Chris Priebus Selected Republican Nat’l Committee Chariman

Reince Priebus wins RNC Chairmanship

By Chris Cillizza

Wisconsin Republican party chairman Reince Priebus won a protracted fight for the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee today, replacing his one-time ally Michael Steele at the helm of the committee.

Priebus led on every ballot but picked up momentum once Steele exited the contest after the fourth round of voting. (Steele endorsed former RNC official Maria Cino but it was Priebus who harvested most of the incumbent’s support.)

Priebus won the chairmanship — a simply majority of the 168 RNC committeemen and women — on the seventh ballot.

In addition to Steele and Cino, Priebus beat out former Michigan Republican party chairman Saul Anuzis and former ambassador Ann Wagner for the top job.

Throughout the race, Priebus was a reluctant warrior — waiting on the sidelines for weeks for Steele to step aside and, when that didn’t happen, saying little about his one-time ally during the final weeks of the process.

But, in the way that he cast his candidacy, Priebus made clear he was the anti-Steele. He touted himself as a low-key doer, and made sure the 168 voting members of the committee knew about the successes he had enjoyed as chairman of the Wisconsin GOP, which won a governor’s race, a U.S. Senate seat and two House seats last November.

“Priebus’ candidacy did not seem hamstrung by his one-time close association to Steele. (He served as Steele’s campaign manager in the 2009 RNC contest.) Steele pointedly refused to endorse Priebus when he decided to exit the race, a sign that the ill feelings still lingered between the two men.

“I will step aside because I think the party is ready for something different,” said Steele in stepping aside. He remained defiant about the gains the GOP had made under his guidance, however, noting: “Despite the noise, despite the difficulties, we won.”

Priebus also enjoyed widespread geographic support across the committee — none more important than from Henry Barbour, a Mississippi committeeman and the nephew of Governor and potential 2012 presidential candidate Haley Barbour (R-Miss.).

The association with a would-be presidential candidate was used by Priebus’ opponents but ultimately did little to alter the final outcome.

Priebus’ challenge as chairman is daunting.

The most difficult task is beginning to not only erase a $20 million debt the RNC carried in the wake of the 2010 election but also build back relationships with major GOP donors that had eroded badly during Steele’s time in office.

Every candidate in the race — with the exception of Steele — insisted that while the party had scored across-the-board gains in the 2010 election, the RNC was not in the sort of shape it needed to be to help defeat President Obama in 2012.

He also must find ways to unite the fractious divide between the establishment and tea party wings of the GOP. One of his main selling points to the committee, in fact, was his ability to successfully do just that in Wisconsin — rallying the party behind Gov. Scott Walker and Sen. Ron Johnson among others”.

 

Comment;  Mike Steele mismanaged the treasury while he was chairman.   Moreover he did not provide intellectual, political or philosophical leadership either.   That he wasn’t a noticeable obstacle between the Tea Party folks and the  Republican establsihment which he represented by office if not by other forces, was a plus.

Everyone agrees that Mike Steele  is a good guy and will find some ‘home’ within this forming conservative alliances within the Party.   He should brush up on Americana, however.  For when involved in a debate with a Democrat, Mr. Steele didn’t know why in the American story, Justice is Blind and is to be presented that way in art.

One these days could never expect a Democrat and  Democrat-Marxists  to know the reason.   They would  offer that a Justice should dispense justice based on feelings……as president Barack Obama had desired  when searching for a ‘Justice’ for the Supreme Court.

I am pleased Mike Steele has been replaced.  He was not the leader conservatives need to oppose the growth of Marxism in the country.

Another Lincoln Jewell to Appreciate: ‘Blood Libel’ of 1860

The Blood Libel bit I’ve taken from Scott W. Johnson’s column headline, “Lincoln on Blood Libel 1860”   at PowerLine.   I note he feels the same regarding Abraham Lincoln as I.

So many in modern Democrat educated America, don’t quite know who he was.

Johnson writes:

“Reader Mike Sterling writes that “[e]vidence of Lincoln’s greatness abounds, but the fact that his speeches and sentiments can so often be applied to contemporary events is the greatest proof that he was, perhaps, the greatest person ever to walk the planet. Take the screeching of buffoons like Krugman — Lincoln disposed of such idiots in his Cooper Union Speech while addressing efforts to link John Brown to Republicans.” Mr. Sterling refers to this passage of the Cooper Union Speech:

You charge that we stir up insurrections among your slaves. We deny it; and what is your proof? Harper’s Ferry! John Brown!! John Brown was no Republican; and you have failed to implicate a single Republican in his Harper’s Ferry enterprise. If any member of our party is guilty in that matter, you know it or you do not know it. If you do know it, you are inexcusable for not designating the man and proving the fact. If you do not know it, you are inexcusable for asserting it. . .

The Cooper Union Speech is indeed one Lincoln’s great speeches. It is a work of original scholarship reconstructing the views of the founding fathers on slavery. Harold Holzer devoted a good book to the speech; don’t miss Allen Guelzo’s admiring review of Holzer’s book. Like so many of Lincoln’s speeches, it remains a fount of political and practical wisdom.”

Comment:  Mr. Lincoln would be an exceptionally despised man in today’s Leftwing neighborhoods, particulary where Democrats abide and work.  This President, before he studied law, had what they would deem a vile,  primitive and otherwise dangerous education of  potential violence.  

One can understand this Democrat-Marxist femine  angst.   For essentially beyond his experiences in youth  living  a  hard and personal existence,  only two texts were available to him for intellectual learning:   an anthology of Shakespeare’s works  and the Bible.

Beware! There May Be A Man In Your Neighborhood! Warns Women Studies 101.

WARNING!  The following article deals with sexual material which may not be suitable for all readers.   Caution is advised.”

WARNING! It is unlikely that the author,  Lenore Skeenazy has an advanced degree in Women’s Studies from your neighborhood university and might have  uncertified opinions.

Read at your own peril.  We live in AD 2011.

“Last week, the lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, Timothy Murray, noticed smoke coming out of a minivan in his hometown of Worcester. He raced over and pulled out two small children, moments before the van’s tire exploded into flames. At which point, according to the AP account, the kids’ grandmother, who had been driving, nearly punched our hero in the face.

Why?

Mr. Murray said she told him she thought he might be a kidnapper.

And so it goes these days, when almost any man who has anything to do with a child can find himself suspected of being a creep. I call it “Worst-First” thinking: Gripped by pedophile panic, we jump to the very worst, even least likely, conclusion first. Then we congratulate ourselves for being so vigilant.

Consider the Iowa daycare center where Nichole Adkins works. The one male aide employed there, she told me in an interview, is not allowed to change diapers. “In fact,” Ms. Adkins said, “he has been asked to leave the classroom when diapering was happening.”

Now, a guy turned on by diaper changes has got to be even rarer than a guy turned on by Sponge Bob. But “Worst-First” thinking means suspecting the motives of any man who chooses to work around kids.

Maybe the daycare center felt it had to be extra cautious, to avoid lawsuits. But regular folk are suspicious, too. Last February, a woman followed a man around at a store berating him for clutching a pile of girls’ panties. “I can’t believe this! You’re disgusting. This is a public place, you pervert!” she said—until the guy, who posted about the episode on a website, fished out his ID. He was a clerk restocking the underwear department.

Given the level of distrust, is it any wonder that, as the London Telegraph reported last month, the British Musicians’ Union warned its members they are no longer to touch a child’s fingers, even to position them correctly on the keys? Or that a public pool in Sydney, Australia last fall prohibited boys from changing in the same locker room as the men? (According to the Daily Telegraph in Sydney, the men demanded this, fearing false accusations.)

What’s really ironic about all this emphasis on perverts is that it’s making us think like them. Remember the story that broke right before Christmas? The FBI warned law-enforcement agencies that the new Video Barbie could be used to make kiddie porn. The warning was not intended for the public but it leaked out. TV news celebrated the joy of the season by telling parents that any man nice enough to play dolls with their daughters could really be videotaping “under their little skirts!” as one Fox News reporter said.

This queasy climate is making men think twice about things they used to do unselfconsciously. A friend of mine, Eric Kozak, was working for a while as a courier. Driving around an unfamiliar neighborhood, he says, “I got lost. I saw a couple kids by the side of the road and rolled down my window to ask, ‘Where is such-and-such road?’ They ran off screaming.”

Another dad told me about taking his three-year-old to play football in the local park, where he’d help organize the slightly older kids into a game. Over time, one of the kids started to look up to him. “He wanted to stand close to me, wanted approval, Dad stuff, I guess. And because of this whole ‘stranger danger’ mentality, I could sense this sort of wary disapproval from the few other parents at the playground. So I just stopped going.”

And that’s not the worst. In England in 2006, BBC News reported the story of a bricklayer who spotted a toddler at the side of the road. As he later testified at a hearing, he didn’t stop to help for fear he’d be accused of trying to abduct her. You know: A man driving around with a little girl in his car? She ended up at a pond and drowned.

We think we’re protecting our kids by treating all men as potential predators. But that’s not a society that’s safe. Just sick.

Ms. Skenazy is a public speaker and author of the blog and book, “Free-Range Kids” (Wiley, 2010).

Businesses, Workers, Families to Exit Illinois

Illinois Exit Fee

Jubilation has broken out in the Midwest — or at least in Wisconsin and Indiana, now that Democrats in neighboring Illinois have rushed their tax increase into law, says the Wall Street Journal.

• Late Tuesday night, Democrats in the Illinois House and Senate rammed through Governor Pat Quinn’s 67 percent hike in the state income tax and a nearly 50 percent jump in the state corporate tax.
• The increase will add $1,400 to the average family’s tax bill, and will not likely help job creation in a state that has lost 374,000 jobs since 2008.

New Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker immediately rolled out a press release inviting Illinois businesses to decamp to the Badger State, contrasting his agenda to reduce taxes and welcome business with the Illinois increase.  Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels added: “We already had an edge on Illinois in terms of the cost of doing business, and this is going to make it significantly wider.”

• Illinois’ small businesses will pay the new 5 percent income tax rate, up from 3 percent, and the effective corporate tax rate will rise to 9.5 percent, which, when combined with the federal rate of 35 percent, will make the Land of Lincoln one of the most expensive places in the world to conduct business.
• Democrats say the higher rates will raise $7 billion to help close an estimated $14 billion budget gap, though tax hikes rarely raise the revenue that politicians promise.
• Rather than fix the state’s $150 billion unfunded pension problem, the bill also authorizes nearly $4 billion in new debt to fund the state’s pension payment this year.

Source: “Illinois Exit Fee,” Wall Street Journal, January 13, 2011.

For text:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704803604576077930503285122.html

(This article was published at the National Center for Policy Analysis)

Democrat Illinois Increases Taxes 66%….Yet Still May Default

from the Huffington Post of last February, 2010:     “ILLINOIS BUDGET CRISIS 2010:  Civic Federation Says Only Big Tax Hikes Can Fix “Horrific” Budget Problems”

(That headline and the article below was yesterday, that is, nearly a year ago.   The financial condition of the state of Illinois has deteriorated significantly since that woeful headline.   Last week  Illinois Democrats moved to increase state taxes by 66% as the first measure to slow down  the money bleeding.)

Huffington Post article:    “Are massive tax hikes coming to Illinois? A government watchdog group says if the state wants to “become solvent,” tax hikes and $2 billion in budget cuts are the only way to go.

The Civic Federation, one of the state’s most prominent tax watchdog groups, released a report Monday saying that raising the personal income tax rate by 66 percent–among other hikes–is the only way Illinois can repair its “horrific” financial situation, the Chicago Sun-Times reports.

The Civic Federation recommends that the state income tax be increased from 3 percent to 5 percent for individuals, that retirees’ pension and Social Security checks be taxed for the first time at the same rate as workers’ paychecks, and the tax on cigarettes be raised by another $1 per pack. The group also favors getting rid of $181 million in corporate tax breaks.

“Doomsday is here for the State of Illinois,” Civic Federation President Laurence Msall told the Sun-Times.

The Civic Federation’s recommendation comes at a bad time for Gov. Pat Quinn–with an upcoming election, a recession and many Illinois families struggling to get by. But the state’s $12.8 billion budget deficit that that has stopped the flow of cash to universities and schools, transit systems and social-service agencies is going to force Quinn and the state Legislature to make painful choices.

“Illinois’ financial crisis was not created by the great recession,” Msall told the Chicago Tribune. “It is a self-made crisis fed by a lack of responsibility.” The Tribune reports:

Msall said his group’s proposal, if adopted in full, would lop more than $10 billion off the deficit for budget year 2011. He also conceded that some of the red ink would have to be rolled into the following budget year before being erased in its entirety. It estimated the income tax hikes alone would raise $6 billion in new state revenue, while another $1.6 billion would be generated by requiring retirees for the first time to pay taxes on retirement income.

But will state officials go through with the Civic Federation’s plans? Quinn’s office wouldn’t comment on the new report, saying only to the Sun-Times that he plans on “working with the group during the upcoming budget debate.” Speaker Michael Madigan’s spokesman said that Madigan supports cigarette tax increases, and that Illinois Republicans have “done nothing” to help the state’s financial situation but continue to vote down any tax increase proposals.

“It’s not sustainable to continue to ignore your vendors,” Msall told the Sun-Times. “It’s not sustainable to ask your schools, local governments and homes for the developmentally disabled to go out to the market to borrow” because the state isn’t fulfilling its funding promises, Msall said. “A failure to effectively address this crisis in a comprehensive form will result in not only lost opportunities but in greater pain.”

JANUARY, 2011   FROM THE SUNSHINE REVIEW            THE ILLINOIS BUDGET

On January 12, 2011, lawmakers raised the state income tax 66%, from 3% to 5% of income, with Governor Pat Quinn explaining it was necessary because, “our fiscal house was burning.”^[1]

Illinois‘s Gov. Pat Quinn signed the state’s $25 billion FY2011 state budget on July 1, 2010.^[2] In December 2010, Quinn proposed borrowing $15 billion to pay the state’s bills.^[3]

Illinois’ financial situation is worse than any other state in the country according to a study by the National Conference of State Legislatures. The state ended Fiscal Year 2010 in worse shape than any other state (the state’s general fund balance was the lowest it has ever been at negative $4.7 billion^[4]) and the state’s budget situation has been called “tenuous at best.”^[5]

Illinois will receive $974 million from the federal government under H.R. 1586, a $26 billion plan to give states money for Medicaid and education that the President signed into law on August 10, 2010.^[6]

Gov. Pat Quinn signed a new state budget for FY2011 on July 1, 2010. The state is second only to California’s budget woes in terms of budget woes and is currently facing a $12.8 billion budget shortfall for FY 2010 and 2011, according to a January 2010 study by the Civic Federation. The budget as passed does not come close to erasing the state’s $13 billion deficit, the largest in history.^[7]

In the FY2011 budget, Quinn planned to reduce $509 million in spending plans for a variety of state agencies, with the largest reduction, $313 million, is primarily targeted to programs that serve the mentally ill and developmentally disabled through the Department of Human Services. State employee layoffs are not part of the plan due to a deal earlier this year in which the AFSCME agreed to defer part of its scheduled pay raises in exchange for a guarantee of no layoffs or facility closures through June 30, 2011.^[7] The study by the National Conference of State Legislatures reported in its study that the state plans to boost spending for FY2010 by 15.1%.^[5]

Illinois has a total state debt of $120,743,173,392 when calculated by adding the total of outstanding debt, pension and OPEB UAAL’s, unemployment trust funds and the 2010 budget gap as of July 2010.^[8]

See also: The Illinois State Budget on State Budget Solutions

2010 State spending & deficit in billions^[9]

Total spending	Pension	Health care	Education	Welfare	Protection	Transport	Deficit	Budget gap
$56.6	$8.3	$18.7	$8.4	$7.4	$2.3	$4	$67.5	$.56

 

Federal Stimulus

Of the state aid approved by Congress in August 2010, Illinois anticipates receiving $400 million for education and $550 million for Medicaid.^[17] It was less than the state had hope to receive.^[18] Gov. Quinn said he doubted a special legislative session would be necessary the state to spend the federal funds.^[17] Quinn previously detailed a $215.7 million cut to the state’s Department of Healthcare and Family Services, responsible for the state’s Medicaid and public insurance programs, which was a 2.7% cut compared to FY2010. That was also contingent on a “continued enhanced Medicaid match,” which the state did not get. The state is now responsible for an additional $200 million.^[18]

 Budget Cuts

The state closed 13 of its 15 tourist information centers to save approximately $2 million per year.^[19]

In July, Gov. Quinn said he eliminate $1.4 billion from the budget but did not offer many specifics on where those cuts would be made until early August 2010, when he detailed $891 million in budget cuts.^[20] The August announcement of budget cuts still did not provide details of how the cuts would be made and savings achieved. Many of the cuts were described simply as “efficiencies” and “changes.” For example, one $60 million cut was described as: “DHS will achieve operating efficiencies through review of contracts and programmatic changes.” No information on programmatic changes was given.^[21]

The governor’s cuts include:

• $576 million from the Department of Human Services, or 14%^[21], most of which is the result of cutting $515 million in grants^[20]
• $311 million will be cut from preschool through 12th grade education,^[20] amounting to a loss of 4.3%^[21]
• the State Board of Education budget will lose $10 million from operations, $10 million from principal mentoring and arts and foreign languages and $62 million for student transportation, meaning transportation funding is 42% less than last year.^[20] In addition, the department will lose $68.5 million in reading improvement block grants.^[21]
• $42 million from the Department of Corrections^[20]
• $28.4 million from the Department of Aging^[20]
• $18.2 million from the Department of Public Health^[20]
• $2.4 million from the Department of Natural Resources, wiping out the Wildlife Prairie Park subsidy^[20]
• $2 million from Amtrak^[20]

Not all agencies were cut. Department of Juvenile Justice’s budget increases $6.4 million more, and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs received an addition $7.8 million.^[20]

Gov. Quinn’s cuts reduce the state’s $13 billion deficit, but still leaves a $6 billion gap between expenses and revenue and about $6 billion in unpaid bills from last year. That shortfall amounts to approximately half the budget’s general funds, where state officials have broad authority to raise or lower spending.^[21]

 State Employees

Despite the state’s fiscal issues, Gov. Quinn gave salary increases averaging 11.4% to 35 members of his staff from April 2009 through July 2010. When criticized by his gubenatorial opponent, Quinn reversed course and saved the state approximately $18 million when he ordered his employees to take 24 unpaid days off instead of 12.^[22] The governor’s order required 2,700 non-union state workers to take 24 unpaid days off.^[23]

Although the governor issued the order for the furloughs on fears that the state would not receive federal Medicaid funds, the federal government approved $974 million in funds, $550 million for Medicaid.^[24] After the passage of the federal funds, the governor did not rescind the plan to require furloughs but his administration developed new rules permitting nonunion state workers to use vacation and personal days to fulfill their furlough days requirement, meaning that employees will not lose pay.^[25] The administration previously said the furlough requirement would save the state $18 million, but the governor’s spokeswoman would not provide a revised estimate based on the new rules.^[25]

 Reliance on Debt

As of the end of August 2010, Illinois had borrowed $9.6 billion in the prior 12 months; the Civic Federation estimates will eventually cost Illinois taxpayers $551 million in extra interest payments.^[26]

Illinois and California are the two lowest-rated states by the three major credit-rating agencies.^[27] The low rating means that residents will pay as much as $551.3 million extra for the state’s borrowing over the last year, according to the Civic Federation.^[27] It also found that more than half the state’s additional borrowing costs, amounting to approximately $301.2 million, will come due in the next five years.^[27]

Illinois plans to borrow more than $3 billion to pay the bills for FY2011 and in June 2010, the legislature permitted the university systems to borrow millions more to make up for the fact that the state has not made the payments it had promised them.^[28]

The state is relying heavily on debt, drawing comparisons to debt-ridden Greece.^[29] The state’s heavy reliance on borrowing to “balance” the budget has resulted in the state’s bond rating being lowered by Fitch Ratings and Moody’s. Fitch observed, “The recently enacted FY 2011 budget does not begin to address the current operating gap, relying almost entirely on various forms of deficit financing to close the gap.”^[30] In fact, the state’s bond rating is lower than all but seven sovereign nations, ranking only slightly higher than Iraq.^[28] The state’s budget director said that the state would raise tax rates in part because companies that rate municipal bonds have pressured the state to show it has the ability to address its deficit.^[4]

The cost of insuring five-year Illinois bonds to protect $10 million of debt against default in June 2010 rose to $370,000, a record, from a low of $155,000 in January, 2010. The price fell back to $281,000 at the end of July 2010.^[4]

The state plans to raise $900 million starting July 15, 2010, through Build America Bonds, a Recovery Act program, to fund its first capital program in more than a decade. Although the bonds are taxable, the federal government subsidizes 35% of the interest payments. Midway through 2010 the state had issued $2.3 billion in Build America Bonds, attracting many new investors, including those from overseas.^[29]

Illinois then plans to generate $1.3 billion in short-term notes at the end of July 2010 and $1.4 billion in debt related to tobacco settlement funds in November. Despite the fact that the state sold $2.4 billion in pension notes in January 2010, it plans to once again turn to the debt markets to fund $3.7 billion in pension obligations in December 2010, pending approval by the state legislature.^[29]

Pension plans The state’s pension funds are among the most underfunded in the country. In October 2010, the Executive Director of the Illinois State Board of Investments, which manages one-fifth of the state’s pension funds, said it is selling $80 million of assets a month to pay pension benefits.^[31] Gov. Quinn proposed that the state pay $300 million less than the total $4.5 billion estimated contribution to the state’s pension systems for FY2011.^[32] The legislature passed bills to scale back pension benefits expected to save $100 billion over several decades, according to legislators ^[32], who passed the bill in one day in March, 2010.^[33] The governor signed into law on April 13, 2010.^[33]

Every year the state contributes to the retirement systems that cover state workers, downstate teachers, university employees and others. The government owes about $3.7 billion to the systems for FY2011. The state borrowed money to pay its pension contribution last year and Democrats said that now that the state faces a roughly $13 billion budget shortfall for that fiscal year, borrowing the money was the only realistic way to get the pension funds.^[15] Borrowing the pension money would cost about $1 billion in interest; skipping the payment entirely would cost pension systems roughly $20 billion in lost income and interest.^[15]

 Jobs and Unemployment Insurance

Gov. Quinn claimed in August 2010 to have created 60,000 jobs in the state since Jan. 1, 2010.^[34] A spokeswoman for Bill Brady, Quinn’s gubenatorial opponent, said “The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics tells a different story, with 200,000 fewer Illinois jobs in the past 18 months.”^[34]

Illinois has borrowed more than $2.2 billion from the federal government to pay unemployment benefits to laid-off workers and owe approximately $250 million in interest.^[35] The deficit in the fund is estimated to be $2.75 billion by the end of 2010. The fund is financed by employer contributions, which does not receive state tax dollars.^[35]

Income Tax Increase

Gov. Quinn said he expects the income tax revenues to climb by $3 billion if lawmakers approve his plan to institute a 4 percent income tax, up from the current 3 percent rate.^[34]

 Budget Background

The Illinois Constitution requires the governor to prepare and present a State budget recommendation for the state to the General Assembly. The Constitution also requires that the proposed budget be balanced and include recommended spending levels for state agencies, estimated funds available from tax collections and other sources, and state debt and liabilities. The Governor’s Office of Management and Budget (GOMB) estimates revenues in consultation with the Department of Revenue and GOMB subsequently develops budget recommendations that reflect the governor’s programmatic and spending priorities.

The Governor presents the Budget Address in February. After the Governor’s Budget Address, legislative review of the governor’s budget recommendations begins almost immediately with hearings before House and Senate appropriation committees.

Final approval of the budget usually occurs at the end of the legislative session, typically by the end of May. The Illinois Constitution requires a simple majority vote of the General Assembly for a bill passed on or before May 31 to take effect immediately. On or after June 1, a three-fifths super majority vote of the General Assembly is required in order for a bill to take effect for the upcoming fiscal year.

Once the General Assembly passes the budget, the governor must sign appropriation bills before funds can be spent. If the Governor chooses not to approve a specific appropriation, he may either veto a specific line item or reduce it. The rest of the appropriation bill is unaffected by these vetoes and becomes effective. Line items that have been vetoed or reduced must be reconsidered by the General Assembly during the fall session. The General Assembly may return an item to the enacted level by simple majority vote in both chambers in the case of a reduction veto and by a three-fifths super majority vote in the case of a line item veto.”

Comment:  It is expected that Illinois will not survive this Democrat Party effort to pay the pipers.   Countless businesses which have foolishly done business with Illinois in the past are in or will be in bankruptcy which this State caused by failing to honor State debts.   Illinois will continue to pay government workers’ pensions at regular rates, but on more borrowed money.

Experts claim that the Democrats have inflated their estimates of incoming revenues….sums the state will never see, which will deepend the financial collapse.

Nothing like Democrats spending your money to buy votes, promising services, controlling workers on the government plantations.   Progress progressing to Marxism…..(“Government 101” and “Sociology 211”  or “Black Studies 111” and “Gay and Lesbian Studies 306”, or “History 1”  at your local university and college.)    Don’t worry……it’s all the same class.

MSNBC Going Soviet….Ban America’s Republican Party Past

By Mark Finkelstein

“Guess MSNBC missed the part of Pres. Obama’s Tucson speech decrying the way our politics have become “so sharply polarized” . . .

During today’s Morning Joe, MSNBC aired a promo for PBO’s impending State of the Union that featured video from previous SOTU speeches. Notably missing were any clips from past Republican presidents. Instead we were treated to a montage of JFK, LBJ, Clinton, Obama and even Jimmy Carter.  Think Ronald Reagan, or W just a few months after 9-11, might have said something inspirational in their SOTUs?  Not in the mind of MSNBC.”

Comment:  At least the Marxists at MSNBC included on conservative on their list of acceptables….JFK.   Which again prompts me to share the Russian people’s woeful adage during their Soviet Marxist past:  “The Future is know.  It’s the Past that keeps changing.”  

Click on here for the video and rest of the article”…..introduce yourselves to your  Marxist future.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/mark-finkelstein/2011/01/13/msnbc-sotu-promo-erases-republican-presidents

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/mark-finkelstein/2011/01/13/msnbc-sotu-promo-erases-republican-presidents#ixzz1B1VaQEI3

“Faggot” Causes Trouble in Canada

Matt Welch at Reason writes the following about the Politically Correct in Canada:

“Please don’t ever tell me that Canada is a more enlightened country than the U.S. and A.:

The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council has ruled that Dire Straits’ 1980s hit Money for Nothing is too offensive for Canadian radio.

The ruling, released Wednesday, was in response to a complaint against St. John’s radio station CHOZ-FM. The listener complained that the word faggot – which appears three times in the song is “extremely offensive” to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

The council is an independent body created by Canadian radio and television broadcasters to review the standards of their content. […]

The council ruled that the song contravenes its ethics code which states: “broadcasters shall ensure that their programming contains no abusive or unduly discriminatory material or comment which is based on matters of race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, marital status or physical or mental disability.”:

It ruled that “faggot,” when used to describe a homosexual, is “even if entirely or marginally acceptable in earlier days, is no longer so.”

For more on the report click on below:

http://reason.com/blog/2011/01/13/canada-bans-dire-straits-money

Comment:  In Canada as in the United States the religion, Marxism, has replaced  Christianity as the Nation’s  House of Worship.    It has established its censors to restrain where needed.  Welcome, 1984.

On another matter, I offer members of our  proclivity especially, this advice, “GROW UP!   It’s okay to become an adult!   I’ve tried  it and have found it to be becoming to me as a human male, particularly an American one.  

It is easy to remain adolescent all of ones life in a  Marxist society.  It’s religion  cons the population to believe bureaucrats care for you,  when in reality, the “care” is the source of power behind  Marxism’s control over you….as that perpetual adolescent it will  sculpt you to be as long as you live.

The Vast Leftwing Conspiracy Is TRUE: More Marxist Propaganda by ABC

If truth were permitted in contemporary mass media in America the vast majority of its reporters and analysts would have to be fired or take extensive courses in truth training……something they must have never discussed in Journalism schools.

In Iraq all these mass media leftists sat in the Green Zone and imagined stories to send back to the home front.  Whatever gossip one wrote, they all wrote.

America experienced the first wave of mass Leftwing violence sometime  in the middle 1960s depending where you lived.  By late 1967 the revolution was in full swing.   These were the days of  “Hey, hey, LBJ! How many kids did you kill today?”   These became the Bill Ayers years, the years of bombings, shootings, murders, kidnappings, takeovers, burnings,  deficatings, do it in the bushes, AND ALL OF ITS OTHER ASSORTED  LEFTWING  CRIMES. 

This Leftwing revolutionary violence lasted for five years!     Very little  of it was denounced by Democratic Party brass.  Republicans seethed, but only at their television sets.

This might be the question to ask….so you decide:   Does the American Mainstream Media consists of Retards, of  Reporters and Editors without memory, or Marxists?   Perhaps it’s a mixture of all three depending where you live.

You decide.  I already have.   I suggest you start doing some homework on what Marxism entails.

Blood Libel?  Fellow conservatives….did you know it’s your fault that Jared Loughner pulled the trigger and killed so many and cause such chaos.  The American Marxist media establishment say so, and you know Leftists never tell a lie!

Without fail watch the vidoe at Instapundit.com…”You and Sarah Palin Turned Jared Loughner Into a Cold , Calculated Killer”.   

Remindful of  the Gunfight at OK Corral, reports ABC man.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wcx2KioNBxs

Charles Krauthammer at His Best….”Massacre, followed by libel!”

 I wasn’t planning on adding  any more lines onto the terrible Tucson saga, especially regarding the insidiousness of this tribe of Leftwing cannibals after Sarah Palin in particular and conservatives in general spreading the scent that she and others like her had caused the shooting.   But, Charles Krauthammer’s writing on the topic is frankly too exquisite to pass up:                                                 

“Massacre, followed by libel”                                                at the Washington Post

“The charge: The Tucson massacre is a consequence of the “climate of hate” created by Sarah Palin, the Tea Party, Glenn Beck, Obamacare opponents and sundry other liberal betes noires.

The verdict: Rarely in American political discourse has there been a charge so reckless, so scurrilous and so unsupported by evidence.

As killers go, Jared Loughner is not reticent. Yet among all his writings, postings, videos and other ravings – and in all the testimony from all the people who knew him – there is not a single reference to any of these supposed accessories to murder.

Not only is there no evidence that Loughner was impelled to violence by any of those upon whom Paul Krugman, Keith Olbermann, the New York Times, the Tucson sheriff and other rabid partisans are fixated. There is no evidence that he was responding to anything, political or otherwise, outside of his own head.

A climate of hate? This man lived within his very own private climate. “His thoughts were unrelated to anything in our world,” said the teacher of Loughner’s philosophy class at Pima Community College. “He was very disconnected from reality,” said classmate Lydian Ali. “You know how it is when you talk to someone who’s mentally ill and they’re just not there?” said neighbor Jason Johnson. “It was like he was in his own world.”

His ravings, said one high school classmate, were interspersed with “unnerving, long stupors of silence” during which he would “stare fixedly at his buddies,” reported the Wall Street Journal. His own writings are confused, incoherent, punctuated with private numerology and inscrutable taxonomy. He warns of government brainwashing and thought control through “grammar.” He was obsessed with “conscious dreaming,” a fairly good synonym for hallucinations.

This is not political behavior. These are the signs of a clinical thought disorder – ideas disconnected from each other, incoherent, delusional, detached from reality.

These are all the hallmarks of a paranoid schizophrenic. And a dangerous one. A classmate found him so terrifyingly mentally disturbed that, she e-mailed friends and family, she expected to find his picture on TV after his perpetrating a mass murder. This was no idle speculation: In class “I sit by the door with my purse handy” so that she could get out fast when the shooting began.

Furthermore, the available evidence dates Loughner’s fixation on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords to at least 2007, when he attended a town hall of hers and felt slighted by her response. In 2007, no one had heard of Sarah Palin. Glenn Beck was still toiling on Headline News. There was no Tea Party or health-care reform. The only climate of hate was the pervasive post-Iraq campaign of vilification of George W. Bush, nicely captured by a New Republic editor who had begun an article thus: “I hate President George W. Bush. There, I said it”.

Finally, the charge that the metaphors used by Palin and others were inciting violence is ridiculous. Everyone uses warlike metaphors in describing politics. When Barack Obama said at a 2008 fundraiser in Philadelphia, “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,” he was hardly inciting violence.

Why? Because fighting and warfare are the most routine of political metaphors. And for obvious reasons. Historically speaking, all democratic politics is a sublimation of the ancient route to power – military conquest. That’s why the language persists. That’s why we say without any self-consciousness such things as “battleground states” or “targeting” opponents. Indeed, the very word for an electoral contest – “campaign” – is an appropriation from warfare.

When profiles of Obama’s first chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, noted that he once sent a dead fish to a pollster who displeased him, a characteristically subtle statement carrying more than a whiff of malice and murder, it was considered a charming example of excessive – and creative – political enthusiasm. When Senate candidate Joe Manchin dispensed with metaphor and simply fired a bullet through the cap-and-trade bill – while intoning, “I’ll take dead aim at [it]” – he was hardly assailed with complaints about violations of civil discourse or invitations to murder.

Did Manchin push Loughner over the top? Did Emanuel’s little Mafia imitation create a climate for political violence? The very questions are absurd – unless you’re the New York Times and you substitute the name Sarah Palin.

The origins of Loughner’s delusions are clear: mental illness. What are the origins of Krugman’s?”

Comment:    Charles Krauthammer, the Beethoven of the American art of political analysis.   I truly feel sorry for the millions, billions of folks who have not yet heard a word or read a word composed by this  special American creature.  It’s almost like listening to Beethoven’s piano sonatas or concerti in the background as one reads the moods of his sentences of communication flowing with his rhythms and beats of analysis.

I would hate to be a public figure Krauthammer doesn’t like…I mean really doesn’t like…….take Paul Krugman, for example.  He comes up with so much ammunition to support his initial foray, there is no hope for escape.

I suspect Mr. Krauthammer is quite immune from any persuasions toward God, but I’ll advance this comment anyway.

What would I do, or America do without the enjoyment  of reading  Charles Krauthammer’s compositions?   May God Bless the guy.

Either Lefties Are Retarded, Have No Memory, or Are Merely Marxists about Lefty Violence

Hey, hey , LBJ…
How many kids did you kill today?

Remember that one? I certainly do because, as a young leftie, I shouted it at many demonstrations. I also shouted “Off the pig!” and even went so far as to support, at least from a distance, the “Days of Rage” as described by John Jacobs of the Weatherman faction of the Students for a Democratic Society:

Weatherman would shove the war down their dumb, fascist throats and show them, while we were at it, how much better we were than them, both tactically and strategically, as a people. In an all-out civil war over Vietnam and other fascist U.S. imperialism, we were going to bring the war home. “Turn the imperialists’ war into a civil war”, in Lenin’s words. And we were going to kick ass.

And kick ass they did, hurling Molotov cocktails, setting off fatal bombs, and shooting police. Well, it was the sixties and the early seventies and that was what we did and said then. Ask Bill Ayers and others of the time who remain unrepentant. I’m not one of them. I think it was crazy.

But I bring it all back now for one reason — to point out that what we are going through currently, this supposed period of extreme rhetoric bemoaned by so many pundits and politicians, is but a minute radar blip compared to that era.

And some of these pundits and pols are old enough to remember. Apparently, they choose not to. But to remind them, we were in an era then of genuine political assassination — RFK, MLK — not faux political assassination (actually the purposeless, near random act of a paranoid schizophrenic.) But as I recall few were calling for us to dial down the rhetoric. The anti-government forces had tons of supporters in the media, silent partners cheering on all but their most violent acts (and who knows about those). Norman Mailer, among many others, made his life and reputation in such a manner on the “steps of the Pentagon.” Hey, hey, LBJ, indeed.

In a very real way the media were the secret sharers of the radical left. As a young media member and novelist, I knew this well. The most radical of us were acting out our hidden dreams for the rest. We condemned them occasionally and ritually, but rarely vehemently. The Weather Underground and even later the execrable Symbionese Liberation Army were never treated in the press with quite the opprobrium they now reserve for the tea party movement. As Baudelaire put it, “Mon semblable, mon frère.” The worst of the radical left were just like the rest of us, but with a little extra edge.

Now, as we all know, everything is reversed. The right wing is the supposed source of all violence and violent rhetoric. Of course, we know that’s not true and of course there hasn’t been any real right-wing violence, none whatsoever associated with the tea party movement. It’s all a charade.

But the left persists in believing it. Well, not entirely. Some are following an Alinskyite trail of deception. But a good percentage — as this past few days have demonstrated as never before — are genuinely convinced they are surrounded by a bloodthirsty mob of semi-illiterate rednecks out to polarize the country.

This is one of the more clearcut demonstrations of mass projection I have seen in my lifetime.

The liberal intelligentsia of our society may not be as sick as Jared Loughner — that would be hard — but they are exhibiting a depth of neurosis that borders on a collective personality disorder. And, to play psychoanalyst, I think this disorder points straight back to unresolved issues related to the experiences of the sixties and seventies discussed above. The left’s confused and ambivalent attitude toward violence has never gone away and has now been projected out on their opponents.

Exacerbating the situation — and increasing the left’s anger — was their recent electoral defeat and the attendant failure of Keynesian economics to deal with the financial crisis. Their ideology is dissolving around them. The attempts to blame the behavior of a clinical paranoid schizophrenic on the words of right-wing politicians and pundits are the acts of desperate people.

This liberal intelligentsia with all its unresolved problem are seizing on a tragic event to change the narrative and distract the country from solving its problems, which are truly serious for all of us (even them). We shouldn’t let them.”