Thursday, June 24, 2010
Nearly half of American Adults see the government today as a threat to individual rights rather than a protector of those rights.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 48% of Adults see the government today as a threat to rights. Thirty-seven percent (37%) hold the opposite view. Fifteen percent (15%) are undecided.
Most Republicans (74%) and unaffiliateds (51%) consider the government to be a threat to individual rights. Most Democrats (64%) regard the government as a protector of rights.
Additionally, most Americans (52%) say it is more important for the government to protect individual rights than to promote economic growth. Just 31% say promoting economic growth is more important. But again a sizable number (17%) of Adults aren't sure which is more important.
This nationwide survey of 1,000 Adults was conducted on June 18-19, 2010 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.
Men strongly believe it is more important for the government to protect individual rights, while women are almost evenly divided on the question.
Fifty-five percent (55%) of whites feel the emphasis should be on protecting individual rights. African-Americans are closely divided over which is more important.
There is little partisan disagreement when it comes to individual rights versus economic growth.
Data released earlier this week shows that 62% believe politicians want the government to have more power and money. At the same time, 58% think most voters want less power and money for the government.
This gap helps explain why just 21% believe that government today has the consent of the governed.
The Declaration of Independence asserts that governments are instituted among men to protect certain inalienable rights including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Link to this article on Rasumssen Reports is HERE
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Degeration of Democracy
Thomas Sowell - Syndicated Columnist - 6/22/2010 7:55:00 AM
When Adolf Hitler was building up the Nazi movement in the 1920s, leading up to his taking power in the 1930s, he deliberately sought to activate people who did not normally pay much attention to politics. Such people were a valuable addition to his political base, since they were particularly susceptible to Hitler's rhetoric and had far less basis for questioning his assumptions or his conclusions.
"Useful idiots" was the term supposedly coined by V.I. Lenin to describe similarly unthinking supporters of his dictatorship in the Soviet Union.
Put differently, a democracy needs informed citizens if it is to thrive, or ultimately even survive. In our times, American democracy is being dismantled, piece by piece, before our very eyes by the current administration in Washington, and few people seem to be concerned about it.
The president's poll numbers are going down because increasing numbers of people disagree with particular policies of his, but the damage being done to the fundamental structure of this nation goes far beyond particular counterproductive policies.
Just where in the Constitution of the United States does it say that a president has the authority to extract vast sums of money from a private enterprise and distribute it as he sees fit to whomever he deems worthy of compensation? Nowhere.
And yet that is precisely what is happening with a $20 billion fund to be provided by BP to compensate people harmed by their oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Many among the public and in the media may think that the issue is simply whether BP's oil spill has damaged many people, who ought to be compensated. But our government is supposed to be "a government of laws and not of men." If our laws and our institutions determine that BP ought to pay $20 billion -- or $50 billion or $100 billion -- then so be it.
But the Constitution says that private property is not to be confiscated by the government without "due process of law." Technically, it has not been confiscated by Barack Obama, but that is a distinction without a difference.
With vastly expanded powers of government available at the discretion of politicians and bureaucrats, private individuals and organizations can be forced into accepting the imposition of powers that were never granted to the government by the Constitution.
If you believe that the end justifies the means, then you don't believe in Constitutional government. And, without Constitutional government, freedom cannot endure. There will always be a "crisis" -- which, as the president's chief of staff has said, cannot be allowed to "go to waste" as an opportunity to expand the government's power.
That power will of course not be confined to BP or to the particular period of crisis that gave rise to the use of that power, much less to the particular issues.
When Franklin D. Roosevelt arbitrarily took the United States off the gold standard, he cited a law passed during the First World War to prevent trading with the country's wartime enemies. But there was no war when FDR ended the gold standard's restrictions on the printing of money.
At about the same time, during the worldwide Great Depression, the German Reichstag passed a law "for the relief of the German people." That law gave Hitler dictatorial powers that were used for things going far beyond the relief of the German people -- indeed, powers that ultimately brought a rain of destruction down on the German people and on others.
If the agreement with BP was an isolated event, perhaps we might hope that it would not be a precedent. But there is nothing isolated about it.
The man appointed by President Obama to dispense BP's money as the administration sees fit, to whomever it sees fit, is only the latest in a long line of presidentially appointed "czars" controlling different parts of the economy, without even having to be confirmed by the Senate, as Cabinet members are.
Those who cannot see beyond the immediate events to the issues of arbitrary power -- versus the rule of law and the preservation of freedom -- are the "useful idiots" of our time. But useful to whom?
COPYRIGHT 2010 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305.
When Adolf Hitler was building up the Nazi movement in the 1920s, leading up to his taking power in the 1930s, he deliberately sought to activate people who did not normally pay much attention to politics. Such people were a valuable addition to his political base, since they were particularly susceptible to Hitler's rhetoric and had far less basis for questioning his assumptions or his conclusions.
"Useful idiots" was the term supposedly coined by V.I. Lenin to describe similarly unthinking supporters of his dictatorship in the Soviet Union.
Put differently, a democracy needs informed citizens if it is to thrive, or ultimately even survive. In our times, American democracy is being dismantled, piece by piece, before our very eyes by the current administration in Washington, and few people seem to be concerned about it.
The president's poll numbers are going down because increasing numbers of people disagree with particular policies of his, but the damage being done to the fundamental structure of this nation goes far beyond particular counterproductive policies.
Just where in the Constitution of the United States does it say that a president has the authority to extract vast sums of money from a private enterprise and distribute it as he sees fit to whomever he deems worthy of compensation? Nowhere.
And yet that is precisely what is happening with a $20 billion fund to be provided by BP to compensate people harmed by their oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Many among the public and in the media may think that the issue is simply whether BP's oil spill has damaged many people, who ought to be compensated. But our government is supposed to be "a government of laws and not of men." If our laws and our institutions determine that BP ought to pay $20 billion -- or $50 billion or $100 billion -- then so be it.
But the Constitution says that private property is not to be confiscated by the government without "due process of law." Technically, it has not been confiscated by Barack Obama, but that is a distinction without a difference.
With vastly expanded powers of government available at the discretion of politicians and bureaucrats, private individuals and organizations can be forced into accepting the imposition of powers that were never granted to the government by the Constitution.
If you believe that the end justifies the means, then you don't believe in Constitutional government. And, without Constitutional government, freedom cannot endure. There will always be a "crisis" -- which, as the president's chief of staff has said, cannot be allowed to "go to waste" as an opportunity to expand the government's power.
That power will of course not be confined to BP or to the particular period of crisis that gave rise to the use of that power, much less to the particular issues.
When Franklin D. Roosevelt arbitrarily took the United States off the gold standard, he cited a law passed during the First World War to prevent trading with the country's wartime enemies. But there was no war when FDR ended the gold standard's restrictions on the printing of money.
At about the same time, during the worldwide Great Depression, the German Reichstag passed a law "for the relief of the German people." That law gave Hitler dictatorial powers that were used for things going far beyond the relief of the German people -- indeed, powers that ultimately brought a rain of destruction down on the German people and on others.
If the agreement with BP was an isolated event, perhaps we might hope that it would not be a precedent. But there is nothing isolated about it.
The man appointed by President Obama to dispense BP's money as the administration sees fit, to whomever it sees fit, is only the latest in a long line of presidentially appointed "czars" controlling different parts of the economy, without even having to be confirmed by the Senate, as Cabinet members are.
Those who cannot see beyond the immediate events to the issues of arbitrary power -- versus the rule of law and the preservation of freedom -- are the "useful idiots" of our time. But useful to whom?
COPYRIGHT 2010 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Can someone explain to me how this works??
And much more importantly... How it is even remotely considered to be LEGAL???
Residents Get 6 Votes Each in Suburban N.Y. Election
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
By Jim Fitzgerald, Associated Press
Port Chester, N.Y. (AP) - An unusual election in a New York City suburb is allowing residents to vote early and often.
Port Chester is electing village trustees for the first time since 2006, when the federal government alleged the existing election system discriminated against Hispanics.
The court-ordered remedy was a system called cumulative voting. The system allows residents six votes each to apportion as they wish among the candidates. They can give all six to one candidate or spread them around.
Voters also could go to polling places on any of six days over the past week. The election wraps up Tuesday.
An extensive education effort seems to have worked. Voters say they found the balloting strange but not difficult.
(Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
Residents Get 6 Votes Each in Suburban N.Y. Election
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
By Jim Fitzgerald, Associated Press
Port Chester, N.Y. (AP) - An unusual election in a New York City suburb is allowing residents to vote early and often.
Port Chester is electing village trustees for the first time since 2006, when the federal government alleged the existing election system discriminated against Hispanics.
The court-ordered remedy was a system called cumulative voting. The system allows residents six votes each to apportion as they wish among the candidates. They can give all six to one candidate or spread them around.
Voters also could go to polling places on any of six days over the past week. The election wraps up Tuesday.
An extensive education effort seems to have worked. Voters say they found the balloting strange but not difficult.
(Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Can some one tell me WHY
With all the other issues that SHOULD be being delt with by Congress, they are spending time in a hearing on this???
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
I have read some very frightening things before, but this...
Diane Macedo
- FOXNews.com
- June 09, 2010
Publishing Company Under Fire for Putting Warning Label on Constitution
A small publishing company is under fire after putting warning labels on copies of the U.S. Constitution, Declaration of Independence and other historical documents.
Wilder Publications warns readers of its reprints of the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, Common Sense, the Articles of Confederation, and the Federalist Papers, among others, that “This book is a product of its time and does not reflect the same values as it would if it were written today.”
The disclaimer goes on to tell parents that they "might wish to discuss with their children how views on race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and interpersonal relations have changed since this book was written before allowing them to read this classic work."
Walter Olson, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, says the company may be trying to ensure that oversensitive people don't pull its works off bookstore or library shelves.
"Any idea that’s 100 years old will probably offend someone or other," Olson told FoxNews.com. "…But if there’s anything that you ought to be able to take at a first gulp for yourself and then ask your parents if you're wondering about this or that strange thing, it should be the founding documents of American history."
The warning seems to be offending more people than the documents themselves.
Amazon.com’s customer reviews of Wilder’s copy of the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Articles of Confederation show an overwhelming number of people speaking out against the disclaimer, describing it as “insulting,” “sickening” and “frankly, horrifying.”
Another review for Wilder’s edition of the Federalist Papers calls for an all-out boycott of the publisher, sarcastically pointing out the "dangerous ideas" it’s trying to protect children from: "limited government, checks and balances, constrained judicial review, dual sovereignty of states and federal government, and deliberative democracy."
And though warning labels are usually posted to protect a company from potential lawsuits, constitutional attorney Noel Francisco says this disclaimer has no legal benefits.
"Would it ever be a legal concern that selling the Constitution would expose you to some kind of liability? No. Never,” Francisco told FoxNews.com. "The Constitution is the founding document of the country, an operative legal document."
As for the idea that this warning label might help keep these works from being yanked off bookshelves, Francisco says it is more likely to have the opposite effect: people not carrying the book because it has the disclaimer.
"By putting on the warning, you’re making controversial something that’s not controversial: our Constitution, our Declaration of Independence," he said.
Amazon customers appear to agree. Almost all of the reviews discussing the disclaimer end with the same thought: don't buy from this publisher.
Efforts to reach the publisher were unsuccessful.
Copyright 2010 FOX News Network, LLC. All rights reserved.
- FOXNews.com
- June 09, 2010
Publishing Company Under Fire for Putting Warning Label on Constitution
A small publishing company is under fire after putting warning labels on copies of the U.S. Constitution, Declaration of Independence and other historical documents.
Wilder Publications warns readers of its reprints of the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, Common Sense, the Articles of Confederation, and the Federalist Papers, among others, that “This book is a product of its time and does not reflect the same values as it would if it were written today.”
The disclaimer goes on to tell parents that they "might wish to discuss with their children how views on race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and interpersonal relations have changed since this book was written before allowing them to read this classic work."
Walter Olson, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, says the company may be trying to ensure that oversensitive people don't pull its works off bookstore or library shelves.
"Any idea that’s 100 years old will probably offend someone or other," Olson told FoxNews.com. "…But if there’s anything that you ought to be able to take at a first gulp for yourself and then ask your parents if you're wondering about this or that strange thing, it should be the founding documents of American history."
The warning seems to be offending more people than the documents themselves.
Amazon.com’s customer reviews of Wilder’s copy of the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Articles of Confederation show an overwhelming number of people speaking out against the disclaimer, describing it as “insulting,” “sickening” and “frankly, horrifying.”
Another review for Wilder’s edition of the Federalist Papers calls for an all-out boycott of the publisher, sarcastically pointing out the "dangerous ideas" it’s trying to protect children from: "limited government, checks and balances, constrained judicial review, dual sovereignty of states and federal government, and deliberative democracy."
And though warning labels are usually posted to protect a company from potential lawsuits, constitutional attorney Noel Francisco says this disclaimer has no legal benefits.
"Would it ever be a legal concern that selling the Constitution would expose you to some kind of liability? No. Never,” Francisco told FoxNews.com. "The Constitution is the founding document of the country, an operative legal document."
As for the idea that this warning label might help keep these works from being yanked off bookshelves, Francisco says it is more likely to have the opposite effect: people not carrying the book because it has the disclaimer.
"By putting on the warning, you’re making controversial something that’s not controversial: our Constitution, our Declaration of Independence," he said.
Amazon customers appear to agree. Almost all of the reviews discussing the disclaimer end with the same thought: don't buy from this publisher.
Efforts to reach the publisher were unsuccessful.
Copyright 2010 FOX News Network, LLC. All rights reserved.
More Authority???
He wants MORE AUTHORITY??? How about we make him stick to what the US Constitution says that he has? The Constitution, in Articles 1 through 4 says very plainly what authority each group has, Article 1 is Legislative Powers (Congress), Article 2 is Executive Powers (President), Article 3 is Judicial Powers (The Supreme Court), and Article 4 is States' Powers and Limits. Then there are the amendments... and the 10th Amendment states "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." So how about we make them stick to that?
Friday, June 4, 2010
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Some More Info on the "Peace Flotilla"
Initial photos of some of the weapons found aboard the flotilla terror ships:
Channel 1 reporting. 50 flotilla terrorists turn out to be suspected Al Qaeda mercenaries. Over $1 million dollars in cash found on the boat.
Israel TV reports that some of the flotilla terrorists were equipped with night vision equipment and ceramic vests.
May 31, 2010 — Video taken by IDF naval boat shows the passengers of the Mavi Marmara, one of the ships in the 'Free Gaza' Flotilla, violently attacking IDF soldiers who were trying to board the ship after having sent repeated requests for the boat to change course.
Large groups of passengers surrounded soldiers and beat them with metal poles and chairs, and threw one soldier over the side of the ship. Some passengers grabbed pistols from the IDF soldiers and opened fire. As a result of the attacks, seven IDF soldiers were injured, and nine of the passengers were killed.
The 'Free Gaza' Flotilla had publicly insisted on their non-violent intentions, however their violent attack on the IDF soldiers was clearly premeditated. They had knives, metal rods, firebombs and other items ready to use.
Where are the retractions or corrections? Even apoligies?
EDITORIAL: The Freedom Flotilla fraud
Supposed peace activists were fixing for a fightBy THE WASHINGTON TIMES
7:59 p.m., Tuesday, June 1, 2010
What was supposed to be a routine Israeli maritime boarding and inspection operation is turning into a propaganda victory for the Islamist terror group Hamas. The main lesson learned from the incident on the ship Mavi Marmara is: Don't bring a paintball gun to a knife fight.
The initial frenzy of denunciations of the operation in which nine people died - using words like piracy, slaughter, genocide and so forth - is fading in the cold light of facts. United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay claimed that the Israeli operation had no legal justification, which only betrays her ignorance of maritime law. Navies routinely stop, board and search suspicious vessels, and Israel has intercepted blockade runners headed to Gaza for years. The difference this time is that the "peace activists" on board were armed and looking for a fight.
The Israelis boarded with paintball guns, tasers, tear gas and other nonlethal weapons. They expected the usual highly choreographed dance in which they board the ship and take control of it while the activists link arms, sing the Palestinian terrorist equivalent of "We Shall Overcome," take photos and issue press releases about the latest "Zionist atrocity." That's the usual Mahatma Gandhi/Martin Luther King Jr. passive-resistance theater.
But extremists have learned a key lesson of our age - violent resistance is better than passive submission when they know they will not be held accountable. In this case, the pro-Hamas activists sought a confrontation. Israeli troops rappelling onto the deck of the Mavi Marmara were immediately set upon with clubs, knives and other weapons. Pundits who reflexively denounced Israel for "disproportionate force" were blaming the wrong side. Had the terrorist sympathizers on the ship not incited the violence, no one would have been killed. There were no casualties on other ships in the flotilla where people did not resist.
Backers of the illegal blockade-running effort portray themselves as humanitarians, but this claim is dubious. They had rejected an Israeli offer to send the supplies they were carrying to Gaza overland, joining the tons of supplies that flow to Gaza daily, but this would not have fulfilled the organizers' goal of having a splashy, made-for-media event. So they went ahead with their voyage, fomented the incident, and international organizations, governments and the press fell for it, as expected.
This is the beginning of a high-seas intifada aimed at the hearts and minds of the global community, an attempt to isolate Israel and make heroes of Hamas. The campaign continues this week as the blockade runner Rachel Corrie will make an attempt to reach Gaza. The ship is named after an American peace activist who was killed accidentally in 2003 when she attempted to block an Israeli bulldozer, and it is a much more media savvy moniker than Mavi Marmara.
There will be no more routine inspection operations; Monday's events raised the stakes. It is certain that the Hamas supporters on board will not yield to Israeli requests that the ship halt, and if troops attempt another boarding, it will be met with violence. This poses a quandary for Israel's navy, but a few well-placed shells fired at the stern of the Rachel Corrie to disable her rudder and propulsion system may offer a satisfactory solution.
Meanwhile, extremists in Gaza continue to attack civilians in Israel with mortars and rockets, and in one recent incident attempted a terror attack with a donkey-pulled cart-bomb. The world awaits the United Nations' expression of outrage.
© Copyright 2010 The Washington Times, LLC.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jun/1/the-freedom-flotilla-fraud/
Supposed peace activists were fixing for a fightBy THE WASHINGTON TIMES
7:59 p.m., Tuesday, June 1, 2010
What was supposed to be a routine Israeli maritime boarding and inspection operation is turning into a propaganda victory for the Islamist terror group Hamas. The main lesson learned from the incident on the ship Mavi Marmara is: Don't bring a paintball gun to a knife fight.
The initial frenzy of denunciations of the operation in which nine people died - using words like piracy, slaughter, genocide and so forth - is fading in the cold light of facts. United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay claimed that the Israeli operation had no legal justification, which only betrays her ignorance of maritime law. Navies routinely stop, board and search suspicious vessels, and Israel has intercepted blockade runners headed to Gaza for years. The difference this time is that the "peace activists" on board were armed and looking for a fight.
The Israelis boarded with paintball guns, tasers, tear gas and other nonlethal weapons. They expected the usual highly choreographed dance in which they board the ship and take control of it while the activists link arms, sing the Palestinian terrorist equivalent of "We Shall Overcome," take photos and issue press releases about the latest "Zionist atrocity." That's the usual Mahatma Gandhi/Martin Luther King Jr. passive-resistance theater.
But extremists have learned a key lesson of our age - violent resistance is better than passive submission when they know they will not be held accountable. In this case, the pro-Hamas activists sought a confrontation. Israeli troops rappelling onto the deck of the Mavi Marmara were immediately set upon with clubs, knives and other weapons. Pundits who reflexively denounced Israel for "disproportionate force" were blaming the wrong side. Had the terrorist sympathizers on the ship not incited the violence, no one would have been killed. There were no casualties on other ships in the flotilla where people did not resist.
Backers of the illegal blockade-running effort portray themselves as humanitarians, but this claim is dubious. They had rejected an Israeli offer to send the supplies they were carrying to Gaza overland, joining the tons of supplies that flow to Gaza daily, but this would not have fulfilled the organizers' goal of having a splashy, made-for-media event. So they went ahead with their voyage, fomented the incident, and international organizations, governments and the press fell for it, as expected.
This is the beginning of a high-seas intifada aimed at the hearts and minds of the global community, an attempt to isolate Israel and make heroes of Hamas. The campaign continues this week as the blockade runner Rachel Corrie will make an attempt to reach Gaza. The ship is named after an American peace activist who was killed accidentally in 2003 when she attempted to block an Israeli bulldozer, and it is a much more media savvy moniker than Mavi Marmara.
There will be no more routine inspection operations; Monday's events raised the stakes. It is certain that the Hamas supporters on board will not yield to Israeli requests that the ship halt, and if troops attempt another boarding, it will be met with violence. This poses a quandary for Israel's navy, but a few well-placed shells fired at the stern of the Rachel Corrie to disable her rudder and propulsion system may offer a satisfactory solution.
Meanwhile, extremists in Gaza continue to attack civilians in Israel with mortars and rockets, and in one recent incident attempted a terror attack with a donkey-pulled cart-bomb. The world awaits the United Nations' expression of outrage.
© Copyright 2010 The Washington Times, LLC.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jun/1/the-freedom-flotilla-fraud/
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Monday, May 24, 2010
Politics of Personal Intimidation
By Nina EastonMay 19, 2010: 6:15 AM ET
(FORTUNE) -- Every journalist loves a peaceful protest-whether it makes news, shakes up a political season, or holds out the possibility of altering history. Then there are the ones that show up on your curb--literally.
Last Sunday, on a peaceful, sun-crisp afternoon, our toddler finally napping upstairs, my front yard exploded with 500 screaming, placard-waving strangers on a mission to intimidate my neighbor, Greg Baer. Baer is deputy general counsel for corporate law at Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), a senior executive based in Washington, D.C. And that -- in the minds of the organizers at the politically influential Service Employees International Union and a Chicago outfit called National Political Action -- makes his family fair game.
Waving signs denouncing bank "greed," hordes of invaders poured out of 14 school buses, up Baer's steps, and onto his front porch. As bullhorns rattled with stories of debtor calls and foreclosed homes, Baer's teenage son Jack -- alone in the house -- locked himself in the bathroom. "When are they going to leave?" Jack pleaded when I called to check on him.
Baer, on his way home from a Little League game, parked his car around the corner, called the police, and made a quick calculation to leave his younger son behind while he tried to rescue his increasingly distressed teen. He made his way through a din of barked demands and insults from the activists who proudly "outed" him, and slipped through his front door.
"Excuse me," Baer told his accusers, "I need to get into the house. I have a child who is alone in there and frightened."
When is a protest not a protest?Now this event would accurately be called a "protest" if it were taking place at, say, a bank or the U.S. Capitol. But when hundreds of loud and angry strangers are descending on your family, your children, and your home, a more apt description of this assemblage would be "mob." Intimidation was the whole point of this exercise, and it worked-even on the police. A trio of officers who belatedly answered our calls confessed a fear that arrests might "incite" these trespassers.
What's interesting is that SEIU, the nation's second largest union, craves respectability. Just-retired president Andy Stern is an Obama friend and regular White House visitor. He sits on the President's Fiscal Responsibility Commission. He hobnobs with those greedy Wall Street CEOs -- executives much higher-ranking than my neighbor Baer -- at Davos. His union spent $70 million getting Democrats elected in 2008.
In the business community, though, SEIU has a reputation for strong-arm tactics against management, prompting some companies to file suit.
Now those strong-arm tactics, stirred by supposedly free-floating (as opposed to organized) populist rage, have come to the neighborhood curb. Last year it was AIG executives -- with protestors met by security guard outside. Now it's any executive -- and they're on the front stoop. After Baer's house, the 14 buses left to descend on the nearby residence of Peter Scher, a government relations executive at JPMorgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500).
Targeting homes and families seems to put SEIU in the ranks of (now jailed) radical animal-rights activists and the Kansas anti-gay fundamentalists harassing the grieving parents of a dead 20-year-old soldier at his funeral (the Supreme Court has agreed to weigh in on the latter). But that's not a conversation that SEIU officials want to have.
When I asked Stephen Lerner, SEIU's point-person on Wall Street reform, about these tactics, he accused me of getting "emotional." Lerner was more comfortable sticking to his talking points: "Millions of people are losing their homes, and they have gone to the banks, which are turning a deaf ear."
Okay, fine, then why not continue SEIU protests at bank offices and shareholder meetings-as the union has been doing for more than a year? Lerner insists, "People in powerful corporations seem to think they can insulate themselves from the damage they are doing."
Other reasons why SEIU might protest
Bank of America officials dispute Lerner's assertion about the "damage they are doing," citing the success of workout programs to help distressed homeowners, praise received from community groups, the bank's support of financial reform legislation, and the little-noticed fact that Bank of America exited the subprime lending business in 2001.
SEIU has said it wants to organize bank tellers and call centers -- and its critics point out that a great way to worsen employee morale, thereby making workers more susceptible to union calls, is to batter a bank's image through protest. (SEIU officials say their anti-Wall Street campaign has nothing to do with their organizing efforts.) Complicating this picture is the fact that BofA is the union's lender of choice -- and SEIU, suffering financially, owes the bank nearly $4 million in interest and fees. Bank of America declined comment on the loans.
But SEIU's intentions, and BofA's lender record, are ripe subjects to debate in Congress, on air, at shareholder hearings. Not in Greg Baer's front yard.
Why the media wasn't invited
Sunday's onslaught wasn't designed for mainstream media consumption. There were no reporters from organizations like the Washington Post, no local camera crews who might have aired criticism of this private-home invasion. With the media covering the conservative Tea Party protesters, the behavior of individual activists has drawn withering scrutiny.
Instead, a friendly Huffington Post blogger showed up, narrowcasting coverage to the union's leftist base. The rest of the message these protesters brought was personal-aimed at frightening Baer and his family, not influencing a broader public.
Of course, HuffPost readers responding to the coverage assumed that Baer was an evil former Bush official. He's not. A lifelong Democrat, Baer worked for the Clinton Treasury Department, and his wife, Shirley Sagawa, author of the book The American Way to Change and a former adviser to Hillary Clinton, is a prominent national service advocate.
In the 1990s, the Baers' former bosses, Bill and Hillary Clinton, denounced the "politics of personal destruction." Today politicians and their voters of all stripes grieve the ugly bitterness that permeates our policy debates. Now, with populist rage providing a useful cover, it appears we've crossed into a new era: The politics of personal intimidation.
Link to the story on CNN:Money is HERE
(FORTUNE) -- Every journalist loves a peaceful protest-whether it makes news, shakes up a political season, or holds out the possibility of altering history. Then there are the ones that show up on your curb--literally.
Last Sunday, on a peaceful, sun-crisp afternoon, our toddler finally napping upstairs, my front yard exploded with 500 screaming, placard-waving strangers on a mission to intimidate my neighbor, Greg Baer. Baer is deputy general counsel for corporate law at Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), a senior executive based in Washington, D.C. And that -- in the minds of the organizers at the politically influential Service Employees International Union and a Chicago outfit called National Political Action -- makes his family fair game.
Waving signs denouncing bank "greed," hordes of invaders poured out of 14 school buses, up Baer's steps, and onto his front porch. As bullhorns rattled with stories of debtor calls and foreclosed homes, Baer's teenage son Jack -- alone in the house -- locked himself in the bathroom. "When are they going to leave?" Jack pleaded when I called to check on him.
Baer, on his way home from a Little League game, parked his car around the corner, called the police, and made a quick calculation to leave his younger son behind while he tried to rescue his increasingly distressed teen. He made his way through a din of barked demands and insults from the activists who proudly "outed" him, and slipped through his front door.
"Excuse me," Baer told his accusers, "I need to get into the house. I have a child who is alone in there and frightened."
When is a protest not a protest?Now this event would accurately be called a "protest" if it were taking place at, say, a bank or the U.S. Capitol. But when hundreds of loud and angry strangers are descending on your family, your children, and your home, a more apt description of this assemblage would be "mob." Intimidation was the whole point of this exercise, and it worked-even on the police. A trio of officers who belatedly answered our calls confessed a fear that arrests might "incite" these trespassers.
What's interesting is that SEIU, the nation's second largest union, craves respectability. Just-retired president Andy Stern is an Obama friend and regular White House visitor. He sits on the President's Fiscal Responsibility Commission. He hobnobs with those greedy Wall Street CEOs -- executives much higher-ranking than my neighbor Baer -- at Davos. His union spent $70 million getting Democrats elected in 2008.
In the business community, though, SEIU has a reputation for strong-arm tactics against management, prompting some companies to file suit.
Now those strong-arm tactics, stirred by supposedly free-floating (as opposed to organized) populist rage, have come to the neighborhood curb. Last year it was AIG executives -- with protestors met by security guard outside. Now it's any executive -- and they're on the front stoop. After Baer's house, the 14 buses left to descend on the nearby residence of Peter Scher, a government relations executive at JPMorgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500).
Targeting homes and families seems to put SEIU in the ranks of (now jailed) radical animal-rights activists and the Kansas anti-gay fundamentalists harassing the grieving parents of a dead 20-year-old soldier at his funeral (the Supreme Court has agreed to weigh in on the latter). But that's not a conversation that SEIU officials want to have.
When I asked Stephen Lerner, SEIU's point-person on Wall Street reform, about these tactics, he accused me of getting "emotional." Lerner was more comfortable sticking to his talking points: "Millions of people are losing their homes, and they have gone to the banks, which are turning a deaf ear."
Okay, fine, then why not continue SEIU protests at bank offices and shareholder meetings-as the union has been doing for more than a year? Lerner insists, "People in powerful corporations seem to think they can insulate themselves from the damage they are doing."
Other reasons why SEIU might protest
Bank of America officials dispute Lerner's assertion about the "damage they are doing," citing the success of workout programs to help distressed homeowners, praise received from community groups, the bank's support of financial reform legislation, and the little-noticed fact that Bank of America exited the subprime lending business in 2001.
SEIU has said it wants to organize bank tellers and call centers -- and its critics point out that a great way to worsen employee morale, thereby making workers more susceptible to union calls, is to batter a bank's image through protest. (SEIU officials say their anti-Wall Street campaign has nothing to do with their organizing efforts.) Complicating this picture is the fact that BofA is the union's lender of choice -- and SEIU, suffering financially, owes the bank nearly $4 million in interest and fees. Bank of America declined comment on the loans.
But SEIU's intentions, and BofA's lender record, are ripe subjects to debate in Congress, on air, at shareholder hearings. Not in Greg Baer's front yard.
Why the media wasn't invited
Sunday's onslaught wasn't designed for mainstream media consumption. There were no reporters from organizations like the Washington Post, no local camera crews who might have aired criticism of this private-home invasion. With the media covering the conservative Tea Party protesters, the behavior of individual activists has drawn withering scrutiny.
Instead, a friendly Huffington Post blogger showed up, narrowcasting coverage to the union's leftist base. The rest of the message these protesters brought was personal-aimed at frightening Baer and his family, not influencing a broader public.
Of course, HuffPost readers responding to the coverage assumed that Baer was an evil former Bush official. He's not. A lifelong Democrat, Baer worked for the Clinton Treasury Department, and his wife, Shirley Sagawa, author of the book The American Way to Change and a former adviser to Hillary Clinton, is a prominent national service advocate.
In the 1990s, the Baers' former bosses, Bill and Hillary Clinton, denounced the "politics of personal destruction." Today politicians and their voters of all stripes grieve the ugly bitterness that permeates our policy debates. Now, with populist rage providing a useful cover, it appears we've crossed into a new era: The politics of personal intimidation.
Link to the story on CNN:Money is HERE
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Watch and wise up...
OK People... Watch this, and listen to what he is saying... "This is a WAR AGAINST CAPITOLISM"... The very thing that made it so that he can stand there and say that, and allows him the standard of living that he has...
Also, the LA School District has said that it is OK for him to continue to teach...
Also, the LA School District has said that it is OK for him to continue to teach...
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Republicans Ask For Citizens’ Opinions On Spending Programs
I hope that everyone will make use of this idea, and make them make it work...
May 20, 2010 by Personal Liberty News Desk
In an effort to connect with conservative activists and help curb Federal spending, House Republicans announced last week the creation of a new project designed to allow citizens to vote on what they think should be cut from the Federal budget.
The new initiative, called YouCut, will enable voters to choose from one of five possible cuts each week. The winning suggestion will be brought to the floor the following week and will be voted on by members of the House.
"What we’re saying here is we’re going to listen," House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) told Fox News. "Vote on your priority, and we’ll take it to an up-or-down vote on the floor."
Meanwhile, Democrats are calling the program a simple public relations gimmick that has no realistic chance of trimming the Federal budget.
"It’s not surprising that they are resorting to another gimmick for a round of press rather than a substantive idea for lasting solutions," said Hari Sevugan, the Democratic National Committee’s press secretary. "But if they actually listened to the American people, Republicans would know that knee-jerk opposition, obstruction, delay and gimmicks are not a substitute for leadership."
In response to the program, the Democrats created their own project called GOPSpent, where Americans can vote on the most irresponsible Republican initiatives that favor special interest groups.
May 20, 2010 by Personal Liberty News Desk
In an effort to connect with conservative activists and help curb Federal spending, House Republicans announced last week the creation of a new project designed to allow citizens to vote on what they think should be cut from the Federal budget.
The new initiative, called YouCut, will enable voters to choose from one of five possible cuts each week. The winning suggestion will be brought to the floor the following week and will be voted on by members of the House.
"What we’re saying here is we’re going to listen," House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) told Fox News. "Vote on your priority, and we’ll take it to an up-or-down vote on the floor."
Meanwhile, Democrats are calling the program a simple public relations gimmick that has no realistic chance of trimming the Federal budget.
"It’s not surprising that they are resorting to another gimmick for a round of press rather than a substantive idea for lasting solutions," said Hari Sevugan, the Democratic National Committee’s press secretary. "But if they actually listened to the American people, Republicans would know that knee-jerk opposition, obstruction, delay and gimmicks are not a substitute for leadership."
In response to the program, the Democrats created their own project called GOPSpent, where Americans can vote on the most irresponsible Republican initiatives that favor special interest groups.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Monday, May 10, 2010
Monday, May 3, 2010
Just a few comments about what is going on...
In the press about Arizona...
Ex-NYT Reporter Rues Arizona “Police State,” Reminds of Nazi-Occupied Denmark
“I’m glad I’ve already seen the Grand Canyon. Because I’m not going back to Arizona as long as it remains a police state....Everyone remembers the wartime Danish king who drove through Copenhagen wearing a Star of David in support of his Jewish subjects. It’s an apocryphal story, actually, but an inspiring one. Let the good people of Arizona — and anyone passing through — walk the streets of Tucson and Phoenix wearing buttons that say: ‘I Could Be Illegal.’”
— The New York Times’s Linda Greenhouse, formerly the paper’s Supreme Court reporter, in an April 27 op-ed.
NBC Pretends Snide Liberal Comics Are Real News
Correspondent Andrea Mitchell: “It’s now gone beyond protest to threats of a boycott, as Arizona becomes a laughingstock to some.”
Seth Myers on Saturday Night Live: “Can we all agree that there’s nothing more Nazi than saying, ‘Show me your papers’?...”
The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart: “It’s not unprecedented, having to carry around your papers. It’s the same thing free black people had to do in 1863.”
Mitchell: “Anger over the law has gone viral. On Facebook today, pages like this one: ‘Arizona, the Grand Canyon State, welcomes you — unless you’re a Mexican or look like one.’”
— NBC Nightly News, April 27. [Audio/video (0:55): Windows Media | MP3 audio]
Nothing Gets by These Einsteins
“Law Makes it a Crime to Be Illegal Immigrant.”
— On-screen graphic during a noon-hour segment about Arizona’s new immigration law, MSNBC Live, April 26.
AND HERE IS A LITTLE BIT OF THE TRUTH...
“Critics have focused on the term ‘reasonable suspicion’ to suggest that the law would give police the power to pick anyone out of a crowd for any reason and force them to prove they are in the U.S. legally. Some foresee mass civil rights violations targeting Hispanics. What fewer people have noticed is the phrase ‘lawful contact,’ which defines what must be going on before police even think about checking immigration status. ‘That means the officer is already engaged in some detention of an individual because he’s violated some other law,’ says Kris Kobach, a University of Missouri Kansas City Law School professor who helped draft the measure.”
— The Washington Examiner’s Byron York, April 26
Tea Party = Oklahoma City Bombing?
Smearing Like It’s 1995
“Watch your words: Former President Clinton warns harsh anti-government talk could lead to violent acts, like the Oklahoma City bombing....There is a lot of attention tonight on comments made by former President Bill Clinton, who has weighed in on the angry anti-government rhetoric, ringing out from talk radio to Tea Party rallies. He warns that sometimes firing people up with caustic comments can have unintended and dire consequences.”
— Fill-in anchor Elizabeth Vargas on ABC’s World News, April 16. [Audio/video (0:08): Windows Media | MP3 audio]
“In so many ways, this moment feels like that same moment from McVeigh’s era, from Timothy McVeigh’s era in Oklahoma City. You know, you have this profound sense of change going on in the country — it’s cultural, it’s social, it’s technological, embodied in many ways by President Obama that scares a lot of people about the fact that are, think they’re losing their country. You have a right-wing media that is encouraging a lot of this behavior. And you have a right, a Republican Party that, if not encouraging it, is certainly tolerating it at this moment. And I think it’s a very combustible and very dangerous moment for the country in that regard.”
— New York magazine writer John Heilemann on The Chris Matthews Show, April 18.
“What was the more likely cause of the Oklahoma City bombing: talk radio or Bill Clinton and Janet Reno’s hands-on management of Waco, the Branch Davidian compound?...Obviously the answer is talk radio. Specifically Rush Limbaugh’s hate radio....Frankly, Rush, you have that blood on your hands now and you have had it for 15 years.”
— MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann naming Rush Limbaugh the “Worst Person in the World,” April 19 Countdown.
“The pitched attacks by some Republicans and conservatives during the health care fight have drawn criticism as incendiary, as have the use of terms and imagery like the placing of target cross hairs over the districts of vulnerable Democrats who backed health care.”
— New York Times reporter Carl Hulse in an April 15 story.
“I looked up the definition of sedition, which is ‘conduct or language inciting rebellion against the authority of the state.’ And a lot of these statements, especially the ones coming from people like Glenn Beck, and to a certain extent Sarah Palin, rub right next — right up close to being seditious.”
— Time’s Joe Klein on The Chris Matthews Show, April 18. [Audio/video (0:29): Windows Media | MP3 audio]
And Finally... Money
Time for a Surgeon General Warning Against Profits?
“Should average Americans think about big Wall Street institutions the way that some have come to think about tobacco companies, that is, companies whose core activities are harmful to the country?”
— CNBC’s John Harwood to President Obama in an interview segment aired on NBC’s Today, April 20. [Audio/video (0:19): Windows Media | MP3 audio]
And the most frightening comment recently...
Sam’s Fantasy: Supreme Court Justice Al Gore
ABC’s Sam Donaldson: “Let’s go further. The Constitution does not say you have to be a lawyer to be on the Supreme Court.”
Co-host George Stephanopoulos: “That’s right.”
Donaldson: “I give you Al Gore.”
Stephanopoulos: “Al Gore?”
Donaldson: “All right, he’s 62. But, he’s still a few years kicking. I think he’s confirmable, although there would be a fight to some extent. I think he might make a very good Justice.”
— ABC’s Good Morning America, April 22. [Audio/video (0:35): Windows Media | MP3 audio]
Ex-NYT Reporter Rues Arizona “Police State,” Reminds of Nazi-Occupied Denmark
“I’m glad I’ve already seen the Grand Canyon. Because I’m not going back to Arizona as long as it remains a police state....Everyone remembers the wartime Danish king who drove through Copenhagen wearing a Star of David in support of his Jewish subjects. It’s an apocryphal story, actually, but an inspiring one. Let the good people of Arizona — and anyone passing through — walk the streets of Tucson and Phoenix wearing buttons that say: ‘I Could Be Illegal.’”
— The New York Times’s Linda Greenhouse, formerly the paper’s Supreme Court reporter, in an April 27 op-ed.
NBC Pretends Snide Liberal Comics Are Real News
Correspondent Andrea Mitchell: “It’s now gone beyond protest to threats of a boycott, as Arizona becomes a laughingstock to some.”
Seth Myers on Saturday Night Live: “Can we all agree that there’s nothing more Nazi than saying, ‘Show me your papers’?...”
The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart: “It’s not unprecedented, having to carry around your papers. It’s the same thing free black people had to do in 1863.”
Mitchell: “Anger over the law has gone viral. On Facebook today, pages like this one: ‘Arizona, the Grand Canyon State, welcomes you — unless you’re a Mexican or look like one.’”
— NBC Nightly News, April 27. [Audio/video (0:55): Windows Media | MP3 audio]
Nothing Gets by These Einsteins
“Law Makes it a Crime to Be Illegal Immigrant.”
— On-screen graphic during a noon-hour segment about Arizona’s new immigration law, MSNBC Live, April 26.
AND HERE IS A LITTLE BIT OF THE TRUTH...
“Critics have focused on the term ‘reasonable suspicion’ to suggest that the law would give police the power to pick anyone out of a crowd for any reason and force them to prove they are in the U.S. legally. Some foresee mass civil rights violations targeting Hispanics. What fewer people have noticed is the phrase ‘lawful contact,’ which defines what must be going on before police even think about checking immigration status. ‘That means the officer is already engaged in some detention of an individual because he’s violated some other law,’ says Kris Kobach, a University of Missouri Kansas City Law School professor who helped draft the measure.”
— The Washington Examiner’s Byron York, April 26
Tea Party = Oklahoma City Bombing?
Smearing Like It’s 1995
“Watch your words: Former President Clinton warns harsh anti-government talk could lead to violent acts, like the Oklahoma City bombing....There is a lot of attention tonight on comments made by former President Bill Clinton, who has weighed in on the angry anti-government rhetoric, ringing out from talk radio to Tea Party rallies. He warns that sometimes firing people up with caustic comments can have unintended and dire consequences.”
— Fill-in anchor Elizabeth Vargas on ABC’s World News, April 16. [Audio/video (0:08): Windows Media | MP3 audio]
“In so many ways, this moment feels like that same moment from McVeigh’s era, from Timothy McVeigh’s era in Oklahoma City. You know, you have this profound sense of change going on in the country — it’s cultural, it’s social, it’s technological, embodied in many ways by President Obama that scares a lot of people about the fact that are, think they’re losing their country. You have a right-wing media that is encouraging a lot of this behavior. And you have a right, a Republican Party that, if not encouraging it, is certainly tolerating it at this moment. And I think it’s a very combustible and very dangerous moment for the country in that regard.”
— New York magazine writer John Heilemann on The Chris Matthews Show, April 18.
“What was the more likely cause of the Oklahoma City bombing: talk radio or Bill Clinton and Janet Reno’s hands-on management of Waco, the Branch Davidian compound?...Obviously the answer is talk radio. Specifically Rush Limbaugh’s hate radio....Frankly, Rush, you have that blood on your hands now and you have had it for 15 years.”
— MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann naming Rush Limbaugh the “Worst Person in the World,” April 19 Countdown.
“The pitched attacks by some Republicans and conservatives during the health care fight have drawn criticism as incendiary, as have the use of terms and imagery like the placing of target cross hairs over the districts of vulnerable Democrats who backed health care.”
— New York Times reporter Carl Hulse in an April 15 story.
“I looked up the definition of sedition, which is ‘conduct or language inciting rebellion against the authority of the state.’ And a lot of these statements, especially the ones coming from people like Glenn Beck, and to a certain extent Sarah Palin, rub right next — right up close to being seditious.”
— Time’s Joe Klein on The Chris Matthews Show, April 18. [Audio/video (0:29): Windows Media | MP3 audio]
And Finally... Money
Time for a Surgeon General Warning Against Profits?
“Should average Americans think about big Wall Street institutions the way that some have come to think about tobacco companies, that is, companies whose core activities are harmful to the country?”
— CNBC’s John Harwood to President Obama in an interview segment aired on NBC’s Today, April 20. [Audio/video (0:19): Windows Media | MP3 audio]
And the most frightening comment recently...
Sam’s Fantasy: Supreme Court Justice Al Gore
ABC’s Sam Donaldson: “Let’s go further. The Constitution does not say you have to be a lawyer to be on the Supreme Court.”
Co-host George Stephanopoulos: “That’s right.”
Donaldson: “I give you Al Gore.”
Stephanopoulos: “Al Gore?”
Donaldson: “All right, he’s 62. But, he’s still a few years kicking. I think he’s confirmable, although there would be a fight to some extent. I think he might make a very good Justice.”
— ABC’s Good Morning America, April 22. [Audio/video (0:35): Windows Media | MP3 audio]
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