Liberalism - hurting the ones you love

So how might that boycott of Arizona work out for the people who live there.

Chances are it's going to hurt migrant workers. You know, the ones liberals say their protecting........

The raft of boycotts being imposed on Arizona over its immigration law could up end hitting Hispanic workers as hard as anyone.

Hispanics make up a huge chunk of the state's hospitality and service sector workforce -- and with city governments and organizations pulling the plug on travel and conventions in Arizona, state officials point out that Hispanic workers stand to lose.

They say it makes little sense for officials protesting the Arizona law out of concern that it would subject Hispanic immigrants to racial profiling to register their dismay by targeting the tourism industry.

"These boycotts could be hurting the very same people that they profess to be helping," said Garrick Taylor, spokesman for the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Are you kidding me? That's what liberalism is all about. You want to help poor inner city, black kids? Force them to go into shitty public schools where they start out about ten years behind those kids from affluent schools.

Want to help the lowest of wage earners? Step up the minimum wage which just makes it more convenient for companies to send those jobs overseas.

Want to get rid of slums? Give people just enough money to pacify them into a life time of ghettos.

The list goes on and on....

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Life in "Progress" City - Flint MI edition

From Michael Moore's home town.............

A string of suspicious fires that hit the battered city of Flint, Mich., after more than 20 firefighters were laid off and two firehouses closed were meant to "terrorize the community," the mayor claims.

Since the job cuts in late March, 153 of 202 fires – mostly in vacant buildings – were classified as suspected arson, city officials said. The number of arson fires began to decline after a federal grant enabled the city to rehire some of the firefighters.

"I don't believe in coincidences," Mayor Dayne Walling told ABCNews.com.

A string of 14 suspicious fires erupted the night before the city laid off 23 firefighters and 23 police officers on March 24 in an attempt to close an $8 million budget deficit. Two of Flint's five fire stations were also shut down that night.

If this were a Law and Order episode Jack McCoy would determine that these arsons were perpetrated by a rich industrialist looking to build luxury condos in Flint.

Burning down your city because you don't like your job conditions?

Now that's "progressive"!

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Liberals protect another

While the Obamunists continue to drag their feet in deporting illegal immigrants, another one victimizes an American citizen......

An illegal immigrant was wearing an "I'm hiding from the cops" shirt when he was arrested on child molestation charges, authorities said today

William Velasquez Castillo, 27, was arrested by U.S. Marshals in Lucedale late Wednesday evening, Jackson County Sheriff Mike Byrd said.

Investigators have been searching for Castillo since April 3 when a 10-year-old girl told investigators he molested her in a vehicle in Ocean Springs, Byrd said. Castillo's last known residence was on Derry Street in Ocean Springs, the sheriff added.

A warrant was issued for Castillo on April 23 and detectives believe he fled the area shortly after learning he was wanted by authorities, Byrd said.

Castillo was discovered by authorities at the Dorsett Hotel on Main Street in Lucedale.

"At the time of his capture William Castillo was wearing a T-shirt that stated, 'I'm hiding from the cops.'"

Castillo was in the Jackson County Adult Center awaiting an initial appearance at 2 p.m. today.

There is also a hold placed on Castillo for the U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement. "ICE has their own investigation," Byrd said.

Article here......

Life in "Progress" State - New York edition

From the empire state............

In Yonkers, more than 100 retired police officers and firefighters are collecting pensions greater than their pay when they were working. One of the youngest, Hugo Tassone, retired at 44 with a base pay of about $74,000 a year. His pension is now $101,333 a year.

It’s what the system promised, said Mr. Tassone, now 47, adding that he did nothing wrong by adding lots of overtime to his base pay shortly before retiring. “I don’t understand how the working guy that held up their end of the bargain became the problem,” he said.

Despite a pension investigation by the New York attorney general, an audit concluding that some police officers in the city broke overtime rules to increase their payouts and the mayor’s statements that future pensions should be based on regular pay, not overtime, these practices persist in Yonkers.

The city has even arranged for its police to put in overtime as flagmen on Consolidated Edison construction sites. Though a company is paying the bill, the city is actually reporting the work as city overtime to the New York State pension fund, padding future payouts — an arrangement at odds with the spirit of public employment, if not the law.

The Yonkers experience shows how errors, misunderstandings and wishful thinking are piling hidden new costs onto New York’s public pension system every year, worsening the state’s current fiscal crisis. And the problem is not just in New York. Public pension costs are ballooning everywhere, throwing budgets out of whack and raising the question of whether venerable state pension systems are viable.

Raising the question?

Are you freaking kidding me? Even a dumb ass media member should be able to surmise that 47 year olds getting $100,000 pensions cannot be sustained.

Creating a pension mess the size of ten Enrons. Now that's "progressive"!

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A novel approach for Arizona's immigration problem

From reader Paul

Every time an Arizona law enforcement official picks up an illegal immigrant, they simply ask the illegal immigrant which one of the sanctuary cities in this country that person would prefer to reside.

Then, as soon as they have a enough people to fill a bus, they simply send those people to the city of their choice.

That way, those areas of the country who seem to love the influx of immigrants can have as many as they want. The immigrant will like it because they will be welcome there. Arizona's happy because they won't have to deal with their problem. And the feds will love it because the can continue to do nothing which is exactly what they've been doing for years.

It's a win-win-win-win.

Williams on immigration

Walter Williams on immigration..........

There are close to 7 billion people on our planet. I'd like to know how the libertarians answer this question: Does each individual on the planet have a natural or God-given right to live in the U.S.? Unless one wishes to obfuscate, I believe that a yes or no can be given to that question just as a yes or no answer can be given to the question whether Williams has a right to live in the U.S.

I believe most people, even my open-borders libertarian friends, would not say that everyone on the planet had a right to live in the U.S. That being the case suggests there will be conditions that a person must meet to live in the U.S. Then the question emerges: Who gets to set those conditions? Should it be the United Nations, the European Union, the Japanese Diet or the Moscow City Duma? I can't be absolutely sure, but I believe that most Americans would recoil at the suggestion that somebody other than Americans should be allowed to set the conditions for people to live in the U.S.

What those conditions should be is one thing and whether a person has a right to ignore them is another. People become illegal immigrants in one of three ways: entering without authorization or inspection, staying beyond the authorized period after legal entry or by violating the terms of legal entry. Most of those who risk prosecution under Arizona's new law fit the first category -- entering without authorization or inspection.

Probably, the overwhelming majority of Mexican illegal immigrants are hardworking, honest and otherwise law-abiding members of the communities in which they reside. It would surely be a heart-wrenching scenario for such a person to be stopped for a driving infraction, have his illegal immigrant status discovered and face deportation proceedings. Regardless of the hardship suffered, being in the U.S. without authorization is a crime.

When crimes are committed, what should be done? Some people recommend amnesia, which turns out to be the root word for amnesty. But surely they don't propose it as a general response to crime where criminals confess their crime, pay some fine and apply to have their crimes overlooked. Amnesty supporters probably wish amnesty to apply to only illegal immigrants. That being the case, one wonders whether they wish it to apply to illegals past, present and future, regardless of race, ethnicity or country of origin.

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I am Ben

Why is it that whenever I read a David Brooks column I feel like if I were to shake his hand he'd give me one of those weak, clammy handshakes and I'd immediately look for something to wipe my hand off with........

This wasn’t a robotic suburban life. It was a satisfying, moral way of living. Ben lived according to an ethos of what you might call “earned success.” Arthur Brooks has a good description of this ethos in his new book “The Battle.” As Brooks (no relation) observes, the key to happiness is not being rich; it’s doing something arduous and creating something of value and then being able to reflect on the fruits of your labor.

For Ben, right and wrong is contained in the relationship between effort and reward. If people do not work but get rewarded, that’s wrong. If people work and do not get rewarded, that’s wrong. But Ben believed that America is fundamentally a just society. He loved his country because people who work hard can usually overcome whatever unfairness is thrust in their way.

But when Ben looked at Washington, he saw a political system that undermined the relationship between effort and reward. People in Washington spent money they didn’t have. They just borrowed it from the Chinese. People in Washington taxed those with responsible homes to bail out people who’d bought homes they couldn’t afford.

People in Congress were caught up in a spoils system in which money was taken from those who worked and given to those with connections. Money was taken from those who produced and used to bail out the reckless, who were supposedly too big to fail.

This was an affront to the core values of Ben’s life.

Hey David, welcome to the Tea Party!

For years, these people like Ben you describe have compassion for people down on their luck but politicians have enabled the reckless to continue being so. People like Ben are sick and tired of being called racist when even the conversation of affirmative action is brought up.

He's sick and tired of being a sexist for simply believing in traditional family values.

He's tired of being call an unsympathetic douche bag while dumbasses are allowed to live in half million dollar homes rent free (awaiting a foreclosure bailout) all the while he lives in his 1300 square foot mansion.

He's tired of being called a xenophobe simply because he thinks it's a good idea to enforce immigration laws that every country on planet earth enforce.

He's tired being called fortunate while watching "poor" people cash $5,000 earned income credit checks while he pays taxes.

All this because he simply did the shit you are supposed to do in life; went to school, worked hard and didn't spend money beyond his means. Yet politicians and media members, like you David Brooks, sit in your Manhattan and DC hovels condemning us as part of the problem.

This column is another pretentious, east coast condescension of the little people in flyover country who are too damn stupid to know what they are doing when they support certain politicians and attend Tea Parties.

Yes David, I am Ben, but I'm not part of the problem you dolt. It's your Ivy League dumb ass elitists who are. It's those politicians who "go along to get along." Now leave us alone and enjoy your Pinot Noir.

Maybe someday David can give us one problem a government has actually solved rather than exacerbate.

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The poor migrant worker protected by liberals

Here's the type of person the democrats are giving the standing O to when they applaud President Calderone................

The man accused of raping a woman behind an Edmonds grocery store has been deported at least four times in the past 15 years, reports KIRO Radio.

An officer responding to a woman's cry for help Sunday night found 46-year-old Jose Madrigal on top of the woman and arrested him.

According to court documents, the woman told police that Madrigal had followed her and offered her $35 for sex, but she said no. She said Madrigal then forced her into the bushes on the north side of the store and raped her.

Documents say Madrigal told police "Sometimes we have control in our brains, but we make mistakes."

This dude is the reason Calderone opposes closing the border. Now we get to keep him in prison.

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One of my favorite workout tunes

Rush is right on this one

Who did she vote for? #2

Meet Samantha Brewer. Why is Samantha in the news?

Samantha Brewer appeared to be a thoughtful neighbor and trustworthy mother, raising her two young sons and eagerly awaiting the June 5 birth of a baby girl she planned to name Laney.

But Harrison police say the 25-year-old spent the last month and a half burglarizing a string of homes – sometimes with help from her sons, ages 5 and 7 – before dropping them off at school.

“She’d use her pregnancy to appear innocent,” Harrison police Detective Norb Koopman said. “And it worked.”

Brewer was arrested Wednesday evening on six charges of burglary, four charges of attempted burglary and endangering children. She is suspected in three other burglaries, police say.

So during the last presidential election, did Samantha here pop a chad for The Messiah or Four more Years of Bush?

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Ouch

Bailouts, Bailouts, Bailouts

Now it's state pension systems with a hand out............

Illinois used to have a plan to pay off the gaping shortfall in the pension funds that pay retired teachers, university employees, state workers, judges and politicians, Dan Long recalls.

Mr Long, director of the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability, the non-partisan auditing arm of the Illinois state legislature, remembers that, back in 1994, the state laid out a proposal that would have paid off most of what was then a $17bn gap by 2011.

But Illinois could not stick to the plan.

With financial year 2011 less than six weeks away, the pension arrears of the 1990s look quaint. Instead of a balanced system, the state faces unfunded liabilities of about $78bn, the biggest pension hole in the US, and contributions of more than $4bn for 2011, the largest single element of its $13bn budget deficit.

Now class, what party has run the financial coffers in that state for most of past half decade. Hint, it's the same party as our current president.

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Arizona immigration problems in pictures

It's easy for people who don't live in Arizona to criticize their new anti illegal immigration law. But here are some photos detailing the problem the have to deal with.........







I'm thinking that if Mr./Ms. "Progressive" had this going through their property every night, they'd have a different take.

Thanks reader Bernie

Now go out and have a great life

Al Gore trying to load up on purple Nike doomsday recruits........





Here's a piece by a Branch Gorevidian proclaiming the end of the world during the year 2012. Like a Jim Jones prophet, they use The Branch Gorevidian Bible aka United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change as a source for their predictions.

Like father, like son

This could qualify for a "Who did they vote for?" posts.........

It looked like it was straight from a Hollywood script but it took place in a Hamilton County courtroom Tuesday - the long arm of the law reached out to arrest a man in the audience for murder as his son agreed to testify against him in exchange for a lesser prison sentence.

The long arms belong to Cincinnati Police homicide detectives Kurt Ballman and Jenny Luke, who, with the help of other police in the audience, grabbed Rueben Jordan as Assistant Hamilton County Prosecutor Megan Shanahan was explaining Kareem Gilbert's plea deal. Jordan is Gilbert's father.

Gilbert, known as "Little Red," was 16 when he shot and killed Bryan Austin in an Oct. 16, 2008, incident as Austin and Vernon Davis were sitting on an Elder Street stoop in Over-the-Rhine.

Gilbert and Austin argued over a drug deal when Gilbert said Austin disrespected him. Austin responded by hitting Gilbert in the head with a meatball sandwich, angering Gilbert who left but soon returned with a gun to shoot Austin to death in front of Davis who sprinted away.

Davis told police he saw Gilbert kill Austin. But Davis was so scared for his life that he told his family what clothes to put on him for his funeral and what funeral arrangements he wanted Two weeks later, Davis returned to Over-the-Rhine to see a young relative's Halloween costume. That's when he, too, was shot and killed.

Gilbert, now 18, originally was charged with both killings and faces a possible prison sentence of two life terms.

But Gilbert and his attorney, John Issenmann, cut a deal with prosecutors where Gilbert would plead guilty to killing Austin and testify against the Davis' real killer - Gilbert's father, Rueben Jordan.

I'm always asking "where are the fathers" when it comes to these city shootings. So it's nice to see that they will be together for years to come.

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Law and Order, Gone

I used to be a big Law and Order junkie; back when it was good. Like the days when the cast consisted of Michael Moriarty, George Dzundza, Paul Sorvino etc.

What's interesting is that I finally think the show has one of the best casts it's had in a long time with Anthony Anderson and Jeremy Sisto as more gritty New York detectives.

Unfortunately, the writing on the show has become way too political and predictable. I'm always kidding Mrs. Gekko that a typical show will have the detectives finding a video tape of of a suspect shooting a victim. Is he the guilty party? No. Under today's Law and Order writing, it's the head of the pharmaceutical company who sells an anti depressant which turned a perfectly normal teenager (because don't all well adjusted teenagers need anti depressants?) into a sadistic killer.

This past Monday's episode was so typical when it ended with the head of a biotech company who was looking to steal blood from a family for a cancer drug. Who's the head writer for this damn show today, Keith Olberman?

So now it's getting canceled after twenty years. I guess Sam Waterson better keep that TD Ameritrade gig.

Just remember "you've got me"

Having The Big O on your side is like having a cinder block hung around your neck......

From the party of smart people

Apparently, they're so smart they tell us we'll have to pass a bill before we'll know what's in it. And in the case of an Obamunist, criticize a law before they read it.

Last week, it was Eric Holder. This week we have Janet N who knows the Arizona law is a bad one even though she's failed to read it..........






Seriously, how much longer will NBC, CBS, et al concede that this administration is a commune of idiots, derelicts and amateurs?

Why I'm a conservative #10

Because I understand that to solve a problem, you must first be able to properly identify it.

In the case of liberals, tea partiers and Arizonans are as evil, if not more evil, than radical Islamic terrorists.

I think you have enough money

Thomas Sowell with a must read piece........

Are we really so eaten up with envy, or so mesmerized by rhetoric, that we are willing to sacrifice our own freedom by giving politicians the power to decide how much money anybody can make or keep? Of course, that will start only with "the rich," but surely history tells us that it will not end there.

The French Revolution began arbitrary executions among the hereditary aristocracy, but ended up arbitrarily executing all sorts of other people, including eventually even leaders of the Revolution itself, such as Robespierre.

Very similar patterns appeared in the Bolshevik Revolution, in the rise of the Nazis and in numerous other times and places, where expanded and arbitrary powers were put into the hands of politicians-- and were used against the population as a whole.

Once you buy the argument that some segment of the citizenry should lose their rights, just because they are envied or resented, you are putting your own rights in jeopardy-- quite aside from undermining any moral basis for respecting anybody's rights. You are opening the floodgates to arbitrary power. And once you open the floodgates, you can't tell the water where to go.

Read the whole thing.......

This straight shooter reminds me of Bob Taft

Well, if you stuffed Bob Taft with some intestines and strapped a pair on him.




thanks to reader Tim for the link....

My ex wife remarried

I always knew she'd meet another man to share martial bliss with.....

A 23-year-old man jumped from a moving vehicle Thursday evening after his wife refused to "shut up," according to a Montgomery County Sheriff's Office report.

The report by Deputy Blake Neblett says the man, who was traveling with his wife and three children to Clarksville on Guthrie Highway, was arguing with his wife and told her to shut up.

When she refused, the man jumped from the moving vehicle.

The man sustained serious injuries and was flown by helicopter to Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where he is in critical but stable condition.

Good luck dude

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What am I missing?

If you read this blog for more than one day, you'll get that I'm a no nonsense law and order type conservative.

But I also get that you can't have order without law and today's Supreme Court ruling that a government can hold an inmate for longer than their sentence strikes me as seriously unamerican and not constitutional.

In another highly anticipated case, United States v. Comstock, the court ruled 7-2 (Thomas and Scalia dissented) that the federal government can institute a preventative detention regime to hold those found to be sexually dangerous past their scheduled release date.

The decision appears to turn on the meaning of our old friend 'the necessary and proper' clause.

Not surprisingly Justice Breyer, writing for the majority, argues for an ad hoc and expansive grant of federal power.

We take these five considerations together. They include: (1) the breadth of the Necessary and Proper Clause, (2) the long history of federal involvement in this arena, (3) the sound reasons for the statute’s enactment in lightof the Government’s custodial interest in safeguarding the public from dangers posed by those in federal custody, (4) the statute’s accommodation of state interests, and (5) the statute’s narrow scope. Taken together, these considera-tions lead us to conclude that the statute is a “necessary and proper” means of exercising the federal authority thatpermits Congress to create federal criminal laws, to pun-ish their violation, to imprison violators, to provide appropriately for those imprisoned, and to maintain the securityof those who are not imprisoned but who may be affected by the federal imprisonment of others. The Constitution consequently authorizes Congress to enact the statute.

Justice Thomas argues in his dissent (which Scalia joins for the most part) that the Constitution does not authorize any such laws (pdf).

This decision reminds me of the Kelo ruling. I was dating a fashionably liberal woman who assumed it was the conservatives on the court protecting the big business. When I informed her that it was the libs on the court who ruled against Kelo she had this look of bewilderment.

This decision is no different. Apparently, it's the liberals who believe in the power of government to hold you for whatever period of time they damn well feel like. At least Thomas and Scalia held true to the Constitution.

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Celibacy in the city

I had a friend of mine once tell me "In our current culture, we treat sex like we're rubbing a couple of slot machines together in the ultimate hope of simultaneous jack pots".

Some people are starting to get it.......

Two weeks ago, Katie Jean Arnold had her celibacy wake-up call. After hooking up with a stranger on the L train platform and going back to his place, she woke up at his apartment and decided to leave. On her way out the door, he came up to her, naked, and said the words she’ll never forget: “What’s your name?”

It was then that she made her Big Decision.

No. More. Sex.

She’s led a sex-free life ever since. It’s not a long time to remain chaste, you might argue, but the 29-year-old musician did a “celibacy cleanse” back in 2003 for eight months and says it made her feel fantastic. This time, she says she’s going to wait until she gets a record deal and puts out her first album before succumbing to temptation.

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How student loans destroyed America

I don't believe that student loans destroyed American.... I blame air conditioning.

None the less, this is an excellent piece analyzing how student loans didn't do anything but line the pockets of the education infrastructure while saddling students with a life time of debt.........

The Facts

The colleges have been increasing the cost of tuition by far more than the increase in the Consumer Price Index for over three decades. This may not be hot news to many people, but the graph below shows by just how much.

Average Annual Percentage Increase in Inflation-Adjusted Prices 1979-2009 - Source: The College Board, Trends in College Pricing 2009; Annual Survey of Colleges.

The coloured bars show the percentage above the Consumer Price Index that tuition fees have risen on average each year. So if we take the (lowest) increase of “four year” tuition and fees at public colleges and universities between 1979 and 1989 (the dark blue bar), we will see that every year tuition fees increased by an average of 3% above the Consumer Price Index. This might seem like quite an insignificant amount, but compound 3% per annum over a decade during which the CPI increased by 82% and the total increase in fees during the period is an unjustifiable 137%.

The Last Twenty Years

Effectively, colleges in the 1980´s felt it was okay to increase tuition costs by 67% more than the rise in our incomes and the cost of living. And, because they got away with it in the 1980´s, they did it again in the 1990´s – only this time by more! Consequently, when the new millennium started, they thought “What the Hell!” and really got down to screwing students.

In the period from 1999 to 2009, the Consumer Price Index rose by just 28.50% over the decade. College tuition fees over the same period rose by 104.20% – more than four times the cost of living!

Once again, another liberal pipe dream that never did anything but hurt the very people the program was designed to help.

Read the whole thing.....

Life in "Progress" State - California edition

They called it Paradise
The place to be
They watched the hazy sun
Sinking in the sea


From the Golden Shower State of California.............

It is galling for private sector workers to see so many public sector workers thriving because of the power their unions exercise. Take California. Investigative journalist Steve Malanga point out in the City Journal that California's schoolteachers are the nation's highest paid; its prison guards can make six-figure salaries; many state workers retire at 55 with pensions that are higher than the base pay they got most of their working lives. All this when California endures an unemployment rate steeper than the nation's. It will get worse. There's an exodus of firms that want to escape California's high taxes, stifling regulations, and recurring budget crises. When Cisco's CEO, John Chambers, says he will not build any more facilities in California, you know the state is in trouble.

The business community and a growing portion of the public now understand the dynamics that discriminate against the private sector. The public sector unions organize voting campaigns for politicians who, on election, repay their benefactors by approving salaries and benefits for the public sector, irrespective of whether they are sustainable. And what is happening with California is happening in slower motion in the rest of the country. It must be one of the reasons the Pew Research Center this year reported that support for labor unions generally has plummeted "amid growing public skepticism about unions' power and purpose."

This column is from your run of the mill red neck conservative; but from Mort Zuckerman.

Paying off unions so much that it bankrupts your state? Now that's "progressive"!

Read the rest.

Ronnie James Dio Dead at 67

A metal legend has fallen.
Ronnie James Dio, former frontman of Black Sabbath and his own band Dio, died today from stomach cancer. He was 67.
His wife, Wendy, posted the sad news on his website: "Today my heart is broken, Ronnie passed away at 7:45am 16th May. Many, many friends and family were able to say their private good-byes before he peacefully passed away. Ronnie knew how much he was loved by all. We so appreciate the love and support that you have all given us. Please give us a few days of privacy to deal with this terrible loss. Please know he loved you all and his music will live on forever."

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