now prefer to call it, the "Affordable Care Act." Having supported this catastrophic behemoth, they now hope that their refusal to utter the word "ObamaCare" will provide them a measure of political protection. The truth, however, is that they are now irrevocably linked to Obama's repeated bald-faced lies.
I concur with the assessment of political analyst Jonah Goldberg that Obama's lies are "the biggest lies about domestic policy ever uttered by a U.S. president."
As politically vulnerable Demos in the Senate are scurrying away from the ObamaCare train wreck, their intrepid leader, Sen. Harry Reid, yet again repeated Obama's Big Lie: "What he said was true. If you want to keep the insurance you have you can keep it. The problem is, we did not put the bill into effect that way."
In other words, you can keep your insurance and doctor, except "we did not put the bill into effect that way." This must be why he exempted some of his staff from ObamaCare.
I was as stupefied by Reid's reiteration of this now-infamous lie as was the reporter who asked him about it. Is Reid suffering from acute dementia? Has he been imprisoned in some sensory deprivation tank for the last two months? Or is he, like Obama, thoroughly accomplished in the art of the Big Lie? Recall that this audacious technique is a staple of the biggest deceptions propagated by Leftist cadres since the rise of Marxism and its murderous manifestations in successive regimes, most notably the National Socialist German Workers' Party from the 1930s through the end of World War II.
Some reading this will question: Really Alexander? Obama and Hitler? Is this another histrionic example of Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies: "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1"?
If you're among those who'd rather dismiss such associations because they seem too strident -- or because you want to help maintain Obama's deception -- then your answer is yes. But the fact is, Obama's lies fit neatly into the Big Lie framework defined by another pathological narcissist, Adolf Hitler.
Reid's repetition of Obama's lie invokes the need to review the origin of Big Lie theory, as well as the proliferation of Big Lie propaganda today.
Adolf Hitler defined the Big Lie in his 1925 autobiography, Mein Kampf, writing that it must be so "colossal" that the public would be confident that no national leaders "could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously."
"In the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying."
Hitler's Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels, affirmed that "the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it. ... It is the absolute right of the state to supervise the formation of public opinion."
If you still have trouble making the Big Lie connection, perhaps you can make the Socialist connection.
In Mein Kampf, Hitler also wrote of his Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers' Party, or NAZI), "The party ... must not become a servant of the masses, but their master." With respect to the socialist state and individual Liberty, he wrote, "The unity of a nation's spirit and will are worth far more than the freedom of the spirit and will of an individual; and that the higher interests involved in the life of the whole must here set the limits and lay down the duties of the interests of the individual."
Hitler's regime was founded on his premise, "We are Socialists, we are enemies of the capitalistic economic system ... and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions."
"To be a socialist," Goebbels affirmed, "is to submit the I to the thou; socialism is sacrificing the individual to the whole."
For those who still find the Big Lie comparison too strident, I refer you to Jacob Hornberger's paraphrase of the esteemed classical liberal economist Friedrich von Hayek: "There is no difference in principle, between the economic philosophy of Nazism, socialism, communism, and fascism and that of the American welfare state and regulated economy."
British historian Dr. John Joseph Ray followed, "The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism."
-
Back Off Man, We're Scientists
Rich Lowry (praise be upon him), has a good column on liberalism's "reality problem." He writes about how liberals sold Obamacare as if it were simply the product of Cartesian logic, science, and math. The wonky architects of the Affordable Care Act were like vulcans or Mentats -- devoid of ideological, emotional, or idealistic delusions -- who had simply deduced an irrefutably superior way to organize health care in this country that would expand access, reduce costs, and create nothing but winners as far as the eye can see. Lowry writes:
The erstwhile reality-based community is having a tough time of it lately, though. Most infamously, Obamacare is foundering on the flagrant deceptions used to sell it, exposed every day by the workings of the law in reality.
Many liberals still don't want to acknowledge the rather straightforward fact that if you mandate more insurance benefits in the so-called Affordable Care Act, insurance will cost more. QED. You might be able to cushion the cost increase for some people with subsidies, but not for everyone, and the underlying insurance is still more—not less—expensive.
Now, I find this all interesting not just because angels learn to write by trying to emulate Lowry's columns ("Ah, I get it now. It's Christmas-bonus season at National Review!" -- The Couch), but also because I happened to write two books that dealt with liberalism's pose as nothing more than the "best practices" as deduced by "the experts."
In the Tyranny of Clichés I argued at some length that liberals use the language of empiricism (and common sense and pragmatism) in order to sell a deeply ideological agenda. Using the language of "pragmatism" they logic chop any open/opposing ideological commitments as if they were utterly irrational while camouflaging liberal ideological commitments in seemingly empirical language. As I wrote: "liberals and other progressives hold it as a bedrock article of ideological faith that they are not ideological. In short: Pragmatism is the disguise progressive and other ideologues don when they want to demonize competing ideologies." Of course, I've made this same point about 7 trillion times in this "news"letter and elsewhere, in part because this point is always relevant when you have a deeply ideological president going around insisting he's not a very ideological person.
I'm reminded of an episode of Parks and Recreation -- back when it was reliably funny -- in which we learn the town of Pawnee, Indiana, is not only "The First in Friendship and Fourth in Obesity," but also the home of a bizarre cult that worships an alien-beast God known as Zorp. In the 1970s the cult briefly controlled the city, but these days the aging cultists in their Dockers and flannel shirts aren't much of a threat. Every now and then they gather in the city's main park to await the arrival of Zorp, who they are sure will -- this time! -- destroy the planet and leave it a slag heap. (At these gatherings, Ron Swanson (who is awesome) sells the cultists handcrafted flutes at wildly exorbitant prices. The cultists think it's hilarious and that Swanson is a sucker because he accepts checks. After all, Zorp is coming and he's going to melt the whole planet tonight.)
Anyway, I'm reminded of it because the cultists had one brilliant insight. They called themselves the "Reasonablists." Their thinking was that this would immunize them from criticism, because nobody wants to seem unreasonable or against reason.
Hail Sciency-ness
In Liberal Fascism, I wrote at some length about a guy named Georges Sorel, a largely forgotten intellectual who has been credited with being the intellectual godfather of both Leninism and Italian fascism, largely through his work on syndicalism (which we won't be discussing today, save in the opening sentence below). I write:
Syndicalism informed corporatist theory by arguing that society could be divided by professional sectors of the economy, an idea that deeply influenced the New Deals of both FDR and Hitler. But Sorel's greatest contribution to the left—and Mussolini in particular—lay elsewhere: in his concept of "myths," which he defined as "artificial combinations invented to give the appearance of reality to hopes that inspire men in their present activity." For Sorel, the Second Coming of Christ was a quintessential myth because its underlying message—Jesus is coming, look busy—was crucial for organizing men in desirable ways. . . .
Even more impressive was Sorel's application of the idea of myth to Marxism itself. Again, Sorel held that Marxist prophecy didn't need to be true. People just needed to think it was true. Even at the turn of the last century it was becoming obvious that Marxism as social science didn't make a whole lot of sense. Taken literally, Marx's Das Kapital, according to Sorel, had little merit. But, Sorel asked, what if Marx's nonsensicalness was actually intended? If you looked at "this apocalyptic text . . . as a product of the spirit, as an image created for the purpose of molding consciousness, it . . . is a good illustration of the principle on which Marx believed he should base the rules of the socialist action of the proletariat." In other words, Marx should be read as a prophet, not as a policy wonk. That way the masses would absorb Marxism unquestioningly as a religious dogma.
"Scientific" Marxism simply asserted that it was scientific and lots of educated fools bought it, at least for a while. But Sorel recognized that "scientific" Marxism was no more scientific than the time machine I invented out of a refrigerator box when I was seven years old. The Marxists insisted that dialectical materialism was an objective fact, confirmed by science; I insisted that the tinfoil-wrapped salad tongs harnessed cosmic rays to bend the space-time continuum. Sorel's genius was to recognize that in the post-Enlightenment world, science had taken the place of magic, miracles, and superstition. The important thing was to create the myth that science was on the side of revolution, actually proving it rationally was an afterthought. During the Dark Ages, alchemists grew in power so long as the king believed in the myth of transmogrification, and in the 19th and 20th centuries left-wing revolutionaries grew in power so long as the masses believed in the myth of dialectical materialism.
This is a hard thing for some to hear, but science operates as magic for most of us. Most of us don't really know how things like electricity, copy machines, computers, medicine, and rising-crust pizza actually work. We're just told that scientists worked it out and we believe it because that stuff works. I open up my laptop and it lights up (I'm talking about my portable computer, sickos). But Arthur C. Clarke's Third Law still holds true: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Since the Enlightenment, lots of people have been ensorcelled by science-sounding abracadabra words, believing they've actually been reasoned with. See, for instance, Scientology or the aforementioned Reasonablists. Or consider what longtime readers know to be my favorite line from Voegelin: For the Marxist, "Christ the Redeemer is replaced by the steam engine as the promise of the realm to come."
The Utopian-Based Community
So it is with liberalism. I'm not saying it's a crazy space-cult. John Podesta isn't a Zorp-worshipper. The Atari Democrats didn't take Space Invaders literally. Still, inherent in mainstream wonky liberalism is a utopian, quasi-religious idea masquerading as an empirical conviction.
So as Aristotle famously said, "We need to get back to Rich Lowry to really understand this." In his infinite wisdom, hired me writes:
Every side in a political argument tends to gild the lily, but the acknowledgment of any downside is particularly devastating to liberal presumptions. Liberals are inherently activists on domestic policy, and to make the strongest possible case for action, you need certainty not nuance, cost-free benefits not painful trade-offs, blissful promises not unintended consequences.
Consider the minimum wage. Rarely do liberals truly grapple with the possibility—supported by some, but not all research—that it suppresses employment. If they did, they would be more cautious about advocating a higher minimum wage in a soft job market and less scornful of opponents.
I agree that everybody tends to "gild the lily" in favor of their preferred policies. But inherent to conservatism is the understanding that nothing in this life is all upside. To govern is to choose. Every policy is a trade-off. Every gain comes at a loss -- somewhere. This core understanding explains why conservatism is more empirical than liberalism, more "reality based." That's because at the heart of mainstream liberalism is the belief that, with the right application of intellect and data, experts (i.e. liberals) can create perfect policies that are good for everyone and everything, not just as a matter of "social justice" but of objective analysis. In the 1990s Bill Clinton used to insist that any suggestion of a trade-off was a "false choice." X never has to come at the expense of Y. Al Gore used to talk about his climate proposals as if there was no downside to them at all. It was broken-window fallacies for as far as the eye could see.
It was magic talk masquerading as science talk. The belief that with the right experts -- or sorcerers -- in charge All Good Things will go together is no less utopian than the cults of Marxism, Reasonableism, or Thusla Doomism. Sure, liberalism's agenda is more reasonable and laudatory. But at its core is the same faulty assumption that this life can be made perfect. And I should say, in and of itself, belief in the perfectability of this life isn't all that dangerous. The problem is that such impulses often come in a bundle. That's why liberals tend to assume that conservatives have evil motives. Our refusal to get with the program, liberals assume, stems from a conscious desire to deny others the happiness and access to the perfect world available to us with optimal policies. In other words, it's not just that liberals want to immanentize the eschaton; liberals think it's the collective task of conservatives to keep the eschaton from being immanentized (see this excellent piece by Jim Pethokoukis on how income inequality is becoming the new climate change, where dissenting heretics must be silenced, not merely argued with).
Obama, the famous "non-ideologue," at least occasionally reveals the political religion lurking beneath the surface, as when he insists that we can create a kingdom of heaven on Earth. But ultimately, he has the same liberal blinders on.
-
“The welfare state is the oldest con game in the world. First you take people’s money away quietly, and then you give some of it back to them flamboyantly.” - Thomas Sowell
-
WND is not my idea of a reputable site-- but lets keep an eye out for sightings of this elsewhere:
http://www.westernjournalism.com/now-obama-wants-your-401k/
-
WND is not my idea of a reputable site-- but lets keep an eye out for sightings of this elsewhere:
http://www.westernjournalism.com/now-obama-wants-your-401k/
The idea has been percolating in lefty circles for a while now.
-
http://clashdaily.com/2014/01/obama-americans-dont-deserve-free/
-
As has been often noted, the terms "left", "right", and "fascist" are frequently used quite inconsistently. Certainly my use of Jonah Goldberg's definition of "fascism" is a minority use. The following article, badly reasoned as it may be in great part, does serve to remind us of how others use these terms, as well as to flag an issue of interest that could just have well gone in the European Matters thread.
=======================
Op-Ed Contributor
Europeans United, in Hating Europe
By ANDREA MAMMONE
Published: January 1, 2014
LONDON — It may seem bizarre that two far-right, nationalist politicians — Marine Le Pen of France and Geert Wilders of the Netherlands — have reached across borders to form a Pan-European group dedicated to weakening the European Union. Their aim is a transnational political alliance that would compete in the May elections for the European Parliament; once in power, they would cooperate to try to rein in the power of Brussels.
Are these politicians, who share an opposition to immigration and a skepticism about the free flow of labor and capital across the Continent, simply hypocritical opportunists, as many Europeans of the left believe? Perhaps.
But in fact, since the early 20th century, Europe’s far-right nationalists have often united in search of an “other” to oppose, exclude, resist, restrict or oppress — historically, minorities like Jews, homosexuals, the disabled, Roma, Marxists and, more recently, Arabs, Africans and Asians. What emerged after World War I was a philosophy that could be called Euro-fascist. The most extreme proponents, of course, were the Nazis: Notwithstanding their doctrine of racial supremacy, even they formed alliances with Mussolini’s Italy and the militarists of Japan and found keen fascist collaborators in nations they invaded.
This vision did not die with the end of World War II. Transnational links among right-wing parties, based on common fears of minorities and immigrants, endured. The right-wingers, while speaking different languages, borrowed ideals, strategies, slogans and theorists from one another. The National Front in France, founded in 1972 by Ms. Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, imitated the symbol and political tactics of the original neo-Fascist party, the Italian Social Movement, which was formed in 1946 by admirers of Mussolini and, in 1979, coordinated with like-minded French and Spanish parties to compete (with little success) in the first popular elections for the European Parliament.
So when observers marvel about the “new” nationalist parties of Europe, they are capturing only part of the truth. These right-wingers mistrust or even detest the Continent’s core institutions — the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the European Parliament — but they are perfectly happy to join up with extremists in other countries to weaken those institutions.
Which raises a question: What makes the European Union so appealing as a target?
The answer may (and should) shock complacent left-leaning and center-right Europeans alike. “Europe,” as an idea and a community, has weakened. The European Union’s byzantine governance makes it seem unaccountable. Its leaders — notably José Manuel Barroso of Portugal, the president of the European Commission, the union’s executive body; Herman van Rompuy of Belgium, the president of the European Council, which comprises the 28 heads of government; and Catherine Ashton, the union’s top diplomat — are little known outside of elite circles.
Soaring youth unemployment, stringent fiscal policies, German-led monetary clout and the presence of Muslim immigrants have created a perfect target for the likes of Mr. Wilders and Ms. Le Pen, who blame outside forces like the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Union for their nations’ woes. Conveniently, they overlook structural problems like the costs of social welfare and pension programs, declining birthrates, aging populations, stagnant labor productivity and intensifying competition from the economies of Asia and Latin America.
Surveys show that the anti-European Union forces may win more than 90 of the 751 seats to be contested in the May elections for the European Parliament. That might be enough to form an official parliamentary group — and to make them eligible, like the transnational alliances of socialists and center-right Christian democrats, for European Union financing and full political recognition. Even as a tiny, noisy voice within the European Parliament, this alliance could create a lot of trouble. Just think of the successes that Tea Party Republicans have had in impeding decision making in the United States.
The perception that bureaucrats in Brussels, bankers in Frankfurt and European lawmakers in Strasbourg, France, are haughty and indifferent has made it possible for demagogues to pose as populists who are alone in understanding “the people.”
For example, in November, Lorenzo Fontana, an Italian member of the European Parliament from the right-wing Northern League, boasted — ahead of a gathering with leaders of the National Front and similarly oriented Swedish, Austrian and Flemish parties — that they spoke in the name of a “shared ideal of Europe, a Europe of people.” The League’s newspaper, La Padania, on Nov. 14, put it this way: “It will be up to the voters, but this time the troops, willing but disorganized, have the opportunity to unite in a single ‘army’ behind an able leader.”
How would these right-wingers reshape Europe? They say they would give power back to nations by dismantling the technocratic decision-making power amassed in Brussels and returning powers back to individual member states. They would pause, if not quite reverse, six decades of growing integration.
Tragically, in the face of this assault, calls for European solidarity are few. This is a sign of how far Europe has come from the dream that helped lift it from the ashes of war. It is a sign of the fading of the vision — common markets, democratic institutions and societal integration — promoted by the postwar founders of European integration: thinkers and statesmen like Konrad Adenauer, Winston Churchill, Jean Monnet, Robert Schuman and Altiero Spinelli.
The European Union must reclaim its reputation as a champion of the people. Its leaders should abandon their embrace of technocratic solutions, their support for the banking sector and their stoic austerity. Unless they deliver more jobs, and more of a sense that citizens are in charge, the far right will only keep growing.
Andrea Mammone is a lecturer in modern European history at Royal Holloway, the University of London.
-
The War on Poverty’s Biggest Casualties
Posted By Matthew Vadum On January 10, 2014
Fifty years after liberals launched their sacrosanct “War on Poverty,” Americans, and black Americans in particular, aren’t better off.
But neo-Marxist ideologue that he is, President Obama is determined to double-down on leftist failure, widening the so-called war by calling for the biggest welfare spending increases in American history— amounting to more than $10 trillion over a decade, according to the Heritage Foundation’s Robert Rector.
This War on Poverty that Obama wants to escalate came on the heels of the death of President John F. Kennedy.
As the country was reeling in shock just seven weeks after Kennedy was assassinated, his successor, President Lyndon B. Johnson, urged Congress to embark on a new metaphorical war effort against poverty. In that State of the Union address on Jan. 8, 1964, Johnson said, “Let this session of Congress be known … as the session which declared all-out war on human poverty and unemployment in these United States.”
This “unconditional war on poverty in America … will not be a short or easy struggle, no single weapon or strategy will suffice, but we shall not rest until that war is won,” Johnson said. ”The richest nation on earth can afford to win it. We cannot afford to lose it.”
The War on Poverty also gave taxpayers’ money to so-called community groups like ACORN and Saul Alinsky’s Industrial Areas Foundation in order to encourage them to agitate against the status quo. This, in turn, stimulated demand for more government spending as taxpayer dollars became a kind of ever-increasing subsidy for pro-Big Government activism. The federal government still hands out huge grants to left-wing groups to subsidize their efforts to take away our economic freedoms.
A half a century later, federal and state welfare spending, adjusted for inflation, is now 16 times greater. The country has spent $20.7 trillion in 2011 dollars over the past 50 years on welfare programs, far exceeding what the U.S. has spent on every war it has fought.
Already the federal government administers 80 different means-tested welfare programs. Government blew $916 billion on these programs in 2012 alone, and about 100 million Americans accepted aid from at least one of the programs, costing $9,000 per recipient on average, a figure, Heritage’s Rector notes, that doesn’t include Social Security or Medicare benefits.
Yet “victory” in the War on Poverty is nowhere in sight. In 2012, 15 percent of Americans lived below the poverty line, roughly the same percentage as in the mid-1960s. Currently, around 50 million Americans live below the poverty line, which the government defines as a four-member family earning $23,550 a year. And 47 million Americans receive food stamp benefits, 13 million more than when President Obama was first sworn in.
“Liberals argue that we aren’t spending enough money on poverty-fighting programs, but that’s not the problem,” according to Rector. “In reality, we’re losing the war on poverty because we have forgotten the original goal, as LBJ stated it half a century ago: ‘to give our fellow citizens a fair chance to develop their own capacities.’”
Despite an orgy of federal spending, blacks and other minorities have suffered the most from big government poverty alleviation efforts. The anti-marriage, anti-family tilt of welfare policies has devastated black communities.
“The welfare state has done to black Americans what slavery couldn’t do, what Jim Crow couldn’t do, what the harshest racism couldn’t do, and that is to destroy the black family,” says economics professor Walter E. Williams of George Mason University, a black man who rose from poverty.
As a result of misguided government policies that grew out of the War on Poverty, out-of-wedlock birthrates have mushroomed, David Horowitz and John Perazzo report in “Government vs. the People.”
By 1976, the illegitimacy rate for whites jumped to 10 percent from 3 percent in 1965. Blacks fared far worse, as their illegitimacy rate skyrocketed to 50.3 percent, more than double the percentage in 1965. “In 1987, for the first time in the history of any American racial or ethnic group, the birthrate for unmarried black women surpassed that for married black women,” they wrote.
Currently, whites have an illegitimacy rate of 29 percent, compared to a shocking 73 percent for blacks. Overall, the poverty rate for single parents with children was 35.6 percent in 2008, but for married couples with children it was a much lower 6.4 percent.
The poverty rate for single Hispanic parents with children was 37.5 percent in 2008, but for married Hispanic couples with children it was 12.8 percent. The poverty rate for single black parents with children was 35.3 percent in 2008, but for married black couples with children it was 6.9 percent.
The economic situation of blacks has deteriorated sharply during Barack Obama’s presidency, in particular. Nationally, unemployment stands at 7 percent but among black Americans unemployment has essentially stood still. When Obama was inaugurated in 2009 black unemployment was 12.7 percent. Today it is 12.5 percent.
In 2008 the black poverty rate was 12 percent; now it is 16.1 percent. Median income fell by 3.6 percent in white households to $58,000 in the same time frame, but slid 10.9 percent to $33,500 for black households, according to the Census Bureau.
“The data is [sic] going to indicate sadly that when the Obama administration is over, black people will have lost ground in every single leading economic indicator category,” Tavis Smiley, a black, left-wing radio talk show host said in the fall. “On that regard, the president ought to be held responsible.”
These terrible numbers help to explain the president’s recent attempt to change the subject from the economy to “income inequality,” an abstraction that fails to register with most Americans.
They also help to explain why Obama intends to push for an increase in the federal minimum wage, currently $7.25 an hour, in his State of the Union address on Jan. 28.
Left-wingers have successfully been changing the subject, moving the discussion away from their policy failures for 50 years now.
Why should they change a winning formula now? They know they can continue to count on taxpayer funding for their adventures in leftist activism.
-
(http://www.dogbrothers.com/kostas/fascism.jpg)
-
(http://www.dogbrothers.com/kostas/fascism.jpg)
Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power. - Benito Mussolini
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/b/benito_mussolini.html#1fPXSdqvMhcD8726.99
Bill Clinton: We Democrats think the country works better with a strong middle class, real opportunities for poor people to work their way into it and a relentless focus on the future, with business and government working together to promote growth and broadly shared prosperity. We think "we're all in this together" is a better philosophy than "you're on your own." http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/transcript-bill-clintons-democratic-convention-speech/story?id=17164662
------------------------
This comparison says it better than I ever could. Run, hide, scream, cringe in fear when you hear about your government wanting to 'partner up' with private businesses. It sounds so nice until you think about the implications. Government picks the winners and losers. In sports, the referee partners up with one of the teams. This is a good idea? Hint: it won't be your team they choose - unless you are the largest entrenched player with the biggest budget and behind-the-scenes operation to pay them off. Business becomes the need to be in bed with the elected officials - or be destroyed. Innovation, productivity gains and meeting the market needs will no longer matter.
Government has a role in business: to enforce a level playing field fair to the participants, and to capture and protect the public from the externalities - as Crafty has pointed out. To regulate as necessary, but not to be a participate in he tcommerce, except, again, as absolutely necessary - such as to buy pens and desks for the government offices. And then only in a fair and completely open and transparent public bidding process.
Remember the uproar over no bid contracts awarded to Haliburton, even when Cheney had no financial ties to their performance, and even though no other American company had the resources to fulfill those contracts. Now Government Motors is the norm. Cash for Clunkers in their industry but not yours. Government managed health insurance companies, Solyndra, Tesla, etc. etc. The President is out there bragging about private products coming out of public investments. Beware! It is such a flagrant violation of equal protection under the law for government to unnecessarily partner up with private participants in the market.
Run, scream, hide when you hear that the government is stepping in to partner with private business. It isn't your business they will choose. And it is the destruction of equal treatment under the law.
-
The D’Souza Arrest: Obama Adopts the Stalinist Style
Posted By Robert Spencer On January 27, 2014
I’m no fan of Dinesh D’Souza, but this is ridiculous.
Dinesh and I locked horns a few years back when he attacked me in his book The Enemy At Home, saying that books like mine should not be written. His line was that Islam was a religion of peace, that pious, morally upright Muslims had been driven to lash out against the U.S. because of the immorality of our pop culture, and that American conservatives should ally with what he termed “conservative Muslims” against their common, amoral Leftist foe.
He and I debated this at CPAC in 2007 and on several radio shows, which grew increasingly heated as he charged me with “Islamophobia” (a term used by Muslim Brotherhood entities to stigmatize opposition to jihad terror) and invoked Saudi-funded Islamic apologist John Esposito as an authority.
The ensuing years have only shown more vividly what nonsense Dinesh’s position was, as “conservative Muslims” the world over wage jihad against America, and non-Muslims everywhere, more furiously than ever.
I rehash all this to show the falsehood of the line that has been circulating around in the Leftist media ever since Dinesh D’Souza was indicted: that only people who share D’Souza’s views are concerned about his indictment. As Tal Kopan put it in Politico, “In the wake of the indictment of conservative author and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza for alleged fraud, conservatives are crying foul that it is evidence of the Obama administration punishing its critics.”
Liberals should be as concerned about this as conservatives. Foes of jihad should be just as concerned about it as those who share D’Souza’s worries about “Islamophobia.” For the evidence is mounting that D’Souza has indeed been targeted for being a public and high-profile foe of Barack Obama – a development that should disquiet anyone who believes in the value of a stable, functioning republic with a loyal opposition. Pamela Geller notes here that D’Souza is not remotely the only conservative or Obama critic who has been targeted for prosecution, while Obama’s Justice Department has turned a blind eye to illegal campaign contributions from Gaza during Obama’s 2008 campaign. And then there was the Obama Justice Department’s dismissal of the New Black Panthers voter intimidation case.
What’s more, bail for D’Souza was set higher than that given to several people accused of attempted murder, rape, assault, and the like. To whom is Dinesh D’Souza more dangerous than a man who sexually assaulted a teenager, or a man who kept old men captive in a filthy “dungeon”?
This is something new in American politics. When I was six years old, I took notice of the presidential campaign, and asked my father who was the “good guy”: Richard Nixon or Hubert Humphrey. My father answered, “They’re both good men. They both want to do what is right for the country. They just disagree on what some of the right things to do may be.”
That kind of respect for the opposition was commonplace in America back in 1968, but it has all but vanished now. I remember being taken aback in college by the obscene, relentless, vicious hatred that the Left directed toward Ronald Reagan – I was at that time entirely sympathetic with their disdain for him, but the frenzy with which they expressed it, their wild furious contempt, shocked me. And that was nothing compared to what they had in store for George W. Bush. The Democratic Party as a whole, along with the entire Leftist establishment, adopted the Alinskyite tactic of ridiculing, mocking and smearing their foes instead of engaging them on the level of ideas. Leftists now routinely portray their opponents as simultaneously stupid and evil, idiotic but crafty; it’s practically a reflex.
Decades of this have poisoned the well of American politics, and paved the way for Obama to take the demonization to the next level by unleashing the law on them. Arresting prominent members of the opposition is the kind of behavior we have seen from the likes of Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler; it is a hallmark of authoritarianism, not (until now) of politics in the United States. Of course, Stalin and Hitler didn’t stop with arresting their foes; they had them murdered as well, usually after a show trial. Obama is not doing that, but is even one step down this road one that Americans want to take?
Leftist pundits who are waving away concern over the arrest of D’Souza should bear in mind that the worm could turn. They could, for some reason or another, find themselves somewhere down the line opposing the Obama regime or some other presidency that apes Obama’s strategy. Then those who are claiming that only believers in crazy “conspiracy theories” are concerned about the Obama Justice Department’s (to say nothing of the Obama IRS) clear pattern of singling out opponents of the President for prosecution while ignoring more serious crimes among his friends may find themselves on the receiving end of this tactic.
Civility and mutual respect are in dire need of restoration in the American public square, but two have to play at that game, and only one side is even interested in the game at all. With the arrest of Dinesh D’Souza, Barack Obama has adopted a key feature of the Stalinist style of politics. Before he or anyone else gets the idea of adopting anything else from the authoritarians’ playbook, Americans – Left and Right – would be well-advised to stand together to repudiate him and these tactics once and for all, and resoundingly.
But by relentlessly demonizing their opponents, Barack Obama and his cohorts have almost certainly already made that impossible.
-
A good, well-written, and well-reasoned piece, but as best as I can tell it avoids dealing with the obvious rejoinder. Apparently the man IS guilty of breaking the campaign finance laws in a stupid and obvious way. The failure to address this point leaves me hesitant to spread this otherwise good piece forward.
-
A good, well-written, and well-reasoned piece, but as best as I can tell it avoids dealing with the obvious rejoinder. Apparently the man IS guilty of breaking the campaign finance laws in a stupid and obvious way. The failure to address this point leaves me hesitant to spread this otherwise good piece forward.
None of us have any way of knowing if he is innocent or guilty. After years of him fighting back, maybe we will discover he is innocent (and that the bundling Ambassador of Norway is guilty of that same charge). The accusation (by Spencer) is enforcement targeting based on D’Souza's exercise of free speech. If true, that offense is far worse, treason IMO, and not directly related to the merits of the D’Souza case.
Targeting of tea party organizations was worse because citizens were prevented from participating in the political process without being accused of doing anything wrong.
At some point, smoking guns will emerge on such widespread targeting abuse, along with the non-enforcement of everything on the other side. The only person breaking this law happen to produce an anti-Obama documentary?
(Unfortunately, the unconstitutionality of the law being enforced on D'Souza is irrelevant.)
Meanwhile, illegal immigration is against federal law. The sale and use of marijuana in Colo and Wash state is a violation of federal law. Black Panther voter intimidation is a violation of federal law. Fast and furious gun running was a violation of federal law. IRS targeting is a violation of federal law. Where is the enforcement? DOMA, as written, was a federal law? The meaning of "the law of the land" depends on your political and/or governmental connection with those in power.
When do the indicted-innocent get back their good name? Ask Tom DeLay.
Resigned 2006: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/03/AR2006040301787.html
(The money laundering indictment of course was a key part of Republicans losing control of congress.)
Convicted 2010: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/24/tom-delay-guilty-money-laundering_n_788325.html
Overturned: 2011
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/09/19/224070833/tom-delays-conviction-overturned-on-appeal
Tom DeLay's Conviction Overturned On Appeal
The state's Third District Court of Appeals concluded: "the evidence presented does not support a conclusion that DeLay committed the crimes that were charged".
-
I get all that. My point though is that the article needed to address the point and its failure to do so, diminishes its persuasive power and leaves readers susceptible to feeling that it attempted to dupe them when they read about the basis for the charge.
-
From a poster on a yahoo board. Has anyone here read rules for radicals? Is this actually what is in it?
Saul David Alinsky (January 30, 1909 – June 12, 1972) was an American community organizer and writer. He is generally considered to be the founder of modern community organizing. He is often noted for his book Rules for Radicals.
There are 8 levels of control that must be obtained before you are able to create a social state.
The first is the most important.
1) Healthcare – Control healthcare and you control the people
2) Poverty – Increase the Poverty
level as high as possible, poor people are easier to control and will not fight
back if you are providing everything for them to live.
3) Debt – Increase the debt to an
unsustainable level. That way you are able to increase taxes, and this will
produce more poverty.
4) Gun Control – Remove the ability
to defend themselves from the Government. That way you are able to create a
police state.
5) Welfare – Take control of every
aspect of their lives (Food, Housing, and
Income)
6) Education – Take control of what
people read and listen to – take control of what children learn in
school.
7) Religion – Remove the belief in
the God from the Government and
schools
8) Class Warfare – Divide the people
into the wealthy and the poor. This will cause more discontent and it will be
easier to take (Tax) the wealthy with the support of the
poor.
Does any of this sound familiar???
-
Yes, I have read the book, and no - that post is a cobbled-together list of socialist/Marxist principles.
Alinsky dedicated "Rules for Radicals" to Satan - seriously. Take a look at the book for yourself - it's not a difficult or a long read.
Also - for an excellent analysis of just how Barack Obama is following Alinsky's blueprint to the letter - see this pamphlet written by David Horowitz:
www.amazon.com/Barack-Obamas-Rules-Revolution-Alinsky-ebook/dp/B009KSFK8U/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1391704347&sr=8-3&keywords=obama%27s+rules
-
Thank you for the reply.
I haven't seen David Horowitz around much the last few years. He used to write columns and appear on cable broadcasts.
Have you seen him?
Should I read both? I hesitate to spend a dime for some scumbag's book - Alinsky.
-
Horowitz is still very active. He continues to write extensively. Go to www.frontpagemag.com to see what his organization puts out - including much which is authored by him.
With regard to Alinsky - it would benefit you to know exactly what he teaches in his book - but Horowitz's pamphlet provides a good summary and applies it to specific Obama policies. Hillary Clinton also did her master's thesis on Alinsky.
Like "Mein Kampf" - it behooves you to know what the person behind the movement believed. "Rules for Radicals" should be available very cheaply - it's a very short book.
-
http://www.glennbeck.com/2014/02/14/awful-lib-reporter-goes-after-6th-grade-honor-roll-student/
-
The Goldberg File
By Jonah Goldberg
February 21, 2014
Fascism, Again
Timothy Snyder has written the best piece I've seen on what's going on in Kiev. It's worth reading just as a primer. But it's also interesting in other ways. I had not read a lot about the "Eurasian Union," a proposed counterweight to the European Union, in much the same way the Legion of Doom is a counterweight to the Justice League. Putin and a band of avowed "National Bolshevik" intellectuals are in effect trying to put the band back together. Snyder writers:
The Eurasian Union is the enemy of the European Union, not just in strategy but in ideology. The European Union is based on a historical lesson: that the wars of the twentieth century were based on false and dangerous ideas, National Socialism and Stalinism, which must be rejected and indeed overcome in a system guaranteeing free markets, free movement of people, and the welfare state. Eurasianism, by contrast, is presented by its advocates as the opposite of liberal democracy.
The Eurasian ideology draws an entirely different lesson from the twentieth century. Founded around 2001 by the Russian political scientist Aleksandr Dugin, it proposes the realization of National Bolshevism. Rather than rejecting totalitarian ideologies, Eurasianism calls upon politicians of the twenty-first century to draw what is useful from both fascism and Stalinism. Dugin's major work, The Foundations of Geopolitics, published in 1997, follows closely the ideas of Carl Schmitt, the leading Nazi political theorist. Eurasianism is not only the ideological source of the Eurasian Union, it is also the creed of a number of people in the Putin administration, and the moving force of a rather active far-right Russian youth movement. For years Dugin has openly supported the division and colonization of Ukraine.
The point man for Eurasian and Ukrainian policy in the Kremlin is Sergei Glazyev, an economist who like Dugin tends to combine radical nationalism with nostalgia for Bolshevism. He was a member of the Communist Party and a Communist deputy in the Russian parliament before cofounding a far-right party called Rodina, or Motherland. In 2005 some of its deputies signed a petition to the Russian prosecutor general asking that all Jewish organizations be banned from Russia.
Some of this was news to me. I was familiar with the National Bolshevism of the early Nazi years. Thinkers like the Ukrainian Bolshevik Karl Radek and the Nazi Otto Strasser dabbled with the idea of merging Bolshevik and Nazi ideology. After all, if you're already a National Socialist it's not that long a trip to being a National Bolshevik, now is it? Some left-wing members of the Nazi military described themselves as National Bolsheviks as well. But ultimately, National Bolshevism as an intellectual movement died in the crib. Or so I thought.
What I did not know is that National Bolshevism is making such a comeback. And while, it's evil and a national-security threat and all that, I can't help but smile.
The Opposite of Opposites
National Bolshevism must strike some on the left as quite perplexing. After all, Bolshevism and Nazism — like fascism and socialism — are opposites, right?
If you read my book, you'd know I consider this the greatest myth and/or lie of the 20th century (coming in a distant second: the idea that there is a difference between good flan and bad flan).
Funny enough, the Eurasianists are counting on this myth for their propaganda campaign. They insist that the protesters in Kiev are trying to stage a "brown revolution" or fascist coup. In other words the de facto fascists are calling the anti-fascists "fascists." And apparently lots of folks are falling for it. Snyder again:
Why exactly do people with such views think they can call other people fascists? And why does anyone on the Western left take them seriously? One line of reasoning seems to run like this: the Russians won World War II, and therefore can be trusted to spot Nazis. Much is wrong with this. . . .
The other source of purported Eurasian moral legitimacy seems to be this: since the representatives of the Putin regime only very selectively distanced themselves from Stalinism, they are therefore reliable inheritors of Soviet history, and should be seen as the automatic opposite of Nazis, and therefore to be trusted to oppose the far right.
Again, much is wrong about this. . . .
Snyder's rebuttals are good (I've trimmed them mostly for space). But they don't cut to the heart of it.
First, let's clear some underbrush. The idea that Communism and Nazism are opposites is more of a utilitarian idea than a core conviction for the Left. It is a rationalization that allows the Left to cut around the historical tumor of Nazism and fascism and say, That has nothing to do with us.
But the simple fact is that the hard Left has always endorsed or at least sympathized with national-socialist countries. What do you think Cuba is? It's nationalistic and it's socialistic. Venezuela under Chávez and now Maduro is nationalist and socialist. Nicaragua in the 1980s, etc., etc. Read a speech by any socialist dictator and swap out the word "socialize" for "nationalize": The meaning of the sentences doesn't change one iota. Nationalized health care is socialized medicine. Even Obama's weak-tea socialistic rhetoric is usually dolled up in the rhetoric of nationalism, even militaristic nationalism. Let's all be like SEAL Team Six! Let's make this a " Sputnik Moment."
Most of the Left in the U.S. didn't really hate the German national-socialists until Stalin told them to. That the useful idiots thought Stalin's command to turn on his one-time Nazi ally was rooted in deep ideological conviction just proves the depths of their idiocy.
After all, it's not like the Left suddenly turned on Stalin when he embraced nationalism wholeheartedly and talked of fighting the Nazis as part of the "Great Patriotic War for Mother Russia." But, hey, maybe I'm missing the deep Marxist themes in the phrase "Great Patriotic War for Mother Russia."
North Korea by Another Name
If you think this is all semantic faculty-lounge argy-bargy, consider the fact that North Korea is in many ways as "Nazi" as the Nazis were. It's a nationalist country that subscribes to eugenic theories that it uses to justify the industrial torture and slaughter of its own citizens. In fact, North Korea's eugenics is crazier than Nazi Germany's was. I'm not trying to minimize the evil of the Holocaust, but "Jew" is a real category of human being and eugenics generally weren't discredited in the 1930s. Eighty years later, North Korea believes that the political views of people are genetically heritable for generations. So you can get sent to a death camp if your great uncle said something nice about America or if your second cousin lives in South Korea.
But because of the emotional and political investment in the idea that Nazism has nothing to do with Communism, North Korea is put in a category of lesser evil. If the Kims just described themselves as Nazis — but kept all of the same policies — it would be vastly easier to rally public opinion against their decades of murder. But when you talk about the evil of Communist regimes, a lot of people idiotically roll their eyes. Everyone is a brave anti-Nazi now that they're all gone, but many are afraid to devote a fraction of that passion when it comes to the heirs, imitators, and competitors of Nazism.
Heresies of Heresies
Richard Pipes had the best pithy summation of the difference between Nazism and Bolshevism. They aren't opposites, he argued, they're both "heresies of socialism."
I agree with this entirely, but step back from that a bit. Socialism itself is a heresy — a heresy of tribalism. Socialism is simply an attempt to gussy up ancient tribal tendencies in modern garb. Nazism was tribalism of one race. Communism is tribalism of one class. Italian fascism was tribalism of one nation.
There are of course, better and worse forms of tribalism. And, I would argue that a little tribalism, like a little nationalism, is a healthy thing, insofar as communities aren't held together by reason alone. They're held together by a complex set of sentiments, and a politics that doesn't take account of that will necessarily fail. As Edmund Burke writes, "politics ought to be adjusted not to human reasonings but to human nature, of which the reason is but a part, and by no means the greatest part."
But here is the important point. Looking back on the long history of humanity, tribalism — simple or complex — was the norm for 99 percent of our time on Earth. It wasn't until 200-300 years ago that a different path emerged. (Yes, Christianity was a big leap forward in advancing a universal conception of humanity, in principle. But in practice it was often coopted by tribalism in one form or another. We can talk about that more another time.) The different path emerged largely in England and spread from there. This different path recognized the sovereignty of the individual, the necessity of the rule of law, democratic legitimacy, and private property, and the inherent dignity of bourgeois labor.
As I've written before, what makes America special is that we took England's culture of liberty and broadened it out into a virtual tribe of liberty. I say virtual because we took the ethnic and racial components out of it (and, no, we didn't do it overnight). You can be a progressive or a liberal or a social democrat and still believe in all of the things that define the tribe of liberty. You can also be a nationalist, a patriot, or a traditionalist and believe in all of these things. But go too far in either direction and you can fall off the path. Perhaps path is the wrong word. Bridge might make more sense. After all there's a left side and a right side of the road. But if you fall off a bridge, all you do is fall down.
Seen from this perspective the differences between Bolshevism, Nazism, Maoism, Italian Fascism, North Korean Juche, et al may be interesting or meaningful (the differences between football and rugby are interesting and meaningful, but at the end of the day they're both just games). But seen from the broadest perspective, they're simply different ways to fall off the bridge and back into the wilderness below.
-
http://www.theblaze.com/blog/2014/02/20/10-quotes-that-shred-progressivism-from-a-best-selling-british-author-who-left-the-left/
-
Fox should hire her as a counterpoint to Piers Morgan.
She would trounce him. Though that is not saying much from what I read about his ratings recently.
Maybe he will be cancelled.
-
http://www.glennbeck.com/2014/02/26/its-true-government-agents-are-infiltrating-online-communities/
-
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2014/03/17/The-Economist-Calls-Out-Crony-Capitalism-But-Misses-the-Point
-
"The Economist’s crony-capitalism index also isolates business sectors like casinos, oil and gas, and real estate as crony sectors while ignoring things like high-tech, healthcare, and entertainment."
Wow. What a huge and preposterous "oversight". High tech, and entertainment are the biggest backers of the liberals. Health care seems to be a monster unto itself.
Overall the Economist is to some degree calling out the Bamster some, and recently have started to actually say something good about the right, but overall they are still progressives at heart. I would still label them maybe just a tad to the right of MSM - but only a tad.
-
I was first exposed to The Economist when I went back to college, to U. of PA, in 1975. At the time I was quite impressed with it.
-
A Lesson in Irony.
The Food Stamp Program, administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is proud to be distributing this year the greatest amount of free Meals and Food Stamps ever, to 47 million people.
Meanwhile, the National Park Service, administered by the U.S. Department of the Interior, asks us "Please Do Not Feed the Animals." Their stated reason for the policy is because "The animals will grow dependent on handouts and will not learn to take care of themselves."
Thus ends today's lesson in irony.
-
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303325204579463581942405804?mg=reno64-wsj
WONDER LAND
Why Can't the Left Govern?
The Left can win elections. Why can't it run a government?
By
DANIEL HENNINGER
March 26, 2014 7:12 p.m. ET
Surveying the fall in support for the governments of Barack Obama, New York City's progressive Mayor Bill de Blasio and France's Socialist President François Hollande, a diagnosis of the current crisis begins to emerge: The political left can win elections but it's unable to govern.
Once in office, the left stumbles from fiasco to fiasco. ObamaCare, enacted without a single vote from the opposition party, is an impossible labyrinth of endless complexity. Bill de Blasio's war on charter schools degenerated into an unseemly attack on poor New York minority children. François Hollande's first act in 2012, like a character in a medieval fable, was to order that more tax revenue be squeezed from the French turnips.
Mr. Obama's approval rating is about 43%, Mr. de Blasio's has sunk to 45% after just two months in office, and Mr. Hollande hit the lowest approvals ever recorded in the modern French presidency. The left inevitably says their leaders failed them. The failure looks self-inflicted.
Three European academics asked themselves recently how 19 United Nations summit meetings have been unable to produce a treaty on global warming. Why the cause of climate change has fallen apart is described in "Melting Summits," a paper and cautionary tale just published in the Academy of Management Journal by Elke Schüssler of Germany, Charles Clemens Rüling of France and Bettina Wittneben of the U.K.
No idea in our time has had deeper political support. Al Gore and John Kerry have described disbelievers in global warming as basically idiots—"shoddy scientists" in Mr. Kerry's words. But somehow, an idea with which "no serious scientist disagrees" has gone nowhere as policy. The collapse of the U.N.'s 2009 Copenhagen climate summit was a meltdown for the ages.
In an interview with the Academy of Management about her paper, Bettina Wittneben of Oxford University, who supports a climate-change treaty and has attended 13 climate meetings, summarized the wheel-spinning: "Sometimes I just find myself shaking my head after talking to participants in recent COPs [the U.N.'s climate meetings]. They'll come back from the meetings simply brimming with enthusiasm about the networking they've done, the contacts they've made, the new ideas about their research they had or the new angles to lobbying they thought of. But ask what progress was made in terms of global policy initiatives, and all you get is a shrug."
Put differently, it's not about doing something serious about global warming. It's really all about them (a virus threatening American conservatism as well). The "them" at the U.N. summits included not just the participating nations but a galaxy of well-financed nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs.
They travel under their own acronyms. The environmentalists are ENGOs, the trade unions are TUNGOS, indigenous peoples are IPOs, business and industry are BINGOs and women, gender and youth groups are YOUNGOs.
These are the left's famous change agents. The authors dryly describe what they actually do as "field maintenance." Instead of being "catalysts for change," they write that "more and more actors find COP participation useful for their purposes, but their activity is increasingly disconnected from the issue of mitigating climate change."
And little wonder. The failed efforts to get the global-warming treaty done reflect the issue's departure from anything practical. It's impossible to read this history of global warming's demise without hearing resonances of ObamaCare's problems.
The text of the climate-change treaty at Copenhagen in 2009 included "thousands of 'brackets,' or alternative wordings." A participant described the puzzle palace: "There are more and more parallel processes, and everything must be negotiated at the same time. The number of . . . negotiation issues has increased and many of these issues . . . are discussed in different places at the same time. . . . Very few people understand the whole thing." Maybe they could just pass it to find out what's in it.
One organization specialist calls this phenomenon "social deadlock." ObamaCare is social deadlock. But the American left keeps doing it. This isn't the 1930s, and smart people on the left might come to grips with the fact that the one-grand-scheme-fits-all compulsion is out of sync with the individualization that technology lets people design into their lives today.
Rather than resolve the complexities of public policy in the world we inhabit, the left's default is to simply acquire power, then cram down what they want to do with one-party votes or by fiat, figuring they can muddle through the wreckage later. Thus the ObamaCare mandates. Thus candidate de Blasio's determination, cheered on by the city's left-wing establishment, to jam all its kids through an antique public-school system. The ObamaCare mandates are a mess, and the war on charter schools is an embarrassment.
Making the unworkable work by executive decree or court-ordered obedience is one way to rule, and maybe they like it that way. But it isn't governing.
-
Socialism is the system of the future. It's never worked in the past, it doesn't work now but they are so sure it'll work the next time.
-
http://townhall.com/columnists/benshapiro/2014/04/09/the-rise-of-american-totalitarianism-n1820552/page/full
-
Thomas Piketty: A new favorite of Obama and his economic council, Jack Lew Treasury Secretary and the rest of the globalist progressive crowd.
*********Economist Receives Rock Star Treatment
By JENNIFER SCHUESSLERAPRIL 18, 2014
French economists who boldly question the dominance of capital over labor — and call for a progressive global tax on wealth — visit the American halls of power about as often as French rock stars headline Madison Square Garden.
But those halls of power are where Thomas Piketty, a 42-year-old professor at the Paris School of Economics, has been singing his song of late.
Since touching down in Washington this week to promote his new book, “Capital in the 21st Century,” Mr. Piketty has met with Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew, given a talk to President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers and lectured at the International Monetary Fund, before flying to New York for an appearance at the United Nations, a sold-out public discussion with the Nobel laureates Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman, and meetings with media outlets ranging from The Harvard Business Review to New York Magazine to The Nation.
The response from fellow economists, so far mainly from the liberal side of the spectrum, has verged on the rapturous. Mr. Krugman, a columnist for The New York Times, predicted in The New York Review of Books that Mr. Piketty’s book would “change both the way we think about society and the way we do economics.”
Thomas Piketty at one of his New York talks this week. Credit Karsten Moran for The New York Times
But through all the accolades, Mr. Piketty seems to be maintaining a most un-rock-star-like modesty, brushing away comparisons to Tocqueville and Marx with an embarrassed grimace and a Gallic puff of the lips.
“It makes very little sense: How can you compare?” he said on Thursday between gulps of yogurt during a break in his packed schedule — before going on to list the 19th-century data sets that Marx neglected to draw on in “Das Kapital,” his 1867 magnum opus.
“If Marx had looked at them, it would have made him think a bit more,” he said. “When I started collecting data, I had no idea where it would go.”
Mr. Piketty’s dedication to data has long made him a star among economists, who credit his work on income inequality (with Emmanuel Saez and others) for diving deep into seemingly dull tax archives to bring an unprecedented historical perspective to the subject.
But “Capital in the 21st Century,” which analyzes more than two centuries of data on the even murkier topic of accumulated wealth, has elicited a response of an entirely different order. Months before its originally scheduled April publication, it was generating intense discussion on blogs, prompting Harvard University Press to push the release forward to mid-February.
Since then, it has hit the New York Times best-seller list, and sold some 46,000 copies (hardback and e-book) — a stratospheric number for a nearly 700-page scholarly tome dotted with charts and graphs (as well as references to Balzac, Jane Austen and “Titanic”).
And not all those readers are economists. Six years after the financial crisis, “people are looking for a bible of sorts,” said Julia Ott, an assistant professor of the history of capitalism at the New School, who appeared on a panel with Mr. Piketty at New York University on Thursday. “He’s speaking to a real feeling out there that things haven’t been fixed, that we need to take stock, that we need big ideas, big proposals, big global solutions.”
Photo
Mr. Piketty's book on sale after he spoke Wednesday at the Graduate Center at the City University of New York. Credit Karsten Moran for The New York Times
Those big ideas, and the hunger for them, were on ample display at N.Y.U., where the standing-room crowd was treated to Mr. Piketty’s apology for having written such a long book, followed by a breakneck PowerPoint presentation of its main arguments, illustrated with striking charts.
At the book’s center is Mr. Piketty’s contention — contrary to the influential theory developed by Simon Kuznets in the 1950s and ’60s — that mature capitalist economies do not inevitably evolve toward greater economic equality. Instead, Mr. Piketty contends, the data reveals a deeper historical tendency for the rate of return on capital to outstrip the overall rate of economic growth, leading to greater and greater concentrations of wealth at the very top.
Despite this inevitable-seeming drift toward “patrimonial capitalism” that his charts seemed to show, Mr. Piketty rejected any economic determinism. “It all depends on what the political system decides,” he said.
Such statements, along with Mr. Piketty’s proposal for a progressive wealth tax and income tax rates up to 80 percent, have aroused strong interest among those eager to recapture the momentum of the Occupy movement. The Nation ran a nearly 10,000-word cover article placing his book within a rising tide of neo-Marxist thought, while National Review Online dismissed it as confirmation of the left’s “dearest ‘Das Kapital’ fantasies.”
But Mr. Piketty, who writes in the book that the collapse of Communism in 1989 left him “vaccinated for life” against the “lazy rhetoric of anticapitalism,” is no Marxian revolutionary. “I believe in private property,” he said in the interview. “But capitalism and markets should be the slave of democracy and not the opposite.”
Even if he doesn’t expect his policy proposals to find favor in Washington anytime soon, Mr. Piketty called his meetings there gratifying. Mr. Lew, he said, seemed to have read parts of the book carefully. A member of the Council on Economic Advisers corrected a small error concerning Balzac’s novel “Le Père Goriot,” which includes a discussion of getting ahead through advantageous marriage rather than hard work. “I was impressed,” Mr. Piketty said.
His book, however, ends not with an appeal to policy makers, but with a call for all citizens to “take a serious interest in money, its measurement, the facts surrounding it and its history.”
“It’s too easy for ordinary people to just say, ‘I don’t know anything about economics,’ ” he said, before rushing to his next appearance. “But economics is not just for economists.”
A version of this article appears in print on April 19, 2014, on page C1 of the New York edition with the headline: Economist Receives Rock Star Treatment.********
-
Please post on the Economics thread on SCH as well. Thank you.
-
http://dailycaller.com/2014/04/21/obama-admin-wants-to-require-companies-to-give-workers-numbers-addresses-to-unions-before-labor-elections/
-
http://patriotpost.us/alexander/9235
-
By request of Guro Crafty:
http://reason.com/blog/2014/04/28/doj-operation-chokepoint-and-porn-stars
Seemingly not concrete yet, but the hypothetical link is interesting. From the article:
"The very premise is clearly chilling—the DOJ is coercing private businesses in an attempt to centrally engineer the American marketplace based on it's own politically biased moral judgements. Targeted business categories so far have included payday lenders, ammunition sales, dating services, purveyors of drug paraphernalia, and online gambling sites."
-
April 29, 2014
St. Louis County Abrogates Property Rights
By Timothy Birdnow
St. Louis County, Mo. is planning to force property owners to purchase a landlord's license to rent out or even allow friends or family to inhabit a privately owned domicile.
Not content with collecting fees for "safety" inspections and occupancy permits, the county government is now intent on imposing a landlord's license and extracting yet another fee. Duplication of current law aside, this new requirement strikes at the heart of a fundamental legal right: the right to ownership of property.
Private property is the most basic principle in American jurisprudence. When Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, he borrowed from the philosopher John Locke, who asserted three fundamental rights enjoyed by all: life, liberty, and property. Jefferson, at the urging of Benjamin Franklin, changed the last to "pursuit of happiness" because he did not want to give slaveholders any sort of legal justification should abolition finally overtake the "peculiar institution." Still, everyone knew what Jefferson was getting at here, and though the Declaration is not a foundational legal document, it does illustrate the mindset of the Founders, who clearly believed in ownership of property.
As John Adams stated:
The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the law of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.
And so it is; without a sacred view of property, a society inevitably slides into despotism.
The first property right is self-ownership. We have seen the left nibble away at this concept, and the ObamaCare mandate has effectively tipped the scales toward state ownership of American citizens.
With that under their belts, the Progressives can now turn their lustful eyes back toward real estate. Actually, they have been nibbling away at the rights of property owners for decades. Eminent domain, the Fair Housing Act, zoning restrictions, occupancy permits, "safety" inspections (which are more often than not also about cosmetics), property maintenance codes – all circumscribe the rights of owners to have final say on the use of their property. Yes, many of these things were well-intentioned and have contributed to a more pleasant society, but the movement has been ever toward government regulation of private property. While property rights are not absolute, where does ownership end? If government tells the owner how he can use his property, can it be said that we have private ownership at all?
We've seen some huge leaps in recent years: the Kelo decision allowing property to be taken from the lawful owner and given to a developer, for instance, or the declaration of property as environmentally sensitive and so not allowed to be developed. We have the Cliven Bundy affair; Bundy had purchased grazing rights, which are in themselves a contractual interest. We've seen government shut off water to farmers , or allow lands to be flooded, bankrupting farmers and forcing them off their lands.
Now we witness the imposition of licensing requirements for property owners. The issuance of a license presupposes that government holds the rights and that the "owner" is being granted a privilege.
Read the bill here.
The bill is chock-full of "at the discretion of the Administrator." What does that remind us of? That's right: ObamaCare is full of this same discretionary empowerment of bureaucratic officials.
This law is an egregious violation of fundamental property rights. For example, sec. 852.200 bans occupation of a property by anyone but the owner or anyone "Related to the owner of the property within the second degree of consanguinity." But an exemption can be made (much like ObamaCare) at the discretion of the administrator.
In sec. 825.350, we learn that all occupancy permits will be revoked if the owner fails to file for a renewal of his license, thus forcing residents to vacate the property – without compensation for the cost of their move.
Section 825.450 is a doozie. It reads:
825.450 - The Director may suspend or revoke a license issued pursuant to this Code upon the grounds specified in this section. Notice of the suspension or revocation shall be provided in writing and served upon the owner by means reasonably calculated to provide actual notice to the owner. ( i.) A license may be suspended if property is found by the Director to be out of compliance with the Property Maintenance Code and corrections are not made to bring the property back into compliance within thirty (30) days from the date of notice of non-compliance. (ii.) A license may be suspended if an owner makes • material false statements on a license application or declaration for exemption; or fails to report a change of occupancy of any property owned or managed for which a license under this Code has been issued. (iii.) In the exercise of sound discretion by the Director, a license may be suspended or revoked if the owner has been notified by the Director of three (3) or more acts by occupants of licensed residential rental property which constitute a public nuisance. ( iv.) A license may be suspended for conviction of a misdemeanor, felony or ordinance violation by the owner or by occupants occurring on or about licensed residential rental property. (v.) A license may be revoked if the owner has more than two (2) license suspensions in any twelve (12) month timeframe[.]
Get that? The director is free to decide compliance, and the landlord is put in a catch-22. He is unable by law to remove bad tenants except through the very slow legal process, yet he is held responsible for the actions of tenants. And what of the tenants? If their landlord should be convicted of, say, a DWI, they may be tossed off the property.
I ask you, who owns the property? The landlord has duties specified here, but no real rights. The tenants (who purchased the right to inhabit the property) have no rights. It seems that St. Louis County has simply taken away the fundamental rights of a property owner.
If "A property right is the exclusive authority to determine how a resource is used," then how can we allow this usurpation? Government is granting itself this right. The owners are reduced to managers.
Like the proverbial frog in a pot of water, we have suffered the slow increase of heat, allowing our governments to degrade our freedoms incrementally. Property is a fundamental right, and as such is bestowed by God and Natural Law, not by the beneficence of men in government. St. Louis County should be ashamed of itself for this treachery.
Anyone wishing to register their displeasure can contact County Executive Charlie Dooley (D) at http://www.stlouisco.com/YourGovernment/CountyExecutive/DearCharlie, or phone his office at (314) 615-7016 or (314) 615-5889.
Contact the County Council at (314) 615-5432, or obtain the e-mail addresses for councilmen here: http://www.stlouisco.com/YourGovernment/CountyCouncil
Tim is a realtor in the St. Louis metropolitan area. Read more from Tim at The Aviary www.tbirdnow.mee.nu.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/04/st_louis_county_abrogates_property_rights.html
-
I am extremely appreciative of this post. It is unfortunately rare for me to be among people who also think tromping all over our property rights is outrageous. In Minneapolis we already have the landlord licensing they are proposing in St. Louis, and it is all political. Property isn't even an afterthought for them. Tenants make up a decisive constituency. Landlords are far fewer in number and often live outside the city. Homeowners often hate their neighboring landlords due to the behavior of the tenants. The City only holds the landlord accountable. A landlord license costs $1000 per property plus annual fees and can be revoked on a whim. It is all based in "administrative law" so landlords have no real rights in a hearing. Another employee of the regulatory department sits where the judge ought to be.
it is a taking; the Supreme Court has ruled that partial takings are takings. Yet this kind of encroachment on rights keeps expanding. People think an attack on one group or one right is justified because - it doesn't apply to them. Just like supporting taxes levied on someone other than you. They don't see that it erodes their rights too.
What happens in this case is that the weak landlords fail and so-called fixer-uppers disappear. 40% of large rental neighborhoods were lost to foreclosure, many of them torn down. Like Big Oil and Big Pharma, only strong landlords managing limited supply with high rents survive. High costs and heavy regulations keep out competition. Affordable housing becomes a misnomer for programs to pay housing costs that are no longer affordable. Like the healthcare mess, the fascism is self sustaining and ever-expanding because more and more people need help and fewer and fewer can afford to buy their own home and pay the ever-increasing taxes.
-
How LBJ ruined America:
**********Great Society's decline: The high cost of Lyndon Johnson's grand project
By George Will
JewishWorldReview.com | Standing on his presidential limousine, Lyndon Johnson, campaigning in Providence, R.I., in September 1964, bellowed through a bullhorn: “We’re in favor of a lot of things and we’re against mighty few.” This was a synopsis of what he had said four months earlier.
Fifty years ago this Thursday, at the University of Michigan, Johnson had proposed legislating into existence a Great Society. It would end poverty and racial injustice, “but that is just the beginning.” It would “rebuild the entire urban United States” while fending off “boredom and restlessness,” slaking “the hunger for community” and enhancing “the meaning of our lives” — all by assembling “the best thought and the broadest knowledge.”
In 1964, 76 percent of Americans trusted government to do the right thing “just about always or most of the time”; today, 19 percent do. The former number is one reason Johnson did so much; the latter is one consequence of his doing so.
Barry Goldwater, Johnson’s 1964 opponent who assumed that Americans would vote to have a third president in 14 months, suffered a landslide defeat. After voters rebuked FDR in 1938 for attempting to “pack” the Supreme Court, Republicans and Southern Democrats prevented any liberal legislating majority in Congress until 1965. That year, however, when 68 senators and 295 representatives were Democrats, Johnson was unfettered.
He remains, regarding government’s role, much the most consequential 20th-century president. Indeed, the American Enterprise Institute’s Nicholas Eberstadt, in his measured new booklet “The Great Society at Fifty: The Triumph and the Tragedy,” says LBJ, more than FDR, “profoundly recast the common understanding of the ends of governance.”
When Johnson became president in 1963, Social Security was America’s only nationwide social program. His programs and those they subsequently legitimated put the nation on the path to the present, in which changed social norms — dependency on government has been destigmatized — have changed America’s national character.
Between 1959 and 1966 — before the War on Poverty was implemented — the percentage of Americans living in poverty plunged by about one-third, from 22.4 to 14.7, slightly lower than in 2012. But, Eberstadt cautions, the poverty rate is “incorrigibly misleading” because government transfer payments have made income levels and consumption levels significantly different. Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, disability payments, heating assistance and other entitlements have, Eberstadt says, made income “a poor predictor of spending power for lower-income groups.” Stark material deprivation is now rare:
“By 2011 . . . average per capita housing space for people in poverty was higher than the U.S. average for 1980. . . . [Many] appliances were more common in officially impoverished homes in 2011 than in the typical American home of 1980. . . . DVD players, personal computers, and home Internet access are now typical in them — amenities not even the richest U.S. households could avail themselves of at the start of the War on Poverty.”
But the institutionalization of anti-poverty policy has been, Eberstadt says carefully, “attended” by the dramatic spread of a “tangle of pathologies.” Daniel Patrick Moynihan coined that phrase in his 1965 report calling attention to family disintegration among African Americans. The tangle, which now ensnares all races and ethnicities, includes welfare dependency and “flight from work.”
Twenty-nine percent of Americans — about 47 percent of blacks and 48 percent of Hispanics — live in households receiving means-tested benefits. And “the proportion of men 20 and older who are employed has dramatically and almost steadily dropped since the start of the War on Poverty, falling from 80.6 percent in January 1964 to 67.6 percent 50 years later.” Because work — independence, self-reliance — is essential to the culture of freedom, ominous developments have coincided with Great Society policies:
For every adult man ages 20 to 64 who is between jobs and looking for work, more than three are neither working nor seeking work, a trend that began with the Great Society. And what Eberstadt calls “the earthquake that shook family structure in the era of expansive anti-poverty policies” has seen out-of-wedlock births increase from 7.7 percent in 1965 to more than 40 percent in 2012, including 72 percent of black babies.
LBJ’s starkly bifurcated legacy includes the triumphant Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 — and the tragic aftermath of much of his other works. Eberstadt asks: Is it “simply a coincidence” that male flight from work and family breakdown have coincided with Great Society policies, and that dependence on government is more widespread and perhaps more habitual than ever? Goldwater’s insistent 1964 question is increasingly pertinent: “What’s happening to this country of ours?”
-
"How LBJ ruined America: Great Society's decline: The high cost of Lyndon Johnson's grand project By George Will "
George Gilder made this powerful point in "Wealth and Poverty", 1981, that the upside down incentives of the welfare state hurt the recipients even more than the multi-trillion dollar cost of it hurts the taxpayers.
Thanks for posting this CCP, George Will really nails this. It should be on the front page, all loaded with facts, and made required reading for anyone who wants to vote responsibly. People have to dig deeply and find conservative opinion in order to get these basic facts about how these policies are ruining our country:
"For every adult man ages 20 to 64 who is between jobs and looking for work, more than three are neither working nor seeking work, a trend that began with the Great Society."
“the earthquake that shook family structure in the era of expansive anti-poverty policies has seen out-of-wedlock births increase from 7.7 percent in 1965 to more than 40 percent in 2012, including 72 percent of black babies." !
Can people really not see that these programs undermine family, work and responsibility and are destroying our culture and diminishing the lives of the recipients?! We pay people to not work, We pay people to not marry. We pay them to not take responsibility for their families. And then we see more and more and more of these bad, behavioral choices. We have effective marginal tax rate of over 100% at certain levels between dependency and self sufficiency screwing up both the businesses and the potential employees.
Because pay our poor to not work, we need to import people even poorer to fill that gap. Then we pay them not to work and on goes the cycle. We don't count as income everything we pay all these people, nor count what we take in taxation from the remaining productive among us, then we marvel at the falsely measured, increasing gap between rich and poor. Go figure. What is it about Economics 1001 that we so blockheadedly refuse to accept?
-
It's understood. It's an effective way to create and control voting blocs.
-
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/conncarroll/2014/07/18/elizabeth-warren-backs-corporate-welfare-bank-n1863643?utm_source=thdailypm&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCYDElfhAko&feature=youtu.be
-
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/08/29/after-being-fined-and-forced-to-host-gay-weddings-christian-farm-owners-make-drastic-decision-that-will-likely-hurt-their-business/
-
http://www.zombietime.com/zomblog/?p=1953
-
http://www.tpnn.com/2014/10/14/city-of-houston-demands-pastors-turn-over-sermons/
-
Houston Gay Mafia Goes After Pastors
In a move eerily similar to that of fascist regimes, the city of Houston demanded that pastors hand over their sermons to the city for a review of teachings that might speak out against homosexuality or transgenderism. After an outcry, the city is partially backing off, but make no mistake: This is a shot across the bow for any who oppose the homosexual agenda.
Last year, Houston voters elected the city’s first openly lesbian mayor, Annise Parker. It wasn’t long before the city passed the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO), which granted "equal rights" (read: preferred status as those with whom no one may disagree) to individuals with gender disorientation pathology. Under the ordinance, men can use ladies’ restrooms, ladies can use men’s restrooms, and, in short, anything goes -- except orthodox Christianity. Texans don’t take too well to folks messing with their manhood, and it wasn’t long before a petition drive opposing the ordinance drew more than 50,000 signatures -- more than double the number needed to get the issue on the ballot.
Imagine the shock when the mayor and city attorney announced the petition was invalid due to "irregularities." Specifically, City Attorney David Feldman announced, “With respect to the referendum petition filed to repeal the ‘HERO’ ordinance, there are simply too many documents with irregularities and problems to overlook. The petition is simply invalid. There is no other conclusion.” Actually, there is another conclusion -- at least 50,000 Houston residents oppose HERO. Imagine that. But in a suspension of disbelief, the city expects folks to believe that, of 50,000 signatures, more than 32,000 were invalid. Sure, and we have oceanfront property in Dallas to sell them.
In response, opponents of the ordinance filed a lawsuit against the city. Houston now has a coalition of about 400 area churches that oppose the new ordinance, as they actually believe that X and Y chromosomes were designed for a reason. (It's called science, which the Left supposedly champions.) The churches were not party to the lawsuit, but it just so happens that some of the 50,000 signatures were reportedly gathered at churches (which, incidentally, is fully legal).
In retribution, the city claimed the churches' sermons were fair game as a political target because petition signatures were gathered inside a church. Several pastors were delivered a subpoena demanding they yield “all speeches, presentations, or sermons related to HERO, the Petition, Mayor Annise Parker, homosexuality, or gender identity prepared by, delivered by, revised by, or approved by you or in your possession” as well as “all communications with members of your congregations” about HERO and the petition drive.
Seems that the tolerant crowd Mayor Parker runs with isn’t so tolerant after all. Unable to abide the idea that Christian pastors may actually be preaching what the Bible says, she tried to intimidate them. Alliance Defending Freedom, which is representing the pastors, noted, “The city council and its attorneys are engaging in an inquisition designed to stifle any critique of its actions.”
Now, the city appears to be backing off -- somewhat. "Mayor Parker agrees with those who are concerned about the city legal department’s subpoenas for pastor’s sermons,” according to Janice Evans, chief policy officer for the City of Houston. “The city will move to narrow the scope [of the subpoenas] during an upcoming court hearing." As if that will smooth things over.
Mayor Parker said, "There’s no question the wording was overly broad. But I also think there was some misinterpretation on the other side.” In other words, they're still going after HERO opponents -- after they adjust the wording a bit.
And then she had the temerity to complain about being "vilified coast to coast."
Pastor Dave Welch, one of the subpoenaed pastors, said, "What they did by issuing these subpoenas was to punish any pastor in the city of Houston who participated in gathering signatures against the HERO ordinance." He added that even the revised subpoenas are clearly “an effort to both punish and intimidate those who dared to step-up and oppose this city council.”
It’s no secret that across the nation, efforts are multiplying to silence Christians, censor pastors and eliminate discourse in opposition to the homosexual agenda. The Houston Council’s actions are not the first attempt but are among the most brazen. The Council, however, has no idea what -- or whom -- it’s up against. Religious Liberty is the bedrock of our Republic, and government review of sermons has no place in the Land of the Free. Parker and her cohorts may think they messed only with a few Texas pastors, but when it comes to defending our God-given and constitutionally protected rights, she messed with all of us.
-
And here is a follow up to the preceding:
Texas AG to Houston: Stop Assaulting Religious Liberty
The city of Houston recently subpoenaed five pastors for all sermons and correspondence dealing with gender disorientation pathology, or mentioning Houston Mayor Annise Parker, a lesbian. The city was effectively targeting any religious objection to its recent Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO). The city poked the bear, however, provoking a groundswell of opposition to this constitutional abuse. That now includes a harshly worded letter from Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who is running for governor. “Whether you intend it to be so or not, your action is a direct assault on the religious liberty guaranteed by the First Amendment,” Abbott wrote to Houston City Attorney David Feldman. “You should immediately instruct your lawyers to withdraw the city’s subpoenas." Mayor Parker implied the city would back off, but it has yet to do so
-
What is so romantic about sitting in a van for 16 hours from your Ivy League College to protest a police officer who was assaulted by a young oversized bully and had to fight for his own life.
I was naïve at that age but this stupid?
****
In Ferguson, activists in search of a revolution
10/19/14 04:57 PM—Updated 10/19/14 05:54 PM
By Amanda Sakuma
FERGUSON, Missouri — It took seven University of Pennsylvania students piled into a rental van nearly 16 hours to drive to St. Louis. They had raised $600 in three days from a Go Fund Me account that was supposed to last them through the weekend. They slept wherever they could crash for free — the basement of a St. Louis couple’s home, or packed on the floor of a church at night.
But once in Ferguson, it was nothing like the war zone they had seen splashed on their television screens exactly two months earlier.
Instead of armored vehicles blocking suburban intersections and stoking chaos in the streets, police squad cars were escorting peaceful marches that were careful organized and tailored during the day. Instead of training assault rifles on the faces of protesters, officers were standing idly by, at times even joking around with anyone within earshot.
“It was awesome to go and be there in solidarity — we went to the events, we went to the protests — but it still feels a little like it was not ours.”Laura Krasovitzky, age 22
“I guess we are feeding off of what we saw in August,” 22-year-old Laura Krasovitzky said one night in Ferguson, looking around disappointedly as the crowds outside the police department began to disperse at an early hour.
“We all came because we saw the footage on TV of what happened,” she added. “I think people were shocked because this was happening in the U.S.”
Without the heavily militarized law enforcement response to what started as local outrage over the killing of a young black teen by a white police officer, young people like Krasovitzky may never have joined in demonstrations held months later. But as calls for the officer’s arrest grow more desperate, the movement takes on a greater meaning for supporters hundreds of miles away who seek an end to police violence.
Krasovitzky and her crew of classmates were there to join the “Weekend of Resistance” — what they saw as their generation’s own civil rights revolution over the death of Michael Brown, who was unarmed when he was shot by a Ferguson police officer. That officer, Darren Wilson, remains free while a St. Louis grand jury investigates whether he should be charged with a crime.
Related: Ferguson protesters brace for possible no indictment in Michael Brown case
National groups had stepped in to plan the four-day event, organizing rallies and marches to keep the movement alive. They set up a website offering a forum for local residents to offer couches or beds for visitors, and connected people from across the country who needed a ride to the Midwest.
Hundreds of people poured into the city – far short of the thousands organizers had projected – representing a diverse coalition of trade unions, student associations, religious groups and concerned citizens. Still, the disconnect between the die-hard protesters who had camped out for nearly 60 days and the activists who were now joining months later was difficult to overcome.
“As students from Penn., the main question we all have is what was our role there. A lot of us felt like spectators,” Krasovitzky said. “It was awesome to go and be there in solidarity — we went to the events, we went to the protests — but it still feels a little like it was not ours.”
That divide between the local activists and those joining events just for the weekend was on full display last Sunday night when audience members at an interfaith event heckled black leaders who came to St. Louis to urge for peaceful demonstrations in the face of police crackdowns.
“The brother with the suit and tie on isn’t the guy who’s protecting me,” local rapper Tef Poe said to the crowd after he had been called onstage to speak. “It’s the dude with tattoos on his face that look like Chief Keef.”
That same division was on display during the protests last weekend. By the time the group of University of Pennsylvania students arrived in Clayton, where the first organized march was to take place, police officers had already blocked off the streets with barricades to neatly contain the protests. Volunteers wearing neon vests walked along the center of the street, acting as a human boundary between the oncoming traffic and the crowd of barely a few hundred participants who marched the predetermined eight-block route. Though pockets of protesters continued to brave the brutal rain while chanting at the phalanx of police guarding the county prosecutor’s office, the demonstration wrapped up in less than two hours.
“Wait for tonight. The social injustice is what brought us here. Just wait for tonight.”Student activist
The students were running on little sleep, having arrived in town in the dead of night just hours before the first scheduled march. A St. Louis couple had posted online offering a place for the group to sleep in their basement. They pasted signs around the house leading the students to the door, and left a note reminding the young people “Don’t forget to lock up when you leave.”
Undeterred by the rain, the students were buzzing for more action. “Wait for tonight,” one said, pacing excitedly around the group of protesters still milling about. “The social injustice is what brought us here. Just wait for tonight.”
Krasovitzky said they were frustrated by how controlled the atmosphere was during the day.
“If protesters aren’t willing to get out of their comfort zones, it’s actually a joke to authorities,” she said. “They’re more effective when it gets more radicalized or more intense.”****
-
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/390677/ron-klain-and-solyndra-andrew-c-mccarthy
-
second post
If you came of age in the ‘60s or ‘70s, you might recall your parents complaining about the growing welfare state, and griping that America was turning into “communist China!” Well, they’d be happy to know that 40 years on, we’re nothing like China. That’s because as we get more socialist, they’re getting more capitalist. Joe Hoft at TheGatewayPundit.com points out that in 2011, China spent $287 billion on social welfare programs. The US, which has one-fourth the population of China, spent around $2 trillion. That means we now spend 30 times more per person on redistributing wealth than communist China does. Oh, and one more sign that China may be turning more capitalist than we are: a lot of that wealth we redistribute, we borrow from China.
-
second post
If you came of age in the ‘60s or ‘70s, you might recall your parents complaining about the growing welfare state, and griping that America was turning into “communist China!” Well, they’d be happy to know that 40 years on, we’re nothing like China. That’s because as we get more socialist, they’re getting more capitalist. Joe Hoft at TheGatewayPundit.com points out that in 2011, China spent $287 billion on social welfare programs. The US, which has one-fourth the population of China, spent around $2 trillion. That means we now spend 30 times more per person on redistributing wealth than communist China does. Oh, and one more sign that China may be turning more capitalist than we are: a lot of that wealth we redistribute, we borrow from China.
The advantage is that the Chinese know communism doesn't work.
-
US spends 30 times more per person on redistributing wealth than does the next largest economy in the world.
And every candidate here who supports so much as a slowing of the growth of spending on social programs is vilified!
-
http://thewilderness.me/real-genius/
-
http://online.wsj.com/articles/john-h-cochrane-what-the-inequality-warriors-really-want-1416442460
What the Inequality Warriors Really Want
By
John H. Cochrane
Updated Nov. 20, 2014 8:42 a.m. ET
Progressives decry inequality as the world’s most pressing economic problem. In its name, they urge much greater income and wealth taxation, especially of the reviled top 1% of earners, along with more government spending and controls—higher minimum wages, “living” wages, comparable worth directives, CEO pay caps, etc.
Inequality may be a symptom of economic problems. But why is inequality itself an economic problem? If some get rich and others get richer, who cares? If we all become poor equally, is that not a problem? Why not fix policies and problems that make it harder to earn more?
Yes, the reported taxable income and wealth earned by the top 1% may have grown faster than for the rest. This could be good inequality—entrepreneurs start companies, develop new products and services, and get rich from a tiny fraction of the social benefit. Or it could be bad inequality—crony capitalists who get rich by exploiting favors from government. Most U.S. billionaires are entrepreneurs from modest backgrounds, operating in competitive new industries, suggesting the former.
But there are many other kinds and sources of inequality. The returns to skill have increased. People who can use or program computers, do math or run organizations have enjoyed relative wage increases. But why don’t others observe these returns, get skills and compete away the skill premium? A big reason: awful public schools dominated by teachers unions, which leave kids unprepared even to enter college. Limits on high-skill immigration also raise the skill premium.
Americans stuck in a cycle of terrible early-child experiences, substance abuse, broken families, unemployment and criminality represent a different source of inequality. Their problems have proven immune to floods of government money. And government programs and drug laws are arguably part of the problem.
These problems, and many like them, have nothing to do with a rise in top 1% incomes and wealth.
Recognizing, I think, this logic, inequality warriors go on to argue that inequality is a problem because it causes other social or economic ills. A recent Standard & Poor’s report sums up some of these assertions: “As income inequality increased before the [2008 financial] crisis, less affluent households took on more and more debt to keep up—or, in this case, catch up—with the Joneses. ” In a 2011 Vanity Fair article, Columbia University economist Joe Stiglitz wrote that inequality causes a “lifestyle effect . . . people outside the top 1 percent increasingly live beyond their means.’’ He called it “trickle-down behaviorism.”
I see. A fry cook in Fresno hears that more hedge-fund managers are flying in private jets. So he buys a pickup he can’t afford. They are saying that we must tax away wealth to encourage thrift in the lower classes.
Here’s another claim: Inequality is a problem because rich people save too much. So, by transferring money from rich to poor, we can increase overall consumption and escape “secular stagnation.”
I see. Now we need to forcibly transfer wealth to solve our deep problem of national thriftiness.
You can see in these examples that the arguments are made up to justify a pre-existing answer. If these were really the problems to be solved, each has much more natural solutions.
Is eliminating the rich, to eliminate envy of their lifestyle, really the best way to stimulate savings? Might not, say, fixing the large taxation of savings in means-tested social programs make some sense? If lifestyle envy really is the mechanism, would it not be more effective to ban “Keeping Up With the Kardashians”?
If we redistribute because lack of Keynesian “spending” causes “secular stagnation”—a big if—then we should transfer money from all the thrifty, even poor, to all the big spenders, especially the McMansion owners with new Teslas and maxed-out credit cards. Is that an offensive policy? Yes. Well, maybe this wasn’t about “spending” after all.
There is a lot of fashionable talk about “redistribution” that’s not really the agenda. Even sky-high income and wealth taxes would not raise much revenue for very long, and any revenue is likely to fund government programs, not checks to the needy. Most inequality warriors, including President Obama, forthrightly advocate taxation to level incomes in the name of “fairness,” even if those taxes raise little or no revenue.
When you get past this kind of balderdash, most inequality warriors get down to the real problem they see: money and politics. They think money is corrupting politics, and they want to take away the money to purify the politics. As Berkeley economist Emmanuel Saez wrote for his 2013 Arrow lecture at Stanford University: “top income shares matter” because the “surge in top incomes gives top earners more ability to influence [the] political process.”
A critique of rent-seeking and political cronyism is well taken, and echoes from the left to libertarians. But if abuse of government power is the problem, increasing government power is a most unlikely solution.
If we increase the top federal income-tax rate to 90%, will that not just dramatically increase the demand for lawyers, lobbyists, loopholes, connections, favors and special deals? Inequality warriors think not. Mr. Stiglitz, for example, writes that “wealth is a main determinant of power.” If the state grabs the wealth, even if fairly earned, then the state can benevolently exercise its power on behalf of the common person.
No. Cronyism results when power determines wealth. Government power inevitably invites the trade of regulatory favors for political support. We limit rent-seeking by limiting the government’s ability to hand out goodies.
So when all is said and done, the inequality warriors want the government to confiscate wealth and control incomes so that wealthy individuals cannot influence politics in directions they don’t like. Koch brothers, no. Public-employee unions, yes. This goal, at least, makes perfect logical sense. And it is truly scary.
Prosperity should be our goal. And the secrets of prosperity are simple and old-fashioned: property rights, rule of law, economic and political freedom. A limited government providing competent institutions. Confiscatory taxation and extensive government control of incomes are not on the list.
Mr. Cochrane is a professor of finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, and an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute.
-
This is a great piece! I wish more people would think the phony, inequality question all the way through. You are not harmed by the success of others - except when the system of big government is set up to grant favorable treatment to the powerful. Treat all people equally under the law. Then the more your neighbor succeeds, the more likely they are hire you or your kid, or to buy your product or service, and to not be a burden on our resources and the safety net. Jack Kemp said, the problem with the rich is that we need more of them.
"A critique of rent-seeking and political cronyism is well taken, and echoes from the left to libertarians. But if abuse of government power is the problem, increasing government power is a most unlikely solution."
(In economics, rent-seeking is spending wealth on political lobbying to increase one's share of existing wealth - without creating wealth.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2001/wp0115.pdf
"Cronyism results when power determines wealth. Government power inevitably invites the trade of regulatory favors for political support. We limit rent-seeking by limiting the government’s ability to hand out goodies."
"Prosperity should be our goal. And the secrets of prosperity are simple and old-fashioned: property rights, rule of law, economic and political freedom. "
----------------------------------------
Note that when the inequality attackers won and took over all branches of government, inequality increased!
Illegitimate power and unequal treatment under the law, these are issues and crimes against the republic. Inequality is a fact, not an issue. It is the existence of rungs on the economic ladder. A perfect fight against inequality would leave everyone on the bottom rung, with no steps going up.
-
"I can prophesize that your grandchildren in America will live under socialism," he said, wagging a finger. - Nikita Khrushchev on "Face the Nation", June 2, 1957.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/nikita-khrushchev-and-face-the-nations-biggest-scoop/
Who knew we would win the cold war and then adopt their system anyway?
-
As we all know, sometimes those of our persuasion are asked about the example of the Scandanvian countries "See, it works there!" etc.
Here two articles making some contrary points:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/27/scandinavian-miracle-brutal-truth-denmark-norway-sweden
http://nypost.com/2015/01/11/sorry-liberals-scandinavian-countries-arent-utopias/http://nypost.com/2015/01/11/sorry-liberals-scandinavian-countries-arent-utopias/
-
A contrary POV no doubt, but the man has resume and I found it interesting to read his take on the book that got me started with the term "Liberal Fascism"
http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/122231
The Scholarly Flaws of "Liberal Fascism"
by Robert Paxton
Robert Paxton is emeritus professor of history at Columbia University. His latest book is Anatomy of Fascism (Vintage, 2005).
Jonah Goldberg tells us he wrote this book to get even. The liberals started it by “insist[ing] that conservatism has connections with fascism” (p. 22). Conservatives “sit dumbfounded by the nastiness of the slander” (p. 1). “The left wields the term fascism like a cudgel” (p. 3). So Jonah Goldberg has decided it is time to turn the tables and show that “the liberal closet has its own skeletons” (p. 22). After years of being “called a fascist and a Nazi by smug, liberal know-nothings” he decides that “responding to this slander is a point of personal privilege” (p. 392).
Feeling oneself a victim is wonderfully liberating. Anything goes. So Jonah Goldberg pulls out all the stops to show that fascism “is not a phenomenon of the right at all. It is, and always has been, a phenomenon of the left” (p. 7). The reader perceives at once that Goldberg likes to put things into rigid boxes: right and left, conservative and liberal, fascist and non-fascist. He doesn’t leave room for such complexities as convergences, middle grounds, or evolution over time. Thus Father Coughlin was always a man of the left, and so was Mussolini (Giacomo Matteotti or the Rosselli brothers, leaders of the Italian left whom Mussolini had assassinated, would have been scandalized by this view). The very mention of a “Third Way” puts one instantly into the fascist box.
That’s too bad, because there really is a subject here. Fascism – a political latecomer that adapted anti-socialism to a mass electorate, using means that often owed nothing to conservatism – drew on both right and left, and tried to transcend that bitter division in a purified, invigorated, expansionist national community. A sensitive analysis of what fascism drew from all quarters of the political spectrum would be a valuable project. It is not Jonah Goldberg’s project.
The bottom line is that Goldberg wants to attach a defaming epithet to liberals and the left, to “put the brown shirt on [your] opponents,” as he accuses the liberals of doing (p. 392). He goes about this task with a massive apparatus of scholarly citations and quotations. But Goldberg’s scholarship is not an even-handed search for understanding, following the best evidence fully and open-mindedly wherever it might lead. He chooses his scholarly data selectively and sometimes misleadingly in the service of his demonstration.
Jonah Goldberg knows that making the Progressives, Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt and FDR the creators of an American fascism – indeed the only American fascism, for George Lincoln Rockwell and other overt American fascist or Nazi sympathizers are totally absent from this book – is a stretch, so he has created a new box: Liberal Fascism. The Progressives and their heirs who wanted to use government to rectify social and economic ills, and who, in Goldberg’s view, thereby created an American Fascism, acted with good intentions, rarely used violence, and had nothing to do with Auschwitz. Even so, they share an intellectual heredity and a set of common goals with the European fascists. So they go into the “Liberal Fascist” box.
Liberal Fascism is an oxymoron, of course. A fascism that means no harm is a contradiction in terms. Authentic fascists intend to harm those whom they define as the nation’s internal and external enemies. Someone who doesn’t intend to harm his or her enemies, and who doesn’t relish doing it violently, isn’t really fascist.
But the problems go much deeper. Pushing Liberalism and Fascism together requires distorting both terms. It doesn’t help that these are two of the most problematical words in the political lexicon. To his credit, Goldberg is aware that the term “liberal” has been corrupted in contemporary American usage. It ought to mean (and still means in the rest of the world) a principled opposition to state interference in the economy, from Adam Smith to Ronald Reagan. Goldberg sometimes refers to “classical liberalism” in this sense, and with approval. Unfortunately he has capitulated to the sloppy current American usage by which “liberal” means, usually pejoratively nowadays, any and all of the various components of the Left, from anarchists and Marxists to moderate Democrats.
Goldberg stereotypes liberals to make them abstract, uniform, robotic. The telltale phrase is “liberals say” or “liberals think” (mostly without anyone quoted or footnoted). For example, “Liberals . . . claim” that free-market economics is fascist (p. 22). Could we please have a few examples of “liberals” who say this? It is a straw man, as is the vast, ghostly “liberal mind” that sounds like a physical reality: “fascism, shorn of the word, endures in the liberal mind” (p. 161). Does this liberal mind have a telephone number, as Henry Kissinger said famously of the European Union?
This “liberal mind” is a very big tent. Goldberg believes that moderate reformists are essentially involved in the same project as radical activists. Bernardine Dohrn, Mark Rudd, Al Gore, Hilary Clinton are all devoted in one way or another to the allegedly fascist project of taking action to make a better world.
Goldberg makes sure we understand that force and violence are integral to this “liberal” project of state action to improve society. Robespierre’s terror begins “liberalism” in this sense, and Goldberg attributes to it a fanciful fifty thousand deaths (the scholarly consensus is 12,000, which is bad enough). Later he spends a lot of time on the worst excesses of 1960s radicalism, as if the Weathermen and Hilary Clinton belong together as seekers of a new community.
Fascism is given an equally broad definition: it is any use of state power to make the world better and to create a community. This is not only too vague to mean much, it is simply wrong. Authentic fascists have never wanted to make the whole world better. As uncompromising nationalists, they want to make their own group stronger, purer, and more unified, and establish its domination over inferior groups, by force if necessary. Goldberg’s real target is state activism, and matters would be much clearer if he had just left it at that.
Having headlined the violent history of “liberalism,” Goldberg soft-pedals that of fascists, especially Mussolini. There are the ritual references to Auschwitz, but he denies that racial extermination is integral to Nazism by noting how many Progressive reformers fell for Eugenics in the early twentieth century. His Mussolini – that lifelong “man of the left – is seen largely through the eyes of his many foolish American admirers. Che Guevara killed more people than Mussolini, he asserts (p. 194). This is possible only if one leaves out of the picture the murder of over a thousand Italian citizens by the squadristi who brought Mussolini to the brink of power in 1922, or of the Italians’ use of poison gas, forced displacement into camps, and aerial strafing against the populations of Libya and Ethiopia.
Goldberg simply omits those parts of fascist history that fit badly with his demonstration. His method is to examine fascist rhetoric, but to ignore how fascist movements functioned in practice. Since the Nazis recruited their first mass following among the economic and social losers of Weimar Germany, they could sound anti-capitalist at the beginning. Goldberg makes a big thing of the early programs of the Nazi and Italian Fascist Parties, and publishes the Nazi Twenty-five Points as an appendix. A closer look would show that the Nazis’ anti-capitalism was a selective affair, opposed to international capital and finance capital, department stores and Jewish businesses, but nowhere opposed to private property per se or favorable to a transfer of all the means of production to public ownership.
A still closer look at how the fascist parties obtained power and then exercised power would show how little these early programs corresponded to fascist practice. Mussolini acquired powerful backing by hiring his black-shirted squadristi out to property owners for the destruction of socialist and Communist unions and parties. They destroyed the farm workers’ organizations in the Po Valley in 1921-1922 by violent nightly raids that made them the de facto government of northeastern Italy. Hitler’s brownshirts fought Communists for control of the streets of Berlin, and claimed to be Germany’s best bulwark against the revolutionary threat that still appeared to be growing in 1932. Goldberg prefers the abstractions of rhetoric to all this history, noting only that fascism and Communism were “rivals.” So his readers will not learn anything about how the Nazis and Italian Fascists got into power or exercised it.
The two fascist chiefs obtained power not by election nor by coup but by invitation from German President Hindenberg and his advisors, and Italian King Victor Emanuel III and his advisors (not a leftist among them). The two heads of state wanted to harness the fascists’ numbers and energy to their own project of blocking the Marxists, if possible with broad popular support. This does not mean that fascism and conservatism are identical (they are not), but they have historically found essential interests in common.
Once in power, the two fascist chieftains worked out a fruitful if sometimes contentious relationship with business. German business had been, as Goldberg correctly notes, distrustful of the early Hitler’s populist rhetoric. Hitler was certainly not their first choice as head of state, and many of them preferred a trading economy to an autarkic one. Given their real-life options in 1933, however, the Nazi regulated economy seemed a lesser evil than the economic depression and worker intransigence they had known under Weimar. They were delighted with Hitler’s abolition of independent labor unions and the right to strike (unmentioned by Goldberg), and profited greatly from his rearmament drive. All of them would have found ludicrous the notion that the Nazis, once in power, were on the left. So would the socialist and communist leaders who were the first inhabitants of the Nazi concentration camps (unmentioned by Goldberg).
In the Italian case, Goldberg somehow imagines that Mussolini’s much-vaunted corporatism was a device to subject businessmen to total state control. Scholars who have looked at the way corporatism actually worked have generally concluded that Italian businessmen simply ran the economy through the corporatist agencies that they easily dominated. Corporatism – the management of an economy by joint committees of businessmen, labor representatives and government officials who organize the economy sector by sector, to emphasize common interests over class differences – functions quite differently, of course, under different regimes. In the Italian Fascist case, quite unlike the New Deal, labor representatives were, in the end, excluded from any meaningful role.
Having set up distorted stereotypes of “liberalism” and “fascism” Goldberg finds them united by a host of similar projects such as campaigns against smoking (it was Nazi doctors who first established the link between smoking and cancer, and Hitler was a fanatical anti-smoker). These similarities concern peripheral matters. The foundational qualities that separate liberalism from fascism simply vanish from the analysis: political pluralism vs. single party; universal values vs. the supremacy of a master race; elections vs. charismatic leadership; fascism’s exaltation of feelings over reason.
Goldberg has indeed unearthed plenty of skeletons in the liberal closet, such as the Eugenics fad. Some liberal violations of human rights were temporary, as in war government. Others were the work of radicals of the left who made war on liberals, hated them, and have no place in an analysis of liberalism properly understood.
This book is stuffed with references to scholarly work that make it look authoritative. But when something really surprising comes along, we look in vain for a footnote. Did Hitler really write a fan letter to that Jew-loving plutocrat FDR in 1935? No footnote. How do we know that the New Dealer Hugh Johnson read Fascist tracts, and for what purpose (p. 156)? And that FDR put a hundred thousand American citizens into camps (p. 160)? Does he mean that C.C.C.? In what sense was “deconstruction” a Nazi coinage (p. 173)? Goldberg probably means Heidegger, but he wants us to think Goebbels. Just which proponents of affirmative action claimed that their opponents were on a slippery slope to Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, and in what words (p. 243)? Exactly where and when did Al Gore say that global warming is the equivalent of the Holocaust, and what were his actual words (p. 314)? The list of bombshell remarks smuggled into this text without any reference to a credible source could go on and on.
Goldberg hijacks scholarly work and applies it in misleading ways for his own purposes. Henry Ashby Turner, Jr., showed conclusively that German businessmen were often skeptical of Hitler in the early days. Since they gave money to all non-Socialist parties, the small amounts they gave the Nazis prove nothing. But Turner’s book stops in January 1933. Goldberg extends Turner’s conclusions misleadingly into the later period, ignoring the way German businessmen adjusted to the new situation. David Schoenbaum meant his title Hitler’s Social Revolution ironically: Hitler recruited all the losers in Germany’s 1920s crises, and then betrayed them by following policies favorable to big business and big agriculture after January 1933. Goldberg appropriates this book’s first half misleadingly to support his fantastical conclusion that Hitler was always “a man of the left.”
Jonah Goldberg sometimes sounds sweetly reasonable. Liberals mean well, they aren’t taking us toward Auschwitz. The filiation is intellectual, not a matter of exact identity. Fascism takes a different form in each national setting (very true), and it takes a “softer form” (p. 391) in the United States. Then he drops the mask and goes on a rant. In the chapter headings and subheadings – the parts that casual readers will remember -- liberals are fascists pure and simple. For example: “Franklin Roosevelt’s Fascist New Deal” (p. 121); “The Great Society: LBJ’s Fascist Utopia” (p. 329), and so on.
While Goldberg is reasonably careful of names, dates, and quotations, his more general judgments often go badly awry. It is not true that “the hard left had almost nothing to say about Italian Fascism for most of its first decade” (p. 30). The Third International diagnosed it right away, clumsily, as an agent of capitalism. The Italian elections of 1924 were not “reasonably fair” (p. 50), for according to the Acerbo Election Law passed at Fascist insistence just beforehand, the leading party would automatically receive two thirds of the parliamentary seats. It is untrue that Germany spent relatively little on armaments in the first years; they spent as much as they were allowed under the Versailles Treaty, and then arranged secretly for further training and arms development in the Soviet Union (p. 151), a point that ought to suit Goldberg quite well. Hitler never ever campaigned from the back of an old pickup truck (p. 289).
Jonah Goldberg does not tell us much about his own beliefs, except that he loves America. But it is clear that he inhabits a world where the sole serious danger to individual and national wellbeing is the state. No rogue corporations, no drunk drivers, no polluting factories, no well-funded lobbies threaten us, only the state. Anything that enhances the power and reach of the state is bad, even George W. Bush’s “compassionate conservatism.”
If you are looking for brickbats to throw at Democrats, reformers, environmentalists and other do-gooders, you will enjoy this book. If you are looking for some reasoned arguments about the politics of our time, you will find both liberalism and fascism grossly distorted in this tract.
HNN Special: A Symposium on Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism
- See more at: http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/122231#sthash.LKaTJt8y.dpuf
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRVK3RL2gFo&feature=youtu.be
-
http://www.capoliticalreview.com/capoliticalnewsandviews/
-
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100286702/the-greatest-cultural-victory-of-the-left-was-to-disregard-the-nazi-soviet-pact/
The greatest cultural victory of the Left has been to disregard the Nazi-Soviet Pact
By Daniel Hannan Politics Last updated: September 17th, 2014
1084 Comments Comment on this article
Seventy-five years ago today, Red Army troops smashed into Poland. Masters of deception and propaganda, they encouraged locals to believe that they were coming to join the battle against Hitler, who had invaded two weeks’ earlier. But, within a day, the true nature of the Nazi-Soviet collaboration was exposed.
The two armies met at the town of Brest, where the 1918 peace treaty between the Kaiser’s government and Lenin’s revolutionary state had been signed. Soldiers fraternised, exchanging food and tobacco – pre-rolled German cigarettes contrasting favourably against rough Russian papirosi. A joint military parade was staged, the Wehrmacht’s field grey uniforms alongside the olive green of the shoddier Soviets. The two generals, Guderian and Krivoshein, had a slap-up lunch and, as they bade each other farewell, the Soviet commander invited German reporters to visit him in Moscow “after the victory over capitalist Albion”.
These events are keenly remembered in the nations that were victims of the Molotov-Ribbentrop treaty: Romania, Finland and, most of all, Poland and the Baltic States. But they don’t occupy anything like the place in our collective memory of the war that they deserve.
Almost everyone in Britain knows that the Second World War started when Hitler sent his panzers into Poland. Stalin’s mirror invasion 16 days later, while not exactly forgotten, is not nearly so central in our narrative.
Which is, if you think about it, very odd. The Nazi-Soviet Pact lasted for 22 months – a third of the duration of the entire conflict. We remember, with pride, that we stood alone against Hitler. But in reality, our fathers’ isolation – and commensurate heroism – was even greater than this suggests. I can think of no braver moment in the war than when, having already declared war on Hitler, we prepared to open a new front against Stalin, too. British commandos were on the verge of being deployed to defend Finland, while the Cabinet toyed with various schemes to seize the USSR’s oil supplies in the Caucasus.
In the event, such plans were overtaken by developments. Still, for sheer, bloody-minded gallantry, it was an unbeatable moment, beautifully captured in the reaction of Evelyn Waugh’s fictional hero, Guy Crouchback: “The enemy at last was plain in view, huge and hateful, all disguise cast off. It was the Modern Age in arms.”
Why do we downplay that memory? Largely because it doesn’t fit with what happened later. When Hitler attacked the USSR – to the utter astonishment of Stalin, who initially ordered his soldiers not to shoot back – it was in everyone’s interest to forget the earlier phase of the war. Western Communists, who had performed extraordinary acrobatics to justify their entente with fascism, now carried out another somersault and claimed that the Nazi-Soviet Pact had only ever been a tactical pause, a moment when Stalin brilliantly stalled while building up his military capacity. Even today, the historiographical imprint of that propaganda lingers.
To the modern reader, George Orwell’s depiction of how enmity alternates between Eurasia and Eastasia seems far-fetched; but when he published his great novel in 1948, such things were a recent memory. It suited Western Leftists, during and after the War, to argue that Hitler had been uniquely evil, certainly wickeder than Stalin. It was thus necessary to forget the enthusiasm with which the two tyrants had collaborated.
The full extent of their conspiracy is exposed in The Devils’ Alliance, a brilliant new history by Roger Moorhouse. Moorhouse is a sober and serious historian, writing with no obvious political agenda. Calmly, he tells the story of the Pact: its genesis, its operation and the reasons for its violent end. When recounting such a monstrous tale, it is proper to be calm: great events need no embroidery. What he reveals is a diabolical compact which, if it stopped just short of being an alliance, can in no way be thought of as a hiccup or anomaly.
The two totalitarian systems traded in all the necessary commodities of war: not just oil and vital chemicals, but arms and ships. They exhibited each other’s cultural achievements, performed each other’s music and films, stressed their joint hostility to Western capitalism.
The idea that there was an unbridgeable gap between Soviet Communism and National Socialism, which is nowadays so widespread, would have seemed curious at the time. To be sure, there were some in Moscow, and a few more in Berlin, who believed that there must eventually come a reckoning with their “real” enemy. But theirs were minority voices. Many more gladly went along with the idea that the two socialist systems were joined in battle against “decadent Anglo-Saxon liberalism”.
The coincidence in doctrine between the Nazis and the Soviets was obvious to the “decadent” Anglo-Saxons, too. The day after the Soviet invasion of Poland, a Times editorial observed that “Only those can be disappointed who clung to the ingenuous belief that Russia was to be distinguished from her Nazi neighbour, despite the identity of their institutions and political idiom, by her foreign policy”.
Nor was it only the “decadent liberals” in the Anglo-Saxon world who took this view. The first Briton to be tried for espionage was a Newcastle communist named George Armstrong, who had supplied German agents in Boston with information on the Atlantic convoys. He had been motivated by Molotov’s appeal to Leftists serving in Allied navies to desert as soon as they reached a neutral port.
Why, then, have we, if not exactly denied the episode, crammed it into a corner of our minds? In his Sword of Honour trilogy, Evelyn Waugh, largely through gentle subtext, told the story of how Soviet sympathisers in the West used the alliance with the USSR to rehabilitate its doctrines. Hayek, writing in 1944, devoted the greater part of his Road to Serfdom to refuting the idea that Nazism and Communism were opposed ideologies, well aware of how fervently this idea was being promoted.
He was right; but he made little impact. If you want to see how successful the propagandists of the time were, look at the reaction you get today when – as I did recently – you recite a few unadorned facts that point to the socialist nature of fascism.
Why did the Molotov-Ribbentrop carve-up come to an end? Not, as you might think, because of any doctrinal incompatibility between the two participants but, as Moorhouse demonstrates beyond doubt, for strategic reasons. Hitler had hoped that Stalin could be encouraged to turn his energies southward, falling on India “to co-operate with us in the great liquidation of the British Empire”. But Russia, then as now, was focused on her western rather than her southern neighbours. It was Stalin’s hunger for Bulgaria that Hitler found intolerable and that led to Operation Barbarossa.
Does any of this still matter? Yes, it matters immensely. First, and most obviously, it matters to the countries that were the victims of the carve-up. It was protests on the 50th anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact that led to the ultimate independence of the Baltic States. It is important, too, to understand the shameful consequences of the pretence that Stalin was somehow not in the same league as Hitler. As late as the 1970s, at the height of the Cold War, governments around the world, including in the West, were using a mealy-mouthed formula to regret the deaths of the Polish officers murdered at Katyn without directly blaming the Soviets.
Even today, we are so fixated on Hitler that we miss what was happening elsewhere at the time. How many journalists have lazily compared Putin’s annexations in Georgia and Ukraine to those of the Nazi leader? Putin is attacking neighbouring states, this is bad, so he must be like Hitler, right?
Except that there is a far, far better parallel. When Hitler seized his half of Poland, he didn’t pretend to be other than a conqueror. Part of his zone was incorporated into the Reich, the rest placed under military occupation. But Stalin? Here the story becomes eerily apt to our present age. Stalin claimed to be acting to protect the Ukrainian and Byelorussian minorities in Eastern Poland. Having seized his portion of land, he organised rigged elections, which produced new parliaments, which promptly petitioned to be allowed to join the USSR. Sound familiar?
It’s this lop-sidedness in our folk memory that we need to address. While Nazism is well understood as the monstrosity it was, there is often a lingering sense that Communism was well-intentioned, even though it went wrong. The merest connection with fascism bars a politician from office; yet those who actively supported the USSR are allowed to become ministers and European Commissioners. Wearing a Che Guevara tee-shirt is not regarded in the same light as wearing an Adolf Hitler tee-shirt; but it should be.
Don’t get me wrong. Every atrocity is unique in its own terrible way. The Nazi Holocaust haunts us for good reasons. Years after I saw it, I still find this image rising, unbidden, in my mind. Happily, though, no one, beyond a deranged fringe, denies the nature of Nazism. The same is not true of the Soviet tyranny.
Even now, Russia refuses to accept that its annexation of the Baltics was an “invasion”. Forty-seven per cent of Russians have “a positive view of Stalin” (just imagine how we would react if 47 per cent of Germans had “a positive view of Hitler”). To deny the magnitude of the Nazi genocide is, in several countries, a criminal offence; but to signal, with your idiotic Che tee-shirt, that you are all for breaking a few eggs to make an omelette, is radical chic. Germany has come to terms with its past and become a valued ally. But Russia?
Tags: Hitler, Milotov-Ribbentrop pact, Roger Moorhouse, socialist roots of fascism, Stalin, The Devils' Alliance
-
Obama Wants to Pick the Clintons’ Neighbors
The administration is forcing low-income housing into wealthy enclaves, whether or not anyone wants it.
By
Jason L. Riley
June 16, 2015 6:44 p.m. ET
0 COMMENTS
Bill and Hillary Clinton are popular with black voters, but that doesn’t mean the couple wants to live around them. And vice versa. This reality troubles President Obama, though his remedy is what’s really troubling.
When the Clintons went house-hunting in 1999, neighborhood diversity wasn’t much of a priority. The family settled on a five-bedroom Colonial in Chappaqua, N.Y., a lush suburb north of New York City where the population is more than 90% white, less than 1% black and multimillion-dollar homes abound. No one has produced evidence of racial discrimination against buyers who can afford homes in Chappaqua and other wealthy enclaves of Westchester County, where the town is located. But monochrome residential housing patterns upset the sensibilities of officials in Mr. Obama’s Department of Housing and Urban Development.
For the past six years, HUD has been hounding Westchester about building more low-income housing in places like Chappaqua. Federal officials have vowed to “hold people’s feet to the fire” and make an example of the county. “We’re clearly messaging other jurisdictions across the country that there has been a significant change in the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and we’re going to ask them to pursue similar goals as well,” said a deputy secretary at HUD in 2009.
Opinion Journal Video
Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow Jason Riley on the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s plan to dictate where minorities live. Photo credit: Getty Images.
The comment followed the announcement of a settlement in a false-claims suit brought against the county by housing activists who accused Westchester of applying for a HUD grant without doing enough minority outreach to satisfy the federal agency’s “fair housing” goals. Westchester admitted no wrongdoing in the case, but the county executive at the time, a Democrat, cut a deal with HUD that required the county to build 750 subsidized-housing units over the next seven years and “affirmatively market affordable housing within the county and in geographic areas with significant non-white populations outside, but not contiguous with or within close proximity to, the county.” Got that?
In effect, the federal government is forcing wealthy Westchester municipalities to import low-income minorities. By extension, HUD is also compelling low-income minorities to live in overwhelmingly white communities, even though research has shown for decades that large majorities of blacks have no desire to live in all-white or even mostly white neighborhoods and strongly prefer to live where at least half of the other residents are black.
To his credit, Westchester’s current county executive, Republican Rob Astorino, has been pushing back against the terms of the settlement, which is still being litigated. The outcome is likely to have national ramifications. What is at stake is the loss of locally controlled residential zoning, and more such federal relocation edicts are almost certainly on the way.
Last week HUD announced that it was moving forward with new regulations that essentially will force about 1,250 communities nationwide to construct cheap housing units in wealthy, predominantly white neighborhoods and then actively recruit poor minorities to move in. Local governments that don’t play ball will jeopardize federal grant money. What happened in Westchester is a taste of what may be coming to upscale parts of Houston, Dallas, Marin County, Calif., and other places that aren’t racially and economically diverse enough for this White House.
The Obama administration may find color-adjusted communities aesthetically pleasing, but people don’t sort themselves by neighborhood randomly, and government invites trouble with efforts to move poor people—of any color—into areas where they otherwise can’t afford to live. Twenty years ago, HUD nixed a national program that gave public-housing residents in places like Baltimore, Chicago and Los Angeles vouchers that enabled them to move into better neighborhoods that were predominantly white.
“The theory was elegant, the outcome anything but,” reported the New York Times. “The idea was that by scattering one or two poor families in large middle-income areas, they would disappear like salt crystals in a glass of water, quietly integrating themselves into communities where they would find more jobs, better schools and safer streets.” Instead, the effort “unleashed a firestorm of protest” over race and class “before any of these families were moved,” said the paper. Financing for the year-old program was canceled.
Seemingly incapable of learning from its blunders, HUD continues to try to engineer residential integration—even though public attitudes have evolved and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 made housing discrimination illegal and Americans have shown themselves happy to decide where they’d like to live.
Since 1970, segregation has fallen significantly in every decade. In a 2012 paper for the Manhattan Institute, economists Edward Glaeser of Harvard and Jacob Vigdor of Duke wrote that “all-white neighborhoods are effectively extinct” and that the dominant trend in black neighborhoods is population loss. “Particularly in the formerly hyper-segregated cities of the Northeast and Midwest, ghetto neighborhoods have witnessed profound population declines, as former residents decamp for the suburbs or for the rapidly growing cities of the Sun Belt—where segregation is generally very low.”
The Obama administration is acting less out of a need to address a problem and more out of a desire to expand the role of the federal government in yet another area of our lives.
Mr. Riley, a Manhattan Institute senior fellow and Journal contributor, is the author of “Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed” (Encounter Books, 2014).
-
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/06/16/uc-teaching-faculty-members-not-to-criticize-race-based-affirmative-action-call-america-melting-pot-and-more/?postshare=5271434548154861
-
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/06/16/uc-teaching-faculty-members-not-to-criticize-race-based-affirmative-action-call-america-melting-pot-and-more/?postshare=5271434548154861
How many decades would we have to go back to find the left advocating for free speech ?
-
45-50 years i.e. when I was a young man.
-
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100286702/the-greatest-cultural-victory-of-the-left-was-to-disregard-the-nazi-soviet-pact/
-
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/07/02/owners-of-oregon-bakery-that-refused-to-bake-wedding-cake-for-same-sex-couple-fined-135000/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Firewire_Morning_Test&utm_campaign=Firewire%20Morning%20Edition%20Recurring%20v2%202015-07-03
-
ENLARGE
Marilyn Tavenner, then-Administrator of CMS, at a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing in 2014. Photo: Getty Images
July 16, 2015 7:34 p.m. ET
25 COMMENTS
One result of the Obama era is that big government and big business are often conjoined twins. For the latest proof, the health insurance industry has hired its ex-chief regulator and patron as its new chief lobbyist.
This week America’s Health Insurance Plans announced that Marilyn Tavenner will be the trade group’s new CEO. Her previous gig was running CMS, the agency in charge of Medicare, Medicaid and the ObamaCare exchanges. As acting and then confirmed CMS administrator since 2011, Ms. Tavenner presided over a bureaucracy with a budget larger than the Pentagon’s and drafted the ObamaCare rules that dictate insurance business models.
So other than President Obama, there is no better candidate than Ms. Tavenner to lead the insurance lobby in the era of ObamaCare. The law was a vast transfer of wealth and power to the political class from markets, and the big insurance conglomerates were the brokers of this bargain in return for more subsidized customers. Ms. Tavenner will now steer her members through her own regulatory creations as rules beget more rules.
More to the point, the CMS entitlements are now the major profit centers of an ever less competitive and innovative insurance industry. If the taxpayer is your benefactor, then bringing on a well-connected political operator is the logical choice. In another non-coincidence, Mr. Obama has nominated as Ms. Tavenner’s CMS replacement a former UnitedHealth Group executive named Andy Slavitt.
In her five years at CMS, Ms. Tavenner formed strong relationships with Congressfolk of both parties with her backstage candor. Then again, she was involved in the implementation planning for ObamaCare from the start and directed the control room when Healthcare.gov exploded on the launchpad, wasting hundreds of millions of dollars. The next time some politician burbles about “public service,” remember that a tour in government is often a form of deferred compensation, with no accountability for results or competence.
We haven’t heard any Democrat denounce Ms. Tavenner’s career switch, though it wasn’t so long ago that to pass ObamaCare they pretended insurers were abusive marauders and continue to blame the industry for the law’s surging costs. Perhaps they understand that whether Ms. Tavenner is a lobbyist or the head of CMS, her job description is the same.
-
second post
http://www.capoliticalreview.com/capoliticalnewsandviews/disneyland-crony-capitalism-creates-poverty-promotes-theft-of-tax/
-
Green Gurus Caught in Dirty Ponzi Scheme
We're not sure what's less surprising: That a renewable energy endeavor turned out to be a Ponzi scheme, or that it has ties to the Clintons. The Associated Press reports, "Three people were charged Thursday with running a $54 million Ponzi scheme built on promises of a green energy technology that would turn trash into fuel and 'carbon-negative' housing developments, neither of which were ever fully developed, federal prosecutors said. ... Prosecutors said the trio lied to investors that their 'biochar' technology and 'carbon-negative' housing in Tennessee made millions, but they had almost no earnings and used the money to repay earlier investors and for themselves." According to U.S. Attorney Zane Memeger, "The scheme alleged in this indictment offered investors the best of both worlds — investing in sustainable and clean energy products while also making a profit. Unfortunately for the investors, it was all a hoax and they lost precious savings. These defendants preyed on the emotions of their victims and sold them a scam." Sounds like the entire Obama climate change charade. The criminal charges come years after a separate civil lawsuit. "The scam allegedly ran from 2005 until 2009, even after the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil lawsuit against Wragg and Knorr's Mantria Corp. They were ordered in 2012 to pay $37 million each," the AP adds. The kicker? "Two months before the SEC civil lawsuit, the company was publicly recognized for its stated commitment to 'help mitigate global warming' by former President Bill Clinton's Clinton Global Initiative. The company was cited for its plans to develop the biochar technology that it said would sequester carbon dioxide and reduce emissions in developing countries. Wragg appeared on stage with Clinton at the event in September 2009." Envirofascists slam Big Oil for ostensibly putting profits before principle, yet that's exactly what happened in this case. And wouldn't you know it? The defendants are in good company with the Clintons.
-
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/vox-hillary-clinton-ian-tuttle
Vox editor: Hillary is a corrupt dictator in waiting, and I like it!
-
Oct. 9, 2015 6:31 p.m. ET
36 COMMENTS
Elizabeth Warren recently drove out a think-tank scholar for having the nerve to report that a new federal regulation could cost billions, but the progressive censor movement is broad and growing. Advocates of climate regulation are urging the Obama Administration to investigate people who don’t share their views.
Last month George Mason Professor Jagadish Shukla and 19 others signed a letter to President Obama, Attorney General Loretta Lynch and White House science adviser John Holdren urging punishment for climate dissenters. “One additional tool—recently proposed by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse—is a RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) investigation of corporations and other organizations that have knowingly deceived the American people about the risks of climate change, as a means to forestall America’s response to climate change,” they wrote.
In other words, they want the feds to use a law created to prosecute the mafia against lawful businesses and scientists. In a May op-ed in the Washington Post, Mr. Whitehouse specifically cited Willie Soon of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who has published politically inconvenient research on changes in solar radiation.
The RICO threat is intended to shut down debate because it can inflict treble damages upon a defendant. Enacted to stop organized crime and specifically to prosecute individuals tied to loansharking and murder-for-hire, it was long seen as so powerful a tool that the government warned prosecutors to limit its use.
“The demand by Senator Whitehouse and the 20 climate scientists for legal persecution of people whose research on science and policy they disagree with represents a new low in the politicization of science,” says Georgia Tech’s Judith Curry on the Fox News website. She should know, as one of seven academics investigated last winter by Rep. Raul Grijalva (D., Ariz.) for their climate research.
By the way, Mr. Shukla appears to have no problem taking money from the government to support his climate theories. Though it has since been taken down, the letter from the Shukla gang demanding a RICO assault was published on the website of the Institute of Global Environment and Society (IGES), a tax-exempt entity run by Mr. Shukla that the website says has also employed his wife and daughter. The House Science Committee says the outfit has received more than $25 million in federal grants since 2008. House Science Chairman Lamar Smith says the family’s earnings from IGES are “in addition to an annual salary of approximately $314,000 paid to Dr. Shukla by George Mason University.”
When we contacted George Mason to sort out these financial arrangements, the school suggested we contact Mr. Shukla directly. He hasn’t responded to our inquiries.
Meanwhile, Sen. Warren also doesn’t seem to want to live by the rules she enforces on others. Recall that she drove Robert Litan out of the Brookings Institution last week in part because his research on new financial regulations was funded by the asset manager Capital Group—which he clearly disclosed. The website OpenSecrets.org says Ms. Warren has accepted more than $600,000 from the securities and investment industry, including more than $6,000 from Capital Group executives.
Perhaps she’d say it’s fine for her to use her Senate Banking Committee perch to rake in contributions from financial firms because she often disagrees with them. Then again, lawyers and law firms that benefit from her policy interventions have given her more than $2 million. She’s also collected more than $1.3 million from the education industry, which benefits from her campaign to expand education subsidies.
We called Sen. Warren’s office to ask why the Senator isn’t living by the Warren standard. A press aide replied that among other alleged offenses, Mr. Litan had accepted “editorial input” from the sponsors of his research. Yes it’s true, as Mr. Litan has said forthrightly all along, he did accept comments from the sponsor. He has also maintained that the analysis and conclusions were his own and those of co-author Hal Singer.
If accepting “editorial input” is grounds for dismissal, academics or journalists wouldn’t be the only ones preparing resignation letters. Is Sen. Warren now going to tell us that a campaign donor has never made a suggestion to her about government policy?
The strategy of the progressive left is no longer to win public debates, but to forcibly silence their opponents. And to enforce a double standard in the bargain.
-
Day 886 of the IRS Scandal. Anyone following it?
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2015/10/the-irs-scandal-day-883.html
-
Day 886 of the IRS Scandal. Anyone following it?
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2015/10/the-irs-scandal-day-883.html
Not the mainstream media, that's for damn sure.
-
https://mises.org/library/sanders-and-his-followers-are-not-outliers
-
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-12-06/depression-deepens-greek-middle-class-despair-with-crime-rising
Is the science settled?
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzA7QomW4kY
-
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Fascism.html
-
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/5/1427845/-Effective-Gun-Control-A-National-Semi-Auto-Ban
Fantasy.
-
http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2015/12/27/nyc-will-fine-you-250000-for-misgendering-a-transsexual/
-
http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2015/12/27/nyc-will-fine-you-250000-for-misgendering-a-transsexual/
Zero tolerance for thoughtcrime.
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yga7TlsA-1A
-
http://www.thediplomad.com/2016/01/progressivism-crowd-funding-terrorism.html#pq=iIhzF9
Allies.
-
http://nation.foxnews.com/2016/01/10/report-obama-wants-become-un-secretary-general-netanyahu-doing-everything-he-can-stop-him
-
Some interesting points mixed in with the drivel here:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_revenge_of_the_lower_classes_and_the_rise_of_american_fascism_20160302
-
Good article in that it is food for thought.
I can see some similarities to the rise of real "fascism" in Germany and Italy in the early 1900's. I agree that there are many in this country who feel sold out by the "elites" for lack of better term. This includes myself. And the *populist* angle to the comparison.
I would suggest that Trump's popularity is more about anger than hate. Anger at those who are taking advantage of America. The illegals and foreign nations who repeatedly best us in trade deals etc.
OF course the left will label this anger to drum up voter support to continue their agenda. And Trump keeps making the mistake of singling out Mexicans. No one here hates Mexicans or other illegals. But we sure do resent their coming here against our laws. I keep saying it doesn't matter where they are from if they are illegal then we should enforce the laws.
And I don't hear Trump calling for a call to arms or building up our military. If anything he wants to stay out of foreign wars. The neocons are the ones up in arms about that which proves my point on that.
I like the mental exercise.
-
Ok here we go. The lib's strategy against Trump is now clear. He is the new Hitler:
http://www.vox.com/2015/2/11/8016017/ny-times-hitler
-
Ok here we go. The lib's strategy against Trump is now clear. He is the new Hitler:
http://www.vox.com/2015/2/11/8016017/ny-times-hitler
Every republican is Hitler. Just ask the left.
-
Ok here we go. The lib's strategy against Trump is now clear. He is the new Hitler:
http://www.vox.com/2015/2/11/8016017/ny-times-hitler
Every republican is Hitler. Just ask the left.
Yes, a good liberal friend made a slip of the tongue about me supporting the fascist which I think meant to support any of the Republicans. But isn't it exactly the other way around?
-
Ok here we go. The lib's strategy against Trump is now clear. He is the new Hitler:
http://www.vox.com/2015/2/11/8016017/ny-times-hitler
Every republican is Hitler. Just ask the left.
Yes, a good liberal friend made a slip of the tongue about me supporting the fascist which I think meant to support any of the Republicans. But isn't it exactly the other way around?
National Socialist German Worker's Party. If you want big government to take care of you, one way or the other.
-
(https://westernrifleshooters.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/social.jpg)
-
That is the general election campaign question of 2016, once we get past bad hair and small penis size.
Everything Bernie and his parrot Hillary say including the false war against 'income inequality' translates into let's all be equally poor.
My question all along has been, who answers their socialist left turn best and who calls them out on it most effectively, Mr. it-will-be-yuge/great or the one saying that we can leave our children and each generation that follows with a better life and better opportunities.
The unfair part of top 1% income is when the success is rooted in government cronyism. Since the most powerful force in our economy today is the government, almost all the top income tends to have ties there.
-
Green Gurus Caught in Dirty Ponzi Scheme
We're not sure what's less surprising: That a renewable energy endeavor turned out to be a Ponzi scheme, or that it has ties to the Clintons. The Associated Press reports, "Three people were charged Thursday with running a $54 million Ponzi scheme built on promises of a green energy technology that would turn trash into fuel and 'carbon-negative' housing developments, neither of which were ever fully developed, federal prosecutors said. ... Prosecutors said the trio lied to investors that their 'biochar' technology and 'carbon-negative' housing in Tennessee made millions, but they had almost no earnings and used the money to repay earlier investors and for themselves." According to U.S. Attorney Zane Memeger, "The scheme alleged in this indictment offered investors the best of both worlds — investing in sustainable and clean energy products while also making a profit. Unfortunately for the investors, it was all a hoax and they lost precious savings. These defendants preyed on the emotions of their victims and sold them a scam." Sounds like the entire Obama climate change charade. The criminal charges come years after a separate civil lawsuit. "The scam allegedly ran from 2005 until 2009, even after the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil lawsuit against Wragg and Knorr's Mantria Corp. They were ordered in 2012 to pay $37 million each," the AP adds. The kicker? "Two months before the SEC civil lawsuit, the company was publicly recognized for its stated commitment to 'help mitigate global warming' by former President Bill Clinton's Clinton Global Initiative. The company was cited for its plans to develop the biochar technology that it said would sequester carbon dioxide and reduce emissions in developing countries. Wragg appeared on stage with Clinton at the event in September 2009." Envirofascists slam Big Oil for ostensibly putting profits before principle, yet that's exactly what happened in this case. And wouldn't you know it? The defendants are in good company with the Clintons.
https://americanelephant.wordpress.com/2013/07/07/14000-abandoned-wind-turbines-litter-the-united-states/
14,000 ABANDONED WIND TURBINES LITTER THE UNITED STATES by The Elephant's Child
July 7, 2013, 7:19 am
Filed under: Democrat Corruption, Economy, Energy, Environment, Junk Science | Tags: A Green Religion, Abandoned Wind Farms, Another Bad Idea
abandoned wind turbines 2
The towering symbols of a fading religion, over 14,000 wind turbines, abandoned, rusting, slowly decaying. When it is time to clean up after a failed idea, no green environmentalists are to be found. Wind was free, natural, harnessing Earth’s bounty for the benefit of all mankind, sounded like a good idea. Wind turbines, like solar panels, break down. They produce less energy before they break down than the energy it took to make them. The wind does not blow all the time, or even most of the time. When it is not blowing, they require full-time backup from conventional power plants.
Without government subsidy, they are unaffordable. With governments facing financial troubles, the subsidies are unaffordable. It was a nice dream, a very expensive dream, but it didn’t work.
California had the “big three” of wind farm locations — Altamont Pass, Tehachapi, and San Gorgonio, considered the world’s best wind sites. California’s wind farms, almost 80% of the world’s wind generation capacity ceased to generate even more quickly than Kamaoa Wind Farm in Hawaii. There are five other abandoned wind farms in Hawaii. When they are abandoned, getting the turbines removed is a major problem. They are highly unsightly, and they are huge, and that’s a lot of material to get rid of.
Unfortunately the same areas that are good for siting wind farms are a natural pass for migrating birds. Altamont’s turbines have been shut down four months out of every year for migrating birds after environmentalists filed suit. According to the Golden Gate Audubon Society 75-110 Golden Eagles, 380 Burrowing Owls, 300 Red-Tailed Hawks and 333 American Kestrels are killed by the turbines every year. An Alameda County Community Development Agency study points to 10,000 annual bird deaths from Altamont wind turbines. The Audubon Society makes up numbers like the EPA, but there’s a reason why they call them bird Cuisinarts.
Palm Springs has enacted an ordinance requiring their removal from San Gorgonio Pass, but unless something else changes abandoned turbines will remain a rotting eyesores, or the taxpayers who have already paid through the nose for overpriced energy and crony-capitalist tax scams will have to foot the bill for their removal.
President Obama’s offshore wind farms will be far more expensive than those sited in California’s ideal wind locations. Salt water is far more damaging than sun and rain, and offshore turbines don’t last as long. But nice tax scams for his crony-capitalist backers will work well as long as he can blame it all on saving the planet.
-
https://www.facebook.com/FoxNews/videos/10154151510956336/
-
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-theory/wp/2016/03/24/millennials-like-socialism-until-they-get-jobs/
-
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/433430/george-orwell-call-your-office-marquette-demands-ritual-apology-embattled-professor
-
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/04/01/uk-police-say-they-will-pay-you-a-visit-unless-you-are-kind-on-twitter/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social
-
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/04/01/uk-police-say-they-will-pay-you-a-visit-unless-you-are-kind-on-twitter/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social
Could never happen here.
http://mrctv.org/blog/video-wh-censors-reference-islamist-terrorism-french-president
https://reason.com/blog/2016/03/29/cuban-internet-censorship-the-nation
-
‘C’ Is for Corruption
The Clintons are the Brazilianization of American politics.
By Bret Stephens
April 4, 2016 7:18 p.m. ET
354 COMMENTS
Postcards from yesterday’s countries of the future:
Brazil: President Dilma Rousseff of the Workers’ Party faces impeachment on charges of cooking government books. Corruption investigations are ongoing in cases involving former President Lula da Silva and the presidents of both houses of Congress. Inflation is in double digits and the economy contracted by 3.8% last year.
In 2009, the Economist magazine praised Brazil for “smart social policy and boosting consumption at home,” predicting its economy would overtake Britain’s after 2014.
Turkey: Recep Tayyip Erdogan was in Washington last week, where the Turkish president’s security detail made diplomatic history by beating up protesters outside his speech at the Brookings Institution. A 2013 corruption scandal, implicating dozens of members of Mr. Erdogan’s ruling AKP party, including two of his children, fizzled after the government purged 350 police officers investigating the affair.
In 2009, Hillary Clinton described Turkey as “an emerging global power.” Financial Times columnist Philip Stephens (no relation) gushed that Turkey “sets a powerful democratic example to the rest of the Muslim world.”
China: A leak of 11.5 million documents from Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca—instantly dubbed “the Panama Papers”—implicate relatives of President Xi Jinping along with other top officials of sheltering fortunes in offshore tax havens. Mr. Xi is supposed to be leading an anticorruption campaign.
In 2009, New York Times columnist Tom Friedman wrote of the “great advantages” of China’s “one-party autocracy,” which he praised for being led by “a reasonably enlightened group of people.”
The Panama Papers have also exposed billions in assets belonging to close friends of Vladimir Putin, which isn’t surprising, along with revelations that the first lady of Iceland owned an offshore holding company, which sort of is. Other boldfaced names in this sludgy mix of shell companies include Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, Argentine President Mauricio Macri, the children of Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, and even the late father of British Prime Minister David Cameron.
Everyone mentioned here denies wrongdoing, including the Mossack Fonseca firm—founded by the son of a onetime Waffen-SS officer who sought his fortune in Panama after the war. And everyone is entitled to a fair presentation of the facts, if necessary in court.
But nobody can be surprised by any of this. And nobody should look away from the central lesson of the scandal, though they’re trying. To wit, the story here isn’t about tax evaders and offshore accounts, deplorable as they may be. It’s about public policies and incentives that make a career in politics an expedient route to personal enrichment.
The point is illustrated by Brazil, where state-owned oil giant Petrobras sits at the center of the multiplying corruption scandals. The former chairwoman of Petrobras was Ms. Rousseff, whose main qualification for the job—she’s also a former Marxist guerrilla—was her reputation as an aggressive party hack. She has not been accused of using her position for personal enrichment, but Lula is under investigation for accepting Petrobras kickbacks in the form of a luxury apartment and other goodies. He denies the charges.
Meanwhile, Petrobras last year estimated its corruption-related losses at $17 billion. At least 57 Brazilians are being investigated for using Mossack Fonseca to open 107 offshore companies. Throughout all this, the ruling party’s explicit economic agenda is to build “national champions” like Petrobras through the use of a state-owned “development bank” and other government subsidies.
What’s true of Brazil is true of China, and of Russia, and of every other regime where political power or influence dictates the direction and pace of investment. That’s why it was hard to take seriously a decade’s worth of boosterism about the so-called BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) as the countries of the future. Kleptocracy is not a form of sustainable development.
***
Which brings us to Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee and—if Republicans nominate either Donald Trump or Ted Cruz—likely the next president of the United States. Mrs. Clinton’s email arrangements are supposed to be the scandal that will fell her, but what ought to frighten Americans is the way the Clintons mix money and power in the black box of their eponymous foundation to award themselves more of each.
This is the Brazilianization of American politics, albeit with more legal finessing. But the stench is the same, and it’s why so many Americans, Democrats included, instinctively recoil at the thought of another Clinton presidency.
So far the Panama Papers seem to have netted few Americans, which may say something about the fundamental probity of the U.S. system. Nothing ordains that it should last forever. “C” is also for Clinton.
-
I am not sure what makes Pat so convinced the progressives are just going to go away and that they have lost. One could say there is a strong back current but I don't think the tide has turned at all:
http://www.wnd.com/2016/04/what-trump-has-wrought/
-
http://dailysignal.com/2016/04/04/16-democrat-ags-begin-inquisition-against-climate-change-disbelievers/
16 Democrat AGs Begin Inquisition Against ‘Climate Change Disbelievers’
Hans von Spakovsky / @HvonSpakovsky / Cole Wintheiser / April 04, 2016 / 551 comments 23.k
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman speaks alongside former Vice President Al Gore. Neither Gore nor the “AGs United for Clean Power” has any concern over the First Amendment or the stifling of scientific debate. (Photo: Reuters/Mike Segar/Newscom)
COMMENTARY BY
Portrait of Hans von Spakovsky
Hans von Spakovsky
@HvonSpakovsky
Hans von Spakovsky is an authority on a wide range of issues—including civil rights, civil justice, the First Amendment, immigration, the rule of law and government reform—as a senior legal fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies and manager of the think tank’s Election Law Reform Initiative. Read his research.
Cole Wintheiser
Cole Wintheiser is a member of the Young Leaders Program at The Heritage Foundation.
Beginning in 1478, the Spanish Inquisition systematically silenced any citizen who held views that did not align with the king’s. Using the powerful arm of the government, the grand inquisitor, Tomas de Torquemada, and his henchmen sought out all those who held religious, scientific, or moral views that conflicted with the monarch’s, punishing the “heretics” with jail sentences; property confiscation; fines; and in severe cases, torture and execution.
One of the lasting results of the Spanish Inquisition was a stifling of speech, thought, and scientific debate throughout Spain. By treating one set of scientific views as absolute, infallible, and above critique, Spain silenced many brilliant individuals and stopped the development of new ideas and technological innovations. Spain became a scientific backwater.
As an old adage says, those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. So we now have a new inquisition underway in America in the 21st century—something that would have seemed unimaginable not too long ago.
Treating climate change as an absolute, unassailable fact, instead of what it is—an unproven, controversial scientific theory—a group of state attorneys general have announced that they will be targeting any companies that challenge the catastrophic climate change religion.
Speaking at a press conference on March 29, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said, “The bottom line is simple: Climate change is real.” He went on to say that if companies are committing fraud by “lying” about the dangers of climate change, they will “pursue them to the fullest extent of the law.”
The coalition of 17 inquisitors are calling themselves “AGs United for Clean Power.” The coalition consists of 15 state attorneys general (California, Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington State), as well as the attorneys general of the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands. Sixteen of the seventeen members are Democrats, while the attorney general for the Virgin Islands, Claude Walker, is an independent.
The inquisitors are threatening legal action and huge fines against anyone who declines to believe in an unproven scientific theory.
The inquisitors are threatening legal action and huge fines against anyone who declines to believe in an unproven scientific theory.
Schneiderman and Kamala Harris, representing New York and California, respectively, have already launched investigations into ExxonMobil for allegedly funding research that questioned climate change. Exxon emphatically denounced the accusations as false, pointing out that the investigation that “uncovered” this research was funded by advocacy foundations that publicly support climate change activism.
Standing next to Schneiderman throughout the press conference was the grand inquisitor himself, former Vice President Al Gore, who has stepped into the role of Tomas de Torquemada.
Gore, who narrated a climate change propaganda film in 2006 entitled “An Inconvenient Truth,” praised the coalition, stating that “what these attorneys general are doing is exceptionally important.” Neither Gore nor the “AGs United for Clean Power” has any concern over the First Amendment or the stifling of scientific debate.
When pressed on the effect such investigations and prosecutions will have on free speech, General Schneiderman claimed that climate change dissenters are committing “fraud” and are not protected by the First Amendment.
This comes on top of U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch admitting that the Justice Department is discussing the possibility of pursing civil actions against climate change deniers, and that she has already “referred it to the FBI to consider whether or not it meets the criteria for which” federal law enforcement could take action.
As we have said before, “[l]evel-headed, objective prosecutors should not be interested in investigating or prosecuting anyone over a scientific theory that is the subject of great debate.” And yet that is exactly what the AGs United for “Political” Power are going to do.
Fortunately, there are other state attorneys general who understand the importance of the rule of law as opposed to what they say is an “ambition to use the law to silence voices with which we disagree.” Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt and Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange said they would not be joining this coalition:
Reasonable minds can disagree about the science behind global warming, and disagree they do. This scientific and political debate is healthy and should be encouraged. It should not be silenced with threats of criminal prosecution by those who believe that their position is the only correct one and that all dissenting voices must therefore be intimidated and coerced into silence. It is inappropriate for State Attorneys General to use the power of their office to attempt to silence core political speech on one of the major policy debates of our time.
Although the Spanish Inquisition ended almost 200 years ago, the American Climate Change Inquisition appears to be just getting started. By threatening legal action and huge fines against anyone who declines to believe their climate theories, the attorneys general in this coalition are trying to end the debate over climate change, declaring any dissent to be blasphemy regardless of what many scientists believe.
This strikes a serious blow against the free flow of ideas and the vigorous debate over scientific issues that is a hallmark of an advanced, technological society like ours.
-
http://www.thegwpf.com/matt-ridley-climate-change-lobby-wants-to-kill-free-speech/
BTW author Matt Ridley is a fine scientist of evolutionary biology. I am a big fan of his "The Red Queen" and "Nature via Nurture".
-
This pretty much sums up Obama and the left:
http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2016/04/26/anti-white-racism-hate-dares-not-speak-name-2/
-
Please post in the Race thread on the SCH forum too.
-
Oh my God. Please God. Wake me up from this nightmare:
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/04/27/doj-coins-new-term-for-convicted-criminals-justice-involved-individuals/
-
Oh my God. Please God. Wake me up from this nightmare:
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/04/27/doj-coins-new-term-for-convicted-criminals-justice-involved-individuals/
Liberals owning the language if we let them, and making excuses for being soft on crime, 44 more shot in Chicago this weekend. If I were making the rules, the rapist would have a Caitlin Jenner like procedure imposed and the term 'justice involved individual' would have meaning.
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BY1H1rZL53I
:-o
-
GM,
I don't understand this Milo guy I keep seeing on Breitbart news. Do you understand what all the fuss is about? Even after looking him up on wikipedia I don't get it.
-
GM,
I don't understand this Milo guy I keep seeing on Breitbart news. Do you understand what all the fuss is about? Even after looking him up on wikipedia I don't get it.
He's willing to take on the SJW red guards.
-
http://www.againstcronycapitalism.org/2016/05/it-will-be-hard-for-some-but-we-must-let-puerto-rico-default-no-bailout-same-goes-for-illinois-other-states/
-
"Social Justice Warrior" sued Kleiner Perkins for sex discrimination for $145 million dollars and lost . At the same time her husband is being sued for defrauding 3 pension funds of - $144 million.
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/03/30/thankyouellenpao-only-if-you-like-bullying-vexatious-opportunists/
-
http://www.foxcarolina.com/story/31888456/tow-truck-owner-bernie-sanders
:-D :-D :-D
-
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/05/10/harvard-prof-urges-liberals-treat-evangelical-christians-like-nazis/
-
Yes i saw this . Did you see his bio on Wikipedia.
He is half Jewish , hates orthodox Jews (conservatives) probably hates Israel, is gay , his daughter is lesbian, his wife an ACLU lawyer, and him an Ivy league professor. Can't fit the profile of a leftist/statist too much more than that sadly.
From Wikipedia:
"he is identified with the 'critical legal studies' movement and once stated in an article that, were he asked to decide actual cases as a judge, he would seek to reach results that would "advance the cause of socialism".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Tushnet
If my fellow communist Jews and other liberals hate this country so much why don't they move to China or Russia or better yet Cooooba ?
How did these fuckers gain so much power in the media and in out educational system and now our political system?
I guess i can answer that ; identity politics, redistribution of wealth and opening up the flood gates to the envious of the world.
-
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/05/10/harvard-prof-urges-liberals-treat-evangelical-christians-like-nazis/
This is why the left wants to disarm the public.
-
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016/05/20/college-boots-ex-delta-force-hero-after-complaint-from-lgbt-activists.html
-
http://dailycaller.com/2016/05/19/security-guard-arrested-for-removing-man-from-womens-bathroom/?AID=7236
-
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/22/business/how-freddie-and-fannie-are-held-captive.html?emc=edit_th_20160522&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=49641193
-
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/22/business/how-freddie-and-fannie-are-held-captive.html?emc=edit_th_20160522&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=49641193
This is a perfect example of why the government should never be involved in anything like this, ever.
-
https://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2016/05/21/greetings-slaves/?singlepage=true
Greetings, Slaves
BY RICHARD FERNANDEZ MAY 21, 2016
Thomas Lifson argues that Bernie Sanders presents "a mortal danger to not only the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, but the continued viability of the party’s strategy of mouthing populist rhetoric while practicing crony capitalism. Too late, they now realize he actually means what he says."
In an age where truth is the worst policy, socialism -- like Santa Claus -- is something no adult should believe in. That Sanders might actually have illusions lies at the heart of his appeal. To a cynical public a politician who doesn't calculate in explicit monetary terms is the nearest thing to secular sainthood. Hans Gruber, the villain in Die Hard, disappointed the industrialist he kidnapped by confessing: "Mr Takagi, ... I am far more interested in the 100 million dollars in negotiable bearer bonds hidden in your vault."
Takagi: You want money? What kind of terrorist are you?
We expect revolutionaries to be indifferent to money. Yet in reality the Left thinks about nothing but money as the Venezuelan socialists who have stolen $350 billion from the treasury, according to the Basel Institute on Governance, should have proved to the world. If it's any consolation to the Democratic Party, Bernie Sanders is not as indifferent to lucre as he seems. Sanders' filings show he's received money from Super PACs and donors with links to Wall Street -- so he may be normal after all.
Perhaps the first major 20th century writer to realize that the ambition of all true Communists should be to become billionaire revolutionaries was Hilaire Belloc. In his 1912 book, The Servile State, Belloc argued the then-burgeoning Communist movement would find more success ditching Leninism in favor of an alliance with Crony Capitalists to reinstate Slavery. "Slavery, or a Servile State in which those who do not own the means of production shall be legally compelled to work for those who do, and shall receive in exchange a security of livelihood."
This modern form of slavery would address not only the concerns of the revolutionaries by fixing job insecurity and guaranteeing retirement on a plantation basis, but also assuage the monopolists, who stay up nights worrying about preserving market share in the face of competition. An alliance between socialists and crony capitalists would solve both problems at once. The only price to pay for this convenience is the loss of public freedom and that is readily paid.
As for the rest, it would be sustainable. The crony capitalists would underwrite the projects of the collectivists. The ant-heaps of each would be so similar to the other that only a few changes in signage would be needed to turn regulated capitalism into the workers' paradise. It was a tremendous insight. Belloc realized Bolshevism was was too obviously destructive to last and anticipated the rise of what we would now call the Blue Model. F.A. Hayek paid tribute: "Hilaire Belloc ... explained that the effects of Socialist doctrine on Capitalist society is to produce a third thing different from either of its two begetters - to wit, the Servile State." Regarding the Servile State, George Orwell realized whatever name it gave itself, such an unholy alliance would be much the same quantity.
Many earlier writers have foreseen the emergence of a new kind of society, neither capitalist nor Socialist, and probably based upon slavery ... A good example is Hilaire Belloc's book, The Servile State ... Jack London, in The Iron Heel ... Wells's The Sleeper Awakes (1900) ... Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1930), all described imaginary worlds in which the special problems of capitalism had been solved without bringing liberty, equality, or true happiness any nearer. More recently, writers like Peter Drucker and F.A. Voigt have argued that Fascism and Communism are substantially the same thing. And indeed, it has always been obvious that a planned and centralized society is liable to develop into an oligarchy or a dictatorship.
The crucial point would be that this proposed Third Way would be more secure than the traditional Leninsim which rested upon the unholy Troika of Party, Army and Cheka. Paychecks would actually be met, courtesy of the crony capitalists. It's not surprising that after the collapse of the Soviets, the next collectivist social project was the much more "responsible" EU. But Larry Elliott, arguing in the Guardian for a British exit from Brussels, realized that distinction was more a matter of degree than substance. He characterized the EU not as "the US without the electric chair; it is the USSR without the gulag." The correspondence with Belloc's 1912 prediction is eerie.
Belloc argued that the only two exits from the evils of crony capitalism were an expansion of property holdings to the great majority of the people (the classic conservative program) or collectivism. Of the two alternatives, the elites would find collectivism far the easier path. He wrote, "if you are suffering because property is restricted to a few, you can alter that factor in the problem either by putting property in the hands of many or the hands of none ... a trust or monopoly is welcomed because it 'furnishes a mode of transition from private to public ownership.'" Crony capitalism furnishes collectivism so well that the Servile State becomes indistinguishable from the Workers' Paradise and its leaders equally interchangeable. Thus we have billionaires who become men of the people and men of the people who become billionaires. Who could have foreseen this in 1912?
The so-called Socialist ... has not fallen into the Servile State by a miscalculation ... he welcomes its birth, he foresees his power over its future ... it is orderly in the extreme ... and the prospect of a vast bureaucracy wherein the whole of life shall be scheduled and appointed to certain simple schemes deriving from the co-ordinate work of public clerks and marshaled by powerful heads of departments gives his small stomach a final satisfaction.
Best of all, the socialist agitator was free under the arrangement to engage in his favorite project of remaking mankind to free him from "the ravages of drink: more fatal still the dreadful habit of mankind of forming families and breeding children." Belloc's Servile State anticipated the carnival at Davos with its weird hodgepodge of moralism, pseudo-scientific causes and economic diktat precisely because it understood what the power coalition of the future would look like.
Where both Belloc and Orwell may have erred was in assuming the Servile State could fix the sustainability problems that doomed Leninism. The hope of finding a lasting formula for collectivism lies at the heart of the USSR's reboot and the EU and Hillary's socialism in words but crony capitalism in deeds strategy, in contrast to Bernie Sanders' hair-on-fire socialism. Nobody argues with the collectivist goals, just about how to pay for them. Both the EU and its American imitations are attempts at finding a socialism which can pay the bills. Unfortunately the present political crisis raises the possibility that the Servile State itself is inherently unsustainable.
The issue which dogs Hillary and which no cosmetic distancing from Sanders will solve is that the middle class is losing faith in the platform. The political turmoil threatening to break apart the EU and the American Blue Model is rooted in the fact that both are broke and have no prospect of meeting obligations as manifested in the stagnation of wages in the West and also in the collapse of the "security" safety nets for which the present-day slaves have traded away their freedom. The progressive campaign is essentially predicated on the assumption that a sufficiently resolute government can defy the laws of financial gravity. There is now some doubt on that point.
Collectivism cannot even pay its pensions. "The present value of unfunded obligations under Social Security as of August 2010 was approximately $5.4 trillion. In other words, this amount would have to be set aside today such that the principal and interest would cover the program's shortfall between tax revenues and payouts over the next 75 years." One of the culprits, ironically, is that the socialists have succeeded all too well in changing mankind's dreadful habit of forming families and breeding children.
It's not just the Government that's broke but also its political partners. Recently the Teamsters' Central States Pension Fund announced that it was bust. Unless it gets an infusion of taxpayer money, pension benefits for about 407,000 people could be reduced to "virtually nothing." Orwell famously said that "if you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever." What he and Belloc failed to anticipate was that the boot might rot to pieces and fail to fulfill its function to oppress.
What Belloc left out of his model, very oddly for him especially, was God. (Those who object to the word can substitute one of their choosing: reality, consequences or arithmetic, it makes no difference.) God can't be fixed and shows up at the most inconvenient moments. Teamsters who are able to intimidate everything find they are finally helpless against addition and subtraction. At the end of it all they, like everyone else who has mismanaged their pensions, can pay their retirees "virtually nothing."
In the face of this failure perhaps it is time to revisit Belloc's alternatives. If the only remaining path is to encourage a return to the popular ownership of property and making markets freer as opposed to cutting deals with monopolists -- then so be it. Technology may be working in favor of the path not taken. As intellectual property becomes the dominant means of production, every human is automatically born with a certain amount of capital, provided Planned Parenthood doesn't get to him first.
Lincoln Steffens thought he saw a future that worked but it was cruel fraud. Why not try property this time instead of slavery? We've tried being slaves. Let's try being free. Belloc points out this idea is so revolutionary that anyone who espouses it will almost certainly be suspected of mental incapacity.
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
Then we can really have some fun.
-
Very interesting read. Please post on Rants thread as well.
-
Reposting here:
social justice wars , SJ warriors, gender warriors , victimhood
« on: May 26, 2016, 07:33:27 PM »
Let me know if the new subject fits:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/435854/campus-activists-crazy-radicals-rule-roost
-
How the Democratic Party Ruined Atlanta
Corruption, tax-&-spend, and racial demagoguery: The familiar Democratic trinity claims another city.
June 1, 2016
John Perazzo
Atlanta, Georgia has not been governed by a Republican mayor since 1879. Most significant is the fact that the city has been led exclusively by Democrats since the 1960s and early '70s, the period when the Democratic Party emphatically broke away from centrist liberals and fell predominantly under the sway of its far left wing, a course which it still follows to this day.
One of Atlanta's more important political figures during this Democratic era was its first African American mayor, Maynard Jackson, who held office for three (non-consecutive) four-year terms: 1974-78, 1978–82, and 1990–94. In May 1974, the newly elected Jackson stoked racial tensions in Atlanta when he undermined the authority of the incumbent (white) police chief, John Inman, by making him subservient to the newly appointed “Public Safety Commissioner,” the black activist Reginald Eaves. Eaves was a longtime friend of Jackson's and had no law-enforcement experience whatsoever. Corrupt to his core and possessing an unparalleled sense of shameless entitlement, Eaves openly and defiantly used public money to purchase extra options on his fully loaded city vehicle, stating: “If I can’t ride in a little bit of comfort, to hell with it.” He sparked further controversy when he appointed an ex-convict as his personal secretary and instituted a quota system that gave preference to African Americans for hirings and promotions within the police department. Eventually, in 1978, Mayor Jackson was forced to fire Eaves for the role the latter had played in a scandal where he had helped police officers cheat on promotions exams.
In public works projects and municipal contracts, the race-obsessed Mayor Jackson pressed for vigorous affirmative-action programs and set-asides favoring black-owned enterprises. Numerous local businessmen were distressed by Jackson's very obvious race preferences.
By the late '70s, the Atlanta business community had become increasingly concerned about the city's rapidly rising crime rate. Between 1978 and 1979 alone, Atlanta experienced a 69% increase in homicides. It now had the highest murder rate—and the highest overall crime rate—of any city in the United States. The police force, meanwhile, dwindled in size by 25% between 1975 and 1979, causing the officers to be generally overextended and demoralized.
In January 1994, as Jackson's third and final term as mayor was winding down, one of the most politically explosive trials in Atlanta history centered on an affirmative-action program by which Jackson's administration had tried to increase the presence of black-owned shops and businesses at Atlanta's Hartsfield International Airport. A federal court jury convicted a former airport commissioner and councilman on 83 counts of mail fraud, 4 counts of tax evasion, and 43 counts of accepting bribes from an airport concessionaire in return for favorable treatment, like reduced rent at the airport.
In 2002, an investigation by The Atlanta Journal Constitution found that friends of Jackson and another former Atlanta mayor, Bill Campbell (1994-2002), for years had received “the vast majority” of contracts awarded by the Atlanta airport which were supposed to go to members of the black community generally. In at least 80 of the 100 contracts reviewed during the probe, one or more of the business partners involved had cultivated a relationship with either Jackson, Campbell, or both. Further, most of those partners had contributed money to the Jackson and/or Campbell mayoral campaigns.
As for Mayor Campbell, by no means was this his only brush with political scandal. A seven-year federal corruption probe resulted, in 2006, in the convictions of no fewer than ten city officials tied to his administration. Campbell, for his part, was convicted of three counts of federal tax evasion.
Where political corruption runs rampant, it is often closely accompanied by gross financial mismanagement—Atlanta being a case in point. For many years the city's political leaders—in exchange for the slavish political support of unionized public-sector workers—promised an unending array of unsustainably exorbitant healthcare and pension benefits to those employees. Consequently, by 2011 Atlanta's city government owed no less than $1.5 billion in unfunded liabilities on the pensions of its public-sector workers. That ominous figure was expected to triple within ten years if left unchecked. Recognizing the gravity of the situation, the Atlanta City Council in 2011 approved a long-overdue restructuring of the city's pension system.
The mismanagement of Atlanta's finances is reflected also in the economic condition of city residents as a whole. Today, some 29.5% of those residents live in poverty. And according to a recent study by the Brookings Institution, Atlanta has a greater disparity between rich and poor than any other urban area in America.
As in so many Democrat-run U.S. cities, Atlanta's public-school system has grown, over time, into a bureaucratic monstrosity of waste and ineptitude—exhibiting efficiency only in its ability to separate taxpayers from their hard-earned money. Every year the Atlanta Public Schools (APS) system gobbles up some $15,000 in taxpayer funds—about 50% more than the national average—for the education-related expenses of each K-12 pupil in its jurisdiction. Notwithstanding these massive investments, APS students perform abysmally on achievement tests designed to measure their academic competence. In 2013, for example, proficiency rates for APS eighth-graders were a meager 22% in reading and 17% in math. Moreover, the high-school graduation rates of APS students in recent years have ranged between 51% and 59%, far below the national average of 78%.
No profile of Atlanta would be complete without a mention of the crime rates that have long plagued the city. To name just a few, Atlanta's rates of murder, robbery, and auto theft exceed the corresponding national averages by 355%, 405%, and 320%, respectively. In 2013, Atlanta ranked, statistically, as the twelfth most dangerous city in the United States. From a global perspective, the incidence of gun murders in Atlanta is about the same as in South Africa, a nation infamous for its exceedingly high homicide rate.
Atlanta is merely one of many Democrat-run cities whose economies, school systems, and quality-of-life indicators have been run into the ground by their political leadership. And yet, for decade upon decade, Atlanta voters have never questioned their blind devotion to the Democratic Party. If nothing else, they are living proof that, to many Americans, party loyalty is quite literally the emotional equivalent of religious faith. False gods are almost never recognized for being the frauds and imposters that they are.
-
http://journalofamericangreatness.blogspot.com/
-
voted down. Some day we will have so many robots the only jobs will be designing and maintaining them. Then we can make robots to do even that. And we can all sit back and enjoy life without work if we choose.
****USWorldPoliticsConventionsTechScienceOdd NewsABC NewsYahoo OriginalsKatie Couric
Swiss set to reject basic income for all
AFP
•June 5, 2016
A giant poster reading: "What would you do if your income was taken care of?" is laid out on May 14, 2016 in Plainpalais Place in GenevaView photos
A giant poster reading: "What would you do if your income was taken care of?" is laid out on May 14, 2016 in Plainpalais Place in Geneva (AFP Photo/Fabrice Coffrini)
More
Geneva (AFP) - Swiss voters were on course Sunday to flatly reject a radical proposal to provide the entire population with a basic income, with no work required, initial results and projections showed.
National projections showed 78 percent of Swiss voters had opposed the initiative, according to numbers provided by the gfs.bern polling institute to public broadcaster RTS an hour after polls closed at noon (1000 GMT).
The result comes as no surprise: Opinion polls ahead of the vote had indicated more than 70 percent of Swiss voters opposed the measure.
The projections showed that 66 percent of voters had embraced a government proposal to speed up the country's asylum process.
Sixty-one percent also said "yes" to a call to allow genetic testing of embryos before they are inserted in the uterus in cases of in vitro fertilisation, according to the projections.
In a global first, the Swiss were asked whether they wanted all Swiss citizens, along with foreigners who have been legal residents for at least five years, to receive an unconditional basic income, or UBI.
The group behind the initiative has suggested paying 2,500 Swiss francs ($2,500/2,300 euros) a month to each adult, and 625 francs for each child.
The referendum came after reformers mustered more than the 100,000 signatures required to hold a popular vote, a regular feature of Swiss direct democracy.
But the idea was controversial from the start in Switzerland -- a country that values hard work -- and the government and nearly all political parties had urged voters to reject the scheme.
Andreas Ladner, a political scientist at Lausanne University, told RTS the Swiss were "realistic" in their assessment of the UBI plan.
Accepting that people can "be paid without having to work would have been a very big step" for the Swiss, he said, adding that the initiative appeared mainly to have been put forward to "spur debate".
"Just getting a broad public debate started on this important issue is a victory," Ralph Kundig, one of the lead campaigners, told AFP before the vote.
Supporters of the initiative argued that an unconditional income would help fight poverty and inequality in a world where good jobs with steady salaries are becoming harder to find.
"We need to find a new redistribution model," Kundig said.
-
I was trying to figure out exactly when it was that I saw and heard Jeffrey Sach's commencement speech at Lehigh some years ago
That is the day when I realized exactly what Obamster meant by his commitment to transforming the country. He meant by getting rid of it as a sovereign entity and move towards the progressive's dream of one world government ruled by a few and Obama at top.
I found this. A list of commencement speakers at Lehigh University. Sachs spoke in 2009. What I am shocked to see is another name on the list from the year 1988 . I would be curious to hear what HE had to say:
https://honorary.lehigh.edu/commencement
-
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/364358.php
Revolting, indeed.
-
This should be called, famous people reading the forum, where we already have a thread on this theme!
Nobody expains it better than Thomas Sowell:
http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2012/06/12/socialist_or_fascist
It bothers me a little when conservatives call Barack Obama a "socialist." He certainly is an enemy of the free market, and wants politicians and bureaucrats to make the fundamental decisions about the economy. But that does not mean that he wants government ownership of the means of production, which has long been a standard definition of socialism.
What President Obama has been pushing for, and moving toward, is more insidious: government control of the economy, while leaving ownership in private hands. That way, politicians get to call the shots but, when their bright ideas lead to disaster, they can always blame those who own businesses in the private sector.
Politically, it is heads-I-win when things go right, and tails-you-lose when things go wrong. This is far preferable, from Obama's point of view, since it gives him a variety of scapegoats for all his failed policies, without having to use President Bush as a scapegoat all the time.
Government ownership of the means of production means that politicians also own the consequences of their policies, and have to face responsibility when those consequences are disastrous -- something that Barack Obama avoids like the plague.
Thus the Obama administration can arbitrarily force insurance companies to cover the children of their customers until the children are 26 years old. Obviously, this creates favorable publicity for President Obama. But if this and other government edicts cause insurance premiums to rise, then that is something that can be blamed on the "greed" of the insurance companies.
The same principle, or lack of principle, applies to many other privately owned businesses. It is a very successful political ploy that can be adapted to all sorts of situations.
One of the reasons why both pro-Obama and anti-Obama observers may be reluctant to see him as fascist is that both tend to accept the prevailing notion that fascism is on the political right, while it is obvious that Obama is on the political left.
Back in the 1920s, however, when fascism was a new political development, it was widely -- and correctly -- regarded as being on the political left. Jonah Goldberg's great book "Liberal Fascism" cites overwhelming evidence of the fascists' consistent pursuit of the goals of the left, and of the left's embrace of the fascists as one of their own during the 1920s.
Mussolini, the originator of fascism, was lionized by the left, both in Europe and in America, during the 1920s. Even Hitler, who adopted fascist ideas in the 1920s, was seen by some, including W.E.B. Du Bois, as a man of the left.
It was in the 1930s, when ugly internal and international actions by Hitler and Mussolini repelled the world, that the left distanced themselves from fascism and its Nazi offshoot -- and verbally transferred these totalitarian dictatorships to the right, saddling their opponents with these pariahs.
What socialism, fascism and other ideologies of the left have in common is an assumption that some very wise people -- like themselves -- need to take decisions out of the hands of lesser people, like the rest of us, and impose those decisions by government fiat.
The left's vision is not only a vision of the world, but also a vision of themselves, as superior beings pursuing superior ends. In the United States, however, this vision conflicts with a Constitution that begins, "We the People..."
That is why the left has for more than a century been trying to get the Constitution's limitations on government loosened or evaded by judges' new interpretations, based on notions of "a living Constitution" that will take decisions out of the hands of "We the People," and transfer those decisions to our betters.
The self-flattery of the vision of the left also gives its true believers a huge ego stake in that vision, which means that mere facts are unlikely to make them reconsider, regardless of what evidence piles up against the vision of the left, and regardless of its disastrous consequences.
Only our own awareness of the huge stakes involved can save us from the rampaging presumptions of our betters, whether they are called socialists or fascists. So long as we buy their heady rhetoric, we are selling our birthright of freedom.
-
It's more of a national socialism.
This should be called, famous people reading the forum, where we already have a thread on this theme!
Nobody expains it better than Thomas Sowell:
http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2012/06/12/socialist_or_fascist
It bothers me a little when conservatives call Barack Obama a "socialist." He certainly is an enemy of the free market, and wants politicians and bureaucrats to make the fundamental decisions about the economy. But that does not mean that he wants government ownership of the means of production, which has long been a standard definition of socialism.
What President Obama has been pushing for, and moving toward, is more insidious: government control of the economy, while leaving ownership in private hands. That way, politicians get to call the shots but, when their bright ideas lead to disaster, they can always blame those who own businesses in the private sector.
Politically, it is heads-I-win when things go right, and tails-you-lose when things go wrong. This is far preferable, from Obama's point of view, since it gives him a variety of scapegoats for all his failed policies, without having to use President Bush as a scapegoat all the time.
Government ownership of the means of production means that politicians also own the consequences of their policies, and have to face responsibility when those consequences are disastrous -- something that Barack Obama avoids like the plague.
Thus the Obama administration can arbitrarily force insurance companies to cover the children of their customers until the children are 26 years old. Obviously, this creates favorable publicity for President Obama. But if this and other government edicts cause insurance premiums to rise, then that is something that can be blamed on the "greed" of the insurance companies.
The same principle, or lack of principle, applies to many other privately owned businesses. It is a very successful political ploy that can be adapted to all sorts of situations.
One of the reasons why both pro-Obama and anti-Obama observers may be reluctant to see him as fascist is that both tend to accept the prevailing notion that fascism is on the political right, while it is obvious that Obama is on the political left.
Back in the 1920s, however, when fascism was a new political development, it was widely -- and correctly -- regarded as being on the political left. Jonah Goldberg's great book "Liberal Fascism" cites overwhelming evidence of the fascists' consistent pursuit of the goals of the left, and of the left's embrace of the fascists as one of their own during the 1920s.
Mussolini, the originator of fascism, was lionized by the left, both in Europe and in America, during the 1920s. Even Hitler, who adopted fascist ideas in the 1920s, was seen by some, including W.E.B. Du Bois, as a man of the left.
It was in the 1930s, when ugly internal and international actions by Hitler and Mussolini repelled the world, that the left distanced themselves from fascism and its Nazi offshoot -- and verbally transferred these totalitarian dictatorships to the right, saddling their opponents with these pariahs.
What socialism, fascism and other ideologies of the left have in common is an assumption that some very wise people -- like themselves -- need to take decisions out of the hands of lesser people, like the rest of us, and impose those decisions by government fiat.
The left's vision is not only a vision of the world, but also a vision of themselves, as superior beings pursuing superior ends. In the United States, however, this vision conflicts with a Constitution that begins, "We the People..."
That is why the left has for more than a century been trying to get the Constitution's limitations on government loosened or evaded by judges' new interpretations, based on notions of "a living Constitution" that will take decisions out of the hands of "We the People," and transfer those decisions to our betters.
The self-flattery of the vision of the left also gives its true believers a huge ego stake in that vision, which means that mere facts are unlikely to make them reconsider, regardless of what evidence piles up against the vision of the left, and regardless of its disastrous consequences.
Only our own awareness of the huge stakes involved can save us from the rampaging presumptions of our betters, whether they are called socialists or fascists. So long as we buy their heady rhetoric, we are selling our birthright of freedom.
-
As usual Sowell nails it.
In a related vein, , ,
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/07/10/sonnie-johnson-progressivism/
-
As usual Sowell nails it.
In a related vein, , ,
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/07/10/sonnie-johnson-progressivism/
I prefer to call progressives what they really are. Oppressives.
-
https://www.facebook.com/logicallibertarians/videos/1127305393990075/?hc_ref=NEWSFEED
-
http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/122231
-
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/430130/another-liberal-who-didnt-read-liberal-fascism
http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2009/06/fascism-is-not-liberal-profound.html
http://prospect.org/article/jonah-goldbergs-bizarro-history-0
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/goldbergs-trivial-pursuit/
http://harpers.org/blog/2008/02/jonahs-fascism/
http://secularhumanism.blogspot.com/2008/06/liberal-fascism-critique-from-left.html
-
The second Black Supreme Court Justice is not a significant enough achievement to mention in Smithsonian (though Anita Hill is) as are the hip hoppers who got their start by selling crack to fellow blacks who have a whole section:
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/penny-starr/smithsonian-wont-explain-why-prominent-conservative-african-americans-not
-
The second Black Supreme Court Justice is not a significant enough achievement to mention in Smithsonian (though Anita Hill is) as are the hip hoppers who got their start by selling crack to fellow blacks who have a whole section:
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/penny-starr/smithsonian-wont-explain-why-prominent-conservative-african-americans-not
Anything that does not fit the narrative goes to the memory hole.
-
https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2016/10/the-real-reason-clarence-thomas-was-denied-a-spot-in-the-african-american-museum
-
Please post in Race thread on the SCH forum too.
-
How the LEFT is succeeding in shutting down discourse even in sports. Do we need a thread in the "politics of sports?":
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2016/10/19/the_nfl_is_ignoring_the_biggest_reason_ratings_are_down
The NFL obviously has made the business decision that not letting players play who insult a good number of fans would be a MSmedia onslaught and ACLU law suits that would be worse.
But to deceitfully ignore even saying this is just beyond our freedoms.
-
No, this thread is the proper one.
-
There can really only be ONE reason he feels the need to tell the world who he is going to vote for:
http://www.breitbart.com/
I say it is because of the fifth thing in this title of this thread.
Say it ain't so Colin. [sell out] I mean, as a Bush alum he can vote for whomever he wants, but why he feels the need to announce it to the PUBLIC NOW to me says it all.
-
There can really only be ONE reason he feels the need to tell the world who he is going to vote for:
http://www.breitbart.com/
I say it is because of the fifth thing in this title of this thread.
Say it ain't so Colin. [sell out] I mean, as a Bush alum he can vote for whomever he wants, but why he feels the need to announce it to the PUBLIC NOW to me says it all.
Isn't it strange how long they keep calling him a Republican even though he hasn't ever supported the party or recently voted for any of their candidates. Did he support pro-life, tax cuts, deregulation, defend the constitution when the administration tromped all over it, what? Nothing. Romney was too conservative and Obama perfectly competent, but Powell has judgment we could all learn from. (
-
http://spinzon.com/tim-kaine-catholic-church-will-change-sex-marriage-stance-will-banned-u-s/
:-o :-o :-o :x :x :x :x :x :x
-
http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/is-putin-s-russia-fascist
-
http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/is-putin-s-russia-fascist
In March, Moscow commentator Yevgeni Ikhlov charged Putin with introducing a "left fascism" that, while "anti-market and quasi-collectivist," is "fascism because it is a form of a militant and most primitive philistinism."
He says that like it is a bad thing.
-
Kaine says:
"The United States of America, more precisely, the future President of the United States of America, Hillary Clinton, will state an ultimatum. And that ultimatum will be to either change its stance on same-sex marriage or pack its bags and get out of America. And yes – the President of the country can do that.”
How come he is not including mosques here? :wink:
-
http://www.orwell.ru/library/articles/As_I_Please/english/efasc
-
http://www.openculture.com/2016/11/umberto-eco-makes-a-list-of-the-14-common-features-of-fascism.html
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkiudbI43iQ
One of the arguments we are going to hear from the other side about the Carrier deal is that Obama did the same sort of thing with the auto industry.
Please discuss.
-
CD writes:
"One of the arguments we are going to hear from the other side about the Carrier deal is that Obama did the same sort of thing with the auto industry."
2 days ago Rush discussed this very issue. Fortunately I am able to find the transcript online. You may have to peruse further down the article to get to the part where he negates the argument that the deals are the same. One reason is Obama's deal was for the unions. Secondly the BHO administration basically bought GM and told them what to do:
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2016/11/30/the_petty_white_house_response_to_trump_s_carrier_deal
-
Very helpful, I used it in a FB conversation-- thank you.
-
CD writes:
"One of the arguments we are going to hear from the other side about the Carrier deal is that Obama did the same sort of thing with the auto industry."
ccp: 2 days ago Rush discussed this very issue. Fortunately I am able to find the transcript online. You may have to peruse further down the article to get to the part where he negates the argument that the deals are the same. One reason is Obama's deal was for the unions. Secondly the BHO administration basically bought GM and told them what to do:
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2016/11/30/the_petty_white_house_response_to_trump_s_carrier_deal
Good work on both the question and the answer. My view is that it is either unconstitutional or just plain wrong (equal protection under the law) for any government to offer any business any special treatment that would not be available to all, and WAY out of bounds for the federal government to take on the task of running a so-called private business.
Adhering to these principles might have cost us Chrysler in 1979, 2009, Harley Davidson in 1983 and General Motors in 2009. The positive effects of a consistent and dynamic, free and fair economy would more than make up for that, but telling that to the displaced workers would not be persuasive, consoling or pay the bills. Trump's approach polls better.
Part of what Trump offered Carrier is offered to all, the promise that lower tax rates and more reasonable regulations are coming. The rest I believe was the state offering special incentives in a deal brokered by Trump. I oppose that kind of thing even though it is common at the state and local level and nothing like what Obama did with General Motors. By coincidence, the Governor of Indiana is ... Mike Pence. http://www.indystar.com/story/news/politics/2016/11/14/pence-finish-term-governor-he-leads-trump-transition/93794636/
Obama acted to prevent the auto workers union from having to take major losses in bankruptcy. He preventing bankruptcy laws from working as intended. GM was trying reorganize and President Obama took sides, putting the full faith and credit of the United States where it legally and constitutionally did not belong.
Article WHAT? of the constitution authorizes the federal government to acquire and run an automobile manufacturing company??
-
I am sorry if I somehow communicated that the democrat party wasn't anti-semetic. The American left is very anti semetic. Don't believe me?
Exhibit A:
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/416367/lets-talk-about-obamas-blatantly-anti-semitic-associates-victor-davis-hanson
The president’s call to “punish our enemies” was a direct call to Latinos to turn out en masse on the basis of collective ethnic fears and resentments. Politicians as diverse Joe Biden and Loretta Sanchez have all tried out racist tropes to gin up their bases — involving various warnings about scary white would-be slave-holders and clannish Southeast Asians. But if Williams is sincerely worried that racialism may be endangering bipartisan support for Israel at home, especially among minorities, and if he sees the problem largely through the lens of being “a black man,” then he might not look to the stars but just as eagerly review a long history of patently anti-Semitic statements from black public figures and celebrities who have counseled the president and are frequent visitors to the White House (well beyond fringe figures like a Leonard Jeffries or Louis Farrakhan), and who have nothing to do with either Bibi Netanyahu or John Boehner: Jesse Jackson? (“Hymies” and “hymie-town.”) Al Sharpton? (“Diamond merchants” and “if Jews want to get it on, tell them to pin on their yarmulkes and come over to my house.”) Reverend Jeremiah Wright? (“Them Jews ain’t going to let him [Barack Obama] talk to me.”) When Cynthia McKinney lost her congressional election, whom did her father blame? The “J-E-W-S.”
http://www.mrctv.org/blog/al-sharptons-race-baiting-early-years
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704588404575123404191464126
Mr. Sharpton is an unlikely White House partner, given his racially polarizing history and efforts by Mr. Obama's 2008 campaign team to steer clear of the civil-rights leader.
But Mr. Sharpton could help ensure that blacks remain energized for November's elections—an important task in a year that finds the Democratic base to be less enthusiastic about voting than are Republicans.
**Ginning up racial hatred has been a standard tactic for the dems since the dems formed the Klu Klux Klan as the party's armed wing.**
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIZml10S1hk
#Invalid YouTube Link#
http://www.forbes.com/sites/billflax/2011/09/01/obama-hitler-and-exploding-the-biggest-lie-in-history/
Obama, Hitler, And Exploding The Biggest Lie In History
Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini in Munich, G...
Image via Wikipedia
“The line between fascism and Fabian socialism is very thin. Fabian socialism is the dream. Fascism is Fabian socialism plus the inevitable dictator.” John T. Flynn
Numerous commentators have raised alarming comparisons between America’s recent economic foibles and Argentina’s fall “from breadbasket to basket case.” The U.S. pursues a similar path with her economy increasingly ensnared under the growing nexus of government control. Resources are redistributed for vote-buying welfare schemes, patronage style earmarks, and graft by unelected bureaucrats, quid pro quo with unions, issue groups and legions of lobbyists.
In Argentina, everyone acknowledges that fascism, state capitalism, corporatism – whatever – reflects very leftwing ideology. Eva Peron remains a liberal icon. President Obama’s Fabian policies (Keynesian economics) promise similar ends. His proposed infrastructure bank is just the latest gyration of corporatism. Why then are fascists consistently portrayed as conservatives?
In the Thirties, intellectuals smitten by progressivism considered limited, constitutional governance anachronistic. The Great Depression had apparently proven capitalism defunct. The remaining choice had narrowed between communism and fascism. Hitler was about an inch to the right of Stalin. Western intellectuals infatuated with Marxism thus associated fascism with the Right.
Later, Marxists from the Frankfurt School popularized this prevailing sentiment. Theodor Adorno in The Authoritarian Personality devised the “F” scale to demean conservatives as latent fascists. The label “fascist” has subsequently meant anyone liberals seek to ostracize or discredit.
Fascism is an amorphous ideology mobilizing an entire nation (Mussolini, Franco and Peron) or race (Hitler) for a common purpose. Leaders of industry, science, education, the arts and politics combine to shepherd society in an all encompassing quest. Hitler’s premise was a pure Aryan Germany capable of dominating Europe.
While he feinted right, Hitler and Stalin were natural bedfellows. Hitler mimicked Lenin’s path to totalitarian tyranny, parlaying crises into power. Nazis despised Marxists not over ideology, but because they had betrayed Germany in World War I and Nazis found it unconscionable that German communists yielded fealty to Slavs in Moscow.
The National Socialist German Workers Party staged elaborate marches with uniformed workers calling one another “comrade” while toting tools the way soldiers shoulder rifles. The bright red Nazi flag symbolized socialism in a “classless, casteless” Germany (white represents Aryanism). Fascist central planning was not egalitarian, but it divvied up economic rewards very similarly to communism: party membership and partnering with the state.
Where communists generally focused on class, Nazis fixated on race. Communists view life through the prism of a perpetual workers’ revolution. National Socialists used race as a metaphor to justify their nation’s engagement in an existential struggle.
As many have observed, substituting “Jews” for “capitalists” exposes strikingly similar thinking. But communists frequently hated Jews too and Hitler also abhorred capitalists, or “plutocrats” in Nazi speak. From afar, Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany each reeked of plutocratic oligarchy. Both were false utilitarian Utopias that in practice merely empowered dictators.
The National Socialist German Workers Party is only Right if you are hopelessly Left. Or, ascribe to Marxist eschatology perceiving that history marches relentlessly towards the final implementation of socialist Utopia. Marx predicted state capitalism as the last desperate redoubt against the inevitable rise of the proletariat. The Soviets thus saw Nazis as segues to communism.
Interestingly, almost everywhere Marxism triumphed: Russia, China, Cuba, Vietnam, etc., all skipped the capitalist phase Marx thought pivotal. Instead, they slid straight from pre-industrial feudal conditions into communism; which essentially entailed reversion back to feudalism supplanting the traditional aristocracy with party cronyism – before dissolving into corrupted variants of state capitalism economically similar to fascism.
As usual, Marx got it backwards.
It’s also ironic that even as orthodox Marxism collapsed due to economic paralysis, cultural Marxism predicated on race, sex and identity politics thrives in “Capitalist” America. The multiculturalists substituted race where the Soviets and Maoists saw only class. America’s civic crusade has become political correctness, aka cultural Marxism, preoccupied with race. Socialism wheels around again.
While political correctness as manifest in the West is very anti-Nazi and those opposing multiculturalism primarily populate the Right, it’s false to confuse fascism with conservatism. Coupling negatives is not necessarily positive. Because the Nazis would likely detest something that conservatives also dislike indicates little harmony. Ohio State hates Michigan. Notre Dame does too, but Irish fans rarely root for the Buckeyes.
America’s most fascistic elements are ultra leftwing organizations like La Raza or the Congressional Black Caucus. These racial nationalists seek gain not through merit, but through the attainment of government privileges. What’s the difference between segregation and affirmative action? They are identical phenomena harnessing state auspices to impose racialist dogma.
The Nation of Islam and other Afrocentric movements, like the Nazis, even celebrate their own perverse racist mythology. Are Louis Farrakhan and Jeremiah Wright conservatives? Is Obama?
Racism does not exclusively plague the Right. Many American bigots manned the Left: ex-Klansman Hugo Black had an extremely left wing Supreme Court record, George Wallace was a New Deal style liberal – he just wanted welfare and social programs controlled by states. Communists always persecute minorities whenever in power.
The Nazis’ anti-Semitism derived indirectly from Karl Marx, who despite Jewish ancestry was deeply anti-Semitic. Bankers and other capitalists were disproportionately Jewish. Elsewhere, Jews played prominent roles. Before falling under Hitler’s sway, Mussolini’s inner circle was overly Jewish. Peron was the first leader to let Jews hold public office in Argentina. Franco, a Marana, welcomed Jews back into Spain for the first time since 1492 and famously thwarted Hitler by harboring Jewish refugees.
Very little of Hitler’s domestic activity was even remotely right wing. Europe views Left and Right differently, but here, free markets, limited constitutional government, family, church and tradition are the bedrocks of conservatism. The Nazis had a planned economy; eradicated federalism in favor of centralized government; considered church and family as competitors; and disavowed tradition wishing to restore Germany’s pre-Christian roots.
Despite Democrats’ pretensions every election, patriotism is clearly a conservative trait so Nazi foreign policy could be vaguely right wing, but how did Hitler’s aggression differ from Stalin’s? The peace movement evidenced liberals being duped as “useful idiots” more than pacifistic purity. Note the Left’s insistence on neutrality during the Hitler/Stalin pact and their urgent switch to militarism once Germany attacked.
After assuming power, Nazis strongly advocated “law and order.” Previously, they were antagonistic thugs, which mirrored the communists’ ascension. The Nazis outlawed unions perceiving them as competitors for labor’s loyalties, i.e. for precisely the same reason workers’ paradises like Communist China and Soviet Russia disallowed unions. To Nazis, the state sustained workers’ needs.
Even issues revealing similarity to American conservatism could also describe Stalin, Mao and many communists. This is not to suggest liberals and fascists are indistinguishable, but a fair assessment clearly shows if any similarities appear with American politics they reside more on the Left than Right.
On many issues the Nazis align quite agreeably with liberals. The Nazis enforced strict gun control, which made their agenda possible and highlights the necessity of an armed populace.
The Nazis separated church and state to marginalize religion’s influence. Hitler despised biblical morality and bourgeois (middle class) values. Crosses were ripped from the public square in favor of swastikas. Prayer in school was abolished and worship confined to churches. Church youth groups were forcibly absorbed into the Hitler Youth.
Hitler extolled public education, even banning private schools and instituting “a fundamental reconstruction of our whole national education program” controlled by Berlin. Similar to liberals’ cradle to career ideal, the Nazis established state administered early childhood development programs; “The comprehension of the concept of the State must be striven for by the school as early as the beginning of understanding.”
Foreshadowing Michelle Obama, “The State is to care for elevating national health.” Nanny State intrusions reflect that persons are not sovereign, but belong to the state. Hitler even sought to outlaw meat after the war; blaming Germany’s health problems on the capitalist (i.e. Jewish) food industry. The Nazis idealized public service and smothered private charity with public programs.
Hitler’s election platform included “an expansion on a large scale of old age welfare.” Nazi propaganda proclaimed, “No one shall go hungry! No one shall be cold!” Germany had universal healthcare and demanded that “the state be charged first with providing the opportunity for a livelihood.” Obama would relish such a “jobs” program.
Nazi Germany was the fullest culmination of Margaret Sanger’s eugenic vision. She was the founder of Planned Parenthood, which changed its name from the American Birth Control Society after the holocaust surfaced. Although Nazi eugenics clearly differed from liberals’ abortion arguments today, that wasn’t necessarily true for their progressive forbears.
Germany was first to enact environmentalist economic policies promoting sustainable development and regulating pollution. The Nazis bought into Rousseau’s romanticized primitive man fantasies. Living “authentically” in environs unspoiled by capitalist industry was almost as cherished as pure Aryan lineage.
National Socialist economics were socialist, obviously, imposing top-down economic planning and social engineering. It was predicated on volkisch populism combining a Malthusian struggle for existence with a fetish for the “organic.” Like most socialists, wealth was thought static and “the common good supersede[d] the private good” in a Darwinist search for “applied biology” to boost greater Germany.
The Nazis distrusted markets and abused property rights, even advocating “confiscation of war profits” and “nationalization of associated industries.” Their platform demanded, “Communalization of the great warehouses” (department stores) and presaging modern set aside quotas on account of race or politics, “utmost consideration of all small firms in contracts with the State.”
Nazi Germany progressively dominated her economy. Although many businesses were nominally private, the state determined what was produced in what quantities and at what prices. First, they unleashed massive inflation to finance their prolific spending on public works, welfare and military rearmament. They then enforced price and wage controls to mask currency debasement’s harmful impact. This spawned shortages as it must, so Berlin imposed rationing. When that failed, Albert Speer assumed complete power over production schedules, distribution channels and allowable profits.
Working for personal ends instead of the collective was as criminal in Nazi Germany as Soviet Russia. Norman Thomas, quadrennial Socialist Party presidential candidate, saw the correlation clearly, “both the communist and fascist revolutions definitely abolished laissez-faire capitalism in favor of one or another kind and degree of state capitalism. . . In no way was Hitler the tool of big business. He was its lenient master. So was Mussolini except that he was weaker.”
Mussolini recognized, “Fascism entirely agrees with Mr. Maynard Keynes, despite the latter’s prominent position as a Liberal. In fact, Mr. Keynes’ excellent little book, The End of Laissez-Faire (l926) might, so far as it goes, serve as a useful introduction to fascist economics.” Keynes saw the similarities too, admitting his theories, “can be much easier adapted to the conditions of a totalitarian state than . . . a large degree of laissez-faire.” Hitler built the autobahn, FDR the TVA. Propaganda notwithstanding, neither rejuvenated their economies.
FDR admired Mussolini because “the trains ran on time” and Stalin’s five year plans, but was jealous of Hitler whose economic tinkering appeared more successful than the New Deal. America wasn’t ready for FDR’s blatantly fascist Blue Eagle business model and the Supreme Court overturned several other socialist designs. The greatest dissimilarity between FDR and fascists was he enjoyed less success transforming society because the Constitution obstructed him.
Even using Republicans as proxies, there was little remotely conservative about fascism. Hitler and Mussolini were probably to the right of our left-leaning media and education establishments, but labeling Tea Partiers as fascists doesn’t indict the Right. It indicts those declaring so as radically Left.
-
http://nypost.com/2016/12/05/report-buried-trump-related-hate-crimes-against-white-kids/
Report buried Trump-related ‘hate crimes’ against white kids
By Paul Sperry December 5, 2016 | 1:55pm | Updated
Modal Trigger Report buried Trump-related ‘hate crimes’ against white kids
At least 2,000 educators around the country reported racist slurs and other derogatory language leveled against white students in the first days after Donald Trump was elected president. But the group that surveyed the teachers didn’t publish the results in its report on Trump-related “hate crimes.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center partnered with the American Federation of Teachers, which formally endorsed Hillary Clinton, to circulate the questionnaire among its 1.6 million mostly Democratic members. The survey was sent out to K-12 teachers and administrators who subscribe to its “Teaching Tolerance” newsletter.
The SPLC’s widely cited report — “The Trump Effect: The Impact of the 2016 Presidential Election on Our Nation’s Schools” — reported that 40 percent of the more than 10,000 educators who responded to the survey “have heard derogatory language directed at students of color, Muslims, immigrants and people based on gender or sexual orientation.”
The takeaway was that Trump-supporting white kids have been harassing minorities at the nation’s schools. And SPLC’s schools report, along with a broader report on alleged Trump-inspired hate crimes — “Ten Days After: Harassment and Intimidation in the Aftermath of the Election” — sparked breathless coverage in the New York Times, Washington Post and other major media.
The reports also triggered a statement Friday from the US Commission on Civil Rights, which expressed “deep concern” that “prejudice has reared its ugly head in public elementary and secondary schools.” The panel called for more federal funding to prosecute “hate crimes.”
But the SPLC didn’t present the whole story. The Montgomery, Ala.-based nonprofit self-censored results from a key question it asked educators — whether they agree or disagree with the following statement: “I have heard derogatory language or slurs about white students.”
Asked last week to provide the data, SPLC initially said it was having a hard time getting the information “from the researchers.” Pressed, SPLC spokeswoman Kirsten Bokenkamp finally revealed that “about 20 percent answered affirmatively to that question.”
Bokenkamp did not provide an explanation for the absence of such a substantial metric — at least 2,000 bias-related incidents against white students — from the report, which focuses instead on “anti-immigrant sentiment,” “anti-Muslim sentiment” and “slurs about students of color” related to the election.
“They left that result out because it would not fit their ideological narrative,” former Education Department civil rights attorney Hans Bader said. “It was deemed an inconvenient truth.”
Suppressing reports of crimes against Trump supporters gives a one-sided and misleading view of post-election discord.
Founded in 1971, SPLC claims to be a nonpartisan civil rights law firm. But it receives funding from leftist groups, including ones controlled by billionaire George Soros. And a review of Federal Election Commission records reveals that its board members have contributed more than $13,400 to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaigns.
Bader says SPLC has an agenda to derail the Trump administration before it starts.
“These flawed SPLC reports will be cited by left-wing special interests to try to block the confirmation of moderate and conservative people to posts such as attorney general by falsely making it look like America’s schools and streets are pervaded by bigotry,” Bader said.
Last week, SPLC held a press conference in Washington to demand Trump “reconsider” his picks for White House advisers and attorney general, and “disavow” his immigration policies.
“His own words have sparked the barrage of hate that we are seeing,” SPLC President Richard Cohen maintained. “He has been singing the white supremacist song since he came down the escalator in his tower and announced his candidacy.”
Cohen tied Trump to a number of hate crimes, which he warns will only “spike” once he’s inaugurated. He noted his center recorded 867 alleged anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim and anti-black hate crimes in the 10 days following Trump’s Nov. 8 win.
But the SPLC acknowledges that it has not independently verified any of the claims. It collected most of them on its website, many anonymously.
The group won’t use its $315 million in assets to investigate the “hate crimes,” or at least help alleged victims file police reports or provide them counseling or other assistance, but it has offered “sympathy.”
“We wrote back to every submission that provided an email address to express sympathy and encourage them to report the incident to local authorities,” Bokenkamp said.
Bader pointed out that most of the anti-minority “hate crimes” and “hate incidents” cited by SPLC do not legally constitute hate crimes, and many involve constitutionally protected speech.
“It is simply ridiculous that SPLC treats ‘build the wall’ as hate rhetoric,” he said. The center counted people mentioning “build the wall” as 467 incidents of hate.
“Alas, these days the SPLC is mainly a fundraising machine,” said Gail Heriot, a US Commission on Civil Rights member who voted against Friday’s resolution. “The more it can persuade its donors that hate groups have penetrated every nook and cranny of American society, the more money it can raise. Now it wants us to believe that the election has unleashed unprecedented waves of hatred and violence among schoolchildren. Let’s stop and take a deep breath before we assume that’s true. The SPLC has no credibility with anyone — on the left or the right — who is familiar with its methods.”
While there no doubt are legitimate reports of hate crimes against minorities — and even one is too many — hyping such incidents recklessly fans the flames of anxiety among such communities. And suppressing reports of crimes against Trump supporters gives a one-sided and misleading view of post-election discord.
Paul Sperry is a former Washington bureau chief for Investor’s Business Daily and the author of “Infiltration.”
-
http://www.anesi.com/Fascism-TheUltimateDefinition.htm
-
What do we make of this?
https://www.facebook.com/BenSwannRealityCheck/videos/1317947598270187/?hc_ref=NEWSFEED
-
Making Housing Sane Again
Will Trump protect taxpayers or Fannie and Freddie shareholders?
Fannie Mae headquarters in Washington.
Fannie Mae headquarters in Washington. Photo: Associated Press
Jan. 8, 2017 5:06 p.m. ET
72 COMMENTS
If you think most equity investors have been in an ebullient mood since Election Day, consider the euphoric owners of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. With both stocks soaring more than 130% since Nov. 8, Fan and Fred shareholders are ready to do the Juju on That Beat in the middle of Wall Street. The Trump Administration needs to shut down this block party before it gets out of hand.
The cause for revelry is the expectation that Treasury secretary nominee Steven Mnuchin is going to revive the Beltway model of public risk and private reward. When the Senate Finance Committee hosts his confirmation hearing, likely soon after Inauguration Day, lawmakers should extract a promise that he won’t.
Fan and Fred’s owners feasted for decades on an implied taxpayer guarantee before the housing crisis. Since everyone knew the two government-created mortgage giants would receive federal help in a crisis, they were able to run enormous risks and still borrow cheaply as they came to own or guarantee $5 trillion of mortgage paper. When the housing market went south, taxpayers had to stage a rescue in 2008 and poured nearly $190 billion into the toxic twins.
Fannie and Freddie recovered, but only because of this taxpayer backing. Not unreasonably, taxpayers now receive all of their profits. But the private shareholders of these so-called government-sponsored enterprises keep pretending that something other than the government is responsible for their income streams. As if anyone would buy their guarantees—or give them cheap financing—if Uncle Sam weren’t standing behind them.
The hedgies that own Fan and Fred shares talk about liberating the companies from Washington, but what they really want is to liberate for themselves the profits that flow from a duopoly backed by taxpayers.
And Mr. Mnuchin, the Goldman Sachs alum, seems to be speaking their language. “It makes no sense that these are owned by the government and have been controlled by the government for as long as they have,” Mr. Mnuchin told Fox Business in November. “So let me just be clear—we’ll make sure that when they’re restructured they’re absolutely safe and they don’t get taken over again. But we got to get them out of government control.”
We’re all for businesses getting out of government control—unless they’re playing with taxpayer money. Americans were told that Fannie and Freddie were safe for years before the last crisis. The right answer is to shut them down.
We were hoping that perhaps the Treasury nominee’s thinking might have evolved since he sent Fannie and Freddie shares soaring last year. But on Friday night a Trump transition official gave us a comment similar to the one Mr. Mnuchin gave to Fox in November.
As a former mortgage-backed securities trader, Mr. Mnuchin may try to argue that change would disrupt markets and that reform could deny people a cheap 30-year mortgage. There’s a Wall Street-Washington mythology, expressed recently in a paper from the Obama Treasury, that government backing is an essential element of housing finance.
This is nonsense. As former FDIC Chairman William Isaac and former Wells Fargo Chairman Richard Kovacevich noted recently in these pages, “Nonconventional or ‘jumbo’ 30-year mortgages not guaranteed by Fannie and Freddie have existed for decades. In the decade preceding the financial crisis, the interest rate on these jumbo mortgages averaged only about 0.25% higher than similar guaranteed mortgages, a difference of a little over $40 a month on a $200,000 mortgage.”
A 2014 report from the Congressional Budget Office found that rate increases in a private market would likely be smaller than the annual rate fluctuations in the government-backed market today.
Speaking of the government-backed market, there are still more threats to taxpayers over at the Federal Housing Administration, Fan and Fred’s cousin that is part of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The housing industry is hoping HUD Secretary Julián Castro will deliver one more subsidy boost on his way out the door by announcing lower premiums on federal mortgage insurance.
Mr. Mnuchin can show that the Trump Administration is charting a new course by rejecting the old model of housing finance that created a financial crisis and still endangers taxpayers.
-
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/443676/meryl-streep-golden-globes-speech-left-wins-culture-war
-
I think the second item below gets in right with regard to Trump, but with regard to Bannon and Gorka, (whom I had liked until now) my spider sense begins to tingle , , ,
==========================
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/10/world/europe/bannon-vatican-julius-evola-fascism.html?smid=fb-share
Steve Bannon Cited Italian Thinker Who Inspired Fascists
By JASON HOROWITZFEB. 10, 2017
Stephen K. Bannon referred to the Italian philosopher Julius Evola in a Vatican speech in 2014. Credit Todd Heisler/The New York Times
ROME — Those trying to divine the roots of Stephen K. Bannon’s dark and at times apocalyptic worldview have repeatedly combed over a speech that Mr. Bannon, President Trump’s ideological guru, made in 2014 to a Vatican conference, where he expounded on Islam, populism and capitalism.
But for all the examination of those remarks, a passing reference by Mr. Bannon to an esoteric Italian philosopher has gone little noticed, except perhaps by scholars and followers of the deeply taboo, Nazi-affiliated thinker, Julius Evola.
“The fact that Bannon even knows Evola is significant,” said Mark Sedgwick, a leading scholar of Traditionalists at Aarhus University in Denmark.
Evola, who died in 1974, wrote on everything from Eastern religions to the metaphysics of sex to alchemy. But he is best known as a leading proponent of Traditionalism, a worldview popular in far-right and alternative religious circles that believes progress and equality are poisonous illusions.
Evola became a darling of Italian Fascists, and Italy’s post-Fascist terrorists of the 1960s and 1970s looked to him as a spiritual and intellectual godfather.
They called themselves Children of the Sun after Evola’s vision of a bourgeoisie-smashing new order that he called the Solar Civilization. Today, the Greek neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn includes his works on its suggested reading list, and the leader of Jobbik, the Hungarian nationalist party, admires Evola and wrote an introduction to his works.
More important for the current American administration, Evola also caught on in the United States with leaders of the alt-right movement, which Mr. Bannon nurtured as the head of Breitbart News and then helped harness for Mr. Trump.
“Julius Evola is one of the most fascinating men of the 20th century,” said Richard Spencer, the white nationalist leader who is a top figure in the alt-right movement, which has attracted white supremacists, racists and anti-immigrant elements.
In the days after the election, Mr. Spencer led a Washington alt-right conference in chants of “Hail Trump!” But he also invoked Evola’s idea of a prehistoric and pre-Christian spirituality — referring to the awakening of whites, whom he called the Children of the Sun.
Mr. Spencer said “it means a tremendous amount” that Mr. Bannon was aware of Evola and other Traditionalist thinkers.
“Even if he hasn’t fully imbibed them and been changed by them, he is at least open to them,” he said. “He at least recognizes that they are there. That is a stark difference to the American conservative movement that either was ignorant of them or attempted to suppress them.”
Mr. Bannon, who did not return a request for comment for this article, is an avid and wide-ranging reader. He has spoken enthusiastically about everything from Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” to “The Fourth Turning” by William Strauss and Neil Howe, which sees history in cycles of cataclysmic and order-obliterating change. His awareness of and reference to Evola in itself only reflects that reading. But some on the alt-right consider Mr. Bannon a door through which Evola’s ideas of a hierarchical society run by a spiritually superior caste can enter in a period of crisis.
“Evolists view his ship as coming in,” said Prof. Richard Drake at the University of Montana, who wrote about Evola in his book “The Revolutionary Mystique and Terrorism in Contemporary Italy.”
For some of them, it has been a long time coming.
“It’s the first time that an adviser to the American president knows Evola, or maybe has a Traditionalist formation,” said Gianfranco De Turris, an Evola biographer and apologist based in Rome who runs the Evola Foundation out of his apartment.
“If Bannon has these ideas, we have to see how he influences the politics of Trump,” he said.
A March article titled “An Establishment Conservative’s Guide to the Alt-Right” in Breitbart, the website then run by Mr. Bannon, included Evola as one of the thinkers in whose writings the “origins of the alternative right” could be found.
The article was co-written by Milo Yiannopoulos, the right-wing provocateur who is wildly popular with conservatives on college campuses. Mr. Trump recently defended Mr. Yiannopoulos as a symbol of free speech after demonstrators violently protested his planned speech at the University of California, Berkeley.
The article celebrated the youthful internet trolls who give the alt-right movement its energy and who, motivated by a common and questionable sense of humor, use anti-Semitic and racially charged memes “in typically juvenile but undeniably hysterical fashion.”
“It’s hard to imagine them reading Evola,” the article continued. “They may be inclined to sympathize to those causes, but mainly because it annoys the right people.”
Evola, who has more than annoyed people for nearly a century, seems to be having a moment.
“When I started working on Evola, you had to plow through Italian,” said Mr. Sedgwick, who keeps track of Traditionalist movements and thought on his blog, Traditionalists. “Now he’s available in English, German, Russian, Serbian, Greek, Hungarian. First I saw Evola boom, and then I realized the number of people interested in that sort of idea was booming.”
Born in 1898, Evola liked to call himself a baron and in later life sported a monocle in his left eye.
A brilliant student and talented artist, he came home after fighting in World War I and became a leading exponent in Italy of the Dada movement, which, like Evola, rejected the church and bourgeois institutions.
Evola’s early artistic endeavors gave way to his love of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, and he developed a worldview with an overriding animosity toward the decadence of modernity. Influenced by mystical works and the occult, Evola began developing an idea of the individual’s ability to transcend his reality and “be unconditionally whatever one wants.”
Under the influence of René Guénon, a French metaphysicist and convert to Islam, Evola in 1934 published his most influential work, “The Revolt Against the Modern World,” which cast materialism as an eroding influence on ancient values.
It viewed humanism, the Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation and the French Revolution all as historical disasters that took man further away from a transcendental perennial truth.
Changing the system, Evola argued, was “not a question of contesting and polemicizing, but of blowing everything up.”
Evola’s ideal order, Professor Drake wrote, was based on “hierarchy, caste, monarchy, race, myth, religion and ritual.”
That made a fan out of Benito Mussolini.
The dictator already admired Evola’s early writings on race, which influenced the 1938 Racial Laws restricting the rights of Jews in Italy.
Mussolini so liked Evola’s 1941 book, “Synthesis on the Doctrine of Race,” which advocated a form of spiritual, and not merely biological, racism, that he invited Evola to meet him in September of that year.
Evola eventually broke with Mussolini and the Italian Fascists because he considered them overly tame and corrupted by compromise. Instead he preferred the Nazi SS officers, seeing in them something closer to a mythic ideal. They also shared his anti-Semitism.
(Photo: A demonstration last month by Golden Dawn, the Greek neo-Nazi party, which includes Evola’s works on a suggested reading list. Credit Michalis Karagiannis/Reuters)
Mr. Bannon suggested in his Vatican remarks that the Fascist movement had come out of Evola’s ideas. As Mr. Bannon expounded on the intellectual motivations of the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, he mentioned “Julius Evola and different writers of the early 20th century who are really the supporters of what’s called the Traditionalist movement, which really eventually metastasized into Italian Fascism.”
The reality, historians say, is that Evola sought to “infiltrate and influence” the Fascists, as Mr. Sedgwick put it, as a powerful vehicle to spread his ideas.
In his Vatican talk, Mr. Bannon suggested that although Mr. Putin represented a “kleptocracy,” the Russian president understood the existential danger posed by “a potential new caliphate” and the importance of using nationalism to stand up for traditional institutions.
“We, the Judeo-Christian West,” Mr. Bannon added, “really have to look at what he’s talking about as far as Traditionalism goes — particularly the sense of where it supports the underpinnings of nationalism.”
As Mr. Bannon suggested in his speech, Mr. Putin’s most influential thinker is Aleksandr Dugin, the ultra-nationalist Russian Traditionalist and anti-liberal writer sometimes called “Putin’s Rasputin.”
An intellectual descendant of Evola, Mr. Dugin has called for a “genuine, true, radically revolutionary, and consistent fascist fascism” and advocated a geography-based theory of “Eurasianism” — which has provided a philosophical framework for Mr. Putin’s expansionism and meddling in Western European politics.
Mr. Dugin sees European Traditionalists as needing Russia, and Mr. Putin, to defend them from the onslaught of Western liberal democracy, individual liberty, and materialism — all Evolian bêtes noires.
This appeal of traditional values on populist voters and against out-of-touch elites, the “Pan-European Union” and “centralized government in the United States,” as Mr. Bannon put it, was not lost on Mr. Trump’s ideological guru.
“A lot of people that are Traditionalists,” he said in his Vatican remarks, “are attracted to that.”
============
Still being irritated by that moronic article in The New York Times ("Steve Bannon Cited Italian Thinker [Julius Evola] Who Inspired Fascists"), I will cite a recent article from one fascist website because I find this quote very insightful:
"Trump isn’t a racist, and he isn’t a sexist, and he isn’t a fascist. I mean, nobody’s perfect. He’s just the best we’re going to get. But in branding him and his supporters racist, sexist, and fascist, the liberals are actually doing us a huge favor. You see, Trump’s policies are utterly reasonable, and will almost certainly result in ordinary Americans feeling a greater sense of security, and enjoying greater economic opportunity. Trump’s policies are going to work, and he is going to be an extremely popular president. SO . . . If all of this is “racist/sexist/fascist,” the result is going to be that a lot of decent and honest Americans are going to start asking, “What’s so bad about racism, sexism, and fascism?”"
Exactly. There's a non-zero possibility that Trump's regime is eventually successful and popular. After the initial turmoil (immigration ban, the wall, etc.), Trump's policies may become - while still being illiberal - more sophisticated and harder to challenge in courts. Already now, more Americans approve of Trump's chaotic executive order banning immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries than oppose it. If the liberals convince the larger population that Trump's regime is fascist, this will automatically result in the discursive legitimisation of fascism.
=========================
http://lobelog.com/why-is-trump-adviser-wearing-medal-of-nazi-collaborators/
Why Is Trump Adviser Wearing Medal of Nazi Collaborators?
by Eli Clifton
The White House’s omission of Jewish victims of the Holocaust in its statement for Holocaust Remembrance Day raised objections from Jewish groups across the political spectrum but the Trump administration’s combative defense was perhaps the most surprising move by a presidency facing record low approval numbers. Last Monday, Deputy Assistant to the President Sebastian Gorka refused to admit that that it may have been poor judgement not to specifically acknowledge the suffering of Jews in the Holocaust.
Gorka was an odd choice of proxies for the White House to put forward in defense of its Holocaust Remembrance day statement.
He has appeared in multiple photographs wearing the medal of a Hungarian group listed by the State Department as having collaborated with the Nazis during World War II.
When asked on Monday whether the White House’s Holocaust Remembrance Day statement was “questionable in being the first such statement in many years that didn’t recognize that Jewish extermination was the chief goal of the Holocaust,” Gorka told conservative talk show host Michael Medved:
No, I’m not going to admit it. Because it’s asinine. It’s absurd. You’re making a statement about the Holocaust. Of course it’s about the Holocaust because that’s what the statement’s about. It’s only reasonable to twist it if your objective is to attack the president.
That statement is particularly noteworthy when viewed in the context of Gorka’s apparent affinity for a Hungarian group with a checkered past.
Gorka, who worked in the UK and Hungary before immigrating to the U.S., was photographed at an inaugural ball wearing a medal from the Hungarian Order of Heroes, Vitezi Rend, a group listed by the State Department as taking direction from Germany’s Nazi government during World War II.
Gorka did not respond to a request for comment but appeared to be wearing the medal on his chest during the Trump inauguration ball and in an undated photo posted on his Facebook page.
gorka2
gorka0
Hungarian Collaborators
Eva Balogh, founder of the news analysis blog Hungarian Spectrum and former professor of Eastern European History at Yale University, confirmed to LobeLog the identity of the medal worn by Gorka. She said:
Yes, the medal is of the “vitézi rend” established by Miklós Horthy in 1920. He, as a mere governor, didn’t have the privilege to ennoble his subjects as the king could do before 1918, and therefore the “knightly order” he established was a kind of compensation for him. Officers and even enlisted men of exceptional valor could become knights. Between 1920 and 1944 there were 23,000 such knights. The title was inheritable by the oldest son. I found information that makes it clear that Gorka’s father, Pál Gorka, used the title. However, since he was born in 1930 he couldn’t himself be the one “knighted.” So, most likely, it was Gorka’s grandfather who was the original recipient.
Gorka’s PhD dissertation lists his name as “Sebestyén L. v. Gorka,” which suggests that he is carrying on his father’s title, albeit in an abbreviated format, according to Balogh.
gorka3
The Order of Vitezi
Miklós Horthy, regent of the Kingdom of Hungary from 1920 to 1944, established Vitezi Rend for both civilian and military supporters of Horthy’s government. The group was initially open to non-Jews who served in distinction during World War I.
Although Horthy’s personal views about Jews are still debated, he was explicit in endorsing anti-Semitism even while showing some unease with the pace of the Holocaust. In an October 1940 letter to Prime Minister Pál Teleki, Horthy said:
As regards the Jewish problem, I have been an anti-Semite throughout my life. I have never had contact with Jews. I have considered it intolerable that here in Hungary everything, every factory, bank, large fortune, business, theatre, press, commerce, etc. should be in Jewish hands, and that the Jew should be the image reflected of Hungary, especially abroad. Since, however, one of the most important tasks of the government is to raise the standard of living, i.e., we have to acquire wealth, it is impossible, in a year or two, to replace the Jews, who have everything in their hands, and to replace them with incompetent, unworthy, mostly big-mouthed elements, for we should become bankrupt. This requires a generation at least.
In April 1941, Hungary became a de facto member of the Axis and permitted German troops to cross Hungary for the invasion of Yugoslavia. The first massacres of Jews took place in August when SS troops murdered between 18,000 and 20,000 Jews without Hungarian citizenship after they’d been deported from Hungary to Ukraine.
gorka4
Horthy and Hitler
By 1944, Horthy may have sought to distance Hungary from Nazi Germany but agreed to deport around 100,000 Jews. The German army removed Horthy from office after it occupied Hungary. Horthy’s actual awareness of the fate of Hungarian Jews remains unclear. But reports by journalists and the State Department in 1942 are explicit about the role played and benefits enjoyed by Vitezi Rend’s members.
A Jewish Telegraph Agency report from October 1942, describes how:
Confiscated Jewish real estate in Hungary will be distributed by the government among members of the “Hungarian Order of Heroes” it was announced today over the Budapest radio. The order consists of soldiers who distinguished themselves in the last World War or in the present war.
“In 1942 there was a so-called ‘land reform,’” said Balogh. “It actually meant the expropriation of agricultural lands owned by Jewish citizens. According to government propaganda this move was necessary to ease social tensions in the countryside but as a recent study (2015) shows, most of the land went to “loyal, middle-class supporters of the regime, among them members of the ‘vitézi rend.’”
A Checkered Legacy
The State Department lists the Order of Heroes as an organization that was “under the direction of the Nazi government of Germany.” Membership in such groups during World War II could make individuals ineligible for U.S. visas. The State Department’s website warns that membership in groups under this designation:
[R]enders ineligible for a visa any alien who participated in the persecution of any person because of race, religion, national origin, or political opinion during the period from March 23, 1933, to May 8, 1945, under the direction of or in association with the Nazi Government of Germany or an allied or occupied government.
Vitezi Rend was banned during the Soviet occupation of Hungary but reestablished in exile. The order was awarded to members of the Hungarian diaspora and individuals in Hungary since 1983. Although appearing to largely promote Hungarian culture and the diaspora, it sought foreign donors to help fund the construction of a statue of Horthy in 2011. A fundraising document read, “We have decided after almost seven decades to erect a statue in honor of our beloved Regent and to remember him, therefore we ask for your support!”
“In post-World War II Hungary, no noble titles of any sort can be officially used,” said Balogh. “The ‘knightly order’ no longer officially exists. However, right-wing émigrés kept the order going abroad.”
She later added, “Many supporters of the Horthy regime were enamored by the Nazis and Hitler and the ‘knights’ were especially so. Put it that way, after 1948 one wouldn’t have bragged about his father being a ‘vitéz.’ Lately, however, especially since 2010, it has become fashionable again to boast about such ‘illustrious’ ancestors.”
Horthy, under Hungary’s center-right Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, has undergone a controversial rehabilitation, with squares renamed in his honor and statues erected.
Gorka’s decision to publicly identify with Vitezi Rend raises questions about Trump’s adviser and the administration’s flirtations with anti-Semitism and the alt-right. It’s even more awkward that he’s the person defending the administration’s explicit omission of Jewish victim of the Holocaust from the Holocaust Remembrance Day statement.
Photo: Sebastian Gorka appearing on Fox News after the inauguration ball.
-
Second post of the day:
Much here is astounding in its lack of self-awareness, but amidst the self-righteous hyperbole, is there anything of merit to be gleaned?
At the very least, this serves as an insight into why some of the Left is wound up so tight in this moment.
http://international.sueddeutsche.de/post/157058066625/we-have-at-most-a-year-to-defend-american
-
“We have at most a year to defend American democracy, perhaps less“
Is this not ass backwards? We have had a President who for 8 yrs has done everything he could get away with to reduce American sovereignty working towards a borderless world expanding his own power when he can't have his way with the legislative branch packing the courts with pure liberal ideologues and this lib is saying Trump is going to destroy American democracy when all he wants to do is further strengthen it !
I guess libs are worried gays may be outlawed, abortion will be outlawed, minorities put back in chains .
And now we are suddenly being advised of the rights of illegals and their freedoms!
And because Trump didn't mention "Jew" along with a comment about the holocaust this is some giant insult that makes one think of similarities to Hitler?
-
http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=260
Gramscian damage
Posted on 2006-02-11 by Eric Raymond
Americans have never really understood ideological warfare. Our gut-level assumption is that everybody in the world really wants the same comfortable material success we have. We use “extremist” as a negative epithet. Even the few fanatics and revolutionary idealists we have, whatever their political flavor, expect everybody else to behave like a bourgeois.
We don’t expect ideas to matter — or, when they do, we expect them to matter only because people have been flipped into a vulnerable mode by repression or poverty. Thus all our divagation about the “root causes” of Islamic terrorism, as if the terrorists’ very clear and very ideological account of their own theory and motivations is somehow not to be believed.
By contrast, ideological and memetic warfare has been a favored tactic for all of America’s three great adversaries of the last hundred years — Nazis, Communists, and Islamists. All three put substantial effort into cultivating American proxies to influence U.S. domestic policy and foreign policy in favorable directions. Yes, the Nazis did this, through organizations like the “German-American Bund” that was outlawed when World War II went hot. Today, the Islamists are having some success at manipulating our politics through fairly transparent front organizations like the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
But it was the Soviet Union, in its day, that was the master of this game. They made dezinformatsiya (disinformation) a central weapon of their war against “the main adversary”, the U.S. They conducted memetic subversion against the U.S. on many levels at a scale that is only now becoming clear as historians burrow through their archives and ex-KGB officers sell their memoirs.
The Soviets had an entire “active measures” department devoted to churning out anti-American dezinformatsiya. A classic example is the rumor that AIDS was the result of research aimed at building a ‘race bomb’ that would selectively kill black people.
On a different level, in the 1930s members of CPUSA (the Communist Party of the USA) got instructions from Moscow to promote non-representational art so that the US’s public spaces would become arid and ugly.
Americans hearing that last one tend to laugh. But the Soviets, following the lead of Marxist theoreticians like Antonio Gramsci, took very seriously the idea that by blighting the U.S.’s intellectual and esthetic life, they could sap Americans’ will to resist Communist ideology and an eventual Communist takeover. The explicit goal was to erode the confidence of America’s ruling class and create an ideological vacuum to be filled by Marxism-Leninism.
Accordingly, the Soviet espionage apparat actually ran two different kinds of network: one of spies, and one of agents of influence. The agents of influence had the minor function of recruiting spies (as, for example, when Kim Philby was brought in by one of his tutors at Cambridge), but their major function was to spread dezinformatsiya, to launch memetic weapons that would damage and weaken the West.
In a previous post on Suicidalism, I identified some of the most important of the Soviet Union’s memetic weapons. Here is that list again:
There is no truth, only competing agendas.
All Western (and especially American) claims to moral superiority over Communism/Fascism/Islam are vitiated by the West’s history of racism and colonialism.
There are no objective standards by which we may judge one culture to be better than another. Anyone who claims that there are such standards is an evil oppressor.
The prosperity of the West is built on ruthless exploitation of the Third World; therefore Westerners actually deserve to be impoverished and miserable.
Crime is the fault of society, not the individual criminal. Poor criminals are entitled to what they take. Submitting to criminal predation is more virtuous than resisting it.
The poor are victims. Criminals are victims. And only victims are virtuous. Therefore only the poor and criminals are virtuous. (Rich people can borrow some virtue by identifying with poor people and criminals.)
For a virtuous person, violence and war are never justified. It is always better to be a victim than to fight, or even to defend oneself. But ‘oppressed’ people are allowed to use violence anyway; they are merely reflecting the evil of their oppressors.
When confronted with terror, the only moral course for a Westerner is to apologize for past sins, understand the terrorist’s point of view, and make concessions.
As I previously observed, if you trace any of these back far enough, you’ll find a Stalinist intellectual at the bottom. (The last two items on the list, for example, came to us courtesy of Frantz Fanon. The fourth item is the Baran-Wallerstein “world system” thesis.) Most were staples of Soviet propaganda at the same time they were being promoted by “progressives” (read: Marxists and the dupes of Marxists) within the Western intelligentsia.
The Soviets consciously followed the Gramscian prescription; they pursued a war of position, subverting the “leading elements” of society through their agents of influence. (See, for example, Stephen Koch’s Double Lives: Stalin, Willi Munzenberg and the Seduction of the Intellectuals; summary by Koch here) This worked exactly as expected; their memes seeped into Western popular culture and are repeated endlessly in (for example) the products of Hollywood.
Indeed, the index of Soviet success is that most of us no longer think of these memes as Communist propaganda. It takes a significant amount of digging and rethinking and remembering, even for a lifelong anti-Communist like myself, to realize that there was a time (within the lifetime of my parents) when all of these ideas would have seemed alien, absurd, and repulsive to most people — at best, the beliefs of a nutty left-wing fringe, and at worst instruments of deliberate subversion intended to destroy the American way of life.
Koch shows us that the worst-case scenario was, as it turns out now, the correct one; these ideas, like the “race bomb” rumor, really were instruments deliberately designed to destroy the American way of life. Another index of their success is that most members of the bicoastal elite can no longer speak of “the American way of life” without deprecation, irony, or an automatic and half-conscious genuflection towards the altar of political correctness. In this and other ways, the corrosive effects of Stalin’s meme war have come to utterly pervade our culture.
The most paranoid and xenophobic conservatives of the Cold War were, painful though this is to admit, the closest to the truth in estimating the magnitude and subtlety of Soviet subversion. Liberal anticommunists (like myself in the 1970s) thought we were being judicious and fair-minded when we dismissed half of the Right’s complaint as crude blather. We were wrong; the Rosenbergs and Alger Hiss really were guilty, the Hollywood Ten really were Stalinist tools, and all of Joseph McCarthy’s rants about “Communists in the State Department” were essentially true. The Venona transcripts and other new material leave no room for reasonable doubt on this score.
While the espionage apparatus of the Soviet Union didn’t outlast it, their memetic weapons did. These memes are now coming near to crippling our culture’s response to Islamic terrorism.
In this context, Jeff Goldstein has written eloquently about perhaps the most long-term dangerous of these memes — the idea that rights inhere not in sovereign individuals but identity groups, and that every identity group (except the “ruling class”) has the right to suppress criticism of itself through political means up to and including violence.
Mark Brittingham (aka WildMonk) has written an excellent essay on the roots of this doctrine in Rousseau and the post-Enlightenment Romantics. It has elsewhere been analyzed and labeled as transnational progressivism. The Soviets didn’t invent it, but they promoted it heavily in a deliberate — and appallingly successful — attempt to weaken the Lockean, individualist tradition that underlies classical liberalism and the U.S. Constitution. The reduction of Western politics to a bitter war for government favor between ascriptive identity groups is exactly the outcome the Soviets wanted and worked hard to arrange.
Call it what you will — various other commentators have favored ‘volk-Marxism’ or ‘postmodern leftism’. I’ve called it suicidalism. It was designed to paralyze the West against one enemy, but it’s now being used against us by another. It is no accident that Osama bin Laden so often sounds like he’s reading from back issues of Z magazine, and no accident that both constantly echo the hoariest old cliches of Soviet propaganda in the 1930s and ’40s.
Another consequence of Stalin’s meme war is that today’s left-wing antiwar demonstrators wear kaffiyehs without any sense of how grotesque it is for ostensible Marxists to cuddle up to religious absolutists who want to restore the power relations of the 7th century CE. In Stalin’s hands, even Marxism itself was hollowed out to serve as a memetic weapon — it became increasingly nihilist, hatred-focused and destructive. The postmodern left is now defined not by what it’s for but by what it’s against: classical-liberal individualism, free markets, dead white males, America, and the idea of objective reality itself.
The first step to recovery is understanding the problem. Knowing that suicidalist memes were launched at us as war weapons by the espionage apparatus of the most evil despotism in human history is in itself liberating. Liberating, too, it is to realize that the Noam Chomskys and Michael Moores and Robert Fisks of the world (and their thousands of lesser imitators in faculty lounges everywhere) are not brave transgressive forward-thinkers but pathetic memebots running the program of a dead tyrant.
Brittingham and other have worried that postmodern leftism may yet win. If so, the victory would be short-lived. One of the clearest lessons of recent times (exemplified not just by kaffiyeh-wearing western leftists but by Hamas’s recent clobbering of al-Fatah in the first Palestinian elections) is that po-mo leftism is weaker than liberal individualism in one important respect; it has only the weakest defenses against absolutist fervor. Brittingham tellingly notes po-mo philosopher Richard Rorty’s realization that when the babble of conflicting tribal narratives collapses in exhaustion, the only thing left is the will to power.
Again, this is by design. Lenin and Stalin wanted classical-liberal individualism replaced with something less able to resist totalitarianism, not more. Volk-Marxist fantasy and postmodern nihilism served their purposes; the emergence of an adhesive counter-ideology would not have. Thus, the Chomskys and Moores and Fisks are running a program carefully designed to dead-end at nothing.
Religions are good at filling that kind of nothing. Accordingly, if transnational progressivism actually succeeds in smothering liberal individualism, its reward will be to be put to the sword by some flavor of jihadi. Whether the eventual winners are Muslims or Mormons, the future is not going to look like the fuzzy multicultural ecotopia of modern left fantasy. The death of that dream is being written in European banlieus by angry Muslim youths under the light of burning cars.
In the banlieus and elsewhere, Islamist pressure makes it certain that sooner or later the West is going to vomit Stalin’s memes out of its body politic. The worst way would be through a reflex development of Western absolutism — Christian chauvinism, nativism and militarism melding into something like Francoite fascism. The self-panicking leftists who think they see that in today’s Republicans are comically wrong (as witnessed by the fact that they aren’t being systematically jailed and executed), but it is quite a plausible future for the demographically-collapsing nations of Europe.
The U.S., fortunately, is still on a demographic expansion wave and will be till at least 2050. But if the Islamists achieve their dream of nuking “crusader” cities, they’ll make crusaders out of the U.S., too. And this time, a West with a chauvinized America at its head would smite the Saracen with weapons that would destroy entire populations and fuse Mecca into glass. The horror of our victory would echo for a thousand years.
I remain more optimistic than this. I think there is still an excellent chance that the West can recover from suicidalism without going through a fevered fascist episode and waging a genocidal war. But to do so, we have to do more than recognize Stalin’s memes; we have to reject them. We have to eject postmodern leftism from our universities, transnational progressivism from our politics, and volk-Marxism from our media.
The process won’t be pretty. But I fear that if the rest of us don’t hound the po-mo Left and its useful idiots out of public life with attack and ridicule and shunning, the hard Right will sooner or later get the power to do it by means that include a lot of killing. I don’t want to live in that future, and I don’t think any of my readers do, either. If we want to save a liberal, tolerant civilization for our children, we’d better get to work.
UPDATE: My original link to Protein Wisdom went stale. I’m not certain the new one is the same essay, but it is on many of the same ideas.
-
****In a previous post on Suicidalism, I identified some of the most important of the Soviet Union’s memetic weapons. Here is that list again:
There is no truth, only competing agendas.
All Western (and especially American) claims to moral superiority over Communism/Fascism/Islam are vitiated by the West’s history of racism and colonialism.
There are no objective standards by which we may judge one culture to be better than another. Anyone who claims that there are such standards is an evil oppressor.
The prosperity of the West is built on ruthless exploitation of the Third World; therefore Westerners actually deserve to be impoverished and miserable.
Crime is the fault of society, not the individual criminal. Poor criminals are entitled to what they take. Submitting to criminal predation is more virtuous than resisting it.
The poor are victims. Criminals are victims. And only victims are virtuous. Therefore only the poor and criminals are virtuous. (Rich people can borrow some virtue by identifying with poor people and criminals.)
For a virtuous person, violence and war are never justified. It is always better to be a victim than to fight, or even to defend oneself. But ‘oppressed’ people are allowed to use violence anyway; they are merely reflecting the evil of their oppressors.
When confronted with terror, the only moral course for a Westerner is to apologize for past sins, understand the terrorist’s point of view, and make concessions.****
The ironic thing is the Left's new insistence that Russia is to be made a villain not because they believe the Soviet propaganda with hook line and sinker but because they are pissed off that Russians may have actually attempted to get hep their girl defeated. And NOT because of the true nature of Russian propaganda which as per above article foments the anti American LEFT wing ideology. Just the opposite of what they claim.
-
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/02/behind-the-internets-dark-anti-democracy-movement/516243/
-
https://www.quora.com/Was-Hitler-socialist
-
https://www.city-journal.org/html/did-revolution-just-occur-15110.html
-
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/446665/dave-eggers-the-circle-progressive-fascism-prescient-novel?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20Trending%20Email%20Reoccurring-%20Monday%20to%20Thursday%202017-04-12&utm_term=NR5PM%20Actives
-
https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2017/04/13/academia-is-our-enemy-so-we-should-help-it-commit-suicide-n2312479
Academia Is Our Enemy So We Should Help It Commit Suicide
Kurt Schlichter |Posted: Apr 13, 2017 12:01 AM
If Animal House were to be rebooted today, Bluto – who would probably be updated into a differently–abled trans being of heft – might ask, “See if you can guess what am I now?” before expelling a whole mass of pus-like root vegetable on the WASPrivileged villains and announcing, “I’m a university – get it?”
At least popping a zit gets rid of the infection and promotes healing. But today, the higher education racket festers on the rear end of our culture, a painful, useless carbuncle of intellectual fraud, moral bankruptcy, and pernicious liberal fascism that impoverishes the young while it subsidizes a bunch of old pinkos who can’t hack it at Real World U.
At least literal boils don’t diss you while demanding you give them free money. We’re expected to shut up and write checks while the universitools ruin our culture. Luckily, due to the happy coincidence of a conservative federal government, technological advances, and the college industrial complex’s inexplicable death wish, we normals now have a chance to lance the boil that is 21st Century academia.
The purpose of universities long ago stopped being education, yet Big Edu and its liberal supporters keep pushing the lie that the only way to prepare young Americans for the future is to tie an anchor around their necks. America’s student loan debt now totals a staggering $1.4 trillion carried by 44 million Americans, and 2016 grads are weighed down with an average $37,712 each. And what do they get for it? Nothing but four years older and considerably dumber. Record numbers are using their degrees in Papuan Feminist Literature and Genderfluid Break Dance Therapy as gateway credentials into the exciting field of brewing caffeinated beverages for grown-ups who didn’t still live on the futon in their mom’s spare bedroom at age 33.
A house, a family, and a future that involves either dignity or success – these are things walking out into society with a meaningless piece of paper and nearly forty grand in debt prevent. But hey – the important thing is that we continue to subsidize one of the Democrats’ key constituencies and its prime breeding ground for the social dysfunction and soft-handed tyranny that are the hallmarks of progressivism. Too bad if it ruins the lives of the young suckers whose parents pushed them onto the conveyor belt that annually pumps out another crop of credentialed indentured servants.
But even sucking the lifeblood out of Millennials is not enough to feed the greedy academic beast. The bright new idea – one embraced by that commie from New England, that other commie from New England who tricked her college into thinking she was an Indian, and that firewater aficionado who lost the election – is “free college.” Let’s set aside the fact that community college exists to give everyone the opportunity to get some higher education; today, it’s job is to occupy high school students for a few extra years by intermittently teaching them the things the incompetence of unionized teachers ensured they didn’t learn in public high schools. The “free college” idea offers those of us who have already paid for our own education the opportunity to pony up for someone else’s. As the grade-inflated bastions of higher learning say to pretty much anyone who hands them a check and keeps his mouth shut about liking America, “Pass.”
If traditional colleges performed some meaningful function that only they could perform, then there might be a rationale for them in the 21st Century. But there’s not. What do four-year colleges do today?
Well, they cater to weenies who feel “unsafe” that Mike Pence is speaking to their graduates. Seventy-some years ago, young people that age were feeling unsafe because the Wehrmacht was trying to kill them on Omaha Beach.
At our nation’s most prestigious university, students are emotionally incapacitated by the fact that other Americans elected someone they dislike. Their reaction is to form a “resistance” that they refer to as “Dumbledore’s Army.” What a bunch of wand-stroking. But there is one good thing about this mortifying childishness – perhaps now, when you meet a grad, he, she, or xe will hesitate for a couple minutes before telling you it went to Harvard.
And in their quest to ensure their students’ perpetual unemployment, colleges are now teaching that punctuality is a social construct. Somewhere, a Starbucks manager is going to hear from Kaden the Barista that, “I like, totally couldn’t get here for my shift on time because, like intersectionality of my experience as a person of Scandinavianism and stuff. I feel unsafe because of your racist vikingaphobia and tardiness-shaming.”
Academia is pricing itself out of reach even as the antics of its inhabitants annoy and provoke those of us whose taxes already pick up a big chunk of the bill even without the “free college” okie-doke. This is where the fortuitous coincidence of two phenomena collide to give us an opportunity to fix our problem. We’re woke to the scam, and we now have a federal government dominated by conservatives that can use the law and the power of the purse to tame the beast. As the same time, technology that will allow no-frills learning is improving every day. What we must do is pass popular laws that make colleges accountable to taxpayers and students, including by shifting some of the student loan risk onto them. We must also protect that whole wacky freedom thing – colleges can always give up all federal funds if they, say, want to force college Christian clubs to accept atheist members. And yeah – that’s a thing.
At the same time, we can use the law to help facilitate the transition away from the current centralized campus with a bloated administration and faculty/four-year booze cruise model. Laws can mandate and regularize credentialing for technology-based learning to help make non-traditional programs a viable and accepted alternative to a traditional degree. Right now, college is less about learning than about creating a cultural signifier – someone who went to college is “one of us.” But that snobby luxury can’t endure when tuition becomes unaffordable for everyone but ultra-rich folks willing to pony up for their spawn’s sojourn on campus. And it’s unnecessary. To the extent college teaches hard skills – I learned how to beer bong like a boss – students can go on-line at a fraction of the cost to get the specific education they need, without spending time and money on nonsense they don’t. Oppression Studies requirements, I’m looking at you.
The quarter million dollar academic vacation model is economically unsustainable and poisonous to our culture. The world of Animal House was a lot more fun when it didn’t mean preemptive bankruptcy for its graduates and the fostering of a tyrannical training ground for future libfascists. It’s time to get all Bluto on the obsolete boil that is academia; time to give it a squeeze.
-
Please post on the Education thread and delete here.
-
ICELANDIC LEFTIST POISONS ROBERT SPENCER
A new phase in the Left’s campaign of demonizing those whom it hates.
May 16, 2017
Robert Spencer
Last Thursday, I gave a lecture on the jihad threat at the Grand Hotel in Reykjavik, Iceland. Shortly thereafter, a young Icelandic Leftist registered his disapproval of what I said by poisoning me.
It happened after the event, when my security chief, the organizers of the event, and Jihad Watch writer Christine Williams, who had also been invited to speak, went with me to a local restaurant to celebrate the success of the evening.
At this crowded Reykjavik establishment, I was quickly recognized. A young Icelander called me by name, shook my hand, and said he was a big fan. Shortly after that, another citizen of that famously genteel and courteous land also called me by name, shook my hand, and said “F**k you.”
We took that marvelous Icelandic greeting as a cue to leave. But the damage had already been done. About fifteen minutes later, when I got back in my hotel room, I began to feel numbness in my face, hands, and feet. I began trembling and vomiting. My heart was racing dangerously. I spent the night in a Reykjavik hospital.
What had happened quickly became clear, and was soon confirmed by a hospital test: one of these local Icelanders who had approached me (probably the one who said he was a big fan, as he was much closer to me than the “F**k you” guy) had dropped drugs into my drink. I wasn’t and am not on any other medication, and so there wasn’t any other explanation of how these things had gotten into my bloodstream.
For several days thereafter I was ill, but I did get to Reykjavik’s police station and gave them a bigger case than they have seen in good awhile. The police official with whom I spoke took immediate steps to identify and locate the principal suspects and obtain the restaurant’s surveillance video.
Iceland is a small country. Everyone knows everyone else. And so as it happened, I was quickly able to discover the identity, phone number, and Facebook page of the primary suspect, the young man who claimed he was a “big fan.” I don’t intend to call him. Icelandic police will be contacting him soon enough, if they haven’t done so already.
However, I did look at his Facebook page, and as I expected, I saw nothing that might indicate that he really was a “big fan” of my work, or that he held any views out of the mainstream -- which is, courtesy of Iceland’s political and media elites, dominated entirely by the Left.
The most likely scenario is that this young man, or whoever drugged me, heard that a notorious “racist” was coming to Reykjavik, by chance saw me in the restaurant, and decided to teach me a lesson with some of the illegal drugs that are as plentiful in Reykjavik as they are anywhere else.
I should have seen it coming. After all, my visit had triggered a firestorm of abuse in the Icelandic press, all based on American Leftist talking points. Every story about my visit had the same elements: the notice that the SPLC claims that I purvey “hate speech,” which is a subjective judgment used to shut down dissent from the establishment line; the fact that I am banned from Britain, with no mention of the key detail that I was banned for saying that Islam has doctrines of violence (which is like being banned for saying water is wet) and for the crime of supporting Israel; and the false claim that I incited the Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik to kill (in reality, I’m no more responsible for Breivik’s murders than the Beatles are for Charles Manson’s). After the event, one article even featured a big photo of Breivik, but quoted nary a thing I said that evening.
Not a single Icelandic media outlet that ran a story about my coming or about the event itself contacted me for comment, much less for rebuttal to the charges they made against me. One TV station did air an interview with me in which the interviewer refused to believe that I did not feel responsible for the Breivik murders, and asked me about them again and again.
After the event, articles in the Icelandic press included quotes from the 50 protesters, but none included even a single quotation or description of anything we had actually said. None quoted any of the 500 brave Icelanders who braved the hatred of the politically correct elites to come to the Grand Hotel to hear me and Ms. Williams – a staggeringly large number in a country of 300,000 people.
It’s clear: jihad and Islamization are not subjects that Icelandic politicians and media opinion-makers want Icelanders to discuss.
That’s all the more reason why it must be discussed.
But meanwhile, I learned my lesson. The lesson I learned was that media demonization of those who dissent from the Leftist line is direct incitement to violence. By portraying me and others who raise legitimate questions about jihad terror and Sharia oppression as racist, bigoted Islamophobes, without allowing us a fair hearing, the media in Iceland and elsewhere in the West is actively endangering those who dare to dissent. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Center for American Progress and the rest who devote so much money, time and attention to demonizing “Islamophobes” are painting huge targets on our backs.
Of course, they think they’re doing something noble. Not only does the Left fill those whom it brainwashes with hate, but it does so while portraying its enemies as the hatemongers, such that violent Leftists such as the young man who drugged me feel righteous even as they victimize and brutalize conservatives.
There is no doubt about it: I’m certain that whoever poisoned me in Iceland went away feeling happy over what he had done. If he told anyone what he did, I’m sure he was hailed as a hero. I’m also aware that many who read this will be thrilled at the fact that I became seriously ill. That in itself is a sign of how degenerate and evil the Left has become.
All over the West, as Leftist students riot and physically menace conservative speakers and Leftist spokesmen indulge in the most hysterical rhetoric to defame their foes, politicians cower in fear and decline to discuss these issues, only ensuring that the problems I identified when I spoke in Reykjavik will continue to grow in Iceland and elsewhere.
As they were rising to power in Germany, the Nazis indoctrinated their young followers with the same message: those who oppose us are evil. Those who brutalize them are doing a great thing. The Left’s demonization of its opponents today will lead to exactly the same thing. It already has for me, in beautiful Reykjavik.
Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and author of the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book is The Complete Infidel’s Guide to Iran. Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.
-
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/448275/antifa-protest-donald-trump-roots-left-wing-political-violence
-
https://www.mercatornet.com/conjugality/view/tried-in-the-court-of-twitter/19915
-
http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/article/mussolinis-description-fascism-sounds-lot-antifa
-
As mentioned in other threads, 'socialism' requires coercion as a necessary feature because being equal runs against the nature of things. It turns out this is quantifiable by economists (and morticians). The typical level of mass murder of citizens requires to enforce this unnatural state of things is to kill about 6% of your citizens, not counting deaths in war. Killing 6% seems to be the ratio needed to get the other 94% in line.
http://caseymulligan.blogspot.com/2017/11/does-communism-have-universal-constant.html
(https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-925YS0OXVYU/Wf9bsKQOLeI/AAAAAAAAU10/2wHyUpvcVf48gvJ3ovo9Lcxl8Npkp32DgCLcBGAs/s400/Screen%2BShot%2B2017-11-05%2Bat%2B11.59.19%2BAM.jpg)
The counts are expressed as a percentage of population. 6% is a typical result.
-
Lets see, in the former Soviet Union those in the Party admired work but just didn't pay anyone. They just made everyone work hard for the State or Communist Party by the threat or use of force.
Now Putin allows some individuals to do well as long as he gets his piece of the action with insider dealing but also probably with implied threat of force or of confiscation.
In the US progressives operate to keep power by using laws to confiscate wealth to bribe just enough of the voters to keep themselves power .
There are some entities that learn how to profit and promote this. (the elites etc)
In both cases we are forced to hear propaganda about how it is for our OWN good.
-
From the Left thread:
ccp: "In the make believe delusional world of Leftism."
Their arguments only work with deceit and delusion.
Your wisdom reminds me of a question I wanted to ask, what is the difference, seriously, between communism and socialism?
By connotation, socialism is the benevolent, make believe implementation where communism is the real world, brutal, oppressive version. But in fact they are identical. Socialism goes against all of human nature and therefore requires coercion, oppression and force for its implementation. See Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and all other real world examples.
I would like to hear a real distinction. My view: Socialism and Leftism all equal Communism. If you don't like how that sounds or what that means, don't vote for it.
-
" My view: Socialism and Leftism all equal Communism "
In fulfilling the first Vlads prophecy when he returned in triumph to Russia after returning through Finland and jumped on top of an armored vehicle and screamed the words heard loud and clear around the world "long live the *world wide " [not just Russian] "communist revolution!!!"
the new Lefitsts of gaining more and more momentum controlling the Democrats , the media , the academies are really about global revolution - like Obama and the Soros types - one world wide government with centralized socialism at its core and with them leading it.
We on our side are just trying to keep capitalism freedom and what has been the most successful government formula active keep getting called fascists.
Why they are far more like fascism the we are but of course they learned their propaganda techniques well
Just some food for thought from an average Joe .
-
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/08/masterpiece-cakeshop-case-about-compulsion-not-civil-rights/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=WIR%20-%20Sunday%202018-08-19&utm_term=VDHM
-
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/hitler-and-the-socialist-dream-1186455.html
-
"it’s almost as though socialism were nothing more than a scam to trick the people into thinking they could get something for nothing, when actually it enriches the politically well-connected elite at their expense." - Stephen Green at Instapundit commenting on Venezuela
Yes it is.
-
https://townhall.com/columnists/johncgoodman/2018/09/23/why-is-anyone-a-socialist-n2521856
-
40 years after Jonestown on ABC. He was selling Lenin, Marx, Mao, anti-capitalism. The leader was the only one getting fat while the others lacked enough food. They killed and poisoned people that didn't agree with him. What part of this is different than Chavezuela that followed? Not much.
Coercion is a feature not a bug of collectivism.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/40-years-jonestown-massacre-jim-jones-surviving-sons/story?id=57997006
-
https://babylonbee.com/news/nazis-clarify-theyre-only-calling-for-democratic-nazism?fbclid=IwAR11Y9pB2lyZqtOkVb0vByt7bLyGkCp-EbP0rLGW3NDz_twPXCTpCJKedSQ
-
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/venezuela-zte/?fbclid=IwAR051uLrm-Q64Kkswj6G6Rj7SXterwOUOADviEACraQW4tD3YRWyZgiephQ
Didn't President Trump let ZTE off the hook bigly? :x
-
https://mises.org/library/why-nazism-was-socialism-and-why-socialism-totalitarian?fbclid=IwAR1yZwBYrnInCBXsuVnZES6Bq9gaG8xwsUeEf6iTuLprGWFW4AGLKK8FZH0
-
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-funerals/without-gas-for-cremation-even-dying-is-a-struggle-in-venezuela-idUSKBN1O422G
-
I have certain respect for Elon Musk as an amazing innovator and driving force.
Yesterday I was reading a long piece in Wired about his out of control personality:
https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-tesla-life-inside-gigafactory/
Brilliant people do not behave like ordinary people. Topic for another day. Here I wanted to put forth this piece that ties Elon Musk's enterprises to government subsidy dollars:
https://mises.org/wire/elon-muskss-taxpayer-funded-gravy-train?fbclid=IwAR0JbjwIkY0NyArD78T6lkQ4lXhn46f0AOK-tscP4Yt-IbfUmgl4KZVXdDo
If these ideas are so great, why do they always need the help of our great (sarc) central planners?
Tesla spends $1 million annually on Washington lobbyists. Its cars are financed by over $280 million in federal tax incentives, including a $7,500 federal tax break and millions more in state rebates and development fees. SpaceX has also received over $5 billion in government support.
Electric cars are not free of emissions; the emissions are back at the power plant, not to mention the power loss on the transmission lines.
Upgrade the damn grid before we subsidize everything that plugs into it!
-
(https://static.pjmedia.com/instapundit/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Screen-Shot-2019-01-13-at-10.06.03-AM.png)
Brilliant!
-
https://i2.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2019/01/IMG_9190.jpg?w=960&ssl=1\
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/01/the-week-in-pictures-government-shutdown-edition.php
This doesn't fit the page well enough to post the cartoon here. Lucy is holding the football for Charlie Brown saying, "I promise; This time socialism will work!"
-
This is what they are teaching in our schools.
Chicago Teachers Union members lodged their first demands for a new contract Tuesday—including pay hikes and a host of topics state law bars the labor group from striking over—months before negotiations will likely accelerate with a new administration. . . . “Where will the money come from? Rich people,” CTU Vice President Stacy Davis Gates said. . . . “We have a governor who has committed to legalizing recreational marijuana and putting a tax on it, we can take that as well,” Davis Gates said. “They are also talking about sports betting. We can take that. They’re talking about opening a new casino here in the city of Chicago. We can take that.”
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-teachers-union-contract-demands-20190115-story.html?mod=article_inline
-
Doug pointed out,
. “Where will the money come from? Rich people,” CTU Vice President Stacy Davis Gates said. . . . “We have a governor who has committed to legalizing recreational marijuana and putting a tax on it, we can take that as well,” Davis Gates said. “They are also talking about sports betting. We can take that. They’re talking about opening a new casino here in the city of Chicago. We can take that.”
That is exactly what my Right leaning teacher sister taught me when I asked her where do the lib teachers and their unions think the money is going to come from to pay for their entitlements. She said it is always "the rich"
CTU VP Gates left out prostitution. Make that legal and then the can tax and "take that".
Always class envy.
As though people who are successful whether they make 10 million per yr or not owe the teachers anything........
-
I would like to put different excerpts of this in different threads.
Never Trumper Bret Stephens at the NY TIMES gets this right. I can't wait to see their subscribers' comments on it.
https://outline.com/xw2rgc
-
How Sweden Overcame Socialism
It’s a model for the U.S., but the lesson isn’t what Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez thinks it is.
559 Comments
By Jesús Fernández-Villaverde and
Lee E. Ohanian
Jan. 9, 2019 7:06 p.m. ET
Currency notes from Sweden's central bank.
Currency notes from Sweden's central bank. Photo: Johan Jeppsson / Ibl Bildbyr/Zuma Press
Nearly half of millennials say they prefer socialism to capitalism, but what do they mean? “My policies most closely resemble what we see in the U.K., in Norway, in Finland, in Sweden,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told “60 Minutes.” Yet Sweden’s experiment with socialist policies was disastrous, and its economic success in recent decades is a result of market-based reforms.
Until the mid-20th century, Sweden pursued highly competitive market-based policies. By 1970 Sweden achieved the world’s fourth-highest per capita income. Then increasingly radical Social Democratic governments raised taxes, spending and regulation much more than any other Western European country. Economic performance sputtered. By the early 1990s, Sweden’s per capita income ranking had dropped to 14th. Economic growth from 1970 to the early 1990s was roughly 1 percentage point lower than in Europe and 2 points lower than in the U.S.
Before its socialist experiment, Sweden had a smaller government sector than the U.S. By the early 1990s, government spending and transfer payments ballooned to 70% of gross domestic product, and debt had increased to 80% of GDP. Between 1966 and 1974, Sweden lost some 400,000 private jobs—proportionate to 16.7 million in today’s U.S.
In 1991 a market-oriented government came to power and undertook far-reaching reforms. Policy makers have privatized parts of the health-care system, introduced for-profit schools along with school vouchers, and reduced welfare benefits. Since 1997, government ministries that propose new spending plans have been required to find offsetting cuts in their budgets. As a result, public debt has declined from 80% of GDP in the early 1990s to 41%.
To increase incentives to work, Sweden reduced unemployment benefits and introduced an earned-income tax credit in 2007. The electricity and transportation industries were deregulated in the 1990s, and even the Swedish postal system was opened up to competition in 1993. The corporate tax rate was cut from its 2009 level of 28% to 22% today, and is scheduled to decline to 20.4% in 2021.
This policy mix has earned Sweden a Heritage Foundation ranking as the 15th freest economy in the world. The U.S. is 18th. And it’s paid off. Since 1995, Swedish economic growth has exceeded that of its European Union peers by about 1 point a year. Sweden is now richer than all of the major EU countries and is within 15% of U.S. per capita GDP. While Sweden still has a larger government than the U.S., its tax code is flatter. The progressivity of the U.S. tax code distorts incentives. These distortions would become even larger under the tax-increase proposals of democratic socialists like Ms. Ocasio-Cortez.
There is an example for the U.S. here, but the lesson isn’t what Ms. Ocasio-Cortez thinks. Command-and-control economic policies undermined Sweden’s prosperity, and they would do the same to America’s.
Mr. Fernández-Villaverde is a professor of economics at the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Ohanian is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and professor of economics at UCLA.
-
:x :x :x :x :x :x :x :x :x
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/oregon-governor-supports-mandatory-govt-visits-for-all-newborns-and-their-p?utm_content=buffer26d7a&fbclid=IwAR2ZkyMmTnbLusmNeXE3sJ2jMBCnZvFZ8PE5OAiy8wuMZidxUEW9qnW19UI
-
(https://i1.wp.com/www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user3303/imageroot/2016/05/12/20160512_soc.jpg)
https://i1.wp.com/www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user3303/imageroot/2016/05/12/20160512_soc.jpg
-
https://mises.org/power-market/swedish-ex-prime-minister-rebukes-bernie-socialism-only-destroys?fbclid=IwAR2MMZob19mSBIMEG65ZhupsHNXuK-3k2WaqIbD8sm3OPXyycMhS7QqzTfk#.XH2sNMQtPLQ.facebook
-
https://mises.org/power-market/swedish-ex-prime-minister-rebukes-bernie-socialism-only-destroys?fbclid=IwAR2MMZob19mSBIMEG65ZhupsHNXuK-3k2WaqIbD8sm3OPXyycMhS7QqzTfk#.XH2sNMQtPLQ.facebook
The economic argument of our time goes something like this:
The conservative free market side notes that Venezuela implemented all the policies that the Left wants to do here, nationalized important industries, squeezed the money away from the capitalists, redirected to the social programs and they ended up broke and starving. The 'democratic' socialists here say they want to do socialism the good way. Venezuela, Cuba and the Soviet Union did it wrong. The Left here wants to do socialism the way of the Scandinavians. This article (Crafty's link) makes clear that is wrong. These Scandinavian countries are not socialist. They did not implement the anti-market, anti-capitalist policies proposed by the American Left. Te article quotes a former Prime Minister of Sweden and current Prime Minister of Denmark who both strongly correct people like Bernie Sanders.
I would add some other points.
1. Scandinavians would have been lost their countries twice in the last century without outside (American) help to defeat the Nazis and keep out the Soviets. We don't have someone else to pay for our national security.
2. The two largest industries in Norway are oil and natural gas comprising 17% of GDP. Their current prosperity is gone under American socialist "Green New Deal".
3. These are historically homogenous societies, and "Scandinavian work ethic" means everyone who can work works. No one takes a penny of government support unless absolutely needed, and not for a moment longer than needed. That is changing there and not true here. The Left is openly selling Americans that someone else via government coercion will pay for your free stuff and expanded social programs, exactly as promised in Venezuela.
4. Scandinavia did not build their wealth with socialism. Scandinavia went from poor to rich during times of free markets and small government. These are provable, historical facts. It is great to see people like former Prime Minister Carl Bildt point out that Sweden is not a socialist country. Bildt rescued Sweden from stagnation and decline by cutting taxes on business and capital, exactly the opposite of the anti-capitalist policies proposed by AOC, Sanders, Harris.
These countries are not socialist and they are not growing faster or solving their problems better than in the US.
https://tradingeconomics.com/sweden/gdp-growth
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-26/now-even-swedes-are-questioning-the-welfare-state
https://www.ft.com/content/3b9566e4-941a-11e8-b747-fb1e803ee64e
https://slate.com/business/2013/11/swedens-billionaires-they-have-more-per-capita-than-the-united-states.html
Denmark from the article:
As explained by Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen in 2015, countries like his Denmark “[are] far from [socialist planned economies].” “Denmark is a market economy.”
See Heritage country rankings for economic freedom. The US ranks 12th, right with Denmark 14, Sweden 18, Norway 24, not with Cuba 178 and Venezuela 179th in economic freedom.
https://www.heritage.org/index/ranking
Why do we want to move down the list toward poverty and disaster when we know exactly how to move up toward greater prosperity? Venezuela reminds us that it is not just possible but certain to move downward economically when you abandon the principles and policies that bring prosperity. Without a healthy capital system, Venezuela can't even pump oil much less foster a vibrant entrepreneurial economy. The American Left recklessly denies that kind of failure can happen here and most conservatives are speechless to counter that wrongful ignorance.
-
In socialism, people wait in store lines for bread.
In freedom, bread waits in stores for people.
-
http://www.dickmorris.com/the-history-of-the-socialist-party-in-the-usa-history-video/?utm_source=dmreports&utm_medium=dmreports&utm_campaign=dmreports
-
https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/hooverinstitution/TheIntellectualPovertyoftheNewSocialists.pdf?utm_campaign=The+Intellectual+Poverty+of+the+New+Socialists&utm_source=hs_automation&utm_medium=email&utm_content=68397368&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9-m5NLo9NLwimaVJYEZOsttBfWnreh1k54NKmtF7EYiKryntPw6OGq0nsmGSwnXGWobHdZwLA5aODXJWKKu523mFRBPQ&_hsmi=68397368&fbclid=IwAR3nl1uQfN9AA2s9LOKE0viLf1djJAZUahDCpLOkbnwJaBKKnKAyjJ5rbJo
-
https://fee.org/articles/were-the-nazis-really-socialists-it-depends-on-how-you-define-socialism/?utm_source=zapier&utm&fbclid=IwAR2OlyPeDdB7UhE0puW3yOq8XTY2EoCArt0s-fEg3Z1-2hw5uUBNnK_UIB4
-
*****The wide variance between utopian socialism, communism, national socialism, and democratic socialism makes it remarkably easy for members of each ideology to wag their fingers at the others and say, “That wasn’t real socialism.”****
Like the crats saying the socialism in Venezuela is not like what we plan here. They all claim they will do it better ; do it "right" .
-
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/10/nyregion/frances-fox-piven-democratic-socialism.html
-
Discovered previously in these threads, coercion it's a feature, not a bug, of socialism. Equality it's not the natural state of things. To move against the natural state of things requires force, the force of the state in this case.
Listen carefully to the left today. They are more and more open about coercion in their tactics toward what they call socialism. cf. Green New Deal.
Socialism implemented and enforced by the power of the state is Communism.
It is time to call them out on this. They are not proposing pure, Democratic socialism as they say. They are calling for communism, nothing short of a strict set of rules enforced by an all powerful central government.
Rob Peter to pay Paul with only Paul consenting is not consensual government. At best it is tyranny by the majority.
DoLucy holding the football for Charlie Brown is the perfect illustration for pure Democratic socialism that they promise. This time we will get it right even though every other time that was not true, because it can't be true.
https://youtu.be/XWGuzwj4DSs
-
People here get it but this message needs to be spread much more persuasively. Socialism doesn't happen without compulsion, the taking away of people's basic liberties.
Remember Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown to kick. She has pulled it away the last six or eight times and he has fallen on his back trying to kick it but she promises that this time will be the good one, just like the peaceful and successful implementation of socialism.
Equal abilities, equal efforts, and equal results, these are not descriptors of the real world. To move away from the natural state of things requires compulsion. To get there requires lowering everyone to the lowest common denominator. To get there you denounce the rich for their economic power but need a different class of power. That class of power becomes ruthless but also becomes the new rich, so you never get there. When will we ever learn?
- - - -
Kevin Williamson calls socialism “solidarity that is enforced at gunpoint, if necessary.”
British novelist Kingsley Amis, who was a young Marxist before he became a supporter of Margaret Thatcher and friend of the Adam Smith Institute, said that “if socigalism is not about compulsion, it is about nothing.”
The Adam Smith Institute itself reminds us that “whenever socialism has been tried it has involved compulsion, as it attempts to make people behave in ways they would not freely choose to do.
In the “Dostoevsky Encyclopedia,” author Kenneth Lantz explained that “lacking any spiritual basis for human brotherhood, the socialists must resort to compulsion to establish it.”
Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul once asked if violence was inherent to socialism, to which he responded: “I think the answer is absolutely yes.”
And, finally, legendary economist Milton Friedman wraps up our argument.
“The essential notion of a socialist society is fundamentally force,” said Friedman. “If the government is the master, you ultimately have to order people what to do.”
America wasn’t built on coercive government. It was conceived and founded on liberty, and opportunity created by freedom, not artificially manufactured by the state. It has worked far better than any system implemented by man.
https://issuesinsights.com/2019/06/14/question-for-bernie-what-happens-to-those-who-dont-want-to-join-your-commune/ - - -
Look around the world and look through history , Coercive Socialism is not a better system.
-
https://www.lmtonline.com/news/article/ong-Kong-s-protesters-find-ways-to-outwit-the-14000211.php
Hong Kong's protesters find ways to outwit the surveillance state
Shibani Mahtani, The Washington Post Published 6:13 pm CDT, Saturday, June 15, 2019
HONG KONG - The moment the 25-year-old protester got home from demonstrations that turned violent - tear gas still stinging her eyes - she knew what she had to do: delete all of her Chinese phone apps.
WeChat was gone. So was Alipay and the shopping app Taobao. She then installed a virtual private network on her smartphone to use with the secure messaging app Telegram in an attempt to stay hidden from cyber-monitors.
"I'm just doing anything" to stay ahead of police surveillance and hide her identity, said the protester. She asked to be referred only by her first name, Alexa, to avoid drawing the attention of authorities amid the most serious groundswell against Chinese-directed rule in Hong Kong since 2014.
Protests that expanded over the past week against a bill allowing extraditions to mainland China were marked by something unprecedented: A coordinated effort by demonstrators to leave no trace for authorities and their enhanced tracking systems.
Protesters used only secure digital messaging apps such as Telegram, and otherwise went completely analogue in their movements: buying single ride subway tickets instead of prepaid stored value cards, forgoing credit cards and mobile payments in favor of cash, and taking no selfies or photos of the chaos.
They wore face masks to obscure themselves from CCTVs and in fear of facial recognition software, and bought fresh pay-as-you-go SIM cards.
And, unlike the pro-democracy movement in 2014, the latest demonstrations also have remained intentionally leaderless in another attempt to frustrate police, who have used tear gas and rubber bullets against the crowds.
On Saturday, Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam announced the postponement of the extradition bill, saying she hoped to return peace to the streets of the city. But the measure was not fully withdrawn and Lam still expressed support.
Protesters, meanwhile, have called for another major show of defiance on the streets on Sunday.
Amid the chaos, Hong Kong has offered a picture of what it looks like to stage mass civil disobedience in the age of the surveillance state.
"The Chinese government will do a lot of things to try to monitor their own people," said Bonnie Leung, a leader of the Hong Kong-based Civil Human Rights Front.
Leung cited media coverage of Chinese use of artificial intelligence to track individuals and its social credit score system.
"We believe that could happen to Hong Kong, too," she said.
The core of the protests is over the belief that Beijing - which was handed back control of the former British colony more than 20 years ago - is increasingly stripping Hong Kong of its cherished freedoms and autonomy.
But the identity-masking efforts by the protesters also reflects deep suspicions that lines between China and Hong Kong no longer exist - including close cooperation between Hong Kong police and their mainland counterparts who have among the most advanced and intrusive surveillance systems.
"It is the fundamental reason people are protesting in the first place," said Antony Dapiran, who wrote a book on protest culture in Hong Kong. "They don't trust Beijing, they don't trust their authorities and the legal system, and they don't like the blurring of lines between Beijing and Hong Kong."
For many who had taken to the streets over the past week, the fight was a familiar one.
In 2014, protesters occupied Hong Kong's main arteries for 79 days demanding full universal suffrage in the territory. Prominent student leaders and activists marshaled up support night after night in mini cities that had been set up on Hong Kong's thoroughfares, until they were eventually cleared out by police.
Today, all of the most prominent leaders of that movement - Joshua Wong, only a teenager at the time of the protests, legal scholar Benny Tai and Chan Kin-man, a sociology professor - are in jail.
The masses gathered around government buildings this week were without clear leaders. Demonstrators shared protest tips and security measures with people they had met just hours before to avoid a similar fate. Meetups were primarily planned on Telegram, which became the top trending app on the iPhone app store in Hong Kong in the days leading up to the protest.
"Information on personal safety was passed around on Telegram channels and group chats," said Caden, a 21 year-old Hong Kong student in Indiana who returned home early to participate. When he among estimated 1 million marching on June 7 to begin the protest movement.
On the group groups, Caden received a barrage of advice which included changing your username on Telegram so it sounds nothing like your actual name, changing your phone number associated with app and using SIM cards without a contract.
"We are much more cautious now for sure than in 2014. Back then, it was still kind of rare for the police to arrest people through social media," Caden said, declining to give his full name for fear of retribution. "All of this is definitely new for most people there."
Alexa noticed messages on Facebook, used by an older generation of Hong Kongers, warning people to mask their digital footprints and go cashless.
"People keep telling each other not to take pictures during the protest, and only to take wide shots without people's faces on them," she said.
It marked a huge change in sentiment for her, someone who had been attending peaceful demonstrations in Hong Kong with her family for years.
"We'd always take pictures and upload them to Facebook and so on, it would tell people you are there at the scene," she said. "But by now, everyone [has] equated the bill to cracking down on the Hong Kong legal system. We are all afraid that it won't exist anymore."
Hours before Wednesday's occupation of Hong Kong roads, Hong Kong police arrested Ivan Ip, a coordinator of a Telegram group with thousands of people, in his home. He is currently out on bail.
Telegram also reported a massive cyberattack, which the company said likely originated from China and were timed with the protest.
Samantha Hoffman, a fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute's Cyber Center, said data collection methods used in China have specifically been designed to intimidate people from taking part in demonstrations. She described the strategy as "killing the root before the weed can grow."
"It's a form of preemptive security," she said
Still, researchers say it has been difficult to figure out the extent to which Hong Kong Police Force cooperates with the mainland on surveillance technology and tools.
The Hong Kong force says it sends around 150 officials every year for "ideological and practical" training at elite mainland police academies. A larger number also receive regular training in "hand-to-hand combat, interrogation skills, criminal investigation and gun use," according to news releases from the Chinese government.
And when a high speed rail link opened connecting Beijing to Hong Kong, Chinese police were allowed to enforce mainland laws in the rail terminus. The rail link opened last year, marking the first time mainland police were allowed to patrol Hong Kong as part of joint immigration checks.
Maya Wang, a senior China researcher at Human Rights Watch, said there is "very little transparency" about the cooperation between Hong Kong police and mainland authorities.
Wang also noted that Hong Kong is moving ahead with plans for more "smart city" initiatives - with little clarity on which companies would be assisting them in that task.
"People are concerned that their electronic traces can be collected and monitored as the city becomes more digitized," she said. "What about the Chinese companies that are assisting or involved with the collection of data in Hong Kong? Would they be passing that data back?"
Alexa, Caden and other protesters interviewed by The Washington Post say they remain undeterred and will continue to show up at demonstrations. They have masks and goggles prepared, they say, both as a shield against police tactics like pepper spray and also to avoid potential facial recognition or other surveillance software.
"I do not think this is overly cautious. If we read books by George Orwell and we read histories about Communist Parties, of course this is not overly cautious," said Leung of CHRF.
"If I was not some sort of leader or coordinator of the Civil Human Rights Front, I may wear a face mask as well," she added. "I can totally understand why people would want to hide their identities."
- - -
The Washington Post's Timothy McLaughlin in Hong Kong and Lyric Li in Beijing contributed to this report.
-
with bleached white hair:
https://www.conservativereview.com/news/dan-bongino-nice-job-liberals-even-ruined-world-cup/
:mrgreen:
has she been on MSNBC for an interview yet?
-
Babylon Bee reports:
"The New York Times…prais[ed] the Soviet Union for its unprecedented gender equality at its brutal prison camps. …the Soviets provided forced labor opportunities for people of all races, genders, and orientations, pointing out that while the United States may have won the Cold War and the Space Race, the USSR won the victories that counted: imprisoning all people equally. “They even employed female guards, LGBTQ guards, and guards of color,” the piece read. “From prison guards to prisoners, the Soviets were years and years ahead of the U.S. when it came to equality. …Many people on social media pointed out that gender equality wasn’t really something to be praised when it comes to a totalitarian regime. But the Times simply doubled down, publishing pieces that praised the Soviet Union for.. The wage gap: everybody made almost no money equally…Environmental policy: constant blackouts mean smaller carbon footprint."
Hardly satire when so many points are true.
New board game:
(http://freedomandprosperity.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Aug-18-19-Commie-opoly.jpg)
Bernie-opoly:
(https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/bern.jpg)
Babylon Bee again:
"A study performed by researchers at Harvard University found a strong link between supporting the idea of communism and never once having even briefly opened a history book, sources confirmed Tuesday. …“We found that of the people who advocate communism today, over 97% slept all the way through each of their history classes in elementary school, high school, and college,” head researcher Todd Devlin said in a statement accompanying the release of the study’s findings. …The study also found that the majority of modern communists who do happen across a stray piece of information showing the horrors and atrocities of real-life communism are able to quickly rationalize the historical facts away by labeling those examples “not real communism.” "
AOC at BU:
(https://i0.wp.com/freedomandprosperity.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/May-11-19-AOC-History-Class.jpg?zoom=2)
Hat tip Dan Mitchell
-
https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2019/09/prosperity-breeds-idiots?fbclid=IwAR363X4PkIbLzethsDtfzEz3ZyeOIGgpAW03tUptLNDyuB5kCbSVUIkI9VI
-
https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2019/09/prosperity-breeds-idiots?fbclid=IwAR363X4PkIbLzethsDtfzEz3ZyeOIGgpAW03tUptLNDyuB5kCbSVUIkI9VI
Exactly.
-
It's time to get serious about separation of business and state!
No, stadium subsidies don't pay for themselves.
The great French economist from the 1800s, Frederic Bastiat, famously explained that good economists are aware that government policies have indirect effects (the “unseen”). Bad economists, by contrast, only consider direct effects (the “seen”).
Let’s look at the debate over stadium subsidies. Tim Carney of the American Enterprise Institute narrates a video showing how the “unseen” costs of government favoritism are greater than the “seen” benefits. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnJtM4L6lHg
https://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/
new evidence that cronyism reduces long-term economic growth by discouraging firms’ innovation activities. …The analysis finds that the probability that firms invest in products new to the firm increases from under 1 percent for politically connected firms to over 7 percent for unconnected firms. The results are robust across different innovation measures. Despite innovating less, politically connected firms are more capital intensive, as they face lower marginal cost of capital due to the generous policy privileges they receive, including exclusive access to input subsidies, public procurement contracts, favorable exchange rates, and financing from politically connected banks. …The findings suggest that connected firms out-rival their competitors by lobbying for privileges instead of innovating. In the aggregate, these policy privileges reduce…long-term growth potential by diverting resources away from innovation to the inefficient capital accumulation of a few large, connected firms.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3238341
the growing prevalence of cronyism in the United States (ethanol handouts, the Export-Import Bank, protectionism, tax favoritism, bailouts, subsidies, and green energy are just a few examples of how the friends of politicians get unearned wealth).
https://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2016/07/21/a-very-depressing-chart-on-creeping-cronyism-in-the-american-economy/
-
" friends of politicians get unearned wealth"
and their relatives, much less them themselves
look at Cao, Pelosi, Biden for example.
the cronyism at the local level dwarfs the Fed level.
-
Full paragraph: THE ABSOLUTE PRIMACY OF THE STATE
The keystone of the Fascist doctrine is its conception of the State, of its essence, its functions, and its aims. For Fascism the State is absolute, individuals and groups relative. Individuals and groups are admissible in so far as they come within the State. Instead of directing the game and guiding the material and moral progress of the community, the liberal State restricts its activities to recording results. The Fascist State is wide awake and has a will of its own. For this reason it can be described as " ethical ".
- Benito Mussolini
THE FASCIST TOTALITARIAN VISION OF THE FUTURE.
THE DOCTRINE OF FASCISM (1932)
-
This is NOT a story only about Venzuela; these are the policies being proposed here and everywhere. I understand that Chavez cheated in his elections and that "observers" like then Sec of State Colin Powell and former Pres Jimmy Carter failed us and them, but the central problem in Venezuela comes from the fact that these failed ideas still have attraction to too many people in too many places, including American universities where truth should be taught.
In a nutshell, confiscating from the capitalists and giving to the government and the people fails the people it purports to help. The system doesn't work. I don't know how to shout any louder or clearer, capitalism require capital and capitalists. We need more people involved in it, not fewer. The freedom of people and freedom in markets leads to some successes that can be unseemly and seem 'unfair', but all the alternatives are far worse.
Socialism-Lite = failure-lite. In today's world might be Buttigieg instead of Warren. Why choose that? Choose prosperity which increases opportunity for all. It's that simple and examples are there to be seen around the world and throughout hisotry.
----------------------
https://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2019/12/01/measuring-the-impact-of-20-years-of-socialism-in-venezuela/
Measuring the Impact of 20 Years of Socialism in Venezuela
December 1, 2019 by Dan Mitchell
Fifty years ago, Venezuela was ranked #10 for economic liberty and enjoyed the highest living standards in Latin America
Today, the nation is an economic disaster. Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro deserve much of the blame. Their socialist policies have dropped Venezuela to last place according to Economic Freedom of the World.
Predictably, this has resulted in horrific suffering. And it’s going from bad to worse. In ways that are unimaginable for those of us living in civilized nations.
For instance, the Associated Press reports that grave-robbing is now a problem in the country.
Even the dead aren’t safe in Maracaibo, a sweltering, suffering city in Venezuela. Thieves have broken into some of the vaults and coffins in El Cuadrado cemetery since late last year, stealing ornaments and sometimes items from corpses as the country sinks to new depths of deprivation. “Starting eight months ago, they even took the gold teeth of the dead,” said José Antonio Ferrer, who is in charge of the cemetery, where a prominent doctor, a university director and other local luminaries are buried. Much of Venezuela is in a state of decay and abandonment, brought on by shortages of things that people need the most: cash, food, water, medicine, power, gasoline. …Many who have the means leave, joining an exodus of more than 4 million Venezuelans who have left the country in recent years. …Some people sift through trash, scavenge for food.
And hyper-inflation is creating a barter economy according to the AP.
…the economy is in such shambles that drivers are now paying for fill-ups with a little food, a candy bar or just a cigarette. Bartering at the pump has taken off as hyperinflation makes Venezuela’s paper currency, the bolivar, hard to find and renders some denominations all but worthless, so that nobody will accept them. Without cash in their wallets, drivers often hand gas station attendants a bag of rice, cooking oil or whatever is within reach. …This barter system…is just another symptom of bedlam in Venezuela. …The International Monetary Fund says inflation is expected to hit a staggering 200,000% this year. Venezuela dropped five zeros from its currency last year in a futile attempt to keep up with inflation. …Venezuela, which sits atop the world’s largest oil reserves, was once rich. But the economy has fallen into ruin because of what critics say has been two decades of corruption and mismanagement under socialist rule.
Mary O’Grady of the Wall Street Journal points out that the poor are being hurt the most.
…the gap in living standards between the haves and the have-nots is wider than ever. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Economic equality is the socialists’ Holy Grail. People are poor, the logic goes, because the rich have too much. Ergo, all it takes to end poverty is the use of state coercion to distribute economic gains evenly. …Tell that to the Venezuelan poor. Not only have their numbers increased under socialism, but the suffering among the most vulnerable has grown more intense. …Venezuela now experiences recurring blackouts and brownouts… in the “ranchos,”…residents now make “lamps” out of mayonnaise jars, diesel taken from vehicles, and pieces of cloth. One local described it to the reporter as going back to “prehistoric” times. With water, sanitation and other public services, the story is the same. …the have-nots are at Mr. Maduro’s mercy.
College students also are suffering, as reported by the Union Journal.
…5 youngsters had fainted and two of them have been whisked away in an ambulance. The faintings on the major college have turn into a daily prevalence as a result of so many college students come to class with out consuming breakfast, or dinner the evening earlier than. In different faculties, youngsters wish to know if there’s any meals earlier than they resolve whether or not to go in… Venezuela’s devastating six-year financial disaster is hollowing out the varsity system… Starvation is simply one of many many issues chipping away at them now. Thousands and thousands of Venezuelans have fled the nation in recent times, depleting the ranks of scholars and academics alike. …Many colleges are shuttering within the once-wealthy nation as malnourished youngsters and academics who earn nearly nothing abandon lecture rooms to scratch out a residing on the streets or flee overseas. It’s a significant embarrassment for the self-proclaimed Socialist authorities.
In a column for the New York Times, Nicholas Kristof shares some sad observations about the consequences of Venezuelan socialism.
This country is a kleptocracy ruled incompetently by thugs who are turning a prosperous oil-exporting nation into a failed state sliding toward starvation. …Serrano, 21, lives in the impoverished, violent slum of La Dolorita, where I met her. The baby was fading from malnutrition in May, so she frantically sought medical help — but three hospitals turned the baby away, saying there were no beds available, no doctors and no supplies. …Daisha…died at home that night. …President Nicolás Maduro’s brutal socialist government is primarily responsible for the suffering, and there are steps Maduro could take to save children’s lives, if he wanted to. …Venezuela may now be sliding toward collapse and mass starvation, while fragmenting into local control by various armed groups. Outbreaks of malaria, diphtheria and measles are spreading, and infant mortality appears to have doubled since 2008.
By the way, Kristof argues that sanctions imposed by Obama and Trump are making a bad situation worse.
That’s true, but it doesn’t change the fact that Venezuela’s awful government deserves the overwhelming share of the blame.
Let’s measure how the people of Venezuela have suffered. Here are the per-capita GDP numbers since Chavez took power in 1999. There’s volatility in the data, presumably because of changes in oil prices. But the trend is unmistakably negative.
(https://i0.wp.com/freedomandprosperity.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Dec-1-19-IMF-Venezuela.jpg?zoom=2)
The bottom line is that Venezuela’s living standards have collapsed by about 50 percent since the socialists took over.
That makes Greece seem like an economic powerhouse by comparison.
Let’s close, though, by comparing Venezuela to Latin America’s most market-oriented nation.
As you can see, per-capita economic output in Chile (in blue) has soared while per-capita GDP in Venezuela (in red) has collapsed.
(https://i2.wp.com/freedomandprosperity.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Dec-1-19-IMF-Venezuela-v-Chile.jpg?zoom=2)
In other words, free markets and small government are the right recipe if the goal is broadly shared prosperity.
P.S. I’ve explained on many occasions that lower-income people in Chile have been the biggest beneficiaries of pro-market reforms.
-
https://fee.org/articles/transferism-not-socialism-is-the-drug-americans-are-hooked-on/?utm_source=zapier&fbclid=IwAR0ziy8OqGFEtcsV_UL_HyJRRFob0UvMldUTXXVaHBHaobWUUu97s48Qt_8
-
https://fee.org/articles/transferism-not-socialism-is-the-drug-americans-are-hooked-on/?utm_source=zapier&fbclid=IwAR0ziy8OqGFEtcsV_UL_HyJRRFob0UvMldUTXXVaHBHaobWUUu97s48Qt_8
Makes sense.
-
We need to keep making this case better and better until no one with reason supports socialism.
------------------------------
https://townhall.com/columnists/johnstossel/2019/12/18/the-case-against-socialism-n2558162
Sen. Rand Paul just wrote a book, "The Case Against Socialism."
I thought that case was already decided, since socialist countries failed so spectacularly.
But the idea hasn't died, especially amongst the young.
"Hitler's socialism, Stalin's socialism, Mao's socialism. You would think people would have recognized it by now," says Paul in my latest video.
Paul echoes Orwell in likening socialism to "a boot stamping on the human face forever" and warning that it always leads to violence and corruption.
"You would think that when your economy gets to the point where people are eating their pets," says Paul, contemplating the quick descent of once-rich Venezuela, "people might have second thoughts about what system they've chosen."
That's a reference to the fact that Venezuelans have lost weight because food is so hard to find.
"Contrast that with (the country's) 'Dear Leader' Maduro, who's probably gained 50 pounds," Paul observes. "It really sums up socialism. There's still a well-fed top 1%; they just happen to be the government or cronies or friends of the government."
Naturally, American socialists say our socialism will be different.
"When I talk about democratic socialism," says Sen. Bernie Sanders, "I'm not looking at Venezuela. I'm not looking at Cuba. I'm looking at countries like Denmark and Sweden."
Paul responds, "They all wind up saying, 'The kinder, gentler socialism that we want is Scandinavia ... democratic socialism.' So we do a big chunk of the book about Scandinavia."
Paul's book is different from other politicians' books. Instead of repeating platitudes, he and his co-author did actual research, concluding, "It's not true that the Scandinavian countries are socialist."
Scandinavia did try socialist policies years ago but then turned away from socialism. They privatized industries and repealed regulations.
Denmark's prime minister even came to America and refuted Sanders' claims, pointing out that "Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy."
In fact, in rankings of economic freedom, Scandinavian countries are near the top.
"They have private property, private stock exchanges," says Paul. "We learned that, actually, Bernie is too much of a socialist for Scandinavia!"
Scandinavia did keep some socialist policies, like government-run health care. The media claim that's why Swedes live longer, but Paul says: "This is the trick of statistics. You can say, 'The Swedes live longer, and they have socialized medicine!' Yet if you look hard at the statistics, it started way before socialized medicine."
Scandinavians already lived longer 60 years ago, and they also had lower rates of poverty. That's because of Scandinavian culture's emphasis on self-reliance and hard work. Paul reminded me of an anecdote about economist Milton Friedman.
"This Swedish economist comes up to him and says, 'In Sweden, we have no poverty!' Friedman responds, 'Yeah, in America, we have no poverty among Swedish Americans!'"
In fact, Swedes have 50% higher living standards in the U.S. than when they stay in Sweden. Danish Americans, too. Socialism can't take the credit.
But the most important argument against socialism is that it crushes freedom.
Socialists get elected by promising fairness and equality, but Paul points out: "The only way you can enforce those things is to have an equality police or a fairness police, and ultimately they show up with truncheons. ... The best kind of socialist leader ends up having to be ruthless because you can't be a kinder, gentler socialist leader and get the property."
By contrast, capitalism largely lets individuals make their own choices.
"It's a direct democracy every day," says Paul. "You vote either for Walmart or you vote for Target. You vote with your feet, with your wallet. People who succeed are the people who get the most votes, which are dollars. And as long as there's no coercion, seems to me that that would be the most just way of distributing a nation's economy."
It's not perfect, but look at the track record of the alternative, says Paul: "Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro, Chavez, Maduro. It doesn't work."
-
https://amgreatness.com/2019/12/22/the-era-of-good-fascism/
-
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/02/seattle-socialism-city-council-faction-pushes-new-taxes-regulations/
-
second post
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/02/national-review-webathon-whittaker-chambers-the-left/
-
https://www.theadvocates.org/2019/02/swedish-ex-prime-minister-rebukes-bernie-socialism-only-destroys/
-
swedish ex prime minister
Bernie Trotsky's response:
" i was talking about Denmark!" :wink:
(in reality china ussr cuba etc.)
-
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/bernie-sanders-wrong-democratic-socialism-sweden-everywhere-else-ncna1158636
-
https://nypost.com/2016/09/22/cuomos-solarcity-disaster-could-become-a-monument-to-corruption/
-
https://stephenhand2018.blogspot.com/2020/06/the-philosopher-of-antifa-by-dinesh.html?spref=fb
-
We can't just call it socialism. That term has better than 50% popularity within some important voting groups. We have to explain what's wrong with it, why it doesn't work. I call it denial of science, denial of math and denial of history, and that still doesn't persuade white, college educated young people. Some black people are starting to see that the free money promised from the social programs doesn't begin to match the real money of free market prosperity available to anyone who wants to try - if your government will let you.
https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/article/why-socialism-failed-idea-never-dies/?fbclid=IwAR1gRSUfcnXt00En0OO6VVYYAkfRsAKHPS0DqyHOP0xVXCNE9UmtWjbl0yE
What would you say to an amateur chef who baked a cake following a certain recipe only for everyone who ate a slice to fall ill quickly afterward? Being such an enthusiastic baker, they bake the same cake a second time just a few weeks later, again following the same recipe, but this time with one or two slight adjustments. Unfortunately, the result is the same – everyone who eats the cake soon ends up feeling sick.
The cake baker repeats this more than two dozen times, always modifying the recipe a little, but the basic ingredients remain more or less the same despite the fact that their guests throw up every time. Of course, there’s no way such a thing would happen. The cake baker would soon realize that there is a major problem with the recipe and throw it away.
More Than Two Dozen Failed Experiments
Yet this is exactly what socialists have done:
Over the past hundred years, there have been more than two dozen attempts to build a socialist society. It has been tried in the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Albania, Poland, Vietnam, Bulgaria, Romania, Czechoslovakia, North Korea, Hungary, China, East Germany, Cuba, Tanzania, Benin, Laos, Algeria, South Yemen, Somalia, the Congo, Ethiopia, Cambodia, Mozambique, Angola, Nicaragua and Venezuela, among others. All of these attempts have ended in varying degrees of failure. How can an idea, which has failed so many times, in so many different variants and so many radically different settings, still be so popular? (p. 21)
This is the central question asked by this extremely important book from economist Kristian Niemietz, who works at the London Institute for Economic Affairs. He manages to provide the answer to his question in one sentence:
It is because socialists have successfully managed to distance themselves from those examples. (p. 55)
As soon as you confront socialists with examples of failed experiments, they always offer the following response: “These examples don’t prove anything at all! In fact, none of these are true socialist models.” During the “heyday” of most of these socialist experiments, however, intellectuals held quite a different view, as Niemietz illustrates with many examples.
Venezuela – “Socialism of the 21st Century”
The latest example of socialism’s failings is Venezuela, which just a few years ago was being hailed by leading intellectuals and left-wing politicians as a model for “Socialism of the 21st Century.” At a demonstration in commemoration of Hugo Chávez in London in March 2013, for example, current British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said:
Chávez… showed us that there is a different, and a better way of doing things. It’s called socialism… In his death, we will march on, to that better, just, peaceful and hopeful world. (p. 239)
And even as late as June 2015, when the failure of the socialist experiment in Venezuela was already evident, Corbyn repeated:
When we celebrate – and it is a cause for celebration – the achievements of Venezuela, in jobs, in housing, in health, in education, but above all, its role in the whole world as a completely different place, then we do that because we recognize what they have achieved, and how they’re trying to achieve it. (p. 246)
Just a few weeks later, he enthusiastically declared that “the Bolivarian revolution is in full swing and is providing inspiration across a whole continent.” Venezuela was praised as a successful counter-model to “neo-liberal policies.” (p. 247)
Praises of Stalin
Niemietz shows that even mass murderers such as Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong were enthusiastically celebrated by leading intellectuals of their time. These intellectuals were not outsiders but renowned writers and scholars, as Niemietz demonstrates with numerous examples. Even the concentration camps in the Soviet Union, the Gulags, were admired:
They were presented as places of rehabilitation, not punishment, where inmates were given a chance to engage in useful activities, while reflecting upon their mistakes.
A then-well-known American writer explained:
The labor camps have won high reputation throughout the Soviet Union as places where tens of thousands of men have been reclaimed. (p. 72)
Even journalists and intellectuals who didn’t completely turn a blind eye to the regime’s crimes found arguments to justify what was happening:
But – to put it brutally – you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs and the Bolshevist leaders are just as indifferent to the casualties that may be involved in their drive toward socialization as any General during the World War who ordered a costly attack. (p. 80)
These sentences were written by The New York Times’ Moscow correspondent, who was head of the newspaper’s office in the Russian capital from 1922 to 1936.
Niemietz concedes that some socialist intellectuals did criticize the Soviet Union. But for many, their antipathy was the result of using utopian standards as a yardstick for judging real-world systems – utopian fantasies that no system in the world would have been able to live up to.
If one’s idea of socialism demands the immediate abolition of the police, the army, the court system, the prison system, etc., if it requires people to voluntarily give up money, private property, exchange, etc., and if one does not accept any compromises, halfway measures or phase-in periods, then yes, such a person would not have been seduced by Leninism. But this is simply because they would have set the bar impossibly high. A lot of early socialist critics of the Soviet Union fall into this category. (p. 98)
Adulation for Mao
Many Western intellectuals were enthusiastic in their support for Mao Zedong and his cultural revolution despite the 45 million lives lost during socialism’s greatest experiment – the Great Leap Forward – at the end of the 1950s alone. After Mao’s death, when Deng Xiaoping’s reform policies liberated hundreds of millions of Chinese from bitter poverty, these same intellectuals were nowhere near as enthusiastic about China as they had been in Mao’s day.
Just as ironically, the enthusiasm of Western intellectuals for China began to fade when the most murderous period was over… Western intellectuals had lavishly heaped praise on China when millions of Chinese people were starving or worked to death in forced labour camps. But when a programme of relative liberalisation lifted millions of people out of poverty, those intellectuals were conspicuous by their silence. Market-based reform programmes, no matter how successful, will never inspire pilgrimages. (p. 110-111)
Even the North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung and the murderous Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia found admirers among Western intellectuals, as Niemietz demonstrates in two chapters of his book. And that’s not to mention Cuba and Che Guevara, who became a pop icon in the West.
When the Experiment Fails: “That Was Never True Socialism”
In his thorough historical analysis, Niemietz shows every socialist experiment to date has gone through three phases.
During the first phase, the honeymoon period (p. 56), intellectuals around the world are enthusiastic about the system and praise it to the heavens. This enthusiasm is always followed by a second phase, disillusionment, or as Niemietz calls it, “the excuses-and-whataboutery period.” (p. 57) During this phase, intellectuals still defend the system and its “achievements” but withdraw their uncritical support and begin to admit deficiencies, although these are often presented as the result of capitalist saboteurs, foreign forces, or boycotts by US imperialists.
Finally, the third phase sees intellectuals deny that it was ever truly a form of socialism, the not-real-socialism stage. (p. 57) This is the stage at which intellectuals line up to state that the country in question – for example, the Soviet Union, China, or Venezuela – was never really a socialist country. According to Niemietz, however, this line of argumentation is rarely presented during the first phase of a new socialist experiment and becomes the dominant view only after the socialist experiment has failed.
Nowadays, Western socialists do not even attempt to oppose real-world capitalism with historical examples of socialism. Instead, they put forward arguments based on the vague utopia of a “just” society. Sometimes, they cite “Nordic socialism” – i.e. the variant of socialism that emerged in countries like Sweden – as an example, although they completely forget that the Nordic countries, having learned from their failed socialist experiments of the 1970s, have long since abandoned the socialist path. Today – despite having higher taxes – they are no less capitalist than, for example, the United States.
In the author’s place, I would have dealt explicitly with “democratic socialism,” which has also always failed miserably. After all, the policies pursued by socialists in Great Britain and some high-profile members of the Democratic Party in the United States, namely very high taxation on the rich and a high level of state regulation of the economy, has certainly also been seen before in democratic countries, including Sweden and Great Britain in the 1970s. But even these experiments, despite not ending in totalitarian rule or even mass murder, were catastrophic for the economy and led to stubborn declines in prosperity.
Socialists who criticize Stalinism and other forms of real-world, historical socialism always fail to analyze the economic reasons for the failures of these systems. (p. 28) Their analyses attack the paucity of democratic rights and freedoms in these systems, but the alternatives they formulate are based on a vague vision of all-encompassing “democratization of the economy” or “worker control.” Niemietz shows that these are the exact same principles that initially underpinned the failed socialist systems in the Soviet Union and other countries.
When contemporary socialists talk about a non-autocratic, non-authoritarian, participatory and humanitarian version of socialism, they are not as original as they think they are. That was always the idea. This is what socialists have always said. It is not for a lack of trying that it has never turned out that way. (p. 42)
This is an incredible book and should be compulsory reading at schools and universities, where today the song sung by anti-capitalists reigns supreme. Niemietz argues with intellectual authority as he weighs, differentiates, and marshals a wealth of historical evidence in support of his thesis. No other author has so far managed to so convincingly explain why socialism has nevertheless continued to remain so attractive to this day despite the sharp lessons of bitter historical experience.
In his Lectures on the Philosophy of History, the German philosopher Hegel observed,
But what experience and history teach is this, – that peoples and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.
It could well be that Hegel’s verdict is too harsh. Nevertheless, it does seem that the majority of people are unable to abstract and draw general conclusions from historical experience. Despite the numerous examples of capitalist economic policies leading to greater prosperity – and the failure of every single variant of socialism that has ever been tested under real-world conditions – many people still seem incapable of learning the most obvious lessons.
----
This article was originally published on FEE.org.
https://fee.org/articles/why-socialism-is-the-failed-idea-that-never-dies/
-
Lots of edge and insight here. Probably not a tone that persuades.
https://nypost.com/2020/09/12/pj-orourke-this-is-why-millennials-adore-socialism/
-
whether from the right or left
I just hate this stuff
just so unfair:
Pelosi Feinstein style insider connections:
https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/kushner-companies-freddie-mac-786-million-terms-111315311.html
-
Correction, crony big-governmentism. It has nothing to do with capitalism which involves free market risk and everything to do with government power dictating results.
I hate it too. It is something where the far right and the far left can agree. Worst offenders are the 'centrists'. When they brag about getting things done with public-private partnerships, cringe, run, hide.
See: 1. New London CT took people's homes against their will for a government preferred use which was a parking lot for Pfizer to make viagara. Project failed.
2. Solyndra, etc. Bankrupt.
It's bad policy, it's immoral and it's cheating to have the refs side with a team. Everyone else loses. It violates equal protection under the law.
-
They stole our language. I warned it was coming when they infiltrated my industry with "affordable housing".
Affordable housing, in reality, is when a person or family, works, saves, invests, then buys or builds a home they can afford. It's not rocket science; it's freedom, free enterprise, and free will. Then one day the emerging powers within the Fascist, Leftist, Media, Academia Complex designated that simple and innocent term to mean the opposite. 'Affordable Housing' became the industry of federally subsidized public paid programs forcing their way beyond just inner cities and into all neighborhoods, the suburbs and all communities through HUD, Section 8 and a thousand other programs. Not just nothing to do with being able to afford all the costs of your house, but to mean exactly the opposite.
So it wasn't surprising that Obamacare became the affordable care act, that minimum wage bans the hiring of hiring of people whose entry level work skills are worth less. Smart Growth means government planned and controlled. Peaceful protests can burn a thousand buildings. Voter suppression is when you ask the voter to identify him or herself. Opposing any of it means you are racist.
Now, if your number one focus is to make certain elections are legal, honest, accurate and fairly administered according to the rules set by the state legislatures as required by the constitution, and want variances from that investigated, you are "undermining democracy".
[Profanity omitted for how I feel about this.]
-
(https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/abusive-relationship-larger.jpg)
-
Was he not supposed to say that out loud?
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/534892-us-secretary-of-state-on-last-day-in-office-equates-wokeness-with
US secretary of State on last day in office equates 'wokeness' with totalitarianism
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on his final full day in office said that “wokeness” is equivalent with totalitarianism, and that “multiculturalism” is not “who America is.”
“Woke-ism, multiculturalism, all the -isms — they're not who America is. They distort our glorious founding and what this country is all about. Our enemies stoke these divisions because they know they make us weaker,” Pompeo tweeted in what appeared to be a parting shot at the left as he leaves office.
Pompeo, whose ancestors came to the U.S. from Italy, also reupped a past statement saying “Censorship, wokeness, political correctness, it all points in one direction – authoritarianism, cloaked as moral righteousness.”
Woke-ism, multiculturalism, all the -isms — they're not who America is. They distort our glorious founding and what this country is all about. Our enemies stoke these divisions because they know they make us weaker. pic.twitter.com/Mu97xCgxfS
— Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) January 19, 2021
-
https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2021/01/22/d-c-mayor-bowser-dem-led-house-senate-will-pass-d-c-statehood-bring-it-to-bidens-desk/
I am thinking this will eventually go to SCOTUS after Biden, the divider, will sing it.
Is this clearly NOT Constitutional ?
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/06/21/opinion/constitution-says-no-dc-statehood/
So effectively the 20th largest city should get 2 senators - come on man , look at the Constitution
-
(https://i2.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2021/02/Screen-Shot-2021-01-31-at-1.19.06-PM.png?w=720&ssl=1)
https://i2.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2021/02/Screen-Shot-2021-01-31-at-1.19.06-PM.png?w=720&ssl=1
-
Maduro selling out.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-12/bankrupt-by-socialism-venezuela-hands-over-control-of-companies
-
Universal basic income is about to arrive in America. Congressional Democrats’ $1.9 trillion stimulus bill provides for no-strings attached checks, limited only to parents of children under 18. This UBI for parents is billed as pandemic relief, but its real purpose is to put a stake in the heart of work-based welfare reform.
Supporters blandly describe their plan as “Child Tax Credit improvements for 2021.” It would replace today’s annual child tax credit, which tops out at $2,000, with more-generous “child allowances,” payable monthly. Those allowances are federal payments of $3,600 (or $300 a month) for each child under 6 and $3,000 ($250 a month) for older children. The current credit increases with income from work; the new one would provide the same large payments to all.
Under the guise of pandemic relief, the federal government would give a nonworking single parent with two preschool-age children and one in grade school $850 a month. This would come on top of other government benefits, including $680 a month in food stamps, amounting to $18,360 in combined annual income. That’s the equivalent, without accounting for taxes, of working 28 hours a week at $12.50 an hour. On top of that, the family would receive health insurance from Medicaid, and it may also receive housing and child-care assistance. Government benefits to nonworking households that are this generous are bound to reduce employment.
The bill would provide the new benefit for only one year, but the Washington Post reports that “congressional Democrats and White House officials have said they would push for the policy to be made permanent later in the year.”
Under current law, federal cash assistance to poor families flows through state social-services agencies, which require recipients to work, look for work, or at least engage in some activity designed to help them become employed. UBI for parents is designed to circumvent these requirements. If enacted it will more than double the government-provided cash assistance to households headed by single mothers, creating a perverse incentive for the unmarried poor to have more children. That would lead to more poverty, not less.
Unlike existing benefits, UBI for parents also avoids efforts to seek and collect child-support payments from parents who don’t live with their kids. That’s unfortunate, because efforts to collect child support have led to increased income for families in need and greater emotional connection between absent dads and their children.
If all this sounds vaguely familiar, it should. Sending monthly checks to nonworking parents was exactly how welfare used to work until 1996, when President Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, for which Sen. Joe Biden voted. That law requires parents to work or train in exchange for welfare benefits and offered additional child care and other support to help them go to work.
Once UBI for parents is here, calls for UBI for everyone will follow. Democrats’ stimulus bill already includes more checks for adults (and their children), so the mechanics are in place. Last year then- Sen. Kamala Harris introduced legislation calling for $2,000 monthly “pandemic” payments per adult and up to three children. If such a scheme ever started, it would be politically difficult to shut off, despite its high cost.
Some conservatives and libertarians have argued for UBI, but only as a replacement for the rest of the welfare state. That is most definitely not what the Democrats are proposing—they want the UBI, and food stamps and Medicaid and all of the rest.
After the 1996 welfare reform, child poverty declined as single mothers increasingly worked and received benefits that supplemented their earnings. This combination of work plus aid made work pay, as Mr. Clinton used to say, and it allowed people to have the dignity that comes with earning one’s own living. Monthly welfare benefits with no expectation of work would reduce employment and earnings, establish lifelong government dependency for millions of Americans, and increase unwed childbearing. Democratic lawmakers may be happy to pave the way for UBI and finally reverse what Congress and Mr. Clinton did in 1996. It’s a bad bargain for everyone else.
Mr. Doar is president of the American Enterprise Institute. He served as commissioner of social services in New York City, 2007-14. Mr. Weidinger is a resident fellow in poverty studies at AEI and a former deputy staff director of the House Ways and Means Committee.
-
reward people not to work
and for having babies they cannot afford
this is not fair to those that do work
and only have children they can afford
but that never matters to Democrats
why do we have to sit here and have it stuck to us
repeatedly till we bleed dry
-
https://www.oann.com/ore-gov-brown-touts-political-repressions-to-eradicate-trump-forces/
-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_Brown
-
https://notthebee.com/article/jordan-peterson-responds-to-real-communism-has-never-been-tried
Watch, 1 minute.
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FPICbO-fWo&t=145s
Kramer from Seinfeld. Hat tip Instapundit. Kid calls out the commie. Those were the days.
-
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/07/violation-first-amendment-judicial-watch-youtube-video-censored-request-california-government-officials/
-
https://babylonbee.com/news/bernie-sanders-heads-to-cuba-to-inform-protesters-they-have-the-best-healthcare-housing-programs-in-the-world
-
https://issuesinsights.com/2021/07/13/cuba-the-collapse-of-another-socialist-utopia-lets-hope-so/
-
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/jen-psaki-just-escalated-the-conservative-war-with-big-tech/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=breaking&utm_campaign=newstrack&utm_term=24462349
-
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/365/715/
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/a-foretaste-of-fascism_3917404.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2021-07-27&mktids=a51020e17a5a4209835beaa3e12a0f0c&est=C5IXnu%2Bn5baGp50H9rVduaeQrCVxVJRJCbH2N%2FtsxIA5%2ByNxHvmjTFw%2BFHcFa6KivdLk
-
https://www.pressherald.com/2021/08/06/sec-approves-nasdaqs-plan-to-mandate-board-diversity/
-
Thank you to Prof. Victor Davis Hanson for seeing the importance of this. It's not a bad policy or a policy mistake; it's a [Marxist] revolution.
"...quietly the Biden Administration has already begun systematically to warp the rules of free-market capitalism. In other words, we are apparently all to be socialists now.
By continuing to suspend rental payments to landlords who have no redress to the courts for violations of their contractual leases, the government essentially has redefined private property as we know it. Who really owns an apartment or a room in a house if the occupant has not paid rent since last spring? Is the de facto owner the renter in physical control of the unit, or the increasingly impotent title holder who must still pay the insurance, taxes, and upkeep?"
https://amgreatness.com/2021/08/15/are-we-in-a-revolution-and-dont-even-know-it/
Then he goes on to put student debt forgiveness in the same category. If you paid your way through school or didn't go because of the cost, they made you a fool. A contract isn't a contract. You don't really owe that money and it's not really money. It's a government lever.
The Landlord eviction moratorium thing isn't about landlords. It's about fascism and destroying the private contract and enterprise based economy. If you paid rent the last 16 months when you could have had it paid for free, you are a sap in 2021 America. If you gave something of value in exchange for a promise to pay, you are a sucker. The government, under Leftist control, can come in and cancel that. Tis isn't about landlords and housing. They are practicing with landlords and housing.
Sorry, I hate Nazi analogies, but it reminds me of Third Reich Germany. What's the matter (if you aren't one), they're only coming for the Jews. Oops, they came for the Jews first, then everyone who did not join the revolution.
-
It's a Color Revolution being run by the deep state.
https://www.conservativedailynews.com/2020/09/what-is-a-color-revolution/
http://williamengdahl.com/englishNEO16Jun2020.php
Thank you to Prof. Victor Davis Hanson for seeing the importance of this. It's not a bad policy or a policy mistake; it's a [Marxist] revolution.
"...quietly the Biden Administration has already begun systematically to warp the rules of free-market capitalism. In other words, we are apparently all to be socialists now.
By continuing to suspend rental payments to landlords who have no redress to the courts for violations of their contractual leases, the government essentially has redefined private property as we know it. Who really owns an apartment or a room in a house if the occupant has not paid rent since last spring? Is the de facto owner the renter in physical control of the unit, or the increasingly impotent title holder who must still pay the insurance, taxes, and upkeep?"
https://amgreatness.com/2021/08/15/are-we-in-a-revolution-and-dont-even-know-it/
Then he goes on to put student debt forgiveness in the same category. If you paid your way through school or didn't go because of the cost, they made you a fool. A contract isn't a contract. You don't really owe that money and it's not really money. It's a government lever.
The Landlord eviction moratorium thing isn't about landlords. It's about fascism and destroying the private contract and enterprise based economy. If you paid rent the last 16 months when you could have had it paid for free, you are a sap in 2021 America. If you gave something of value in exchange for a promise to pay, you are a sucker. The government, under Leftist control, can come in and cancel that. Tis isn't about landlords and housing. They are practicing with landlords and housing.
Sorry, I hate Nazi analogies, but it reminds me of Third Reich Germany. What's the matter (if you aren't one), they're only coming for the Jews. Oops, they came for the Jews first, then everyone who did not join the revolution.
-
:-o :-o :-o :-o :-o :-o :-o :-o :-o
-
GM Recalls All Chevrolet Bolts Due to Fire Concerns
The automaker has expanded an existing recall to include all 2017-2022 models
https://www.consumerreports.org/car-recalls-defects/chevrolet-bolt-recalled-again-due-to-fire-concerns-a3566085147/
---------------------------------------------------------
https://bestlifeonline.com/most-unreliable-car-news/
Reliability score (out of 100): 26
Tesla may be the most well-known electric car company in the country, but according to Edmunds, the 2020 Tesla Model S, which has a 3.2 consumer rating, has its fair share of problems.
-
https://michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/why-i-am-not-a-progressive
For all of my adult life I have identified as a progressive. To me, being a progressive meant that I believed in empowerment. In 2002, when I co-founded a labor-environmental coalition to advocate for renewable energy, the symbol we chose to represent us was of Rosie the Riveter, an image of a woman factory worker during World War II flexing her muscle beneath the words, “We Can Do It!”. When President Barack Obama ran for office in 2008, it seemed fitting to me that he chose the slogan, “Yes we can!”
But now, on all the major issues of the day, the message from progressives is “No, you can’t.” No: poor nations like Bangladesh can’t adapt to climate change by becoming rich, insist progressives; rather, rich nations must become poor. No: we can’t prevent the staggering rise of drug deaths in the U.S., from 17,000 in 2000 to 93,000 in 2020, by helping people free themselves from addiction; rather, we must instead provide Safe Injection Sites and Safe Sleeping Sites, in downtown neighborhoods, where homeless addicts can use fentanyl, heroin, and meth safely.
Progressives insist they are offering hope. Many scientists and activists yesterday said that, while we have gone past the point of no return, when it comes to climate change, and that “No one is safe,” we can make the situation less bad by using solar panels, windmills, and electric cars, albeit at a very high cost to the economy. And in California, progressive leaders say that we just need to stick with the progressive agenda of Safe Injection Sites and Safe Sleeping Sites until we can build enough single unit apartments for the state’s 116,000 unsheltered homeless, most of whom are either addicted to hard drugs, suffering from untreated mental illness, or both.
But progressives are talking out of both sides of their mouth. Yesterday I debated a British climate scientist named Richard Betts on television. After I pointed out that he and his colleagues had contributed to one out of four British children having nightmares about climate change he insisted that he was all for optimism and that he agreed with me about nuclear power. But just hours earlier he had told the Guardian that we were “hopelessly unprepared” for extreme weather events, even though deaths from natural disasters are at an all time low and that, objectively speaking, humankind has never been more prepared than we are today.
And on the drug deaths crisis, the consensus view among Democrats in Sacramento is that “the problem is fundamentally unsolvable,” according to one of the Capitol’s leading lobbyists. Facing a recall that is growing in popularity, Governor Gavin Newsom yesterday tried to demonstrate that he believes he can solve the problem. He came to Berkeley California and cleaned up garbage created by an open air drug scene (“homeless encampment”) underneath a freeway underpass. A reporter for Politico posted a picture of Newsom who he said was “looking tired, sweaty and dirty.” But a commenter noted that the video was shot at 12:12 pm and by 12:25 pm Newsom was holding a press conference. The governor hadn’t even bothered changing out of his Hush Puppies into work boots. People close to the governor say that it is Newsom himself who believes homelessness is a problem that cannot be solved.
The reason progressives believe that “No one is safe,” when it comes to climate change, and that the drug death “homelessness” crisis is unsolvable, is because they are in the grip of a victim ideology characterized by safetyism, learned helplessness, and disempowerment. This isn’t really that new. Since the 1960s, the New Left has argued that we can’t solve any of our major problems until we overthrow our racist, sexist, and capitalistic system. But for most of my life, up through the election of Obama, there was still a New Deal, “Yes we can!,” and “We can do it!” optimism that sat side-by-side with the New Left’s fundamentally disempowering critique of the system.
That’s all gone. On climate change, drug deaths, and cultural issues like racism, the message from progressives is that we are doomed unless we dismantle the institutions responsible for our oppressive, racist system. Those of us in Generation X who were raised to believe that racism was something we could overcome have been told in no uncertain terms that we were wrong. Racism is baked into our cultural DNA. Even apparently positive progressive proposals are aimed at fundamentally dismantling institutions. The Democrats’ $1 trillion infrastructure bill, supported by many Republicans, and their $3.5 trillion budget proposal, contain measures that would finance the continuing degradation of our electrical grids by increasing reliance on unreliable, weather-dependent renewables, and establish racial incentives for industries including trucking, where there is already a shortage of drivers in large measure because not enough of them can pass drug tests. And does anyone really believe that, if those bills pass, progressives will abandon their dark vision of the future and return to Rosie the Riveter?
Meanwhile, at the state and local level, progressive governments faced with worsening racial disparities in education and crime, are attempting to “solve” the problem by eliminating academic standards altogether, and advocating selective enforcement of laws based on who is committing them. Such measures are profoundly cynical. Progressives are effectively giving up on addressing racial disparities by ignoring them. But such is the logical outcome of victim ideology, which holds that we can divide the world into victims and oppressors, that victims are morally superior and even spiritual, and no change is possible until the system that produces victims and oppressors is overthrown.
To some extent none of this is new. After World War II, it was progressives, not conservatives, who led the charge to replace mental hospitals with community-based care. After the community-based care system fell apart, and severely mentally ill people ended up living on the street, addicted to drugs and alcohol, progressives blamed Reagan and Republicans for cutting the budget. But progressive California today spends more than any other state, per capita, on mental health, and yet the number of homeless, many of whom are mentally ill and suffering addiction, increased by 31% in California since 2010 even as they declined by 18 percent in the rest of the US.
Also after World War II, it was progressives, not conservatives, who insisted that the world was coming to an end because too many babies were being born, and because of nuclear energy. The “population bomb” meant that too many people would result in resource scarcity which would result in international conflicts and eventually nuclear war. We were helpless to prevent the situation through technological change and instead had to prevent people from having children and rid the world of nuclear weapons and energy. It took the end of the Cold War, and the overwhelming evidence that parents in poor nations chose to have fewer children, as parents in rich nations had before them, where they no longer needed them to work on the farm, for the discourse to finally fade.
But the will-to-apocalypse only grew stronger. After it became clear that the planet was warming, not cooling, as many scientists had previously feared, opportunistic New Left progressives insisted that climate change would be world-ending. There was never much reason to believe this. A major report by the National Academies of Science in 1982 concluded that abundant natural gas, along with nuclear power, would substitute for coal, and prevent temperatures from rising high enough to threaten civilization. But progressives responded by demonizing the authors of the study and insisting that anybody who disagreed that climate change was apocalyptic was secretly on the take from the fossil fuel industry.
Where there have been relatively straightforward fixes to societal problems, progressives have opposed them. Progressives have opposed the expanded use of natural gas and nuclear energy since the 1970s even though it was those two technologies that caused emissions to peak and decline in Germany, Britain and France during that decade. Progressive climate activists over the last 15 years hotly opposed fracking even though it was the main reason emissions in the US declined 22 percent between 2005 and 2020, which is 5 percentage points more than President Obama proposed to reduce them as part of America’s Paris climate agreement.
The same was the case when it came to drug deaths, addiction, and homelessness. People are shocked when I explain to them that the reason California still lacks enough homeless shelters is because progressives have opposed building them. Indeed, it was Governor Newsom, when he was Mayor of San Francisco, who led the charge opposing the construction of sufficient homeless shelters in favor of instead building single unit apartments for anybody who said they wanted one. While there are financial motivations for such a policy, the main motivation was ideological. Newsom and other progressives believe that simply sheltering people is immoral. The good is the enemy of the perfect.
As a result, progressives have created the apocalypse they feared. In California, there are “homeless encampments,” open drug scenes, in the parks, along the highways, and on the sidewalks. But the problem is no longer limited to San Francisco. A few days ago somebody posted a video and photo on Twitter of people in Philadelphia, high on some drug, looking exactly like Hollywood zombies. The obvious solution is to provide people with shelter, require them to use it, and mandate drug and psychiatric treatment, for people who break laws against camping, public drug use, public defecation, and other laws. But progressives insist the better solution is Safe Sleeping Sites and Safe Injection Sites.
Should we be surprised that an ideology that believes American civilization is fundamentally evil has resulted in the breakdown of that civilization? Most American progressives don’t hold such an extreme ideology. Most progressives want police for their neighborhoods. Most progressives want their own children, when suffering mental illness and addiction, to be mandated care. And most progressives want reliable electrical and water management systems for their neighborhoods.
But most progressives are also voting for candidates who are cutting the number of police for poor neighborhoods, insisting that psychiatric and drug treatment be optional, and that trillions be spent making electricity more expensive so we can harmonize with nature through solar panels made by enslaved Muslims in China, and through industrial wind projects built in the habitat of critically endangered whale species.
Does pointing all of this out make me a conservative? There are certainly things I support that many progressives view as conservative, including nuclear power, a ban on public camping, and mandating drug and psychiatric treatment for people who break the law. But other things I support might be fairly viewed as rather liberal, or even progressive, including universal psychiatric care, shelter-for-all, and the reform of police departments with the aims of reducing homicides, police violence, and improving the treatment of people with behavioral health disorders, whether from addiction or mental illness.
And there is a kind of victim ideology on the Right just as there is on the Left. It says that America is too weak and poor, and that our resources are too scarce, to take on our big challenges. On climate change it suggests that nothing of consequence can be done and that all energy sources, from coal to nuclear to solar panels, are of equal or comparable value. On drug deaths and homelessness it argues that parents must simply do a better job raising their children to not be drug addicts, and that we should lock up people, even the mentally ill, for long sentences in prisons and hospitals, with little regard for rehabilitation.
The two grassroots movements I have helped to create around energy and homelessness reject the dystopian victim ideologies of Right and Left. There are progressive and conservative members in both coalitions. But what unites us is our commitment to practical policies that are proven to work in the real world. We advocate for the maintenance and construction of nuclear plants that actually exist, or could soon exist, not futuristic reactors that likely never will. We advocate for Shelter First and Housing Earned, universal psychiatric care, and banning the open dealing of deadly drugs because those are the policies that have worked across the U.S. and around the world, and can be implemented right away.
If I had to find a word to describe the politics I am proposing it would be “heroic,” not liberal, conservative, or even moderate. We need a politics of heroism not a politics of victimhood. Yes, Bangladesh can develop and save itself from sea level rise, just as rich nations have; they are not doomed to hurricanes and flooding. Yes, people addicted to fentanyl and meth can recover from their addictions, with our help, and go on to live fulfilling and rewarding lives; they are not doomed to live in tents for the rest of their shortened lives. And yes, we can create an America where people who disagree on many things can nonetheless find common ground on the very issues that most seem to polarize us, including energy, the environment, crime, and drugs.
On October 12 HarperCollins will publish my second book in two years, San Fransicko, focused on drugs, crime, and homelessnes. It and Apocalypse Never will constitute a comprehensive proposal for saving our civilization from those who would destroy it. What both books have in common is the theme of empowerment. We are not doomed to an apocalyptic future, whether from climate change or homelessness. We can achieve nature, peace, and prosperity for all people because humans are amazing. Our civilization is sacred; we must defend and extend it.
San Fransicko was inspired, in part, by the work of the late psychiatrist, Victor Frankl, who was made famous by a book where he described how he survived the Nazi concentration camps by fixating on a positive vision for his future. During the darkest moments of Covid last year I was struck by how much my mood had improved simply by listening to his 1960s lectures on YouTube. Why, I wondered, had progressives embraced Frankl’s empowering therapy in their personal lives but demonized it in their political lives? Why had progressives, who had done so much to popularize human potential and self-help, claimed that promoting self-help in policies and politics were a form of “blaming the victim?”
Few of my conclusions will surprise anyone, though the agenda, and philosophy, that I am proposing might. It truly is a mix of values, policies, and institutions that one might consider progressive and conservative, not because I set out to make it that way, but because it was that combination that has worked so often in the past. But beyond the policies and values I propose there is a spirit of overcoming, not succumbing; of empowerment, not disempowerment; and of heroism, not victimhood. That spirit comes before, and goes beyond, political ideology and partisan identity. It says, against those who believe that America, and perhaps Western Civilization itself, are doomed: no they’re not. And to those who think we can’t solve big challenges like climate change, drug deaths, and homelessness, it says yes we can.
-
Very good read!
May I ask you to put it in the Rants thread as well?
-
more evidence of decline in the West:
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/09/20/canadian-media-project-liberal-justin-trudeau-survived-snap-elections/
-
https://nypost.com/2021/09/30/bidens-pick-for-treasury-post-sought-end-to-banking-as-we-know-it/?fbclid=IwAR1222vNdun1yT-jlYeMN7ISXnJfwxLa6qEJYoi990I8EU8q8HumCdHzr88
-
https://nypost.com/2021/09/30/bidens-pick-for-treasury-post-sought-end-to-banking-as-we-know-it/?fbclid=IwAR1222vNdun1yT-jlYeMN7ISXnJfwxLa6qEJYoi990I8EU8q8HumCdHzr88
Never pay taxes again. They already have all your money.
Freedom is full of inefficiencies - from the all powerful government's point of view.
Elimination of capitalism and private decision making in every industry and every aspect of life? We're almost there.
At some point very soon we're going to have to articulate why that's a bad idea.
-
To the vote fraud machines?
https://nypost.com/2021/09/30/bidens-pick-for-treasury-post-sought-end-to-banking-as-we-know-it/?fbclid=IwAR1222vNdun1yT-jlYeMN7ISXnJfwxLa6qEJYoi990I8EU8q8HumCdHzr88
Never pay taxes again. They already have all your money.
Freedom is full of inefficiencies - from the all powerful government's point of view.
Elimination of capitalism and private decision making in every industry and every aspect of life? We're almost there.
At some point very soon we're going to have to articulate why that's a bad idea.
-
I'm trying to figure out how to make this argument more persuasively and find out Winston Churchill spoke on the topic 80 years ago. Is anyone listening?
https://www.realclearhistory.com/articles/2021/09/27/churchill_truly_understood_communism_and_socialism_796439.html
[T]here can be no doubt that Socialism is inseparably interwoven with Totalitarianism and the abject worship of the State. … liberty, in all its forms, is challenged by the fundamental conceptions of Socialism. … there is to be one State to which all are to be obedient in every act of their lives. This State is to be the arch-employer, the arch-planner, the arch-administrator and ruler, and the arch-caucus boss.
A Socialist State once thoroughly completed in all its details and aspects… could not afford opposition. Socialism is, in its essence, an attack upon the right of the ordinary man or woman to breathe freely without having a harsh, clumsy tyrannical hand clapped across their mouths and nostrils.
But I will go farther. I declare to you, from the bottom of my heart that no Socialist system can be established without a political police. Many of those who are advocating Socialism or voting Socialist today will be horrified at this idea. That is because they are shortsighted, that is because they do not see where their theories are leading them.
No Socialist Government conducting the entire life and industry of the country could afford to allow free, sharp, or violently-worded expressions of public discontent. They would have to fall back on some form of Gestapo, no doubt very humanely directed in the first instance.
And this would nip opinion in the bud; it would stop criticism as it reared its head, and it would gather all the power to the supreme party and the party leaders, rising like stately pinnacles above their vast bureaucracies of Civil servants, no longer servants and no longer civil. And where would the ordinary simple folk — the common people, as they like to call them in America — where would they be, once this mighty organism had got them in its grip?
-
So of course the first thing His Glibness did was remove Churchill's bust from the White House.
-
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/02/05/right-needs-stop-falsely-claiming-that-nazis-were-socialists/?fbclid=IwAR0gQRgVPohUPFl_y8pqIEwLFf8UPsqPHp6LZsGUhoBJNCeGBR_OKeYPmtg
-
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/02/05/right-needs-stop-falsely-claiming-that-nazis-were-socialists/?fbclid=IwAR0gQRgVPohUPFl_y8pqIEwLFf8UPsqPHp6LZsGUhoBJNCeGBR_OKeYPmtg
The National Socialist German Worker's Party totally wasn't socialist, you guys!
:roll:
-
WSJ:
The Spending Bill Is an Attack on Work and Marriage
A single mom could end up paying thousands more for daycare if she marries. Children will suffer.
By Casey B. Mulligan
Oct. 31, 2021 5:45 pm ET
America’s children have suffered from ill-advised public-school closings. Now Democrats want to compound the damage with their welfare spending bill, which would push fathers out of family life and move mothers and fathers alike onto unemployment rolls.
Take Section 23001 of the latest draft of the Build Back Better bill, released on Thursday. It would create a large new federal child-care program. For each year that a couple has children under 5, being unmarried could easily save them over $10,000 annually in child-care costs compared with being married.
That’s because of how the subsidies are structured. A single mother earning 75% of the median household income in her state would pay nothing for child care, regardless of how much the child’s father earned. But the father’s income counts if he is legally part of the family. A husband and wife who each earned about 75% of the median income would have to pay thousands for the same daycare. In 2022-24, the married couple would pay full price, which would likely exceed $15,000 a child a year—$30,000 for two children under 5.
Child care is one of several provisions that would encourage even middle-income people to think seriously about single parenthood. Several Republican senators wrote to Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to object to the new marriage penalties built into Democrats’ proposed reforms to the Earned Income Tax Credit. There inevitably will be marriage penalties baked into the $150 billion the bill would spend on “affordable housing,” details to come.
Democrats will claim that their new bill at least encourages work by making child care free, but that refers only to a narrow slice of the population. Most families, especially those that don’t qualify for a full subsidy or that have older children, will pay more for child care. One reason: Under the heading of “quality regulation,” the bill requires that child-care workers be paid a “living wage” and that their earnings be “equivalent to wages for elementary educators with similar credentials and experience.”
The precise meaning of that would be left to regulators, but according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, elementary-school teachers earned an average of $63,930 annually in 2019, compared with $25,510 for child-care workers. By that benchmark, child-care facilities would need to pay workers 151% more. Perhaps child-care workers would be required to hold master’s degrees, or be represented by unions that could otherwise limit supply as they do with kindergarten teachers.
The new child-care program and various additions to major safety-net programs such as Medicaid and “affordable housing” also discourage work. As one’s income from working increases, the amount offered by these benefit programs decreases. The marginal tax rate on working an extra hour, day or week, or improving your skills, can be extremely high.
The revised bill also allows even America’s highest-income households to receive subsidized ObamaCare insurance as long as they can’t get coverage at work. Some Americans will retire earlier or spend more time between jobs. Much of the lost wages will be replaced by more-generous ObamaCare subsidies at taxpayer expense.
I estimate that the several implicit employment and income taxes in the revised bill would increase marginal tax rates on work by about five percentage points. I expect that such a change, over five years, would reduce full-time equivalent employment by about 4%, or about five million jobs.
Meanwhile, more kids will come home from a regulated child-care facility to an unmarried parent who is out of work. More families will be willing to tolerate this kind of care, regardless of the quality of cognitive or social development, since the price is “free.”
Quebec imposed “quality” regulation on its child-care market, which, a landmark study found, led to “increases in early childhood anxiety and aggression” with “little measured impact on cognitive skills.” Kids exposed to the program suffered “worse health, lower life satisfaction, and higher crime rates later in life.”
The Affordable Care Act taught us the hard way that nice-sounding bill titles don’t necessarily translate to sound public policy. Anyone looking inside Build Back Better will see incentives that work against Americans who want to build stable families.
Mr. Mulligan, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago and senior fellow with the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, served as chief economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisers, 2018-19
-
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/11/british-muslim-cia-operative-and-author-i-posed-daniel-greenfield/
-
https://alphahistory.com/nazigermany/nazi-party-25-points-1920/?fbclid=IwAR1b5qB5i9Ax3XZAQm3AmnRSTG0TslnL_QxL5zjNhtPpk3_4BiWPOeB-duE
-
https://www.revolver.news/2022/05/biden-mayorkas-jankowicz-disinfo-board-goes-to-war-with-open-borders-critics/?fbclid=IwAR23P0i0n3f1XksNh_GTR5RxEXa3uVsdAld_HqSXrr75lnSb6Z6IUEl1qYs
-
https://rumble.com/v13jiug-rand-paul-humiliates-dhs-sec.-into-silence-over-ministry-of-truth.html?mref=22lbp&mc=56yab&fbclid=IwAR2dAJtIq3CNry5mMD3x_l9axLFxS9h7OL-zxsZh8JF0SfzuT1BgwOOmaxc
-
so influential?
Why do read about him and they so much
no one ever elected them
https://neonnettle.com/news/19677-world-economic-forum-calls-to-end-wasteful-private-car-ownership
he is just another academic with ties to , of course, Harvard:
https://www.weforum.org/about/klaus-schwab
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaus_Schwab
-
Henry Olsen of the Ethics and Public Policy Center notes that fascists "believed that multiparty democracy weakened the nation, and that competitive capitalism was wasteful and exploitative. Their alternative was a one-party state that guided the economy through regulation and sector-based accords between labor and business."
=============
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/09/who-are-you-calling-fascist-mr-president-david-harsanyi/?fbclid=IwAR0yV3AkhErkXvLH574hzWxlQKfIw2PZnwUDdHPAR-aSkfhel9IxDooUHEM
-
Fascism for dummies
Those using the word should at least know what it means
By Clifford D. May
Fascism seems to be all the rage these days. I’ll give you a few examples.
Ben Rhodes, who was President Barack Obama’s deputy national security adviser for strategic communications (a title suggesting foreign policy with a spin), wrote last year that the presidency of Donald Trump was “an American experiment with fascism.”
Democratic National Committee chairman Jaime Harrison echoed him, declaring that the Republican Party has “become a party of fascism and fear.” Actor/activist Rob Reiner tweeted last week: “This Midterm there is no gray area. You either cast a vote for Democracy or Fascism. That’s it.” And, of course, President Biden recently charged that Republicans — many if not all — embrace “semi-fascism.”
Was he using that modifier to imply that there are a few tenets of fascism not endorsed even by the “MAGA Republicans” he so intensely despises? Since the most lethal variety of fascism is Nazism, he at least might have made clear that he’s not calling his political opponents genocidal.
My guess is that Mr. Biden, like others employing the term, knows little about this revolutionary ideology to which millions of people in Germany, Italy, Japan, and other countries adhered during the first half of the 20th century.
If you were so daring as to pull aside a black-shirted Antifa member during one of the street riots that group has initiated and ask for a definition of the “fa” he thinks he’s combatting, do you think you’d get a coherent answer?
Would he know that members of the paramilitary wing of Benito Mussolini’s National Fascist Party also wore and were called Blackshirts, and that a similarly violent wing of the Nazi Party wore and were called Brownshirts?
Expressions of fascist fashion — or, more properly, of the “Fascist Aesthetic” — were even more elaborately on display when Mr. Biden recently let loose a diatribe in front of Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, its walls bathed in bloodred lights, U.S. Marines menacingly backing him up.
The president directed his fury toward those millions of fellow Americans he regards as enemies of the state and its leader. “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans,” he railed, “represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic!”
Did the White House communications team — whom I presume wrote the speech and designed the “optics” — realize they were drawing on fascist imagery when they cast the president as a strongman, an idolized and militaristic authority figure differentiating between pure and impure, and determined to crush those who, as Mr. Biden put it, “do not recognize the will of the people”?
Perhaps the president’s advisers thought: “Hey, our job is to make the midterm elections a referendum not on Biden and his record, but on Trump and any Republicans who have not publicly rejected him. So, whatever it takes — even if fascist-inspired.”
Consistent with this strategy, Mr. Biden’s supporters have spent more than $40 million to boost the most Trumpian MAGA Republicans in primaries around the country so that Democrats can run against candidates they believe will be easier to defeat in the general elections.
As Nora Ephron used to say: “No matter how cynical I get, I just can’t keep up.”
OK, class, now take your seats because it’s time for Fascism 101. Among the best scholarly books on the subject remains Eugen Weber’s “Varieties of Fascism: Doctrines of Revolution in the Twentieth Century,” first published in 1964.
Fascism, Nazism and other “national socialisms,” he writes, “had their roots in the 19th century and even earlier” in ideas promulgated by such philosophers as Rousseau, Hegel, and Nietzsche. The term derives from fascio, Italian for a bundle or sheath, conveying “strength through unity,” the unifying force being the government and its supreme leader. As Mussolini put it: “Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.” In common with communism, fascism in its diverse forms opposes liberalism, defined as “individualism and the apparently chaotic conclusions of private enterprise.” Also akin to communism, fascism has had a “passion for science” that often turns out to be pseudo-science. The Soviet Communists had Lysenkoism. Nazis believed, as Nazi ideologue Alfred Rosenberg wrote, that “history must be judged from the point of view of race.” The poet Ezra Pound, a well-known American fascist, moved to Italy in 1924 where he wrote for publications owned by the British fascist Oswald Moseley (whose streetfighters also were called Blackshirts). Pound supported Hitler’s rise, including in paid radio broadcasts attacking the U.S., the U.K., Roosevelt, Churchill, and Jews. Among the ideas he championed: “race pride.” As George Mosse notes in “Fascist Aesthetics and Society: Some Considerations,” the “human body indicates the structure of the mind.” Another attribute of fascism is hypernationalism. The Axis powers all invaded neighbors and folded them into their expanding empires. Neither Mr. Trump nor Mr. Biden has displayed any interest in foreign conquests, as far as I’m aware. On the contrary, I see too many Republicans and Democrats succumbing to the siren song of isolationism. This is an opinion column and I’ll close with this one: A serious argument can be made that Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Ali Khamenei, and Kim Jong-un exemplify 21st century varieties of fascism. Had Mr. Biden addressed the increasing national security threats they pose, he might have helped unite us against those who hate us — Democrats and Republicans, progressives and conservatives, the woke and the unwoke. He chose not to.
I think that’s because he wants to win in the worst way. And it’s hard to imagine any way worse than this: slandering his political opponents as fascists while posing as a modern Mussolini in the City of Brotherly Love
-
Yes. Isn't it weird to be called fascists by fascists.
What is fascist about loving liberty, wanting to live free,supporting smaller government and stronger families and individual responsibility. The accusation is beyond absurd.
I've been saying, all they do is project themselves when they attack us, but this goes way over any line. What makes it grow worse over time is to notice the lack of outrage or push back at the reckless name calling of this ultra-divisive President and his deep state henchmen.
The only example they cite of conservatives wanting government control is when we try to limit the freedom of liberals to slaughter their young. Maybe we should back off on that...
-
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/sep/12/gun-rights-backers-call-credit-card-plan-step-towa/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=subscriber&utm_campaign=dive_deeper&utm_term=newsletter&bt_ee=E9wn0UVxKoxuC%2FlqUMbhM%2FU4%2Fs5tSBxcuc7fWCmLo4vhUJq7zTHZK0p%2F86xJ%2F9Jr&bt_ts=1663350930726
-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/ccp-is-engineering-a-new-society-to-control-human-will-via-data-authors_4732455.html?utm_source=China&utm_campaign=uschina-2022-09-16&utm_medium=email&est=9QH2YNpf3yXnRNTgFEn0KtUuxTZmz2aNGhJRPgfw%2FRplhCPZ5oevfXSVE0jt1DNXnjBU
-
“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power”
― Benito Mussolini
-
“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power”
― Benito Mussolini
SO much to quibble with there, but the scary thing is, that is what the statists are doing today.
Merging 'corporations' with the state means they aren't corporations.
It is the destruction of free enterprise.
Obvious in hindsight, but that kind of thinking destroys liberties and lives and leads to war.
-
"(A) merger of state and corporate power" e.g. FB and the CDC.
-
that is what is so frustrating
to see young people who are so gullible saying WE ARE the FASCISTS because they read what Dem shysters are saying on line
or hear at the Universities
I am positive they rattle this off and when they have no clue what fascism is .
Trump deregulating industries
downsizing government and getting them and corporations off our backs
is simply the opposite
impressionable young minds
ignorant enough to fall for the propaganda....
-
"when they have no clue what fascism is "
- Hard to get their attention, but we need to tell them what is, and that it's bad.
-
From Housing thread:
https://nypost.com/2022/11/26/nyc-landlords-could-soon-be-denied-criminal-background-checks-for-tenants/
---------
A couple of comments: 1) What happens in NYC (or Calif) does not stay there; it tells you what leftist liberals who govern all our other large cities are thinking and likely to do soon, cf. Minneapolis:
https://reason.com/2019/09/17/minneapolis-doesnt-want-landlords-to-check-tenants-criminal-history-credit-score-past-evictions/
2) Definitions vary but communism is when the government owns the means of production (no private sector) and Fascism is when ownership in name only is private sector but all key decisions are dictated by government, which is what is happening here. Who you rent to is the key decision in housing. Laws protecting race, gender, etc are matters of rights.
Laws protecting convicted felons and known bad tenants of recent past violent behaviors and other issues make a mockery of tenant screening, the heart of the housing business.
If the government makes all the decisions, isn't it just government housing?
All that's left is for private owners to get out of ownership but they have laws blocking that as well.
-
https://www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2022/12/CANADA-HEALTH0-2a-2-Copy.jpg
-
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/02/a_biden_labor_dept_rule_change_could_force_your_retirement_nest_egg_to_be_invested_in_solyndralike_green_and_woke_companies.html
-
https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1050,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/127/799/094/original/73d9b922ed480cae.png
(https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1050,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/127/799/094/original/73d9b922ed480cae.png)
-
Pasting CCP's post here:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/02/16/fact-sheet-president-biden-signs-executive-order-to-strengthen-racial-equity-and-support-for-underserved-communities-across-the-federal-government/
executive orders
thank God we have a Conservative majority Court :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_order
-
https://public.substack.com/p/exclusive-senator-mark-kelly-called
Oathbreaking garbage
-
peachment vote. Images: Reuters/AFP/Getty Images Composite: Mark Kelly
While the press frets about Donald Trump establishing the Fourth Reich, President Biden is rewriting laws to arrogate sweeping power for himself. On Thursday the Administration threatened to seize patents of drugs and other innovations, which could be its most economically destructive executive act to date.
The Commerce and Health and Human Services Departments are proposing new guidance on “march-in” rights under the 1980 Bayh-Dole Act. The law was meant to encourage cooperation among industry, research institutions and government to bring innovations to market. Mr. Biden’s patent grab will do the opposite.
Bayh-Dole attempted to solve the problem of tens of thousands of government patents that were collecting dust. Government had taken the position that inventions stemming from federally funded research belonged to the government. But why develop a product if you won’t be allowed to profit from it?
Under Bayh-Dole, research institutions receiving federal funds were allowed to patent inventions and license them to companies to commercialize them. It worked. Only in limited circumstances can government “march in” and confiscate a patent—namely, when a company hasn’t made a good-faith effort to commercialize the research.
Progressives for decades have wanted to use march-in rights to seize patents on drugs they claim are too expensive. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra led the charge last decade in Congress. Yet Administrations of both parties have demurred until now because they understood its destructive impact.
Under the proposed Biden guidelines, march-in rights will be used as price controls. Government agencies could seize patents if “the price or other terms at which the product is currently offered to the public are not reasonable” or “unreasonably limit availability of the invention to the public.”
As Biden National Economic Council director Lael Brainard explained, “We’ll make it clear that when drug companies won’t sell taxpayer funded drugs at reasonable prices, we will be prepared to allow other companies to provide those drugs for less.” Translation: That’s a nice medicine you have there . . . shame if something happened to it.
Did the White House consult with the National Institutes of Health or other scientific agencies? The NIH this year rejected a petition by a left-wing group to exercise march-in rights on a prostate cancer drug by Pfizer and Astellas Pharma. NIH knows that seizing patents would dampen cooperation between research institutions and industry, harming innovation and patients.
That’s what happened 30 years ago when NIH briefly required companies exclusively licensing its inventions to pledge to sell the byproducts at a reasonable price. Private industry walked away. In rescinding the NIH policy in 1995, director Harold Varmus said “the pricing clause has driven industry away from potentially beneficial scientific collaborations with PHS (public health service) scientists” without offsetting benefits to the public. He called it “a restraint on the new product development.”
Former Sens. Birch Bayh and Bob Dole in 2002 explained that their law “makes no reference to a reasonable price that should be dictated by the government. This omission was intentional; the primary purpose of the act was to entice the private sector to seek public-private research collaboration rather than focusing on its own proprietary research.” They stressed that “the purpose of our act was to spur the interaction between public and private research so that patients would receive the benefits of innovative science sooner.”
***
Alas, the Biden Administration cares more about expanding government control over the private economy than accelerating life-saving treatments. The President’s cancer moonshot initiative boosts funding for research institutions, but his threat to seize patents will discourage companies from building on future discoveries. Does the Administration’s left hand know what its far left hand is doing? This will compound the damage from the Inflation Reduction Act’s Medicare drug price controls.
Progressives say government deserves paternity rights to drug patents because it plays an outsize role in funding their development. But of 18 medicines that have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration with patents linked to NIH grants in 2000, total private investment exceeded government funding 66-fold. Profits and intellectual-property protections drive American innovation. Mr. Biden’s patent heist undercuts both and will embolden China to seize U.S. patents.
Note, too, that the Administration’s plan would let the government seize patents of other products such as semiconductors, artificial intelligence, nuclear energy and lithium-ion batteries, and any inventions that result from the $200 billion in funding from last year’s chips bill. Stealing IP is now part of Bidenomics.
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdhHO9HBZvc
-
Novant Health takes a big hit for firing a high performing white guy and replacing him with a new hire black woman:
Employers May Not "Take Adverse Employment Actions … Based on [Employees'] Race or Gender to Implement" "Diversity and Inclusion" Programs
The Volokh Conspiracy / by Eugene Volokh / Mar 18, 2024 at 9:13 AM
From Tuesday's Fourth Circuit decision in Duvall v. Novant Health, Inc., written by Judge Agee and joined by Judges Quattlebaum and Floyd (upholding a damages award of "about $4 million"):
After a week-long trial, a North Carolina jury found that Novant Health, Inc. terminated David Duvall because of his race, sex, or both, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In addition to the finding of liability, the jury awarded Duvall $10 million in punitive damages [reduced to the statutory maximum of $300,000].
The court summarized the facts, as usual in this situation, in light most favorable to the verdict:
Duvall, a white man, began working for Novant Health in 2013, when Executive Vice President and Chief Consumer Officer Jesse Cureton, a black man, hired him as Senior Vice President of Marketing and Communications. Based in North Carolina, Duvall reported directly to Cureton and held the same position throughout his employment with Novant Health. Evidence presented at trial demonstrated that Duvall performed exceptionally in his role, receiving strong performance reviews and gaining national recognition for himself and the marketing program he developed for Novant Health.
Despite all that, Cureton fired Duvall in July 2018, a decision that came as a shock to both Duvall and his colleagues. Moreover, Novant Health—a multibillion-dollar company with tens of thousands of employees and an extensive human resources department—had no record of any documented criticism of Duvall's performance or reasons for his termination.
Immediately after firing Duvall, Novant Health elevated two of Duvall's deputies, a white woman and a black woman, to take over his duties. It then later hired another black woman to permanently replace Duvall.
Believing Novant Health fired him merely to achieve racial and gender diversity—or more specifically, to hit certain diversity "targets"—within its leadership, Duvall sued his former employer under Title VII and North Carolina state law in federal district court….
The court concluded there was sufficient evidence to support the jury verdict:
To begin, Duvall presented evidence about the context surrounding his termination. The jury heard that Duvall was fired in the middle of a widescale D&I initiative at Novant Health, which sought to "embed diversity and inclusion throughout" the company, and to ensure that its overall workforce, including its leadership, "reflect[ed] the communities [it] serve[d]." There was evidence presented that Novant Health endeavored to accomplish this goal by, among other things, benchmarking its then-current D&I levels and developing and employing D&I metrics; committing to "adding additional dimensions of diversity to the executive and senior leadership teams" and incorporating "a system wide decision making process that includes a diversity and inclusion lens"; and evaluating the success of its efforts and identifying and closing any remaining diversity gaps.
The jury also heard about the demographic data from 2015 and 2017 that Novant Health collected. From a factual standpoint, the data revealed a decline in female leaders and an overrepresentation of male and white leadership in comparison to the total workforce. It also showed an increase in white male representation "with each level of management," compared to a decrease in "African-American representation … at each level [of management] with the exception of the executive team." By 2019, however, Novant Health saw a dramatic increase in female leaders just from the year prior (the period in which Duvall was fired). It also reflected a decrease of white workers and leaders and an increase in black workers and leaders over the life of the D&I Plan. Additionally, after remaining gaps in the Hispanic and Asian workforce were identified, Novant Health adopted a long-term financial incentive plan that tied executive bonuses to closing those gaps by achieving a specific percentage of each group.
Against that backdrop, we consider the evidence specific to Duvall and his termination.
As noted above, there was substantial evidence at trial that Duvall performed superbly in his role at Novant Health…. But despite this evidence of his exceptional performance, the jury heard that Duvall was abruptly fired, having been told only that Novant Health was "going in a different direction." … Finally, the jury heard Cureton offer shifting, conflicting, and unsubstantiated explanations for Duvall's termination. [Details omitted, but can be seen in the full opinion. -EV] …
{To be clear, employers may, if they so choose, utilize D&I-type programs. What they cannot do is take adverse employment actions against employees based on their race or gender to implement such a program. And as recounted above, the evidence presented at trial in this case was more than sufficient for a reasonable jury to conclude that is precisely what Novant Health did to Duvall.}
But the court set aside the award of punitive damages, because such damages were available "only in limited circumstances:"
Title VII authorizes punitive damages only when a plaintiff makes two showings. First, the plaintiff must show that the employer engaged in unlawful intentional discrimination (not an employment practice that is unlawful because of its disparate impact). Second, the plaintiff must show that the employer engaged in the discriminatory practice with malice or with reckless indifference to the federally protected rights of an aggrieved individual. That is, an employer must at least discriminate in the face of a perceived risk that its actions will violate federal law.
And, the court held, plaintiff introduced no "affirmative evidence" that the employer actually "perceived [the] risk" that its actions were illegal: Duvall "offered no evidence as to the training or qualification that Novant Health offered to or required of Cureton, or a comparable executive, to establish the requisite knowledge of federal anti-discrimination law. Duvall even cross-examined Cureton yet never elicited from him testimony establishing his personal knowledge of federal anti-discrimination law, let alone that he perceived a risk that his decision to fire Duvall would violate it." And the "inference that Cureton had the requisite knowledge given his career as a corporate executive" was insufficient.
The post Employers May Not "Take Adverse Employment Actions … Based on [Employees'] Race or Gender to Implement" "Diversity and Inclusion" Programs appeared first on Reason.com.
https://reason.com/volokh/2024/03/18/employers-may-not-take-adverse-employment-actions-based-on-employees-race-or-gender-to-implement-diversity-and-inclusion-programs/
-
$8 billion here, $8 billion there and soon you are talking about real money:
https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/texas-pulls-8-5-billion-blackrock-stunning-blow-esg-movement?fbclid=IwAR2WuRswJ2uoCXQwCEEx_ZI6t9hccifYV8uwXrNRnPJKOAhYwStUS_g_2X8
-
GOOD!!!
-
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/mHCBXQVn8_I
-
I would have liked to see the guy asking the question response to Larry Elders response.
He probably changed the subject to sports........ :wink:
-
Study claims diversity in and of itself leads to greater corporate earning. The US military in particular has embraced these findings … and is paying the price in terms of recruitment of whites.
https://thefederalist.com/2024/04/03/new-study-shows-mckinseys-studies-promoting-dei-profitability-were-garbage/?fbclid=IwAR1f1lh9EHly59e8O9-QFXuy7Lpz2XoPre6QVqJEoSFvXH1ie10JvqD_o6w