Republican Planning Session: Stay Away From Attacks on Obama in 2012

-By Warner Todd Huston

Employees for Yahoo News were given a call-in number and pass key to a secret planning session conference call held by members of the Republican Party establishment on Tuesday. On the call some highly placed GOP operatives said that they should avoid “heavy attacks” on Obama during this upcoming 2012 campaign.

Apparently the Yahoo folks were given this inside info on accident by an RNC staffer. As Rachel Rose Hartman reported, a member of the well-connected Tarrance Group, a Republican polling firm, said that they aren’t interested in personal attacks on Obama.

Read the rest at RightPundits.com.


How the Left Lies its Way to ‘Facts’

-By Warner Todd Huston

There was once a famous liberal congressman from New York who reminded his opponents that they could have their own opinions but not their own facts. This, of course, was Daniel Patrick Moynihan, one of the few respectable liberals of his or any other day. But, for the most part, the left operates on pushing the lie until it is accepted as “fact” whether it is true or not. And the leftist blog Crooks and Liars pulled a doosie this week.

Apparently the guffaw inducing leftist blog thinks that the Occupy protests have been completely peaceful despite the hundreds of arrests, the rapes, the property destruction, theft, and other various act of lawbreaking! No, they are not joking.

C&L, blogger John Amato centered his risible claim upon the video of the “bedlam” that occurred at a recent college football game that saw the Oklahoma State University Cowboys beat the University of Oklahoma Sooners. As the game ended, OSU fans flooded the field to celebrate. Unfortunately, in their exuberance to tear down the goal posts upwards to twelve fans were hurt.

Amato called this a “riot.”
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How the Left Lies its Way to ‘Facts’”


Rep. Roger Eddy- Total Tax-Paid Compensation of $283,520 Plus

-By Adam Andrzejewski

“IT’S JUST WRONG.”

For 2011, Eddy has a total compensation package funded by Illinois taxpayers of over $283,520 per year. When our Freedom of Information Requests are fulfilled regarding his government health benefits and his accumulated “bank account” of unused sick days, we will update our analysis. We anticipate his annual compensation will exceed $300,000.

For the past 30 years, Roger Eddy has served in public education. Beginning as a teacher and coach, he has lived his new American Dream.

For the past 16 years, Eddy has been the superintendent of rural Hutsonville School District Unit 1. For the past 9 years (2003), Eddy has also been an elected Republican State Representative. The median Hutsonville household income is $32,500. Located four hours south of Chicago, it’s situated in the Wabash River Valley of East-Central Illinois.

Roger Eddy is a poster boy example of Illinois public greed…

Be sure and read the rest of this entry at For The Good Of Illinois.


Does Liberal Media Ever Identify Anyone as ‘Liberal’?

-By Warner Todd Huston

Slate’s ‘Conservative Essayist’

Slate, a left-wing Internet-based magazine, has a piece about writer Joseph Epstein talking of his new book about the concept of gossip. In their write up of the book Slate characterizes him as a “conservative essayist and editor.” At some level this is fine because that is what he is. But here is my question: does anyone in the left-wing media ever call someone — say Chris Matthews or whomever — a “liberal essayist” or a liberal anything, for that matter? Or is “liberal” supposed to be considered normal and therefore is not necessary to have it mentioned? Do you ever see a review of a book by any lefty that says, “liberal columnist,” or “liberal writer” this or that?

Just wondering.

Seems to me to be just one small example of how left-wing the media is.


It Wasn’t ‘A Wonderful Life,’ Tough Times for Zuzu

-By Warner Todd Huston

Man, talk about a downer. The Washington Post published a where-are-they-now piece on the little girl that played Zuzu on the classic 1946 Christmas favorite It’s a Wonderful Life and through that we all learned that actress Karolyn Grimes had far from a wonderful life after the movie was filmed.

You’ll remember the classic Jimmy Stewart vehicle directed by Frank Capra, I’m sure. It is ubiquitous on TV during the Christmas season, after all. It’s that heartwarming tale of beloved town banker George Bailey whose bumbling assistant lost the whole town’s bank deposits causing ruined Bailey to contemplate suicide only to embark on an odyssey in search of redemption through the efforts of Clarence the angel. A truly great film even if it did bomb at the box office in 1946…

Read the rest at RightPundits.com.


Obama Appointed Ambassador Says Israel At Fault for Muslim Anti-Semitism

-By Warner Todd Huston

Since he ascended from nothing to the office of President of the United States, Obama has shown a disdain for most of our western allies that borders on hatred. But he’s reserved his most backhanded treatment to Israel. It isn’t just what he’s done to show Israel that he has no use for them, but it goes all the way down to his every last appointment and this week we see another reminder of that in the comments belched forth by Obama’s U.S. Ambassador to Belgium, Howard Gutman, who basically said that anti-Semitism perpetrated by Muslims is really all Israel’s fault.

As Jake Tapper (one of the few real reporters in Washington) reported on Sunday, Gutman made his remarks at a conference on anti-Semitism organized by the European Jewish Union on Dec. 2.

At the conference Gutman said, “a distinction should be made between traditional anti-Semitism, which should be condemned and Muslim hatred for Jews, which stems from the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.” Gutman imagined that tensions between Muslims and Israel is one, “largely born of and reflecting the tension between Israel, the Palestinian Territories and neighboring Arab states in the Middle East over the continuing Israeli-Palestinian problem.”
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Obama Appointed Ambassador Says Israel At Fault for Muslim Anti-Semitism”


Help Halt the NLRB’s Assault On America’s Union-Free Workplace

Originally posted at Labor Union Report

Last week’s NLRB vote to give unions the ability to ambush union-free workers and the companies that employ them, as well as to deny due process on bargaining unit issues, is only the latest in a long line of attacks on America’s union-free workforce by the union extremists controlling Barack Obama’s National Labor Relations Board.

Notwithstanding the recent agreement between Boeing and the Machinists’ union to end the prosecution* of Boeing opening its second 787 in South Carolina, listing out of all of the attacks on job creators and America’s union-free workforce would necessitate more than an entire post. However, here are just a few:

  • Micro-unions: In a recent ruling, the NLRB has given unions the green light to begin unionizing portions companies by what are called “micro-unions.” Now, union can unionize small segments of a company by classification (or department).
  • Reducing employees’ rights to rid themselves of unwanted unions: In a reversal of a previous NLRB decision, the Obama-NLRB has made it much more difficult for employees to decertify unions where highly flawed card-check method of unionization had been utilized. The NLRB’s reversal was only outdone by the NLRB’s destroying of ballots from elections that were already held, but were awaiting the outcome of the NRLB’s decision.
  • Requiring union-free employees to post union posters. Though delayed, the NLRB is requiring all union-free, private-sector employers to post NLRB posters explaining workers’ rights to unionize.
  • Legitimizing union ‘sweetheart deals.’ Last year, the NLRB approved unions’ ability to negotiation pre-recognition agreements in exchange for ‘card check,’ thus undermining employees’ rights through “sweetheart deals.”

It’s time to put pressure on Washington to halt the NLRB’s assault and here’s how you can help.

Our friends at the Free Enterprise Alliance‘s Halt the Assault campaign have put together an online petition to send a message to Washington to Rein in the Rogue NLRB.

You can even embed a Rein in the Rogue NLRB widget on your blog or website.

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Help Halt the NLRB’s Assault On America’s Union-Free Workplace”


Oh, So DOJ DID Lie About Fast & Furious — Plus A New DEA Criminal Program

-By Warner Todd Huston

On Friday the Department of Justice indulged a favorite Washington practice, one meant to hide the truth from the American people even while submitting the same info to public scrutiny. It is called the Friday evening document dump and this one tends to show that the DOJ did lie about what it knew of Fast and Furious. And in a second story we find that the Drug Enforcement Agency (SEA) appears to have helped Mexican narco-terrorists launder their money in another failed “tracking” program.

… The documents show that several ATF and DOJ operatives were trying hard to hide what they knew, were discussing the process of how to hide it, and were attacking members of Congress as they did so…

Read the rest at RightPundits.com.


‘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”


Direct Phone Numbers to Your U.S. Senators

-By Warner Todd Huston

Just a little resource I found on the web.If you’d like to know the direct phone number to your Senator, look for your state below and call away.

Alabama

  • Sen. Richard Shelby (R) (202) 224-5744; 224-3416
  • Sen. Jeff Sessions (R) (202) 224-4124; 224-3149

Alaska

  • Sen. Mark Begich (D) (202) 224-3004; 224-2354
  • Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R) (202) 224-6665; 224-5301

Arizona

  • Sen. Jon Kyl (R) (202) 224-4521; 224-2207
  • Sen. John McCain (R) (202) 224-2235; 228-2862

Arkansas

  • Sen. John Boozman (R) (202) 224-4843; 228-1371
  • Sen. Mark Pryor (D) (202) 224-2353; 228-0908

California

  • Sen. Barbara Boxer (D) (202) 224-3553; (202)228-2382
  • Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) (202) 224-3841; 228-3954

Colorado

  • Sen. Mark Udall (D) (202) 224-5941; 224-6471
  • Sen. Michael F. Bennet (D) (202) 224-5852; 228-5036

Connecticut

  • Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D) (202) 224-2823; 224-1083
  • Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I) (202) 224-4041; 224-9750

Delaware


Purse With Image of Gun Gets Teen Accosted by TSA

-By Warner Todd Huston

In today’s “teh stupid” files, a teen in Norfolk, Virginia missed her flight because Transportation Security Administration screeners pulled her out of line for close scrutiny because she had a leather purse with an image of a pistol engraved on it. You read that right, a leather engraving of a pistol emblazoned on a purse made TSA screeners imagine a pregnant teenaged girl was a security threat.

Vanessa Gibbs was attempting to board a plane to get home to Jacksonville, Florida, but the TSA screeners spied the leather design of a pistol on the exterior of her purse. This, they somehow imagined, made the teen a security risk, so they pulled her out of line for interrogation.

How could a design of a purse cause such panic in the TSA, you might ask? TSA agents told the girl that it is a federal crime to take replicas of firearms onto an airplane. This, they claimed, justified their focus on her purse.

Read the rest at RightPundits.com.


Looks Like Obama Lost These Boobs as Fans, Anyway

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Barbi Twins are no longer big fans of the Obammessiah. They think he’s turned his back on the horses. No, not the ones at the race track — well, maybe after they retire from the track they’ll fit in this story. No the Barbi twins think Obama has abandoned the horses that had until now been protected by a federal ban from being sent to U.S.-based horse slaughter houses.

Now, I did not choose to write about this story because it features two “hot” blondes with big boobs — though that doesn’t hurt. I’ve actually written about this horse meat issue before. Naturally I came down on the opposite side of the issue that the girls chose.

The two blond bobble heads are upset that Congress is repealing a ban on horse slaughter houses in the U.S. Absurdly, they seem to imagine that all horses in the country are “pets.” This is their theme to rail against the idea of having equine abattoirs operating inside the U.S.A.

Now, to millionaires that are out of touch with normal people, I guess horses might always be thought of as “pets.” But in the real world horses are often draft animals working on farms. And when they get sick or old and infirm or when owners can no longer afford to keep them they are properly — and humanely, I might add — destined for the slaughter house.
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Looks Like Obama Lost These Boobs as Fans, Anyway”


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”


So Much for ‘Transparency’: Obama Seals Records of Border Patrol Agent’s Murder

-By Warner Todd Huston

It has been almost a year since U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered in part by criminals using guns — as many as three of them — obtained through Obama’s arming of Mexican narco-terrorists with Operation Fast and Furious. Now, all of a sudden, Obama’s DOJ has sealed records about that investigation, cutting them off from the prying eyes of those looking to investigate to learn the truth about Obama’s failed gunrunning program.

One might recall that Barack “Hope-N-Change” Obama ran for office claiming that he’d run the “most transparent administration” ever. Once safely in office Obama has done little to bring either hope or transparency to Washington D.C. Obviously his penchant for secrecy is now being extended to records concerning to Fast and Furious…

Read the rest at RightPundits.com.


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”


Is Apple’s iPhone Ap Siri Pro-Life?

-By Warner Todd Huston

A story has been circulating about Apple’s new smart phone product called Siri. It is an iPhone application that allows users to ask the phone questions that the phone then searches to answer. Well, apparently one thing that the ap won’t answer is for it to provide directions to the nearest abortion mill.

Siri is an early voice recognition phone ap that hears your spoken questions, searches the Internet and/or Apple’s cloud services, then returns a verbal answer to the user. If, for instance, you ask for an email to be read to you, Siri will do so. If you ask for the nearest Taco Bell, Siri will tell you.

As mentioned, though, it has been discovered that if you ask where the nearest baby killing center is, well apparently it won’t tell you.

This is leading people to tout Siri as a “pro-life” ap.
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Is Apple’s iPhone Ap Siri Pro-Life?”


Latest News of Obamacare’s Forthcoming Death Panels

-By Warner Todd Huston

Are you an elderly American? Well get ready to be determined a non-essential medical expenditure if Obamacare has any say in the matter — which it will if its allowed to become fully implemented.

A caller to the nationally syndicated Mark Levin talk radio show last week gave us an appalling sneak peak at the death panels that are about to be unleashed on the country once Obamacare is fully implemented (God forbid).

The caller said that he was a neurosurgeon and told talker Levin that the advance briefing that he got from government representatives informed him that anyone over 70 years of age would be denied lifesaving (and expensive) brain operations because they were too old to bother with.

The caller said that instead of healthcare, older patients with aneurysms or strokes would get “comfort care” — care that would just “comfort” them while they die — instead of care that would cure them of their ills.

Sounds like death panels to me!
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Latest News of Obamacare’s Forthcoming Death Panels”


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”


NYTimes: Guess What? Tea Party is Just Like KKK

-By Warner Todd Huston

Tis the season for buying books for your loved ones and as always the The New York Times Sunday Book Review is here to help. And as always the Sunday Book Review is there to help us understand that anything from the right side of the aisle, especially the Tea Party, is to be put in the worst possible light at all times.

So, what is it this time? Book reviewer Kevin Boyle lets us all know that he thinks that the folks of the Tea Party movement are somehow just like the Ku Klux Klan. Nice, huh? That’ll get the holiday season started right.

In his Sunday book review Boyle reviews a pair of books actually on the KKK — meaning that for the first time bringing up the KKK in a New York Times article isn’t wholly gratuitous. So he has that going for him, which is nice.

But what was totally gratuitous was the way Boyle opened his review, slamming by inference the whole of the Tea Party and making of it a the modern day KKK.
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NYTimes: Guess What? Tea Party is Just Like KKK”


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)”


More Union Workers Caught Blowing Weed on Break Time

-By Warner Todd Huston

Not long ago a series of Detroit sting-styled TV News reports found autoworkers getting high and drunk during their lunch breaks. Now WJBK has found the same problem with the union workers at an aerospace factory.

Tower Defense and Aerospace Factory Workers Party at Lunch: MyFoxDETROIT.com

The company claims it has “been investigating” the employees. But the fact is, if these workers were not protected by unions they’d have been properly fired the second management realized that they were doing illegal drugs on company property during their break time.

It shouldn’t take a TV expose for a company to be able to fire criminals! But that’s what happens with unions. They protect criminals.
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More Union Workers Caught Blowing Weed on Break Time”


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…”


Frank Rich: Obama’s Just Like JFK Because JFK Was Killed With Hate, or Something

-By Warner Todd Huston

It’s hard to believe but Frank Rich’s latest exercise in the fantasist’s art comparing JFK to Obama is a wonder to behold. It really is. One might think it satire if Rich had never been presented as a serious essayist by the New York intelligentsia. If this were to be his first public writing, one might think him the new Jonathan Swift for its central premise is simply amazing for its utter deviation from reality. Rich, it seems, thinks that Obama is just like John Kennedy because Kennedy was somehow killed by the “hate that ended his presidency,” or something.

The part that is so fantastic is that Rich devolves to a long ago discredited theory that Kennedy was killed that dark November day in 1963 somehow because of right-wing hate for him. What is so absurd about Rich’s fantastic claim is that he wholly discounts the fact that Kennedy’s killer was a communist. In fact, Rich never even mentions that Lee Harvey Oswald was an avowed communist. He hints at it obliquely but does so in a way that dismisses the ideology as in any way important.

It has been a long time since I’ve read a piece on a public figure that is one part hero worship, one part discounting of that same figure, one part pure fantasy, and one part baseless comparison to the life of a whole other public figure that is also worshiped as a hero without a legitimate reason. But Frank Rich has done it here in a way that brings to mind J.R.R. Tolkein’s intricate and complicated plotting.

There’s so much wrong in this one piece that it’s hard to figure out where to start first, but Rich’s central premise is that JFK was killed because of a climate of “hate” engendered by the blindness of Kennedy’s detractors on the right. This, Rich seems to think, is somehow just like Obama. Well, except that Obama is still alive and no one has even made a single attempt to kill him (God forbid), of course.

Interestingly, Rich does seem to notice that John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s presidency did not live up to its hype. Rich notes that historians have basically rated JFK’s short tenure in the White House as a wash, neither good nor horribly bad. But even with that admission, Rich writes glowingly of Kennedy. It is still all “Camelots” and “brief shinning moments” with little justification for any other reason than mere hero worship. With that, though, Rich succumbs to the worship like so many starry-eyed members of his deluded generation.

But for all his glorious filler — one wonders if Rich has ever had an editor — here is his raison d’être for bothering us with his hagiographic blather:
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Frank Rich: Obama’s Just Like JFK Because JFK Was Killed With Hate, or Something”


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”


What Is Constitutional Conservatism?

-By Yuval Levin, National Review

(ED: I don’t usually repost an entire article from another site but this article is too important to just excerpt. I apologize to Mr. Levin in advance, but his essay is one of the best definitions of what American conservatism truly is that I’ve seen for a long time. It is also a good explanation on why modern liberalism is as wrong as can be and anti-American to boot. It is a must read for anyone that wants a hint of the character of American conservatism and a good guide on how to think about what conservatives advocate. I just had to post it in it’s entirety, just had to have this chronicled on my site.)

This fall, liberals from the president on down have begun to grasp the scope of the political and intellectual disaster that the past three years have been for the Left. Their various responses to the calamity have tended to have one thing in common: immense frustration. But the different expressions of that frustration have been deeply revealing. They should help Americans better understand this complicated moment in our politics, and, in particular, help conservatives frame their responses.

Liberal frustration has fallen into two general categories that seem at first to flatly contradict each other: denunciations of democracy and appeals to populism. In September, Peter Orszag, President Obama’s former budget director, wrote an essay in The New Republic arguing that “we need less democracy.” To address our country’s daunting problems, Orszag suggested, we need to take some power away from Congress and give it to “automatic policies and depoliticized commissions” that will be shielded from public pressure. “Radical as it sounds, we need to counter the gridlock of our political institutions by making them a bit less democratic.” Two weeks later, North Carolina’s Democratic governor, Beverly Perdue, made a less sophisticated stab at the same general point, proposing to suspend congressional elections for a few years so members of Congress could make the difficult decisions necessary to get our country out of its deep problems.

Orszag and Perdue both seemed to channel a long and deeply held view of the Left — that the complexity of modern life and the intensity of modern politics should lead us to put more power in the hands of technical experts who have the knowledge to make objective, rational choices on our behalf. Leaving things to the political process will result only in delay and disorder. President Obama has frequently expressed this view himself — wistfully complaining to his aides earlier this year, for instance, that things would sure be easier if he were president of China.
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What Is Constitutional Conservatism?”