Saturday, March 19, 2011


On Saturday night, March 19th, religious Jews around the world will behave in a way that violates common stereotypes of people of faith. We will wear silly, colorful costumes, consume a great deal of alcohol, exchange gift baskets and listen to raucous public readings of the one book of the Bible that never mentions God.

The holiday of Purim celebrates the deliverance from danger described in the book of Esther, and even though divine intervention is never specifically described, the complicated events clearly show the hidden hand of Providence. “Esther,” not coincidentally, comes from the Hebrew word for “hidden,” and the costumes also emphasize that the Almighty sometimes disguises his plans. Just as he used the ancient Persian Jew-hater, Haman, for a higher purpose, we can hope that God also intends a benign purpose in dealing with the latter day Persian Jew-hater, Ahmadinijad.










Now why do I care what this private organization, with its own political agenda, says about me? Because the Southern Poverty Law Center has direct ties to the Department of Homeland Security, helping to write official DHS policy that may affect my life, my freedom, my ability to travel and my ability to speak out. Consider the following facts:


That official document of an agency of the United States government said “Right-wing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movement, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly anti-government, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.”


That report labeled the following to be extremists, bordering on terrorism: Those concerned over the economy; loss of jobs; foreclosures; antagonism toward the Obama Administration; Criticism of free trade programs; anti-abortion; oppose same sex marriage; believe in the “end times;” stockpile food; oppose illegal immigration; oppose a New World Order; oppose the UN; oppose global governance; fear of Communist regimes; oppose loss of US manufacturing to overseas nations; oppose loss of US prestige; and use of the internet (or alternative media) to express any of these ideas.



* Item: In 2009, the Missouri Fusion Center set off a fire storm over a report it issued entitled “The Modern Militia Movement.” Reported Fox News, the report, “identifies the warning signs of potential terrorists for law enforcement communities.”

In other words, this report was issued to law enforcement agencies across the state as official documentation warning who the cops should look out for as potential violent terrorists. The list of potential terrorists included Americans who voted for presidential candidate Ron Paul; Constitution Party presidential candidate Chuck Baldwin; and Libertarian Party presidential candidate Bob Barr. It also cited those of us who opposed the creation of a North American Union with Canada and Mexico.


The information was completely wrong. There is no evidence that there was ever any connection between the shooter and American Renaissance. Moreover, American Renaissance has never advocated violence or extremism. The only connection between American Renaissance and extremism is that the Southern Poverty Law Center listed them as a hate group. A detail that interestingly found its way into the Arizona Fusion Center report as fact.



Training for what? To identify potential terrorists, of course. And who are those potential terrorist? A look at the members of the working group offers a clue. While the group includes several public officials and law enforcement officials from around the nation, and it also includes Mohamed Magid, president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), and unindicted co-conspirator in a case concerning the funding of Muslim terrorist organizations. And the working group member list also includes Richard Cohen, President of the Southern Poverty Law Center.





The pattern is clear, one of the nation’s leading hate groups, the Southern Poverty Law Center, which opposes even the right of free speech by people it labels potential terrorists, is helping the largest federal enforcement agency in the nation to create its policy. That policy clearly states, according to DHS reports, that anyone disagreeing with actions of the American government is a potential terrorist and must be, at least, watched and monitored by federal, state, and local authorities.





The specific purpose of the Department of Homeland Security is to protect the “STATE” against all enemies. That has come to include anyone who uses their first amendment right to speak out against specific policies. Apparently, that has been interpreted by DHS to mean a threat to the STATE.

May I remind you that the tanks that ran over the student protesters in Tiananmen Square in Communist China were also protecting the STATE against its enemies.




Progressive Government Is Obsolete

By Stephen Goldsmith, the deputy mayor of New York City


Across the country, the interests of organized labor, elected officials and taxpayers are colliding over wages, work rules and the astronomical costs of retiree pensions and health care. As important as these specific issues are to resolve, there is another, more fundamental problem causing so many Americans to lose faith in their government: It is not government unions per se but progressive government itself—long celebrated in Wisconsin, New York and elsewhere—that no longer produces progressive results.

In the early 20th century, the progressives championed a rule-based approach to public-sector management that was a big step forward from the cronyism and corruption of Tammany Hall. Today, however, the very rules that once enhanced accountability, transparency and efficiency now stifle the creativity of public-sector workers and reduce the ability of public investments to create opportunities for citizens—outcomes precisely the opposite of those intended by Progressive Era reformers.



No one wants a return to the bad old days when public employees feared arbitrary dismissals. Today, however, the pendulum has swung too far in the opposite direction. Rather than too few rules governing public employees, there are far too many, and they hurt the very people progressive reformers cared most about: the least fortunate members of society who depend the most on effective support services.

A hundred years ago, progressives envisioned a highly professional public-sector work force reining in exploitative corporate interests. They saw those on the margin being victimized both by corrupt government and business interests. They believed that the worst abuses of capitalism—think Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle"—would be reined in by government regulation.

Ironically, today we find that in many cases special interests are working in the bureaucracy, using Progressive Era rules to protect the status quo and themselves.

Recent efforts to trim approximately 150 laborers, carpenters and electricians from city hospitals, for example, were halted by a lawsuit brought by the unions. In a city facing a multibillion-dollar deficit, every nonessential dollar spent is a dollar less available for hospital care—or shelter for the homeless, or police for troubled neighborhoods. In a word, these special- interest interventions ultimately lead to socially regressive results.


Progressive Era reformers rightly targeted corruption among Boss Tweed-type contracts for city work. Today, however, excruciating contracting rules produce unintended results.

Antiquated and overly complex procurement rules lead to year-long delays and waste millions of taxpayer dollars. These complex bureaucratic processes lock out small businesses and lock in existing contractors. Simpler, less prescriptive processes with greater transparency would produce better, faster and cheaper results, minimize political favoritism, increase competition among contractors, and improve the quality of work done on the taxpayer's dime.

The current systems punish taxpayers in other ways too. Unaffordable pensions imposed by state legislators on unsuspecting citizens have created an unsustainable burden. In fiscal year 2012, New York City will pay $8.4 billion from its operating budget to fill a hole in its unfunded pension obligations. An expense of this magnitude leads directly to budget cuts for social programs and education, and to higher taxes that squeeze working families' budgets and kill jobs.

Would an increase in the "progressivity" of the tax system be the way out of our budget woes? More and more, urban mayors understand the futility of trying to tax their cities into prosperity. Few would dispute the fairness of a progressive tax system—but there are limits. In New York City, the highest-earning 1% of tax filers pay approximately 50% of the city's income taxes. Those paying the most are also best-positioned to relocate.

We need a new approach to governance that includes more respect not only for students in need of high-quality education but also for taxpayers, that has less job-killing red tape, and that fosters a more productive work force. The first rule of city government should be an unwavering commitment to delivering real value to the public with every tax dollar. That would be real progress.






Obama WANTS high gasoline prices for Americans

In pursuit of a "Green" agenda


What is their problem? What is our problem?













Shun the Expert and Pass the Ammunition


For close to a century experts have told us to put our trust in government. We have a host of them in our life everyday: Federal Reserve bankers, Education Department officials, Union economists, scientists on the government dole, Energy Department officials, all here for our own good.






* In the name of safety, the government takes away guns for self-defense, but sues states for enforcing federal immigration laws.

* We “improve” public education by lowering standards rather than raising them; and we design a medical and retirement "safety net" that threatens not just life, but everything our country was built on: liberty, opportunity, property.

My religion tells me to fear not. That’s why I cling to it. Others have done the same for 2000 years. My gun too tells me to fear not, although its ammunition isn’t as refined as the word of God. Good men have armed themselves for the 500 years since Europeans first lived in North America. So, I cling to the gun as well.


Truth, I know, always resides wherever brave men still have ammunition. And I'll take truth over experts everyday.



The superior culture of Japan

Larry Elder doesn't mention New Orleans below but ...











Two low-income areas outside of Boston -- South Boston and Roxbury -- were featured several years ago in U.S. News & World Report. They had similar socio-economic profiles: high levels of unemployment; the same percentage of children born to single-parent households; and the same percentage of people living in public housing. But the violent crime rate in Roxbury, predominately black, was four times higher than that of South Boston, predominately white.








Fukushima heroes: Not afraid to die

Bushido lives







Grass-roots Credited with Defeat of Same-sex 'Marriage' in Maryland: "As if we needed more proof that grassroots action brings real results, the recent defeat of a same-sex “marriage” law in Maryland demonstrates that ordinary citizens’ voices can make all the difference in legislative battles. Pro-family conservatives in Maryland were urged to contact their state assemblyman to tell them to preserve traditional marriage, and the pressure worked – the bill was effectively “killed.” Opponents of homosexual marriage give all the credit to a coalition of activists throughout the state, including traditional values conservatives and black churches who joined together to make up the wave of phone calls that led to the bill’s defeat. Homosexual activists had boasted prior to the citizens’ action that the bill’s passage was a done deal – obviously, that wasn’t the case."

Clever Congress shoots the consumer: "Get ready for big fee increases at your nearest ATM. Some of the nation's largest banks are boosting fees on their automated teller machine networks. The new fees could be especially costly for people who withdraw cash from another bank's ATM. Chase is now charging Illinois residents $5 every time a non-customer withdraws money from a Chase ATM. ... The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, passed by Congress last year .... included the Durbin amendment, which would limit banks' income from debit card fees."






Thursday, March 17, 2011

And a happy Pat's day to you all

There's plenty of Irish in me so I am pleased when people celebrate the saint in the wise Irish way. It's a hot day where I am so a cold beer will go down nicely a little later on.


The hate for Sarah Palin

Mark Levin

The corporate hate for Sarah Palin at Politico is obvious. The latest is here. But if you google Politico and Palin, the evidence of a Politico agenda is overwhelming. And the manner in which Politico’s editors pursue their hate-Palin agenda is to cherry-pick the individuals they quote to make the point they want made. A couple of quick things:











Hate is the Leftist way, not civility

[Obama's] Organizing for America has been a steady presence in Madison, Wisconsin. And this is their report on Saturday’s massive welcoming to the fourteen democratic senators who returned after three weeks hiding in Illinois, refusing to come to Madison for a vote:


There was no mention of that “range of emotion” that included hate.

Death threats to Wisconsin Republican Governor, Scott Walker, and his party’s eighteen Senators have been direct and unambiguous. They are numerous and specific and they are coming from protestors in sympathy with union protestors connected to the President of the United States. But the President is silent…Organizing for America is silent and so have been NBC, CBS, ABC, NPR, CNN, the New York Times, and most major media.

These are excerpts from an e-mail sent March 9 to Republican Senators:

“Read below for …possible scenarios in which you will die...I hope you have a good time in hell…we have planned…to put…a nice little bullet in your head... I as well as many others know where you and your family live…we wouldn’t leave it there….we have also built several bombs…placed in various locations around the areas in which we know that you frequent…that includes your house, your car, the state capitol, and well, I won’t tell you all of them because that’s just no fun…we will “get rid of” (in which I mean kill) you….Please make your peace with God as soon as possible and say goodbye to your loved ones….YOU WILL DIE!!!”

Only two months ago, President Barack Obama, Senator Dick Durbin and these same media outlets were clamoring for civility after the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords by a deranged gunman. Many accused Sarah Palin, the Tea Party and conservative radio hosts of creating the atmosphere that caused the shooting. Palin’s greatest sin was placing a gun crosshair over “targeted” districts. The Tea Party’s guilt came from claiming the Obama Healthcare Plan establishes “death panels”.…which it does.

Nancy Pelosi wept on the House floor months before the shooting, expressing her deep concern about the loss of civil discourse by the Tea Party. A mad rush ensued to comply with these new sensitivities to harsh rhetoric.

Yet when protestors in Madison began to call Scott Walker Hitler and Khadafy, and call for his death openly, it was ignored. The President’s first remarks were to claim the union was being “assaulted.” Earlier statements during the campaign made clear his solidarity with labor unions: most notably the purple thugs of the Service Employees International Union to whom he pledged undying loyalty.

Hamas and Hezbollah are famous for gaining power through providing practical help and humanitarian aid to citizens who are later called upon to further their deeper, more dangerous agenda.

Teachers…laborers…and sympathetic farmers beware. Organizing for America, the SEIU, the NEA and many of America’s labor unions have more on their mind than accomplishing your concerns… and more in common with the violence and intimidation of Hamas than with protecting “workers.”

You will rue the day you fancied you were being mistreated by losing your ability to quibble over benefits. For we will all live in the midst of ruin if they prevail.



Blacks and Republicans

Thomas Sowell


McCray's greeting to him was "You're 10."

"What are you talking about?" Willie Brown asked.



















The gathering storm: "Many people understand that you cannot solve a debt problem by issuing more debt. They understand that an individual or a country cannot borrow their way to prosperity. The U.S. government is essentially bankrupt and dependent upon Ben Bernanke's printing press to keep up the appearance of solvency."

Minimum wage: The missing explanation: "So the unemployment rate among relatively unskilled workers is high -- 16 percent -- and it's hard to explain why they can't find jobs 'for less pay?' No, it's not, at least for some of them. The missing explanation is the minimum wage. On July 24, 2009, it increased by 70 cents an hour to $7.25 an hour. Given that there was deflation that year, the real increase was about 12 percent."


62% Favor Repeal of Obamacare: "In a new Rasmussen survey, it shows that 62% are now in favor of repealing the Unconstitutional Obamacare. This is up 8% since the beginning of March, when only 54% favored repeal of the law. Rasmussen also points out that it has reached its highest support for repeal since May of last year.

The injustice of social justice: "Every once in a while, something comes along that perfectly encapsulates the idea of so-called 'social justice' in action. For all the wonderful critiques that have been written about this wretched concept by its many detractors, none quite match the elegant simplicity of a recent work by some of its advocates. I am referring here to a recent video made for the World Day of Social Justice in which students and teachers complete this sentence: Everyone has the right to _____."






Wednesday, March 16, 2011

How political biases sometimes yield invalid research

I have been forwarded the essay below which originated from José L. Duarte, a Graduate Student in the Department of Psychology (Social Psychology Program) of Arizona State University. E-mail: It's a lot like what I used to write for the journals in the now distant days when I took social science research seriously. It is an excellent critique of what goes on all the time among academic psychologists and sociologists. I therefore reproduce it below.

I hope Mr Duarte likes flipping burgers at McDonald's because I am fairly sure the essay will end his academic career. I wrote my critiques when I already had tenure.

I have myself made sweeping criticisms of work by John Jost. See here -- JR

I've followed with interest the controversy stemming from Jon Haidt's address at SPSP. One issue that has not been discussed is how the political biases of the field have severely undermined some of the research. I propose that we have a serious problem. Most research in social psychology does not touch on politics and has no obvious political implications. However, some of the research in sub-fields like political psychology and attitudes has deviated sharply from valid scientific methods. Researchers sometimes embed ideological assumptions into their hypotheses, constructs, and measures, in ways that make their studies invalid or even meaningless. Regrettably, I can't properly make my point without evaluating the work of noted social psychologists. I'm willing to do so here, and in future settings, because a) I think this is a serious problem for the field – these biases may ultimately weaken our very standing as a science, and b) these practices have gone unchecked for years, and a frank and open consideration of them is long overdue.

My first example of the phenomenon is the Napier and Jost (2008) Psych Science article "Why Are Conservatives Happier Than Liberals?"

In this article, the authors want to show that conservatives are happier than liberals because they "rationalize inequality" (by which they mean economic or financial inequality, such as unequal incomes). This is already an unanswerable research question. Why? To rationalize is to explain away an uncomfortable reality, often by making excuses for it. It is dissonance reduction. Thus, a basic precondition for conservatives to rationalize economic inequality is that economic inequality be uncomfortable for them. However, economic inequality is particularly uncomfortable only for leftists. Conservative ideology does not feature economic inequality as an injustice or a problem to be solved. (Libertarians are also largely unconcerned about it.) Therefore it's logically impossible for conservatives to rationalize it, since they aren't particularly bothered by it. (Jost's own data confirm that conservatives are relatively unconcerned about economic inequality.) A research program centered on conservative "rationalization" of something that only liberals care deeply about has no apparent way forward.

So how did the authors conduct the research? In Study 2, they operationalized the rationalization of inequality with a one-item measure: 1 (hard work doesn’t generally bring success—it’s more a matter of luck) to 10 (in the long run, hard work usually brings a better life). High ratings on this item were cast as rationalization of inequality. In other words, the authors took endorsement of the efficacy of hard work and called it rationalization, then plugged it in as a mediator between conservatism and happiness (note that this belief about the efficacy of hard work is a constituent conservative belief – we might find that other conservative beliefs work just as well as "mediators" here) . There was no attempt (in either study) to capture or measure any actual process of rationalization – they simply applied the label to conservatives for endorsing this standard conservative view on hard work. (It may be worth noting here that hard work actually does pay off, as I assume anyone who has mentored graduate students can attest – this is observationally self-evident and supported by massive amounts of data. So people are being labeled as rationalizers for simply endorsing an obviously true statement.)

Since no process of rationalization was exposed in Studies 1 or 2, and since it makes no sense that people who don't have a serious problem with economic inequality could be accused of rationalizing it, the article's results are essentially meaningless. The data don't tell us anything related to the hypotheses. This is what I mean by a lack a validity – the data do not represent the construct, and given the nature of this construct, it's unlikely that any data could. This research is a scientific non-sequitur: From (1) Conservatives are happier than liberals, and (2) Conservatives believe that hard work pays off, we conclude (3) Conservatives are happier than liberals because they rationalize inequality. Our only way out is if we treat the following statement as an objective fact: Economic inequality is unjust. If we treat this ideological claim as a fact, as a description of reality, then we might assume that all people are motivated to rationalize such economic inequality as exists in their communities, and proceed from there. But of course we cannot take this ideological claim as fact. It's a philosophical position held by one particular political ideology, and many people would disagree with it. Social scientists are in no position to ratify the truth or falsity of such philosophical positions.

In other work, Jost uses words like legitimize or justify, in addition to rationalize. The question might be something like "how do conservatives legitimize the status quo system?" All of these verbs are ideologically loaded, and the questions which rest on them are not answerable by social science. To ask why anyone legitimizes the status quo is to presume that the status quo is unjust and thus requires legitimization, rationalization, or justification. This assumption is fully an ideological/philosophical assumption, and has no place, nor any real utility, in framing scientific research.


The field should discard ideologically-loaded constructs like these – constructs that have no scientific meaning because they rest on ideological assumptions, rather than observable facts.



Imagine if a researcher focused her research on "resistance to imperative pro-Christian changes to the status quo", or "resistance to imperative pro-business changes to the status quo". I assume you get my point. We should not be in the business of investigating why people "resist" the truth of our personal ideologies, and a researcher so motivated will likely struggle to maintain an appropriate scientific posture.



Among the sciences, social science operates with the most flexibility in constructs, methods, and measurement. This makes us especially vulnerable to bias (see John Ioannidis' work for more on this). I think we should be vigilant, ambitious, and idealistic about keeping our science clean. I assume nothing but the best of intentions on the part of the researchers I've critiqued, and I don't at all enjoy publicly critiquing them. Nevertheless, I submit that the issues I've raised here are not minor -- these are serious violations of the valid practice of social science. Our credibility and even our very standing as a science are at issue, and will be questioned by politicians, taxpayers, and scientists in other fields if these practices continue. Admittedly, this sort of validity issue has not been well-elaborated in our training or the literature. Yet I'm confident most researchers will agree that what I've offered here is a straightforward extension of construct validity and the features of testable hypotheses. The biases at issue represent a (correctable) blind spot in our field, and an unsurprising one, given the large overrepresentation of liberals.


The Australian experience of socialized medicine

Jeremy Sammut

According to the Prime Minister, when Australians look at the debate that has raged in the US over ‘Obamacare’, they wonder what on earth Americans are going on about. Because here in this country, we know that ‘Medicare works’.

For many people this will ring true. Medicare is widely considered to be symbol of national equity. The sentiment is that in a wealthy country like Australia, no one should go without health care due to disadvantage, nor be bankrupted by medical bills. This is fair enough as far as it goes. But whether Medicare actually ‘works’ for those who most need assistance to access health services is another question altogether.

Yet, speaking from experience, if you dare to raise any doubts about the ‘jewel in the crown’ of Australian social democracy, you will provoke every ‘true believer’ in the land. Question the wisdom of Medicare in any way, shape, or form, and you are guaranteed to provoke the following loaded response, which is calculated to kill any debate about health reform stone dead. “If we change Medicare, Australia will end up like America with people dying out front of the hospital.”

Yet there is a factual reply that confounds the popular, Michael Moore-esque, conceit.

That reply is that Medicare now kills more Australians than the national road toll. An estimated 1500 avoidable deaths occur each year due delayed emergency treatment. The facts are that one third of emergency patients have to wait longer than eight hours before gaining admission to a bed, because public hospital bed numbers have been cut by one third since the start of Medicare.

This situation has been rightly dubbed the ‘hospital crisis’, and it includes the avoidable deaths that are caused by long waiting times for elective surgery. The truth is that thousands of Australian are dying each year because of long waits to get into overcrowded public hospitals.

What this illustrates are the systemic problems with Medicare.

When Medicare was introduced in 1984, Australians were told it would be all so simple and equitable: each Australian would pay a levy on their income according to their means, and receive treatment according to their needs. The reality is that an inverse care law applies under the scheme, which means patients with the greatest health needs receive the least responsive services.

This is the result of Medicare operating as what health economists describe as a ‘reverse insurance’ system. Medicare provides GP and other medical services on demand on a fee-for-service basis. All consultations and tests are either bulk billed or eligible for a rebate under the Medical Benefits Scheme. The MBS budget is uncapped and is funded entirely by the Federal Government.

This means Medicare is fundamentally flawed in principle. No sound health insurance system should cover minor medical costs from the first dollar spent because this inevitably leads to overuse and waste. Because consumers face either no charge or lower charges, unnecessary consultations and tests are encouraged. The MBS is a political ‘sacred cow’ for this very reason: Australians are in love with bulk billing because they can go to the doctor for ‘free’ whenever they like.

What isn’t understood is that the ever-increasing and open-ended cost of the MBS has led to funding and service imbalances in the hospital sector. To offset MBS spending, the Federal Government has always limited its financial exposure to the cost of public hospital care by giving the states only capped hospital grants.

The predictable response by financially over-stretched state governments has been to impose blunt expenditure controls in the public hospital system including massive cuts to bed numbers.

The result is that many Australians with serious health needs requiring hospital care do not receive timely treatment due to the tight ‘caps’ on hospital funding that federal and state governments both use to limit the cost of our ‘free’ health system.

The perverse outcome is that Medicare leaves people over-entitled at the least serious end of the health care spectrum, while the cost of the most serious, most expensive illnesses are inadequately covered.

If Australians are serious about the fabled ‘fair go’, then the view we should take is that Medicare fails to live up to the national ethos. Medicare means that even the well and worried receive unrestricted, subsidised doctor visits, while the sickest patients languish in the hospital queues that are the daily reality around the country.

Before banging on about the evils of the US health system, Australians would be better off admitting that the way Medicare ‘works’ is deeply inequitable.




GA: Obamabots seize execution drug on weak pretext: "The Drug Enforcement Administration confirmed Tuesday that the agency seized the state of Georgia's supply of a key lethal injection drug because of questions about how the stockpile was imported to the U.S. DEA spokesman Chuvalo Truesdell said he didn't know if other states' supplies of sodium thiopental were being collected."

Guatemalans sue US for deliberately spreading illness in 1940s experiment -- under a Democrat (Truman) administraion: "A lawsuit was filed Monday in a US district court on behalf of 700 Guatemalan soldiers, mental health patients, and orphans secretly experimented on from 1946 to 1948. An apology is not enough for Guatemalans deliberately infected with syphilis by a US medical team in the 1940s. Five months after the American taxpayer-funded medical experiment came to light, victims have brought a class-action lawsuit against the US government seeking compensation for resulting health problems. The experiments were “both unprecedented and unequivocally impermissible in the United States and throughout the civilized world,” the complaint states."

How Dems & bureaucrats use tragedy to hold taxpayers to ransom: "The New York Times thinks that Republican budget cuts are dangerous. Thus the headline in Monday’s edition: 'GOP Cuts Could Hit Tsunami Warning System, Foes Say.' ... Yikes! Are Republicans really so irresponsible, to the point of near legislative manslaughter? Answer: no, they are not"






Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Poll on entitlements

Not surprisingly, people agree that undefined "cuts" to Medicare and Social Security are "unacceptable." But specific, meaningful changes to these programs are broadly supported — so much for truth in labeling.

In fact, reducing Medicare and Social Security benefits for wealthier retirees was supported by 62 percent of those asked. Raising the Social Security retirement age to 69 was backed by a 56-42 margin. Taken together, these two adjustments, supported by the president’s deficit reduction commission, would cover roughly 60 percent of the long-term shortfall in Social Security.

Most voters do not consider these changes to be "significant" cuts because the ideas strike them as common sense: the wealthy should pay a larger share of their Medicare costs; retirement age should reflect long-term changes in life expectancy. The challenge is to read far enough into a story to find the truth. Significance is in the eye of the beholder.

And what constitutes "significant" in the debate over this year’s discretionary spending levels? Extending the current spending resolution through the end of the fiscal year would cost $1.08 trillion. House Republicans passed a bill that would reduce this level by about $57 billion, while the president proposed $6 billion in cuts. The White House argues that its recommended reductions — about one-half of 1 percent — are "significant." Republicans disagree.

Strip away the rhetoric, and the difference between the two is about 5 percent of federal discretionary spending. Controlling a budget is never easy, but families and businesses rein in their spending by 4 or 5 percent all the time. More important, given that the United States just posted the largest monthly budget deficit in world history — $223 billion — one might hope we could do better than a half-percent reduction.

In fact, the NBC/WSJ poll showed that majorities support budget cuts to state government assistance, the Environmental Protection Agency, and transportation projects as well. Interestingly, after all the poll questions about program cuts had been asked, preference for "cutting important programs" actually increased from 35 to 37 percent, while support for raising taxes declined from 33 to 29 percent.

Polls shouldn’t determine budget policy; they simply show the degree to which the public recognizes that tough choices are at hand. Today’s fiscal crisis is bigger than any one government program, but if budget negotiators were to embrace public sentiment on retirement age and means-testing and find 3 or 4 percent in discretionary savings this year, they just might be on to something "significant."



Rules for Wisconsin Radicals

Hint: Lose the whole '60s thing

Just before the package of labor reforms favored by Gov. Scott Walker made it through the Wisconsin legislature, students demonstrating inside the Capitol mobilized to show their resistance. On the floor of the rotunda, they linked their bodies to offer a little protest art for the photographers: a human peace sign.

Two days later, upwards of 100,000 people, some bussed in from elsewhere, converged on Madison to say that this is only the beginning. The idea, of course, is that the Republican governor and his Republican majorities in the Wisconsin legislature have thwarted democracy. By "overreaching," they are said to have done for Democrats what ObamaCare did for the Republicans: galvanize a demoralized base.

That's what the president of the AFL-CIO, Richard Trumka, meant when he told an audience last Thursday at the National Press Club, "Thank you, Scott Walker. We should have invited him here today to receive the Mobilizer of the Year Award."

Certainly the Badger Revolution has provoked protests on a level few anticipated. It's true too that many Americans are not yet sold on the need to roll back collective bargaining, even for public employees. Whether Wisconsin represents the emergence of a broad-based, national campaign against reform-minded Republican leaders, however, depends on something far less clear: the ability of the protest movement to reach beyond its own echo chamber to the nonunion middle class.

Saul Alinsky, the father of community organizing, would have relished the challenge. In the last chapter of his classic "Rules for Radicals," he put it this way. "Tactics must begin with the experience of the middle class, accepting their aversion to rudeness, vulgarity, and conflict. Start them easy, don't scare them off." The aim was to make the other guy look heavy-handed, and thus gain sympathy for your side.

In that spirit, here's an updated list of 10 rules for Wisconsin protesters:

1) No more Jesse Jackson . This man is a national symbol of agitation for agitation's sake, and he suggests to people who have not yet made up their minds that the protesters may be more radical than they claim.

2) Ditto for Michael Moore, Susan Sarandon and Tony Shaloub. Outsiders like these may excite the crowds, but they'll alienate people you need.

3) Lose the peace signs. It suggests a hankering for the anti-middle class 1960s, rather than a 21st-century struggle for a middle-class standard of living.

4) Put out more flags. Many of the farmers who drove past the Wisconsin Capitol on Saturday featured American flags. It wouldn't hurt to add a few verses of "God Bless America"—which demonstrators sang to good effect during last month's protest in Michigan's capital.

5) Respect the law. The broken doors and windows that resulted when protesters overwhelmed police trying to keep mobs out and allow legislators in did not help. By contrast, Gov. Walker was noticeably restrained in his use of force (perhaps because he feared the police, themselves members of a public-employees union, wouldn't obey him).

If you absolutely have to have people carted off by the cops, make sure they are moms and grandmoms—not bearded University of Wisconsin grad students.

6) If you are teachers, don't call in sick as a group so you can all protest. It suggests a certain insincerity about putting students first, especially when classes are cancelled.

7) No more Hitler mustaches on Gov. Walker. Not because is it unfair, but because Hitler analogies are tired. Ridicule would be far more effective.

8) Make local workers your public face: real teachers, real cops, real firemen. Even unpolished, they make a much more sympathetic case than the professional union leaders.

9) Don't call for grand actions likely only to end up confirming your weakness. Instead of going after all GOP state senators—a losing proposition—better to target one and make an example of him. The guy whose own wife signed a petition for his recall would be a good candidate.

10) Show some sympathy for the taxpayers. Show them you know they are paying your salaries—and that you know they are hurting.

Rallying those who share your outlook is easy. But Alinsky succeeded in neighborhoods such as Back of the Yards, Chicago in good part because of his ability to work with people and institutions with whom he had little in common. Accordingly, the first thing he often told would-be organizers was to get a haircut and a decent suit.

In "Rules for Radicals," Alinsky urged his successors to "return to the suburban scene of your middle class with its PTAs to League of Women Voters, consumer groups, churches, and clubs" and find "common ground." Especially for protesters hoping to come back from a resounding political defeat in Wisconsin, that's still good advice.

In fact, there's already one group following it—taking to the streets, demanding radical change, and upending the political status quo. It's called the tea party



Why We Don't Agree

The writer below calls himself a "bleeding heart libertarian" but his views are essentially conservative. Conservatives have always accepted the need for some welfare measures and what we now call welfare was the invention of two notable 19th century conservative leaders: Otto von Bismarck and Benjamin Disraeli

The remarkable truth of this conversation between bleeding heart libertarians and progressives is that our disagreement is exclusively empirical. If we all agree that political institutions should be arranged to alleviate poverty, then the only remaining question is which policies actually do this. Why is it then that we cannot agree, or at least converge, by just looking at reliable data, studies, and empirical theories?

I suggest an answer: in the political arena, a person often supports a policy, not because of the effects he thinks that policy will have, but because his supporting it has symbolic value for himself or others. Supporting the minimum wage is an act that stands for a value such as concern for the poor. The person who is concerned for the poor wants to express that concern, and there are acts that socially symbolize that concern: praising the New Deal, announcing that you voted for a Democrat, supporting public schools, criticizing Bush.

Symbolic behavior, I hasten to say, is not exclusive of progressives. In libertarian circles someone may oppose environmental regulation for symbolic reasons. That position evinces a hostile attitude toward government regulation in general which he wants to express. In his haste to send the right signals he overlooks (say) the problems of externalities and market failure.

The speaker in these cases might not simply want to express himself. He may be anxious to be accepted in certain groups who associate the verbal act with other beliefs that the speaker presumably has and that make him a desirable candidate for admission.

I have found that this problem, self-defeating political symbolism, is extraordinarily hard to eradicate and fatally gets in the way of agreement between these two audiences. Progressives feel compelled to stand by their positions even in the face of evidence that the policies they advocate frustrate the goal they profess. They stick to those views because the views strongly symbolize and give unity to a vision of the world associated with social justice. Libertarians, on the other hand, have a hard time convincing progressives that they care for the poor because they endorse policies that do not socially symbolize concern for social justice.




"Death Panels" sneak back in

Sarah Palin was right

IBD has received a letter from Republicans on the Energy and Commerce Committee to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius requesting information on “the improper inclusion of a proposal to encourage end-of-life planning in a Medicare regulation in the fall of 2010.”

Late last year, a controversy erupted when in November a set of final regulations for Medicare contained a provision enabling Medicare to pay for “end-of-life” counseling. A furor ensued over the fact that (1) this raised the entire “death panel” specter again; and (2) the provision was not in the proposed regulations released in August, thereby shielding the provision from the lengthy public comment period that is supposed to follow proposed regulations.

No one was sure who was responsible for slipping the provision into the 692-page final regulation. Until eleven days ago. Here is Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-Ga., asking Sebelius about the matter. In short, Sebelius admits that she was the one who slipped it in without allowing for public comment.

This has prompted Republicans on the Energy and Commerce Committee to send a letter Monday to Sebelius demanding more information. The letter says that the “inclusion of this regulation was clearly an attempt to subvert the democratic process.” Further, the Republicans state:

"We are very disturbed by your actions. It is clear that end-of-life regulations would not make it through Congress or survive a public debate during the rulemaking process, and were thus dropped into the final rule without allowing the public any opportunity to comment. The secrecy surrounding their inclusion in the final rule indicates that this was a political maneuver designed to avoid public scrutiny and comment."

The letter further asks Sebelius to make a “designee” available to committee staffers next week so they can learn more about the “internal discussions” at HHS regarding “how the proposal was surreptitiously inserted.”

SOURCE. (See the original for links)


Dems at radicalization hearings recite Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated group’s talking points

The Daily Caller has acquired the talking points that the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), a group with deep ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, supplied to its supporters as an aid in attacking the Muslim radicalization hearing New York Republican Rep. Peter King held Thursday. Save for Texas Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee’s incoherent ramblings on Thursday, Democrats’ statements and testimony against King’s hearing, whether intentionally or unintentionally, largely mirrored MPAC’s talking points.

MPAC recommended that its supporters accuse King of “pure political posturing,” and told them to say, “these hearings appear little more than a political circus with Rep. King as the ringleader.” MPAC also recommended supporters say that the “hearings hurt our national security” because of their “narrow scope.” Finally, it said supporters should say that the hearings were unnecessary because “active” partnerships between law enforcement and the American Muslim community already exist.

California Democratic Rep. Laura Richardson hit on the “pure political posturing” point in the MPAC memo. She compared King’s hearings to those of the McCarthy era.

Rep. Al Green, Texas Democrat, asked why King wasn’t investigating the Ku Klux Klan, something that plays right into the MPAC “suggested message” that the “hearings hurt our national security” because of a “narrow scope.”

Minnesota Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison regurgitated all the MPAC talking points in his testimony at the beginning of the hearing.

“Ascribing the evil acts of a few individuals to an entire community is wrong; it is ineffective; and it risks making our country less secure,” Ellison said. “Targeting the Muslim American community for the actions of a few is unjust. Actually all of us–all communities–are responsible for combating violent extremism. Singling out one community focuses our analysis in the wrong direction.”

A spokesman for Ellison told TheDC that the congressman didn’t receive the MPAC talking points and “wrote his testimony himself.” A spokesman for Green did not immediately respond to TheDC’s request for comment.






Leftist dishonesty

If it suits their emotional needs, Leftists will defend the indefensible. They are incapable of admitting that their opponents are right. And they are not ashamed to use the most disreputable and invalid forms of argument. Note below how they defend their friends, the Muslim extremists:
On his popular nationally syndicated talk-radio show yesterday, Michael Savage spotlighted the behavior of Democrats at the controversial House hearing on radicalization in the Muslim community in America. "Did you see how the Democrats behaved? How disgusting their behavior was?" Savage asked, pointing to Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, as one of many examples.

After the hearing Thursday, Green bullied a reporter who pointed out that of 126 terror indictments by the Justice Department, all were of Muslims. But Green insisted the Ku Klux Klan should have been investigated along with Muslim radicalization.

"Mr. Green, Mr. Green," Savage interjected as he played the clip. "The KKK is a despicable organization. They've been investigated, they've been penetrated. Half of them are FBI agents." Instead of embracing an investigation of Islam in America, Savage wondered, "why is Al Green suddenly talking about the KKK?"


How many KKK members have gone on shooting sprees at U.S. army bases? But the argument is a non-argument anyway. If someone wants to investigate the KKK, let them. It could be interesting to find out whether they are still all Democrats! But to claim that there should be another enquiry speaks not at all to whether the first enquiry is justified!

And the other classic of illogic is the ad hominem attack: Abusing the arguer rather than addressing his argument. And you can find heaps of attacks on Peter King of that sort here.

And there have of course been innumerable comparisons of Peter King with Joe McCarthy. Again, however, that is a barb without a sting -- if only because McCarthy was eventually proved right after the fall of the Soviet Union. To accuse King of McCarthyism is to accuse King of accuracy!

And the most amusing thing of all about McCarthy is that he is regularly blamed for the deeds of the Democrat-led HUAC. Yet McCarthy was a Senator and HUAC stands for "HOUSE Un-American Activities Committee"! And the HUAC enquiries lasted far longer (37 years!) than McCarthy's enquiries did. How odd that we never hear Democrats blaming HUAC for anything! They only criticize HUAC when they think they can attribute it to McCarthy!


ATF Should Change Its Name to WTF




For instance, Gottlieb reports:
















The Real Battle: Makers v. Takers















Obama: 'The best revolutions are organic'

James Lewis (below) sees in a recent statement by Obama traces of extreme Leftist theology. He may be right. Obama certainly has been steeped in that thinking. On the whole, however, I am inclined to think that Obama may have simply meant that the best revolutions are ones which originate as a spontaneous uprising among the people

We finally have a quote from Obama that sounds authentic. It's something he believes, or at least it's something that some Marxist professor told him back at Occidental or Columbia, in the old dope-smoking days, one that stuck in his mind. Behind the scenes in the White House Obama apparently trotted out this gem of Marxist-Leninist wisdom several times during the Middle East firestorms of the last two months, according to this source: "The best revolutions are organic."

This is while they are trying to decide whether to save any lives, and the whole Muslim world is exploding. Obama is doing nothing except giving a push to Mubarak and Khadafi -- which is bound to make things worse in the short run. In Egypt the military took over and stabilized the situation, and Libya has a real civil war. But Iran is doing fine, thanks to Obama's gullibility in dealing with the blood-spattered mullahs. Oh, well. Zero out of three ain't bad.

But now we know why The President of the United States was doing nothing. He wasn't protecting the rebels in Libya from the tender mercies of Khaddafi's air force, because a Western intervention in Africa would not be "organic." That's `cause "the best revolutions are organic."

Now "organic" doesn't mean that the Egyptian rebellion was grown in goat manure, or that it came in little recycled bags complete with a jolly banana sticker and locally grown, certified E coli. No, this is "organic" the way grand historical speculators like Marx, Lenin, Arnold Toynbee and Oswald Spengler liked to use "organic."

Here's an example from Wikipedia: "In 1920 Spengler produced Prussiandom and Socialism (Preuáentum und Sozialismus), which argued for an organic, nationalist version of socialism and authoritarianism... "

The Nazis claimed that their revolution was "organic," just like Spengler's idea. The word "organic" has a specific meaning in this madcap fantasy world. It means "having a united racial soul." No kidding. It all makes perfect sense in German Romanticism, which loved being organic.

Obama's notion of "organic revolutions" comes from a French Leninist movement of "negritude," or ideological blackness. It means "really, truly black," as opposed to phony blackness, like the kind Justice Clarence Thomas has. To the Madcap Left, Sarah Palin is not a real woman, Justice Thomas isn't black, and Obama, who has no personal roots in the American black experience at all, is really black. Black is not a color.

None of this belongs in a White House of sane and realistic people. It is grotesque. Obama's White House today is evading the very real question of innocent people whose lives are at risk in Libya. They are pumping dense clouds of smoke to cover up their real thinking.

More here



Reclaiming the word “liberal”: "I propose that we call left-liberals just that, not 'liberals' without qualification. Doing so would help reclaim the original name of an honorable old political tradition. It would resist the purloining and perversion of the word 'liberal' as used in the United States."

Wikileaks suspect being mistreated in jail says State Department spokesman: "US State Department spokesman PJ Crowley has said the Pentagon is being 'ridiculous and stupid' in subjecting American soldier Bradley Manning to mistreatment at Quantico in Virginia over the alleged leak of US diplomatic cables through the Wikileaks website. Crowley said Manning was being "mistreated" in the military brig, adding: "What is being done to Bradley Manning is ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid on the part of the Department of Defence." Manning is being held for 23 hours in solitary confinement in his cell and stripped naked every night." [Crowley was later fired for speaking out so it sounds like he was right]

Obama’s disgrace: "Traditionally in the United States, when the government cannot bear its burden of proof before a court, it must set a suspect free. But the so-called 'war on terror' changed all that for people arbitrarily branded terrorist suspects or enemy combatants. Carrying on the policy established by Bush, the Obama administration takes the position that someone felt to be a threat to national security can be denied a trial and held prisoner indefinitely. Nothing is more un-American. "




