The Cognitive Dissonance of the left

[JDN]

Ahhh, then we agree.      Sorry, I misunderstood; I thought you posted because you were criticizing the suggested cuts.

[prentice crawford]

Woof,
 My point, (that I didn't do so good a job of making), was that there shouldn't have been anything to cut to begin with.
                         P.C.

[Cranewings]

Woof,
 And does it dawn on you that crime will increase in the areas that cops are moved out from and the areas that have a lot of crime, already have twice the officers now? My thought is maybe policing isn't the problem but maybe Liberal policies are.

If you can get the latest issue of Scientific America, they do an article about how New York's crime rate dropped through the floor without addressing poverty, drugs, or anything else. The main thing that made NYC different than other areas with smaller drops in crime was the 9000 or so officers it added, I think in the late 80's. I don't have it in front of me right now.

Anyway, they pointed out that uniformed police targeting hot spots makes a big difference in crime.

[JDN]

Anyway, they pointed out that uniformed police targeting hot spots makes a big difference in crime.

I agree.  But in Chicago, that is what they are trying to do; focus on hot spots. 

PC posted his piece in "The cognitive dissonance of the left" but I don't think cutting costs, reigning in unions, focusing on hot spots
is a "leftest" idea.  It's just common sense whichever party you belong to.

And sure, 9000 more police is nice, but who has the money... 

Cost/benefit analysis. 

[G M]

Like anything, there is a point of diminishing returns. A well trained, well led police dept. can use the "Compstat" model to great effect, but there must be jails for pre-trial detention, prosecutors, judges, courtrooms, forensic support and prison cells, otherwise targeted enforcement means nothing when the perps just rotate back onto the street because the rest of the system chokes.

[prentice crawford]

Woof,
 And how about making an effort to keep these folks from becoming perps in the first place.
                         P.C.

[G M]

Woof,
 And how about making an effort to keep these folks from becoming perps in the first place.
                         P.C.

Like a "War on poverty"? We tried that, poverty won.

[prentice crawford]

Woof,
 No, like a family values, moral up bringing and responsible citizenship training. So doing more to support families instead of gangs, churches instead of raves and making every 18 year old serve in the military instead of doing time in prison.
                                 P.C.

[G M]

I'm not saying that's impossible, but we'd have to get awful authoritarian to pull this off.

[Crafty_Dog]

Well, maybe it should be done as it used to be done-- by parents, communities, churches, and so forth.

[G M]

Bwahahahahaha!



Parents? The ones that dress their kids in "prosti-tot" fashions? Been to a mall lately?

[ccp]

I am sure he is invested appropriately:

****Jorge Silva/Reuters; Tom White for the New York Times
“This crisis has the potential to be a lot worse than Lehman Brothers,” said George Soros, the hedge fund investor, citing the lack of a pan-European body to handle an extreme banking crisis.
Read All Comments (72) »
As Europe struggles to contain its government debt crisis, the greatest fear is that one of the Continent’s major banks may fail, setting off a financial panic like the one sparked by Lehman’s bankruptcy in September 2008.

European policy makers, determined to avoid such a catastrophe, are prepared to use hundreds of billions of euros of bailout money to prevent any major bank from failing.

But questions continue to mount about the ability of Europe’s banks to ride out the crisis, as some are having a harder time securing loans needed for daily operations.

American financial institutions, seeking to inoculate themselves from the growing risks, are increasingly wary of making new short-term loans in some cases and are pulling back from doing business with their European counterparts — moves that could exacerbate the funding problems of European banks.

Similar withdrawals, on a much larger scale, forced Lehman into bankruptcy, as banks, hedge funds and others took steps to shield their own interests even though it helped set in motion the broader market crisis.

Turmoil in Europe could quickly spread across the Atlantic because of the intertwined nature of the global financial system. In addition, it could further damage the already struggling economies elsewhere.

“This crisis has the potential to be a lot worse than Lehman Brothers,” said George Soros, the hedge fund investor, citing the lack of an authoritative pan-European body to handle a banking crisis of this severity. “That is why the problem is so serious. You need a crisis to create the political will for Europe to create such an authority, but there is still no understanding as to what the authority will do.”

The growing nervousness was reflected in financial markets Tuesday, with stocks in the United States and Europe falling 1 percent and European bank stocks falling 5 percent or more after steep drops in recent weeks.

European bank shares are now at their lowest point since March 2009, when the global banking system was still shaky following Lehman’s collapse.

Investors also continued to seek the safety of United States Treasury bonds, as yields on 10-year bonds briefly touched 1.90 percent, the lowest ever, before closing at 1.98 percent.

Adding to the anxiety, several immediate challenges face European officials as they try to calm markets worried about the debt crisis spreading.

In the coming weeks, the 17 countries of the euro currency zone each could agree to a July deal brokered to bail out Greece again and possibly the region’s ailing banks. Along with getting unanimity, more immediate obstacles could trip up the agreement.

On Wednesday, Germany’s top court upheld the legality of Berlin’s rescue packages, but said any future bailouts for debt-stricken euro zone countries must be approved by a parliamentary panel. On Thursday, officials in Finland are to express their conditions for approving the deal, and other countries may follow with their own demands to ensure their loans will be paid back. 

Though they have not succeeded in calming the markets, European leaders have taken a series of steps to avert a Lehman-like failure. New credit lines have been opened by the European Central Bank for institutions that need funds, while the proposed Greek bailout would provide loans to countries that need to recapitalize their banks. In addition, the central bank has been buying up bonds from Italy and Spain, among other countries, to keep interest rates from spiking. Many of these have been bought from European banks, effectively allowing them to shed troubled assets for cash.

While the problems in smaller countries like Greece and Ireland are not new, in recent weeks the concerns have spread to banking giants in countries like Germany and France that are crucial to the functioning of the global financial system and are closely linked with their American counterparts. What is more, worries have surfaced about the outlook for Italy, whose debt dwarfs that of other smaller troubled borrowers like Greece.
An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that two-year Treasury bonds briefly touched a record low yield of 1.90 percent. It was actually 10-year Treasuries that hit this record.****

[Crafty_Dog]

Not a very good piece of writing in my opinion, but , , ,

Humberto Fontova   
Jane Fonda's Crush on Che Guevara
9/7/2011 | Email Humberto Fontova | Columnist's Archive Sign-Up  A new biography of Jane Fonda by Patricia Bosworth reveals a lifelong lament by the famous actress: “My biggest regret” Fonda is quoted during a “feminist consciousness-raising session,” according to the book’s account, “is I never got to f*** Che Guevara.”

In case you read Townhall, Ms Fonda, here’s some consolation, honey: “I used to call him El Gallo (the rooster)” recalled Carlos Figueroa who was Ernesto Guevara’s adolescent friend in Alta Gracia, Argentina. “I’d be visiting him and eating in his family’s dining room and whenever the poor servant girls would enter Ernesto would promptly grab her and force her to lay on the dining room table where he’d have rapid intercourse with her. Immediately afterwards he’d throw her out and continue eating as if nothing had happened.”

“Es un gallo—un gallo! (He’s a rooster!—rooster”) complained a scowling Berta Gonzalez a few years later upon emerging from her Mexico City bedroom summer of 1955. This was shortly after his Motorcycle Diary trip, when the hobo Ernesto Guevara was scribbling unreadable poetry and mooching off women in Mexico City, where he met Fidel and Raul Castro. Berta Gonzalez was a Cuban exile in Mexico at the time.

Gallo, as you might have guessed, is a common pejorative by Spanish-speaking women against men who terminate carnal encounters prematurely.

Alas, how the feminist sessionists reacted to Ms Fonda’s above-mentioned confession, and thus, the “raising of their consciousness,” is not mentioned in the book. But we can guess. After all, feminist swooning over Cuban Stalinism started early, and by the feminist movement’s very founders.

“Not only is (the Cuban Revolution) a great success but an example for the rest of the world!” gushed Simon De Beauvoir in March 1960. Her bellhop, Jean Paul Sartre, was not to be outdone. He crowned Che Guevara “the era’s most perfect man.” These “intellectual” hyperventilations 1960 set the tone for future ones of everyone from Maxine Waters’ to Jimmy Carter and from Ted Turner’s to George Mc Govern’s, and from Barbara Walters’ to Andrea Mitchell’s.

“Fidel Castro is old-fashioned, courtly–even paternal, a thoroughly fascinating figure!” (NBC’s Andrea Mitchell)

Alas, Cuban feminists view the Cuban Revolution somewhat differently from Hollywood, Georgetown and Manhattan feminists. When feminist icon Barbara Walters sat quivering alongside Fidel Castro in 1977 cooing: “Fidel Castro has brought very high literacy and great health-care to his country. His personal magnetism is powerful!” dozens of Cuban feminists suffered in torture chambers within walking distance of the hyperventilating Ms Barbara Walters.

“They started by beating us with twisted coils of wire recalls former political prisoner Ezperanza Pena from exile today. “I remember Teresita on the ground with all her lower ribs broken. Gladys had both her arms broken. Doris had her face cut up so badly from the beatings that when she tried to drink, water would pour out of her lacerated cheeks.”

“On Mother’s Day they allowed family visits,” recalls, Manuela Calvo from exile today.” But as our mothers and sons and daughters were watching, we were beaten with rubber hoses and high-pressure hoses were turned on us, knocking all of us the ground floor and rolling us around as the guards laughed and our loved-ones screamed helplessly.”

“When female guards couldn’t handle us male guards were called in for more brutal beatings. I saw teen-aged girls beaten savagely their bones broken their mouths bleeding,” recalls prisoner Polita Grau.

The gallant regime co-founded by Che Guevara jailed 35,150 Cuban women for political crimes, a totalitarian horror utterly unknown—not only in Cuba—but in the Western Hemisphere until the regime so “magnetic” to Barbara Walters, Andrea Mitchell, Diane Sawyer, Jane Fonda, etc. Some of these Cuban ladies suffered twice as long in Castro’s Gulag as Alexander Solzhenitsyn suffered in Stalin’s.

Their prison conditions were described by former political prisoner Maritza Lugo. “The punishment cells measure 3 feet wide by 6 feet long. The toilet consists of an 8 inch hole in the ground through which cockroaches and rats enter, especially in cool temperatures the rat come inside to seek the warmth of our bodies and we were often bitten. The suicide rate among women prisoners was very high.”

Upon the death of Raul Castro’s wife Vilma Espin in 2006 the Washington Post gushed that: “she was a champion of women’s rights and greatly improved the status of women in Cuba, a society known for its history of machismo.” Actually, in 1958 Cuba had more female college graduates as a percentage of population than the U.S.

This Castroite “improvement of status” and “good life “for Cuban women also somehow tripled Cuban women’s pre-revolution suicide rate, making Cuban women the most suicidal on earth. This according to a 1998 study by scholar Maida Donate-Armada that uses some of the Cuban regime’s own figures.

On Christmas Eve of 1961 a Cuban woman named Juana Diaz spat in the face of the executioners who were binding and gagging her. Castro and Che’s Russian-trained secret police had found her guilty of feeding and hiding “bandits” (Cuban rednecks who took up arms to fight the Stalinist theft of their land to build Soviet –style Kolkhozes.) When the blast from Castroite firing squad demolished her face and torso Juana was six months pregnant.

Thousands upon thousands of Cuban women have drowned, died of thirst or have been eaten alive by sharks attempting to flee the Washington Post’s dutifully transcribed “improvement of status.” This from a nation formerly richer than half the nations of Europe and deluged by immigrants from same.

In 1962, a Cuban Catholic nun named Aida Rosa Perez was overheard in a private conversation saying things about Fidel Castro and Che Guevara similar (but milder) than those Jane Fonda and Joy Behar trumpet about Republicans. Sister Rosa Perez was sentenced to 12 years at hard labor. Two years into her, while toiling in the sun inside Castro's Gulag and surrounded by leering guards, Sister Rosa collapsed from a heart attack.

The Cuban Archive project headed Mrs Maria Werlau has fully documented the firing squad executions of 11 Cuban women in the early days of the regime. Another 219 women died from various brutalities and tortures while in prison. The Taliban has nothing on the regime co-founded by Che Guevara. So I trust you’ll excuse these Cuban ladies if they regard the “struggles” of Betty Freidan, Gloria Steinem and Jane Fonda as a trifle overblown. And for many of them, though it’s utterly ignored by the MSM, the feminist struggle continues.

[G M]

  
Jane Fonda's Crush on Che Guevara

Just more evidence that leftism is a mental disorder.

[DougMacG]

Regarding the Krugman post on the 911 forum, must love Crafty's title, 'Krugman is Scum' and Krugman's own ending punchline: "I’m not going to allow comments on this post, for obvious reasons."

http://dogbrothers.com/phpBB2/index.php?topic=2231.msg54131#msg54131

[ccp]

Enough is enough.  Personally I am fed up:


***3-Year-Olds Branded “Racist,” “Homophobic” Put In Government Database
         

Kids’ future careers jeopardized by committing hate crime of saying the word “gay”

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Thursday, September 15, 2011


Over 30,000 British schoolchildren, some as young as three, have had their names registered on a government database and branded “racist” or “homophobic” for using playground insults, infractions that could impact their future careers.

The shocking figures were disclosed after civil liberties group the Manifesto Club made a Freedom of Information Act request which betrayed the fact that kids who used petty jibes are now being treated as thought criminals by education authorities.

34,000 incidents of “racism” in total were reported for the year 2009-2010, with nursery school toddlers as young as three being put on a state database for using the words “gay” and “lesbian”. One child who called another “broccoli head” was also reported to authorities. Other cases included a child who used the word “gaylord,” while another who told a teacher “this work is gay,” was also added to the thought crime database.

The majority of the reported cases involved primary school children.

“The record can be passed from primaries to secondaries or when a pupil moves between schools,” reports the Daily Mail.

A d v e r t i s e m e n t
“And if schools are asked for a pupil reference by a future employer or a university, the record could be used as the basis for it, meaning the pettiest of incidents has the potential to blight a child for life.”

Schools are being pressured to report such incidents to authorities and face punishments for not doing so under anti-bullying policies.

This is a clear example of how hate crime laws have brazenly been hijacked by the state to get children institutionalized on criminal databases at an early age. This is about the state dictating what your child can think and say – it’s the thought police on steroids.

Orwell talked about the state reducing language via Newspeak in his book 1984. By eliminating the very words that come out of children’s mouths and punishing them for thinking certain thoughts, all critical thinking is ultimately abolished, and Big Brother assumes the supreme power to dictate reality – a dictatorship over our very minds.

*********************

[prentice crawford]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EXTREMISTS ON PARADE
Protesters begin 'Day of Rage' against capitalism
Demonstration plans to 'occupy' Wall Street, camp out for months if necessary

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: September 17, 2011
2:13 pm Eastern

© 2011 WND



Protesters at "Occupy Wall Street" event


Social media networks fomenting a nationwide "Day of Rage" protest are reporting that hundreds have gathered in New York City's financial district to protest "Wall Street's corporate plunder."

According to a Bloomberg report, organizers had originally hoped as many as 20,000 would gather in the financial district and "occupy" it through tent cities and civil disobedience, if necessary, for months.

As a loosely formed conglomerate of Twitter, Facebook and online activists – similar to the Arab spring protesters that have been toppling governments in Africa – clearly identifying the goals and tactics of the protests is nearly impossible.

According to the website Adbusters, a group promoting the demonstration, the goal of "#OccupyWallStreet" is to get President Barack Obama to establish a commission to end "the influence money has over our representatives in Washington." The group advocates camping out in Manhattan for months if needed to get the message across.

But the USDayofRage.org website warns against setting up tents and describes the purpose of the protest this way: "Wall Street is a huge contributor to the political machine, which in turns enables Wall Street's corporate plunder of our nation. Both the Democratic and Republican parties set the bankster agenda because of the money.

"Bought by hard and soft dollars, disloyal, incompetent and wasteful interests have usurped our nation's civil and military power, spawning a host of threats to liberty and national security," the website continues. "We demand satisfaction for the wrongs done to our nation and its people."

New York City's cable news network NY1 spoke with a trio of protesters about the purpose of the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations:

"CEOs, the biggest corporations and the wealthy are taking too much from our country, and I think it's time for us to take back," said one protester.

"What I hope to accomplish is that people who have gotten in trouble on Wall Street actually pay an equal share for what they've done," said another.

"The difference between this and other protests of the past is that we're not leaving, and we're going to stay as long as it takes to accomplish something," said a third.
 

The protest aims to take root around the world.

Activists are advertising on social network sites such as Facebook and Twitter for the "Day of Rage" to begin with the "occupation" of Wall Street and continue with protests across the nation in Portland, Ore., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Austin, Texas.

The Department of Homeland Security further issued a bulletin expecting related protests in the financial districts of Madrid, Milan, London and Paris, as well.

As WND reported, advertisements claim the protests at Wall Street and nationwide will be "non-violent." However, the official website provides resources, including videos and detailed written instructions, for protesters to engage in "civil disobedience."

The resources provided include instructions on how to resist police arrest and disrupt court hearings.

This week, the 'Day of Rage' Twitter feed posted links to what it called "nonviolent civil disobedience training talks."

Similar instructions are provided on the website of an affiliated organization, which calls itself "Occupy Wall Street" and is also involved in planning the Sept. 17 protests.

Live Twitter feeds from protesters indicate police presence in Manhattan has been heavy, but no violence has yet been reported.

"Lots of police and barricades," reports Twitter user Ethar El-Katatney, "but strangely quiet."

The use of the term "Day of Rage" recalls the "Days of Rage" organized in the 1960s by the Weather Underground domestic terrorist organization co-founded by Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, close associates for years of President Obama.

Numerous radicals, many with direct ties to Obama, are linked to planned protests and other activism scheduled for the coming months.

In March, ACORN founder Wade Rathke announced what he called "days of rage in 10 cities around JP Morgan Chase." Rathke was president of an SEIU local in New Orleans.

The planned Sept. 17 protest appears to be the culmination of Rathke's efforts.

Those efforts are being organized by Stephen Lerner, an SEIU board member who reportedly visited the Obama White House at least four times.

Lerner is considered one of the most capable organizers of the radical left. He recently organized the SEIU's so-called Justice for Janitors campaign.

As part of his planned protests, Lerner called for "a week of civil disobedience, direct action all over the city."

His stated aim is to "destabilize the folks that are in power and start to rebuild a movement."

In an interview about the planned protests, Lerner outlined his goals: "How do we bring down the stock market? How do we bring down their bonuses? How do we interfere with their ability to, to be rich?"


----------------------------------------     P.C.

[Crafty_Dog]

I would add though it is occasionally right, WND is IMHO a frequently irresponsible site.  As a general rule, anything there should be crosss-checked.

[ccp]

Rush L was pointing this out today.  The woman running for Senate in Mass. against Brown.  When did the Democrat party get hyjacked by total Marxists?  This truly is unbelievable that we have a candidate with the Democrat party with these views.  This used to be the stuff of socialist party candidates who no one ever hears about.  Now it is mainstream.   While FDR, JFK, and LBJ were big on social programs I don't think they were anything like this:

http://realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/09/21/elizabeth_warren_there_is_nobody_in_this_country_who_got_rich_on_his_own.html

[Crafty_Dog]

First, catch the guy's performance here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=yZZ710w6GXI

==============================

The Blog
US Video: Liberal law student chokes on silver spoon in (false) protest
.
The latest anti-business viral video burning up the liberal blogosphere today seems heart-wrenching… that is, until you do your homework.
Robert Stephens graduated from Carleton College (average cost: $42,942/year) in 2010 and now studies law at The George Washington University Law School (average cost: $70,449/year).  His father has a Ph.D. and two master’s degrees; his mother also has a master’s degree.  Only in America could a kid have been blessed with so much… and only in America could he still claim to be a victim. America’s capitalist society has apparently leveled a grave injustice against his family and Robert will not stand for it.
 
Robert, right, with a friend on the GWU campus (Image: Facebook)
Stephens — who identifies his personal political philosophy as Bolivian socialism — made a trip to New York City this weekend to participate in the “Days of Rage” march on Wall Street.  He was arrested Saturday when he refused police requests to get up and out of the way of traffic in the street.
In his emotional “rage,” Stephens told the sympathetic Socialist/Marxist/Anarchist crowd how an eeeeeevil Wall Street bank had taken his parents’ home away from them:
 
Attempts to contact Robert to find out exactly what grave injustices he and his family have suffered have gone unanswered.  In the meantime, sympathetic comments on both Robert’s Facebook page and the YouTube video are also… unsettling:
 
(Full disclosure: I attended GWU as an undergrad and, to help make sure my mortgage gets paid every month, I continue to work at the law school as a part-time employee on the weekends.)
Our friend Robert and his woeful tale have quickly become darlings of the liberal blogosphere and the mainstream media (and Iran’s Tehran Times!).  Here he is in a picture posted at Buzzfeed — an image that perfectly captures him utilizing the biggest tool in the left-wing’s arsenal: the media.
 
Caption on this photo: “Protested (sic) falls to his knees in tears in front of Chase Bank crying – this is the bank that took my parents’ home.”
According to the Daily Kos, Robert should be commended as “a patriot” for spelling out the reason people are protesting.  “If you can watch it without being affected, you are as heartless as Dick Cheney,” the site notes.
There’s just one problem: Robert Stephens’ story is (surprise!) completely bogus.
Phone inquiries into the county property records & taxpayer services office reveal that the Stephens family home is not and never has been in foreclosure, that property taxes had been paid in full this year and the remaining balance on their mortgage for the half-million dollar home is less than one year’s worth of tuition+fees at their son’s law school.
The nail in this empty protest‘s coffin is a delightful phone conversation I just had with Robert’s mother, Marquita, where she admitted Chase Bank indeed was not “taking” their home from them. Instead, due to a recent “reduction in income,” they’ve decided to hold a “short sale.”
When I asked Mrs. Stephens if she and her husband planned to stay in their suburban St. Paul, Minn., surroundings after the sale, she told me they weren’t too keen on the idea.  The area is “a bit too conservative,” she said.

[G M]

First, catch the guy's performance here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=yZZ710w6GXI

==============================

The Blog
US Video: Liberal law student chokes on silver spoon in (false) protest

**What a douche! As to be expected, it doesn't have to be true for the left, as long as it feeeeeels true to them. Facts are just a construct they choose to ignore.

[G M]

October 1, 2011 7:00 A.M.
‘Soft’ Nation
There’s nothing soft about a dead-parrot economy, a flatline jobs market, and regulatory sclerosis.





‘The way I think about it,” Barack Obama told a TV station in Orlando, “is, you know, this is a great, great country that had gotten a little soft.”

He has a point. This is a great, great country that got so soft that 53 percent of electors voted for a ludicrously unqualified chief executive who would be regarded as a joke candidate in any serious nation. One should not begrudge a man who seizes his opportunity. But one should certainly hold in contempt those who allow him to seize it on the basis of such flaccid generalities as “hope” and “change”: That’s more than “a little” soft. “He’s probably the smartest guy ever to become president,” declared presidential historian Michael Beschloss the day after the 2008 election. But you don’t have to be that smart to put one over on all the smart guys. “I’m a sap, a specific kind of sap. I’m an Obama Sap,” admits David Brooks, the softest touch at the New York Times. Tina Brown, editor of Newsweek, now says of the president: “He wasn’t ready, it turns out, really.”

If you’re a tenured columnist at the New York Times, you can just about afford the consequences of your sappiness. But out there among the hundreds of thousands of your readers who didn’t know you were a sap until you told them three years later, soft choices have hard consequences. If you’re one of Obama’s core constituencies, the ones who looked so photogenic at all the hopeychangey rallies, things are really hard: “Young Becoming ‘Lost Generation’    Amid Recession” (CBS News). Tough luck, rubes. You got a bumper sticker; he got to make things worse.

 But don’t worry, it’s not much better at the other end of the spectrum: “Obama’s Wall Street Donors Look Elsewhere” (UPI). Gee, aren’t you the fellows who, when you buy a company, do something called “due diligence”? But you sunk everything into stock in Obamania Inc. on the basis of his “perfectly creased pant leg” or whatever David Brooks was drooling about that day? You handed a multi-trillion-dollar economy to a community organizer and you’re surprised that it led to more taxes, more bureaucracy, more regulation, more barnacles on an already rusting hulk?

 Hard statism is usually murmured in soft, soothing, beguiling terms: Regulation is about cleaner air, healthier restaurants, safer children’s toys. Sounds so nice. But federal regulation alone sucks up 10 percent of GDP. That’s to say, Americans take the equivalent of the Canadian economy and toss it down the toilet just in complying with federal paperwork. Obama and the great toxic alphabet soup of federal regulation — EPA, OSHA, SEC, DHSS — want to take that 10 percent and crank it up to 12, 14, 15 percent.

 Who could have foreseen that? The most dismal thing about that David Brooks column conceding that “yes, I’m a sap . . . remember, I’m a sap . . . as you know, I’m a sap” was the headline his New York Times editors chose to append to it: “Obama Rejects Obamaism.”

In other words, even in a column remorselessly cataloguing how one of its smartest smart guys had been repeatedly suckered by Obama on jobs, on Medicare, on deficits, on tax reform, etc., the New York Times chose to insist that there is still something called “Obamaism” — prudent, centrist, responsible — that for some perverse reason the man for whom this political philosophy is named insists on betraying, 24/7, week in, month out, spring, summer, autumn, tax season. You can set your clock by Obama’s rejection of “Obamaism.”

That’s because there’s no such thing. There never was. “Obamaism” was the Emperor’s new centrism: To a fool such as your average talk-radio host, His Majesty appears to be a man of minimal accomplishments other than self-promotion marinated in a radical faculty-lounge view of the world and the role of government. But, to a wise man such as your average presidential historian or New York Times columnist, he is the smartest guy ever to become president.

 In part, this is a natural extension of an ever more conformist and unrepresentative establishment’s view of where “the center” is. On issues from abortion to climate change, a Times man or Hollywood activist or media professor’s notion of “centrism” is well to the left of where American opinion is. That’s one reason why a supposedly “center-right” nation has wound up regulated into sclerosis, drowning in debt, and embarking on its last decade as the world’s leading economy. But in the case of Obama the chasm between soft, seductive, politico-media “centrism” and hard, grim reality is too big to bridge, and getting wider all the time.

 You would think this might prompt some sober reflection from an American mainstream press dying in part because of its dreary ideological conformity. After all, a key reason why 53 percent voted for a man who was not, in Tina Brown’s word, “ready” is that Tina and all her pals assured us he was. Occidental, Columbia, Harvard Law, a little light community organizing, a couple of years timeserving in a state legislature: That’s what America’s elites regard as an impressive resume rather than a bleak indictment of contemporary notions of “accomplishment.” Obama would not have withstood scrutiny in any society with a healthy, skeptical press. Yet, like the high-rolling Wall Street moneybags, they failed to do due diligence.

 Three years on, nothing has changed. Obama is proposing to raise taxes because of some cockamamie yarn Warren Buffett has been peddling about his allegedly overtaxed secretary. Yet the court eunuchs of the media persist in taking Buffett seriously as an archetypal exemplar of the “American business community” rather than as an especially well-connected crony. Sometimes, Obama cronyism is merely fiscally wasteful, as in the still-underreported Solyndra “green jobs” scandal. One sympathizes with reporters assigned to the story: It’s hard to get all the public monies and Solyndra-exec White House visit logs lined up in digestible form for the casual reader. But sometimes Obama cronyism is murderous: Eric Holder, a man unfit to be attorney general of the United States, continues to stonewall the “Fast and Furious” investigation into taxpayer-funded government gun-running to Mexican drug cartels. It is alleged that the administration chose to facilitate the sale of American weapons to crime kingpins south of the border in order to support a case for gun control north of the border. Evidence keeps piling up: The other day, a letter emerged from ATF supervisor David Voth authorizing Special Agent John Dodson to buy Draco pistols to sell directly to known criminals. Over 200 Mexicans are believed to have been killed by “Fast and Furious” weapons — that’s to say, they were killed by a U.S.-government program.

 Doesn’t the New York Times care about dead Mexicans? Doesn’t Newsweek or CBS News? Isn’t Obamaism with a body count sufficiently eye-catching even for the U.S. press? Or, three years in, are the enablers of Obama still so cynical that they accept it as a necessary price to pay for “change you can believe in”? You can’t make a hopenchange omelette without breaking a couple hundred Mexican eggs?

 Obama says America has “gotten a little soft.” But there’s nothing soft about a dead-parrot economy, a flatline jobs market, regulatory sclerosis, “green jobs” multi-billion-dollar squandering — and a mountain of dead Mexicans. In a soft nation, “centrist” government is hard and cruel. Only the media coverage is soft-focus.

[Crafty_Dog]

All true, but also worth noting is how bad the Republican offering was.  For example, just what do you think McCain would have done for/to the economy?

[DougMacG]

"All true, but also worth noting is how bad the Republican offering was.  For example, just what do you think McCain would have done for/to the economy?"

I am no McCain fan, but he would have been less than half as bad on economics.  He would not obviously have pursued Pelosi-ObamaCare which is the number one tax and regulatory burden sitting out there killing off hiring and growth.  He would floundered through half of a stimulus, he would have taken half this long to get good economic advice. 

His approval rating would be worse now than Obama because of the pounding of stories about a bad economy and 3 wars even though unemployment might be at 7% instead of 9% and it would now be the Republicans losing seats and facing a bad election cycle for an economy half as bad.

Ironically, things would be better but our prospects for the future would be worse.  Obama would have an 80% approval as opposition leader if he had lost to McCain and Palin, would be a shoe-in for 2012 and we would still have this train wreck coming.

As it happened for the last 4 Presidents, Bush, Clinton, Bush and Obama, bad leadership strengthened their opposition more than their own agenda.

[G M]

Very good points Doug. I'd add that Obama, like Carter helps to remind people why giving the left power is such a bad idea.

[DougMacG]

God Bless Steve Jobs.  He was a hero to people from all political stripes who love the innovations and value his company and products brought to their lives.  Curious, what leftist government program made all that he accomplished possible?  Certainly not the pro-abortion agenda.  Jobs was born an unwanted child to an unmarried couple and was successfully adopted.

State-centric economies never make creative advances like the ones Jobs pioneered to market.  The profits that Jobs drove were a measure of the enterprising  impact he had on our civilization, not a subtraction from it. 

Personal computers, sound systems and cellphones have amazing, how important are those?  Someone over at central planning must have thought those products and industries were not crucial and just allowed them to run free.  What was the result?  Consistent declines in prices year after year over decades combined with unfathomable advances in performance, quality, features, usability and value.  Meanwhile over at all industries we designate as crucial such as healthcare, transportation, agriculture, education, housing, banking, you name it,  we take the opposite, failed approach.  Staffers of subcommittees in Washington are meeting as we speak to regulate out the next potential innovation.

[G M]

I think we should have the US Post Office take over Apple. Save the USPS unions and make Apple even better!

[DougMacG]

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/10/09/dem_congressman_keith_ellison_regulations_create_jobs.html

US Unemployment was at 4.4% in between Nov 2006 when the Pelosi-Reid-Obama-Hillary-Biden congress was elected to take the majorty and Jan. 2007 when Catholic-raised Keith Ellison from North Minneapolis first solemnly put his hand on the Koran and swore to hold up the constitution to the best of his ability so help him Allah. 

Neither Jack Webb nor Johnny Carson, both trained professionals, could keep a straight face through the Copper Clapper Caper http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVkZZsS-66c, but Ellison signed on with an agenda of economic destruction, watched unemployment more than double under his policies of unprecedented increases in business strangulating regulation and then look the camera in the eye today to a very well framed question about regulations killing jobs and say... no, he thinks regulations get companies moving with even more hiring because regulations inspire companies to get going with compliance efforts.  I swear to God, that is what he said - it's on the video - and that is what he believes.  The saddest part of it is that there is a 100% chance he will be reelected in 2012 no matter the unemployment rate.

The video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVkZZsS-66c

The BLS data and chart:  http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000

[G M]

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2011/10/pro-obama-working-families-party-seeks-advertises-for-professional-activists-to-fight-wall-street/


FAR LEFT Advertises on Craig’s List for Paid Activists to Fight Wall Street

Posted by Jim Hoft on Monday, October 10, 2011, 5:06 AM


We all knew this was happening. We just didn’t think they’d be so open about it.
 
In case you had any doubt that these Wall Street protests were being manufactured by the far left, there’s this–
 
The pro-Obama Working Families Party of New York posted this advertisement on Craig’s list. They are looking for energetic progressives to help them to fight to hold Wall Street accountable. And the pay is $350-$650 a week depending on the responsibility and length of time of staff.

[ccp]

"And the pay is $350-$650 a week depending on the responsibility and length of time of staff."

I keep wondering every time I see these losers on TV how they can afford to sit around for weeks on end yet they claim poverty.

Lets see.  They are already getting unemployment, they are sponging off their parents, they are selling drugs, on federal disability,
stealing, or are independently wealthy, retired.

I don't know.  You tell me.

I agree with the point (of some of them) about some unfairness in our system.  The rest are just there for the "experience", its "coolness", to meet girls and guys, push for free doles.

This is the group of people who no matter what no matter when or forever will always vote Democrat.

You see them at all Democratic political rallies.  I remember going to a Bill Clinton rally in Florida.  I was probably one of a handful of Republicans.  The rest looked similar to this crowd.

It is the handout you owe me entitlement "nation".

[G M]

**"It's just like the TEA party!" (Insert leftist talking head here)

Sex, drugs and hiding from the law at Wall Street protests
 
By LACHLAN CARTWRIGHT and BOB FREDERICKS
 
Last Updated: 11:18 AM, October 10, 2011
 
Posted: 3:28 AM, October 10, 2011
 


The criminals are crashing the party.
 
Lured by cheap drugs and free food, creepy thugs have infiltrated the crowd of protesters camped out in Zuccotti Park for Occupy Wall Street, The Post has learned.
 
“I got warrants. I’m running from the law,” boasted Dave, 24, a scrawny, unshaven miscreant in filthy clothes from Stamford, Conn. “I’m not even supposed to be here, but it’s as good a spot as any to hide.”
 
Wanted for burglary, the drug-addled fugitive said some of his hard-partying pals clued him in that the protest was a good place to be fed, get wasted and crash.
 


Lachlan Cartwright


 
IN PLAIN SIGHT: A protest attendee named Dave (above) relaxes in Zuccotti Park, where he said he’s been getting high while running from warrants.


Riyad Hasan
 
Meanwhile, a crowd yesterday learns to pick open handcuffs.
 

 
“I’ve been smoking and drinking in here for eight days now,” said Dave, booze on his breath and his eyes bloodshot as he lay sprawled on a tattered sheet of cardboard. “I need to get some methadone. Every day, I wake up, and I’m f--ked up.”
 
Drugs can be easy to score -- a Post reporter was offered pot for $15 and heroin for $10.
 
They’ve already fueled at least one violent incident, when a wasted nut job socked a medical volunteer in the face before others hauled the attacker away.
 
“We are trying to keep everything calm and work with the police, but there are some crazies in here,” said Paul, a security volunteer.

“The other day, there was a guy charging people $5 to use the McDonald’s bathroom. He was on LSD or high on something.”
 
But the creeps can’t give a bad name to the group’s overall anti-greed message, protesters said.

A coalition of religious leaders and their followers yesterday marched from Washington Square Park to the encampment with a makeshift golden calf in the shape of the Wall Street bull, leading protesters in such spirituals as “We Shall Overcome” and “Down by the Riverside.”
 
The crowd chanted, “We are the 99 percent!” -- referring to the millions of Americans not among the top 1 percent of the country’s earners -- along with priests, rabbis and imams.
 
“You are fulfilling the words of the prophet Isaiah. You have thrown off the yoke. Occupy, occupy, occupy!” shouted Warren Goldstein, chair of the history department at the University of Hartford in Connecticut.
 
The golden calf sat atop a brown platform that marchers carried on their shoulders. On the platform were the words “false idol.”
 
The clerics -- some holding signs that read, “Jesus is with the 99%” -- said they were there to support the movement.

“You have woken up all of us ... We will stand with you in every city, every state and every country across this globe,” said Michael Ellick, minister at Judson Memorial Church near Washington Square.
 
Hundreds gathered around philosopher Slavoj Zizek as he gave a speech and answered questions.
 
“They tell us we are dreamers. The true dreamers are those who think things can go on indefinitely the way they are,” he said. “We are not destroying anything. We are only witnessing how the system is destroying itself.”
 
Some protesters have said that in addition to being against Wall Street greed, they also are for a withdrawal from Afghanistan and Iraq and more help for Haiti.
 
But as the protest ground on for a 23rd day, it was evident that there were challenges.
 
Zuccotti Park smelled like an open sewer -- with people urinating and defecating in public.
 
And some couples have taken advantage of the free condoms distributed by organizers to do the nasty in full view of other protesters.
 
“It kinda makes me think of what Woodstock must have been like,” said one protester, Sarah, 19 from the Upper West Side.

“I haven’t hooked up with any guys ... but one of my friends did have sex in a tarp with a guy last night.”

The free chow offered to protesters was boosting the crowd.
 
“People say they are here for the cause, but the real reason is the free food,” quipped Cameron, 26, of Jersey City.
 
“On my third day, they had smoked salmon with cream cheese. You know how much smoked salmon is a pound? Sixteen dollars. I eat better here than I do with my parents!”

Many of the protesters said they are here for the long haul -- and predicted trouble if cops try to clear the park.
 
“When the weather starts getting cold, we’re already talking about bringing tents in here,” said Robert, 47, of Pennsylvania. “I’m not going anywhere.

“I lost my job of 22 years, and someone has gotta pay,’’ he said. “Civil disobedience is something we may need to keep this site occupied. If everyone does it at once, the cops won’t be able to do anything.”
 
Three protesters took their sleeping bags and tried to camp out on Wall Street near Nassau Street last night. When police told them to move, one demonstrator, Zachary Miller, 20, from California, was arrested for disorderly conduct, cops said.
 
At one point yesterday, a speaker from Washington, DC, told protesters how to break out of zip ties and handcuffs in case they get collared.
 
The protest vet, Ryan Clayton, 30, demonstrated how use a bobby pin to spring the cuffs open -- while claiming he was “not encouraging people to break out of restraints.”
 
Additional reporting by Hannah Rappleye and Andy Campbell


Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/it_nyc_lam_sterdam_bmE4vlV5aDUWhBRv9IbaiK

[ccp]

"Lured by cheap drugs and free food, creepy thugs have infiltrated the crowd of protesters camped"

Well, what were drugs doing there to start with?  Who is giving the "free" food.  Nothing is free.  Who is paying for this?

As though the people who began this noble, just, righteous, cause were all just a bunch of saints and then some bad elements just happen to show up later.  Oh I get it.

As usual the taxpayers will be stuck with the bill for this mess and not to say anything about the overtime for city employees.

I assume the ones who can ring the register up top increase their pay just before they retire.

[bigdog]

"Lured by cheap drugs and free food, creepy thugs have infiltrated the crowd of protesters camped"

Well, what were drugs doing there to start with?  Who is giving the "free" food.  Nothing is free.  Who is paying for this?

As though the people who began this noble, just, righteous, cause were all just a bunch of saints and then some bad elements just happen to show up later.  Oh I get it.

As usual the taxpayers will be stuck with the bill for this mess and not to say anything about the overtime for city employees.

I assume the ones who can ring the register up top increase their pay just before they retire.

Drugs must be a gateway to generators! 

http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/advisor/start-ups-fund-wall-st-150000747.html

[G M]

"Lured by cheap drugs and free food, creepy thugs have infiltrated the crowd of protesters camped"

Well, what were drugs doing there to start with?  Who is giving the "free" food.  Nothing is free.  Who is paying for this?

As though the people who began this noble, just, righteous, cause were all just a bunch of saints and then some bad elements just happen to show up later.  Oh I get it.

As usual the taxpayers will be stuck with the bill for this mess and not to say anything about the overtime for city employees.

I assume the ones who can ring the register up top increase their pay just before they retire.

Drugs must be a gateway to generators! 

http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/advisor/start-ups-fund-wall-st-150000747.html

Typical leftist trustafarians. "I hate capitalism, where do I charge my Ipad"?

[ccp]

God I only hope we run this guy out of office for good.  It just keeps getting worse:

Apologies Not Accepted
 
Posted 10/11/2011 06:29 PM ET
 
In November 2009, Barack Obama became the first U.S. president to bow to Japan's emperor. View Enlarged Image
Leadership: Leaked cables show Japan nixed a presidential apology to Hiroshima and Nagasaki for using nukes to end the overseas contingency operation known as World War II. Will the next president apologize for the current one?

The obsessive need of this president to apologize for American exceptionalism and our defense of freedom continued recently when Barack Obama's State Department (run by Hillary Clinton) contacted the family of al-Qaida propagandist and recruiter Samir Khan to "express its condolences" to his family.

Khan, a right-hand man to Anwar al-Awlaki, was killed along with Awlaki in an airstrike in Yemen on Sept. 30. We apologized for killing a terrorist before he could help kill any more of us.

It's yet another part of the world apology tour that began with Obama taking the oath of office to protect and defend the United States and its Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic, something he immediately felt sorry for.

One stop on his tour was Prague in August 2009. There he spoke of "America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons," ignoring that before 1945 we lived in such a world and it was neither peaceful nor secure.

Another stop on the tour was in Japan, where Obama in November 2009 bowed to the emperor, something no American president had ever done. It could have been worse if plans to visit Nagasaki and Hiroshima to apologize for winning the war with the atom bombs had come to pass.

A heretofore secret cable dated Sept. 3, 2009, was recently released by WikiLeaks. Sent to Secretary of State Clinton, it reported Japan's Vice Foreign Minister Mitoji Yabunaka telling U.S. Ambassador John Roos that "the idea of President Obama visiting Hiroshima to apologize for the atomic bombing during World War II is a 'nonstarter.'"

The Japanese feared the apology would be exploited by anti-nuclear groups and those opposed to the defensive alliance between Japan and the U.S.

[DougMacG]

CCP, That is an amazing story.  The USA under Obama wanted to apologize to Japan for using force to end WWII - and Japan wouldn't allow it.  Unbelievable!

I wonder if the Obamites regret using force against Hitler as well.  Maybe my dad will still be charged aiding and abetting the American military effort in Germany during WWII.

Did we even try to sit down and talk with them first?

[Crafty_Dog]

Is there a URL for that?

[DougMacG]

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/587698/201110111829/Apologies-Not-Accepted.htm

Actual cable:
http://www.cablegatesearch.net/cable.php?id=09TOKYO2033

[ccp]

This psychiatrist calls W Bush "distrubed" but Obama "troubled".   The choice of words right there exposes him.  Of course this guy did his psych training at Harvard.  He states Brock is seeking a father figure calling Rev Wright and that.  Rev. Wright "disappointed him".  Does he mention that he only "disappointed" him when he had to throw him under the bus for selfish political gain.  He didn't seem disappointed for the twenty plus years he sat in his church.  And, LOL he claims Brock picked Biden because he is still seeking that father figure.

I lke this one, "Take for example Obama's earlier willingness to compromise with Republicans, upsetting his liberal base".
I don't know what planet this guy lives on but I never heard any real offers of compromise.  The Dems love to promote him as a compromiser when the rest of us know that is false.

Or this statement, "The result is that he is overly protective of his own nuclear family, desires greatly to see national unity, and yet harbors anger that he took out on bin Laden."

What does he mean "overly protective of his family"?  I don't see any difference from any other President.  "Desires to see national unity"?  What planet is this guy on?  This is the most devisive President in my lifetime.
And, "anger he took out on Bin Laden"?  What?  I think this shrink needs a shrink.  The only anger this guy takes out is on America.

I would love to see a far brighter Harvard psychiatrist tear this analysis apart:  Charles Krauthammer.  I wonder how Charles survived Harvard and is still so normal.  Well I guess a few grads are.  W graduated from Harvard Business and OReilly graduated from there. 

*******US News & World Report  Shrink: Obama Suffers 'Father Hunger'

October 14, 2011 RSS Feed Print The abandonment by his father when he was an infant and by his stepfather at age 10 has left President Obama with a "father hunger" that influences everything from why he distances himself from pushy supporters, to his strong desire to compromise and bring people together, to his aggressive campaign to kill Osama bin Laden, says a psychoanalytic book out next week. In Obama on the Couch, George Washington University professor Justin Frank also reveals that Obama has spent much of his life seeking out father figures, but most, like Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Vice President Biden, have disappointed him. "Obama searched for a father, for someone to relate to who could help him—a strong man who knew what to do," Frank writes.

This is Frank's second psychoanalytical book about a president. While a sympathetic look at Obama, it follows Bush on the Couch, a sharply critical analysis that suggested then President George W. Bush was disturbed. In that book, he predicted that someone like Obama—"completely different," "someone not ... white"—would succeed Bush. What the nation ended up with, however, is "an almost tragic figure," Frank writes.

The general theme is that Obama has been affected both by being biracial and by the abandonment of his two dads during his childhood. The result is that he is overly protective of his own nuclear family, desires greatly to see national unity, and yet harbors anger that he took out on bin Laden.

Take for example Obama's earlier willingness to compromise with Republicans, upsetting his liberal base. Here Frank cites the negative influence of his parents, especially his mom, who often pressed him to do better in school. "He hates being pushed by supporters who want him to make good on his promises of universal healthcare and care for the poor, something that represents his mother and how she pushed him to study harder," Frank writes. And when he ignores his base, he is emulating his father, expressing annoyance but not worried they will desert him.

As for bin Laden, Frank writes that Obama's inner anger emerged: "He was able to pursue his action against bin Laden in part because bin Laden offered a displacement figure for Obama's rage toward his own parents."

Frank also calls Obama scared of the type of radical change he advocated in 2008. "He wants to be the father who makes change safe, the person he has waited for his entire life."

Check out: our editorial cartoons on President Obama.******

[G M]

President Goldman Sachs

[G M]

"Lured by cheap drugs and free food, creepy thugs have infiltrated the crowd of protesters camped"

Well, what were drugs doing there to start with?  Who is giving the "free" food.  Nothing is free.  Who is paying for this?

As though the people who began this noble, just, righteous, cause were all just a bunch of saints and then some bad elements just happen to show up later.  Oh I get it.

As usual the taxpayers will be stuck with the bill for this mess and not to say anything about the overtime for city employees.

I assume the ones who can ring the register up top increase their pay just before they retire.

Drugs must be a gateway to generators! 

http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/advisor/start-ups-fund-wall-st-150000747.html

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKzGbgSe8lg&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Putting those generators to use, I guess.

[DougMacG]

(note to moderator, we need spelling/typo correction to the topic title)

I wonder who others think are the opinion leaders of the left.  I have identified Paul Krugman and Robert Reich but both are so easily discredited.  Today Reich writes:
"Flat tax a flat-out fraud

Robert Reich, Sunday, October 30, 2011 http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/10/30/IN9J1LM1E3.DTL&type=printable
...
"The flat tax is a fraud. It raises taxes on the poor and lowers them on the rich." [Straw.  He throws all plans into one pile and then criticizes all for defects of one.  I normally stop reading and quoting at the first lie, but there is so much more.]

"The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center estimates that Cain's flat-tax plan (the only one that's been set out in any detail) would lower the after-tax incomes of poor households (incomes below $30,000) by 16 to 20 percent."  [That is, if you have no knowledge or understanding of embedded taxes.]

"Meanwhile, 95 percent of households with more than $1 million of income would get an average tax cut of $487,300." [Complete drivel.  It measures in dollars while assuming no change in economic behavior whatsoever to a drastic change in the marginal rate.  No one is that dumb. Plus he seamlessly and deceptively changed from calling a tax rate a tax back to measuring in it n dollars.  If we measure in dollars and admit lower rates bring more income, then that figure is bunk.  The rich will actually pay more dollars by any measure of previous similar rate cuts.]  "And capital gains (a major source of income for the very rich) would be tax-free." [An honest person might say: that income would only get overtaxed once under the proposed plan.]

All flat-tax proposals benefit the rich more than the poor for one simple reason: Today's tax code is still at least moderately progressive. The rich usually pay a higher percent of their incomes in income taxes than do the poor. [Is he intentionally calling President Obama and Warren Buffets bald faced liars?]

"The truth is, the current tax code treats everyone the same." [How come anything that starts 'the truth is - is a lie? Robert Reich, Have you READ the current tax code; it doesn't take 72,000 pages to treat people and different sources of income the same! Even if you settle for 3 brackets or 5. This could have gone under Tax Policy but I am really writing about leftist dishonesty and wondering if someone could point out an honest liberal for me to read.]
---------------------
Question to Rbt Reich, is everything in your world really all 'us vs. them', lie at all costs to win more, or should we also be trying to grow our economy and raise revenues to pay our massive spending?

Perry's plan puts ZERO tax on a family of four up to $50,000!! while the same people mostly support spending almost 4 trillion a year.  What in God's name would you need to call it fair?

Here is a flat tax: 200 million adults spend almost 4 trillion dollars.  Send in $20,000 per adult American, or face prison for tax evasion,  or spend less and pay your share of that, and  private business matters remain private from government audit. That is a flat tax and everything else is a progressive compromise.  If everyone paid their share, that would cure our spending problem, our wall street bailout problem and most other problems in a big f'ing hurry.

[G M]

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/10/a-unified-theory-of-left-wing-causes.php

Posted on October 29, 2011 by Scott Johnson in Liberals

A unified theory of left-wing causes


Steven Den Beste comments on Steve Hayward’s population bomb post:


Isn’t it interesting that no matter what the current global crisis is, according to leftists, the solution is always the same: a benevolent world dictatorship of the enlightened elite, and mass transfer of wealth from rich nations to poor nations.

That’s what they want to do about global warming. It’s what they wanted to do about overpopulation. It’s what they wanted to do about endangered species.

Yeah, I think Jonah Goldberg wrote a good book with this thesis.

JOHN adds: Bear in mind, too, that the remedy for global cooling, when that was feared during the 1970s, was the same as for global warming, overpopulation, etc.

[DougMacG]

Even the solution for government programs gone bad is yet another government program.  Over-regulate auto manufacturing to the point of bankruptcy -> nationalize it.  Fannie and Freddie and CRAprogram -> No problem: order a foreclosure moratorium and pass Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) .  Health care costs gone mad over govt mandates -> Affordable Health Care Act.  TARP-1 failed -> Tarp-2.  No new jobs with Stimulus I -> Stimulus II.  (I could go on!)

My question is this:

What if the solution to next thing to go horribly wrong in this country really is a government program?

HOW WILL WE KNOW ?!?!

[DougMacG]

Long story at the link.  Short answers from the left: the stimulus was too small - and Bernancke was too cautious.

In my attempt to add balance to economic coverage on the forum, I try to link some deep thoughts from the left.  This is the young superstar left blogger/columnist for the Washington Post reviewing and critiquing the Ron Suskind Book on Obama and Wall Street, offering both his own views and those of the author.  It makes no sense to me, but have a try at it if you want: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/nov/24/obamas-flunking-economy-real-cause/  Excerpts:

Suskind’s story goes something like this: in 2008, Obama was presented with an economic crisis of astonishing severity and complexity. In the beginning, he showed himself to be unexpectedly prepared to deal with it, both intellectually and temperamentally. His self-assurance and personal magnetism attracted a variety of impressive and able advisers, including former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, billionaire investor Warren Buffett, UBS America chief Robert Wolf, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, and former SEC Chairman William Donaldson.

But as “the severity of the crisis bore down on him,” Obama found himself leaning toward a different sort of adviser—safer, more predictable. He wanted people who knew Washington, and knew how to get things done. The “bold visions of the campaign season had meanwhile resolved into the serious, often risk-averse business of actually governing,” writes Suskind. “In the midst of a battering economic storm, it no longer seemed like the right time to be making waves.”

And no single adviser better encapsulates Suskind’s criticisms, and the contradictions in his argument, than Larry Summers. Even more than Geithner, Summers is the villain of the book. Suskind describes him as “brilliant at cultivating the sense of control, even as events spun far beyond what could be managed with any certainty.” He calls that talent “an illusionist’s trick calling for a certain true genius.”

It’s that trick that gives the book its title. Merriam-Webster defines a “confidence man” as “a swindler who exploits the confidence of his victim.” Suskind’s definition is more subtle. “Confidence is the public face of competence,” Suskind writes. “Separating the two—gaining the trust without earning it—is the age-old work of confidence men.” To Suskind, Summers was the ultimate confidence man, and Obama the ultimate mark. Summers offered what Obama wanted—certainty—and Obama was just terrified enough to take it. But the certainties Summers offered were not, in Suskind’s view, the certainties the moment required.
------
The great counterfactual of Suskind’s book is “What if Obama had chosen a different team of advisers?” But by the end of his book, the counterfactual was coming true. Emanuel was out. Summers, too. Romer had left, and so had Orszag. Even David Axelrod, Obama’s longtime political adviser, was decamping back to Chicago. Only Geithner remains.
------
“Everyone shut the fuck up,” Suskind quotes the profane chief of staff [Rahm] as saying. “Let me be clear—taking down the banking system in a program that could cost $700 billion is a fantasy. With all the money that already went to TARP, no one is getting that kind of money through Congress.”

The same goes for stimulus. When Obama angrily dismisses Romer’s umpteenth argument for more stimulus, it’s not because he disagrees. It’s because he can’t get it passed. “Enough!” Suskind quotes him as shouting. “I said it before, I’ll say it again. It’s not going to happen. We can’t go back to Congress again. We just can’t!”

The truth of the matter is this: every member of the White House’s economic and political team was closer to every other member than any of them were to the swing votes in the Senate. Tim Geithner and Christina Romer have their differences, but they’re mostly talking the same language. Put them in a room with Senators Ben Nelson, Scott Brown, and Susan Collins—all of whom would have rejected a strong new stimulus—and they may as well be Martians.
------
The reality is more troubling. The initial stimulus was too small, but there’s no plausible case that Congress would have been willing to make it much bigger just because the Obama administration had a theory that the financial crisis would lead to a worse recession than most forecasters expected. The trouble was that attacking a financial crisis with a too-small stimulus was a bit like attacking pneumonia with too-few antibiotics: you feel better for awhile, and then it comes back. And this time, it’s harder to kill.
------
the greatest confidence man of the last few years, at least going by Suskind’s definition, was not Larry Summers or Timothy Geithner, but Barack Obama. Being a confidence man is almost in the job description of the insurgent presidential candidate. Having not been president before, you must, by definition, ask the American people for a trust you have not earned.

And Obama was better at this than most. He gave America hope. He made America believe he could deliver change. And, by the standards of Washington, he has probably done more than anyone could rightly have expected. Stimulus, health care reform, the end of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the payroll tax cut, new tobacco regulation—this is much more than your average first-term president achieves. But by the standards of the speeches and spirit that animated Obama’s campaign, he has not done nearly enough.

[Body-by-Guinness]

Post reporter spends an in‘tents’ night amid anarchy in Zuccotti Park
By CANDICE M. GIOVE
Last Updated: 12:02 PM, November 6, 2011
Posted: 1:46 AM, November 6, 2011
The cheap walkie-talkie crackles inside a crowded downtown McDonald’s, stopping the gathered mass mid-sip from their Kombucha bottles and cups of corporate coffee.

“There’s a situation,” a vagabond gumshoe dubbed “Conscience” tells me after the static-filled communique arrives over the air at around 3 a.m.

Cornered on the other side of the fast-food joint is Fisika Bezabeh, 27, a Zuccotti squatter who inexplicably returned to the eatery after allegedly clobbering a manager with a credit-card reader earlier in the night.

“We can’t take him in by ourselves,” yells another OWS security-force member.

The Zuccotti “cops” had just spent an hour and a half tracking Bezabeh through goat paths in the park armed with a description from the manager.

“We cannot take him in by ourselves, the cops have to come!” reiterates the OWS security force member.

They call the NYPD -- and it becomes abundantly clear that the cops down there are sick of the antics.

“Every single night it’s the same thing. I mean, some guy was a victim of rape!” an officer snarls. “There comes a time when it’s over. This is a disaster. It’s all we’re doing, every two seconds, is locking somebody up every time. It’s done.

“It’s done,” he repeats. “Occupy Wall Street is no longer a protest.”

Scenes like this -- and far worse -- have been playing out since the Zuccotti Park “occupation” began on Sept. 17.

The parcel is now a sliver of madness, rife with sex attacks, robberies and vigilante justice.

It’s a leaderless bazaar that’s been divided into state-like camps -- with tents packed together so densely that the only way to add more would be to stack them.

And despite an NYPD watchtower overhead and the entire north side of Zuccotti lined with police vehicles, it is quickly becoming one of the most dangerous places in New York City.

I arrive in the Financial District after dark on Thursday lugging a backpack, a sleeping bag and layers upon layers of clothes.

It’s 8 p.m., and the suits and ties fill the bars. They glare at my overstuffed bag as I walk from the E train to a 7-Eleven for a few last-minute items for my night in Zuccotti Park.

The anti-bacterial soap and powder are nearly out. Naturally, the condoms are fully stocked.

Outside, an old-man Occupier in a plaid earflap hat is screaming at people in the crosswalk at Church and Barclay.

“Why are you afraid of bunny rabbits? Whyyyyy?”

As I cautiously walk the Zuccotti perimeter, picking up photocopied literature on anarchy, there is a poster on a tent bearing a set of park rules that includes: “If you want to hook up, go to a singles bar.”

There is literally no space to unfold my sleeping bag. I ask around for help.

Out of nowhere, a man pushing a shopping cart with his friend inside rammed the thing “Jackass”-style into a police barrier and walked off laughing like a hyena.

A woman emerges from a makeshift tent that looks more like a layer cake -- a clear tarp draped over a sleeping bag that is on top of a filthy mattress. It even has a welcome mat missing the “m” and the stench of a vagrant.

“There’s not much space left,” she said and walked off into the darkness.

Every camp tent is like its own state. There is “Camp Anonymous,” the group best known for anti-Scientology protests.

It’s neighbored by a tent full of vampires, the “Class War” tent and the “Occupy Paw Street” tent, whose residents hand out treats to occupying pets.

There’s also “Camp France” and the “Nic at Night” tent, which supplies the protest with smokes.

I settle on a sliver near Broadway by an OWS library -- which frighteningly has a children’s section. On a bulletin board, there are personal messages like, “Call your sister!”

I’m wedged between a newbie from Brooklyn and some guy from Toronto, who preferred the experience of urban camping to his buddy’s couch or a hotel.

“My knees will crush you,” a hulking squatter shouts. “I don’t want to hurt you.

“You’re in my doorway. I’m going to crush you.”

Someone takes offense and yells, “Manners!”

He’s much kinder when he emerges later from his green tent and hands me a shiny Mylar blanket for extra warmth. “It’s going to get cold,” he said.

This spirit of generosity and the naivete of the original OWS protesters is devolving into a state of distrust and paranoia, however.

They speak of theft, about government infiltrators and tales of Rikers Island castoffs being dropped off to roam and ravage the site.

From underneath my blanket, I hear allegations of financial corruption and intimidation over sexual orientation.

“I’m in a tent that keeps getting flooded, ransacked and robbed,” fumes a transgender group leader -- a female who identifies as a male.

He said that the transgender group would create its own police force for transgender protesters and females, since an immense distrust loomed over the OWS-created authority.

That group is also demanding financial transparency amid growing concern over the use of the $750,000 war chest.

They have a point. I notice supply-station cupboards are dangerously lacking any blankets, tents, tarps or Mylar.

“Someone forgot to get that stuff out of storage,” an attendant claimed.

“We have three-quarters of a million dollars in the bank and all these f--king people are not doing financial accounting while we’re calling for it from the larger corporations,” says the transgender leader. “A lot of good people are quitting.”

A day later, a female-only “safety tent” would be erected to shield women from predators.

Organizers plan to add a medical tent, as well as others designed to provide safe sleeping for gay, transgender and co-ed groups.

The threat of rape is very real here -- for women and men.

Sitting in the McDonald’s just moments after Bezabeh was hauled off in cuffs, Lauren DiGioia, 26, tells me about how she became one of the growing number of victims on her very first night in the park.

“I was forced into a very tight space,” she says. “He kind of moved up against me.

“ ‘Oh, let me warm you up. It’s cold out here,’ ” the creep told her, she said. “He kept pursuing me, and he started becoming aroused, and I could tell that he was becoming aroused,” she said. “I just tried to shield myself.”

He allegedly groped her, pulled her and tried to get on top of her.

“I kept thinking to myself, ‘In the morning, I am going to get this guy arrested,’ but in the morning, he was gone,” she said.

DiGioia, who is from Clifton, NJ, was shocked to see her alleged attacker’s image in The Post about a week later -- and she identified him to the police.

She is now offering counsel to other victims, as new ones crop up every day.

“I just talked to two gentlemen who were raped last night, and they don’t want to press charges because [authorities] wanted to take them in an ambulance and . . . do a rape kit,” she said.

She passed on their account to the security force, while encouraging them to press charges.

“There was another girl raped by the same man,” she said from a table in the McDonald’s, which has become the headquarters of the revolution.

It’s a place to meet, to get warm, to scarf down dollar-menu grub and to use the bathroom that becomes increasingly vile as the night goes on.

I’m ultimately invited to spend the night in a Camp Anonymous tent instead of solo in a sleeping bag.

I spend the rest of the night awake against the wall of a tent built for four -- but packed with six.

My bunkmates include an anarchist, a sexual-assault victim, two security-force members, a girl dressed like the devil and her kitten -- the “Anarkitty.”

“We are a microcosm of all of society’s defects and the failing economy,” DiGioia said. “Just because we’re here under a microscope, everybody’s going to come and throw up their arms and say we have to shut this place down.”

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/my_in_tents_night_amid_anarchy_of_ush5s5NscUZincUN0tF0yO#ixzz1d8ggpmqc

[G M]

http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/abreitbart/2011/11/10/exclusive-photos-michael-moores-massive-michigan-vacation-mansion-beyond-99-percents-wildest-dreams/

Exclusive Photos: Michael Moore’s Massive Michigan Vacation Mansion Beyond 99 Percent’s Wildest Dreams
by Andrew Breitbart

Left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore has been touring Occupy Wall Street demonstrations across the country–including some of the most violent, such as Occupy Oakland–urging activists to continue their fight against the wealthy “one percent” of Americans.
 
Initially, Moore tried to deny that his massive wealth made him a member of that one percent. Even when forced to admit the obvious, Moore suggested that he was not always among the one percent, based on his income: “Other years, like last year, I don’t have a job (no movie, no book) and so I make a lot less.”
 
The fact is that Moore is so wealthy that he does not need to worry about his income. According to public tax records, Moore owns a massive vacation home on Torch Lake, Michigan–one of the most elite communities in the United States–in addition to his posh Manhattan residence.
 
Through an independent source, Big Hollywood has obtained exclusive photographs of the house matching the address of Moore’s waterfront mansion. It is the kind of luxurious summer home that 99 percent of Americans can only dream of owning.


Moore’s vacation property is located on the southeastern shore of Torch Lake itself, which locals tout as the “third most beautiful lake in the world.” Here is an aerial view of the house, situated on the turquoise blue waters for which Torch Lake is famous:

Property values on Torch Lake, according to one real estate website, range “from $400,000 to plus $3 million.”
 
Moore’s property has been officially assessed at close to $1 million (see below; we have redacted Moore’s addresses and parcel number). That is likely a gross underestimate, but nevertheless places Moore’s vacation home near the top one percent of home values in affluent Forest Home Township, and among the upper crust of residential properties in the state of Michigan.

In addition, according to statistics from 2009, Forest Home Township has no black residents. The township is roughly 98 percent white. Call that 99 percent, and Moore’s claim to be among “the 99 percent” begins to have some basis in reality.
 
No one begrudges Moore his wealth, but it is deceitful for him to claim poverty while encouraging class warfare among other Americans. It is also purely narcissistic and selfish for Moore to back radical and destructive socialist policies that would deny other Americans the opportunity to become as rich as he is.
 
Below are some additional photographs of Moore’s vacation home in Torch Lake. The first shows the front entrance to the property; we have decided not to include a photograph of Moore’s mailbox, which features an address matching the one on the property assessment. The second and third photographs show alternate perspectives of Moore’s home and property when viewed from Torch Lake.

[DougMacG]

No blacks, but how many welders out of Flint Michigan have a piece of lakeshore like that?  Maybe none, but they all helped to pay for it.  I find the footprint to be different than the view and both different from what value should be.  I would say he is still building and adding on.  Like Gore and Edwards, quite a bit of forest clear cutting is going on there. 

I will regret suggesting this, but how about Occupy Torch Lake?  How about tying up some some rotten pontoons and house boats to fill the public space in front all summer and then demanding access to the private restrooms - like they do at his protests.  Interest in private property rights begins with having something to protect.

There is no doubt that Michael Moore is a wealthy man.  How did he get his start: 'Moore sued for wrongful dismissal (from 4 months as editor of Mother Jones magazine), and settled out of court for $58,000, providing him with seed money for his first film, Roger & Me. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Moore  Capitalism is a beautiful thing.

[DougMacG]

Keeping up with the leftists in the spirit of balance on the board.  If any real leftist can come forward with better political and economic analysis, please do so.

1) A commenter at Politico with a view into their mindset: "The OWS are the younger, smarter, unemployed version of the Tea Party with the same grievances except the OWS know the evils dwells on Wall Street and the TeaParty wrongly believe that the evil is in Washington."

2) Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman (biased blogger at the NY Times) says the failure of welfare states did not cause Europe’s problems nor is fiscal austerity here any way to avoid their mess.  Oh really? http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/11/opinion/legends-of-the-fail.html?_r=1  

3) Complete that 3 legged stool of liberalism with intellectual giant Robert Reich who says: "Don’t even think about cutting the deficit...budget reduction shouldn't be part of the conversation"  http://www.salon.com/2011/11/10/dont_even_think_about_cutting_the_deficit/

4) Over at The Nation they still think the battle is on between capitalism and climate.  No recognition from the last few decades that the anti-capitalist nations were always the filthiest.  http://www.thenation.com/article/164497/capitalism-vs-climate

Meanwhile over on the right, all 8 candidates have been clear on how to grow the economy of of this malaise.  The one with the least bold plan, Romney,  the one most vague and cautious that would grow us out of this at the very slowest rate is the one (surprisingly) most acceptable and comfortable to the establishment.

[G M]

http://biggovernment.com/bbaugus/2011/11/13/they-are-the-1-percent-and-we-should-be-worried/

They Are the One Percent… and We Should Be Worried
by Dr. Brian Baugus

To the extent that the Occupy Wall Street crowd has a core cause, it is an economic one.  However, its title and location are the only real clues, because when it comes to demonstrating their vast economic knowledge, these people cannot.
 
They claim to be among the 99% of Americans who are victims of various legal and moral crimes committed by the financial sector, and that has risked their futures.   But, what sort of future do they have?
 

Does Che know how well off he is?
 
What they are truly demonstrating is the vast failure of the education system.  They have no global perspective or understanding of their historical position.  They fail to understand THEY are the 1%.  My Che Guevara looking friend to the left here stands to earn $1.6 million more in his lifetime than his high school party buddies who did not go to college.    This means, on average he will earn $35,500 more a year than his high school counterpart will, and this is just the American part of the story.  The average world citizen earns $7,000 a year right now and that is highly skewed, the median income is much lower.  Only 19 percent of the global population lives in a country with mean per capita earnings greater than $7,000.  Che is among the 20 to 25 percent of Americans that attend college and, assuming he graduates, will be in the upper income strata, likely the upper 20 percent.  So, Che here is in the upper 20 percent of the upper 19 percent, which means, globally speaking, he will be among the wealthiest 4 percent in the world.  Just like his Woodstock grandparents who became the BMW driving yuppies, he will protest and rail against the man or rage against the machine or whatever and then go earn a very good living over his lifetime and all of it brought to him by capitalism.
 
Historically, his case is worse.  The fact that he has the time to go and camp out and not have to hunt, forage or farm speaks volumes that his twenty years of schooling do not seem to have prepared him to realize.  While he is standing on the pavement thinking about the government and what it owes him, he does not realize that his urban camping trip is costing more than most people who have ever lived earned in a lifetime.  As Deidre McCloskey points out in her book Bourgeois Dignity, Americans spend on average $120 a day, if this were 200 years ago the figure would be lucky to be $3 a day in current dollars.  Living before the advent of wide spread free market capitalism would be like trying to live in the current economy on $3 a day, Che’s visit to Starbucks cost more than $3.
 
The sad aspect is not so much that Che is protesting but that he does not know any of this.  His teachers and professors either do not know it or do not believe it.
 


Other than some solid points on the bailout issue, the OWS crowd is exhibit A on the massive deficiencies of the American education system.  Che’s prospects are as good as anyone who has ever lived, he would not trade places with the richest person in the world of 200 years ago.  That person had no modern medicines, lived in a drafty house with no temperature control other than fireplaces,  spent most of his life within a few miles of his house, probably saw at least one child die before he did.  He had no internet, no lights, no phones, no motor cars, and was frequently infested with lice…ok maybe that one is still an issue for the OWS crowd.
 
If Che spends his entire life on welfare he will still live better than most people who are living right now or who have ever lived, but he does not know this.  Economic progress is not inevitable; it is the product of free market capitalism.  The irony in all of this is that true capitalism is about serving others.  Wealthy people in a market system do not rob and pillage the poor they find more efficient ways to serve and attract consumers.
 
Entrepreneurs are people who have a vision for what could be, many fail but those that succeed make our lives easier and better in many ways, they save us time and effort and for that we reward them with a small percentage of the total value we derive from what they have done.  Steve Jobs, whom OWS reveres, and Bill Gates and so forth have provided us with billions, maybe trillions of dollars in value, and in exchange, we voluntarily give them a little bit of it in the form of the monetary prices we pay.
 
Go watch the show Mad Men and see what life was like before Gates et. al. came along.  The other side of this is that the socialist system, which Che here wants, encourages greed and exaggerated selfishness as each person has the incentive to get as much of the common resources as he can before someone else beats him to it.  Without property, prices and profits there is no progress.  The failure of American education to teach these truths is a crime and will have long range impact, as we are already seeing.