Texas Mulls Arizona-Style Illegal Immigration Law « CBS Dallas / Fort Worth
AUSTIN (AP) – State and local police officers would be allowed — but not required — to help enforce federal immigration laws under a compromise plan working its way through the Texas Legislature.
The bill is a far cry from some of the harsh crackdowns some lawmakers proposed, but it still sparked often emotional testimony in a House committee Wednesday night. Dozens of supporters and detractors packed a hearing room outside the Texas Capitol, eager for a chance to air their views despite the late hour.
Supporters generally said the legislation would help police identify illegal immigrants who commit crimes in Texas. Critics said it would lead to racial profiling, detract from real police work and give license to rogue agents who want to harass immigrants.
The bill’s author, Republican Rep. Burt Solomons, said it would prohibit so-called “sanctuary cities” and law enforcement entities from adopting policies that keep police and criminal investigators from providing immigration enforcement assistance. Republican Gov. Rick Perry put the issue on the fast track at the Capitol after making it a major theme of his 2010 re-election campaign.
Unlike Arizona’s new immigration law, parts of which are being challenged in court, the legislation known as House Bill 12 does not require police officers to inquire about immigration status or enforce federal laws when people are detained. But the bill would not allow any law enforcement agency from adopting policies that prohibit them from doing so. Solomons said his proposal would establish a “uniform consistent policy” across the state.
“There’s nothing in this bill that requires a police officer to ask one question that they don’t think they need to ask,” Solomons said. “We’re not mandating anything.”
It would allow police to ask about immigration status, maintain records of it and work with federal agents on immigration matters when people are “lawfully detained for the investigation of a criminal offense or arrested.” Other legislation similar to the Arizona law was also proposed, but Perry’s office has been working with Solomons on the compromise bill. The legislation was left pending in a House committee Wednesday night, but other bills were being debated, including one that would make English the official language and create a state database of illegal immigrants arrested in Texas.
An estimated 1.6 million illegal immigrants are in Texas, according to the Pew Hispanic Center in Washington. Nationwide, their numbers declined between 2007 and 2009, from 12 million to 11.1 million, the first significant drop after two decades of growth. But their combined population in Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana went up by a statistically significant 240,000, the center reported last month.
Immigration curbs have caught fire nationwide. In 2010, a record number of laws and resolutions were passed by state legislatures, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, which calculated that 46 states and the District of Columbia had passed 346 measures, with an additional 10 having fallen from gubernatorial vetoes.
Former Houston police officer Rick Salter, who was shot in the face by an illegal immigrant in 2009 and who now speaks through paralyzed vocal chords, was among those urging lawmakers to pass HB 12 Wednesday night. His wife, Sue Salter, broke down in tears when it was her turn to speak.
“We’re not worried about the safety of our own citizens in our wonderful state of Texas,” she said. “You won’t know that until you’re slapped in the face by something that happens to you by an illegal immigrant.”
Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo, arguing against the legislation, said he sympathized with victims of crime by illegal immigrants. But he said local police already are helping federal officials prosecute and deport illegal immigrants without getting mandates from the state.
“We are leading through emotion and politics instead of good public policy,” Acevedo said.
Other critics said the bill could allow local police agencies, including those run by school districts and college campuses, to become de-facto immigration enforcement agents. Rep. Sylvester Turner, D-Houston, said the legislation would let rank-and-file police officers spend all the time they want enforcing immigration laws even if their supervisors don’t want them to.
“This officer … is given the authority to say to the police chief, to the mayor, to the City Council: I don’t care how much time it takes, you can’t stop me from doing this,” Turner said.
http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2011/03/03/texas-mulls-arizona-style-illegal-immigration-law/
Monday, March 7, 2011
Sunday, March 6, 2011
The Left's Unhealthy Koch Habit--Silencing their opponents!
Opinion: The Left's Unhealthy Koch Habit
What do Charles and David Koch, brothers who run the Kansas-based Koch Industries, have to do with Wisconsin's budget battle?
Almost nothing, unless you occupy the left wing of the political spectrum. There, you'll find a group of bloggers and commentators who are fixated on pinning the unrest in Wisconsin, and plenty of other supposedly terrible things happening in the country, on these two businessmen.
Charles, left, and David Koch of Koch Industries have become dragooned into the Wisconsin budget battle.On the surface, the Koch brothers would seem unlikely targets for the political left. After all, they patronize the arts, favor gay marriage, support legalization of drugs and advocate reduced spending on defense.
But they also have a unique distinction: They are two of the very few billionaires in the country who actively contribute to libertarian and conservative causes. Consequently, many liberals have engaged in what can only be characterized as a vicious campaign to drive them out of public life.
Left-wing websites such as Think Progress and commentators like New York Times columnist Paul Krugman have conveyed the impression that the events taking place in Wisconsin are somehow all about the Koch brothers and their company. As Think Progress put it: "Koch Industries not only helped elect Gov. Scott Walker, but is the leading force orchestrating his union-busting campaign."
Never mind that the $43,000 that the Koch Industries PAC contributed to Walker's campaign represents one-tenth of 1 percent of the money that was spent on Wisconsin's 2010 gubernatorial campaign.
One liberal blogger tried to focus attention on the Kochs with a hoax. He telephoned Walker, pretended to be David Koch, and had a 20-minute conversation, which allegedly proved Koch's influence on the governor. Never mind that the real David Koch, who lives in New York, says he has never met or spoken to Gov. Walker.
The latest conspiracy theory being peddled is that the key to Gov. Walker's budget is a provision authorizing the state to sell power plants it owns, with Koch Industries supposedly scheming to buy them up cheap. Krugman wrote on Thursday that "there are enough suspicious minds out there that Koch Industries, owned by the billionaire brothers who are playing such a large role in Mr. Walker's anti-union push, felt compelled to issue a denial."
Never mind that the proposal has been around for years, that there is zero -- absolutely no -- evidence to support such a claim or that Koch Industries has said it has no interest in Wisconsin's power plants. For some, apparently, conspiracy theories trump reality.
What's really going on here is an attempt to silence people whose views liberals disagree with. After all, they don't have a problem with billionaires using their money to influence policies and public opinion when the money is being spent by the likes of George Soros, a left-winger who, among other things, helps fund the Think Progress site.
There are important issues at stake in Wisconsin: how states can meet the budget crises that threaten them; how unsustainable pension and health care commitments can be reformed; how states can restore balance between the inflated compensation and benefits packages that public employees so often receive and the more modest compensation available in the private sector; and how the corrupt cycle in which public officials negotiate sweetheart deals with unions at taxpayer expense, in exchange for political support from those same unions, can be broken.
Instead of debating these issues, however, Wisconsin's Senate Democrats have fled the state in order to make it impossible for the Legislature to transact business. By doing so, they have frustrated the democratic process, deprived their constituents of representation and attempted to reverse the results of the 2010 election, in which Republicans who promised to do exactly what they are now proposing were elected overwhelmingly by the people of Wisconsin.
Sponsored LinksWhat do the Koch brothers have to do with this? Little or nothing. That is, unless you prefer demonization to argument. Of course, attacking the Koch brothers serves not only to change the subject, but perhaps to scare off other wealthy conservatives who might consider participating in the political process.
Charles and David Koch run one of the most successful and most admired companies in the world. They have created many thousands of jobs, have served their customers well and have paid vast amounts in taxes.
Instead of trying to silence them, perhaps we should listen to what they have to say about how free enterprise creates wealth, and how government can both be restrained and made more efficient.
John Hinderaker is a Minneapolis lawyer who writes about current events on the Power Line website.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Wisconsin: What’s the Right Analogy?
Pajamas Media » Wisconsin: What’s the Right Analogy?
Suddenly, all of the nation’s eyes are on Madison, Wisconsin, as a national battle long in the brewing was set off by the sudden reversal of political fortune last fall in the historical home of the “progressive” movement, when Republicans took over the statehouse and governorship. Public employee unions have been the last redoubt of the union movement, with unionized workers less than ten percent of the private work force. They have served to create an unvirtuous cycle of political graft and contribution that has long played a key element in Democrat electoral strategy, one that was crucial to Barack Obama’s winning the White House in 2008 and will be so again next year. And if they lose in this previously most “progressive” of states, others will surely follow, not just in the upper Midwest, but potentially across the country even to leftist bastions like California, whose shores managed to avoid November’s political tsunami.
So the Democrats, including the president, have correctly assessed that if their public-employee union allies lose this battle and are no longer able to demand ever-increasing wages and benefits, and funnel much of them from their (many of them unwilling) members to Democrat campaign coffers, their political fortunes will fall even further from their well-deserved “shellacking” in November. Like the coming loss of seats due to redistricting, this will be an even greater consequence of this election than mere loss of seats, due to its long-term strategic implications. And so concerned are they that they’ve even been willing to let slip the mask of “moderate” and “centrist” from the president to help their minions.
Several historical analogies to this event have been made over the past few days. Some have called it “Greece with snow,” as those receiving state largess have been rioting and protesting over even a slight diminution of it. Others have compared it to recent events in Egypt, which now threaten or promise (depending on one’s point of view of the desirability of the projected outcome) to cause the rest of the region to fall like so many dominoes, releasing a long-pent-up potential energy. It has even been analogized to the Spanish Civil War, a decidedly uncomfortable fit, given that it was a battle that both sides should have lost, from the standpoint of those who favor individual liberty and not various flavors of collectivism.
Pajamas’ own Richard Fernandez, in also noting the Egypt analogy, has pointed out similarities with the Battle of Jutland, an “accidental” naval battle in the First World War, accidental in the sense that its location was contingent on an external event and that, while such a clash was inevitable at some point, the location had not been planned by either side. The problem with this analogy is that, while it was the greatest naval engagement of the war, with huge casualties on both sides, it wasn’t really strategically decisive, and ultimately had little influence on the outcome (unless perhaps one wants to counterfactual that the Lusitania somehow wouldn’t have been sunk in its absence, and America not been drawn in to the war).
From that standpoint, I think that a more interesting analogy is Gettysburg.
Like the situation with the public-employee unions and the taxpayers, and the British and German navies, the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia and the Union Army of the Potomac were sure to clash in the north once Lee crossed his own Rubicon, the Potomac, but no one could have predicted exactly where or under what circumstances. Lee didn’t know exactly where the Union army was because General Stuart, the head of his cavalry, had gotten too far from headquarters and wasn’t in a position to report, but they were moving up from Maryland into southern Pennsylvania to prevent a Confederate thrust back south toward Washington. According to the diary of Confederate General Pettigrew, his troops had gone to the small town of Gettysburg because they had heard that there was a warehouse of shoes there, which the war-deprived southern troops badly needed. When Union pickets learned of the Confederate movement toward the town, General Meade started to reinforce it, and the place of the three-day battle, now one of history’s most famous, had been ordained.
At its end, Lee’s troops had been thrown back, never again to invade the north, and on the next day in the west (on July 4th, 1863), Vicksburg had fallen to Grant, giving the Union control of the Mississippi and cutting the Confederacy in half. The war would go on for almost two more years, but Pickett’s failed charge at Gettysburg is now viewed by all historians as the high-water mark of the Confederacy. As William Faulkner wrote:
For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it’s still not yet two o’clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it’s all in the balance, it hasn’t happened yet…Maybe this time with all this much to lose and all this much to gain: Pennsylvania, Maryland, the world, the golden dome of Washington itself to crown with desperate and unbelievable victory the desperate gamble, the cast made two years ago…
Gettysburg was a battle in a war over federalism and states’ rights — in this case the dubious and odious “right” to treat human beings as chattel — a cause that has given the phrase a notorious name for over a century and a half. Madison (ironically, named after a Founder and drafter of the Constitution) is also a battle over states’ rights — in this case the right of a state to rein in the new slaveholders — public employee unions who extort taxpayers to give them better wages and benefits than those who provide their funding by threatening to shut down vital services if their demands aren’t met. And this time, the new slavemasters are being supported by Washington. Let us hope that in this new civil (so far) civil war, in the cold winter battle of Madison, unlike on that hot July day in southern Pennsylvania, the rebels against the central government win, because this time, it will be in defense of human liberty.
Rand Simberg is a recovering aerospace engineer and a consultant in space commercialization, space tourism and Internet security. He offers occasionally biting commentary about infinity and beyond at his weblog, Transterrestrial Musings. He is an adjunct scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/wisconsin-whats-the-right-analogy/
Suddenly, all of the nation’s eyes are on Madison, Wisconsin, as a national battle long in the brewing was set off by the sudden reversal of political fortune last fall in the historical home of the “progressive” movement, when Republicans took over the statehouse and governorship. Public employee unions have been the last redoubt of the union movement, with unionized workers less than ten percent of the private work force. They have served to create an unvirtuous cycle of political graft and contribution that has long played a key element in Democrat electoral strategy, one that was crucial to Barack Obama’s winning the White House in 2008 and will be so again next year. And if they lose in this previously most “progressive” of states, others will surely follow, not just in the upper Midwest, but potentially across the country even to leftist bastions like California, whose shores managed to avoid November’s political tsunami.
So the Democrats, including the president, have correctly assessed that if their public-employee union allies lose this battle and are no longer able to demand ever-increasing wages and benefits, and funnel much of them from their (many of them unwilling) members to Democrat campaign coffers, their political fortunes will fall even further from their well-deserved “shellacking” in November. Like the coming loss of seats due to redistricting, this will be an even greater consequence of this election than mere loss of seats, due to its long-term strategic implications. And so concerned are they that they’ve even been willing to let slip the mask of “moderate” and “centrist” from the president to help their minions.
Several historical analogies to this event have been made over the past few days. Some have called it “Greece with snow,” as those receiving state largess have been rioting and protesting over even a slight diminution of it. Others have compared it to recent events in Egypt, which now threaten or promise (depending on one’s point of view of the desirability of the projected outcome) to cause the rest of the region to fall like so many dominoes, releasing a long-pent-up potential energy. It has even been analogized to the Spanish Civil War, a decidedly uncomfortable fit, given that it was a battle that both sides should have lost, from the standpoint of those who favor individual liberty and not various flavors of collectivism.
Pajamas’ own Richard Fernandez, in also noting the Egypt analogy, has pointed out similarities with the Battle of Jutland, an “accidental” naval battle in the First World War, accidental in the sense that its location was contingent on an external event and that, while such a clash was inevitable at some point, the location had not been planned by either side. The problem with this analogy is that, while it was the greatest naval engagement of the war, with huge casualties on both sides, it wasn’t really strategically decisive, and ultimately had little influence on the outcome (unless perhaps one wants to counterfactual that the Lusitania somehow wouldn’t have been sunk in its absence, and America not been drawn in to the war).
From that standpoint, I think that a more interesting analogy is Gettysburg.
Like the situation with the public-employee unions and the taxpayers, and the British and German navies, the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia and the Union Army of the Potomac were sure to clash in the north once Lee crossed his own Rubicon, the Potomac, but no one could have predicted exactly where or under what circumstances. Lee didn’t know exactly where the Union army was because General Stuart, the head of his cavalry, had gotten too far from headquarters and wasn’t in a position to report, but they were moving up from Maryland into southern Pennsylvania to prevent a Confederate thrust back south toward Washington. According to the diary of Confederate General Pettigrew, his troops had gone to the small town of Gettysburg because they had heard that there was a warehouse of shoes there, which the war-deprived southern troops badly needed. When Union pickets learned of the Confederate movement toward the town, General Meade started to reinforce it, and the place of the three-day battle, now one of history’s most famous, had been ordained.
At its end, Lee’s troops had been thrown back, never again to invade the north, and on the next day in the west (on July 4th, 1863), Vicksburg had fallen to Grant, giving the Union control of the Mississippi and cutting the Confederacy in half. The war would go on for almost two more years, but Pickett’s failed charge at Gettysburg is now viewed by all historians as the high-water mark of the Confederacy. As William Faulkner wrote:
For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it’s still not yet two o’clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it’s all in the balance, it hasn’t happened yet…Maybe this time with all this much to lose and all this much to gain: Pennsylvania, Maryland, the world, the golden dome of Washington itself to crown with desperate and unbelievable victory the desperate gamble, the cast made two years ago…
Gettysburg was a battle in a war over federalism and states’ rights — in this case the dubious and odious “right” to treat human beings as chattel — a cause that has given the phrase a notorious name for over a century and a half. Madison (ironically, named after a Founder and drafter of the Constitution) is also a battle over states’ rights — in this case the right of a state to rein in the new slaveholders — public employee unions who extort taxpayers to give them better wages and benefits than those who provide their funding by threatening to shut down vital services if their demands aren’t met. And this time, the new slavemasters are being supported by Washington. Let us hope that in this new civil (so far) civil war, in the cold winter battle of Madison, unlike on that hot July day in southern Pennsylvania, the rebels against the central government win, because this time, it will be in defense of human liberty.
Rand Simberg is a recovering aerospace engineer and a consultant in space commercialization, space tourism and Internet security. He offers occasionally biting commentary about infinity and beyond at his weblog, Transterrestrial Musings. He is an adjunct scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/wisconsin-whats-the-right-analogy/
Friday, March 4, 2011
50-State Union Protest Falls Far Short Of Predicted Turnout
Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion: 50-State Union Protest Falls Far Short Of Predicted Turnout
Protests in support of Wisconsin public sector unions were organized by MoveOn.org and labor unions today.
Promoters, such as David Dayen at Firedoglake, were predicting a million-person turnout nationwide. But reports as of 7:00 E.S.T. today make clear that other than in Madison, Wisconsin, the crowds were sparse.
The turnout in Madison was sizable, with estimates ranging over from 50-70,000, which included protesters bused in from other states. (Dayen is trying to pump the crowd estimate to over 100,000.) But elsewhere, the crowds numbered only in the hundreds or low thousands.
In Washington, D.C., only about 500 people showed up (go to link for good photos of crazy signs). (Note, WaPo says 1000.)
In Columbus, OH, where you would expect a big crowd given a similar controversy, only "several thousand" people protested.
Other head counts, based on news reports, include: Boston (1000), Portsmouth, N.H. (few hundred), Augusta, ME (small crowd), New York City ("several thousand"), Chicago (1000), Miami (100), Austin (several hundred), Chicago (1000); Lansing, MI (2000), Nashville (hundreds), Los Angeles (2000), Richmond, VA (300), Denver (1000); Frankfurt, KY (several hundred), Jefferson City, MO (several hundred), Harrisburg, PA (several hundred).
While I don't have a complete count, based on these numbers from some major cities and labor states, total protesters nationwide (excluding Madison) likely totaled under 100,000 combined.
Outside of Madison, there were no reports of sizable crowds. And if you read the news reports, almost all the protesters were other union members. Despite the efforts, the organizers failed to motivate significant numbers of non-union members to come out for protests.
The 50-state protest was a failure, plain and simple, although the images from Madison may create the false impression of massive nationwide protests.
Update: As predicted, the mainstream media is painting the nationwide protest as a success. The headlines talk about protests around the country, but the stories talk almost entirely about Madison, giving the false impression that there was widespread support around the country:
•The New York Times, In Wisconsin and Beyond, Rallying Behind Unions, only had one factual reference to a protest outside Madison, nothwithstanding the headline: "In Miami, about 150 people took part in a rally at Bayfront Park in solidarity with public employees in Wisconsin and elsewhere."
•AP, Protesters across US decry Wis. anti-union efforts: "Large crowds of teachers, firefighters and public workers also gathered for rallies — holding American flags, wearing pro-union clothing and holding signs — in other capital cities including Topeka, Kan.; Harrisburg, Pa.; and Olympia, Wash."
Since NYT and AP stories are run at thousands of local newspapers around the country who cannot create their own content, it is likely that most people in this country never will hear about the dismal turnout for these protests. This is your biased MSM in action.
http://legalinsurrection.blogspot.com/2011/02/50-state-union-protest-falls-far-short.html
Protests in support of Wisconsin public sector unions were organized by MoveOn.org and labor unions today.
Promoters, such as David Dayen at Firedoglake, were predicting a million-person turnout nationwide. But reports as of 7:00 E.S.T. today make clear that other than in Madison, Wisconsin, the crowds were sparse.
The turnout in Madison was sizable, with estimates ranging over from 50-70,000, which included protesters bused in from other states. (Dayen is trying to pump the crowd estimate to over 100,000.) But elsewhere, the crowds numbered only in the hundreds or low thousands.
In Washington, D.C., only about 500 people showed up (go to link for good photos of crazy signs). (Note, WaPo says 1000.)
In Columbus, OH, where you would expect a big crowd given a similar controversy, only "several thousand" people protested.
Other head counts, based on news reports, include: Boston (1000), Portsmouth, N.H. (few hundred), Augusta, ME (small crowd), New York City ("several thousand"), Chicago (1000), Miami (100), Austin (several hundred), Chicago (1000); Lansing, MI (2000), Nashville (hundreds), Los Angeles (2000), Richmond, VA (300), Denver (1000); Frankfurt, KY (several hundred), Jefferson City, MO (several hundred), Harrisburg, PA (several hundred).
While I don't have a complete count, based on these numbers from some major cities and labor states, total protesters nationwide (excluding Madison) likely totaled under 100,000 combined.
Outside of Madison, there were no reports of sizable crowds. And if you read the news reports, almost all the protesters were other union members. Despite the efforts, the organizers failed to motivate significant numbers of non-union members to come out for protests.
The 50-state protest was a failure, plain and simple, although the images from Madison may create the false impression of massive nationwide protests.
Update: As predicted, the mainstream media is painting the nationwide protest as a success. The headlines talk about protests around the country, but the stories talk almost entirely about Madison, giving the false impression that there was widespread support around the country:
•The New York Times, In Wisconsin and Beyond, Rallying Behind Unions, only had one factual reference to a protest outside Madison, nothwithstanding the headline: "In Miami, about 150 people took part in a rally at Bayfront Park in solidarity with public employees in Wisconsin and elsewhere."
•AP, Protesters across US decry Wis. anti-union efforts: "Large crowds of teachers, firefighters and public workers also gathered for rallies — holding American flags, wearing pro-union clothing and holding signs — in other capital cities including Topeka, Kan.; Harrisburg, Pa.; and Olympia, Wash."
Since NYT and AP stories are run at thousands of local newspapers around the country who cannot create their own content, it is likely that most people in this country never will hear about the dismal turnout for these protests. This is your biased MSM in action.
http://legalinsurrection.blogspot.com/2011/02/50-state-union-protest-falls-far-short.html
Who’s Polarizing America? Left, right battle for America's future
Who’s Polarizing America? - By Stanley Kurtz - The Corner - National Review Online
Who’s Polarizing America? By Stanley Kurtz
American politics just keeps getting more polarized. Be assured that Obama wants it that way. I argue in Radical-in-Chief that Obama’s long-term hope is to divide America along class lines (roughly speaking, tax payers versus tax beneficiaries). Obama’s attack on the Supreme Court at his 2010 State of the Union address, his offensive against the Chamber of Commerce, his exhortation to Hispanics to punish their enemies, and several similar moves were all efforts to jump-start a populist movement of the left. Like his socialist organizing mentors, Obama believes that a country polarized along class lines will eventually realign American politics sharply to the left. Yet the entire strategy is based on the need for an activated, populist movement of the left. So far, Obama has failed to create such a movement. His expensive economic agenda has provoked a populist counter-movement of the right instead: Obama’s nightmare.
Now, however, Obama may belatedly be getting his wish. The very success of the Tea Party is calling forth an opposing movement of the left. Obama’s exhortations may have failed to polarize the country along class lines, but his policies have finally provoked the long-sought battle. The once-dormant legions of Obama’s group, Organizing for America, have now been activated. This is the moment they were created for.
In Radical-in-Chief, I describe the “inside/outside” or “good cop/bad cop” strategy favored by Obama and his organizing mentors. The idea is that a seemingly moderate “good cop” politician works on the inside of government, while coordinating his moves with nasty Alinskyite “bad cops” on the outside. Reports that Obama’s own organizers helped put together the Madison protests fit the model. That coordination is necessary to achieve Obama’s real goal: kicking off a national grassroots movement of the left that he can quietly manage, while keeping his distance when necessary.
Obama’s good-cop role allows him the flexibility to occasionally criticize protest tactics that cross the line. Yet the reality is that our presidential good cop and his bad cop buddies are in this together. Intimidating protests at the homes of enemy politicians are par for the course with Alinskyites (and, yes, Alinskyites think of their targets as “enemies”). Obama understands all this, and you can be sure that he’s on board with the protests held at the homes of Wisconsin Republican legislators, whether he disowns them or not.
As I show in Radical-in-Chief, Obama began his organizing career planning and participating in just this sort of intimidating protest (a fact largely hidden in Dreams from My Father). As Obama moved into politics, he switched to the good cop role and funneled foundation money to his Alinskyite pals, while using their hardball protests to support his legislative agenda. Meanwhile Obama perfected his calm, post-partisan persona. It’s all a game developed by the president’s Alinskyite (and socialist) organizing mentors.
We are destined for still more polarization. Neither side can pull back, because the financial crunch is going to have to be resolved one way or another. We either scale back government and the power of public employee unions, or we move toward a structurally higher tax burden and a permanently enlarged welfare state. The very nature of the American system is now at stake. The emerging populist movements on both the right and left recognize this, and so cannot turn back from further confrontation.
Conservatives may win this battle, but they need to understand that the possibility of failure is real. As I’ve argued, Obama’s long-term strategy of class-based polarization and realignment can succeed. That is why he’s been willing to take tremendous short-term political risks. From Obama’s point of view, Wisconsin means that the risks have been worth it. With an activated movement of the left now ready to oppose the Tea Party, the permanent transformation of the country Obama has been after from the start is in prospect.
The best way to check Obama’s ambitions is to identify and expose his broader strategy . At any rate, as the country divides into opposing movements, most of us could soon be forced to choose up sides. Obama may succeed in putting some distance between his good-cop persona and his bad-cop friends. Yet the more likely outcome is that his radical intentions and alliances will be clarified over time. It’s happening now in Wisconsin. Years of widening political polarization may have been mere a dress rehearsal for what we’re about to experience. That is what our Organizer-in-Chief has been planning all along.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/260065/whos-polarizing-america-stanley-kurtz?sms_ss=blogger&at_xt=4d680bdaa50d0c2e%2C0
Who’s Polarizing America? By Stanley Kurtz
American politics just keeps getting more polarized. Be assured that Obama wants it that way. I argue in Radical-in-Chief that Obama’s long-term hope is to divide America along class lines (roughly speaking, tax payers versus tax beneficiaries). Obama’s attack on the Supreme Court at his 2010 State of the Union address, his offensive against the Chamber of Commerce, his exhortation to Hispanics to punish their enemies, and several similar moves were all efforts to jump-start a populist movement of the left. Like his socialist organizing mentors, Obama believes that a country polarized along class lines will eventually realign American politics sharply to the left. Yet the entire strategy is based on the need for an activated, populist movement of the left. So far, Obama has failed to create such a movement. His expensive economic agenda has provoked a populist counter-movement of the right instead: Obama’s nightmare.
Now, however, Obama may belatedly be getting his wish. The very success of the Tea Party is calling forth an opposing movement of the left. Obama’s exhortations may have failed to polarize the country along class lines, but his policies have finally provoked the long-sought battle. The once-dormant legions of Obama’s group, Organizing for America, have now been activated. This is the moment they were created for.
In Radical-in-Chief, I describe the “inside/outside” or “good cop/bad cop” strategy favored by Obama and his organizing mentors. The idea is that a seemingly moderate “good cop” politician works on the inside of government, while coordinating his moves with nasty Alinskyite “bad cops” on the outside. Reports that Obama’s own organizers helped put together the Madison protests fit the model. That coordination is necessary to achieve Obama’s real goal: kicking off a national grassroots movement of the left that he can quietly manage, while keeping his distance when necessary.
Obama’s good-cop role allows him the flexibility to occasionally criticize protest tactics that cross the line. Yet the reality is that our presidential good cop and his bad cop buddies are in this together. Intimidating protests at the homes of enemy politicians are par for the course with Alinskyites (and, yes, Alinskyites think of their targets as “enemies”). Obama understands all this, and you can be sure that he’s on board with the protests held at the homes of Wisconsin Republican legislators, whether he disowns them or not.
As I show in Radical-in-Chief, Obama began his organizing career planning and participating in just this sort of intimidating protest (a fact largely hidden in Dreams from My Father). As Obama moved into politics, he switched to the good cop role and funneled foundation money to his Alinskyite pals, while using their hardball protests to support his legislative agenda. Meanwhile Obama perfected his calm, post-partisan persona. It’s all a game developed by the president’s Alinskyite (and socialist) organizing mentors.
We are destined for still more polarization. Neither side can pull back, because the financial crunch is going to have to be resolved one way or another. We either scale back government and the power of public employee unions, or we move toward a structurally higher tax burden and a permanently enlarged welfare state. The very nature of the American system is now at stake. The emerging populist movements on both the right and left recognize this, and so cannot turn back from further confrontation.
Conservatives may win this battle, but they need to understand that the possibility of failure is real. As I’ve argued, Obama’s long-term strategy of class-based polarization and realignment can succeed. That is why he’s been willing to take tremendous short-term political risks. From Obama’s point of view, Wisconsin means that the risks have been worth it. With an activated movement of the left now ready to oppose the Tea Party, the permanent transformation of the country Obama has been after from the start is in prospect.
The best way to check Obama’s ambitions is to identify and expose his broader strategy . At any rate, as the country divides into opposing movements, most of us could soon be forced to choose up sides. Obama may succeed in putting some distance between his good-cop persona and his bad-cop friends. Yet the more likely outcome is that his radical intentions and alliances will be clarified over time. It’s happening now in Wisconsin. Years of widening political polarization may have been mere a dress rehearsal for what we’re about to experience. That is what our Organizer-in-Chief has been planning all along.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/260065/whos-polarizing-america-stanley-kurtz?sms_ss=blogger&at_xt=4d680bdaa50d0c2e%2C0
Thursday, March 3, 2011
The Rubicon of Wisconsin--Dr K explains union/Dems vs. us
The Rubicon of Wisconsin - Charles Krauthammer - National Review Online
Charles Krauthammer
Recklessly principled Republicans are tackling our fiscal crisis.
The magnificent turmoil now gripping statehouses in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana and others marks an epic political moment. The nation faces a fiscal crisis of historic proportions and, remarkably, our muddled, gridlocked, allegedly broken politics has yielded a singular clarity.
At the federal level, President Obama’s budget makes clear that Democrats are determined to do nothing about the debt crisis, while House Republicans have announced that beyond their proposed cuts in discretionary spending, their April budget will actually propose real entitlement reform. Simultaneously, in Wisconsin and other states, Republican governors are taking on unsustainable, fiscally ruinous pension and health-care obligations, while Democrats are full-throated in support of the public-employee unions’ crying, “Hell no.”
A choice, not an echo: Democrats desperately defending the status quo; Republicans charging the barricades.
Wisconsin is the epicenter. It began with economic issues. When Gov. Scott Walker proposed that state workers contribute more to their pension and health-care benefits, he started a revolution. Teachers called in sick. Schools closed. Demonstrators massed at the capitol. Democratic senators fled the state to paralyze the legislature.
Unfortunately for them, that telegenic faux-Cairo scene drew national attention to the dispute — and to the sweetheart deals the public-sector unions had negotiated for themselves for years. They were contributing a fifth of a penny on a dollar of wages to their pensions and one-fourth what private-sector workers pay for health insurance.
The unions quickly understood that the more than 85 percent of Wisconsin not part of this privileged special-interest group would not take kindly to “public servants” resisting adjustments that still leave them paying less for benefits than private-sector workers. They immediately capitulated and claimed they were only protesting the other part of the bill, the part about collective-bargaining rights.
Indeed. Walker understands that a one-time giveback means little. The state’s financial straits — a $3.6 billion budget shortfall over the next two years — did not come out of nowhere. They came largely from a half-century power imbalance between the unions and the politicians with whom they collectively bargain.
In the private sector, the capitalist knows that when he negotiates with the union, if he gives away the store, he loses his shirt. In the public sector, the politicians who approve any deal have none of their own money at stake. On the contrary, the more favorably they dispose of union demands, the more likely they are to be the beneficiary of union largesse in the next election. It’s the perfect cozy setup.
To redress these perverse incentives that benefit both negotiating parties at the expense of the taxpayer, Walker’s bill would restrict future government-union negotiations to wages only. Excluded from negotiations would be benefits, the more easily hidden sweeteners that come due long after the politicians who negotiated them have left. The bill would also require that unions be recertified every year and that dues be voluntary.
Recognizing this threat to union power, the Democratic party is pouring money and fury into the fight. Private unions have shrunk to less than 7 percent of the working population. The Democrats’ strength lies in government workers, who now constitute a majority of union members and provide massive support to the party. For them, Wisconsin represents a dangerous contagion.
Hence the import of the current moment — its blinding clarity. Here stand the Democrats, avatars of reactionary liberalism, desperately trying to hang onto the gains of their glory years — from unsustainable federal entitlements for the elderly enacted when life expectancy was 62 to the massive promissory notes issued to government unions when state coffers were full and no one was looking.
Obama’s Democrats have become the party of no. Real cuts to the federal budget? No. Entitlement reform? No. Tax reform? No. Breaking the corrupt and fiscally unsustainable symbiosis between public-sector unions and state governments? Hell no.
We have heard everyone — from Obama’s own debt commission to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — call the looming debt a mortal threat to the nation. We have watched Greece self-immolate. We can see the future. The only question has been: When will the country finally rouse itself?
Amazingly, the answer is now. Led by famously progressive Wisconsin — Scott Walker at the state level and Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan at the congressional level — a new generation of Republicans has looked at the debt and is crossing the Rubicon. Recklessly principled, they are putting the question to the nation: Are we a serious people?
— Charles Krauthammer is a nationally syndicated columnist. © 2011 the Washington Post Writers Group.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/260667/rubicon-wisconsin-charles-krauthammer?page=1
Charles Krauthammer
Recklessly principled Republicans are tackling our fiscal crisis.
The magnificent turmoil now gripping statehouses in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana and others marks an epic political moment. The nation faces a fiscal crisis of historic proportions and, remarkably, our muddled, gridlocked, allegedly broken politics has yielded a singular clarity.
At the federal level, President Obama’s budget makes clear that Democrats are determined to do nothing about the debt crisis, while House Republicans have announced that beyond their proposed cuts in discretionary spending, their April budget will actually propose real entitlement reform. Simultaneously, in Wisconsin and other states, Republican governors are taking on unsustainable, fiscally ruinous pension and health-care obligations, while Democrats are full-throated in support of the public-employee unions’ crying, “Hell no.”
A choice, not an echo: Democrats desperately defending the status quo; Republicans charging the barricades.
Wisconsin is the epicenter. It began with economic issues. When Gov. Scott Walker proposed that state workers contribute more to their pension and health-care benefits, he started a revolution. Teachers called in sick. Schools closed. Demonstrators massed at the capitol. Democratic senators fled the state to paralyze the legislature.
Unfortunately for them, that telegenic faux-Cairo scene drew national attention to the dispute — and to the sweetheart deals the public-sector unions had negotiated for themselves for years. They were contributing a fifth of a penny on a dollar of wages to their pensions and one-fourth what private-sector workers pay for health insurance.
The unions quickly understood that the more than 85 percent of Wisconsin not part of this privileged special-interest group would not take kindly to “public servants” resisting adjustments that still leave them paying less for benefits than private-sector workers. They immediately capitulated and claimed they were only protesting the other part of the bill, the part about collective-bargaining rights.
Indeed. Walker understands that a one-time giveback means little. The state’s financial straits — a $3.6 billion budget shortfall over the next two years — did not come out of nowhere. They came largely from a half-century power imbalance between the unions and the politicians with whom they collectively bargain.
In the private sector, the capitalist knows that when he negotiates with the union, if he gives away the store, he loses his shirt. In the public sector, the politicians who approve any deal have none of their own money at stake. On the contrary, the more favorably they dispose of union demands, the more likely they are to be the beneficiary of union largesse in the next election. It’s the perfect cozy setup.
To redress these perverse incentives that benefit both negotiating parties at the expense of the taxpayer, Walker’s bill would restrict future government-union negotiations to wages only. Excluded from negotiations would be benefits, the more easily hidden sweeteners that come due long after the politicians who negotiated them have left. The bill would also require that unions be recertified every year and that dues be voluntary.
Recognizing this threat to union power, the Democratic party is pouring money and fury into the fight. Private unions have shrunk to less than 7 percent of the working population. The Democrats’ strength lies in government workers, who now constitute a majority of union members and provide massive support to the party. For them, Wisconsin represents a dangerous contagion.
Hence the import of the current moment — its blinding clarity. Here stand the Democrats, avatars of reactionary liberalism, desperately trying to hang onto the gains of their glory years — from unsustainable federal entitlements for the elderly enacted when life expectancy was 62 to the massive promissory notes issued to government unions when state coffers were full and no one was looking.
Obama’s Democrats have become the party of no. Real cuts to the federal budget? No. Entitlement reform? No. Tax reform? No. Breaking the corrupt and fiscally unsustainable symbiosis between public-sector unions and state governments? Hell no.
We have heard everyone — from Obama’s own debt commission to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — call the looming debt a mortal threat to the nation. We have watched Greece self-immolate. We can see the future. The only question has been: When will the country finally rouse itself?
Amazingly, the answer is now. Led by famously progressive Wisconsin — Scott Walker at the state level and Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan at the congressional level — a new generation of Republicans has looked at the debt and is crossing the Rubicon. Recklessly principled, they are putting the question to the nation: Are we a serious people?
— Charles Krauthammer is a nationally syndicated columnist. © 2011 the Washington Post Writers Group.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/260667/rubicon-wisconsin-charles-krauthammer?page=1
48% Back GOP Governor in Wisconsin, 38% Side With Unions
48% Back GOP Governor in Wisconsin Spat, 38% Side With Unions
A sizable number of voters are following new Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s showdown with unionized public employees in his state, and nearly half side with the governor.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 48% of Likely U.S. Voters agree more with the Republican governor in his dispute with union workers. Thirty-eight percent (38%) agree more with the unionized public employees, while 14% are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
In an effort to close the state’s sizable budget deficit, Walker is proposing to eliminate collective bargaining for public employees including teachers on everything but wage issues. He is excluding public safety workers such as policemen and firemen from his plan.
Thirty-eight percent (38%) of voters think teachers, firemen and policemen should be allowed to go on strike, but 49% disagree and believe they should not have that right. Thirteen percent (13%) are not sure.
There’s strong partisan disagreement on both questions and a wide gap between the Political Class and Mainstream voters.
Thirty-six percent (36%) of all voters say that in their state the average public employee earns more than the average private sector worker. Twenty-one percent (21%) say the government employee earns less, while 20% think their pay is about the same. Twenty-three percent (23%) are not sure.
With states across the country finding that benefits for public workers are becoming difficult to fund in the current economic climate, support for public employee unions has fallen. Forty-five percent (45%) of Americans favor them, and 45% don’t. These findings include 21% who Strongly Favor such unions and 30% who are Strongly Opposed to them.
The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on February 18-19, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.
Fifty percent (50%) of voters favor reducing their home state’s government payroll by one percent a year for 10 years either by reducing the number of state employees or by cutting the pay of state workers. Twenty-eight percent (28%) oppose a cut of this nature, while another 23% aren’t sure about it.
In a survey last month, voters were evenly divided over the idea of a 10% across-the-board pay cut for all state employees to help reduce overall spending.
Public employee unions have long been strong supporters, financially and otherwise, of Democratic Party candidates, so it’s no surprise that 68% of Democrats support the union workers in the Wisconsin dispute. Sixty-eight percent (68%) of Republicans and 56% of voters not affiliated with either of the major political parties side with the governor.
Most Democrats (54%) say teachers, firemen and policemen should be allowed to go on strike. The majority of GOP voters (62%) and unaffiliateds (58%) disagree.
While 61% of Republicans and 56% of unaffiliated voters like the idea of a one percent reduction in their state’s government payroll for the next 10 years, a plurality (41%) of Democrats are opposed.
The Political Class’ opposition is more emphatic. Sixty-four percent (64%) of Political Class voters oppose a payroll cut of this kind, while 56% of those in the Mainstream think it’s a good idea.
But then 56% of Mainstream voters agree more with the governor in the Wisconsin dispute, while 56% of the Political Class side with the union workers.
Sixty-seven percent (67%) of all voters say they are following at least somewhat closely news reports about the Wisconsin governor’s effort to limit collective bargaining rights for most state employees, with 37% who are following Very Closely.
With new Republican majorities in both chambers of Wisconsin’s legislature, the governor’s plan is likely to pass, prompting thousands of protesting public workers and their allies to descend on the state capital. President Obama and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, among others, have publicly sided with the protestors, while national Republicans have backed the governor.
A sizable majority of Americans say their states are now having major budget problems, and they think spending cuts, not higher taxes, are the solution.
Most voters continue to oppose federal bailouts for financially troubled states. Voters aren’t thrilled with the idea of letting states declare bankruptcy, but they're more supportive if told government employees might have their pensions reduced in the process.
Seventy-eight percent (78%) of Americans say politicians’ unwillingness to reduce government spending is to blame for the budget crises in many states.
When it comes to the nation’s historic-level federal budget deficit, 70% of all voters think voters are more willing to make the hard choices needed to reduce government spending than elected politicians are.
Sixty-six percent (66%) of all voters nationwide favor a proposal to cut the federal payroll by 10% over the coming decade.
Sixty-eight percent (68%) of Americans think workers in the private sector work harder than government workers.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/february_2011/48_back_gop_governor_in_wisconsin_spat_38_side_with_unions
A sizable number of voters are following new Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s showdown with unionized public employees in his state, and nearly half side with the governor.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 48% of Likely U.S. Voters agree more with the Republican governor in his dispute with union workers. Thirty-eight percent (38%) agree more with the unionized public employees, while 14% are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
In an effort to close the state’s sizable budget deficit, Walker is proposing to eliminate collective bargaining for public employees including teachers on everything but wage issues. He is excluding public safety workers such as policemen and firemen from his plan.
Thirty-eight percent (38%) of voters think teachers, firemen and policemen should be allowed to go on strike, but 49% disagree and believe they should not have that right. Thirteen percent (13%) are not sure.
There’s strong partisan disagreement on both questions and a wide gap between the Political Class and Mainstream voters.
Thirty-six percent (36%) of all voters say that in their state the average public employee earns more than the average private sector worker. Twenty-one percent (21%) say the government employee earns less, while 20% think their pay is about the same. Twenty-three percent (23%) are not sure.
With states across the country finding that benefits for public workers are becoming difficult to fund in the current economic climate, support for public employee unions has fallen. Forty-five percent (45%) of Americans favor them, and 45% don’t. These findings include 21% who Strongly Favor such unions and 30% who are Strongly Opposed to them.
The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on February 18-19, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.
Fifty percent (50%) of voters favor reducing their home state’s government payroll by one percent a year for 10 years either by reducing the number of state employees or by cutting the pay of state workers. Twenty-eight percent (28%) oppose a cut of this nature, while another 23% aren’t sure about it.
In a survey last month, voters were evenly divided over the idea of a 10% across-the-board pay cut for all state employees to help reduce overall spending.
Public employee unions have long been strong supporters, financially and otherwise, of Democratic Party candidates, so it’s no surprise that 68% of Democrats support the union workers in the Wisconsin dispute. Sixty-eight percent (68%) of Republicans and 56% of voters not affiliated with either of the major political parties side with the governor.
Most Democrats (54%) say teachers, firemen and policemen should be allowed to go on strike. The majority of GOP voters (62%) and unaffiliateds (58%) disagree.
While 61% of Republicans and 56% of unaffiliated voters like the idea of a one percent reduction in their state’s government payroll for the next 10 years, a plurality (41%) of Democrats are opposed.
The Political Class’ opposition is more emphatic. Sixty-four percent (64%) of Political Class voters oppose a payroll cut of this kind, while 56% of those in the Mainstream think it’s a good idea.
But then 56% of Mainstream voters agree more with the governor in the Wisconsin dispute, while 56% of the Political Class side with the union workers.
Sixty-seven percent (67%) of all voters say they are following at least somewhat closely news reports about the Wisconsin governor’s effort to limit collective bargaining rights for most state employees, with 37% who are following Very Closely.
With new Republican majorities in both chambers of Wisconsin’s legislature, the governor’s plan is likely to pass, prompting thousands of protesting public workers and their allies to descend on the state capital. President Obama and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, among others, have publicly sided with the protestors, while national Republicans have backed the governor.
A sizable majority of Americans say their states are now having major budget problems, and they think spending cuts, not higher taxes, are the solution.
Most voters continue to oppose federal bailouts for financially troubled states. Voters aren’t thrilled with the idea of letting states declare bankruptcy, but they're more supportive if told government employees might have their pensions reduced in the process.
Seventy-eight percent (78%) of Americans say politicians’ unwillingness to reduce government spending is to blame for the budget crises in many states.
When it comes to the nation’s historic-level federal budget deficit, 70% of all voters think voters are more willing to make the hard choices needed to reduce government spending than elected politicians are.
Sixty-six percent (66%) of all voters nationwide favor a proposal to cut the federal payroll by 10% over the coming decade.
Sixty-eight percent (68%) of Americans think workers in the private sector work harder than government workers.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/february_2011/48_back_gop_governor_in_wisconsin_spat_38_side_with_unions
Poll: Public unions a hard sell--shows the slant of NYT/CBS/Gallup polls
POLITICO: Poll: Public unions a hard sell - Ben Smith - Poll: Public unions a hard sell
A new poll from the Washington-based Clarus Group asked:
Do you think government employees should be represented by labor unions that bargain for higher pay, benefits and pensions ... or do you think government employees should not be represented by labor unions?
A full 64% of the respondents said "no."
That includes 42% of Democrats, and an overwhelming majority of Republicans. Only 49% of Democrats think public workers should be in unions at all.
That's on the fundamental right to organize, before you get to wages and benefits. And that puts Scott Walker in a pretty good political place.
(According to the release, this was a national survey of 1,001 registered voters. One note: Clarus is a division of the global corporate public relations giant Qorvis, not exactly a labor bastion.)
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0211/Poll_Public_unions_a_hard_sell.html
A new poll from the Washington-based Clarus Group asked:
Do you think government employees should be represented by labor unions that bargain for higher pay, benefits and pensions ... or do you think government employees should not be represented by labor unions?
A full 64% of the respondents said "no."
That includes 42% of Democrats, and an overwhelming majority of Republicans. Only 49% of Democrats think public workers should be in unions at all.
That's on the fundamental right to organize, before you get to wages and benefits. And that puts Scott Walker in a pretty good political place.
(According to the release, this was a national survey of 1,001 registered voters. One note: Clarus is a division of the global corporate public relations giant Qorvis, not exactly a labor bastion.)
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0211/Poll_Public_unions_a_hard_sell.html
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
GAY BLACK TEA PARTYER Attacked By Racist SEIU Activists at Denver Tea Party
GAY BLACK TEA PARTYER Attacked By Racist SEIU Activists at Denver Tea Party (Videos)
Posted by Jim Hoft
(go to link and learn some ugly truths) http://gatewaypundit.rightnetwork.com/2011/02/horrible-gay-black-tea-partyer-accosted-by-racist-seiu-activists-at-denver-tea-party/
Posted by Jim Hoft
(go to link and learn some ugly truths) http://gatewaypundit.rightnetwork.com/2011/02/horrible-gay-black-tea-partyer-accosted-by-racist-seiu-activists-at-denver-tea-party/
Gadsden Flag Bad, Egypt Flag Good--the thugs in Wisconsin
Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion: Gadsden Flag Bad, Egypt Flag Good
The video below is getting a fair amount of attention for the comparison of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker to Adolf Hitler, and the hypocrisy of senior Democratic politicians on the subject of Hitler comparisons and overblown rhetoric.
But have you noticed how many of the union protesters are invoking the Egyptian uprising against Hosni Mubarek? And carrying the Egyptian flag?
Because the freely and fairly elected Governor of Wisconsin is just like the former dictator of Egypt; the honestly elected Wisconsin legislature is just like the Egyptian parliament installed through rigged elections; and ....
For the rest of the commentary, videos, photos: http://legalinsurrection.blogspot.com/2011/02/gadsden-flag-bad-egypt-flag-good.html
The video below is getting a fair amount of attention for the comparison of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker to Adolf Hitler, and the hypocrisy of senior Democratic politicians on the subject of Hitler comparisons and overblown rhetoric.
But have you noticed how many of the union protesters are invoking the Egyptian uprising against Hosni Mubarek? And carrying the Egyptian flag?
Because the freely and fairly elected Governor of Wisconsin is just like the former dictator of Egypt; the honestly elected Wisconsin legislature is just like the Egyptian parliament installed through rigged elections; and ....
For the rest of the commentary, videos, photos: http://legalinsurrection.blogspot.com/2011/02/gadsden-flag-bad-egypt-flag-good.html
Lead Lawyer Challenging Obamacare Hacked--by lovlies on left
Lead Lawyer Challenging Obamacare Hacked The Foundry: Conservative Policy News.
While politicians are still talking about restoring civility, liberal thugs are waging an all out attack on the website of David Rivkin, lead counsel in the multi-state lawsuit against Obamacare, rather than engage in a civilized debate that they can’t win. And what do the ACLU and other left-leaning civil rights groups have to say about these attempts to silence a leading voice for freedom and liberty? Not a thing.
Rivkin represents 26 States, the National Federation of Independent Business, and two individuals in the most prominent and successful challenge to Obamacare. He’s been a prominent critic of the law’s individual mandate from the beginning, and is used to engaging in intellectual battle—it comes with the territory. But this is something far different.
One week after federal district judge Roger Vinson held that the mandate was unconstitutional and struck down the entire law, Rivkin’s website came under attack by a highly organized group of cyber-terrorists seeking to silence him and knock his views off the Internet.
Just like the recent attacks by Wikileaks supporters on Amazon.com, MasterCard, and PayPal—attacks that have led to international investigations that remain ongoing and several arrests—unknown hacktivists from IP addresses located overseas took aim at Rivkin’s website, bombarding it with fake traffic and intrusion attempts. They managed to destroy entire sections of the site dedicated to his advocacy on behalf of the states in the health care law suit.
The ongoing criminal attacks have been reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which is charged with investigating denial of service cyber attacks.
Perhaps the most amazing aspect of this episode is the complete disregard of this attack by the mainstream media and left-wing civil liberties groups. Imagine, for example, a similar attack on the website of the plaintiffs in the challenge to California’s Proposition 8, which struck down same-sex marriage in the state. Imagine the outrage, finger-pointing, and howls of indignation that would follow. The media, as well as the ACLU and others, would be quick to condemn conservatives, and many prominent conservatives, no doubt, would disassociate themselves from the cyber-attack. And rightly so—conservatives don’t need to cheat or break the law to win the war of ideas.
Rivkin’s sober and scholarly advocacy in favor of Americans’ fundamental rights is clearly a threat to someone, and they have decided to attack him for it. Even on the Internet, thugs shouldn’t get a “heckler’s veto” over speech with which they disagree. One would think that’s a point on which conservatives and left-leaning civil libertarians could agree. But all we’ve heard so far from the left is silence.
Author: Cully Stimson
http://blog.heritage.org/2011/02/17/lead-lawyer-challenging-obamacare-under-cyber-attack/
While politicians are still talking about restoring civility, liberal thugs are waging an all out attack on the website of David Rivkin, lead counsel in the multi-state lawsuit against Obamacare, rather than engage in a civilized debate that they can’t win. And what do the ACLU and other left-leaning civil rights groups have to say about these attempts to silence a leading voice for freedom and liberty? Not a thing.
Rivkin represents 26 States, the National Federation of Independent Business, and two individuals in the most prominent and successful challenge to Obamacare. He’s been a prominent critic of the law’s individual mandate from the beginning, and is used to engaging in intellectual battle—it comes with the territory. But this is something far different.
One week after federal district judge Roger Vinson held that the mandate was unconstitutional and struck down the entire law, Rivkin’s website came under attack by a highly organized group of cyber-terrorists seeking to silence him and knock his views off the Internet.
Just like the recent attacks by Wikileaks supporters on Amazon.com, MasterCard, and PayPal—attacks that have led to international investigations that remain ongoing and several arrests—unknown hacktivists from IP addresses located overseas took aim at Rivkin’s website, bombarding it with fake traffic and intrusion attempts. They managed to destroy entire sections of the site dedicated to his advocacy on behalf of the states in the health care law suit.
The ongoing criminal attacks have been reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which is charged with investigating denial of service cyber attacks.
Perhaps the most amazing aspect of this episode is the complete disregard of this attack by the mainstream media and left-wing civil liberties groups. Imagine, for example, a similar attack on the website of the plaintiffs in the challenge to California’s Proposition 8, which struck down same-sex marriage in the state. Imagine the outrage, finger-pointing, and howls of indignation that would follow. The media, as well as the ACLU and others, would be quick to condemn conservatives, and many prominent conservatives, no doubt, would disassociate themselves from the cyber-attack. And rightly so—conservatives don’t need to cheat or break the law to win the war of ideas.
Rivkin’s sober and scholarly advocacy in favor of Americans’ fundamental rights is clearly a threat to someone, and they have decided to attack him for it. Even on the Internet, thugs shouldn’t get a “heckler’s veto” over speech with which they disagree. One would think that’s a point on which conservatives and left-leaning civil libertarians could agree. But all we’ve heard so far from the left is silence.
Author: Cully Stimson
http://blog.heritage.org/2011/02/17/lead-lawyer-challenging-obamacare-under-cyber-attack/
Wonder why Obama/Dem's poll numbers are suddenly not newsworthy?
Obama, Democrats Sliding in Polls by John Hinderaker/Powerline
I'm not sure whether it is his involvement with the Democrats' PR debacle in Wisconsin, or his detachment from events in the Middle East, or the continuing weak economy, but President Obama is sliding in the polls. In Scott Rasmussen's Approval Index, he has plummeted to -20, one of his worst showings ever:
Obama's overall approval rating with likely voters is also deeply in the red, at 44/55. In the Gallup poll, which is not a likely voter survey, Obama is down to a 46 percent approval rating.
In the generic Congressional survey, Rasmussen now has the Republicans leading the Democrats by nine points, 46/37. That suggests that voters' disgust with Obama and the Democrats comes more from the party's disgraceful showing in Wisconsin and the poor economy than from Obama's weak performance in foreign affairs.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/02/028437.php
I'm not sure whether it is his involvement with the Democrats' PR debacle in Wisconsin, or his detachment from events in the Middle East, or the continuing weak economy, but President Obama is sliding in the polls. In Scott Rasmussen's Approval Index, he has plummeted to -20, one of his worst showings ever:
In the generic Congressional survey, Rasmussen now has the Republicans leading the Democrats by nine points, 46/37. That suggests that voters' disgust with Obama and the Democrats comes more from the party's disgraceful showing in Wisconsin and the poor economy than from Obama's weak performance in foreign affairs.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/02/028437.php
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
"Walker — can I 'modestly' kick you in the nuts." (civility patrol)
"Walker — can I 'modestly' kick you in the nuts."
Decline Is in the Mind--Must Read on America's future and rescuing it now by Victor Davis Hanson
Works and Days » Decline Is in the Mind by Victor Davis Hanson
It’s over? Really?
In the last two years, we have a heard a constant litany of “decline,” as in America is over as it once was. Fifth-century AD Rome is often evoked, as are the contemporary economic miracles in China and India to “prove” inevitable American waning. A few of the more imaginative declinists see us as Justinian’s Byzantium, a crumbling power vainly trying to hold on to a world long lost, with a Detroit no different from a half-populated failing Byzantine city in the Levant. This time around — remember our past serial crushing by the supposedly superior Soviet system of the 1950s, the Japanese, Inc. ascendancy of the 1970s, the EU soft power dominance of the 1980s, and the present Chinese supermen of the 21st century — we really, really, really are through, as if semi-literate suburban lounging American teens, with baggy pants, ears plugged with hip-hop, and sleeve tattoos will soon be slaving away to satisfy their new growling Tiger Mom People’s Republic bosses.
The gloomy prognoses come from both the anguished conservative who sees the culprit as the erosion of American individualism and self-reliance, and the new Obama coalition that thinks a sense of exceptionalism abroad is synonymous with arrogance and imperialism, and at home was symptomatic of an inherent unfairness, a downright mean country that, thank god, had to change. The one gags at the foul whiff of decline, the other sees it as an aroma of welcome reset. Both confess it is here, both unwelcomed and welcomed.
For the conservative, the depressing symptoms are staggering debt, as in the Obama administration plans to equal all the red ink of all prior administrations in nearly five or six years of planned governance (at $1.6 trillion a year that is not a hard thing to do). Surely, the president’s legacy for the next quarter-century will be ubiquitous line graphs and pie charts proving in an eye blink that the Obama administration was the mother of all borrowers. There is more, of course. We awoke one morning and suddenly General Motors was analogous to the Postal Service, its suspect, now politically incorrect competitors the far better run Fed-Ex-like Toyota or Ford. Abroad the bows, the apologies, the euphemisms for terrorism, the realignment to embrace enemies and snub friends, the deer-in-the-headlights, make-it-up-as-you-go-along diplomacy — all that was the unfortunate result of a larger desire to take the U.S. down a needed peg or two in a new multilateral fashion.
In this present age, no one in this administration in the abstract can explain why Israel is a more humane place than Syria — and why that fact deserves our preference. Or why Japan plays more by the rules than does China, or why Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic deserve our empathy and support in a way Russia does not. Or why a jail in Guantanamo is more humane than any outside the fence in Cuba. (In truth, the inmate at Gitmo has access to better food, health care, and freedom of religion than the “free” man in Castroland). In short, traditionalists are aghast at the last two years, and see it as a sort of gangrene that has spread from a long festering but heretofore treatable old wound.
Decline is more recline
But in the Obama vision, decline is the wrong word for necessary readjustment — analogous to the wondrous post-Churchillian socialization of Britain after the war, in which an aging imperialist air force and navy gave way to the new people’s National Health Service. As far as the staggering debt goes, massive red ink is a necessary reset policy, a long overdue method of fair redistribution. Both the borrowing and its eventual remedy will bring a much needed reality check to a cowboyish and inherently unjust “old” America. Ponder the politics of debt: more borrowing means more government (200,000 thousand new employees during Obama’s first two years alone), which in turn means good jobs for the deserving, a growing political progressive constituency of loyal and grateful public workers, and more watchdogs (cf. to monitor everything from fatty foods to breast pumps) that can spot racial, gender, and class bias and take the appropriate and long overdue federal action — create a bureau, hire federal watch- and attack-dogs, publicize private sector immorality, and then establish new fees and regulations to justify more bureaus.
More borrowing also means that taxes must go up and that usually ensures that those who make at some point in their lives Obama’s “enough” will have to do their patriotic duty and finally pay their fair share. After all, they made such sums, if outside of government (that is, not the enlightenened sort like University of California administrators or San Jose police chiefs who take in over $500,000 a year), at someone else’s expense (the peasant idea of a limited good). They should thus fork it back over to its rightful owners, the commonwealth that was veritably robbed in the first place.
Learning to love debt
More borrowing can spell inflation and that too can be good. When more money is printed and circulates, those with accumulated piles of it have less, and those without such stashes can more easily start anew. It is a sort of reset financial diplomacy, where we all get to start over with a new sort of money. All that was the rallying cry in ancient Rome — more currency, more public spectacles, more government assistance, redistribution of property and cancellation of debt — one so terrifying to chroniclers like Horace, Livy or Sallust. If any of them were alive today, they would see Obama’s agenda as an updated, polished version of old crude Catiline’s, promising the oppressed that they might get out of their credit card debt, mortgage debt, student loan debt, and fill in the blanks debt.
All this borrowing is not foreordained, but a matter of deliberate policy, coupled with an insidious modern consumerist lifestyle that justifies expenditures with borrowed money by appeals to radical egalitarianism — “if they have x, then I too deserve y.” The desire or need for, not the means by which, is our new credo. The private counterpart of the collective borrowing of $1.6 trillion this year is the maxed-out credit card holder jockeying to somehow borrow more still on a paycheck that has not yet arrived — inasmuch as nations simply reflect the collective values of their citizens.
Your choice, not mine
Yet all this is optional. For a number of years, I have written x-number of columns explaining that decline is a choice, not a destiny. Decline compared to what? China with its warped demography and rendezvous with environmental cleanup and social disorder? Europe and Japan with fossilized populations and statist economies? India with insidious layers of the old caste system and 1940s socialism still to be displaced? The kleptocratic, shrinking state of Russia? The Arab world — with endemic tribalism, gender apartheid, religious intolerance and suspicion of science and its repercussions?
The tragedy, reader, is that any of us in 2-3 minutes can see how it could all be reversed — a full-fledged effort to develop all our energy resources, from nuclear to natural gas, radical cuts in public spending, closed borders, fiscal sanity and pay-as-you-go legislation, a return to merit instead of situational pleading. Given our wealth and talent, in four years we could balance the budget, slash energy imports, and make schools work far better with fewer dollars.
No, decline is a state of mind, and proceeds so often from the dreams of utopianism, or the creed that a new generation can change human nature, eliminate war, legislate peace, end inequality, and enforce an equality of result — alone through state power wielded by enlightened despots and philosopher kings amid imposed “civility.” In response, the productive, highly taxed, upper-middle classes become alienated, convinced that their efforts will not lead to their own self-interested advancement. So they adopt “quietism,” a sort of psychological hibernation from society, a disconnect where they virtually drop or hide out from popular culture — a theme as old as characters in Plato, Sophocles and Euripides, authors who at times focused on those so resistant to the redistributive Athenian state.
But it is not easy to turn us into Belgium
In America’s case, these are choices, not fate. The Constitution is still here should we wish to follow it. Our ancestors left us freeways, airports, and universities and a rich infrastructure. Napa Valley, Silicon Valley, and Central Valley agriculture here in bankrupt California are still sources of amazing ingenuity and enormous wealth creation. Even with 9.6% unemployment, millions rise at 6 a.m. to go to work; millions work the night shift. So to nullify that dynamism, well, that takes work. It requires constant sloganeering about inequality. It demands massive social engineering to create huge public work forces to administer redistributive entitlements. It must entice a new privileged elite to go over to the side of crony capitalism and insider favoritism of the GE sort. It encourages a demonized “them” and a deified “us,”,the abyss say somewhere around the Obama’s $250,000 line of annual income. It requires an ideology of envy and jealously and the exit of moral responsibility for self. It dictates that most personal unhappiness emanates from not having what someone else supposedly does, and can be rectified by state action rather than personal improvement. Yet that is all hard to do quickly in America.
Just say no
So because statist utopianism is both against innate human nature and without any historical record of success, it is not inevitable. The sane can stop it by daily, no hourly, saying no to the utopian narcotic, even (or especially) in its most seemingly mundane and innocuous manifestations (Dear Mrs. Obama, those who buy expensive baby formula surely have enough money for a breast pump if they so chose, and the latest federal concern over why some women do not nurse should at least start with addressing their own thinking and attitudes, not funding someone or something to root out a third party’s supposed coercion and oppression). If we speak “truth” to power and ignore the incoming salvos of “mean, greedy, selfish, privileged, racist, nativist, sexist, homophobe, Tea-bagger, and yokel,” decline can stop. It really is a state of mind — the choice not to brush off opportunistic rust from hard steel after a very brief rain.
http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/decline-is-in-the-mind-2/
It’s over? Really?
In the last two years, we have a heard a constant litany of “decline,” as in America is over as it once was. Fifth-century AD Rome is often evoked, as are the contemporary economic miracles in China and India to “prove” inevitable American waning. A few of the more imaginative declinists see us as Justinian’s Byzantium, a crumbling power vainly trying to hold on to a world long lost, with a Detroit no different from a half-populated failing Byzantine city in the Levant. This time around — remember our past serial crushing by the supposedly superior Soviet system of the 1950s, the Japanese, Inc. ascendancy of the 1970s, the EU soft power dominance of the 1980s, and the present Chinese supermen of the 21st century — we really, really, really are through, as if semi-literate suburban lounging American teens, with baggy pants, ears plugged with hip-hop, and sleeve tattoos will soon be slaving away to satisfy their new growling Tiger Mom People’s Republic bosses.
The gloomy prognoses come from both the anguished conservative who sees the culprit as the erosion of American individualism and self-reliance, and the new Obama coalition that thinks a sense of exceptionalism abroad is synonymous with arrogance and imperialism, and at home was symptomatic of an inherent unfairness, a downright mean country that, thank god, had to change. The one gags at the foul whiff of decline, the other sees it as an aroma of welcome reset. Both confess it is here, both unwelcomed and welcomed.
For the conservative, the depressing symptoms are staggering debt, as in the Obama administration plans to equal all the red ink of all prior administrations in nearly five or six years of planned governance (at $1.6 trillion a year that is not a hard thing to do). Surely, the president’s legacy for the next quarter-century will be ubiquitous line graphs and pie charts proving in an eye blink that the Obama administration was the mother of all borrowers. There is more, of course. We awoke one morning and suddenly General Motors was analogous to the Postal Service, its suspect, now politically incorrect competitors the far better run Fed-Ex-like Toyota or Ford. Abroad the bows, the apologies, the euphemisms for terrorism, the realignment to embrace enemies and snub friends, the deer-in-the-headlights, make-it-up-as-you-go-along diplomacy — all that was the unfortunate result of a larger desire to take the U.S. down a needed peg or two in a new multilateral fashion.
In this present age, no one in this administration in the abstract can explain why Israel is a more humane place than Syria — and why that fact deserves our preference. Or why Japan plays more by the rules than does China, or why Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic deserve our empathy and support in a way Russia does not. Or why a jail in Guantanamo is more humane than any outside the fence in Cuba. (In truth, the inmate at Gitmo has access to better food, health care, and freedom of religion than the “free” man in Castroland). In short, traditionalists are aghast at the last two years, and see it as a sort of gangrene that has spread from a long festering but heretofore treatable old wound.
Decline is more recline
But in the Obama vision, decline is the wrong word for necessary readjustment — analogous to the wondrous post-Churchillian socialization of Britain after the war, in which an aging imperialist air force and navy gave way to the new people’s National Health Service. As far as the staggering debt goes, massive red ink is a necessary reset policy, a long overdue method of fair redistribution. Both the borrowing and its eventual remedy will bring a much needed reality check to a cowboyish and inherently unjust “old” America. Ponder the politics of debt: more borrowing means more government (200,000 thousand new employees during Obama’s first two years alone), which in turn means good jobs for the deserving, a growing political progressive constituency of loyal and grateful public workers, and more watchdogs (cf. to monitor everything from fatty foods to breast pumps) that can spot racial, gender, and class bias and take the appropriate and long overdue federal action — create a bureau, hire federal watch- and attack-dogs, publicize private sector immorality, and then establish new fees and regulations to justify more bureaus.
More borrowing also means that taxes must go up and that usually ensures that those who make at some point in their lives Obama’s “enough” will have to do their patriotic duty and finally pay their fair share. After all, they made such sums, if outside of government (that is, not the enlightenened sort like University of California administrators or San Jose police chiefs who take in over $500,000 a year), at someone else’s expense (the peasant idea of a limited good). They should thus fork it back over to its rightful owners, the commonwealth that was veritably robbed in the first place.
Learning to love debt
More borrowing can spell inflation and that too can be good. When more money is printed and circulates, those with accumulated piles of it have less, and those without such stashes can more easily start anew. It is a sort of reset financial diplomacy, where we all get to start over with a new sort of money. All that was the rallying cry in ancient Rome — more currency, more public spectacles, more government assistance, redistribution of property and cancellation of debt — one so terrifying to chroniclers like Horace, Livy or Sallust. If any of them were alive today, they would see Obama’s agenda as an updated, polished version of old crude Catiline’s, promising the oppressed that they might get out of their credit card debt, mortgage debt, student loan debt, and fill in the blanks debt.
All this borrowing is not foreordained, but a matter of deliberate policy, coupled with an insidious modern consumerist lifestyle that justifies expenditures with borrowed money by appeals to radical egalitarianism — “if they have x, then I too deserve y.” The desire or need for, not the means by which, is our new credo. The private counterpart of the collective borrowing of $1.6 trillion this year is the maxed-out credit card holder jockeying to somehow borrow more still on a paycheck that has not yet arrived — inasmuch as nations simply reflect the collective values of their citizens.
Your choice, not mine
Yet all this is optional. For a number of years, I have written x-number of columns explaining that decline is a choice, not a destiny. Decline compared to what? China with its warped demography and rendezvous with environmental cleanup and social disorder? Europe and Japan with fossilized populations and statist economies? India with insidious layers of the old caste system and 1940s socialism still to be displaced? The kleptocratic, shrinking state of Russia? The Arab world — with endemic tribalism, gender apartheid, religious intolerance and suspicion of science and its repercussions?
The tragedy, reader, is that any of us in 2-3 minutes can see how it could all be reversed — a full-fledged effort to develop all our energy resources, from nuclear to natural gas, radical cuts in public spending, closed borders, fiscal sanity and pay-as-you-go legislation, a return to merit instead of situational pleading. Given our wealth and talent, in four years we could balance the budget, slash energy imports, and make schools work far better with fewer dollars.
No, decline is a state of mind, and proceeds so often from the dreams of utopianism, or the creed that a new generation can change human nature, eliminate war, legislate peace, end inequality, and enforce an equality of result — alone through state power wielded by enlightened despots and philosopher kings amid imposed “civility.” In response, the productive, highly taxed, upper-middle classes become alienated, convinced that their efforts will not lead to their own self-interested advancement. So they adopt “quietism,” a sort of psychological hibernation from society, a disconnect where they virtually drop or hide out from popular culture — a theme as old as characters in Plato, Sophocles and Euripides, authors who at times focused on those so resistant to the redistributive Athenian state.
But it is not easy to turn us into Belgium
In America’s case, these are choices, not fate. The Constitution is still here should we wish to follow it. Our ancestors left us freeways, airports, and universities and a rich infrastructure. Napa Valley, Silicon Valley, and Central Valley agriculture here in bankrupt California are still sources of amazing ingenuity and enormous wealth creation. Even with 9.6% unemployment, millions rise at 6 a.m. to go to work; millions work the night shift. So to nullify that dynamism, well, that takes work. It requires constant sloganeering about inequality. It demands massive social engineering to create huge public work forces to administer redistributive entitlements. It must entice a new privileged elite to go over to the side of crony capitalism and insider favoritism of the GE sort. It encourages a demonized “them” and a deified “us,”,the abyss say somewhere around the Obama’s $250,000 line of annual income. It requires an ideology of envy and jealously and the exit of moral responsibility for self. It dictates that most personal unhappiness emanates from not having what someone else supposedly does, and can be rectified by state action rather than personal improvement. Yet that is all hard to do quickly in America.
Just say no
So because statist utopianism is both against innate human nature and without any historical record of success, it is not inevitable. The sane can stop it by daily, no hourly, saying no to the utopian narcotic, even (or especially) in its most seemingly mundane and innocuous manifestations (Dear Mrs. Obama, those who buy expensive baby formula surely have enough money for a breast pump if they so chose, and the latest federal concern over why some women do not nurse should at least start with addressing their own thinking and attitudes, not funding someone or something to root out a third party’s supposed coercion and oppression). If we speak “truth” to power and ignore the incoming salvos of “mean, greedy, selfish, privileged, racist, nativist, sexist, homophobe, Tea-bagger, and yokel,” decline can stop. It really is a state of mind — the choice not to brush off opportunistic rust from hard steel after a very brief rain.
http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/decline-is-in-the-mind-2/
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