Ill. Policy Institute CEO Tillman Is Just Plain Wrong About ‘Occupy’

-By Warner Todd Huston

John Tillman, CEO of the Illinois Policy Institute, penned an op ed in the Chicago Tribune touting what he claims is the common ground between conservatives and the Occupy Wall Street leftists who have trickled into the streets across the country. I hate to say it, but his op ed was puzzling and its base concept — that conservatives and these Occupy nuts should work together — is incredibly off base.

Before I get into Tillman’s points, though, let me say that I generally support the good works of the Illinois Policy Institute. I’ve covered many of its events in the past, I’ve worked closely with some of its members, and I’ve met Mr. Tillman many times at many events. I repost the Institute’s email blasts on my sites, as well.

I will continue with my support of the Illinois Policy Institute (don’t call them IPI because some other organization has that trademarked and they get mad) despite this disagreement with Mr. Tillman. They often do very good work.

OK, now that that’s out of the way… Tillman, my friend, you are soooo wrong!
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Ill. Policy Institute CEO Tillman Is Just Plain Wrong About ‘Occupy’”


Wisc.: Walker’s Union Reforms Are Working! (A Lesson for Illinois)

-By Warner Todd Huston

Governor Scott Walker was the worst devil the unions could imagine. They targeted him and Wisconsin’s Republicans mercilessly earlier this year. Fortunately, the unions and their Democrat handmaidens lost most of these battles.

But now some results are being seem from the efforts to curtail the un-democratic, unearned power of Wisconsin’s government employee unions. A new effort by the MacIver Institute and Americans for Prosperity is showing the world where these policies have succeeded in making things better in Wisconsin.

This is a lesson for Illinois and every other blue state. We can fix our problems, too. But it means defeating entrenched, un-American union power and their bought and paid for Democrats.
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Wisc.: Walker’s Union Reforms Are Working! (A Lesson for Illinois)”


Occupy Chicago Wants to ‘Collapse American Government’

-By Warner Todd Huston

Retired Palatine teacher, Roger Fraser, who makes nearly $8,000 a month in pension benefits off the backs of the Illinois Taxpayer, says that he wants to “collapse American government.”

These people want to “collapse” this country. They want to destroy it and remake it as an alien, communist abomination.

This is why there should be no sympathy for these Occupy-Whatever idiots. They are not Americans. They hate America. Unlike the Tea Party movement, these Occupy people are anti-American to the core.

Remember, these are the sort of people that Democrats like President Obama and Representative Jan Schakowsky are falling all over themselves to support.
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Occupy Chicago Wants to ‘Collapse American Government’”


Muammar, Dead at Last

-By Alan Caruba

There were at last count at least 643 ways to spell Muammar Gaddafi and I for one am very happy he is dead for that reason alone. The fact that he was the dictator of Libya for over forty years, funded the Lockerbie bombing of a Pan Am airliner and other terrorist acts also contributes to the good news.

These are proving to be bad times for dictators and it is easy to suggest that Basher Assad, a second generation dictator of Syria, will likely come to an equally bad end. So far this year the former dictator of Tunisia had to flee. Egypt’s Mubarack had to step aside, and both Syria’s and Yemen’s presidents are under siege. Nobody knows who’s in charge of Somalia.

As I watched President Obama take a victory lap when he announced Gaddafi’s death, my thoughts turned to what Ted Belman, a widely-read blogger called the Israpundit, had to say. “Gaddafi wasn’t any worse than the barbarians that killed him and will replace him. There are no freedom-loving democrats in the entire Muslim world which consists of seventh century-minded brutes.”

The Israelis have had the misfortune of having had to fight off Muslims not only for the past sixty-plus years of statehood, but in the decades leading up to it. Unlike those of us in the West, they understand them in terms of the insane, fanatical hatred they have for Jews, Christians, and all other “infidels”, unbelievers.
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Muammar, Dead at Last”


Did Juan Williams Link Christians to The Oklahoma City Bombing?

-By Warner Todd Huston

In his recent assessment of his year since he was unceremoniously — and illicitly in many folks’ estimation — fired by NPR, Juan Williams indulged one of those fallacious left-wing assumptions that just screams left-wing spin. It is the sort of straw man argument that casts aspersions on others, this time against Christians, while pretending to be the logical, adult in the room, not to mention while pretending not to be casting aspersions. It really is a logical sleight of hand that all liberals use.

First let me say that I am 100% on Williams’ side in that his firing by NPR was a real breach of journalistic ethics: theirs. The comments he made a year ago that got him fired did not in any way harm his veracity as a journalist, nor were they racist or even incorrect. Heck, they weren’t even injudicious except when taking the brain dead PCism that infests the left into consideration.

But that was the discussion of a year ago and really is not something wroth rehashing here because Williams did say something outrageous in his review of that year-old issue that deserves to be highlighted. In essence, Williams made an illogical argument about how we should think of radical Islam and he did so by assuming that domestic terrorist Timothy McVeigh of the Oklahoma City Bombing could be considered as representative of Christianity as the Saudi 19 were of radical Islam.

Here is what Williams said (my bold for emphasis):
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Did Juan Williams Link Christians to The Oklahoma City Bombing?”


Obama: Transparency? Who Needs it?

-By Warner Todd Huston

In another breach of trust between President Obama and the American people, Obama has once again broken a promise to change the business-as-usual habits of Washington. As a candidate and early in his presidency Obama claimed he’d bring an unprecedented transparency to Washington. But now it looks as though he’s OKayed his agencies to lie about the records they hold.

Obama’s Justice Dept. floated a proposal that if records sought by Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Requests are exempt from the eyes of the American people, why, they should be able lie and pretend such records don’t even exist.

This has transparency watchdogs a bit miffed, to say the least. Both the ACLU and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) issued a press release decrying the situation. Obama’s move threatens to “destroy integrity in government,” they say.
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Obama: Transparency? Who Needs it?”


Is Rep. Walsh Supporter’s Facebook Page ‘Cyber Bullying’ of Rep. Hultgren?

-By Warner Todd Huston

One of the Daily Herald’s bloggers is wondering if the attack page against Congressman Randy Hultgren put on Facebook by a Rep. Walsh supporter qualifies as “cyberbullying.” It is an absurd charge, but the page in question is an interesting page of which to take note.

For those unaware, because of Democrat’s having redisticted Illinois and because the state lost a congressman because we lost residents in the last census, Rep. Joe Walsh (currently elected to the 8th District) announced that he will run against Rep. Randy Hultgren (currently of the 14th District). Instead or running again in the newly reconfigured 8th District, Walsh is challenging Hultgren in the 14th District.

Walsh feels he has to do this because his District was turned from a moderately GOp District to a leans Democrat District and because a lot of his constituents were switched over to the 14th district. This out come, where it is Republican against Republican, is precisely what the Democrats wanted. And boy are they getting it.
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Is Rep. Walsh Supporter’s Facebook Page ‘Cyber Bullying’ of Rep. Hultgren?”


Democratic Party: Filled With More Nuts and Flakes Than A Cereal Box

-By Frederick Meekins

On the 6/26/11 edition of Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace inquired if Representative Michelle Bachman was a flake. As justification for this line of interrogation, Wallace pointed out an instance where Bachman insinuated that certain members of Congress were anti-American.

So apparently in the eyes of those considering Bachman a flake, it is now allegedly a sign of instability to expose those facts that a number of elites would rather gloss over in the hopes that the American people won’t find out about such personalities and instances.

For example, Cynthia McKinney cannot be described in any other way than anti-American. Not only did this Georgia representative appear on Libyan state television. She also praised the Qaddaffi regime.

People of good conscience can disagree as to the propriety and prudence of U.S. and NATO intervention in this north African uprising. However, what cannot be denied is that old Muammar is one of the great scumbags of the 20th and 21st centuries.
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Democratic Party: Filled With More Nuts and Flakes Than A Cereal Box”


Hate Handguns? Welcome to the Minority!

-By Warner Todd Huston

According to a new Gallup poll, the support for anti-Constitutional gun banning is at its lowest point since polls on America’s opinion of gun control were first recorded in the mid 1970s. In 1975 60% of Americans believed in strict gun control but today that has flipped completely as now 70% oppose banning handguns.

In fact, support for strict gun control measures all have fallen in support even among women and Democrats the two traditionally heavy supporters of same.

Also, for the first time since polling began, Gallup finds more people oppose the ban on so-called assault weapons than support it…

Read the rest at RightPundits.com.


The Rise of the Obamavilles

Remember back in the 30s when disgruntled WWI veterans and homeless Americans created shanty towns called “Hoovervilles“? They felt failed by an uncaring president in Herbert Hoover.

Well, with the Occupy-Whatevers have they created “Obamavilles”?

I’d say they have.


Another Stupid Liberal Assumption Dies: Top 1% NOT Made Solely of Bankers

-By Warner Todd Huston

One of the favorite memes of these Occupy-Whatever events is that the “top 1%” is made up of those evil, rich bankers and Wall Street tycoons. This, they feel is why they need to “occupy Wall Street” in the first place, right? Wrong again.

Like most left-wing memes, this one is also horribly wrong. It turns out that it should have been Occupy a hospital instead of occupy Wall Street because it turns out that bankers and denizens of Wall Street barely represent a blip on the radar of the “1%.”

A report on CNN Money notes that the finance sector only makes up 14% of the folks that sit in that top 1% of the nation’s wealthy.

It turns out that medical professionals clock in at 15.7%, while lawyers represent 8.4%.
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Another Stupid Liberal Assumption Dies: Top 1% NOT Made Solely of Bankers”


Former Soviet Citizen Schools Idiots at Occupy Wall Street

-By Warner Todd Huston

Morons at Occupy Wall Street have no clue what socialism is. But they advocate it.

Here we have a video of a man that was actually born in the USSR and suffered under that oppressive, socialist system confronting the clueless idiots of Occupy-Whatever.

This is the fantasy land that these Occupy idiots live in. It’s a land where even when confronted with someone that actually lived under the system these Occupy fools want to implement, when confronted with a guy that suffered the violence, and oppression that is socialism, well, they can only resort to name calling and unsubstantiated, illogical claims.
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Former Soviet Citizen Schools Idiots at Occupy Wall Street”


Why Democracy Is Dangerous for the ‘Arab Spring’

-By Frank Salvato

There is a concerted movement that began in earnest with the Progressive Era to identify the United States of America as a Democracy. To be sure, this movement has made great strides in convincing the American citizenry of just that. This movement has been so successful in delivering this message that Democrats, Republicans, Liberals and Conservatives have, throughout history – and even up to and including today, have identified our American form of government as that of being a Democracy. There is even an initiative promoted by our federal government to export “Democracy” throughout the world. Today we see this initiative playing out in the Middle East and North Africa. There is only one thing wrong with all of the above and the problem exists at the root: The United States of America is not a Democracy; it never has been and, God willing, it never will be.

Democracy has always, throughout history, served as a gateway to despotism. This is primarily because Democracy is tantamount to “mob rule,” or government by the majority. In a government ruled by the will of the majority – a Democracy, the rights of the minority are not guaranteed and are often neglected or even ignored by those who hold power, most often in pursuit of keeping or maintaining that power.

Additionally, in a Democracy, because it is essentially government by the will of the majority, government has no constraints. If fifty-one percent of the people – or a plurality of the people – can be persuaded to believe a particular avenue of thinking; convinced that a certain law is “necessary,” it becomes the policy of the government or the law of the land, regardless of whether or not the minority’s rights have been usurped or protected.
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Why Democracy Is Dangerous for the ‘Arab Spring’”


Occupy Vacancy: Why Are We Protesting, Anyway?

-By Warner Todd Huston

The folks at Occupy Norfolk have been at it for weeks, but even at this late date few of them seem to have the first clue what they are protesting about, a report shows.

CBS Washington went among the halfwits at the protest and surveyed the filed of protesters asking them what their point was for the whole exercise. Few had any idea. In fact, many laughed that there was no coherent idea of why they were out protesting.

This truly shows how hollow — even risible — these protests are…

Read the rest at RightPundits.com.


Union’s Battle Against Ohio Heats Up

-By Warner Todd Huston

On November 8, Ohioans will go to the polls to vote on a series of ballot initiatives, among them Issue 2.

A yes vote will support Governor Kasich’s collective bargaining reform (SB 5) to become law. A no vote would return power to the bloated, thieving unions to do hat they have always done: steal from the taxpayers. (I wonder if you can tell which side I am on, here? Ha, ha)

Unions have rolled into Ohio with millions of dollars for anti-issue 2 advertising, donations to politicians, and the usual corrupt bargaining behind the scenes that unions generally employ. Sadly, it looks like their big money has persuaded too many Ohioans to back the unions as polling shows Issue 2 is losing with voters.
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Union’s Battle Against Ohio Heats Up”


Obama Broken Promises: From ‘No Lobbyists in My Campaign,’ to Hiring Financial Services Lobbyist

-By Warner Todd Huston

Barack Obama made a big show in 2008 of attacking evil Washington lobbyists. He campaigned on “change we could believe in” and aimed one of those things to believe in at eliminating lobbyists from Washington. But, it’s just another lie from Obama, in the end.

Obama cruised into office with the claim that he’d have “the strictest ethics rules” against lobbyists of any president ever. Naturally, almost immediately he began to waive these “rules” to allow lobbyists into his administration.

This week, quite contrary to his loud proclamations against lobbyists, we saw that yet another lobbyist join Obama.
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Obama Broken Promises: From ‘No Lobbyists in My Campaign,’ to Hiring Financial Services Lobbyist”


Herman Cain Ad Features Man Smoking? HOW DARE HE!

-By Warner Todd Huston

Mark Block is Herman Cain’s chief of staff for the insurgent campaign for president that has surprised everyone with its success. Block is featured in a new Cain campaign ad at the tail end of which he is seen cooly taking a drag off his cigarette. This has caused campaign watchers to go ape.

First, take a look at the ad:

Many people on Twitter and the blogs are losing their minds that Cain features a guy smoking in his campaign ad. Why, Cain had cancer, they tsk. He should be ashamed of himself for having a guy smoking in his ad.

But I say, GET OVER IT. People smoke. It’s a common fact of life.

Once again, Herman Cain appears to be the only normal guy in this race, the only one unconcerned over focus group tittering.
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Herman Cain Ad Features Man Smoking? HOW DARE HE!”


West’s Winter of Discontent, The Arab Spring and The Summer from Hell

-By Rev Michael Bresciani

From the beginning God has used man’s voice above all else to provide a revelation of himself and his will. That he warns them ahead of his biggest changes is in keeping with his love, mercy and justice. Springing up on someone to cut them down without warning is surprise, not justice; even if they are deserving of it.

The ancient Prophet Amos declared that God would not do anything without fair warning “Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.” (Amos 3: 7) How does God choose these prophets and who are they?

Debate on who was the greatest of the Old Testament prophets has continued for centuries but it is clear that God’s greatest prophets are yet to come. In fact the scriptures devote an entire chapter to describing the message and ministry of the two most powerful prophets of all time, both which may be alive today but as yet are not revealed. (Rev 11:1f)
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West’s Winter of Discontent, The Arab Spring and The Summer from Hell”


NASA Thugs Abuse Old Lady Over ‘Stolen’ Moon Rocks

-By Warner Todd Huston

If you or a family member happen to be in possession of what you think is a rock taken from the moon during NASA’s Apollo moon landings, the best idea is to keep it to yourself. If you don’t you may have the might of the Federal government coming down upon your head as if you’ve assassinated a president or something. That’s what happened to 74-year-old Joann Davis of California.

The elderly, 4-foot-11 old lady thought she had something she could sell so that she would have some money to leave her family when she passed and maybe some to help take care of her sick son. But the spec-sized hunk of moon rock instead brought down upon her a “sting” operation, and bruises and abuse at the hands of our intrepid U.S. government.

I hope these NASA thugs didn’t get their jackboots scuffed while beating up a little old lady

Read the rest at RightPundits.com.


In India, Finally Some PCism I Can Stomach!

-By Warner Todd Huston

India is one of the most important up-and-coming, capitalist democracies in the world. It is inches from being a true world power and in the ensuing years will become one, certainly. But India still has some stupid, backwards, ignorant cultural practices to shed before it can step into the circle of leading nations with true pride. This story highlights one of those practices.

Like many tribal, backwards peoples, India has a hatred of girl children. This is a holdover from the days when having a boy meant not only passing on your family line, but meant a strong back to work for that family. This is a holdover from the backwards days when a girl was seen more as chattel than as a human being in her own right. It is also because of a cultural economic problem when girls marry (see below). Unfortunately it is not a prejudice that sits in India’s cultural past. This disregard for women persists…

Read the rest at RightPundits.com.


Union Organizers Work 1 Day As Teachers, Get $100K+ in State Pensions

-By Warner Todd Huston

Two union organizers that represent the Illinois Federation of Teachers were able to secure millions in state pensions by working one day as a teacher here in Illinois. This outrageous abuse of the state pension system is exactly why government unions should not be allowed to exist.

The Chicago Tribune has the story of Steven Preckwinkle and David Piccioli who took advantage of a loophole to enrich themselves off the backs of the taxpayers written into law just for them by pliant Democrat politicians.

The crony legislation enabled the unionistas to quickly get state teaching certificates, work one day as a substitute teacher, then count their years as union operatives to qualify them for pension benefits from the state.
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Union Organizers Work 1 Day As Teachers, Get $100K+ in State Pensions”


Occupy Chicago Sign: ‘Dear Rich Straight White Dudes, F**K Off’

-By Warner Todd Huston

Like the rest of the large cities in the US, Chicago is currently suffering with small pockets of Occupy protesters and their ever-present signs. And like every other big city these signs are often misspelled, sometimes profane, commonly anti-capitalist, occasionally anti-Semitic, almost always anti-American, not to mention merely ignorant of the facts. But one thing that is the same in every protest, at least in the media reportage of same, is that the worst of the signs go unseen by the general American news consumer.

Chicago blogger John Ruberry took his trusty camera downtown to the Windy City and captured some pretty representative signs the like of which were similar signs seen at Tea Party events would have made the nightly news programs for their outrageous messages.

For instance, there’s the one I note in the headline of this piece.

Now imagine if a Tea Party sign said something like, “Dear Gay Blacks, F**k Off.” The media would have lost its tiny hive mind over such a blatantly ignorant sign. It’s been two years of Tea Party protests and there’ve been few signs as blatant as the dozens seen at many of these Occupy-Whatever events.
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Occupy Chicago Sign: ‘Dear Rich Straight White Dudes, F**K Off’”


Media Tries to Make Rick Perry a Birther

-By Warner Todd Huston

The left-wing media’s newest attack on Rick Perry is an attempt to make him into a “birther” — one of those folks that think Barack Obama is not a natural born American, a requirement to become our president. This new attack, though, is almost Clintonian in its careful avoidance of the truth.

The main attack started in a Parade interview featuring Texas Governor Rick Perry, but is being taken up as the cause célèbre by the left-wing, George Soros-funded attack dogs at Media Matters, Think Progress, and TPM as well as sites like Mediaite. But this “story is, as they say, all smoke and no fire.

In the interview Parade directly asked whether Perry thought Obama was born in the United States. Perry’s actual answers were, “I have no reason to think otherwise,” and “It doesn’t matter. He’s the President of the United States. He’s elected. It’s a distractive issue.”
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Media Tries to Make Rick Perry a Birther”


Kiss the European Union Goodbye

-By Alan Caruba

In Paris on October 15th, a group of finance ministers and central bankers known as the G20, representing major nations, gave the European Union until October 23red to find an answer to the financial crisises that are tearing apart the EU and its monetary structure.

Don’t hold your breath. If not now, at least in the foreseeable future, the EU will collapse for the oldest reason, national sovereignty and national self-interest.

If you visit Wikipedia and enter “European Wars,” it will kick out a list that’s several pages long in small print starting with the Trojan Wars, 1193-1184 BC. The Romans conquered everyone for a while. The Spanish tried to invade England. For a while Napoleon was invading everyone. There were the hundred year wars, thirty year wars, and wars for the hell of it. Suffice to say the Europeans have a long record of going to war with one another.
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Kiss the European Union Goodbye”


Teachers Unions: On the Road to Extinction?

-By Larry Sand

Online learning is the wave of the future, but teachers unions still have a Paleocene mentality

In his extraordinary book Special Interest, Terry Moe writes about the massive power of the teachers unions. After much gloom and doom, in the final chapter of the book, he manages to convey some hope about the future. Emerging technology-based education, he asserts, is the “long-term trend…, and the unions cannot stop it from happening.” Online teachers from different states and countries will be much harder for the unions to corral and control.

However, according to a post on hotair.com by Tina Korbe, the University of California chapter of the American Federation of Teachers hasn’t gotten the message yet. University of California schools, which are in dire financial straits, have begun using online education programs as a way to save money. As a result, some lecturers’ jobs could be done away with. However, their union is using its collective bargaining power to ensure that every job, no matter how unnecessary, will be saved.

“… the California lecturers, who make up nearly half of the system’s undergraduate teaching teachers, believe they have used … bargaining power to score a rare coup. The University of California last week tentatively agreed to a deal with UC-AFT that included a new provision barring the system and its campuses from creating online courses or programs that would result in ‘a change to a term or condition of employment’ of any lecturer without first dealing with the union.”

In other words, the union is determined to keep all its dues-paying members on the payroll whether they are needed or not, whether we can afford them or not. The fact that there are some excellent online classes and that their use would save the beleaguered taxpayers of California bushels


HB 3027 Will Promote Abortion, Force out Abstinence in Sex Education

From Lake County Right to Life…

(Grayslake, IL—October 19, 2011) Lake County Right to Life joins the Illinois Family Institute and numerous other pro-life, pro-family organizations in opposing Illinois HB 3027, the new sex education bill. The bill is supported by Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, NOW, and numerous other Illinois pro-abortion organizations. The bill will be taken up in the fall veto session, which begins on October 25. HB 3027 has already been passed by the Illinois Senate.

HB 3027 mandates that every public school teaching sex education in grades 6 – 12 must teach comprehensive sex education. Lake County Right to Life has numerous major problems with this bill, including:

It mandates curriculum promoting abortion, stating that it is legal, safe, and parents don’t have to know about it.

It calls for “medically accurate” sex education, but the curriculum misinforms students by telling them that “morning after pills” don’t cause abortion.
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HB 3027 Will Promote Abortion, Force out Abstinence in Sex Education”


Obama Appointee: Cash For Clunkers Was A Bad Idea

-By Warner Todd Huston

Austan Goolsbee was once considered an up-and-coming light in the world of economics. Then he put himself into Barack Obama’s orbit and turned himself into a political hack with no principles at all. Now he’s trying to redeem himself by backing away from some of Obama’s “economic “fixes” that failed so spectacularly.

During an appearance on MSNBC, Goolsbee admitted that the Cash for Clunkers program and the home buyer tax credit passed in 2009 were “short term gimmicks” that did not help heal the economy…

Read the rest at RightPundits.com.


Suspected Terror Supporter Attacks Jews at Occupy Chicago

-By Warner Todd Huston

Chicago’s RebelPundit came across some of those nice Occupy Chicago folks wishing good thoughts for all the kind participants at the protest… they kindly wished that Israel be destroyed.

Worse, one of the guys these Occupy-Whatevers allowed to speak is a suspected funder of Middle Eastern terrorists.

Just like the left, eh? Haters, racists, and anti-Semites galore.

Note also that a Chicago TV station was filming the event. Note also that said film was never aired in Chicago.

The “news,” you see, don’t want to discredit the Occupy-Whatevers as much as they can avoid it.
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Suspected Terror Supporter Attacks Jews at Occupy Chicago”