NYC Communists: We Prefer to be Called Progressives

Of course they do.

[By the way the reason the media report is so glowing is because RT = Russia Today - Editor]

The first “great” progressive thinker is Walter Lippmann. He is the founder of modern American journalism and advisor to President’s Wilson and FDR. He wrote this:

Throughout the world, in the name of progress, men who call themselves communists, socialists, fascists, nationalists, progressives, and even liberals, are unanimous in holding that government with its instruments of coercion must by commanding the people how they shall live, direct the course of civilization and fix the shape of things to come. They believe in what Mr. Stuart Chase accurately describes as “the overhead planning and control of economic activity.” This is the dogma which all the prevailing dogmas presuppose. This is the mold in which are cast the thought and action of the epoch. No other approach to the regulation of human affairs is seriously considered, or is even conceived as possible. The recently enfranchised masses and the leaders of thought who supply their ideas are almost completely under the spell of this dogma. Only a handful here and there, groups without influence, isolated and disregarded thinkers, continue to challenge it. For the premises of authoritarian collectivism have become the working beliefs, the self-evident assumptions, the unquestioned axioms, not only of all the revolutionary regimes, but of nearly every effort which lays claim to being enlightened, humane, and progressive.

So universal is the dominion of this dogma over the minds of contemporary men that no one is taken seriously as a statesman or a theorist who does not come forward with proposals to magnify the power of public officials and to extend and multiply their intervention in human affairs. Unless he is authoritarian and collectivist, he is a mossback, a reactionary, at best an amiable eccentric swimming hopelessly against the tide. It is a strong tide.

The first great thinker of the “progressive movement” openly states that progressivism and American liberalism are simply flavors of communism designed to control men and the economy by ever increasing the role of the state in our lives. This is not extremism folks, or fear mongering, it is simply the objective truth by their own words.

The Blaze:

AFL-CIO LEADER ACCEPTS COMMUNIST PARTY AWARD: ‘I STAND WITH THEM’

Those who doubt the connection between the communist party and the unions need only to read accounts of a recent awards ceremony to see how both groups view each other.

On Sunday, December 5, the Communist Party USA gave awards to a pair of labor leaders and a former state legislator and assistant attorney general.* Among the recipients was Connecticut AFL-CIO head John Olsen, who not only gladly accepted the award, but garnered “loud applause” when he said he stands with CPUSA.

CPUSA’s webzine People’s World reports Olsen was given the award at the Voices for Jobs, Equality & Peace – People’s World Amistad Awards Concert celebrating the 90th anniversary of the CPUSA.

“James Hillhouse High School auditorium was filled with the fabulous jazz sounds of Jeff Fuller & Friends, labor songs by Bill Collins of the Rabble Rousers, and poetry by Baub Bidon and Ken Brown,” the article describes the event. But besides offering a mental picture, it also gives a glimpse of Olsen’s acceptance speech, in which he says he will stand with the Communist Party:

“Anyone who stands with me for workers’ rights, I stand with them,” said John Olsen to loud applause as he acknowledged the Communist Party and took a strong stand against fear mongering and baiting, including the anti-socialist baiting of President Barack Obama.

The article goes on to praise the union for its work, and explains how important the union is in fighting for CPUSA causes:

The AFL CIO and local unions are now developing their legislative agendas.  For the first time in 22 years, a Democratic governor was elected in Connecticut.  It is widely recognized that union members made the difference in voter turnout.

 

Related - AFL-CIO Head Calls For Government Takeover of All Business

Democrat Leader Pelosi: If All Americans had affordable health care, we would still pass ObamaCare

Wow.

It is amazing to normal people how these politicians will just sit there and lie or repeat a manufactured lie/halftruth.

ObamaCare will create jobs: It sure will, tens of thousands of new government bureaucrat jobs.

The “non partisan Congressional Budget Office said that it would reduce the deficit”:

They said that because the Democrats made the CBO score it according to a set of assumptions that are not going to happen. Such as doctor reimbursements dropping and staying so low that Doctors could not afford to take Medicare patients and other such tricks to hide expenses or count money twice.

Even when the CBO is given realistic scoring instructions they still get it way off. The cost of every program is underestimated, the impact of tax cuts and tax increases is usually wrong. This is because the CBO uses near static Keynesian models to forecast.

I will slightly exaggerate the following example to make the point. McDonald’s sells one million hamburgers a year. Congress tells the CBO that we will place a $100 tax on each burger. How much money will the government take in?

CBO – 100 million dollars.

OK CBO, those nasty Republicans want to cut the tax from $100 to $1. Based on the previous model how much will the Republicans increase the deficit?

CBO – 99 million dollars.

Of course the truth is that no one is going to buy the burger with a $100 tax on each one, but lots of people will buy them if there is only a $1 tax. The reality is that the government will collect more money with the reduced tax rate, but that is not how the CBO would score it under these instructions.

Now you know why the CBO first 20 year outlay estimate for Medicare looked so affordable to Congress, they only underestimated the cost by nearly a factor of 10.

But when asked to give their own opinion when they are not being played or tied to obsolete models the CBO says things like THIS:

Under current law, the federal budget is on an unsustainable path, because federal debt will continue to grow much faster than the economy over the long run. Although great uncertainty surrounds long-term fiscal projections, rising costs for health care and the aging of the population will cause federal spending to increase rapidly under any plausible scenario for current law. Unless revenues increase just as rapidly, the rise in spending will produce growing budget deficits. Large budget deficits would reduce national saving, leading to more borrowing from abroad and less domestic investment, which in turn would depress economic growth in the United States. Over time, accumulating debt would cause substantial harm to the economy.

Even Obama’s own Medicare Actuary says that ObamaCare will make healthcare costs go up on the states, on private insurance and as a percentage of GDP which makes it even less sustainable than it is now; also consider that these are from his Administration’s own rose colored scenario.

Politically the repeal effort, while unlikely to succeed until 2013, when there is a new president, is smart for Republicans, because the Democrats will have to defend the tax increases, the adverse selection spirals and all of the other problems with this bill all over again.

Girls defeat US Border fence in under 18 seconds. Napolitano: Obama Administration’s Security of Border is Unprecedented

We have heard Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano say it many times that the resources put into border enforcement is unprecedented. The reality is the border is a joke, they know its a joke, so they hire a few more border agents and say “See we have unprecedented effort” when in reality the enforcement is not even close to being serious.

In the mean time while anyone can cross our borders with ease, you have to face breast, crotch and underwear checks, nude scanners and God help you if you are an amputee or use a colostomy bag and retaliation from the government if you complain.

Feel safe?

Via The Blaze:

Remember Homeland Security Secretary Jane Napalitano’s mantra from last year the border is “as secure now as it has ever been”? (See here and here.) No one better show her the following video, which claims to show two young girls tackling, and conquering, the U.S./Mexico immigration fence in under 18 seconds — by hand:

The video comes from the creator of a film called “The Other Side of Immigration.” Interestingly, the goal of that film and the above video is not meant as a statement on the necessity of increased border security. Rather, the film bills itself as a documentary purporting to show the plight of Mexicans, why they are flocking to the U.S., and an alternative theory on how to stop illegal immigration.

Allen West: Liberal Progressive Agenda is Antithesis of Who We Are as a Republic

Now some of you will watch this and think he is being over the top. But is he?

Allen West he defines tyranny as the Founders did. Think about the situation, what would the Founders think of the following:

All three branches of government are now legislating on their own and against the will of the people. We have a breakdown of separation of powers. Federalism is all but eliminated. Government is infringing on private property rights more and more, government owns most of the land west of the Mississippi to prevent us from using our own resources, Congress banned the Thomas Edison light bulb, government uses the tax code and other regulations to pick winners and losers and funnel money to their allies, judges and other office holders do not respect the limits of their office or the Constitution. The government is becoming so big that it is becoming ungovernable.

Congress spent almost $4 trillion last year with $2.08 trillion of that being new deficit spending which is 10 times higher than the yearly deficit the last year the Republicans had budgetary control.

Does anyone doubt for a minute that George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, James Madison, Jon Jay, Ben Rush, George Mason, Gouverneur Morris, Sam Adams, or Alexander Hamilton would say otherwise? Would Abe Lincoln, Frederick Douglass or Joseph Story?

DNC Chair Tim Kaine: Obama too busy with ObamaCare to worry about jobs and the economy

ObamaCare, bank take overs, car company micromanaging, power grabs in the Food Bill and the new Financial Regulation Bill etc etc etc…. all while trillions are spent and only a few people are helped…

Priceless….

Press Grilled Bush When Gas Hit $3.00 – Nada for Obama… UPDATED!

Paying attention journalism students?

Via the Media Research Center:

Gas prices are “soaring” again, crossing the $3-a-gallon threshold on Dec. 23 for the first time since Oct. 17, 2008. Back then the benchmark was a relief as prices plunged from the highest price ever of $4.11.

Pump prices have been climbing all month, yet network reports downplayed the pain and suffering of consumers. Jim Axelrod of CBS called it “bad news” after reporting some positive economic news on Dec. 28, but concluded “The economy’s not great, says economist Dan Greenhaus, but not terrible either.”

Compare that to past media exaggeration of gas prices. NBC’s Anne Thompson said that “no matter what kind of gas is sold, today it’s now unbelievably expensive” on Aug. 31, 2005. That day the national average for gasoline was $2.62 – but the gas price signs shown in Thompson’s report were much higher at $3.49.

That same night, ABC’s Charles Gibson claimed that gas was approaching $4-a-gallon.

Conversely, as prices fell throughout the summer of 2007, the network news media ignored gas price declines emphasizing “skyrocketing,” “soaring,” and “painfully high” prices over the drop.

What’s the difference between then and now? The president has changed from Bush to Obama, and with it the media’s attitude toward gas prices has shifted.

The Heritage Foundation noted on Dec. 29 that the press pestered Bush about gas costs and the political consequences of high pump prices, but have yet to ask Obama the question. CBS suggested on April 26, 2006, that President Bush needed to “do something” about gas prices.

A few months later, on Aug. 21, 2006, Bush was asked at a press conference: “What do you say to people who are losing patience with gas prices at $3 a gallon? And how much of a political price do you think you’re paying for that, right now?”

Heritage cited further examples of Democrats pressing the White House to “ease” prices (when prices were below $2-a-gallon), and Speaker Nancy Pelosi attacking the president for rising gas prices.

Under Obama, the networks haven’t breathlessly exaggerated gasoline prices as they did under Bush or demanded to know what the president will do to “ease” prices.

More Bad News:

Yet according to Heritage Obama’s policies will continue to make gasoline more expensive.

Heritage wrote: “Now this week, analysts including former president of Shell Oil, John Hofmeister, say Americans could be paying $5/gallon of gasoline by 2012. Investment banks are predicting a return to $100/barrel oil, andOPEC is refusing to raise production. All of this news would be less frightening if the White House were focusing on potential ways to lower energy prices. Instead, President Obama is admittedly fixated with raising them.”

How does Obama plan to raise prices? With further EPA regulations of power plants and oil refineries, and more rules for natural resources on government properties and the ‘de facto moratorium’ on oil drilling.

 

UPDATE -

Washington Post Refuses to Publish Own Poll Showing ObamaCare’s Lowest Popularity Ever

Gotta love the elite media. After all they decide what they think you need to know and leave out what they don’t.

File this one under desperate…

Via Newsbusters:

A new ABC-Washington Post poll found ObamaCare sunk to its lowest popularity yet: 52 percent opposed, and only 43 percent in favor. ABC mentioned the poll without fanfare at the end of a Jake Tapper report on Monday’s World News, and Tapper added this was the health law’s “lowest level of popularity ever.” But Tuesday’s Washington Post reported not one sentence on the poll in the paper – even as they reported in the paper that the same survey found Obama’s tax-and-unemployment-compensation deal has “broad bipartisan support.”

This is the same Post that highlighted the news on Page One on October 20, 2009, when they found a “clear majority” in favor of a socialist “public option” — amid charges they oversampled Democrats.

The numbers weren’t excluded because they arrived late. The Post poll numbers went up on the website yesterday at about 1 pm, under the headline “Health care opponents divided on repeal.” That obscured the numbers a bit, as Cohen found a “slim majority” (not a “clear majority”?) currently oppose ObamaCare:

Overall, 52 percent of those polled oppose the overhaul to the health care system, 43 percent are supportive of it. Fully 86 percent of Republicans are against the legislation; 67 percent of Democrats support it. Independents divide down the middle, with 47 percent in favor and the same number opposed.

Cohen made no mention of that phrase “lowest level of popularity ever.” He did try to suggest that the individual mandate was wildly unpopular — implying other parts of ObamaCare are still worth keeping:

Among the general public, the Kaiser poll showed 68 percent supportive of a repeal of the individual mandate. Of four core components of the health care law tested in the poll, the individual mandate was the one with the highest negatives, by far. Seventy percent of all those polled said they held an unfavorable view of the requirement that everyone carry insurance, including 52 percent who had “strongly unfavorable” opinions.

 

But wait! There’s more! Speaking of oversampling Democrats….

The WashPo poll was posted online December 13th showing 52% opposing ObamaCare, BUT a Rasmussen Reports poll published December 12th shows that 60% favored ObamaCare’s repeal, with 55% favoring repeal the following week and 60% favoring the repeal last week and this week.

Lesson for Journalism Students: Leftist Media Attack Fox News for Memo Reminding Reporters to Always be Skeptical

There are two predominant philosophies of journalism taught in this country. The “Walter Lippmann (so called) ‘objective’ model” and what one of  my J-School profs called the “Looking out for the folks” model. The former is usually presented as the preferred model at most universities (especially the Ivy’s)

The Lippmann Objective Model is anything but objective. The Lippmann model says that journalists should associate themselves with an elite technical class of people so that these experts via/with the journalists can give the “proper” information to the public so that they can “vote the right way”.

At first, the Orwellian nature of the Lippmann Model  is not so pointedly explained, but as time goes on reporters get it and the coverage of the elite media shows it. [If you doubt me I challenge you to follow this LINK and scroll down to the quote from Dr. Rahe and the excerpt from Lippmann's book - Editor]

For example, the reporter and/or editor has a point of view he wishes to present. So he opens his rolodex and contacts an “expert” he knows will give him the sound-bite he wants and presents him as just an objective expert who they found at random. Or said reporter will have a man on the street section, but the reporter will call a few people he knows to be on that street, complete with the narrative that the reporter knows will present.

Oh? You think I’m kidding? OK just a few examples:

CNN Debates: Unbiased and Undecided Voters Turn Out to be Democrat Operatives (most of whom had appeared on CNN before)

Of course this is a trick commonly used by PR operatives:

Washington Post: Obama Town Hall Questioners Were Campaign Ringers

Obama’s Photo Op with Cheering Troops Staged

BUSTED: Democrats putting campaign ringers in town halls falsely claiming to be doctors!

Of course the Associated Press knows this goes on, but only appreciates it when leftists do it:

AP praises Obama for using military for public relations. FLASHBACK: AP condemned Bush accusing him of using the military for public relations.

The “looking out for the folks” model is often quoted by Bill O’Reilly, but Bill, as he will tell you, is more of a commentator than a straight news man. The spirit of the kind of journalism O’Reilly did when he was a straight news man is closer to this model. The ”looking out for the folks” model certainly resembles more of the ethical ideal in what people expect from journalism and is what “Lippmann Objective Model” media outlets claim to be on their face.

Enough with the preliminary goodies and on to the meat.

Washington Examiner:

Oh the horror! Fox bureau chief told reporters to be ‘skeptical’

By Mark Tapscott

You think the most essential purpose of journalism and the reason the Founders included freedom of the press in the First Amendment was to insure independent reporting about government, politicians, and public policy issues, right?

Well, you must be wrong because Fox News Washington Bureau Chief Bill Sammon is getting a raft of garbage from liberal activists masquerading as journalists at Media Matters, some liberal bloggers and a scattering of real journalists who ought to know better.

Why? Politico’s headline captures the controversy perfectly: “Fox editor urged climate skepticism.”

A journalist being skeptical? Who would ever have thought such a thing could be. I don’t know, maybe anybody who has heard this (attributed long ago to a crusty desk editor at the illustrious City News Bureau in Chicago): “If your mother tells you she loves you, check it out.”

In other words, we journalists are paid to BE SKEPTICAL.

For the record, here’s what Sammon said in a Dec. 8, 2009, memo to his reporting staff shortly after the Climategate global warming email scandal erupted:

“Given the controversy over the veracity of climate change data, we should refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question. It is not our place as journalists to assert such notions as facts, especially as this debate intensifies.”

Now I am from out of town and all, but Sammon’s injuction sounds to me exactly like what editors are supposed to tell their charges – report what A claims and what B says about what A claims, but keep your personal views about both A and B out of it.

Note that Sammon includes both those who say the planet has warmed – i.e. global warming advocates – and those who claim the opposite, that the planet has cooled – global warming critics. How much more even-handed – dare I say it, fair and balanced? – can the guy be?

There is also the factual nature of Sammon’s statement that critics question data. Critics DO question the data for a warming planet. He doesn’t demand that his reporters agree with the critics about the data or tell viewers that the critics are right and the global warming advocates are wrong.

Yet, Salon’s headline claims the Fox news executive was “again caught demanding conservative spin.” And the lead that follows makes another false statement, claiming Sammon directed his “anchors and reporters to adopt right-wing spin when discussing the news.”

Are these people so arrogant as to think the rest of us are too stupid to see that Salon totally and completely misrepresented Sammon’s comment?

The back story here, of course, is that Media Matters is doing exactly what billionaire radical liberal financier George Soros paid it $1 million to do, which is to trash Fox News at every opportunity no matter what the facts might be in any given situation.

Watching this campaign unfold, it becomes clear that Fox News drives today’s extremist liberals into the same sort of eye-bulging, irrational, spittle-flying, blind rage that we saw back in the 1950s from the far right whack-jobs in the John Birch Society who claimed Ike was either a fool or a card-carrying commie.

Now, just so everybody reading this knows: Sammon is a former White House reporter for The Examiner. I count him as a friend, a respected colleague and a solid journalist. And Fox News puts me in front of a camera as a talking head once in a while.

So how long you think it will be before Sammon’s critics claim my comments here aren’t credible as a result? The reality is that the left-leaning MSNBC folks sit me down in front of their cameras to bloviate far more frequently than Fox does. Go figure.

So here’s something to ponder when the paid Fox detractors at Media Matters tell you Sammon and I are both former Washington Timesmen and are thus Republican mouthpieces:

I was inducted into the First Amendment Center’s Freedom of Information Hall of Fame a few years ago. I mention this not to boast, but because I was among a bunch of very smart people for whom I have great respect – even though they came predominantly from the liberal side of things.

But I don’t recall seeing anybody from Media Matters among the inductees.

WikiLeaks cables reveal how US manipulated climate accord

But wait, I thought global warming was about open dialogue, tolerance for scientific skepticism, and all those cosey academic principles that are taught in science classes? Save the world, kumbaya …or not. It seems that the government is using outrageous pressure tactics to gain consensus, just like far left climate scientists do.

 

Guardian UK:

Embassy dispatches show America used spying, threats and promises of aid to get support for Copenhagen accord

Hidden behind the save-the-world rhetoric of the global climate change negotiations lies the mucky realpolitik: money and threats buy political support; spying and cyberwarfare are used to seek out leverage.

The US diplomatic cables reveal how the US seeks dirt on nations opposed to its approach to tackling global warming; how financial and other aid is used by countries to gain political backing; how distrust, broken promises and creative accounting dog negotiations; and how the US mounted a secret global diplomatic offensive to overwhelm opposition to the controversial “Copenhagen accord“, the unofficial document that emerged from the ruins of the Copenhagen climate change summit in 2009.

Negotiating a climate treaty is a high-stakes game, not just because of the danger warming poses to civilisation but also because re-engineering the global economy to a low-carbon model will see the flow of billions of dollars redirected.

Seeking negotiating chips, the US state department sent a secret cable on 31 July 2009 seeking human intelligence from UN diplomats across a range of issues, including climate change. The request originated with the CIA. As well as countries’ negotiating positions for Copenhagen, diplomats were asked to provide evidence of UN environmental “treaty circumvention” and deals between nations.

But intelligence gathering was not just one way. On 19 June 2009, the state department sent a cable detailing a “spear phishing” attack on the office of the US climate change envoy, Todd Stern, while talks with China on emissions took place in Beijing. Five people received emails, personalised to look as though they came from the National Journal. An attached file contained malicious code that would give complete control of the recipient’s computer to a hacker. While the attack was unsuccessful, the department’s cyber threat analysis division noted: “It is probable intrusion attempts such as this will persist.”

• Read more about how the US cajolled other countries into supporting the Copenhagen Accord.

 

Campus Reform’s Guide to the Top 100 Schools

Want to know the political environment of your university?

Want to know how many and what professors are donating to who?

Want to be advised of faculty and administrators who are known to abuse conservative students and/or use the classroom for indoctrination as opposed to education?

Want to know what political clubs are on campus?

CampusReform.org has a guide that can help you.

 

Let us look at the guide for Indiana University shall we?

Indiana University – Bloomington (IU) was founded in 1820 in Bloomington, Indiana. Today, it is the flagship school of the Indiana University system and enrolls more than 38,000 students. IU is known for its research, its arts program, and also its Division I sports team, the Hoosiers.

Campus Life

At IU, there are 25 liberal student organizations and seven conservative student organizations.

IU has a vast array of far-left student organizations. Groups for parties and candidates include Hoosiers for Nader, Young Democratic Socialists, Students for Democracy, Students for Democratic Socialism, and Students for President Obama.

Liberal political advocacy groups run the gamut of leftist causes. Feminist groups include Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance, Planned Parenthood Peer Educators, Access Choice in Bloomington, and GOTOPLESS, which “raise awareness about…the constitutional right of women to be topless or top-free in public where men are able to.” Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GBLT) groups are the Hoosier Rights Campaign and the Indiana Universitry Day of Silence. Environmentalists are organized in Greeks Go Green, Green Hoosiers, and IU Green Campus, and pro-drug legalization students can choose between Lokal 420 at IU and Students for a Sensible Drug Policy.

Leftist students may also join Against the Occupation of Iraq; Students for a Commonsense Health Plan, which supports socialized healthcare; Americans United for Separation of Church and State; Democracy Matters at IU, which supports public financing of elections; HEAL IU Chapter, which focuses on “environmental, animal, and human rights”; Indiana Public Interest Research Group (PIRG); Multicultural Counseling Competency Experience; Students for Social Progress; and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

On the right, IU offers three Republican groups: the College Republicans, IU Republican Women, and Republican Jewish Coalition. There are also four groups for conservatives: Indiana University Conservative Readers, The Indiana Standard, Students For Concealed Carry On Campus, and Young Americans for Liberty.The italicized groupsare affiliated with CampusReform.org’s Campus Leadership Program, which provides students with advice, assistance, and support.

Young Americans for Liberty (YAL) and the conservative student publication, The Indiana Standard, are committed to the fight against leftist indoctrination at IU.

In fall 2009, the Indiana Standard reported how the IU Union Board Lectures Committee refused the request of YAL to host Dr. Thomas Woods, Jr. as a campus speaker by claiming that Dr. Woods, a free market champion, was “academically unqualified.”

After the story broke, YAL members fought back against the absurd claim, and earned local media coverage with CampusReform.org blog posts, coverage from The Indiana Standard, and a press release. Their case was simple: Dr. Woods is a Harvard graduate and Columbia doctorate, an author of nine books, a senior scholar at the Mises Institute, and testified before the US House Financial Services Committee. That makes him much more qualified than other recent IU speakers, who include a “controversial sex columnist” and a professional cartoonist. Put simply, IU’s problem is Woods’ free-market beliefs — not his resume.

With the help of CampusReform.org, YAL members raised enough money to bring Dr. Woods to campus on their own. He will address IU students in September 2010.

Faculty

In the 2008 election, according to campaign finance data from The Huffington Post, 92% of IU faculty and staff who donated to campaigns chose to donate to Democrats. In total, 326 people donated nearly $215,000 to Democrats and just 28 people donated to Republicans.

That puts IU faculty and staff out of step with Indiana residents. In the 2008 presidential election, Barack Obama won the state by less than a percentage point. His vote total was 49.9% to John McCain’s 49.0%. That suggests the monolithically liberal politics of IU are far different from the rest of the state.

University Policy

FIRE, a prominent legal defense organization, ranked IU as a “yellow light” campus in its 2010 report. This rating indicates that IU has “at least one ambiguous policy that too easily encourages administrative abuse and arbitrary application.”

 

Ken Blackwell confirms IUSB Vision analysis of Obama’s plan to violate the Constitution and legislate by decree.

The Obama Administration has announced that it plans to enact Cap & Tax (energy taxes) and the so called “death panel” and other provisions into the health care law by abusing the power of regulation given to him. Congress denied him these laws, so he is going to do it anyways. Congress and the courts denied him the “Net Neutrality” regulations of the internet.

It is just as we told you HERE:

This is the problem that occurs when Congress grants federal bureaucracy such wide regulatory power to enact as they see fit. The bureaucrats get such wide power to enact law through regulation that they in effect become, as Justice Scalia once described as, “a junior varsity Congress” that can pass laws that are even against the will of Congress and the people. This action takes the entire purpose of Separation of Powers in the Constitution and tosses it right out the window. While Congress does have some minor delegable authority under the Necessary and Proper clause in no way did the Founders ever intend to have a situation where all three branches of government are legislating on their own and against the will of the people.

This action shows that the Obama administration and some of the Democratic leadership have nothing but utter contempt for the overwhelming expressed will of the American people.

Imagine what would happen in the elite if George Bush did something so extreme, or Sarah Palin?

Ken Bkackwell:

Teachers union boss takes in $428,000, then demands shared sacrifice

You just gotta love public sector unions…

To hear them talk one might think they are all underpaid victims, like missionaries working in the third world…. so sad…./sniff.

The truth is that public sector unions are usually paid more then there private sector counterparts. They also get Cadillac level benefits that they pay little or nothing for and get pensions that are so fat that states have no idea how they can possibly pay them. So far what are the results, snow that doesn’t get cleared in New York, a federal government that spent $2.08 trillion more than it took in and we have little to show for it, and public schools that range from sub-par to unsafe failures. [Even the best American public schoolers do not measure well against other top 30 industrialized nations. So if you think "our public schools are really good" you are deluding yourself - Editor]

Washington Examiner:

American Federation of Teachers president Rhonda “Randi” Weingarten has issued a statement slamming proposed cuts from the congressional deficit commission for not pushing shared sacrifice among the wealthy, but an AFT spokesman has told The Examiner that Weingarten will not be taking a paycut from the total $428,284 she received in salary and benefits during fiscal year 2010.

Weingarten wrote of the proposed budget cuts from the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform:

While we’re grateful the commission’s chairmen understood the need to hold education investment sacrosanct, count on a vigorous fight from us over proposed cuts to Social Security and Medicare that would hurt an already-ailing middle class. Shared sacrifice means holding millionaires responsible for their fair share of taxes and ending truly wasteful spending, not sawing off essential lifelines for the middle class, who desperately are trying to keep their heads above water in these precarious economic times. We can help solve the financial future of Social Security and Medicare by investing in putting our people back to work, so they can pay into these programs. Nothing is more important to the future solvency of the country.

Filings from the Department of Labor reveal that the American Federation of Teachers has disbursed $428,284 to Weingarten. Her gross salary is $342,552, but benefits and other disbursements raise that number to almost half a million dollars. She also earned a six-figure salary when she was president of Local 2 in 2009, during which she received $202,319. Neither of these sums, by the way, include her expenses.

*Click to Enlarge

When The Examiner called the AFT to ask whether Weingarten was planning on taking a paycut to demonstrate her belief in shared sacrifice, the spokesman said no. “No, absolutely not. She works 24/7 on behalf of union members and the people we serve. Making sure that people get a great education in public schools in America. She works to the bottom of her soul. You can’t put a price tag on that.”

I joked that, well, there is a price tag on that, and it’s apparently $428,284, but got no response.

The spokesman also asked whether The Examiner was equally critical of Goldman Sachs “who has received taxpayer dollars” (we have been), though it’s a bit odd that a spokesman for a teachers union that lobbies to funnel more taxpayer dollars toward its members would be so critical of Goldman Sachs for taking taxpayer dollars.

The lesson from the teachers union is clear: Shared sacrifice for thee and not for me.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2010/11/teachers-union-boss-takes-428k-demands-shared-sacrifice#ixzz19v9L6V70

Steve Forbes on why business is not hiring

It is just like we told you HERE.