And now, a few words from Walter Russell Mead

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All that 99%/Occupy railing against Wall Street was so tres' adorbs was it not? The big moneyed interests of the financial sector were thieving the blue model of generous public services and lavish public employee benefit and retirement packages is what we were told, correct?


Well, Walter Russell Mead is here to remind us of just how wed the faux-populist blue model is to Wall Street:

The cycle of dependence on Wall Street usually follows a pattern. Public employee union leaders demand generous benefits as the price of their political support; politicians promise things like higher future pay and early retirement. Wary of public backlash, however, these officials don’t advocate cutting services or raising taxes to cover the shiny new pay packages they have established. The discrepancy between benefits promised and funds available becomes unbridgeable. Desperate to keep from falling too far behind, pension funds turn to the risky side of Wall Street, which gets rich off the panic. All too often, the Wall Street solution to blue model imperatives leaves taxpayers and pensioners stranded.

Fingers have been pointed at both sides. A piece in Rolling Stone last month argued that slimy “Gordon Gekko wanna-be[s]” have basically been stealing money in the dead of night from honest, hard-working pensioners. A piece from AEI this week shot back that pension funds are forced to approach Wall Street hat in hand by the self-serving politicians who make unaffordable promises in the first place.

Yes, those responsible for public pensions dug themselves into this hole, but the more interesting story concerns the confluence of interests between blue politicians, union leaders, and Wall Street. It’s unsurprising that few Democrats are willing to acknowledge this; the alliance doesn’t inspire confidence in the blue model’s sustainability or in the political base that supports it.

"The Occupy movement: brought to you by Wall Steet" has a nice ring to it, dontcha think?

Your #Occupy update

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As predictable as the sun rising in the East, rich Marxists who have attained their wealth via the capitalist system in this country go native:

Saturday, Occupiers held a rally for "artists, musicians, writers and activists" midway between downtown LA and Beverly Hills. The website announcing the event promised a keynote speech by Van Jones and hinted at appearances by Hollywood celebrities. Yesterday, Variety reported that Hollywood did turn out:

Edward Norton, Elijah Wood, Marisa Tomei and Jason Alexander turned out for "All in for the 99%," an effort to engage artists and actors in promoting the "99% Spring," a plan to train 100,000 volunteers in nonviolent action, including protests at corporate shareholder meetings. Van Jones, founder of Rebuild the Dream, has been promoting the plans, and addressed the group.

The event was sponsored by Van Jones' Rebuild the Dream, MoveOn.org, and SEIU among others. MoveOn produced a video showing the celebrities who were on hand including Jack Black (as part of Tenacious D) and Moby.
LA Weekly has a few additional photos including Jason Alexander shaking hands with Congresswoman Maxine Waters. There's also a shot of performance artists acting like corpses wrapped in American flags. LA Weekly notes that the event raised money for Van Jones' Rebuild the Dream group.

In reading this, we could not help but be reminded of Tom Wolfe's classic Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers from 1970 and its documenting the rise of the New Left and in particular Wolfe's recounting of a cocktail party on Park Avenue in New York for the ostensible purpose of raising money for the Black Panthers. Wolfe wrote:

I just thought it was a scream, because it was so illogical by all ordinary thinking. To think that somebody living in an absolutely stunning duplex on Park Avenue could be having in all these guys who were saying, 'We will take everything away from you if we get the chance,' which is what their program spelled out, was the funniest thing I had ever witnessed.

42 years on, apparently, irony is dead as there is indeed a Occupy Hollywood sentiment:

It's time to stop paying Johnny Depp "stupid money." Celebrities make too much -- and we can do something about it

It goes without saying, perhaps, for these SAG members and proponents of intellectual and creative property rights, that this is all just window dressing as these very same people faced with real change as proposed by #Occupy would be the staunchest defenders of the status quo.

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#OWS update

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Yeah, yeah, we know - we said we weren't going to be doing any of these easy- target OWS updates but we're granting ourselves a pass as this isn't one those cheap gotcha rape, murder or physical assault-related updates rather video footage of what passes for a leadership panel discussion at the New School in New York discussing the abolition of capitalism refreshed, of course, by Starbuck's coffee and Poland Springs bottled water.

David Graeber: “It strikes me that if one is going to pursue this to its logical conclusion, the only way to have a genuinely democratic society would also be to abolish capitalism in this state.”

Marina Sitrin: “We can’t have democracy with capitalism… Democracy and capitalism don’t work together.”

We made it about half-way through the video but could bare it no longer. Incoherency.

Two related thoughts occurred to us while watcing the video: 1) what's the alternative? Since we only made it through half the video, they may have eventually got around to it but having watched this set in various forms, shapes and sizes through the years, we're confident they didn't beyond flowered-up speech that was essentially re-distributionism and involuntary confiscation of others' wealth and property in the name of "justice".

and 2) they never got around to the alternative... because the 20th century did it for them. The 20th century was a study in the alternative and as you all know, it was a flamingly spectacular failure and we do believe we are being charitable in that assessment.

Socialism, Communism, Fascism, Peronism, Imperialism, Nazism... every strain of collectivism known to civilization as practiced by the true believers in that century left a trail of human misery and death heretofore unknown to mankind.

And in the backs of their minds they know it. Don't be fooled - these jokers don't want a revolution. Do any of these people look as if they are prepared for an actual revolution? Whether they realize it or not and wthether they are willing to admit it or not, they are defending and are fully vested in the status quo. The statist-left of which they are all part is the Establishment.

The unions, the occupyers, the minority-based grievance industry, higher academia and the entrenched interests at the federal, state and big city government levels are all absolutely counting on a continuance of the crony statism that is their life-blood.

They don't want a revolution and they don't want to end capitalism - they want things to stay pretty much on the slouching course they are currently on.

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Quickies

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A round-up of news items, columns, articles and blog posts that caught our eye this past week.






Glenn Reynolds presents his own Occupy cirriculum:

2) Bourgeois vs. Non-Bourgeois Revolutions: A Comparison and Contrast. The Occupy movement left its major sites—McPherson Square in D.C., Zuccotti Park in Manhattan, Dewey Square in Boston—filthy and disheveled. By contrast, the tea party protests famously left the Washington Mall and other locations cleaner than they found them, with members proudly performing cleanup duties.

This unit would note that social-protest movements are sometimes orderly and sometimes disorderly as a matter of approach, and it would compare the effectiveness and ultimate success of such relentlessly bourgeois movements as the tea party, the pre-1964 Civil Rights movement, Women's Suffrage activists, and the American Revolution, against such anti-Bourgeois movements as the post-1968 Black Power and New Left movements, and the French Revolution.

Which accomplished more lasting good? Is Max Weber's Protestant work ethic applicable to social movements?

Southern talk:

We have utilize a few, uhh, coloquialisms of our own but being native Southern Californians, we don't know if the following accounts for regional-speak:

Busy? "Busier than a one-legged man at an ass-kicking contest."

See you tomorrow? "Lord willing and the river don't rise."

Someone forget or srew-up your name upon a subsequent meeting? "Call us what you want, just don't call us late for dinner."






Spinsters.com on capitalism and charity:

Capitalism, aka the free market, is the best assurance of individual and societal prosperity. Turns out, capitalism is also the best spur towards charity and generosity to the less fortunate. People are most generous to others when their own needs are secure. Capitalism provides the economic security necessary to inspire charity. The cold-hearted businessman is a tired Marxist myth.

B-Daddy has a round-up of news events himself and which includes this take-down of the faith-based global warming climate change community from the Wall Street Journal:

The Trenberth letter tells us that decarbonization of the world's economy would "drive decades of economic growth." This is not a scientific statement nor is there evidence it is true. A premature global-scale transition from hydrocarbon fuels would require massive government intervention to support the deployment of more expensive energy technology. If there were economic advantages to investing in technology that depends on taxpayer support, companies like Beacon Power, Evergreen Solar, Solar Millenium, SpectraWatt, Solyndra, Ener1 and the Renewable Energy Development Corporation would be prospering instead of filing for bankruptcy in only the past few months.

B-Daddy has long claimed that the warmers rejection of a carbon tax in return for dropping the income tax is proof of their purely statist intentions and we believe him.






Terrific: We're No. 1!...

... in per capita debt.

It's come to this: Asian American Journalists Association releases guidelines on Jeremy Lin media coverage.






Headline: Exclusive: State Department quietly warning region on Syrian WMDs

The State Department has begun coordinating with Syria's neighbors to prepare for the handling of President Bashar al-Assad's extensive weapons of mass destruction if and when his regime collapses, The Cable has learned.

This week, the State Department sent a diplomatic demarche to Syria's neighbors Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia, warning them about the possibility of Syria's WMDs crossing their borders and offering U.S. government help in dealing with the problem, three Obama administration officials confirmed to The Cable. For concerned parties both inside and outside the U.S. government, the demarche signifies that the United States is increasingly developing plans to deal with the dangers of a post-Assad Syria -- while simultaneously highlighting the lack of planning for how to directly bring about Assad's downfall.

Who wants to bet that we will find quite a bit of Hussein-era Iraqi WMDs should this come to pass? However, we're glad we are thinking this issue through ahead of time vs. supporting a completely haphazard and unauthorized kinetic military action in Libya to protect civilians take out military targets take out a foreign leader and which resulted in thousands of RPGs going unaccounted for. There has been pretty much zero media coverage of this circumstance in the past 4-6 months.




Gotta run... may be back with more fun later today.

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#OWS update

Occupy Our Home working out pretty much as you would expect.

Inequality of income and home foreclosures are bad, apparently, but what to do about it?

From The Post:

“Occupy Our Homes” was that idea. The group would take over an empty house, foreclosed on by a bank, fix it up and provide shelter to a homeless family.

For those sympathetic to the Occupy movement, it was a brilliant strategy. Foreclosures touched almost every neighborhood in America; an estimated 1.2 million homes were repossessed in 2011. In East New York, the hardest hit in the city, the foreclosure crisis struck 16.8 homes per thousand. Occupy Our Homes would alleviate neighborhood blight, provide shelter to the poor — and put banks on the defensive.

Last week,Wise Ahadzi opened the door to the house he still owns, 702 Vermont Street in East New York.

Inside is a war zone. The walls are torn down, the plumbing is ripped out and the carpeting has been plucked from the floor. It’s like walking through a ribcage.

Garbage, open food containers and Ahadzi’s possessions are tossed haphazardly around the house.

“This is where my kitchen was,” Ahadzi says. There is no sink, no refrigerator and no counter space. Instead there are dirty dishes piled high waiting for a dip in three large buckets of putrid water that serve as the dishwashing system.

In a first-floor bathroom, Christmas lights dangle from a shower curtain rod. The only thing separating a toilet from the elements outside is a thin veil of paper.

Ahadzi, a single father and homeless advocate, appeared to Occupy to be the perfect candidate for Occupy Our Home while he moved into a smaller rental to work on his finances with the hopes of being able to move back into his house.

To date, Occupy has yet to pay for any of the damages to his home.

And what's worse for the neighborhood than a foreclosed, un-occupyed home? A foreclosed, Occupyed one.

Even in this condition, protesters are still squatting on the floors, cooking using a bunsen burner and walking around guided by candlelight when a generator is not up and running.

Their efforts have actually made the neighborhood worse — because what used to be an empty house is now a hovel of squatters and probably should be condemned.

Ahadzi has our sympathy... to a certain point. Out of work and out of your house... but Occupy?

It's beyond all reason how it is this man thought that his house would not turn out like your typical big city Occupy encampment upon letting the same set in.

Mr. Ahadzi, what in god's name were you thinking?

Another Occupy success story.




We're probably going to lay off the Occupy updates for a while. Too easy of a target. Good intentions aside, far too many of them have proven themselves to be counter-productive moral degenerates as demonstrated by the story above. Until politicians, as they did in the beginning, start attempting to align themselves with or co-opt the movement here in the spring and as the political heat starts getting turned up, we're going to give it a break.




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Smack of the day

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Now who was it that was supposed to be the patriarchal, chauvanistic pigs?


Here's Dana Loesch on the liberal-left's leading men, rape and, of course, "context":

No one is debating capitalism, what Moulitsas mistakes as “Occupy points.” The movement has had zero impact, except on crime statistics. At best, it was the shining hope of a manufactured populist unrest to aid Obama in his reelection efforts, but it dissipated into an irrelevant criminal cesspool.

The bottom line is that neither man gave any concern to the number of rape victims in the Occupy movement. Sexual attacks have gone wholly ignored by progressive males. Moulitsas calls the rape accusations (the rapes all sourced above) “bogeymen.” Yes, the “compassionate” progressive tosses women under the bus because acknowledging their assault at the hands of a progressive ideology that takes what it wants — be it capital, property, or sex — harms the stability of their movement. Progressive males have sent a message loud and clear to victimized females in the Occupy movement: we don’t care. They want to win more than they want you to be safe.

If you disagree, ask yourself how many times one of them has condemned the sexual attacks.

If you try to excuse the attacks with the “rogue” excuse, then ask yourself why none of these men reported on how many camps were working to cover up the rapes and prevent women from reporting them to the authorities.

Ask yourself why none of these men have discussed why so-called “safe zones” were established in various camps to protect women from sexual predators which were other Occupiers.

Now ask yourself if these progressive men ignoring this issue really care about the equality they prattle on about whenever they gum in front of a camera.

The answer is, of course, that they don’t.

The statist mindset is that of coersion. If it applies to capital and private property, why shouldn't it also apply to that most private of properties, your body?

Everyone in this movement talks about “fair shares” and “spreading the wealth,” how about spreading the respect for women’s bodies? How about spreading the wealth of consideration? Or did that get downtwinkled at the frat party meeting?

Olbermann and Moulitsas talk a really good game about compassion and equality but at their core they share the same oppressive traits that sparked a revolution, and they’ve gotten lazy about hiding it.

Yep. Kinda like the tea party.

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#OWS update: the so happy together in Oakland edition

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Awwww... Oakland mayor not too hot on Occupy anymore.

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This past fall, while encouraging city workers to take time off work to join the Occupy protests, Oakland mayor, Jean Quan had this to say with respect to the Occupy movement:

“The highway patrol and other forces came and ensured that it was peaceful tonight. We will act if we need to tonight to maintain safety. But it looks like this was a good day for the demonstrators and for the 99% movement.”

As the Occupy movement showed it's true colors over the weekend by trashing Oakland's City Hall, Mayor Quan is changing her tune.

Oakland officials assessed damage to City Hall caused by Occupy protesters while leaders of the movement claimed Sunday that police acted illegally in arresting hundreds of demonstrators and could face a lawsuit.

Mayor Jean Quan was among those inspecting damage caused after dozens of people broke into City Hall on Saturday, smashing glass display cases, spray-painting graffiti, and burning an American flag.

That break-in culminated a day of clashes between protesters and police. Interim Police Chief Howard Jordan said nearly 400 people were arrested on charges ranging from failure to disperse and vandalism. At least three officers and one protester were injured.

In a news release Sunday, the Occupy Oakland Media Committee criticized the police conduct, saying that most of the arrests were made illegally because police failed to allow protesters to disperse.

"Contrary to their own policy, the OPD gave no option of leaving or instruction on how to depart. These arrests are completely illegal, and this will probably result in another class action lawsuit against the OPD, who have already cost Oakland $58 million in lawsuits over the past 10 years," the release said.

The scene around City Hall was mostly quiet Sunday morning, and it was unclear whether protesters would mount another large-scale demonstration.

Dozens of officers remained present inside and outside City Hall after maintaining guard overnight. Occupy Oakland demonstrators

broke into the historic building and burned a U.S. flag, as officers earlier fired tear gas to disperse people throwing rocks and tearing down fencing at a convention center.

Quan, who faced heavy criticism for the police action last fall, on Saturday called on the Occupy movement to "stop using Oakland as its playground."

"People in the community and people in the Occupy movement have to stop making excuses for this behavior," Quan said.

On Sunday, Quan said she is tired of the protesters' repeated actions.

"I'm mostly frustrated because it appears that most of them constantly come from outside of Oakland," Quan said. "I think a lot of the young people who come to these demonstrations think they're being revolutionary when they're really hurting the people they claim that they are representing."

(italics, ours)



Glad she's clued-in to what we've known all along. But cry us a river, Mayor, as instead of taking a hard line against these hoods from the start, you instead, effectively endorsed a movement that everyone with the slightest shred of common sense knew would ultimately turn violent. Just call it a classic case of enabling bad behavior.





And speaking of hurting those you claim to be representing:

Oakland officials said the massive Occupy Oakland demonstration on Saturday diverted police resources from calls elsewhere in the city, stymieing the Police Department's crime-fighting efforts.

An estimated 400 demonstrators were arrested during the protest, with some activists breaking into City Hall and vandalizing it.

Mayor Jean Quan condemned the local movement's tactics as "a constant provocation of the police with a lot of violence toward them" and said the demonstrations were draining scarce resources from an already financially-strapped city.

Oakland has logged five homicides since Friday, and Police Chief Howard Jordan told the Los Angeles Times that the law enforcement "personnel and resources dedicated to Occupy reduce our ability to focus on public safety priorities." [Updated at 9:03 a.m.: It is unclear exactly how many calls were delayed because of the protests.]

Oakland officials will seek monetary damages from protesters, Quan said. In addition, the mayor said she would pursue "restorative justice" by asking that those deemed guilty be put to work picking up garbage and removing graffiti in East Oakland.

Restorative justice..? Perfect. Remember: "Whenever there was an adjective added to an important value-based noun, there was an agenda."

25 years, a few showers and perhaps a mortgage are all that really separates your typical Oakland Occupier and Oakland's political class as represented by Mayor Quan. Far from demanding change or reform, these two sets of redistributionist statists are the staunchest defenders of the status quo and really do deserve each other.


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Addendum #1: Here's some more of that new civility we've been hearing so much about:

Demonstrators from the Occupy Wall Street movement threw condoms on Catholic schoolgirls, refused to allow a Catholic priest to give a closing prayer, and shouted down a pro-life speaker at a Rhode Island right to life rally on Thursday, according to its organizer. The event marked the third time protesters associated with the movement have disrupted a pro-life meeting in a week.

About two-dozen members of Occupy Providence hiked from Burnside Park to the 39th Annual Pro-Life State House Rally organized by the Rhode Island State Right to Life Committee on Thursday.

The pro-life organization’s executive director, Barth E. Bracy, told LifeSiteNews.com that, near the end of the rally, the Occupiers “strategically fanned out with military precision.”

That’s when they “started showering condoms down on some of the girls from a Catholic high school.”

They gathered around speakers at the podium, shouting them down or otherwise jostling them and members of the audience.

We're confused. All this time we thought it was about "fairness", income inequality and getting someone else to pay down their student loan debt... all pretty straight-forward stuff, right? Now, they're getting into social issues like denying others their first amendment rights via Stalinist thug tactics?

As the tea party has struggled with how to take on or not take on social issues, it would appear that a similar debate needs to take place within the Occupy ranks with respect to general douche-baggery but we think we know what side has completely won-out, already.

Income inequality by the numbers

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Via Rich Lowry:

1.1 : the millions of dollars new White House Chief of Staff, Jacob Lew, made from Citigroup in one year, recently.


8.7 : the millions of dollars former Chief of Staff, William Daley, made in roughly one-year of work for JPMorgan Chase.


5.1 : the millions of dollars former administration economic advisor, Larry Summers made for managing a hedge fund.


16.1 : the millions of dollars Rahm Emanuel made from working for an investment firm.


2-3 : the millions of dollars former budget director Peter Orszag will pull down from Citigroup.


7 : the millions of dollars current national security advisor, Tom Donilon, made for his work at Fannie Mae back in 2000-2003.

Perhaps this class warfare exercised of late by the President is rather of the self-loathing variety.


However, good to know some people are prospering in this sluggish economy. Maybe it really is, who you know.




Lowry's exit question:

Is it too much to ask that one high-profile Obama official leave government and refuse to make more than $70,000 a year out of solidarity with the middle class and commitment to income equality? Of course it is. Just as the definition of a recession is when someone else loses a job, greed is when someone else makes a lot of money. For anyone hoping to get to the top, the collective message of current and former Obama officials should be clear: Do as they do, not as they say.

* Stephanie Cutter: adviser to the Obama reelection campaign who wrote a critique the other day regarding Mitt Romney’s days at Bain Capital, subtitled “Profit at Any Cost" and who herself served as a spokeswoman for J.C. Flowers... a private equity firm.

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Helpful lessons in news item coverage

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In what is being considered another black eye for the tea party movement and amid stinging criticism from the media, a smoke bomb was thrown over the White House fence during a tea party rally outside the White House on Wednesday. The tea party has been blamed for a coarsening of political discourse in the 3 years since they rose to national prominence and this most recent incident will certainly bolster the notion of increasing extremism arising from within the right.

Eh, actually, we just made that up. Not too shabby, though, huh?



Here's what did happen:

As hundreds of Occupy protesters massed outside the gates of the White House, an apparent smoke bomb was thrown over the fence Tuesday night, forcing authorities to disperse the crowds. President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama were not in the White House when it happened — he was taking her out for a night on the town to celebrate her 48th birthday.

There were no arrests in the incident, said George Ogilvie, U.S. Secret Service spokesman.

Nothing to see here, folks. Please move along.

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Wait, what?

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One in a series where we take a look at the unexpected and certainly the absurd.



Maybe it's a sign of the times but lately we've been seeing straight news items that qualify for "Nothing better epitomizes.." status and yet we still feel compelled to share another.

Nothing better epitomizes the current state of culture and politics in our country than the following:

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli says he is worried that a new District of Columbia law that governs how pest control operators must handle rats may result in entire rodent “families” being relocated across the Potomac River into Virginia by D.C. pest control personnel.

Lately, there have been reports of growing rat infestations around the Occupy DC protests at Freedom Plaza and McPherson Square.

Cuccinelli said D.C.'s new rat law--the Wildlife Protection Act of 2010 --is “crazier than fiction” because it requires that rats and other vermin not be killed but captured, preferably in families; no glue or snap traps can be utilized; the rodents must be relocated from where they are captured; and some of these animals may need to be transferred to a “wildlife rehabilitator” as part of their relocation process.

Wait, what?

The Wildlife Protection Act of 2010 doesn't allow you to kill rats. Got it.


Awesome: The disease-carrying vermin that have Occupied Occupy, and we're referring only to the rats here, have been afforded some sort of endangered species-like protection.

Good luck with that, Virginia.

#OWS update

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Nothing demonstrates the intellectual incoherency of Occupy more vividly than these port shutdowns, some of which have already been effected and calls for future ones, a shutdown of the Longview marine terminal in the Puget Sound, being the most high-profile.

Never mind the vast majority of the jobs that will be effected by these port shut downs are the very good-paying union jobs Occupy claims to be championing, precisely how is interrupting commerce going to reverse the income inequality gap Occupy rails against? In fact, if anything, it will exacerbate the situation: those 1 percenters have deeper pantries than the rest of us - they can much better ride out the interruption of goods than can the rest of us.

But let's call these protests what they really are: acts of theft. By not allowing goods to freely flow back and forth between markets, Occupy is effectively engaging in the theft of goods and services. Expect no consequences for these thieves, however. Whether it's playing footsie with the ruling class/media establishment of this country or being aided and abetted by big city mayors (New York City has dropped hundreds of arrest charges against the Occupiers there), their lawlessness has actually been encouraged.



And in other news today, that glittering jewel of colossal ignorance is trying to put some distance between her party and Occupy:

This morning, Politico Chief White House Correspondent Mike Allen interviewed House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) for Politico's "Playbook Breakfast."

The discussion turned to the topic of Occupy DC and their attempt to disrupt Congress. Pressed on whether she was worried about this and what she thought the message of Occupy was Pelosi distanced herself from the movement stating 'We don't really have much of a connection with the Occupy' and declaring the tea party' as 'wholly owned subsidary of the Republican Party'

She was, of course, singing a different tune this past fall when Occupy first came upon the scene:

During a press conference Thursday afternoon, House minority leader Nancy Pelosi praised those participating in the "Occupy Wall Street" protests. "God bless them," Pelosi said, "for their spontaneity. It's independent ... it's young, it's spontaneous, and it's focused. And it's going to be effective."

"The message of the protesters is a message for the establishment everyplace," said the House Democrats' leader. "No longer will the recklessness of some on Wall Street cause massive joblessness on Main Street."

Pelosi did not comment on--and was not asked about--the law-breaking that occurred during the protest over the weekend. About 700 protesters were arrested by New York City police after the protesters "swarmed the Brooklyn Bridge and shut down a lane of traffic for several hours," according to CBS News.

Own it, Nancy. There may be no official connection but Obama's Whining Squatters are the foot soldiers and are singing the same income inequality tune as their boss that is cover for his efforts to further his statist redistributionist agenda. It's so transparent, there is nothing to try to hide.



H/T: Hot Air

Quickies

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A round-up of news items, articles, columns and blog posts that caught our eye this past week.


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Is Team O tone-deaf or do they just not care?

President Barack Obama's re-election campaign is considering moving the final day of the Democratic National Convention to Bank of America Stadium to sell more skyboxes to wealthy donors, three Democrats involved in the fundraising told Bloomberg News.

The 74,000-seat home of the Carolina Panthers also would have room for the convention to sell more floor passes close to the stage. Planners are struggling to meet a $36.6 million fundraising goal, according to the Democrats, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss the matter.

Hey, Occupy, that is your guy, right?







Progressive and very much selective totalitarianism neatly summed up in a smoking ordinance in, where else, Marin County.

Marin's war on smoking was blunted Tuesday as a measure cracking down on tobacco and other "weed" was sent back for revision to make clear the crackdown does not include marijuana.

Although supervisors were in agreement with the policy when county staff last month asserted an ordinance outlawing smoking in unincorporated-area apartments included marijuana and other herbs as well as tobacco, the county board Tuesday abruptly called for revisions making clear tobacco was the only weed at issue.

The move came at the urging of Supervisor Kate Sears, who called for changes in ordinance language defining smoking as puffing "tobacco, weed, spices, herbal or other plant life" to make clear only tobacco products were involved.

Distraction of the week:

A lot has been said over the last two days about the White House’s now-infamous “Alice in Wonderland” Halloween party from 2009. It was an extravagant affair featuring actor Johnny Depp and filmmaker Tim Burton in costume. Conservatives have panned the president for having such a party during economic turmoil, and generally keeping it hush-hush. Liberals (and even some conservatives) have defended the president, either saying the party was mentioned to some degree, or that the president‘s Halloween plans shouldn’t be national news.

Anything, anything to avert eyes from the train wreck.






Business leaders and CEOs Un-Occupy a White House jobs conference presser:

Dozens of journalists packed into the East Room at the White House today for the president's remarks on "in-sourcing," at least 60 of them lining the press risers and walls.

But what many couldn't see in press coverage of the event — held with roughly 120 executives to discuss bringing jobs back to America from overseas — were the dozens of empty seats in the audience.

At one point during Obama's speech, Vice President Joe Biden strolled to the empty section and sat in a row by himself, listening.

A White House spokeswoman, asked about the 49 empty chairs, said some invitees didn't show up.

"Like with many of these events here at the White House, we invited representatives from outside groups, businesses and community leaders involved in this issue to attend, and unfortunately some folks invited were not able to attend at the last minute," spokeswoman Amy Brundage said.

West Wing events typically are carefully planned and staged, and this one seemed more staged for the media than the guests who ostensibly were invited to discuss with the president ways to create more jobs in the United States.

The job creators of this country aren't stupid... nor are they stooges. Who wants to be played as a stage craft prop for an administration that has demonstrated they really don't give a damn what you have to say about job creation?





And you were just waiting for us to get around to the Marines piss on dead Taliban weren't you?

You've seen the video so we are not even going to post it.

Here's B-Daddy on the incident and resulting kerkuffle:

Now I understand that it is not in the political interests of the United States for our Marines to act in this fashion. To some extent, as Clausewitz famously pointed out, war is politics carried out by other means. To the extent that this allows our enemies to frame the conflict as a religious one, these actions are detrimental to the interests of the United States. But we should leave it at that, and reserve our moral outrage for true acts of oppression.

Here's Iraqi war veteran Allen West (R-FL):

"I have sat back and assessed the incident with the video of our Marines urinating on Taliban corpses. I do not recall any self-righteous indignation when our Delta snipers Shugart and Gordon had their bodies dragged through Mogadishu. Neither do I recall media outrage and condemnation of our Blackwater security contractors being killed, their bodies burned, and hung from a bridge in Fallujah. All these over-emotional pundits and armchair quarterbacks need to chill. Does anyone remember the two Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division who were beheaded and gutted in Iraq?

"The Marines were wrong. Give them a maximum punishment under field grade level Article 15 (non-judicial punishment), place a General Officer level letter of reprimand in their personnel file, and have them in full dress uniform stand before their Battalion, each personally apologize to God, Country, and Corps videotaped and conclude by singing the full US Marine Corps Hymn without a teleprompter.

We have the most highly-trained, effective and professional fighting force on the planet. We expect better from our soldiers, sailors and Marines. Having said that, putting rifles into the hands of 20-year olds, sending them off to a foreign land and asking them to take out an enemy that they cannot tell from the rest of the civilian population that they are there to protect is going to produce some entirely inevitable results.

No greater gulf exists between the sentiments of the political class and the country class than is demonstrated by incidents like this.

Stay off his ass and pray for his safe return instead.

And they prayed to their secular gods but those gods did not answer...

Via KT on the global progressive crack-up:

Above all, our citizens were betrayed by the sense of security that had been cultivated for decades -- that they need not worry, that when the time came, the state would come to the rescue. Even as we discovered repeatedly that this was an illusion -- that the state was either incompetent or cruel or indifferent -- we maintained the hope that some kind god would protect us. Now we fear everything: that neither our health system, nor our pensions, nor our deposits are safe. The old social contract does not apply. On the issue of pensions alone, we see that those who paid dutifully all their lives are those who are suffering the greatest losses.

It's official: San Diego is recognized as a beer-cation destination. Checking in at No. 14 on The New York Times' top 45 vacation destinations.

Even in times of tight budgets, finely crafted beer remains a relatively approachable luxury, and few American regions have more brewing momentum than San Diego County. Maybe it’s time, then, to think about building a beer safari in the land of sunshine, fish tacos and hopped-up American IPAs. Long established craft breweries like Karl Strauss Brewing Company and the cheeky Stone Brewing Company have mentored brewmasters and created demand for some seriously offbeat ales.

The area has long been a hotbed of garage-based hobbyists, so it’s no surprise that the region also has a tradition of dedicated home brewing. The result is a cluster of small breweries, like the tiny but soon-to-expand Hess Brewing.

And there are numerous opportunities for rigorous but never dour beer tastings, at staggeringly comprehensive shops like Bottlecraft Beer Shop & Tasting Room and Pizza Port Bottle Shop, as well as beer-obsessed taverns like Hamilton’s and O’Brien’s and restaurants like Local Habit. Those looking for full immersion can pack a stein for the fourth annual San Diego Beer Week in November.

We give America's paper of record endless yet much deserved grief but was that not an excellent summation of our scene here in San Diego?








OK, gang. That's a wrap. We'll be back sometime tomorrow to chronicle and help make sense of the days of our lives here in the United States of America.

Pax.

Letters to the editor...

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... that caught our eye over the past week in the San Diego Union-Tribune.




With respect to the 4 crosses at Camp Pendleton honoring 4 dead Marines, Douglas L. Inman of La Jolla writes:

The crosses were intended as memorials to four fallen Marines but have a special meaning to those who fought in World War II. None of the letters about the crosses published in the U-T on December 31st addressed that meaning.

I am a 91-year old Marine Corps Reserve officer, retired university professor, and survivor of the landing on Peleliu in 1944. The significance of the cross for battlefield casualties has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with the press of war. Battlefield casualties often require rapid burial that precludes sorting out religious preferences. At Peleliu, Japanese snipers were still firing from Bloody Nose Ridge while the burial team was placing bodies in the soil. A single stake as marker would soon be lost, but a cross is simpler and easier to find in the flotsam of war. Thus it became the marker of choice for battlefield burials.

In the field, we were all supportive of each other regardless of religion. I can assure you that we did not think of my buddy Kehoe as a Jewish boy from Philadelphia who was buried under a Christian symbol, but rather that he was our comrade in arms and buried under the traditional battlefield symbol of honor, the cross.

That places the cross within an entirely different context: a battlefield symbol of honor. It is unfortunate that it bothers some people, but life is often that way.

We had not heard that specific utilitarian angle before. And thank you for your service to our country, Mr. Inman.





And here's Stephanie Jenkins of San Diego with praise for an Occupy activist:

Thank you for the article about the Occupy activist named Nicole. It is very nice to see that there are people who care about more than their paycheck and want to contribute to society. I’m certain she has taken her fair share of insults but as Mahatma Gandhi said, “First they ignore you, then they mock you, then they fight you, then you win.” It seems clear to me that this movement isn’t going anywhere thanks to young women like this.

(italics, ours)

Truer words have never been spoken for the sedentary lot that makes up Obama's Whining Squatters.





And here we provide some running paranthetical commentary to La Mesa resident, Daniel R. Sanley's contention with the U-T's assessment of the Obama presidency:

The Jan. 5 U-T editorial (The beginning of the end”) referred to “a failed Obama presidency.”

Troops home from Iraq (by agreement hammered out between previous administration and Iraqi government), flawed “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy scraped, saved us from a depression (Furious spin. We were promised unemployment would not go above 8% if Porkulus passed), plus job creation during a major recession he didn’t start (Ah, the old job creation myth. If one wants to say that Obama "saved" jobs, at $500,000 a job in many cases, then go right ahead), Social Security tax relief (Dubious achievement considering the teetering finances of Social Security as it is), extended unemployment benefits (Another dubious achievement considering the whole idea of pro-growth economic policies is to effectively get people off unemployment benefits, a concept seeming lost on Team O), aggressive use of drones and special forces to reduce enemy leaders (Re: drone strikes. The One doesn't want to be bothered with the sticky situation of detaining the bad guys - better off just whacking them. And we assume Dan is also referring to our unauthorized overseas military kinetics in Libya. Glad to see all of Bush's transgressions washed away here in his 3rd term), assisting students with higher education cost relief (... that is doing absolutely nothing to actually reduce the cost of higher education), encouraging alternative energy businesses (we're assuming that's a pretty big rock in La Mesa under which Dan is residing if he's managed to be out of ear shot of the President's hopelessy failed crony capitalist loan program run by the Department of Energy), proposed “balanced” method reducing the deficit (say it: "raise taxes". Besides, Obama had both houses of Congress for two whole years and did quite the opposite with respect reducing the deficit), increased health care coverage (via an unconstitutional mandate) and improvements in current plans for millions of Americans (which will most likely cost more than what millions of Americans will be able to afford), and added checks and balances for corporate abuses (the Dodd-Frank fin-reg bill will only preserve the status quo for Wall St. Chris Dodd and Barney Frank co-sponsored the damn thing for crying out loud).

I would call this presidency anything but a failure.

As previously stated, we would beg to differ.

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#OWS update

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Perhaps Tony V. and the City of Angels' municipal leaders are re-thinking their conciliatory stance toward the Occupy movement. Then again, they're birds of a feather, so probably not.

Less than six months into its fiscal year, the city of Los Angeles faces a $72-million budget shortfall, raising the prospect of new cuts in services in coming weeks, according to a report released Friday.

City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana, budget advisor to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the City Council, issued an interim financial status report calling for nearly two dozen city agencies to absorb a combined $21 million in reductions.

Santana warned that the shortfall could grow once city officials calculate the cost of cleanup in the wake of this week's ferocious windstorms and the two-month encampment outside City Hall by Occupy L.A.

Sounds like a perfect opportunity for Occupy. Instead of literally sitting around all day, doing nothing and fouling public spaces, why don't they pick up a broom or a shovel and participate in some volunteerism to take the place of those social services the losses of which they so bemoan?






And Charles C.W. Cooke on what we can expect this coming Monday and beyond:

Given their history of dogmatic insistence that one has a right to squat on private property and ignore city ordinances simply because one doesn’t like them, it should come as no surprise that the Occupy brigade enjoys such a limited understanding of the Constitution. But this is more about the optics. Expect the-authorities-are-trampling-on-our-rights! to be a theme employed widely in 2012. It is no accident that the next major protest planned is on January 16, Martin Luther King Jr. Day; OWS is fully aware that “civil rights” holds a sacred place in the American heart and to appropriate its imagery can be a highly effective, if distastefully misused, political tool.

Yes. Yes. Please remind us again of what constitutionally-protected right is being denied Occupy.

And its a shame that the modern civil rights set (see: current incarnation of the NAACP) has willingly allowed itself to become central to the statist grievance industry or else there might just be some real outrage in the civil rights community with respect to this appropriation.

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#OWS update

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We had heard that the #OWS set was building a float and negotiating with the Rose Parade organizers to have it entered into the parade. Now, we hadn't watched the Rose Parade in anger for years but felt this might be too much theater to miss out on. We caught probably 90% of the parade but did not see the Occupy float... did we miss it?

Nah. We guess the negotiations agreed upon entailed them walking the parade route to the rear of the street sweepers and riot cops where they would not be televised, essentially leading from behind. Sheesh. Occupy is really going soft.

Here's a file report from one of the local stations up there:







Saw a replica of a United States Constitution amongst the protesters. That's good. Considering their concern for this rapidly-becoming- irrelevant document and further considering recent events, perhaps that person should consider taking up Occupying a different locale. But concerns for constitutional fidelity aside, we know that the driving ideology of #OWS is for the rapid expansion of the state to further income redistribution so we know that is not happening.







And in other #OWS news, yet another prestigious New York City institution of higher learning will be offering a course on the tea party Occupy movement. First, it was NYU and now Columbia will be getting into the act:

Columbia University will offer a new course for upperclassmen and grad students next semester. An Occupy Wall Street class will send students into the field and will be taught by Dr. Hannah Appel, a veteran of the Occupy movement.

The course begins next semester and will be divided between class work at Columbia’s Morningside Heights campus and fieldwork that will require students to become involved with the Occupy movement outside of the classroom.

The course will be called “Occupy the Field: Global Finance, Inequality, Social Movement” it will be run by the anthropology department.

Appel is a staunch defender of the Occupy movement, in her blog she said that, ““it is important to push back against the rhetoric of ‘disorganization’ or ‘a movement without a message’ coming from left, right and center.”

Appel told the New York Post that while her involvement with the movement will color the way she teaches it will not prevent her from being an objective teacher.

Hannah, babe, own the bias. You're not fooling anybody and it's all good.

Columbia and NYU's complete lack of self-assessment when it comes to further contribution of completely un-employable B.A.s is really quite charming and disarming in a way. They really are completely unaware of the self-perpetuating academic death spiral in which they are participating.


As a wrap, here's what we wrote concering NYU's intial efforts to Occupy the Occupy:


Harvard, the 2nd most expensive university in America, which has matriculated a demographic that has made an absolute mess of this country, doesn't see fit to offer a class on the American Revolution and now NYU is offering their contribution to the American higher education bubble.

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#OWS update

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What better way to start off the real first post of the year than to see what the American chapter of Time Magazine's PoTY has been up to lately.

Who's up for some flag-burning?

Four protesters, including the spokesman of Occupy Charlotte, were charged after setting fire to two American flags early Friday near the Occupy camp in Center City, police said.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg police weren't sure earlier if the four men who set fire to two flags were associated with the Occupy Charlotte movement.

But, WBTV has learned that one of the men is the media spokesman for the Occupy group and has been the contact person listed on press releases from Occupy Charlotte.

The fires happened with in feet of the group's encampment.

Earlier reports indicated one flag was burned, but a police report says that 2 US flags were burned.

And dig this:

All four men were charged with being careless with fire. That charge is a misdemeanor under the city ordnance.

Police officers told WBTV the protesters gave them a verbal tongue-lashing while being detained, calling then fascists, as well as using other colorful words.

We're sure the irony of those burning things casting about the "fascist" label on others is not lost on you.





And how's the Occupy the Iowa Caucuses working out?

Turns out the owner of a coffee shop in Des Moines had finally had enough of the squatters.

On Friday morning before a planned event appearance by Newt Gingrich, some members of "Occupy Iowa" made a stop at Java Joe's, a coffee shop here that MSNBC has been broadcasting from.

The protesters didn't get far before the owner of the shop gave them the boot.

About four or five Occupiers stood chanting in the middle of the crowded coffee shop before they were told to leave.

"I just had to shut it down, I couldn't stand it," Amy Brehm, who owns the store, told Yahoo News after police escorted the last demonstrators out. "We all have our rights, but not in my place."

We're not quite sure what the woman at the end of the clip meant by "hypocrisy".

One is guaranteed a 1st amendment right to peaceably assemble on the village green to chant, yell, scream, drum circle or whatever. That same right does not extend to doing the same on someone else's property or business.

There's a name for that: it's called "theft".

The Occupiers were occupying square footage that would've been otherwise occupied by paying customers and generally making the dining experience less pleasureable for the other customers perhaps making them less willing to return with their pocketbooks.

Again, the involuntary confiscation of others' wealth and property is at the core of the Occupy movement whether they realize it or are even willing to admit it.

#OWS: Succeeding where the tea party could not...

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...though succeeding in ways they did not anticipate.

The City of Los Angeles reportedly faces millions of dollars in expenses brought about by the Occupy LA movement.

City agencies have been ordered to calculate what was spent on the Occupy LA protests.

Repairs to City Hall’s lawn where the Occupy group set up camp on Oct. 1 will require an estimated $400,000. The police action to clear out the encampment on Nov. 30 cost more than $700,000.

Additional expenses are attributed to hauling away debris from the camp, and cleaning up graffiti that defaced City Hall marble walls and trees.

Mayor Villaraigosa says more budget cuts will be necessary to offset the costs.

(emphasis, ours)






This is just too rich: Statist Occupiers are the cause of budget cuts to statist big government, ultimately succeeding in curtailing the very thing for which they are occupying: the expansion of government power.

/taking a second look at the Occupy movement?

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OWS updates (UPDATED)

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(please scroll down for update)

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Via Sarah at Lipstick Underground:

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Due to family being in town, blogging has been light and may remain so for just a while. Hopefully, we'll be swinging for the fences by Monday morning.

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(UPDATE #1):

Radical Chic: The beautiful people lend a helpful hand.

“Whatever the reasons, we’re all in the same room, and that’s pretty powerful, right? We’re participating in a conscientious … participation.”

Penn Badgley, an actor on the hit series “Gossip Girl,” has a face too mathematically perfect to be truly interesting, but at this celebrity consciousness-raising gig for Occupy Wall Street, he looks genuinely excited. He bounds onto the stage, grabs the microphone and yells “mic check!” Invited guests from the Occupy movement wince at this earnest misunderstanding of the people’s mic and its reworking of the relationship between society and spectacle in an age where politics takes place mostly on television.

In the early days of Zuccotti Park, the people’s mic was developed as a solution to the police ban on electric amplification. The order ended up being a gift to the movement, as voices were carried by chanting a speaker’s words back to them — which kept remarks pithy and aware of the audience.

In the chic Bowery Hotel, the formula isn’t quite working.

These actors, models, artists, publicity flunkies and those young and well-dressed enough to make their way past the bouncers have spent most of their professional lives learning how to half-listen until it’s their turn to half-speak. “My boss just told me to show up,” says one of the P.R. girls. It’s as good a reason as any to learn about a new people’s movement.

Actual microphones. Bowery Hotel. Models. Invited guests. Getting more and more grass-rootsy by the day.

A snapshot of the American Academia death spriral

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As predictable as the Sun rising in the East, NYU students chasing their unemployable, self-actualization bachelor of arts degrees can further pursue navel-gazing in the form of Occupy 101 or "Why Occupy Wall Street? The History and Politics of Debt and Finance" and taught by Lisa Duggan, a professor of social and cultural analysis.

Lab will, of course, consist of them trooping down to Zuccotti Park not too far from the NYU campus to stare at each other.



Harvard, the 2nd most expensive university in America, which has matriculated a demographic that has made an absolute mess of this country, doesn't see fit to offer a class on the American Revolution and now NYU is offering their contribution to the American higher education bubble.


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* The quote was inspiring and compelled us to share this particular photo.

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Our day at Occupy San Diego: the port shutdown or something edition

Sarah has updates of the Occupy port demonstrations/shut downs here.



We decided to check out the Occupy San Diego protests outdoor hipster convention at the 10th Avenue Marine Terminal this cold and drizzly morning.

Around about 30-40 Occupiers at 10 A.M.. There were probably as many if not more SDPD.

A lot of general milling around and some sloganeering but the main effort appeared to be crossing and re-crossing the street...

... because they sure as heck weren't stemming the flow of commerce.

We went on whim so we were unware until we got there that we were wearing what could possibly be construed as provocative clothing.

We got some perplexed looks and actually two compliments from the Occupiers. Gotta believe they thought the shirt was ironic rather than knowing we were playing it straight as unabashed capitalists.



And speaking of ironic...

All in all, pretty uneventful.


P.S. Didn't see any union types. Mainly 20-somethings split pretty evenly gender-wise, and, yeah, very white.
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