Taxpayer-sponsored bigotry and racism? (UPDATED)

(Please scroll down for update. Thanks.)



Perhaps these are the people more to Frank Rich's liking.

As we have noted previously, Arizona's anti-illegal immigration law has been enlightening with respect to exposing the true identities and motives of many that are against the law. And in this clip we should've issued a high irony content warning as the evils of the white capitalists and imperialists will soon make way for the implied supremacy of La Raza.

P.S. Live Oak High School, site of last week's U.S. flag-wearing abomination sponsors what we can only refer to as a brown supremacist group, MECHA. Read about it here.

H/T: Instapundit



(UPDATE #1): Our good friend "Michael" sent this letter to the teacher, Mr. Gochez:

I am a white man who was born, live, work and raised a family here in CA my whole life. I am a Californian and am proud of that. I am also a US citizen and proud of that. I am concerned that someone in a position of educational leadership like yourself would misrepresent the lawful "occupation" of California by americans "like me". Your message is... See More extreme and divisive and while it may stir passion and develop pride in your race, it isolates others from understanding a positive solution that meets both sides of the table. I propose the real revolution needs to occur in Mexico itself. I feel that you and I could agree that political, humanitarian and social change is overdue in a country with such a rich history. Is there discussion currently that addresses that?

Pitch perfect.

Hey, we're down for the struggle. Perhaps these latino-centric folks might join us in pushing for the same immigration laws Mexico has.

Again, the ironies that abound on the amnesty/reconquista side of the illegal immigration debate are overwhelming.

Radio KBwD is on the air

Folks, for no particular reason it's a two-fer today and representing the most recognizable (and bestest) talk radio show bumper music...




Ladies and Gentlemen, from Akron, Ohio and parts beyond, it's The Pretenders performing "My City was Gone".







And from Mars, it's Iggy Pop performing "Lust for Life".

Now, about that whole Miranda thing..

So, just what was it that Faisal Shahzad, the Times Square bomber, gave up during interrogation that caused the miserable hack that runs the Justice Department to get religion?

To combat the changing landscape of the war, both the administration and Congress are considering changes to the law to better address potential plots inside and against the United States.

Holder, whose Justice Department has taken criticism for reading rights to terror suspects like Shahzad and alleged Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, revealed Sunday that the administration plans to work with Congress to propose possible changes to Miranda rights.

"This is in fact big news," Holder said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "It is a new priority."

We'll just chalk this up to that well worn adage on the Potomac and Holder's ability to "grow in office".


Oh, Mr. Holder, someone is here to see you.

Calling B.S.

So, what's bugging us today?

An Associated Press-Univision Poll has found that big majorities of Latinos consider illegal immigrants a boon to the United States and condemn Arizona's new law targeting undocumented people. That is a sharp contrast to how non-Latinos view the smoldering issue of immigration.

The poll, taken earlier this month, found that 74% of Latinos said the illegal immigrants in the U.S. mostly contribute to society. Just 35% of non-Latinos agreed.

Some 67% of Latinos said they oppose the Arizona law, compared with 20% of non-Latinos. The law allows local police to demand citizenship papers from suspected illegal immigrants and to detain them if they cannot produce the documents.

If this AP-Uni poll truly wanted an honest assessment of the Arizona law with respect to ethnicity, they would've broken down the polling along the lines of latinos that are here legally from those that are not (as well as for the non-latinos just so everyone knows we are playing this straight up). It's a legit critique and we believe it would more fairly represent the feelings of U.S. citizens of latino descent.

And Univision is a large Spanish-language media conglomerate here in the states so they might just have an agenda, especially considering we are left to assume that the wording of the question mirrors that of the last sentence of the pull quote which is not reflective of the letter or intent of the law (text of which can be found here).

This poll is bogus.

Video clip of the day

Nice. Great set-up with the MTV Rock the Vote style opening before the punch line.*

Their website can be found here.




*Well, it would've been a great set-up if they didn't put the freaking title of the video on the freaking YouTube screen.

Reasons for optimism

We continue to brace for a double-dip recession we hope never comes. We just can't help but think that the horribly misguided, demand-side Keynesian gimmickry like Cash for Clunkers and the various home-owners' assistance programs have served only to kick the can down the road, delaying any true recovery while doing nothing to chase the poisons out of the system.

While that may very well be our short-to-mid-term prognosis, what about the long term? Rule #1: Don't bet against this country.

•The party of the ravening parasites is going to get obliterated in November. The Democrats' only chance lay in the possibility of a global recovery. Europe is crushing those hopes on a daily basis. President Obama has been the perfect leader for these times. An unabashed econofascist with huge majorities, he's followed the course prescribed for decades by liberals and the result has been ... monster deficits and anemic growth.

Oh, do read more at the link because contrary to the pull-a-graph, KT's brimming with confidence and is quite optimistic about the economic outlook of our country.

You gotta believe there is just too much creativity, ingenuity and drive in this country to not come back from this great recession regardless of who is in office. And since, as a representative republic, we usually get what we want, here's hoping that whoever takes office in November would see fit to neither bludgeon about with even more useless multi-billion dollar "jobs bills" nor tinker at the levers of "Cash for (Whatever)" side shows but rather just get the hell out of the way!

Death, taxes and...

... completely worthless, non-sensical and counterproductive resolutions from city councils.

With references to Nazi Germany’s treatment of Jews and the struggle for civil rights in this country, San Diego’s leaders said they felt compelled to formally oppose the new immigration law passed in Arizona.

The symbolic gesture, which urges Arizona lawmakers to repeal the law, won City Council approval Monday on a 7-1 vote, with Councilman Carl DeMaio voting against the resolution.

And at the moment council president Ben Hueso called for the vote, that pothole out in front of our house mysteriously filled-in and the graffiti on the mail box on the corner magically disappeared.

The citizens of San Diego would be pleased to know that the city school board also got into the act opposing Arizona's illegal immigration law but somehow, in a show of Herculean resolve, restrained themselves from issuing a travel advisory to Arizona for its students and the students' parents.


But dig this from the Zen Master himself:

“Am I crazy, or am I the only one that heard [the legislature] say ‘we just took the United States immigration law and adapted it to our state,’” Jackson said.

I told him they usurped the federal law.

“It’s not usurping, it’s just copying it is what they said they did, and then they gave it some teeth to be able to enforce it,” Jackson said.

Then he mildly scolded the Suns.

“I don’t think teams should get involved in the political stuff. And I think this one’s still kind of coming out to balance as to how it’s going to be favorably looked upon by our public. If I heard it right the American people are really for stronger immigration laws, if I’m not mistaken. Where we stand as basketball teams, we should let that kind of play out and let the political end of that go where it’s going to go.”

C'mon, admit it. You did not see that coming from L.A. Laker head coach and big-time supporter of liberal causes, Phil Jackson, did ya?.



Exit question #1: Who do these boycotts really hurt? With conventioneering being a big part of Arizona's economy, who is it that is turning down the bed sheets in the hotels, and filling the water glasses and washing the dishes in the restaurants of Arizona?

Exit question #2: When are Jewish groups going to start issuing some resolutions of their own against historical ignoramuses who, at the drop of the hat, make flippant comparisons to the Holocaust for cheap political points? It's disgusting.

What's another $115 billion dollars between friends?

Since we are only finding this out now.... after ObamaCare has passed, we have yet another qualifier for Nancy's Nuances: a journey of discovery which we will get around to updating... once these hey, look at what we found items slow down just a bit

Remember how we simply had to pass ObamaCare in order to bend the cost curve downward and how the Democrats used every trick in the book including offsetting the taxes (begin immediately) and the benefits (oh, about 4 yrs. from now) and the putting the doctor fix in a completely different bill in order to keep O-Care below the magic $1 trillion price tag?

Congressional Budget Office estimates released Tuesday predict the health care overhaul will likely cost about $115 billion more in discretionary spending over ten years than the original cost projections.

The additional spending — if approved over the years by Congress — would bring the total estimated cost of the overhaul to over $1 trillion.

.

The CBO estimated in March that the gross cost of the overhaul would be $940 billion over 10 years. The net cost was estimated at $788 billion over 10 years. But the group cautioned that it couldn’t make an estimate of the discretionary costs without more time and information.

This is why Republicans pleaded with the Democrats to delay the vote in order to get a more accurate figure but, you know, what's a $100 or so billion to supporters of a bill that will stop at nothing in order to get it passed.

We'll let Allahpundit bring it home:

At a moment when Americans desperately need leaders to be frank with them about the cost of entitlements and what it’ll take to restore fiscal stability, Obama gave them a new entitlement built on lie after lie after lie. That’s the legacy of his signature domestic “achievement.”

You don't need a reason to like something

Now for something a little different...

O beautiful, for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, has there ever been another place on earth where so many people of wealth and power have paid for and put up with so much architecture they detested as within thy blessed borders today?

So opens Tom Wolfe's brilliant From Our House to Bauhaus which represented a scathing critique of the International Style that was originated and fostered at the Bauhaus school in Germany in the 20s and 30s.

Wolfe lamented the glass and steel box monotony of the International Style which for its true believers was as much about social realities as it was architecture and design. People like Walter Gropius and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, leaders of the Bauhaus movement, felt they were building the domiciles of the urban socialist worker's paradise. Ornamentation and artisanal skills were frowned upon - only machine-made products need apply.

So, can a type font have the same socio-political impact as an architectural movement?

In 1957, a couple of designers,Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann came up with the two-dimensional answer to Bauhaus when they invented the Helvetica font.

Ed Driscoll writing for Pajamas Media chronicles in Liberal Fascism: the font, the development of the Helvetica font and how it displaced the busy, layered and cursive style in advertising and popular artwork of the 50s. By the early to mid-60s the clean, spare and monotonous lines and philosophy of Helvetica had become the coin of the realm in advertising and the public square.

Driscoll makes the argument that Helvetica is the statist two-dimensional accompaniment to the soul-crushing sameness of Bauhaus. Fewer words and fewer figures meant fewer reasons to resist. Don't ask questions. Just. Drink. Coke.

Driscoll believes it's no coincidence that the IRS 1040 form is in Helvetica.

Here's a clip from the movie, Helvetica, made back in '07 on the occasion of Helvetica's 50th birthday.



For a visual primer, Driscoll encourages the reader to check out James Lilek's Institute of Official Cheer which we happen to be big fans of as an excellent compendium of mid-(last)century adverts, pop art, design and architecture.


And as a total coincidental bonus this "homage" to Helvetica was on YouTube's front page a couple of days ago.



We look forward to Driscoll's next piece on the socialist stylings of Kraftwerk.

Mass. medical-device companies (heart) ObamaCare

Golly, the way things have been going around here of late, you'd a thunk we'd forgotten all about ObamaCare. Seriously, what's it been? Like, a week?

Since the following is something we're just learning about subsequent to the passage of ObamaCare, this qualifies as an update to our rolling post Nancy's Nuances: a journey of discovery which we will update later this week.

Massachusetts medical-device companies say they’ll cut back on operational costs - and jobs - after a planned 2.3 percent tax on their products is implemented in 2013, according to a new survey.

The Massachusetts Medical Device Industry Council, which held its annual meeting yesterday in Boston, said about 90 percent of the 100 medical-device firms said they would reduce costs due to the new tax tucked into the recently passed health-care reform bill.

The tax - imposed to help pay for the massive health-care industry overhaul and expansion - is “of the greatest concern” to a majority of its members, the survey found.

About 70 percent of the survey respondents said future innovation will be hurt by a new federal “physician sunshine bill.” The bill will require medical-device firms to report their marketing expenditures on physicians, and a recently passed gift-ban law in Massachusetts.

(italics, ours)

What the article doesn't mention is that not only will medical device makers cut back on R and D for potentially life-saving and quality-of-life-improving devices, they will pass along that tax burden in the form of higher prices on the devices they do produce to the consumer. That would be you, in case you were wondering.

The chill to R and D in the medical field that we predicted when ObamaCare was being "debated" is now a reality as businesses are finding that ObamaCare is actually a disincentive to innovation.

Fewer jobs, less innovation and higher prices. Just what is there not to love about ObamaCare?

Bringing something to the party

He became very serious. Deadly serious. He looked at me and said something like this: “Americans know nothing. Nothing!” And went on to describe the horrors of Soviet slavery in the most graphic and chilling terms. Scales fell from my eyes.

Some Americans may not appreciate this, but people like Gabe are critical components in the spine of America. Because they remember. They remember. Despite all the lies, and spin, and apologetics for all the left-wing tyrants and dictators in the world, despite the ideological excuse-making, they remember. They were there.

Lost in the illegal immigration debate is a function immigrants serve that we normally don't think about. Secular Apostate reminds us of why we need (legal) immigrants.