‘Historian’ Gets Mouthy At Congressional Hearing

-By Warner Todd Huston

I meant to get to this last week, but “historian” Douglas Brinkley is so forgettable as a writer that it all slipped my mind. But, it’s a slow news day, so let’s take a look at the temper tantrum this hack threw when he visited the House Natural Resources Committee on Nov. 22, shall we?

Brinkley was there to provide his, uh, “insight” into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, testimony that Alaska Rep. Don Young called “an exercise in futility” because the hearing wasn’t going to be changing anyone’s mind about the subject. I’d have to agree that anything including hack Brinkley truly is an exercise in futility. He’s one of the worst writers of popular history out there.

The fireworks began when Rep. Young accidentally called Brinkley by the wrong last name. This sent the scribbler off into paroxysms of pique and spurred him to interrupt not only Rep. Young, but also Committee Chair Doc Hastings when he tried to restore order.

Rep. Young later told the Washington Post’s Amy Argetsinger that he thought that Brinkley was just trying to get publicity with his outburst.
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‘Historian’ Gets Mouthy At Congressional Hearing”


Illinois Values Voters Forum: Rep. Joe Walsh, State Rep. Morrison, More

-By Warner Todd Huston

On Saturday morning, Dec. 3, I attended an event put on in Carpentersville, Illinois by Allen Skillcorn. The Illinois Value Voters Forum was billed as a forum on social issues, but it was also a great opportunity to have a nice friendly chat with several Illinois politicians on a variety of issues, not just those “values” issues we generally associate with social conservatism.

Results of Straw Poll Below the Fold


The Panel

Panelists included 8th District Congressman Joe Walsh, 54th District State Representative Tom Morrison, former State Rep Penny Pullen (currently of the Life Advocacy Research Project), and Bruno Behrend who was on hand to represent Adam Andrzejewski’s Open The Books Portal Project, a website where you can learn how much your public officials are making off the taxpayers. Along with the panel above, quite a few local officials and candidates in the hunt for the GOP nomination in their district also came out to meet and greet attendees.


Allen Skillcorn introducing Rep. Joe Walsh

Rep. Joe Walsh and Bruno Behrend

The first question posed by moderator Skillcorn was “when does life begin,” a common enough question for the values crowd. Ever the rebel, Congressman Walsh went on a ten-minute discussion on why we need to change Congress to GOP control and why we need to send “the right kind of Republicans” to Washington. But, after the stump speech, he did answer the question: “at conception,” of course.

The rest of the panel generally agreed with that, but I’d like to dwell a bit on Walsh’s stump speech. He reminded us of the fiscal disaster that this nation faces and he said that we should not forget that “the Republican Party helped us get here and we have to say that forcefully and respectfully.”

But Walsh saw a “revolution” stirring with the Tea Party and the 2010 midterm vote, one that has “only just started.”
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Illinois Values Voters Forum: Rep. Joe Walsh, State Rep. Morrison, More”


Remy: Missing You – The Incandescent Light Bulb Song

-By Warner Todd Huston

Ode to the light bulb. You know. The one in its arrogance and un-Constitutional overreach that the creeps in Washington decided we are no longer “allowed” to have? Yeah that one.

There is no better example of why we need to be tearing down the power of government than this light bulb ban. None. It is totally emblematic of the arrogance of government and proof of how far astray America has gone from her founding principles.
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Remy: Missing You – The Incandescent Light Bulb Song”


CNN Soft Peddles ‘Occupy’ Lawbreaking, Asks if Police Have ‘Sympathy’ With Occupiers

-By Warner Todd Huston

On November 30, CNN’s T. J. Holmes gave us a great example of how the Old Media is soft peddling the law breaking going on at the Occupy events in order to make these events seem far less dangerous and illicit than they are. Like many in the Old Media, Holmes seems desperate to give lawbreaking Occupiers as much cover as possible — a benefit they never offered the Tea Partiers.

In an interview with an L.A. city police commander about the clearing of Occupy Los Angeles, Holmes did his best to minimize the number of arrests of members of the Occupy protest. The actual number of arrests was 200, but Holmes repeatedly characterized that numbers as “dozens.”

Now, I don’t know about you but when I hear “dozens” I think of the number 24. Being generous I might even say three dozen (a healthy 36) could be thought of as “dozens.” On the other hand, when someone tells me “200” the word “dozens” doesn’t at all come to mind. I just don’t think of 18 dozen as “dozens.” I think of them as hundreds!
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CNN Soft Peddles ‘Occupy’ Lawbreaking, Asks if Police Have ‘Sympathy’ With Occupiers”


The Threat of a Global Financial Collapse

-By Alan Caruba

At present, the amount of the annual Gross Domestic Product, $14 trillion—the value of all the goods and services that generate income—is exceeded by the nation’s debts.

America is presently $15 trillion in debt and it grows daily.

In a November 21 Wall Street Journal interview, Erskine Bowles of the presidential advisory commission on the nation’s debt, said “If you take 100% of the revenue that came into the country last year, every single dime of it was consumed by our mandatory spending and interest on the debt.”

“Mandatory spending in English is basically the entitlement programs, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. That means that every single dollar we spent last year on national defense, homeland security, education, infrastructure, high-value added research—every single dollar was borrowed, and half of it was borrowed from foreign country.”
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The Threat of a Global Financial Collapse”


Greedy Union to Destroy Black Restaurant Owner’s Business

-By Warner Todd Huston

An actress, model, and African American business entrepreneur credited with reviving a once-blighted neighborhood and bringing back theater goers to the New York Theater District is about to lose her business to a greedy union that wants to hike the rent for her famous restaurant 350 percent.

Back in 1986, Barbara Smith, sometimes called “the black Martha Stewart,” opened a restaurant in the Theater District called B. Smith’s. Her eatery soon became the toast of theater goers and stars alike. It also became a favorite in the African American community.

B. Smith’s was visited by such famous people as Denzel Washington, August Wilson, Danny Glover, Sidney Poitier, Luther Vandross, Aretha Franklin, Angela Bassett Liza Minnelli and more.

Unfortunately, the building in which Smith opened her famous restaurant is run by the Local One of the stagehands union and quite despite what she has done for New York Theater the union has decided to raise the rent so high on Smith that she will be priced out of her long-time business.
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Greedy Union to Destroy Black Restaurant Owner’s Business”


With the Economy Down, Obama Looks to Help Big Labor Make it Worse

-By Warner Todd Huston

With this week’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing of American Airlines, we again see the results of unions having a hand in destroying American businesses. We also saw GM laid low by union demands costing Americans billions in bailouts. But despite these lessons of the recalcitrance of Big Labor forcing even worse calamities on our jobs climate in this dismal economy, Obama is about to make matters worse by using his powers to regulate to further harm both our business sector and our economy.

Obama likes to stand before the American people and claim that he wants to “help” the business sector. He claims that his crony capitalism is meant to “save” those businesses that are “too big to fail.” But while he stands before the microphones and pretends at being interested in capitalism, he wields his powers to regulate like a club with which to beat down the business sector.

Obama’s latest move — among dozens in the last three years — is to have a regulatory board he controls to issue new rules which would make it harder on business owners to prepare themselves and inform their employees on what it might mean to unionize their workplace.
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With the Economy Down, Obama Looks to Help Big Labor Make it Worse”


NLRB Chairman Releases Election Proposal Ahead Of Wednesday Vote‏

Board Chairman releases details of election proposal for Wednesday vote

National Labor Relations Board Chairman Mark Gaston Pearce today released details of his proposal to amend certain election procedures in order to reduce unnecessary litigation in disputed cases. The amendments are drawn from a comprehensive overhaul of the election process proposed this summer through the federal rulemaking process.

The Chairman’s resolution will be considered and put to a vote at a public meeting of the Board set for Wednesday afternoon at 2:30. The text of the Chairman’s resolution is here, and an explanation of the amendments can be found here. The meeting will be streamed live from the Board’s website at www.nlrb.gov.

If the resolution is approved by a majority of the Board, a final rule will be drafted and circulated among the members for a subsequent vote. No final rule can issue without such approval.

Chairman Pearce issued the following statement in connection with the resolution:
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NLRB Chairman Releases Election Proposal Ahead Of Wednesday Vote‏”


The Chevy Volt: Detroit’s Hottest Car (Cuz They Catch on Fire and Stuff)

-By Warner Todd Huston

Government Motors has finally found its hottest car and the Chevy Volt is it. Unfortunately for Chevy, it isn’t because it is popular. It’s because the car seems to catch on fire a lot. Industry watchers are preparing for the Volt to undergo a recall to fix whatever problem the car’s lithium-ion battery pack has that seems to be causing the vehicles to spontaneously burst into flames.

Of course, this little catching on fire problem seems emblematic with everything about Government Motors. After President Barack “Lee IaJokka” Obama pumped $53 billion of our tax dollars into bailing out GM all we’ve gotten out of the deal so far is a stock tumble from $53 a share to under $25 (a $15 billion loss) and a badly selling “green” car that catches on fire every time you turn around. Such a deal.

As to the burning issue of the day, the Associated Press notes that an “investigation” has begun by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to determine why the cars are catching fire.
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The Chevy Volt: Detroit’s Hottest Car (Cuz They Catch on Fire and Stuff)”


OWS: Powerless Childishness Nearing Its End

-By Warner Todd Huston

Just before Thanksgiving several of the nation’s big city mayors began the process of ousting the Occupy-Whatevers from their squatting perches on public and private property. This week the evictions continue. So, with the so-called movement winding down (at least for this season), what was the result? Nothing but sound a fury signifying nothing.

The Old Media has been puffing up the empty OWSers as having brought serious attention to pay inequality, corporate greed, banking failures, and the evils of capitalism. But last week’s Black Friday shopping day seems to prove that no one was paying attention to the OWSers at all.

In fact, in many cities the OWSers tried to protest the monumental shopping day by sit-ins, protests, and attempting to cajole shoppers to go home and observe an organized “no shopping day.” But with sales at a new high, it is plain no one cared much for what the left-wing, communist-inspired OWSers were selling.

In a recent piece in the Fiscal Times, for instance, Ed Morrissey notes that OWS is “overhyped and impotent” due to the enthusiasm with which Americans hit the malls and stores on Friday…

Read the rest at RightPundits.com.


How Radical is Obama? This Radical…

-By Warner Todd Huston

Barack Obama is very successful at one thing: the bait and switch. He stands before America presenting a picture of a hard-working moderate and claims that he wants to work with the Republicans to get things done. In reality he won’t even meet with them. He talks about compromise, but never offers any. He mouths kind words abut the business sector but uses his powers to make new regulations to destroy its profitability. In short, he’s a radical even though he doesn’t play one on TV. His modus operandi is to assume most voters are too stupid, lazy, or disinterested to compare his hope-n-change rhetoric with his actions.

Obama’s penchant for bypassing Congress and making radical changes to regulations in order to push his far left agenda is a case in point. Obama’s push to radicalize the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and turn it from a non-partisan watchdog agency into a tool for Big Labor is a perfect example of how the President uses regulations to achieve what he and the far left cannot do with legislation. It is also an example of how he is trying to radically change America under the radar of most voter’s notice.
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How Radical is Obama? This Radical…”


OWS Misfits, Drug Addicts, Rapists, and Unicorn Riders Go Home for the Holidays

-By Warner Todd Huston

The anti-western, anti-capitalist group whose advertisement started the Occupy Wall Street movement has told its adherents to go home. The first phase of Occupy is over they said. Time to regroup, network, and try to finally come up with some sort of message besides an amorphous we-hate-whatever chant. Time to finally figure out an agenda to go on to the next step.

Only there isn’t one. OWS is now SOL.

It isn’t surprising. After all there was really never any there there. Sure there was some legitimate ire at its heart, but, quite unlike the Tea Party movement, there was never a scintilla of coherence to the Occupy… I hesitate to even call it a movement. To be a movement there has to be something moving.

The Occupy-Whatevers had trouble appealing to the average American from its inception. After all, nearly every major group sponsoring it — and those claiming partisanship with it — are the antitheses of Americana.
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OWS Misfits, Drug Addicts, Rapists, and Unicorn Riders Go Home for the Holidays”


Sour Mash, Bitter Man: or, Hit the road, Jack Daniel’s

-By Daniel Clark

If you read the label on a bottle of Jack Daniel’s (not that one happens to be handy), you’ll see that it’s made in “Lynchburg (Pop. 361).” Perhaps this should be updated to say, “at least one of whom is a raving Communist lunatic.” That person is Charles Rogers, a “concerned citizen” who has proposed a measure, passed by the Moore County Council (no relation to Michael), requesting permission from the Tennessee assembly for a referendum to impose a new “barrel tax” on the famous whiskey manufacturer.

Supposedly, Rogers wants the tax in order to pay for infrastructure projects, but he let the real reason slip when, according to an October 21st Fox News story, he explained, “We are entitled to more money from the only industry in the county. They created the image of this little old hamlet down here being the place where this fantastic whiskey is being made, and the people didn’t realize what was going on.” O, the exploitation!

Jack Daniel’s general manager Tommy Beam responded that the company is already heavily taxed, and that, being the county’s largest employer, it has expanded the tax base dramatically. The population of Lynchburg is now actually close to 6,000 (The 361 figure on the bottle is from the time that the label was trademarked, about 50 years ago). In addition, the distillery brings in an estimated 200,000 tourists every year. This demonstrates a point that ought to go without saying, which is that a successful industry is beneficial to the community in which it resides. Yet Rogers treats Jack Daniel’s as if it were a deadbeat, failing to pay its “fair share” to the local government.
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Sour Mash, Bitter Man: or, Hit the road, Jack Daniel’s”


California: Death Valley Days All Over

-By Warner Todd Huston

Death Valley is one of America’s most inhospitable places. These days it appears that there’s no accident that Death Valley is situated in California as the whole state is beginning to resemble a desert. More people are now leaving the state than are moving to it, taxes are driving businesses to other states, the state legislature is horribly corrupt and wasteful, and the future looks dark for the state once regaled as the land of milk and honey.

A recent piece in the LA Times found it worrisome that the state is not only losing middle and lower class white workers to other states, but even immigrants, the former population demographic that was growing, are no longer considering California as a final destination.

The Times notes that the 2010 census found that more Californians left the state than people from other states moved to the state, the latter number being a 100 year low. “The most recent census,” the Times wrote, “was the first in a century in which the majority of Californians were native-born.” This reflects that California is not gaining new citizens…

Read the rest at RightPundits.com.


Kinder, Gentler OWSer Vows to Assassinate Governor

-By Warner Todd Huston

A whack nut Occupy Wall Street sympathizer in South Carolina was a bit miffed when Governor Nikki Haley “allowed” the police to begin arresting the dregs at Occupy Columbia. In fact, he was so mad that he took to his Facebook account and threatened to murder the Governor.

So much for the Occupy-Whatevers being wedded to “non-violence,” eh?

KLTV Channel 7 News in Jacksonville, Texas has the story

When 26-year-old Nathan Shafer heard about the arrests of 19 Occupy Columbia members outside the State House last Wednesday, he did what lots of people do when they get angry — he vented about it on the Internet. He saw Gov. Haley’s Facebook post about the arrests and Haley’s comment that she “appreciate[s] freedom of speech,” and that’s when authorities say Shafer crossed the line.

“I hope someone murders you before I do,” Shafer said he commented on the post. “How’s that for freedom of speech?”

Shafer claims that he was “just joking” and that he was only exercising his right to “free speech.” I guess threatening to kill people is just a joke to Occupy-Whatevers.

As the newser notes a man earlier this year made similar threats toward President Obama but was not convicted of any wrongdoing.

Just add this creep’s threats to the mounting toll of violence and hatred seen from the Occupy-Whatevers. All I can say is that it is such a shame that Democrats and the Old Media are pretending that the OWSers are “non-violent” and are somehow “the left’s Tea Party movement.” Neither are true as the Tea Party never indulged any of the hatred and violence seen by these disgusting OWSers.

The fact is the two groups are not in the least way similar save that both were protesting things. The Tea Partiers are law-abiding, serious, practical, and useful. The OWSers are dangerous, criminal, pointless, and narcissistic.

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Kinder, Gentler OWSer Vows to Assassinate Governor”


System Failure on a Global Scale

-By Alan Caruba

We are living in times when the structures involving the global financial system, national security, and self-governance are under attack, decaying, or just self-destructing due to all the ills to which humanity is prone.

Wars in the twentieth century were always an example of either the failure of nations to resolve their differences or of the ancient human inclination to steal whatever they can from their neighbor. Wars organize this into armies for that purpose. The other cause for war is the necessity to rid the neighborhood of the crazy guy who’s hoarding weapons and building bombs.

What is occurring of late, however, goes beyond the usual casus belli to something far greater, a loss of faith in national and international banking systems, aggravated by the failure of nations to act in a prudent fashion to protect the wealth of their citizens and their national sovereignty.
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System Failure on a Global Scale”


Black Friday Special on Fox Business Network: Follow the Money: The Investor’s Holiday Portfolio

-By Warner Todd Huston

On November 25, Fox Business Network’s Eric Bolling will be hosting a Black Friday special to kick off the holiday season this year titled, Follow the Money: The Investor’s Holiday Portfolio. The program will air at 10PM eastern.

The Chicago-born Bolling will enlist a panel of experts to examine which stocks will make great gifts this season, where the hidden deals can be found, and whether the European debt crisis will dampen investor spirits.

Guests will include: Dialectic Capital Management Head of Trading and “The Risk Doctor” Tim Strazzini; Exemplar Capital managing partner and “The Chartman” Gary B. Smith; Yahoo! Finance blogger and “The Lone Wolf” Jeff Macke, and others.
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Black Friday Special on Fox Business Network: Follow the Money: The Investor’s Holiday Portfolio”


Thanksgiving Story: Why There Are No Communist Pilgrims

-By Warner Todd Huston

With as Euroized as Democrats and their supporters in our miseducation establishment have become these days, one shouldn’t be surprised to learn that one of the important lessons of Plymouth Colony — popularly known as the Pilgrims — is practically unknown in our schools today. We are all familiar with the bountiful Thanksgiving meal shared between the Pilgrims and the Indians, but less well known is how the Pilgrims turned away from their experiment in the communist-styled social policy upon which they built their fledgling, New World colony.

That’s right, the Pilgrims repudiated communism in 1623. No wonder the principles of communism never got a foothold here until recently when the Democrat Party began to shift away from American principles and toward the more socialistic ideas of Europe’s social democrats.

You see, when the emigres from England via Holland got to the New World and they established their new colony, Governor William Bradford and his fellow leaders decided to follow what they thought was the ideal Christian society. It was a version of the later communist ideal of “from each according to his ability to each according to his need.
It certainly seemed like a good idea, right? The whole of the colony would work for the benefit of the whole of the denizens therein. What could be more selfless? What could be more equitable and, well, Christian?
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Thanksgiving Story: Why There Are No Communist Pilgrims”


Big Labor Pays Big Bucks For Occupy D.C.

-By Warner Todd Huston

A nurses union spent big cash to “Occupy Washington DC.”

On November 3rd, 2011, the National Nurses United Union, allied with the AFL-CIO, payed for the expenses of more than 1000+ members to march with Occupy DC and ask the President to raise taxes. Both public and private hospitals must have gone short staffed as the nurses hailed from all over the country and were very clear who brought them there.

My favorite part was the militant, anti-American nurse that said her union refuses to deal fairly with employers and prefers to use their big money to get the federal government to “force” employers to do what unions want them to do.

We don’t believe in trying to work with management in a hospital to make change cuz they won’t do it, they won’t do what’s right. So, we lobby for legislative change to force them to do it.

What could be a more un-American attitude than this? Our founders didn’t intend government to an interventionist force that would lord over the business sector and “force it” to do things that unions what employers to do.

Unions are authoritarian, anti-democratic, big government monsters that really do need to be cut down to size.
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Big Labor Pays Big Bucks For Occupy D.C.”


California Ballot Boondoggle Sends Tax Dollars Out of State

-By Warner Todd Huston

Despite all the talk of fixing it, California’s budget is still a mess. One of those “fixes” was implemented last summer when the state Legislature increased revenue projections by $4 billion to avoid balancing the budget. Of course, the problem with using such “phantom money” is that it often has a habit of disappearing when you need it most. And it has disappeared just when money for schools is needed. Now deep cuts are on the table. The people lose again.

Naturally the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office recently reported that the state will receive virtually none of the $4 billion in projected revenue, forcing the state to make some tough decisions in the coming weeks. On the table are major cuts to the education budget, including shortening the school year by a week, not to mention cuts to in-home healthcare programs, and programs for people with developmental disabilities.

Obviously Californian’s budget needs all the help it can get but it looks like it’s business as usual in Sacramento. For instance, an upcoming ballot measure sponsored by a career politician would baffle anyone that truly understands the mess California is in. The so-called California Cancer Research Act coming before voters in June, asks California voters to raise taxes by nearly $1 billion for a whole new perpetual bureaucracy. That is unacceptable to voters. Maddeningly this new program doesn’t even guarantee that the money will be spent in the state! Apparently former state Sen. Pro Tem Don Perata, the career politician pushing the measure, thinks Californians who already paying some of the highest taxes in the nation should reach deeper into their pockets just to potentially send that money across state lines to benefit others. And all the while the budget for the education for those same taxpayer’s kids is about to be slashed.

So, what is the “solution” proposed by Democrats in Sacramento? Raise taxes, of course.
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California Ballot Boondoggle Sends Tax Dollars Out of State”


GM Bailout: Bait And Switch And Drive That Lemon Away

-By Warner Todd Huston

General Motors was too big to fail. This is why President Obama had to ride in on his white steed with billions of taxpayers dollars in hand to bailout GM rechristening it Government Motors. Besides, we were told it would be a great deal, a money maker, right? Well, not so much. The Administration has reported a dramatic increase in the money We The People have lost on the GM bailout.

This week the Treasury Dept. has announced that the estimates of our loss has gone from $14.33 billion tax dollars to $26.6 billion.

To put it in terms easier to understand, for the American people to just break even on the bailout deal the more than 500 million shares owned by the U.S. Treasury must sell at $53 a share. Unfortunately for all of us, GM stock has tumbled to just $22.99 (as of closing on Nov.14). We are waaay off from the break even point, folks!
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GM Bailout: Bait And Switch And Drive That Lemon Away”


Actor Ruffalo Wants Obama to Turn Army Corps of Engineers Political

-By Warner Todd Huston

Mark Ruffalo — you know, the millionaire actor that claims to be part of the 99% — may not be a scientist. But he plays one on mass emailings from left-wing advocacy groups. And with that activism Ruffalo is urging President Obama to turn the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from a science-based service to the American people into just another politicized arm of progressivism.

Ruffalo is lending his name to WaterDefense.org, an anti-fracking group claiming that the practice of drilling for natural gas contaminates drinking water wherever it is employed.

The science of the water contamination claim is not exactly proven but that won’t stop this group and actor Ruffalo from claiming it as fact. Clearly more scientific studies are needed to determine what is true and what isn’t here.
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Actor Ruffalo Wants Obama to Turn Army Corps of Engineers Political”


If Not Romney, Who?

-By Alan Caruba

Generally overlooked in the midst of the many debates and the usual competition between Republican candidates for the Party’s nomination is the fact that a rather impressive number have thrown their hats in the ring. It is testimony to the health, depth, and diversity of the Party. Compare that with the Democratic Party’s lone candidate, a President already ceded the title of worst ever.

As campaigns proceed toward the on-rushing primaries, Republicans are increasingly focused beyond the usual circus atmosphere, including the latest problems encountered by Herman Cain and Rick Perry’s gaffs. Selecting the GOP candidate has now reached the critical stage.

That is why a lengthy editorial in a recent Wall Street Journal is noteworthy. “Romney’s Fiscal Awakening” was a thorough analysis of a November 4th Romney speech on the subject of reversing the nation’s economic problems. The Journal said “his remarks deserve more attention than they’ve received as a guide to how he might govern.”

Romney has run a smart campaign to this point, not attacking the other candidates and waiting for them to exhaust themselves while he maintained a fairly constant 25% of support to this point. Unlike the boxer who spends all his energy in the first or third round, Romney has tended to the grassroots kind of effort necessary to succeed in the early primaries.
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If Not Romney, Who?”


Illinois CAT Dealer: Illinois’ Worst Business Climate Getting Worse

-By Warner Todd Huston

On Wednesday I attended a “government day” event at Patten Industries, a 78-year-old Illinois Caterpillar dealer situated in Elmhurst, a northwest suburb of Chicago. The event, led by current General Manager Garrett Patten, featured a discussion on the severely unfavorable business climate in Illinois and why the state is lagging so horribly behind the leading economic indicators of every surrounding state.

Patten Industries has been guided by four generations of Pattens, the company having been founded by B. C. Patten, Sr. in 1933. But Illinois has not been good to the company or its employees over the last decade or so. Unfortunately, the company has gone from employing some 700 employees in 2006 to only about 400 today due to the harsh economic climate in the Land of Lincoln.

This contraction is most certainly not something the Patten family wanted to see happen to their long-standing Illinois-based company. Patten Industries has faced a whole host of negative forces causing them to scale downward. And Patten is just one of many Illinois businesses facing the same problems — problems faced in much less severity by businesses in other nearby states.

Even as many corporations are just starting to see an upturn in their fortunes, Illinois government has set up so many hurdles to growth that other states are either taking our customers or even welcoming Illinois businesses themselves as new residents.

Garrett Patten says that at least three major problems face Illinois businesses. Workman’s comp, labor unions, and corporate taxes.
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Illinois CAT Dealer: Illinois’ Worst Business Climate Getting Worse”


The Triangulation of the ‘Occupy’ Movement

-By Frank Salvato

Throughout the painful and paradoxical existence of Occupy Wall Street (OWS) we have been told by those in the mainstream media, as well as by sympathetic politicos, that at its root, at its genesis, the OWS Movement was both organic and legitimate. We were told that the movement was exclusively about a rebellion against high unemployment and crony Capitalism, even as those championing the cause disingenuously blurred the line between crony Capitalism and Capitalism. But, an honest examination of the underlying goal(s) of this movement – and who is serving to advance its agenda – exposes a nefarious, deceitful and dangerous reality.

The notion of “triangulation” is not new to American politics. Savvy politicians have triangulated messages and circumstances to their benefit ever since the creation of our country. One needs look no further than the debates that took place over the creation of the US Constitution to understand that even though our Framers and Founders were dedicated to their principles and positions, they were willing to employ rhetorical leverage to achieve their goals. Alexander Hamilton was a master at message triangulation.

Perhaps the most contemporary politician to masterfully employ the art of message triangulation was former Pres. Bill Clinton. In pursuit of re-election in 1996, Clinton senior advisor Dick Morris advocated for a set of statements, a set of policies, that differed from those of his fellow elected Democrats. These policies, which pandered to the ideological Middle and Right, included deregulation and balanced budgets, culminating in the false declaration, included in Mr. Clinton’s 1996 State of the Union Address, that the “era of big government is over.”

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The Triangulation of the ‘Occupy’ Movement”


Grammy Nominee’s Occupy Wall Street Theme Song Features Bloodlust, Violent Imagery

-By Warner Todd Huston

While denizens of Hollywood are running around praising the Occupy-Whatevers as an articulate, non-violent example of “democracy in action” and adopting the Occupy rhetoric, a new anthem of sorts has been unveiled to inspire these “non-violent” folks to greater activism.
But, for a “non-violent” movement, their new theme song (running nearly nine minutes long) is full of bloodlust and childish name-calling belying that claim to thoughtful democracy.

The song, “We Stand as One,” created by Grammy nominee Joseph Arthur, seems to fall short of the mythical claim that the Occupy movement is a non-violent, thoughtful “movement.” Filled with deep lyrics such as calling Occupy enemies “pigs,” warnings that their homes will burn and that the blood of Occupy enemies will be the Occupiers’ “paint,” this song sounds more like a call to violence than an appeal to the better angels of our nature.

Arthur has worked with such rock notables as Michael Stipe of REM and Peter Gabriel, and his 1999 EP “Vacancy” was nominated for a Grammy.
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Grammy Nominee’s Occupy Wall Street Theme Song Features Bloodlust, Violent Imagery”


Super Committee: Smoke And Mirrors Personified

-By Warner Todd Huston

Just as feared by conservatives, this “supercommittee” nonsense is turning into the absurd entity that was expected. The congressional group set up to decide the sticky issues of the budget has just announced a “savings” of $700 billion that is nothing but the smoke and mirrors of an accounting trick. There is NO savings.

The committee is suggesting that the $700 billion that was earmarked for the various wars in which we are engaged is a “savings” because we are not going to be spending it due to the ramping down of those military actions…

Read the rest at RightPundits.com.


Tweet and Facebook Activism! Stop Congress From Destroying the Internet

The End of the Internet as We Know It

Tomorrow, the House Judiciary Committee will hold their first hearing on E-PARASITE, a bill written by Hollywood lobbyists that could end the Internet as we know it. They’ve had their say, now it’s our turn.

Act now to protect Internet freedom by contacting the members of the House Judiciary Committee over the phone, and on Twitter and Facebook. Then, spread the word about Social Media #LobbyDay as we use the Internet to save the Internet.

What is PROTECT IP and E-PARASITE?

The PROTECT IP Act (S. 968) and the E-PARASITE Act (part of the “Stop Online Piracy Act”, H.R. 3261) would devastate job-creating American technology companies and social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube in the name of protecting Hollywood copyrights. These bills would create a “Great Firewall of America” by embracing the same Internet censorship tactics as the world’s worst human rights abusers, including regimes like communist China, Iran, Syria, and Burma. A number of technology experts have concluded that these bills would mean “the end of the Internet as we know it.”

What does it do?…
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Tweet and Facebook Activism! Stop Congress From Destroying the Internet”


Denver Protest Shows Incoherence of ‘Occupy’

-By Warner Todd Huston

Over this past weekend several hundred conservative bloggers, writers, political operatives, and Tea Patiers got together in Denver, Colorado to attend a conference aimed toward helping these activists be more effective n their efforts. But conservative activism wasn’t the only theme on the schedule when the event was crashed by denizens of Occupy Denver who came to protest. What they came to protest was a tad unclear, but isn’t that just of a piece with the whole Occupy “movement”?

The event, Blogcon 2011, was organized by Freedom Works and featured seminars on Website SEO, use of Youtube and Facebook, information on which candidates Freedom Works is supporting in the upcoming GOP primaries, panels of bloggers telling their story, and the like.

What it wasn’t was attended by Washington’s policy makers or catering to the rich and famous! The folks at these events are most assuredly not members of the so-called one percent. They are work-a-day folks that just happen to be interested in conservative ideas. Essentially the participants at Blogcon 2011 were similar to the Occunuts that invaded their event in that they are all citizen activists.

But that didn’t stop the Occupiers from attacking Blogcon 2011 hopeful of disrupting the event. Two separate times Occupiers came to Blogcon to yell their empty slogans, chant their prosaic chants, ply their “mic check” silliness, call names, threaten violence, and in general act like children.
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Denver Protest Shows Incoherence of ‘Occupy’”


Rancho Cordova Blast Fine Too Low to Assure Future Public Safety

-By Warner Todd Huston

In 2008 a pipeline operated by Pacific Gas & Electric exploded destroying several homes and killing 72-year-old Wilbert Paana. Since that time authorities have been attempting to determine what sort of fines PG&E should face for its negligence. Recently administrative law judge John Wong proposed that a fine of $38 million — and an end to the whole matter — would be enough. But is this enough to assure the protection and safety of California’s ratepayers?

To his credit, Judge Wong rejected an even lower proposal of a $26 million fine noting that if found guilty the utility would face at least a $97 million if found guilty of all the charges and safety violations leveled against it. Yet, he’s willing to let PG&E get away with less than half of what it could face were it to go the distance in the courts.

Whatever is fair or not, though, one thing must be noted. PG&E’s board recently rewarded CEO Peter Darbee with a $35 million severance package even though he presided over multiple violations of safety including that Rancho Cordova incident that took the life of Mr. Panna, not to mention eight more deaths in the San Bruno incident. He also headed up the utility as it wasted $46 million on the ballot initiative Prop 16 which was an attempt to enshrine in law PG&E’s California monopoly.
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Rancho Cordova Blast Fine Too Low to Assure Future Public Safety”