Political News & Info

If you want to keep up to date on the Occupy movement, you’ve come to the right place. This is Breitbart.com ’s running chronicle of Occupy’s chaos, political machinations and internal power struggles as we head towards the Occupy movement’s planned Spring rebirth. The Occupy movement is the Obama administration’s shadow campaign; community organized shock troops helping to spread the President’s strategic 2012 campaign message that we need to stop income inequality. With Big Labor calling the tactical shots, Occupy is President Obama’s direct action to bring real radicalism into the mainstream American politics, while another faction of Occupy organizers struggles to extract the movement from the grips of the Democrat Party establishment. The crowds may have dwindled with the cold weather, but there’s still a tremendous amount of Occupy activity preparing for an “ American Spring .”  We’ll be keeping this page updated with links to all of our Occupy coverage.  Catch it all right here, in one place. View All Occupy Stories on Big Government ** View All Occupy Stories on Big Journalism View 2011 #OccupyWallStreet Rap Sheet February 2012 Occupy DC Slams Brick in Cop’s Face; AP Spins as ‘Nonviolent’ , 2/8/2012 Occupy Wall Street Now Promoting the Weather Underground , 2/8/2012 Ohio Dem Gives Occupiers Tickets to Disrupt Kasich Speech , 2/8/2012 Occupy DC Plans Chaos At CPAC , 2/7/2012 Conservative Group to Share Freedom Plaza with Occupy DC , 2/6/2012 U.S. Park Service Moves in Against Occupy D.C. Encampment at McPherson Square , 2/5/2012 #Occupiers Targeting Breitbart at CPAC, Threaten Physical Violence , 2/2/2012 Big Labor Plans Super Bowl Chaos , 2/2/2012 Why Geezers Are Occupy Wall Street’s True Enemy , 2/1/2012 EXCLUSIVE: #Occupy Plans Cross-Country Marches for Mayday: ‘We’ll Quarter Our Troops in Homes Across America! ’, 2/1/2012 January 2012 Occupy Wall Street Shows How We Can’t Get Our Message Out Over Old Media Din , 1/31/2012 What’s Next? Occupy the Super Bowl, of Course , 1/31/2012 Racist Occupy Wall Street: ‘Absolutely’ Race Problems & Hypocrisy, Says Black Occupier , 1/31/2012 White House Backs US Park Police in Occupy Conflict–Calls Tolerance of Protestors ‘Appropriate’ , 1/30/2012 Martin Luther King’s Family Halts Occupy Event at Atlanta Memorial Center , 1/30/2012 Adbusters Tells Occupiers to Take to the Streets of Chicago a la 1968 , 1/30/2012 Occupy Oakland Burns American Flag While Reciting Anti-Semitic ‘Pledge of Allegiance ’, 1/30/2012 Racist Occupy Wall Street: Movement ‘Clearly’ Has Race Problems, Says Occupy Newark Leader , 1/30/2012 Occupy Slams National Prayer Breakfast for ‘1 Percent’; Will Lead ‘People’s Prayer Breakfast’ in Protest , 1/29/2012 Media Endorsed OWS Movement: “F*** The Police” , 1/29/2012 EXCLUSIVE–Inside Occupy DC: ‘Obama Is Not Why the US Park Police Are Letting Us Stay’ , 1/29/2012 New #OccupyOakland Violence: Police Injured, 100 Arrested as Left’s ‘Mostly Peaceful’ Movement Returns , 1/29/2012 SUPER PACs: Occupy the Courts and the Fight for Free Speech , 1/27/2012 President Obama’s State of the Union & 2012 Campaign Based On Occupy’s ‘Income Inequality’ Messaging , 1/24/2012 One Occupier’s Sad Story Of Foreclosure Is A Bit Less Sad Than Reported By The Press , 1/24/2012 Media Hypes Occupy’s Rose Parade “Octopus” Float , 1/1/2012 View All Occupy Stories on Big Government ** View All Occupy Stories on Big Journalism View 2011 #OccupyWallStreet Rap Sheet

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The Occupy Chronicles 2012

Football fans understand that each game played either moves a team forward toward the conference playoffs, conference championship, and Super Bowl, or toward the role of spoiler, where their role is to affect the outcome of the seasons’ top teams. While they watch their favorite players, they recognize that one injury can make the difference between a good season and a bad season unless there is depth in the team’s capacity. The ability of a team to work together, weather, home field advantage, seasoned leadership, knowing the other team’s playbook, all of this factors in when developing a championship team. True fans understand the complexity involved in bringing home the ring. Politics also involves such complexity and as we ramp up toward the 2012 election, it behooves the citizenry of this country to become educated in the strategies used by both parties to enhance the viability of their candidates while reducing the credibility of the opposition. For those who enjoy politics, following the primaries is as compelling as watching the football season unfold, and for the populace as a whole, a much higher stakes game is being played that goes beyond who will gain the office of chief executive. The 2012 election has the potential to influence the direction of our country for many years beyond a presidential term of office. Strategy 1: Discredit the messenger. Within a party and between the parties, this strategy is used to cast doubt in the mind of the voter as to whether the person running for office has the intellectual or moral capacity to lead our country. While it is important to get to know each candidate, to understand his or her strengths and weaknesses, it is also critical to remember that we are not always given the choice of voting for the best person to hold office; we are given a choice of picking the better person to become president. We need to have a set of criteria that this person must meet, much like the ideal candidate for a job. While most people cannot meet every expectation, it is the combination of skills and personality that makes a person the most viable choice. What traits make a good president? Part of this depends on the challenges that person will face. What experiences have prepared the candidate for this role? How has the candidate dealt with adversity, job growth, managing others? What problems face this person going in? Does the person have the depth to understand the long as well as the short term impact of each challenge in relationship to any solution being proposed? Does the candidate exhibit the intellectual capacity to weigh all considerations against a long term goal for leadership? What future does this person envision for our country? Strategy 2: Discredit the message. Sometimes it is hard to swallow bad tasting medicine and if a message does not appeal to every voter, it is recast to focus on how it will hurt a particular constituency in the short term, rather than deliver for the country on the whole in the long term. The candidate needs to be savvy enough to defend the policies being suggested and to be able to answer the concerns voiced by the public regarding how policies affect the pocket book or security of our nation. Policies that appease special interest groups at the expense of others by treating people unequally are unconstitutional. Everyone, whether they are rich or poor, whether they are elected or electors, is to be treated equally under the fundamental law of this country. When a policy is constitutional, it should advance the stability and wealth of our nation while protecting the individual freedoms of our citizenry. Strategy 3: Prevent the message from being heard. Regardless of which candidate moves forward in the primaries and is chosen to run on the parties’ ticket, each debate allows the American people to hear each candidate’s response to their concerns and to begin to understand the complexity in addressing each issue. If a teacher was expected to teach a unit on the civil war and then tested the students on the revolutionary war, there would not be an alignment between the content and the assessment. There would not be a true understanding of what was learned or whether the subject was covered well enough or if parts need to be retaught. In a primary debate, moderators need to ask questions that address real concerns facing our country and allow time for the candidates to voice their strategies and solutions, to discuss with one another why they believe they are correct or to adjust their reasoning based on new knowledge. It is inconceivable that a primary debate would be preempted by a rerun of a television series. Just like the objectives of a teacher should be aligned to the goal of a school; to provide the tools for each student to grow into responsible citizen, able to think critically and be a lifelong learner, not to tell a child what to think, the goal of a president should be aligned to the founding documents; to protect our individual freedoms while advancing the strength, wealth, and security of our nation. It is not to promote special interests or be reelected to office. When making huge life decisions, getting married, buying a home, taking a job, too many people jump in without weighing their choice against their long term goals, what their expectations are for the work environment, raising a family, how they envision their life in ten, twenty, fifty years. Sometimes people haven’t thought about these things, they have a utopian idea about how life will evolve but they do not have a plan to get there or the tools that will allow it to happen. The president of this country must be able to show us the game plan and how we’ll get there. The goal is pretty simple really, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity; it’s how we get there and whether the president’s plan aligns with this goal that matters. Right now, the way I see it, it’s third and long.

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Election 2012: Third and Long

As lawyers say, lets stipulate that the political system is broken. We have, in the past, railed against special tax incentives for business that are often outmoded, ill conceived, and are generally ineffective. These, more often than not, merely distort the marketplace at great expense to the taxpayer and the American consumer. Elected officials in Washington have become so locked into doctrinaire philosophical positions that compromise has eluded their reach, and common sense has become as rare as the two-dollar bill. Democrats and the left point to growing gaps between the middle class and those they refer to as millionaires and billionaires (people who earn over $250,000 per annum) and who they say must pay their “fair share” in taxes. And while it is widely acknowledged that the top 5% of earners pay over 50 percent of federal taxes, there has been a growing concentration of wealth within that top 5% of income earners during the last 20 years. Politicians love to define issues in a debate to gain popular advantage. The country is in desperate need of economic growth, which the Obama Administration has failed effectively to address. So, the White House has made increased taxes on “millionaires and billionaires” the cornerstone of their 2012 election strategy. Excessive spending, the growth of the federal deficit and the accumulated debt of the country threaten to snuff out economic growth in America just as it surely is doing in Europe. When Barack Obama became President, the federal debt was slightly over $10 trillion dollars. It has grown to more than $14 trillion dollars under his watch. If spending is not reined in, and/or revenues do not increase, servicing the nation’s debt will crowd out vital resources for private investment (where new jobs are created). Elected officials are not leading; they talk past one another. The way out of this mess might be in changing the vocabulary of the debate so both sides can claim a victory. The Democrats could hoist the GOP on their own petard by shifting the debate away from tax increases, to cutting corporate entitlements and benefits. Note that the right complains about spending only when the beneficiaries are those who rely on government to help with retirement payments, medical benefits, or to finance their children’s education. Cutting specified corporate entitlements that really provide no economic benefit to the country would be easier for conservatives to swallow than increasing tax rates, which would retard economic growth. Business Entitlements, or what the left likes to call “corporate welfare”, runs in excess of $100 billion a year according to the libertarian CATO Institute. These so-called incentives are often misallocations of federal spending on programs that simply do not work, or otherwise distort free enterprise competition. Let’s eliminate these wasteful programs and deflate, once and for all, leftist arguments that the rich are opposed to raising tax revenues. These misguided corporate taxpayer handouts are spread throughout the federal budget. The actual total expenditures are hard to quantify, but are larger than the entire annual budgets of many countries. Even conservatives have trouble agreeing on which programs constitute proper government spending or which amount, figuratively, to flushing government revenue down the drain. Businesses that are darlings of both the left and the right happily feed at the taxpayer-subsidized trough. While the United States boasts the second highest corporate tax rate in the industrialized world, a variety of tax breaks assure that few corporations pay at the full 35% corporate tax rate. One study published by the left-leaning Citizens for Tax Justice found only 25% of companies paying more than 30%, while 35% were paying at an effective tax rate of 17.5% to 30% and 40% were paying less than 17.5%. And, of course, many profitable fortune 500 companies manage to pay no federal income taxes at all. Among those corporate luminaries paying no federal income taxes for the last three tax years were General Electric, PG&E, Baxter International, Verizon, Boeing, Mattel and Corning (to name a few). Until this year, the nation had spent over $50 billion to subsidize the production of ethanol to produce fuel from corn (at a taxpayer subsidy of about $1.50 a gallon). The rationale for this program was to reduce the nation’s reliance on imported oil. Of course, it has done no such thing. Instead, it is nothing more than a subsidy to farmers (mostly corporate owned) and ethanol refiners. The real result has been that corn available for human and animal consumption has dropped precipitously, and food prices have shot up dramatically. According to a 2006 USDA report, the indirect subsidy to ethanol on the 4.9 billion gallons produced in 2006 came to $3.9 billion. Together with the direct subsidies of $0.9 billion for corn and $2.5 billion for ethanol the grand total was $7.3 billion. That’s $1.50 per gallon of ethanol, or $2.28 per gallon of gasoline replaced. These subsidies have produced an enormous boom in ethanol. Between August 2006 and January 2007, the capacity of existing plants and plants under construction grew from 7.4 billion gallons to 11.4 billion gallons — a 54% increase in six months. One USDA official described the state of the market as ethanol euphoria. What did this do for the American taxpayer? Nothing other than increase the cost of living. In June of this year the Senate voted to end this subsidy, it is not yet clear whether it will really end. As Yogi Berra famously put it, “It’s not over until it’s over”. Moreover, it has always been unnecessary since Congress already had required automobile manufacturers to reduce fuel usage under the 2007 renewable fuel standards. Another favorite of the left (and those businesses who are recipients of federal money) are high-speed rail projects. George Will (not exactly known as a leftist) in his February 28 column succinctly put it this way: Generations hence, when the river of time has worn this presidency’s importance to a small, smooth pebble in the stream of history, people will still marvel that its defining trait was a mania for high-speed rail projects. This disorder illuminates the progressive mind. Remarkably widespread derision has greeted the Obama administration’s “damn-the-arithmetic-full-speed-ahead proposal to spend $53 billion more (after the $8 billion in stimulus money and $2.4 billion in enticements to 23 states) in the next six years pursuant to the president’s loopy goal of giving “80 percent of Americans access to high speed rail.” Criticism of this optional and irrational spending — meaning: borrowing — during a deficit crisis has been withering. Only an administration blinkered by ideology would persist. Perhaps the biggest objective of the left is the cap-and-trade requirement of the Kyoto treaty (which liberals loved). The “treaty” had as its rationale a reduction in carbon emissions in the atmosphere. The effect on our economy if we joined the treaty would have been disastrous. EU nations signed on to the treaty, which is soon slated to expire. It has become so unpopular and costly that early indications are that the EU will not agree to a renewal. Now let us return to the central point of this essay. Billions of dollars are spent every year by the government to subsidize corporations. Not all corporations benefit from every subsidy. What most conservatives and corporations do agree upon, to the point that it has become doctrine, is that they absolutely oppose any tax increase that would retard economic growth. Therefore, why don’t we reach a compromise by not raising tax rates (which is what the President’s own Deficit and Debt Reduction Commission recommended) and, instead, eliminate most or all of these subsidies? The result is likely to be the same: Much more revenue being contributed by “the wealthy”. People with a central planner’s mentality have what renowned Austrian economist F.A. Hayek called “the fatal conceit.” As he stated the case: I’d have thought the fall of the Soviet Union would have taught us that central planning is destructive, but the conceit of the central planners lives on. Maybe the problem isn’t merely economic ignorance. Maybe it’s something more sinister: a wish to keep the freeloading system going. After all, if politicians and business leaders admit that government cannot play a constructive role in the economy, what grounds would there be for subsidies, shelter from competitors and other privileges at the people’s expense? The anti-free-market ideology is a vast rationalization for favoritism. Hayek’s celebrated 1947 prescient book predicted with great clarity what becomes of nations that worship at the alter of central planning. The book was titled “The Road to Serfdom.” By Hal Gershowitz and Stephen Porter

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Reducing the Deficits: Let’s Get Serious About Business Entitlements

This is the first in a series of articles about David Wu, the embattled congressman from Oregon who allegedly sexually assaulted the teenage daughter of a Wu donor. In 2004 the actress Jeri Ryan and Illinois Senate Candidate Jack Ryan had their divorce and custody records unsealed by a Los Angeles judge. Both Ryans had agreed to have their divorce records unsealed, but drew the line at their custody records, which neither wanted disclosed for the sake of their son , Alex. But as Slate wrote at the time , “[i]n keeping with prior rulings nationwide, the court concluded that the public’s right of access outweighed whatever emotional distress the unsealing might cause” and released them. Jack Ryan, embarrassed by some of the untoward acts he had allegedly committed with his wife, withdrew from the race and a little known state senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, went on to win the U.S. Senate seat against Alan Keyes. (It’s something of an open secret in Illinois politics that Obama’s own David Axelrod was behind it, just as he was behind another divorce record unsealing.) According to Ryan, the race would mark the first time in American politics that custody records were unsealed by a newspaper during a campaign. Flash forward to April 2011. Embattled Congressman David Wu is getting divorced from his estranged wife, Michelle Wu. Even though divorce documents indicate the congressman’s rather enthusiastic use of alcohol and prescription pills, the records are sealed by a judge. The Oregonian , a newspaper in Oregon, filed to have those records unsealed, but Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Tom Ryan rebuffs their efforts, citing “the best interest of the [Wu's] children.” Why was David Wu given a pass? The story here takes a weird turn: In January 2011, campaign staffers quit en masse, citing his nutty behavior. Days before the November 2010 election Wu sent out an email to his staffers that pictured him in a tiger suit. Wu admitted he was suffering from “undisclosed mental health issues.” It appears likely that Wu was abusing prescription drugs. He admitted to taking painkillers from a donor in October 2010, but says, implausibly, that he didn’t know what they were. And in 2008, he was hospitalized for an adverse reaction to the prescription drugs, Ambien and Valium. Now he has had a teenage girl accuse him of “unwanted sexual encounter.” That sounds an awful lot like rape, doesn’t it?  One wonders why the mainstream media hasn’t called it as such. It sounds especially like rape after we consider that in 2004  The Oregonian reported Wu tried to rape a girl when he was at Stanford University in the mid-70s, an act he describes as “ inexcusable behavior on [his] part .” (One has to wonder, if it was inexcusable on his part why have his constituents and colleagues continued to excuse it?) Then, as now, Wu insists that his sex acts were “consensual.” Perhaps it was in the first case. (It seems unlikely, but we’ll grant it.) But in the second instance? Wu is 56; the girl in question is 18. How many eighteen-year-olds do you know that willingly have sex with 56-year-olds with a history of mental illness and prescription drug abuses? Now Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats say that they want an “ethics investigation” — you know, the same ethics investigation that let Maxine Waters, Charlie Rangel, and Jack Murtha off the hook . And Wu says he won’t resign, preferring to retire in 2012. Reporters should ask Ms. Pelosi: “Whatever happened to the ‘most ethical’ Congress in history?” Charles C. Johnson is a contributor to Big Government. He may be reached at chuckwalla1022@gmail.com .

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Double Standards and Democrats: Why Does David Wu’s Personal Life Get a Pass?

Among advocates of limited government, there is growing unease about the fiscal fight in Washington. This is not because anything bad has happened. Indeed, Democrats thus far have been acquiescing – at least on a temporary basis – to conservative demands for $61 billion of spending cuts over the rest of the current fiscal year. This is remarkable after 10 years of endlessly expanding government . Here’s what Jennifer Rubin wrote at her Right Turn blog . A senior Senate adviser wisecracked, “A month ago, they said they couldn’t possibly cut a dime. Then they said the $4 billion [in] cuts in the first CR were a non-starter. Now they’re bragging about cutting spending?” It is a remarkable turn of events and another sign that Reid was bested in this round of budget battling. Twice now he capitulated to House Republicans. This analysis is right, and it is very similar to what I wrote back on March 2 regarding the first short-term agreement . So why, then, am I worried? I’m nervous because the fiscal fight is evolving in a bad direction. In that March 2 post , I warned that “Republicans should be very careful about having their energy dissipated by a series of diversionary battles over short-run spending bills.” That prediction, unfortunately, seems to have been rather accurate. Democrats have reluctantly agreed to some spending cuts, but their decisions perhaps could be characterized as a rope-a-dope strategy – tactical retreats designed to regain control over the field of battle and win the ultimate fiscal war. The elephant in the living room, of course, is the threat of a government shutdown. Republicans seem terrified that they will get blamed if there is a stalemate and this leads to a shutdown of the non-essential parts of the government. And they are terrified of this outcome even if they have approved a budget and the stalemate exists solely because Harry Reid has blocked their budget in the Senate and/or Barack Obama has vetoed their budget. I’ve already explained, in an article for National Review Online , why GOPers should not allow themselves to be blackmailed on this basis. The 1995 shutdown was a big policy success. Republicans did not get everything they wanted, to be sure, but the final result was real fiscal restraint – a four-year period where government spending grew by an average of less than 3 percent. Moreover, the shutdown was hardly a political setback. Democrats on Capitol Hill were defecting to the GOP side during the fight, and the political people in the Clinton Administration were genuinely concerned that they might not be able to sustain the President’s veto. Some GOP political operatives thought, after the fight was over, that they lost because Clinton polled better than Gingrich, but this certainly didn’t keep Republicans from comfortably holding the House in 1996 and actually picking up seats in the Senate. So what happens now? Republicans basically have two choices of how to proceed. Both options have some risk, but one approach almost surely leads to failure. 1. Draw a line in the sand and pass a strong budget with cuts and meaningful reforms, even if it means the Democrats block the spending bill and cause a shutdown. Upsides – This approach is more likely to lead to an outcome that reduces the burden of government spending. Moreover, it surely would trigger more activism from libertarians, conservatives, and other supporters of limited government. A victory based on this approach (or even a draw) creates momentum for both the FY2012 budget resolution battle and the debt limit fight. Downsides – The left, including the establishment press, will portray the GOP negatively. More specifically, they will claim Republicans are “shutting down the government” because of supposedly extraneous issues like abortion (i.e., the funding controversy over Planned Parenthood), the environment (the debate over the “rider” provision to curtail the EPA’s power grab), or healthcare (defunding Obamacare). 2. Do everything possible to avoid a shutdown, even if it means higher spending and no reform. Upsides – There is no risk of being blamed for a shutdown. Downsides – This French-army approach basically means that Republicans give up on fiscal policy for the next 21 months. Surrendering to avoid a shutdown means the burden of spending is higher. It means no program reforms or eliminations. Because of this precedent, it is highly unlikely that the GOP could attach meaningful fiscal conditions to the debt limit. Similarly, the loss of momentum would carry over to the budget resolution, undermining chances for fiscal reform in the 2012 fiscal year budget. Last but not least, the “base” would be very disappointed as activists from the Tea Party and elsewhere begin to conclude that fighting against big government is a fool’s errand. Even in the most ideal scenario, using the line-in-the-sand strategy, fiscal conservatives in the House will not get everything they want. The real issue is which side has the upper hand in the negotiations. The fight-rather-than-surrender approach gives the GOP leverage. They almost surely won’t get $61 billion of cuts, but they’ll be much closer to that number than with the French-army approach. They won’t succeed with all the “riders,” but they’ll make progress – perhaps temporarily setting aside the Obamacare issue in exchange for clipping the EPA’s wings, or gutting Planned Parenthood but letting NPR off the hook. Politicians inevitably are worried about the political consequences of any strategy. That’s harder to judge, but they can protect themselves by not making it seem as if they welcome a partial shutdown. I explained in the National Review article that there are several lesson that fiscal conservatives can learn from 1995 that can help them prevail in 2011. First and foremost, Republicans should keep passing bills to reopen the entire government. They should stress that they want the government open and explain that it is only closed because of Harry Reid’s obstinate support for big government and/or Barack Obama’s use of his veto pen on behalf of special interests. …Keep passing bills to reopen the parts of the government that voters actually care about, such as VA hospitals, the Social Security Administration, and national parks. …Remember that a government shutdown generally puts more financial pressure on the Left. If there is a lengthy showdown, Democratic constituencies begin to squeal. …In 1995, Republicans had to deal with a very hostile press corps. There was no Fox News, no Internet as we know it today, and no cadre of talk-radio hosts to augment Rush Limbaugh. So while it is true that CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, the New York Times , and the Washington Post will regurgitate Democratic talking points, many voters will have access to conservative news sources, something that was not the case in 1995.

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Are Republicans Winning the Budget Battle but Losing the Budget War?

If it wasn’t clear enough with the auto bailouts, the health care battle, the effort to effectively eliminate secret-ballot elections on unionization, as well as the provocatively pro-union actions of the agencies governing labor-management relations (the NLRB and NMB), the Battle of Wisconsin should make it crystal clear: The Democratic Party has become America’s de facto Labor Party. When Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s plan to limit (not eliminate) public-sector unions’ ability to keep their hands firmly on Wisconsin taxpayers’ throats become the rallying cry for unions, the Democrat National Committee’s Organizing for America immediately jumped into the fray . Since then, Nancy Pelosi has begun fundraising for the union cause , Sherrod Brown [D-OH] has taken to comparing those opposed to unions to Hitler and Stalin, while Charlie Rangel says that abolishing bargaining rights is akin to slavery . Accuracy? No. Lunacy? Absolutely. Now, with Maryland Governor Marty “Muscles” O’Malley joining the union fight as a commander, Democrats are wholly and openly coordinating the fight with, and on behalf of, union bosses: Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley is building a Democratic offensive to Republican governors’ union-busting proposals, according to O’Malley spokesman Shaun Adamec. O’Malley is meeting in Washington on Wednesday with top executives of the AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest labor union. “He will discuss the political power grabs that many Republican governors are attempting, and what Democratic governors can do to work with public employees’ labor unions and the business community to create jobs,” Adamec told  The Washington Examiner . The morning meeting will be held at the AFL-CIO headquarters. One might find the unions’ singular ownership of a political party strange given that unions only represent 12% of the entire American workforce. However, Democrats know that, without the unions’ money and the boots on the ground at election time, they are finished as a party. However, the problem for the American taxpayer is inextricably linked to this perverted political process. While government workers have the absolute right to unionize, there is no “right” to collective bargaining with a government entity. In fact, the Wisconsin fight, as union leaders have acknowledged, is not even over wages or benefits. It is, however, about union power . It is about unions maintaining their ability to use the money derived from union members’ paychecks to elect union-friendly politicians, who then reward their union patrons, unions alone are placed in the ability game the system. This was recognized as far back as the 1930s, when Franklin Roosevelt  wrote : All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations. As the Wall Street Journal noted : When union leaders negotiate with a politician, they’re negotiating with someone they can hire and fire. Public unions have numbers and money, and politicians need both. And politicians fear strikes because the public hates them. When governors negotiate with unions, it’s not collective bargaining, it’s more like collusion. Someone said last week the taxpayers aren’t at the table. The taxpayers aren’t even in the room. In large measure, unions have become wholly dependent on the Democratic Party and big government largesse and, similarly, Democrats have become wholly dependent on unions. For taxpayers, who are stuck with the trillions of unfunded liabilities , the Democratic Party’s allegiance to union bosses has become a match made in hell.

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Are Democrats America’s De Facto Labor Party? Marty ‘Muscles’ O’Malley Joins the Union Fight

As socialists progressives gear up to take on the filibuster, again, Jim Hoft shares some important filibuster myths that you’ll likely see parroted by many in the media as they struggle to carry Harry Reid’s increasingly heavy water pail. I spoke with Brian Darling , who is a Big Government contributor, after the event yesterday at Heritage Foundation. He later sent me his “List of Myths” that the democrat-media complex will try to push on the American public this week as they go for their power grab in the US Senate. With his permission, I am posting those “myths” here. Four Myths about the Filibuster There are four myths that you will hear over and over again about the filibuster. Don’t believe the left when they claim that the filibuster is unconstitutional and was an accident of history. Furthermore don’t believe it when you hear that the Senate is not a continuing body and therefore the Senate can only change rules in the first day of a new Congress. The explicit words of the Constitution, the Senate’s written rules and the history of the Senate show that the filibuster was created by design, it is constitutional and the Senate is a continuous body. Myth: The Filibuster is Unconstitutional. Senator Tom Udall (D-NM) argues that “When the authors of the Constitution believed a supermajority vote was necessary, they clearly said so. And while the Constitution states that we may determine our own rules, it makes no mention that it require a supermajority vote to do so. In addition, a longstanding common law principle, upheld in Supreme Court decisions, states that one legislature cannot bind its successors. To require a supermajority to change the rules, as is our current practice, is to allow a Senate rule to trump our U.S. Constitution and bind future Senates.” Fact: The Filibuster is constitutional and efforts to restrict debate in the Senate may be unconstitutional. The Constitution empowers the House and Senate to establish rules of procedure. Article I, Section 5 of the Constitution states that “each house may determine the rule of its proceedings.” This provision in the Constitution empowers the Senate to make rules governing debate. The Senate in 1917 established the cloture rule requiring a 2/3rds vote of all Senators present and voting to shut down debate after years of not having a means to shut down debate. Senate Rule 22 today states “invoking cloture on a proposal to amend the Senate’s standing rules requires the support of two-thirds of the Senators present and voting.” The clear letter of the Senate’s rules mandate a supermajority vote to change the Senate’s rules. Myth: The Filibuster was created by accident. Sarah Binder, Senior Fellow of Governance Studies at the Brookings Institute testified before the Senate Rules Committee on April 22, 2010, “when we dig into the history of Congress, it seems that the filibuster was created by mistake.” Fact: On numerous occasions the early Senate rejected rules changes that would have limited debate. According to John Quincy Adam’s diary published in 1874, he wrote that in 1806, Vice-President Aaron Burr advised the Senate that the motion for the previous question was of no use and should be dropped. Burr thought it not necessary. In a 20 minute address to the Senate he spoke of his tenure as chair of the Senate. It was Burr’s view that the rule was not necessary for the Senate. This was a decision of the Senate and was made after a discussion of the issue by the Vice President. The opponents would like to characterize this as an oversight, yet future attempts to reinstate a move the previous question were resisted by Senators. According do Senator Robert C. Byrd’s “The Senate, 1789-1989, “Henry Clay, in 1841, proposed the introduction of the “previous question” but abandoned the idea in the face of opposition.” Byrd also wrote that “when Senator Stephen Douglas proposed permitting the use of the ‘previous question’ in 1850, the idea encountered substantial opposition and was dropped.” According to Byrd, “An effort to reinstitute the ‘previous question,’ on March 19, 1873, failed by a vote of 25-30. Byrd cited the following: “Between 1884 and 1890, fifteen different resolutions were offered to amend the rules of regarding limitations of debate, all of which failed of adoption.” It is clear from the early history of the Senate that the filibuster was not merely an accident of history, it was a design by early Senators. Myth: The Senate is not a continuing body. Fact: The Senate’s rules memorialize the fact that the Senate is a continuing body. According to Marty Gold and Dimple Gupta’s Harvard Law Review article titled “The Constitutional Option to Change Senate Rules and Procedures: Majoritarianism Means to Over Come the Filibuster” describing Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson’s (D-TX) compromise proposal to make it easier to shut down debate and affirm that the Senate is a continuing body. Rule XXII would be amended to reduce the required vote for cloture to “two-thirds of the Senators present and voting,” and, in order to assuage the worries of Senators who opposed the constitutional option, a new clause would be added to the Senate Standing Rules holding, “The rules of the Senate shall continue from one Congress to the next Congress unless they are changed as provided in these rules.” Our Founders set up the Senate with staggered 6 year terms and only 1/3rd of the Senate is up for election every two years. Our Founders set up the Senate to be a far different body than the House of Representatives. The length of terms and mandate that every state, regardless of size, gets two votes is evidence that our Founders wanted a Senate to be far different from the House. The facts are that the constitution authorizes the Senate’s rules. The Senate’s rules confirm that the Senate is a continuing body and that it takes a 2/3rds vote to shut off debate on a rules change. A strong case can be made that the actions of liberals in the Senate violates are an unconstitutional power grab. Myth: The Senate can only change rules on the first day of the new session by a simple majority. Fact: The Senate can never change rules with a simple majority vote. The Senate’s rules are clear that the Senate is a Continuing Body. As the Senate Web site explains: To foster values such as deliberation, reflection, continuity, and stability in the Senate, the framers made several important decisions. First, they set the senatorial term of office at six years even though the duration of a Congress is two years. The Senate, in brief, was to be a “continuing body” with one-third of its membership up for election at any one time.… “ According to Marty Gold’s Law review article Senator Leverett Saltonstall (R-MA) argued in 1957 “there never is a new Senate; there is merely a change in one third-of its members.” The Senate’s rule 5 states1. No motion to suspend, modify, or amend any rule, or any part thereof, shall be in order, except on one day’s notice in writing, specifying precisely the rule or part proposed to be suspended, modified, or amended, and the purpose thereof. Any rule may be suspended without notice by the unanimous consent of the Senate, except as otherwise provided by the rules. 2. The rules of the Senate shall continue from one Congress to the next Congress unless they are changed as provided in these rules. The left claims that new rules are not adopted until the Senate operates under new rules. This claim simply is not true, Remember these myths this week as you watch the progressives assault the filibuster. Democrats had no problem with the filibuster during Bush’s tenure (and certainly not during the late 50s when they filibustered the Civil Rights Act). It’s the Democrats who have constantly fiddled with senate rules: n 1841, when the Democratic minority hoped to block a bank bill promoted by Kentucky Senator Henry Clay , he threatened to change Senate rules to allow the majority to close debate. Missouri Senator Thomas Hart Benton rebuked Clay for trying to stifle the Senate’s right to unlimited debate. Three quarters of a century later, in 1917, senators adopted a rule (Rule 22), at the urging of President Woodrow Wilson, that allowed the Senate to end a debate with a two-thirds majority vote, a device known as “ cloture .” The new Senate rule was first put to the test in 1919, when the Senate invoked cloture to end a filibuster against the Treaty of Versailles. Even with the new cloture rule, filibusters remained an effective means to block legislation, since a two-thirds vote is difficult to obtain. Over the next five decades, the Senate occasionally tried to invoke cloture, but usually failed to gain the necessary two-thirds vote. Filibusters were particularly useful to Southern senators who sought to block civil rights legislation, including anti-lynching legislation, until cloture was invoked after a 57 day filibuster against the Civil Right Act of 1964. In 1975, the Senate reduced the number of votes required for cloture from two-thirds to three-fifths, or 60 of the current one hundred senators. The Senate isn’t supposed to function in the same manner as the House, which was designed to be more reflective of the people’s wishes. Darling hits upon this , as well as gives a rare credit to Sen. Chris Dodd for acknowledging such: Dodd understands the concern that a stubborn minority can force the majority to bend to its will, yet filibuster reform is not the appropriate solution to that problem. The solution is for Senators show a willingness to sit down and talk out problems while respecting the tradition and rules of the Senate. The talking point now is that the filibuster is antiquated, something I’ve heard said or seen implication of in a plethora of news outlets; thus it’s important to remember the history and purpose of the rule and the party responsible for changing, or attempting to change, it whenever it didn’t suit them.

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Expect to See These Progressive Talking Points About Filibuster in the Media

Ninety-five Democratic Congressional hopefuls signed last week a pledge to support the Federal Communications Commissions proposed Net neutrality rules. On Tuesday, all ninety-five “net neutrality protectors” lost to their Republican opponents. Among the measure’s endorsers–or victims, as some campaign insiders suggest today–were would-be senators Alexi Giannoulias, Jack Conway, Paul Hodes, Joe Sestak and Lee Fisher. With the nation’s economic recovery still in uncertain territory, opponents to the FCC’s redesign of the broadband regulatory regime point to regulation fatigue as the critical precursor of Democratic losses Tuesday. “Candidates who support creating burdensome new Internet regulations were handily rejected at the polls,” a blog post at Broadband for America (BfA) reads. “The message from voters is that unnecessary regulation is a losing tactic.” After House Democrats recently fumbled legislation to adopt reasonable broadband reforms, radical progressive groups have begun reapplying pressure on the FCC to unilaterally enforce Net neutrality rules by reclassifying broadband a Tittle II carrier. The reclassification bid was so noxious that the groups faced opposition even from Democrats. At least eight-five House and Senate Democrats expressed reservations with the FCC reclassifying broadband. Tuesday’s election returns appears to have validated BfA’s over-regulation fatigue rhetoric, with at least fifty-one of those eighty-five Democratic hopefuls surviving the Republican wave. A full list of Net neutrality pledge endorses found below. Harry T Crawford Jr – AK-01 David Whitaker – AK-03 Scott McAdams – AK-Sen Steve Segrest – AL-03 William Barnes – AL-Sen Joyce Elliott – AR-02 John Thrasher – AZ-02 Rebecca Schneider – AZ-06 Rodney Glassman – AZ-Sen Ami Bera – CA-03 Clint Curtis – CA-04 Loraine Goodwin – CA-19 Tim Allison – CA-24 Russ Warner – CA-26 Patrick Meagher- CA-41 Steve Pougnet – CA-45 Kenneth Arnold – CA-46 Bill Hedrick – CA-48 Beth Krom – CA-48 Ray Lutz – CA-52 Kevin Bradley – CO-05 Jim Bryan – FL-01 James Piccillo – FL-05 Heather Beaven – FL-07 Charlie Justice – FL-10 James T. Golden – FL-13 Shannon Roberts – FL-15 Rolando A. Banciella – FL-18 Joe Garcia – FL-25 Robert Franklin Saunders III – GA-03 Doug Heckman – GA-07 Russell Edwards – GA-10 Bill Maske – IA-04 Matt Campbell – IA-05 Roxanne Conlin – IA-Sen Scott Harper – IL-13 David Gill – IL-15 George Gaulrapp – IL-16 Deirdre ‘DK’ Hirner – IL-18 Tim Bagwell – IL-19 Alexander Giannoulias – IL-Sen David Sanders – IN-04 Barry Welsh – IN-06 Alan Jilka – KS-01 Cheryl Hudspeth – KS-02 Stephanie Moore – KS-03 Raj Goyle – KS-04 John Waltz – KY-04 Jim Holbert – KY-05 Jack Conway – KY-Sen Andrew Duck – MD-06 Fred Johnson – MI-02 Natalie Mosher – MI-11 Jerry Campbell – Ml-04 Shelley Madore – MN-02 Jim Meffert – MN-03 Tarryl Clark – MN-06 Joe Gill – MS-03 Dennis McDonald – MT-01 Johnny Rouse – NC-03 Bill Kennedy – NC-05 Jeff Gregory – NC-10 Elaine Marshall – NC-Sen Rebekah Davis – NE-03 Ann Kuster – NH-02 Paul Hodes – NH-Sen Gary Stein – NJ-02 Tod Theise – NJ-05 Nancy Price – NV-02 Joseph Michael Roberts – OH-03 William ‘Bill’ Conners – OH-07 Justin Coussoule – OH-08 William (Bill) O’ Neill – OH-14 Lee Fisher – OH-Sen Joyce Segers – OR-02 Michael Pipe – PA-05 Manan Trivedi – PA-06 Lois Herr – PA-16 Dan Connolly – PA-18 Joe Sestak – PA-Sen Ben Frasier – SC-01 Rob Miller – SC-02 Jane Dyer – SC-03 Paul Corden – SC-04 Greg Rabbidoux – TN-07 Ted Ankrum – TX-10 Tracey Smith – TX-12 Lainey Melnick – TX-21 Neil L. Durrance – TX-26 Morgan Bowen – UT-01 Wynne LeGrow – VA-04 Jerame Clough – WA-04 Julie Lassa – WI-07 John Heckenlively – Wl-01 Virginia Graf – -WV-02

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‘Net Neutrality Protectors’ Swept Away by Midterm Wave

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Hold on to your hats — here’s where I compare Barack Obama to Richard Nixon. Perhaps I should explain. When it comes to politics and presidents, everyone’s always looking for precedents. For parallels. Which is why you’ve been hearing so many references lately to 1994. “This is just like 1994!” the pundits cry. “A first-term Democratic president’s first midterm election, and the voters are really angry, and they take it out on the president’s party, and the Republicans take control of the House of Representatives for the first time in generations!” Not a bad comparison. Decision 2010 may turn out to look a lot like Decision 1994. Then there’s the 1980 comparison; I’ve been leaning toward the 1980 comparison lately. Another first-term Democrat in the White House, running for re-election this time, with a terrible economy at home and endless frustration abroad (the Iranian hostage crisis, for instance). But the parallel for me isn’t the Democratic president going down to defeat in November, but all the Senate Democrats who went down with him. See, anytime you have a slew of competitive seats, there’s a tendency to say, “Well, OK, it’s a bad year for our side, so maybe we won’t do as well as the other guys. A dozen seats up for grabs? Maybe we’ll only hang on to five.” But it doesn’t always work that way — and it certainly didn’t work that way in 1980. The results weren’t “a few more here, a few less here.” The results were a virtual sweep. Practically every competitive Senate race in 1980 fell the same way — to the Republicans. They took control. Many of the contests were close, but in almost all of them, the result was the same. A Democratic loss, a Republican pickup. Which to say: When it goes bad, it can go really bad. So 1980 isn’t a terrible comparison either. It’s hardly beyond imagining, even with the likes of a Sharron Angle or a Rand Paul or a Christine O’Donnell on the ballot, that the GOP runs the table — that it picks up the 10 seats it needs to grab the Senate. Unless, that is, the best comparison of all is to 1972 — but not the way you think. This is the part where Barack Obama gets to play Richard Nixon. In 1972, it was a Republican president — Nixon — running for re-election against George McGovern. George McGovern was that year’s darling of the left flank of the Democratic party — against the war in Vietnam, against a bigger military budget, in favor of decriminalizing marijuana. That sort of thing. Equally important, the McGovern campaign was… untidy. Undisciplined. Liberated women. Hairy kids. Multiple skin tones. A nominating convention so blissfully self-indulgent that by the time the candidate got his moment in the sun, it was the middle of the night. And — here’s the point, here’s the possible parallel: It took the Nixon campaign roughly three milliseconds to make its move on the rest of the Democrats. “Your party has been captured by the McGovernite wing,” the Republicans declared. “You’re every bit as appalled as we are.” “It’s not your party anymore,” Nixon and his pals told those disaffected Dems. “Come find a new home with us .” And millions did just that — they crossed party lines for the first time in their lives. They voted for Nixon and the Republicans. Many of them never came back. “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party,” they told themselves. “The Democratic Party left me. ” You think there aren’t millions of sensible, middle-of-the-road Republicans today who are looking at the sudden rise of the Tea Party — hearing the ravings of the Angles and Pauls and O’Donnells, the Palins and the Becks — and thinking exactly the same thing? “This isn’t my party anymore.” So the question is: How many milliseconds should it take for Obama and friends to put out the welcome mat? Rick Horowitz is a syndicated columnist. You can write to him at rickhoro@execpc.com.

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Rick Horowitz: No, Really — Dems Should Party Like It’s 1972