Obama Ticks Off Occupiers

Poor Obama...hit from the right over, well, nearly everything and from the left when he doesn't follow his far left instincts. Well, in this case he'll get faint praise from the right (for doing what he had to, not necessarily because we believe it's what he wants/believes): US cuts funding for UNESCO after Palestinian vote

The Obama administration cut off funding for the U.N. cultural agency on Monday, after its member countries defied an American warning and approved a Palestinian bid for full membership.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the vote triggered a long-standing congressional restriction on funding to U.N. bodies that recognize Palestine as a state before an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal is reached. She said the U.S. as a result would refrain from making a $60 million payment it planned to deliver in November...

The UNESCO vote represented a fallback plan for the Palestinian leadership that presented its plan for U.N. recognition as a state and full membership in the global body in September. Israel has fiercely opposed the bid, and it has no chance of passing because the Obama administration has promised to veto any resolution in the Security Council.

Boy, this is going to make the anti-semitic wing of the Occupiers plenty angry.

Hey, he saved us $60 million, too. He can buy a few failing solar companies for that or some machine guns to give to Mexican drug cartels.

David Duke Decision Tree

Standards. My, how they can double.

On February 23, 1989, the Times Union ran an editorial that stated: "The Republican Party is rightly embarrassed that Klansman David Duke will be representing a Louisiana legislative district under its aegis...Still, the Klan and Nazi parties in the U.S. could rebound. They could return to intimidate, deny civil rights and otherwise spread their brand of nocturnal terrorism. Like any extremist group, they should be watched very closely."

On October 9, 1990, the Times Union editorialized: "While everyone expected David Duke to lose in Sunday's U.S. senatorial election in Louisiana, most Republicans in the nation hoped he would lose big. David Duke, a former Klansman and Imperial Wizard, ran, to the great embarrassment of the GOP, as a Republican. To the credit of national GOP, however, several prominent Republicans traveled to Louisiana during the campaign to endorse Mr. Duke's opponent."

On November 11, 1991, the Times Union told us: "Pity the poor Louisiana voter. There's a gubernatorial election coming up Saturday and the choices are bleak. On the one hand, there's the ostensible Republican candidate David Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard...His duplicity was nowhere more evident than in a recent appearance on the "Donahue" television show, which placed his racist agenda before a national audience. For example, viewers learned that as recently as last year he was selling books out of his legislative office that question whether the Holocaust occurred and contend some races and nationalities are genetically inferior to others...As odious as Mr. Duke's views are, he nonetheless appeals to many voters, to the great embarrassment of national Republican leaders. The appeal isn't hard to understand. With the economy in recession, jobs are scarce, public discontent is growing and affirmative action programs become a source of controversy among those competing for work."

Sounds a bit like today, doesn't it? Bad economy, scare jobs (though actually much worse now), discontent public, etc.

Are you noticing how often they're tying David Duke to the Republican party (even when backhandedly talking about how the national party has condemned his candidacy)?

On November 19, 1991, the Times Union was back at it: "The nation can breathe a sigh of relief that former Klansman David Duke was not elected governor of Louisiana...there is much talk in the Duke camp about a run for the GOP presidential nomination...The Republicans have so far tried to disown Mr. Duke."

Ah, the Republicans have tried to disown him.

On March 12, 1992, the Times Union made it a bit more clear where voters stood on Mr. Duke: "On the Republican side, voters left no room for misinterpreting how they feel about David Duke 's message of divisiveness. He was trounced everywhere, including his native Louisiana - in effect, repudiated."

But, again, let's talk about how he ran as a Republican.

And when he dropped out after also be ignored by Republican primary voters, on April 29, 1992 the Times Union decided they had to talk about him again: "David Duke, withdrawing from the presidential sweepstakes, blamed his failure to win much popular backing on his late entry into the race...Voters who were given the choice simply rejected Mr. Duke's message."

When trying to talk about French politics, on April 23, 2002 the Times Union decided to go to the well once again: "Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who served as finance minister in Mr. Jospin's government, echoed the thought. ``Jean-Marie Le Pen represents everything I hate, and so I have no hesitation in saying: I will vote for Jacques Chirac.'' The reasoning sounds not all that unlike what emerged in Louisiana a decade ago. David Duke, the former leader of the Ku Klux Klan, ran for governor against the unsavory Edwin Edwards. Thus the slogan, ``Vote for the Crook. It's Important.''"

And let's not forget the Daily Gazette, on October 28, 2005 they decided to trot out this bad actor: "In a week that brought the death of Rosa Parks, the black woman whose simple act of defiance on a city bus in Montgomery, Ala., nearly 50 years ago touched off the civil rights movement, here's a painful reminder that the white supremacist attitudes that necessitated her protest still live...One of them is David Duke, the former presidential candidate, one-time Ku Klux Klan grand wizard and outspoken white supremacist, who uses them to draw a crowd."

So when David Duke makes the news, well, the locals probably have a decision to make, an editorial decision.

Is David Duke newsworthy? Why looking at the number of editorials they wrote about him above you would think, that, yes, they think David Duke is newsworthy.

Going to the next step in the flow chart we find this decision: 'Is the news about David Duke going to hurt: (left) Republicans --> RUN EDITORIAL; or (right) Democrats --> BURY IT.

Needless to say, given the news David Duke has been making lately, we can see which way the papers have turned, given their failure to report this: Former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke Supports Occupy Wall Street Movement

David Duke, a former grand wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, has joined President Barack Obama, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in expressing support for the Occupy Wall Street movement, whose protests have been marked by anti-Semitism.

In a video about the Occupy Wall Street protests, Duke said: “I cheer the men and women on the streets condemning the international banks that hold America financially hostage. These Wall Street banks are not the product of free enterprise; they are the product of crime.”

“Yes, occupy Wall Street,” Duke also said. “Finally, Americans are rising up and it feels great.”

In the video, Duke repeatedly attacks what he refers to as “Zionist bankers” such as Ben “Shalom” Bernanke.

At one point Duke claims that while many Americans have lost up to 50 percent of their savings, the “Zionist owners of the predatory banks made more shekels.”

Besides Duke’s endorsement of the Occupy Wall Street protests, there have been numerous instances of anti-Semitic comments and signs at the demonstrations. Several videos now posted on YouTube show protesters holding anti-Semitic signs and making anti-Semitic statements.

(a search of the past two months of the entire papers, not just the editorials, finds zero local coverage)

This Script Again?

The press thinks:

1) All black men, given half the chance, will sexually harass women? or
2) They can simply roll out 'sexual harassment' any time they see a conservative black man nearing a position of power?

You have to admit, it's a little pathetic that the press is rolling out new mysterious and 'thinly sourced' claims of sexual harassment against Clarence Thomas now that he's running for president.

Ooops, did I say Clarence Thomas instead of Herman Cain?

Ka-Pow

Yeah.

Happy Halloween!

Your Random Saturday

More snow.

Really?

Ugh. Who's even raked, yet?

Anyway. Ann seems to be flailing a bit in this column as she tried to make too many different points, but I've edited it down to a bite-sized chunk that's interesting:

What is liberals' evidence that there will be more rapes and murders if Obama's jobs bill doesn't pass? Biden claims that, without it, there won't be enough cops to interrupt a woman being raped in her own home...

Obama's jobs bill tackles the problem of rape and murder by giving the states $30 billion ... for public school teachers.

Only $5 billion is even allotted to the police, but all we keep hearing about are the rapes and murders that Democrats are suddenly against...

Finally, did Flint use any money from Obama's last trillion-dollar stimulus bill to hire more police in order to prevent rape and murder? No, Flint spent its $2.2 million from the first stimulus bill on buying two electric buses.

Even if what Flint really needed was buses and not cops, for $2.2 million, the city could have bought seven brand-new diesel buses and had $100,000 left over for streetlights...

It's going to be a long wait: The "green" buses were never delivered because the company went out of business -- despite a $1.6 million loan from the American taxpayer.

It Was Going So Well!

It's almost like a hackneyed script, isn't it? I mean, when you think about it, these children have demonstrated (see how I did that, there?) the utter failure of socialism in their little socialism experiments in just about a month. That's all it took for their socialism play acting to degenerate to the failed social experiment that socialism always becomes.

The only difference when extrapolated to an entire nation is the missing jackboots. Socialism always fails. The reason it clings on, where it does or has, is the brutal crackdown on dissent - the shootings, the death camps, exile to Siberia, imprisonment, the knock at the door. The reason the socialists trying to marshal a bunch of unwashed grad students and druggies failed so quickly is that they were unable to tell them what to do and use the threat of violence to get their way. Oh, they wanted to, they dearly wished that they could just tell their 'brothers' to just do what they're told (“Someone has to be told what to do," she said. "Someone needs to give orders. There’s no sense of order in this f**king place.”), but without a soldier there with a gun to their head, it just doesn't work. Socialism just doesn't work.

What seems most likely to happen is that a few, a very few, will linger in their little encampment, living off of begged scraps. They will be the hardcore few who think they are living the socialist dream, but in reality it won't be socialism at all. Because they will have driven most of the others away, meaning that they only have to look after the limited needs of a few, a few that are likely to be willing to skip most comforts 'for the cause'. They won't need committees or organization, because there will be no one to organize. And they won't actually be producing anything. Even in a socialist state they would be producing things for each other. Someone that can bake would bake, a farmer would farm, a tailor would sew. Instead they'll all just panhandle or whatever. You know, like how the USSR used to just send their diplomats around to other countries and beat a drum in their president's face and shake a coffee cup with a few dimes in it in their face?

Anyway, with no security, with driving away the police, and with the not-quite-dead-yet sense that everyone should just be getting along, the criminals are naturally thriving: OWS: Now With 33% More Sexual Assault, which is what eventually led to the crackdown on the lawlessness in Oakland.

Three young punks threatened to kill a 24-year-old Occupy Wall Street protester for pressing charges over an assault at the group's Zuccotti Park encampment, police said.

"You got our friend arrested. We're gonna kill you! Watch your back!" the trio warned the young woman on Monday - two days after her complaint led to the arrest of Garfield Leslie, police said Tuesday...

When she declined that offer and his romantic advances, he punched her in the face and then dished out more blows to a friend who had come to her defense, police said.

And, like the stories I linked to the other day, these wannabe socialists are growing increasingly weary of the role: Occupy Wall Street kitchen staff protesting fixing food for freeloaders

The Occupy Wall Street volunteer kitchen staff launched a “counter” revolution yesterday -- because they’re angry about working 18-hour days to provide food for “professional homeless” people and ex-cons masquerading as protesters.

For three days beginning tomorrow, the cooks will serve only brown rice and other spartan grub instead of the usual menu of organic chicken and vegetables, spaghetti bolognese, and roasted beet and sheep’s-milk-cheese salad.

They will also provide directions to local soup kitchens for the vagrants, criminals and other freeloaders who have been descending on Zuccotti Park in increasing numbers every day.

I'm sorry, I find this utterly hilarious. I really do. Why, exactly, are the "99%" hoarding their "organic chicken" and "spaghetti bolognese" instead of sharing it? Was it donated just for them? Just for the white kids? Just for the grad students 'roughing it' in the mud and feces? Why do these socialists have a complaint about doing their job? Whatever happened to that good old 'to each/from each' spirit, kids? Dude's hungry, you got organic chicken, and you tell him to get his butt outta your face and tell him where to find a soup kitchen? I'm sorry, this is beyond hilarious, actually. And then they went on strike - protesting their own protest :)

As the kitchen workers met with the “General Assembly’’ last night, about 300 demonstrators stormed from the park to Reade Street and Broadway, where they violently clashed with cops.

Officers made at least 10 arrests when rowdy demonstrators refused to get out of the street and stop blocking traffic. A dozen cops on scooters tried to force them back to the sidewalk.

Funny how this doesn't make the nightly news, who are too busy showing signs of peaceful protesters smiling in the sunshine.*

The demonstrators said they were angry over the violence in Oakland.

Annnnnnnd, now they're fully anti-Jew Palestinians. Just like the Palestinians who attack the Jews and then blame the Jews for fighting back, they're mad at the police for fighting back when the lawless mob in Oakland attacked them.

Some protesters threatened that the high-end meals could be cut off completely if the vagrants and criminals don’t disperse.

Many of those being fed “are professional homeless people. They know what they’re doing,” said the guard at the food-storage area.

Today, a limited menu of sandwiches, chips and some hot food will be doled out -- so legitimate protesters will have a day to make arrangements for more upscale weekend meals.

How do you read this without bursting out laughing? I can't. Stop trying to eat our fancy food, you stinky homeless person! You go get some food from someone that cares about you, stay away from our organic chicken! That's just for us white grad students pretending to be homeless! Shoo! Shoo!

A team of 10 security volunteers moved in to the trouble-prone southwest section of Zuccotti Park in a show of force to confront them.

“We’re not going to let some members of this community destroy the whole movement,” a volunteer said.

Some arguments broke out as the security team searched tents -- but no violence erupted.

Which is why they will fail. If they really wanted to emulate socialist states they'd be killing, yes I said killing, the stinky homeless people that aren't truly 'with them' and cracking down (and cracking heads!) on the rebellious 'kitchen staff' and replacing them with more docile sheep cheese salad preparers. It looks like their Marxist professors didn't quite get around to teaching them the whole story.

Overall security at the park had deteriorated to the point where many frightened female protesters had abandoned the increasingly out-of-control occupation, security- team members said...

But protesters and a cop on duty told The Post that most of the crime goes unreported, because of a bizarre “stop snitching” rule.

I don't really need to comment, do I?

You know...this really is just like a Tea Party rally. *snort*


--

*This is how liberal media works. See, they briefly report on it, but then they just sort of 'disappear' it. Just think on their wall-to-wall coverage of made up and imaginary incidents at Tea Party events, the words and stories devoted to things that never even happened. Compare to the way they cover something like this, briefly, and then pretend it never happened. They go right back to reporting on how 'docile' and 'peaceful' things are. As if it never happened. But, because they mentioned it in a brief soundbite or whatever, they can say, 'hey we covered it!'. Sometimes, a LOT of times, it's the quantity.

In Case You Weren't Grossed Out Enough

It's not like they're called 'dirty hippies' for nothing: Public health says Occupy SF camp is dirty, unsafe

The camp at Occupy San Francisco is an imminent hazard to health, the city’s public health department told demonstrators late Tuesday.

“Evidence of excrement, urine and vomit were observed throughout the park,” the department said in a notice. “Fecal material was observed on stairs and grass. A container of human waste was observed along the Embarcadero side of the park.”

“Several piles of vomit were observed along the Embarcadero side of the park,” the notice read. “Pile of feces and tampons found at a nearby pathway. Flies and urine observed along pathway.”...

There were some smells of urine, but that was from homeless people who have been living at the park since before the protest, Herwatt said.

“They told us they used (the trees) as a urinal,” he said. “We got out mops and Pine-Sol and cleaned it up.”

They used mops and Pine-Sol (rim shot) to clean the trees of homeless person pee? Yeah, this is a believable source. Then they gave the lawn a sponge bath.

Yeah, 99% of us are like them. Suuuuuuure.

What's The Gazette Smoking

Dear Schenectady Daily Gazette,

What have you been smoking? Were everyone fully alert, I find it hard to believe you would have run the laughably ridiculous column by Richard Cohen on the 26th that claims the well-documented anti-semitism on display at Occupy demonstrations is nothing but an "ugly rumor".

Please to explain: More Anti-Semitism at Occupy Los Angeles and similar documented examples of tolerated anti-semitism embraced within the Occupy community.

editoriaLIES

Times Union - 10/25/11

While most New Yorkers favor such taxes, Mr. Cuomo contends that continuing an income tax surcharge on millionaire earners would drive them out of New York. Critics chide the governor for cutting school aid to give the rich a tax break.

Um, not raising someone's taxes to pay for your out-of-control spending is not giving someone something.

The Times Union Twisted Priorities

Rather twisted bit of morality in Monday's paper by the Times Union editors. Check this out:

New York seemed to be among the winners after Florida Gov. Rick Scott earlier this year turned down $2.4 billion in federal high-speed rail money. The state wisely went after its share of money that suddenly was up for grabs -- not long before Congress was all set take the money back, in order to pay for relief from the damage from a year's worth of brutal weather, culminating with Hurricane Irene in August.

Wondering where your aid is to clean up after Irene? Devastated communities up and down New York? Shameful Congress all tight-fisted?

Not worry, says the Times Union editors...New York got theirs for 'high speed rail' that has failed miserably everywhere it has ever been implemented! Whoohoo! Take that, Schoharie! You may not exist, but we're getting trains that will never live up to expectations or be affordable enough for anyone to ride, unlike the "shortsighted" governor of Florida!

You Can't Make This Up

Thanks to a blog post on Townhall here are a few stories that are surely streaming out all over.

*warning* Put that drink down - I will not be responsible for sprayed monitors.

They want $lice of the occu-pie

Occupy Wall Street’s Finance Committee has nearly $500,000 in the bank, and donations continue to pour in -- but its reluctance to share the wealth with other protesters is fraying tempers.

Some drummers -- incensed they got no money to replace or safeguard their drums after a midnight vandal destroyed their instruments Wednesday -- are threatening to splinter off.

“F--k Finance. I hope Mayor Bloomberg gets an injunction and demands to see the movement’s books. We need to know how much money we really have and where it’s going,” said a frustrated Bryan Smith, 45, who joined OWS in Lower Manhattan nearly three weeks ago from Los Angeles, where he works in TV production.

Smith is a member of the Comfort Working Group -- one of about 30 small collectives that have sprung up within OWS. The Comfort group is charged with finding out what basic necessities campers need, like thermal underwear, and then raising money by soliciting donations on the street.

“The other day, I took in $2,000. I kept $650 for my group, and gave the rest to Finance. Then I went to them with a request -- so many people need things, and they should not be going without basic comfort items -- and I was told to fill out paperwork. Paperwork! Are they the government now?” Smith fumed, even as he cajoled the passing crowd for more cash...

“What can I do with $150?” said Smith. “We have three tons of wet laundry here from the rainstorm -- how do I get that done? We need winter gear, shoes, socks. I could spend $10,000 alone for backpacks people need. We raise all this money. Where is it?”

The Organizers vs. the Organized in Zuccotti Park (language edited, unedited at source)

All occupiers are equal — but some occupiers are more equal than others. In wind-whipped Zuccotti Park, new divisions and hierarchies are threatening to upend Occupy Wall Street and its leaderless collective...

“[The high school] couldn’t teach,” explained Josh Nelson, a 27-year-old occupier from Nebraska. “And we’ve had issues with the drummers too. They drum incessantly all day, and really loud.” Facilitators spearheaded a General Assembly proposal to limit the drumming to two hours a day. “The drumming is a major issue which has the potential to get us kicked out," said Lauren Digion, a leader on the sanitation working group...

“They’re imposing a structure on the natural flow of music," said Seth Harper, an 18-year-old from Georgia. “The GA decided to do it ... they suppressed people’s opinions. I wanted to do introduce a different proposal, but a big black organizer chick with an Afro said I couldn’t.”...

The drummers claim that the finance working group even levied a percussion tax of sorts, taking up to half of the $150-300 a day that the drum circle was receiving in tips. “Now they have over $500,000 from all sorts of places,” said Engelerdt. “We’re like, what’s going on here? They’re like the banks we’re protesting."

...The local community board was due to send in an inspector, so the facilitators and cleaners started moving tarps, bags, and personal belongings into a big pile in order to clean the park.

But some refused to budge. A bearded man began to gather up a tarp and an occupier emerged from beneath, screaming: “You’re going to break my fu**ing tent, get that **it off!” Near the front of the park, two men in hoodies staged a meta-sit-in, fearful that their belongings would be lost or appropriated...

...“A lot of people are like spoiled children." The cure? A cold snap. “Personally, I cannot wait for winter. It will clear out these people who aren’t here for the right reasons. Bring on the snow. The real revolutionaries will stay in -50 degrees.”

“The sunshine protestors will leave,” said “Zonkers,” a 20-year-old cleaner and longtime occupier from Tennessee. (He asked that his name not be used due to a felony marijuana conviction.) “The people who remain are the people who care. You get a lot of crust punks, silly kids, people who want to panhandle ... It disgusts me. These people are here for a block party.”

Another argument broke out next to the pile of appropriated belongings, growing taller by the minute. A man named Sage Roberts desperately rifled through the pile, looking for a sleeping bag. “They’ve taken my stuff,” he muttered. Lauren Digion, the sanitation group leader, broke in: “This isn’t your stuff. You got all this stuff from comfort [the working group]. It belongs to comfort.”

And as I spoke to Michael Glaser, a 26-year-old Chicagoan helping lead winter preparation efforts, a physical fight broke out between a cleaner and a camper just feet from us...

As the communal sleeping bag argument between Lauren Digion and Sage Roberts threatened to get out of hand, a facilitator in a red hat walked by, brow furrowed. “Remember? You’re not allowed to do any more interviews,” he said to Digion. She nodded and went back to work. But when Roberts shouted, “Don’t tell me what to do!” Digion couldn't hold back.

“Someone has to be told what to do," she said. "Someone needs to give orders. There’s no sense of order in this f**king place.”

Remember, these children that can't run a few dozen people in a park think they can run a country...especially the "finance committee" sitting on a half mil that seems to decide which hippie is more equal than another. Animal Farm, indeed.

I think I could get behind a movement to pay to send a few hundred copies of We The Living to these people, maybe tear off the covers so they don't know who wrote it so they actually read it, maybe have 'story night' to read it to those that can't. The similarities are so obvious.

Take that guy's stuff, not my stuff!

Nobody should have stuff that other people don't ha...hey! Give me back my stuff!

What we really need is a good security force to make the people share their stuff instead of acting like greedy children that think they're entitled to keep their own stuff! That'll get the buses running on time!

Look, just because you earned this much, you have to give it to us, even though we already have a lot and won't give you any back to protect 'your' stuff, not that it's really your's anyway! You need us to decide how it can be best spent and we don't think it's best spent on you!

I wish we could just get rid of the people harshing our vibe, make them go away, but I guess that's wrong. Still, it would be better that way. Some of us are more real than other people and we should be telling them what do to for their own good.

No, you can't have what you want, we know what you need and we will give it to you if we decide you need it!

What's with these damned freeloaders showing up in our city, spoiling our lives, getting in the way, annoying us as we go about our business?

It's all so much more priceless than I even imagined it would be.

I'm thinking counter-protesters should just circle the park, peacefully, with signs that say 'Now do you get it?'

Where's Obama?

Unemployment over 9%.

Consumer confidence in now below 40.

GDP is basically stagnant.

Europe's economy is on the brink of utter collapse.

Leaderless children are befouling themselves and public parks all over the country.

The NBA season is on the brink of collapse.

Where's Obama?

Campaigning on Leno.

If only it were a joke.

Hurting Those You Try To Help

On a more serious note...

Just how do compassionate people end up hurting those they think they are helping, often (I am giving them the benefit of the doubt) without meaning to?

Let's keep this simple, which makes it easier to share with others. We will use two examples - a cell phone and health insurance.

Who are we trying to help? Let's keep it simple, again. Joe was born to a single mom in a bad part of town with crappy schools. Joe hasn't knocked up any girlfriends and hasn't knocked over any convenience stores. Joe, for simplicity's sake, is the ideal guy we 'want to help'. We want to help him get a leg up and get ahead - his poor start isn't his fault.

Now with his crappy education and no connections he can only score a job working in a warehouse. He's not making much and doesn't get benefits. Let's help him.

Let's help him with health insurance. We're going to do that with massive meddling over:

- who can offer him insurance (no one from out of state)

- what kind of insurance he can get (he's not married, but it has to have marriage counseling, isn't a woman but has to cover breast exams and gynecology, doesn't smoke but has to cover smoking cessation, is in good health and is young but has to have free checkups every year, and has no mental health issues but has to cover all sorts of in-patient mental health care)

- where he can get care (limits on who he can see including by mandating what they can charge based on what his coverage will pay)

Did we mention that insurers have to sell Joe insurance even after he is run over by a train?

Joe would like a plan that will cover him if he gets hit by a car and has huge medical bills or such, called catastrophic insurance, without covering all the other stuff that just doesn't apply to him right now in his life. We know better than Joe what he needs. We can't let him go around with just that kind of insurance.

So Joe has no insurance, instead. Or he ponies up just about all of his pay for a plan that covers things he doesn't have need. We sure are helping Joe! He's practically rolling in mammograms!

Then there's the free market version of helping Joe.

Joe's Mom is getting a little older and sometimes needs help around the house. She needs to be able to reach Joe so Joe wants to get a cell phone. He goes to the store and studies the vast array of options in front of him.

- He can get a pre-paid phone and just use it for emergencies when his Mom needs him.

- He can get a family plan with limited minutes so he and his Mom can have a phone for emergencies.

- He can choose to splurge on a fancy phone and text his friends and surf the web or just get a basic phone for calls. He can even get a phone for Mom designed for seniors that has easy-to-read buttons and special emergency keys to reach help.

- He can get phones from any of seemingly endless suppliers - Samsung, LG, Apple, Motorola, Blackberry, etc etc.

- He can get service from any of a long roster of providers - Verizon, AT&T, Virgin, Sprint, etc etc.

At a broad range of price plans and phone types, Joe has an almost overwhelming selection of cell phones available to him. Like nearly every 'poor' person in America, he can easily sport a cell phone. Why? Because we haven't 'helped' Joe by mandating:

- What the phones basic functions are (MUST have unlimited texting, MUST have web browsing capability, MUST have full keyboard)

- What the phone design is (MUST meet ergonomic standards set by a government funded panel that spend 10 years and $45 million determining the 'best' phone type for everyone, whether that is best for you or not and, ooops! I guess they didn't consider that some people are left-handed! Start testing all over! Did we mention that if the government-mandated design has a serious flaw, like the antenna is covered by your hand when you hold it, no one is punished by the flaw unlike the private sector screw up that means lost revenue or costly fixes?)

- What the plan must cover (MUST have 5 GB data plans, MUST have unlimited texting)

- Minimums that 'just make sense' (MUST have 'forgiveness' if your kid blows over his data plan and racks up a $750 bill, MUST have a battery that lasts half again as long as any current battery on the market, it's just greener! MUST have the ability to be tracked by the local police, so they can find missing kids and stop pedophiles!)

- Oh, and it MUST have free replacement in case of accidental toilet swims? Poor people can't afford another one if they screw up since all these rules are going to increase the cost of cell phones to about $600 each.

And did we mention that there's a limit on how much you can charge for the phone and service?

Did we forget to mention that it has to cover you everywhere in the US, at all times, or you can be sued?

And did we mention that there's this very good phone maker headquartered in the prominent lawmaker's state that is going to get some 'subsidies' to make phones for poor people that will be purchased with taxpayer money to give out to the 'poor' - but not Joe, who's not poor enough?

Class dismissed. Homework.

Give Them What They Want

Why don't those greedy business bastards just give protesters what they want? Give them their excess money.

And next year not work to earn more than "enough money".

Then what? Will the protesters Occupy Iowa and demand that farmers give up whatever food they grow that is more than they "need"? Because they're not going to get any handouts from "the rich greedy bastards" to feed them, clothe them, buy them aspirin, empty their portapotties. So they're going to want food. Farmers have food. Occupy The Breadbasket!

To say that I'm confused by their (anti)business model is an understatement.

Or how about this one? How about if some wealthy, hated capitalist like Rush Limbaugh gave all his money to some stoned 'protester' in a park...and then hounded him to the ends of the earth demanding that the kid take care of his every need?

Hey, I know! Let's go to a barter system as some of them seem to want (based on their scrawled signs - incidentally, now I know why community agitators hand out pre-printed signs before leftwing rallies)! So anybody want to trade investment advice for a half-bag of weed? How about a Dell laptop for an original drum circle composition? Do I have any takers willing to barter a year's worth of college education for earnest screaming about peace? Hint: when living on handouts, offering to barter is in bad taste. You have to be a producer of something to barter. 'Gimme' is not a bartering position. When you give Steve Jobs $300 for his latest gizmo, you are bartering in modern times, you are exchanging $300 of effort in some material endeavor to benefit some fellow man in exchange for $300 of gizmo from someone else since it is more efficient and beneficial than receiving, say, $300 of burgers from Burger King where you work that you then trade to someone for $300 of grain for $300 of canned watermelon rind for $300 of rubber chickens in a seemingly endless pursuit of $300 of something that Steve Jobs wants from you. When you demand that Steve Jobs gives you $300 for a gizmo, that's not bartering. When you bitch that someone else worked for $300 and you don't have $300 and they should give you the $300 they worked for...that's not bartering.

OWS Anti-Semitism

Gauntlet. Down.

Occupy This

You think any of these simply precious and oh-so precocious darlings that want to "occupy" Wall Street ever considered actually occupying Wall Street - by getting a job ther, and changing the system they are against from within?

They should have learned from their professors (that would be the unwashed guy with a joint next to you with one hand banging on a drum and the other with a hand on your girlfriend) that any good communist knows that's how it's done.

OK For Me, But None For Thee!

I've seen a LOT of signs that make me literally laugh out loud at these Occupy Love Ins...err...protests. One on the cover of the Times Union today from our local Lovers should leave them rolling in the aisles. The sign reads: Freedom Not Greedom

Comedy GOLD, people. But what do you expect from people that voted for someone that said "everyone" would be better off if we "spread the wealth around"...like the one whose wealth you spread to other people that don't deserve it? Are they better off? You can have all the freedom you want...unless you want to make money and not give it to filthy hippies defecating on taxis in the streets.

Yeah, they're all about "freedom" down there...

for the "99%" at least. For the 1%? NO SOUP FOR YOU!

--

For the rest of us...some sign making material:

You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot help the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer. You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.
- John Henry Boetcker

Commerce is greedy. Ideology is blood-thirsty.
- Mason Cooley, you could probably make these up and give them out and they'd carry these signs themselves without getting it!

Competition means decentralized planning by many separate persons.
- Friedrich Hayek

One man's wage rise is another man's price increase.
- Harold Wilson

What kind of society isn't structured on greed? The problem of social organization is how to set up an arrangement under which greed will do the least harm; capitalism is that kind of a system.
- Milton Friedman

In economics, the majority is always wrong.
- J. K. Galbraith, this one would probably make them mad enough to make a sign denouncing you

Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision.
- Peter Drucker

By pursuing his own interest (the individual) frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.
- Adam Smith

Communism is the exploitation of the strong by the weak. In communism, inequality springs from placing mediocrity on a level with excellence.
- Proudhon

The theory of Communism may be summed up in one sentence: Abolish all private property.
- Karl Marx

What is a Communist? One who hath yearnings For equal division of unequal earnings, Idler or bungler, or both, he is willing, To fork out his copper and pocket your shilling.
- Ebenezer Elliott

The darkest hour of any man's life is when he sits down to plan how to get money without earning it.
- Horace Greeley, I suspect the irony would be utterly lost if you went to Occupy Someone Else's Property with a sign of this one

We forget that money gives its value - that someone exchanged work for it.
- Neal O'Hara

He that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent.
- Bible, they'd miss the point of this one, also

You go, Maggie:

Success is having a flair for the thing that you are doing, knowing that is not enough, that you have got to have hard work and a sense of purpose.
- Margaret Thatcher

Pennies do not come from heaven- they have to be earned here on earth.
- Margaret Thatcher


And this...this one I find absolutely sublime to compare the businesses that are seeing customers driven away by drums, stench, crime, stench, filth, stench, and stench and source of said drums, stench, crime, stench, filth, stench, and stench:

Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end. It's not a day when you lounge around doing nothing; it's when you've had everything to do, and you've done it.
- Margaret Thatcher

Biden's Absurd Fear-Mongering

Let's just say this has been well hashed over and obliterated by the Dem-loving Washington Post, but for my future research and storage needs, let's not forget Biden's ludicrous claim that there will be more rapes and murders if Stimulus0.5 isn't passed (half the size of failed Stimulus1.0).

His "Four Pinocchios" claim got this treatment from the Post:

n any case, the vice president should know better than to spout off half-baked facts in service of a dubious argument. Even if one believes there is a link between crime and the number of police—which is debatable and subject to many caveats—there is no excuse to make the dramatic claim that more people will die or be raped without additional funds for police. When making such a breathtaking charge, you had better have your facts straight.

And, by the way, isn't this "jobs bill" supposed to fix infrastructure? No wait, it's supposed to pay teachers! No wait, it's going to pay policemen! No wait, the bridges! No wait, won't someone please think of the children!!!!????

What was this porky spending blitz supposed to do again? Oh, right, pay off Obama-supporting unions just in time for them to campaign for him.

It's True Because They Said So!

I think this is what passes for "journalism" nowadays...or at least left-leaning blogalism.

Here's your chance to feel much smarter than someone else for the day: Bachmann’s ex-staff in New Hampshire calls campaign ‘dishonest’ and ‘cruel’

Two days after the New Hampshire-based staff for Michele Bachmann's presidential campaign resigned en masse, the ex-aides released a statement affirming their departure and calling Bachmann's national campaign "rude, unprofessional, dishonest, and at times cruel."...

The shakeup was first reported by New Hampshire's WMUR-TV. Bachmann, a Republican representative from Minnesotia, initially denied it and suggested the story had been fed to the media by one of her opponents' campaigns.

"That is a shocking story to me," Bachmann said on Radio Iowa last Friday. "I don't know where that came from. We have called staff in New Hampshire to find out where that came from and the staff have said that isn't true, so I don't know if this is just a bad story that's being fed by a different candidate or campaign. I have no idea where this came from, but we've made calls and it's certainly not true."

Read the full letter, which affirms the truth of the story, after the jump...

Got that? There's this letter, you see? And Bachmann claims it's not a real letter, that the people it's purportedly from denied to her it was from them.

But there's this letter, you see? And because there's this letter, well, that "affirms* the truth of the story"...that there's a letter...from someone...claiming to be someone.

Got that?

In case you were wondering what school of journalism this comes from, I believe that would be the Dan Rather school of journalism, where you print up whatever you want, say that it is some official document, and when anyone questions its authenticity you just point at it and go, 'See? Here's a document.'

Face to palm.

-

*affirm: "a : validate, confirm"

So Forever, Then?

So YNN tells me that the 'dozens' of Albany protesters are going to stay there until there is no more 'corporate greed'.

Good luck with that.

And the filthy hordes in NYC are a 'tourist destination'? Really? Which part, in particular? The medieval open sewers? Public fornication? Drug users? And I hear the smell is simply no to be believed. Bring the kids!

Porkulus Ate The Iraq War, Had Room For Dessert

History has a way of slapping around liberals...a lot.

As President Obama prepares to tie a bow on U.S. combat operations in Iraq, Congressional Budget Office numbers show that the total cost of the eight-year war was less than the stimulus bill passed by the Democratic-led Congress in 2009.

ediTRUTHials

Wow...an editorial so honest, so pro-capitalism, pro-America, so freedom of choice from the Daily Gazette on Tuesday the 18th the I had to invent a new post title! This is, perhaps, the greatest editorial I have read in a local editorial ever.

Banks' recent imposition of monthly debit card fees has been one of the issues cited by Occupy Wall Street protesters, but what did these people expect? After Congress imposed restrictions on the "swipe fees" that banks charge merchants every time one of their customers buys something with a debit card, the banks had to find some other way to maintain their profit margins...

What they shouldn't do is badger their banks -- at least not over this. They're businesses, like any other, trying to make a profit. When a government regulation restricts their ability to do so in one way, they can't be blamed for trying another...

The point is, the market -- not the government -- should decide what fees banks should charge. If enraged customers stopped using debit cards (as some say they will), the banks would either cut those fees or raise others -- unless they calculated that they could do without as much debit card business. It should be up to them to decide how they want to run their businesses, and up to consumers to decide whether they want to patronize them.

The only real quibble I would raise, and it's very minor, is that it should be noted that the government that did this, that the Gazette does not seem to agree with, was the previous Congress, the all-Democrat one, not the current Congress.

Your Random Saturday

Angry, clueless mobs of children that have never been taught the difference between right and wrong? Oh, you bet Ann is on the case!

Curiously, the only point universally agreed upon by the protesters and their admirers in the Democratic Party and the mainstream media is that "Occupy Wall Street" should be compared to the tea party. Yes, that would be the same tea party that has been denounced and slandered by the Democratic Party and the mainstream media for the last three years.

As a refresher: The Democratic National Committee called the tea partiers "angry mobs" and "rabid right-wing extremists." ABC said they were a "mob." CNN accused them of "rabble rousing." Harry Reid called them "evil mongers." Nancy Pelosi said they were "un-American." CNN's Anderson Cooper and every single host on MSNBC called the tea partiers a name that referred to an obscure gay sex act.

But apparently liberals couldn't even convince themselves that tea partiers were an extremist group unworthy of emulation...

Now liberals compare their every riot, every traffic blockage, every Starbucks-window-smashing street protest to the civil rights movement –- which was only necessary because of them. These "Occupy Wall Street" ignoramuses seem to imagine they are blacks living in 1963 Alabama under Democratic governor George Wallace.

THIS is what you left me??!!:

Imagine the fortitude that will be required of Obama’s successor to avoid blaming his administration for the debt, joblessness, inflation, and constricting bureaucracy that he/she will inherit.

Too blunt?

An email obtained by Education Action Group from an Occupy Oakland leader explains the problem:

“If you didn’t already know, OEA has pulled through and donated some funds to have porta-potties available at Occupy Oakland. … People are really grateful to see how the teachers are supporting this. However, less than a day later, the potties are already full! They cost $35 a unit to service, and there are four units. We need to gather some funds to either add more units, or to make a consistent servicing schedule throughout the occupation. … Please email me if you are able to help with monetary donations!”...

However, the Oakland mob provides an extensive “wish list” of supplies to their “comrades” in the 99%. Here’s a sampling of the occupier’s demands –er, needs, and in their own words...

· Lemons and limes;

· Garlic;

· Fresh fruits & veggies;

...In their manifesto/blog, the Oakland Occupiers write that the purpose of their public display of ignorance is “to come together, meet one another, listen to each other, and build power for ourselves.”

Here’s a tip for the mob’s leadership: Asking volunteers to supply you with food and to clean up after you does not “build power” – it builds dependency.

That’s what this “occupy” nonsense is all about. You want society’s producers to take care of you. After all, “your potties are full” and somebody needs to empty them for you.

You’re not the 99%. You’re the moochers, the takers, the whiners and the deadbeats. You’re the 10% of the population that’s too lazy and too ignorant to provide for itself. So you blame the productive members of society for your inadequacies.

Ahem...D'UHHHHHHH!

“You can’t have it both ways,” said one in-house financial services lobbyist. “It just makes it harder for people who are Democrats in New York, Boston, Chicago to on the one hand be demogagued and then be asked ‘Hey, you can get your picture with the president for $30,000.’ It doesn’t square.”

Mr. Sowell, take it away:

Like so many people, in so many countries, who started out to "spread the wealth," Barack Obama has ended up spreading poverty.

Have you ever heard anyone as incoherent as the people staging protests across the country? Taxpayers ought to be protesting against having their money spent to educate people who end up unable to say anything beyond repeating political catch phrases...

I hate getting bills that show a zero balance. If I don't owe anything, why bother me with a bill?...

Do people who advocate special government programs for blacks realize that the federal government has had special programs for American Indians, including affirmative action, since the early 19th century -- and that American Indians remain one of the few groups worse off than blacks?

One of these things is not like the other:

Most Americans could still be fooled into thinking Solyndra is a new laundry detergent, not a failed solar energy company that took a half-billion dollars in Obama "green job" loans and went belly up. It's another Enron.

You remember Enron. In the first two months of 2002, the big three networks reported a stunning 198 stories on the Enron bankruptcy...

Since its Aug. 31 bankruptcy filing, ABC, CBS and NBC have filed a grand total of 15 stories on Solyndra. That's an Enron-to-Solyndra comparison of 24 to 1...

...The pile included emails showing a top Obama fund-raiser and Energy Department official, Steven Spinner...persistently pushing his colleagues to approve the deal.

Spinner sent emails demanding to know: "Any word on OMB? I have the O.V.P. (Office of the Vice President) and W.H. (White House) breathing down my neck on this ... How hard is this? What is he waiting for?"

Even though these emails were sensational enough to make it onto the front-page of The New York Times, the network "newscasts" never found a moment over the long Columbus Day weekend to mention it, just as they skipped the earlier news that Jonathan Silver, who ran the Energy Department loan program that handed more than $500 million in taxpayer money to Solyndra, had resigned. When two Solyndra executives took the Fifth Amendment before Congress in September, ABC and NBC skipped that news, too, while CBS offered about 25 seconds of coverage...

Can you tell I'm catching up on my reading? Seriously straight talk for people that clearly didn't get it growing up...errr...earlier ('growing up' implies they have):

• Nothing is “free.” Protesting with signs that seek “free” college degrees and “free” health care make you look like idiots, because colleges and hospitals don’t operate on rainbows and sunshine. There is no magic money machine to tap for your meandering educational careers and “slow paths” to adulthood, and the 53 percent of taxpaying Americans owe you neither a degree nor an annual physical...

• A protest is not a party. On Saturday in New York, while making a mad dash from my cab to the door of my hotel to avoid you, I saw what isn’t evident in the newsreel footage of your demonstrations: Most of you are doing this only for attention and fun. Serious people in a sober pursuit of social and political change don’t dance jigs down Sixth Avenue like attendees of a Renaissance festival. You look foolish, you smell gross, you are clearly high and you don’t seem to realize that all around you are people who deem you irrelevant.

• ...Nonconformity for the sake of nonconformity isn’t a virtue. Occupy reality: Only 4 percent of college graduates are out of work. If you are among that 4 percent, find a mirror and face the problem. It’s not them. It’s you.

Again, Is His Brain Broken?

Unlike Clinton, he's either an exceptionally bad liar, or there is something physically wrong with his mental capacity, but this is just rank stupidity on a colossal scale. He was just interviewed by lapdog-that-occasionally-snarls-weakly Jake Tapper on ABC and uttered perhaps the stupidest thing by an American President in modern times on their own record:

I guarantee it's going to be a close election because the economy is not where it wants to be and even though I believe all the choices we've made have been the right ones, we're still going through difficult circumstances.

$15 TRILLION debt.

3 years. The three biggest annual deficits in history.

No budget for 900 days!

9.1% unemployment.

3 months of sub-9% unemployment for his entire term to date! And those came in the first few months!

One 'stimulus/jobs package/mortgage relief plan' after another that failed, failed, failed.

The credit rating of the United States of America's government downgraded.

The profitable and jobs-rich offshore oil and gas industry shut down while we encourage other countries to come get resources that we could recover.


And he thinks all the moves they've made have been right!


Of course, compared to the man that's A HEARTBEAT AWAY FROM THE PRESIDENCY!!!!! wishing that people that oppose Obama's wasteful spending knew what it was like to be raped or robbed, he sounds as sane as the day is long.


(tipoff to Tom Blumer at Newsbusters, who notes that neither the AP nor the NYT have found this statement newsworthy)

Double Standard?

Bizarre bulldozer battleship roars into Libya fight

Clad in concrete sandwiched between steel plates, it is painted in the colors of the new national flag -- red, green and black. Writing on the bow declares "there is no God, but Allah, and Mohammad is his prophet."

That's what it says? I thought muslims freaked out when anyone wrote 'Mohammad' on anything and started rioting and killing nuns? Only sometimes? Only some 'Mohammad's?

Obama: Get That 6079 Smith W Guy On The Hotline Again

I don't know about you, but I'm feeling much better since the most transparent administration evah™ took over.

Oh, wait...

Yeah, remember this?

As part of its preparations the administration recently scrubbed all the captions on a White House photo gallery of Vice President Biden in the city, changing “Jerusalem, Israel” to “Jerusalem.”

Seems Winston's been hard at work again as noted by pre-eminent conservative crusaders...CNBC?

Someone affiliated with the Department of Energy has been going back to make changes to press releases posted on the Internet weeks and months ago, CNBC has found.

The changes occurred in two press releases from the Department of Energy's loan guarantee program — the same program that has been the center of controversy surrounding the failed solar company Solyndra.

Both were changed to remove the name of a company that has received negative press attention in recent days, SunPower, and replace it with the name of another company, NRG Energy.

Generally, it is not considered correct procedure to revise old press releases retroactively on the Web. More commonly, government agencies will issue a new press release with a current date explaining any changes that have occurred...

Update: On Wednesday evening, a Department of Energy spokesman said that the press releases had been returned to their original content as a result of CNBC's inquiry about the changes.

This Is New

You know, it's funny, I don't recall the New York Times finding any newsworthy uptick in the hiring of personal security agencies during all the Tea Party rallies that they, the New York Times and their fellow travelers, were always warning us were about to erupt into violence at any moment!

Even funnier, the Times finds the need for private security growing as a result of the "mostly peaceful" drum circlers...when there was no such increase in demand from rallies where, in some places, attendees were actually encouraged to bring their (openly displayed) firearms!

They call when they make the Forbes 400 list. They call when annual hedge fund rankings appear, when their names are mentioned on CNBC and when their children travel abroad. And, these days, they call when protesters camped in Lower Manhattan grow uncomfortable with the idea of their existence.

The ultra-rich bankers, hedge fund managers and private equity executives of New York City have long enlisted private security firms to help safeguard them and their wealth. But as the mood on Main Street turns increasingly hostile, New York’s financial titans are cranking their security measures up to 11. For the high-end security firms that provide the moneyed elite with specialty services like around-the-clock bodyguards and elaborate home security systems, Occupy Wall Street has been a stimulus package all its own...

But the most recent round of Main Street rage has raised the risk factor. Last week, when protesters picketed the homes of some of Manhattan’s richest residents, they made a stop at Mr. Paulson’s mansion, as well as the homes of Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, and Stephen A. Schwarzman, the billionaire co-founder of the Blackstone Group. One sign carried by protesters depicted Mr. Blankfein’s severed head on a stake...

These days, bankers and hedge fund managers are willing to spend millions of dollars to avoid enduring anything similar.

But I guess they don't call when conservative patriots are calling for democratic change. Funny...right?

(and, and please note that 'they' need not mean the same 'they' in both instances, re: the Tea Parties, there was no 'they' that needed protection - not Democrats, not the President, not banks, not Michael Moore, not anyone)

Incidentally - how many jobless college graduates living out their college professors' dreams in a park that someone else pays to maintain, eating food donated by corporations and big unions, could be hired by the money that is instead spent by businesses and individuals to protect people from them and their fellow campers?

Who Likes Cain's 9-9-9 Plan?

Well, Art Laffer, yes that Art Laffer, for one:

Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain's now famous "9-9-9" plan is his explicit proposal to right the wrongs of our federal tax code. He proposes a 9% flat-rate personal income tax with no deductions except for donations to charity; a 9% flat-rate tax on net business profits; and a new 9% national tax on retail sales.

Mr. Cain's 9-9-9 plan was designed to be what economists call "static revenue neutral," which means that if people didn't change what they do under his plan, total tax revenues would be the same as they are under our current tax code. I believe his plan would indeed be static revenue neutral, and with the boost it would give to economic growth it would bring in even more revenue than expected...

...But the plan exempts from any tax people below the poverty line...

A static revenue-neutral tax change requires static winners and losers. And this 9-9-9 plan has made certain that even on static terms those below the poverty line will be better off—period. Once the dynamics take hold, many of those below the poverty line will find good jobs and thus will rise above the poverty line and start paying taxes.

This is the type of tax increase I wholeheartedly support. I support collecting more in taxes from people with high incomes who choose to actually pay taxes at lower tax rates than use lawyers and accountants to avoid taxes at higher tax rates. Some tax revenues at low tax rates is a heckuva lot better than no tax revenues at high tax rates...

Still, a number of my fellow economists don't like the retail sales component of the 9-9-9 plan. They argue that, once in place, the retail rate could be raised to the moon. They are correct, but what they miss is that any tax could be instituted in the future at a higher rate. If I could figure a way to stop future Congresses from ever raising taxes I'd do it every day of the week and twice on Sunday. Until then, let's not make the perfect the enemy of the good.

Admittedly I haven't look at this much since, to be honest, I've been spending more time in the kitchen than perusing the wild and wooly world of politics, but I'm not sure how the plan 'exempts' those below the poverty line from the sales tax part. Maybe that's an over-generalization on Laffer's part?

Time Unzips, Pulls A Protester Out Of Their Pants

Well, Time just dropped trou' again. As IBD pointed out, the media is pretty heavily invested in the 'Occupy' movement (aka the re-elect Obama because he's doing so well movement). Time piles it up by the metric buttload here, as I'm sure you can imagine just from the title: Why You Shouldn't Compare Occupy Wall Street to the Tea Party

Gas mask on? Then proceed.

But while the similarities are noteworthy, they obscure more relevant truths about Occupy Wall Street, the supposedly inchoate movement that has transfixed the American media in recent weeks.

("Contemplate this: The Occupy Wall Street folks drew more broadcast network stories in the first nine days of coverage (with 24 stories) than the Tea Party drew in the first nine months(with 19 stories).")

Well, the part about transfixing the media is right. I guess that's the first part of solving the problem, right?

I enumerate these truths after the jump.

Excuse me? "truths"? Interesting word choice for what is surely going to be a pile of steaming dog turds.

1. Occupy Wall Street is an expression of a global phenomenon.

As opposed to the Tea Parties? Yeah, we've seen no move all across Europe and beyond towards austerity measures meant to save nations from reckless spending.

A cursory glimpse at newspapers over the weekend would have shown scenes of mass protest across European capitals and cities elsewhere in the world, all in solidarity with the anti-greed protesters in New York.

Actually, the Occupy crowd is just copying the selfish, greedy protesters across Europe that have led to their nations imposing Tea Party values in a desperate attempt to save nations from going under...Greece, anyone? Here's a "truth" for ya - when you have children complaining that people that have earned a lot of money by working hard should give it to them, that's greed.

The Tea Party, for all its early brio, commands no such solidarity, nor does it care for it. It's a hyper-nationalist movement in the U.S., lofting the totems of the Constitution and the flag. Few viable political factions across the Atlantic advocate the Tea Party's anti-big government, libertarian agenda (though the xenophobic, culturally-conservative wing of the Tea Party would perhaps see eye to eye with Europe's Islamophobic far-right).

Annnnnd, the wheels come off the crazy bus. "xenophobic"? Similar to "Europe's Islamophobic far-right"? C'mon, don't get ticked off at a**holes like this, laugh at them - their ideology is dying right before their eyes - murdered, in a bout of irony, by the Won they picked to elevate it. They had everything they wanted, the most liberal/socialist president ever with unstoppable majorities in Congress...and the nation is teetering on the edge of another depression as they protest the banks that poured money into the Won's pockets, the banks he bailed out. And, again, how does one completely fail to notice the fact that most of Europe is currently embarking on austerity journeys? England, Germany, France, Greece...all led by non-viable political factions? Seriously, put down the bong and pay attention.

Many of the Occupy Wall Street's participants, on the other hand, consciously see themselves as part of a worldwide uprising, a flame first kindled by the Arab Spring and borne across the Mediterranean by anti-austerity protesters in Europe.

Head-scratcher, isn't it? The type of policies endorsed by the Tea Party are being enacted and actually led to the "anti-austerity protests"...yet we were just told that Europe isn't at all in solidarity with the Tea Party smaller government movement. We were just told that no viable political factions are pushing for such a thing. If this doesn't make sense to you, you're not doing enough drugs apparently, because it seems to make sense to Time.

In all three settings, social media has played a vital role in mobilizing and organizing the disaffected and the disenfranchised.

Disenfranchised? The protesters are felons that have lost the right to vote or participate in government? Hold on...didn't these protesters elect the liberal/socialist governments that are bankrupting the west? Did they miss that part? Bit of a clue, Time, losing an election isn't the same as not being able to vote.

In all three settings, activists and protesters have drawn to varying degrees from a toolbox of leftist, anarchist protest tactics and made do with minimal institutional support or funds.**

And Time, like the rest of the left-wing press, continues to ignore the money billionaire George Soros is funneling to the anti-rich protesters. And, of course, the non-institutional unions...right?

But new video released exclusively by EAGtv shows the protestors pre-arrange who is to be arrested. That’s right – the arrests are as scripted as a professional wrestling match, at least on the occupiers’ end.

Cameras were rolling in Chicago recently and captured Chicago Teachers Union organizers finalizing plans for who in the crowd would be arrested. That’s right – it was staged.

Comparing lists on clipboards, the footage shows two union organizers in CTU shirts questioning whether a man standing with them would be arrested or not.

Organizer 1: “He said he’s not being arrested. He’s not on the list."

And in all three settings, the protesters have pulled together sympathizers from across myriad political camps within their countries and somehow made a virtue out of their movement's lack of central leadership.

Sure, they've got the leftists, the liberals, the socialists, the communists, anti-capitalists...yes, a real mosaic of competition. Although, to be fair, the Occupy children, the European leftists, and the muslims do all hate the jews.

Occupy Wall Street is fueled by youth...One of my favorite interviews so far has been Marsha Spencer, a 56-year-old grandmother...

Yeah, I don't get it either. I'm just going with 'the writer is a laughingly stupid idiot smothered with moron sauce'.

Not true for the Tea Party, whose typical supporter is older, wealthier, and whiter than the American demographic average.

I must've missed all the minorities at the Occupy drum circles, that can happen when you're blinded by the whiteness.*

It is a movement, by and large, of the haves — not the have nots. "It's essentially reactionary," says David Graeber, a professor of anthropology at Goldsmiths College, University of London, who helped set up Occupy Wall Street's much-heralded General Assembly and is one of the first people to push the movement's now ubiquitous slogan 'We are the 99%'. "The Tea Party core group is white middle-class Republicans who are angry that they seem to be losing their position of preeminence in society."

Ummm...yeah..."truth", you say? Riiiiiight. Oh, and don't forget they're racists! Isn't that what it's really about? Racism because of Obama?

Occupy Wall Street may prove much harder to co-opt into the political mainstream.

Why is that? Because they're spouting racism, anti-semitism, communism, spitting on servicewomen, pissing all over public parks, socialism...which part is going to make it hard to fit them into the 'mainstream'?

Will D.C.-based advocacy groups like MoveOn.org try to exploit for its own ends the success of motley, diverse bands of protesters occupying dozens of downtowns across the U.S.?

Seriously? If you've seen one raggedy, unwashed college student pretending to relive the hippie 60s pushed by the professors you've pretty much seen them all. And did we mention how white they are?

And, most importantly, will Occupy Wall Street radicalize the Democratic base the way the Tea Party energized the far-right of the Republicans?

Psssst! Don't let Time in on it, but these people already elected Obama and put Pelosi and Reid in charge of Congress...it already happened! Didn't work out so well then, either.

At present, it's hard to see how Occupy Wall Street can generate the left-wing, Democratic versions of Rand Paul or Michele Bachmann.

Yeah? You mean unwashed college students camping in the park are unlikely to spew forth an accomplished businessman or woman with a family, a job, and a history of successfully discharging obligations to their fellow man? Shocker!

Few of the protesters one speaks to have any tolerance for either political party, which they say are both equally enmeshed in a political system entirely beholden to vested corporate interests.

And jews. Don't forget the jooooooooooooooos! Right?

The Tea Party, boosted by financial titans and one of the U.S.'s most influential cable news network, was able to make the leap from grassroots anger to effective Beltway politicking. Occupy Wall Street has no such benefactors nor mouthpiece, and will have to undergo a massive — and potentially divisive — transformation should it become the sort of tempered, streamlined (what many would deem 'compromised') political player that can actually throw its weight behind the Obama Administration.

(Ed Schultz re: his MSNBC show: "And I'm going to put it on TV every night. I'm going to put it on TV every night until the last protester goes home.")

No such benefactors? AAAAHAAAAHAAAAAHAAAAHAAA! Does the name "George Soros" ring any bells, dipstick? And I guess the fact that FoxNews covered the Tea Parties without just running stories about how scary and racist they all were will help the way fawning coverage by ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, and every major newspaper in the nation won't? No mouthpieces? Really? Didn't Al Sharpton just screech at one of their little get-togethers and doesn't he host a show on MSNBC? Just sayin'. And, yes, they're going to have to get rid of the drugged out hippies, communists, anarchists, socialists, idiots, anti-semites, and such if they want to become "tempered" and "streamlined". Of course then the parks will be clear for powerwashing, but they'll worry about that later.

Occupy Wall Street still believes in politics and government.

Really? Then shouldn't they be offering up candidates for the next election cycle like the Tea Party did? Oh wait, the Tea Party is against that sort of thing apparently. I know, I know, I'm not drunk enough to understand this nonsense. Sorry.

Whereas much of the Tea Party's programmatic ire seems directed at the very idea of government

So Time's idea of "truth" is a guess about the Tea Party that is clueless, off base, and basically completely fabricated? Brilliant!

and trumpets instead the virtue of self-reliance and the inexorable righteousness of the free market — Occupy Wall Street more sharply decries the collusion of corporate and political elites in Washington.

The Tea Party likes pears whereas Occupy Wall Street wears blue jeans! If the previous statement makes any sense to you, you need to stop camping in a park and get a job. Can you imagine a decent English teach allowing such a moronic statement to be handed in without a truckload of red ink to follow? I mean, they're basically saying that the Tea Party supports the free market, but the Occupy nuts are against things that corrupt the free market. What? Exactly.

The answer, for many of the protesters I've spoken with, is never the wholesale dismantling or whittling away of the capabilities of political institutions (except, perhaps, the Fed)

Oh, bullshit. If 1 in 20 of these kids know what 'the Fed' is I'll give you a hundred bucks.

Because, at the end of the day, Occupy Wall Street, like most idealistic social movements, wants real political solutions. Excited activists in Zuccotti Park spoke to me about the advent of "participatory budgeting" in a number of City Council districts in New York — an egalitarian system, first brought about in leftist-run cities in Latin America, that allows communities to dole out funds in their neighborhoods through deliberation and consensus-building.

OK, then. Right. Let's get all 300 million of us in a room and figure out this whole national budget thingie. How's next Thursday?

To the outside observer, that may seem foolishly utopian — and impracticable on a larger scale — but it's a sign of the deep political commitments of many of the motley protesters gathering under Occupy Wall Street's banner. They want to fix government, not escape from it.

Really? Actually it's a sign to me that they're foolish children that have no clue what they're talking about and need to lay off the drugs. They maybe need a real lesson about the Soviet Union, Mao's revolution, and the Castro/Che regime in Cuba and what happens when a nation actually gets what they're calling for. As for motley, as I said above, they're about as homogenous a bunch as I can imagine. And they don't want to "fix government" - if they wanted to "fix government" (unlike, the comparison is clear, the Tea Party), they would be trying to get new people elected (oddly enough as the Tea Party did!) and not demanding that the government steal from "the rich" to give them stuff. What part of 'rich people are oppressing me and stealing from me, so take their money and give it to us' is going to "fix government"? If they want to "fix government" as these 'truth'-tellers as Time claim, they why are they marching around yelling at bankers and screaming about joooooooooooos and corporations and successful people instead of marching on DC and attending meeting with their government representatives...oddly enough, like the Tea Party? Which group wants to "fix government" and which is about 'escaping'? Escaping? Which group is camped out in parks, neglecting their responsibilities? Hmmmm?

Feh.

--

*AP via Michelle Malkin:

“When I started out here … I realized there was not a lot of diversity out here,” said Woody, who is black and graduated from Morehouse College and has camped in a downtown Atlanta park with other protesters for more than a week. “It’s changed in the course of the past week. I’d like to see that grow.”

…The Occupy Wall Street protest in New York has been more diverse than other cities. Although the majority of protesters are white, many blacks and a smattering of Asians and Latinos have participated.

**Daily Caller via Michelle Malkin:

A liberal organizer told the Daily Caller on Thursday afternoon that he paid some Hispanics to attend “Occupy DC” protests happening in the nation’s capital...

One group of about ten Hispanic protesters marched behind a Caucasian individual from the DC Tenants Advocacy Coalition, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting rent control in Washington, D.C.

Asked why they were there, some Hispanic protesters holding up English protest signs could not articulate what their signs said.

Is this the part where they're diverse ("motley"?) and without resources, or is this the part where they're like other leftist rallies with rent-a-mobs?

Let's Think About This

Obama: Potential Supporters Sense Recovery 'Still Hasn't Gotten Done Yet'

Hmmm...let's see if we can help the President figure out why this could be the case.

Could it be:

1. that unemployment is still above 9% with no prospects of it coming down any time soon?

2. the real unemployment rate nearing 15%?

3. the unemployment+underemployment rate nearing 20%?

4. rising inflation?

5. soaring food costs?

6. the historically fast run up on the National Debt with nothing to show for it?

7. a failed trillion dollar hand out to cronies?

8. a failed cash for clunkers program?

9. a failed cash for caulkers program?

10. one failed mortgage relief program after another?

11. the lack of hope for the housing market anywhere in sight?

12. the obvious flailing and dearth of ideas from the Fed who have already tried printing money, cutting rates to nothing, printing money, swapping money around in ways that failed before, and are back to the bright idea of...printing money?

13. the utter rebellion by businesses who refuse to hire in the hostile climate he has generated?

14. black unemployment around 15%?

15. hispanic unemployment around 12%?

...

16. Little-to-no actual GDP growth???


Could any of these be why people don't think there's been a recovery for you to take credit for?

Lightening The Mood

It Wasn't Me, It Was My Friend

Coast Guard member spit on near Occupy Boston tents

The Coast Guard in Boston confirmed that a woman in uniform was harassed and spat upon near Occupy Boston protesters.

The woman was walking to the train and said protesters spit on her twice, called her foul names and even threw a water bottle at her.

Now, the Coast Guard is warning all staff working on Atlantic Avenue to avoid those protesters while in uniform...

More than 140 Occupy Boston protesters were arrested earlier this week for refusing to cooperate with police on the Rose Kennedy Greenway.

The peaceful protestors say the violence wasn't supposed to happen and a group of anarchists were the ones rebelling. They say they do not condone that type of behavior.

Hey, it wasn't us! It was the people with us, man! I mean, you know, the one's we're marching with, camping out with, sharing joints with, going on TV with, high-fiving after they spit on our military...no wait! Did I say that out loud?! Awwww man, I've got the munchies so bad I can't even think straight!

Now, the Coast Guard is warning all staff working on Atlantic Avenue to avoid those protesters while in uniform.

Welcome back to the days of Vietnam. Their parents must be so proud.

The peaceful protestors say the violence wasn't supposed to happen

I don't even have anything snarky to say about this particular bit of idiocy. It just sort of, you know, happened...like all the violence that erupted at the actually peaceful Tea Parties...right?

--

IBD has more:

In any case, the real crime here isn't a few emails from left-wing journalists, but the fact that the rest of the "unbiased" mainstream press has been overtly helping the protesters as well.

Don't think so? Try to find press accounts of speakers at Occupy rallies who have overtly called for violence. Or coverage of the rising incidents of anti-Semitism, expressed in verbal abuse of Jews and signs like: "Google the following: Wall St. Jews, Jewish billionaires, Jews & Federal Reserve Bank." Or the anti-Americanism on display: flags flown upside down, flags with "Sold Out" painted on them, flags trampled underfoot. In Portland, occupiers sang along to "F*** the USA."

Nothing to see here, folks.

And when not busy covering up for the protesters, the media have been gamely trying to magnify their significance. NBC's Brian Williams enthused that "it could well turn out to be the protest of this current era."

These are the same people, remember, who first ignored the Tea Party, then tried to portray it as "AstroTurf" — fake grass roots — then looked for every chance to cast it as full of racists, extremists and hate-mongers.

There's No Cure For This

Sorry, Dems, but there's just no cure for this kind of disassociated stupidity:

"Maybe they just couldn't understand the whole thing at once, so we're going to break it up into bite-size pieces," Obama said from his first stop in western North Carolina before getting on his black-tinted bus and heading east across the state.

Yes. That's exactly it. The problem is that the GOP cannot understand why spending a half trillion dollars on a 'jobs bill' will work after spending a trillion dollars on a 'job bill' that failed.

Yeah. That's it.

Socialism's Spread

As Bill Wilson notes, things do be gettin' serious.

Here's the oath of office that all Representatives take when they are elected to the House:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.

Got that?

Well, on top of North Carolina Democrat Governor Beverly Perdue saying that, gee, maybe we'd better just go ahead and skip the Congressional elections next year (presumably so the Senate can hold up the GOP's attempts to fix Obama's disaster after retaking that body), Representative Jesse Jackson, Jr. to ignore the Constitution, seize a trillion dollars of borrowed taxpayer money, and spend it as he sees fit.

Now, bear in mind, the dire straits we find ourselves in today are a direct and easily proven result of socialistic moves by Democrats over the past several years. Some on the right have said that the Democrats are intentionally trying to bankrupt America in order to have the government seize all power, basically ending America as we know it. Many others on the right argued that it wasn't intentional, that their ideas come from 'the right place' but they're just wrong and the disasters they caused aren't intentional.

I have to say, I used to be in the latter camp, but day after day I have to wonder. Spending trillions has caused us to lose our sterling credit rating and turned an ordinary recession into something that looks like the very early end of the Great Depression...and their answer is to subvert the Constitution, suspend democratic elections, destroy the worldwide financial system by cancelling all legally-incurred debts, and spend another trillion (for starters)?

Makes you wonder just a bit more than you did yesterday, doesn't it?

Interesting

This is pretty 'funny', not 'funny' ha-ha, but 'funny' pathetic media bias.

I actually saw this story as originally run and was a bit surprised at the honesty.

AP Edits Story to Blame Republicans for Obamacare Failure

Your Random Saturday

Read this quick, then go enjoy the day, nice autumn weekends won't be around much longer!

It's almost like David Limbaugh doesn't care for Obama:

[Obama] presented himself as the whole package -- a quasi-deity who would transform the entire country, slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet.

With a backdrop of spiritually bankrupt people who were ripe for the lie that government could fill that god-shaped void in their beings, Obama strategically milked his messianic mirage. He constructed Greek columns, produced ethereal voice echo effects and adopted a conspicuous head-lift affectation to build a cultlike following...

Still having doubts, you dumb hick conservative?

Bill Clinton declared last week that Americans "look like a joke" because leading Republican presidential contenders decline to embrace the agenda of the global-warming alarmists..."You can't win the nomination of a major political party in the US," fumed the former president, "unless you deny science?"

To which Marc Morano, publisher of the irreverently skeptical website Climate Depot, promptly replied: "Bill is correct! No Democratic presidential candidate could get the nomination unless they deny the large role that natural variability plays in climate."

In truth, global-warming alarmism is not science at all -- not in the way that electromagnetic radiation or the laws of planetary motion or molecular biology is science. Catastrophic climate change is an interpretation of certain scientific data, an interpretation based on theories about the causes and effects of growing concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It is not "denying science" to have doubts about the correctness of that interpretation any more than it is "denying economics" to have doubts about the efficacy of Kenyesian pump-priming...

Such skepticism is not "anti-science." Everything in science is subject to challenge; innumerable facts about the natural world have been discovered only by poking holes in once-prevailing theories. And if that is true generally, how much more so is it true when it comes to something as vast and complex as climate change?

Who's this guy? Nice smackdown:

One of the protestors, Erin Larkins, explained why she and her boyfriend attended the rally on the bridge:

I don't think we're asking for much, just to wake up every morning not worrying whether we can pay the rent, or whether our next meal will be rice and beans again.

You know who else worries about that? Every single person in America! But the majority of them don't think the answer is blocking traffic between two boroughs of the busiest city in America. The majority of Americans think the answer to paying the rent is finding a way to pay the rent. The answer is getting a job, or starting a small business...

Larkins' comments are simply preposterous when you learn that she is a graduate student at Columbia University...

How is it possible that Larkins is worried about how to pay the rent, when she now attends Columbia's graduate program? What could she possibly be majoring in that wouldn't allow her the ability to pay her rent, or eat more than beans and rice? If her major can't pay the rent, then isn’t the problem her choice in major? Larkins also mentioned that she has, "...significant student loan debt." She could have gone to Arizona State University for half the money, never mind the savings on winter coats.

On a good day, no one can lay a hand on Ann...this is a good day:

No one knows what the Wall Street protesters want -- as is typical of mobs. They say they want Obama re-elected, but claim to hate "Wall Street." You know, the same Wall Street that gave its largest campaign donation in history to Obama, who, in turn, bailed out the banks and made Goldman Sachs the fourth branch of government...

First of all, the Boston Tea Party was nothing like tattooed, body–pierced, sunken-chested 19-year-olds getting in fights with the police for fun. Paul Revere's nighttime raid was intended exclusively to protest a new British tea tax. (The Wall Street protesters would be more likely to fight for a new tax than against one.)...

Even the Minutemen, whose first scuffle with the British began the war, were a real army with ranks, subordination, coordination, drills and supplies. There is not a single mention in the historical record of Minutemen playing hacky-sack, burning candles assembled in "peace and love," or sitting in drum circles...

The -- again -- Canadians exulted, "You sense they're drafting a new Declaration of Independence."

I suppose you only "sense" it because they're doing nothing of the sort. They say they want Mao as the president -- as one told Schulz -- and the abolition of "capitalism."...

Tea partiers didn't block traffic, sleep on sidewalks, wear ski masks, fight with the police or urinate in public. They read the Constitution, made serious policy arguments, and petitioned the government against Obama's unconstitutional big government policies, especially the stimulus bill and Obamacare.

Then they picked up their own trash and quietly went home. Apparently, a lot of them had to be at work in the morning.

Although Mr. Goldberg isn't going down without a fight:

"My political goal," Phillips says, "is to overthrow the government."

Note: That's not some random nut job pulled from his Lyndon LaRouche desk or tricked-out refrigerator box/time machine. That's the communications director for the whole [Occupy Wall Street] shebang, and his goal is to overthrow the government...

For instance, among the more popular demands is debt forgiveness -- for everything from student loans to, well, everything.

A widely circulated "proposed list of demands" calls for "Immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all. Debt forgiveness of sovereign debt, commercial loans, home mortgages, home equity loans, credit card debt, student loans and personal loans now! All debt must be stricken from the 'Books.'"

Even if you break the crazy pill in half and simply talk about forgiving all mortgages and consumer credit, we're still probably talking about the utter destruction of the global financial system. U.S. mortgage debt alone is roughly equal to our entire GDP.

The reason I bring this up is that I think this is extreme...

Meanwhile, the sock-headed spokesman for the protesters wants to "overthrow the government."

And yet, if you peruse NexisLexis, you'll be hard pressed to find anyone calling him or his more radical confreres "extremists."

You also won't hear them being called racists, even though the Occupy Wall Street movement is mostly white. Personally, I don't think racial composition of the "99 percenters" is relevant, but the fact that the tea partiers are mostly white has been cited time and again as evidence of nascent racism.