Archive for 2013

UNION-BACKED IMMIGRATION POISON PILLS:   RedState reports on several AFL-CIO backed immigration reform proposals likely to derail Gang of Eight consensus, including Obamacare coverage, high minimum wages, and entry for the family of guest workers.  RedState asks:

Why would Obama, his Democrat surrogates and AFL-CIO bosses talk about immigration reform as though they are for it, then endanger it by trying to insert poison-pill amendments that they know will kill its chances?

The answer can only be: Politics.

The reality is, unions–especially building trade unions (many of whose members remain unemployed)–cannot afford to have more non-union competition.

This is especially true now, as Obama’s NLRB faces a very uncertain future (see Noel Canning) and their means to hold “ambush elections” remain on hold for the foreseeable future.

Rather, like they are with the minimum wage issue, it seems that Barack Obama and his union-boss buddies (as they have in the past) are more interested in ensuring they keep Latinos at bay–by blaming Republicans for immigration reform failure–while keeping them firmly in their pockets politically.

By talking out one side of their mouths that they are pro-reform to Latinos and low information voters, then cynically trying to push radical poison pills up the backside of America, they are playing a cruel game with Latinos’ dreams.

 

OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY. Except that in this case, “Other People” means your money and mine, Daniel Greenfield writes at his Sultan Knish blog:

Do you know of any company in America where for a mere few billion, you could become the CEO of a company whose shareholders would be forced to sit back and watch for four years while you run up trillion dollar deficits and parcel out billions to your friends? Without going to jail or being marched out in handcuffs. A company that will allow you to indulge yourself, travel anywhere at company expense, live the good life, and only work when you feel like it. That will legally indemnify you against all shareholder lawsuits, while allowing you to dispose not only of their investments, but of their personal property in any way you see fit.

There is only one such company. It’s called the United States Government.

Read the whole thing.

MARK KELLY’S BAD WEEK CONTINUES.

MIKE BLOOMBERG: THE BEST THING TO HAPPEN TO THE GOP SINCE CITIZENS UNITED, claims Noah Rothman at Mediaite:

Bloomberg is the physical embodiment of the hypocrisy the Democratic Party and the media display on campaign finance reform issues. Combined with the news that the liberal Tides Foundation had contributed five times more progressive causes than the oft-maligned libertarian Koch Brothers contributed to Republicans, Bloomberg’s financial contributions to liberal candidates demonstrates that progressives and the media establishment are only concerned about campaign finance issues when Democratic candidates are endanger of losing elections.

Finally, from a Republican’s perspective, Bloomberg is also having a much more beneficial effect on the political landscape than any reform the GOP could institute on its own. Bloomberg is singlehandedly helping the Democratic Party unlearn the lessons which led to the 1974 campaign reforms. …

Today, Bloomberg is actively fomenting a liberal, issue-oriented insurgency from within the Democratic Party. Undeterred by Sen. Harry Reid’s (D-NV) efforts to shield his vulnerable members from a damaging vote, Bloomberg leads a coalition of progressive voters forcing the party’s officials to the left of the electorate.

Not to mention causing the New York Times to run op-eds with titles such as “Three Cheers for the Nanny State,” a reminder of the growing need for what Ricochet’s Troy Senik calls “a leave me alone society:”

I want a “leave me alone” society — one where Christian schools can turn people away for rejecting their doctrine, just as gay rights groups can reject those who don’t share their beliefs. I don’t want us all to get along — not because I’m misanthropic (well, not just because I’m misanthropic), but because I know that “consensus” is usually a fancy word for muting minority viewpoints. I want us all to be free to be annoyed with each other from our separate corners. Is that too much to ask?

It is, as far as Bloomberg is concerned. No wonder, as Kurt Schlichter recently noted at Townhall, using a slightly more colorful phrase than Senik, “Conservatives Must Build a ‘Bite Me’ Coalition.”

RELATED: You keep using that hyphenated word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

FOES AND PROPONENTS OF GAY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATE OUTSIDE COURT: “I believe that everyone has the right to make their husband as miserable as I do,” read one poster held by a woman.

Heh.™

Meanwhile, on the inside, Of Procreation and Labels: Supreme Court Hears Prop. 8 Challenge: “Justice Kennedy: “The problem with the case is that you’re really asking…for us to go into uncharted waters.”

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YOUR SCARY ASS CHART OF THE DAY, plus a question: “If consumers, who account for 71% of the economy, aren’t spending, and small business owners, who do 65% of all the hiring in the country, are petrified with insecurity, why is the stock market hitting all-time highs and the corporate media proclaiming happy days are here again?”

(Via Doug Ross.)

RELATED: From William A. Jacobson at Legal Insurrection, The real estate market’s demographic problem in “the most depressing” chart ever.

IT’S JUST A BUNNY, NOT AN “EASTER BUNNY”:  The liberal/progressive assault on all things Christian continues.  This time, it’s a growing trend among public schools that ban reference to Easter, including the Easter Bunny.  Funny how those who cry the loudest about preserving and loudly celebrating various cultures– in the name of “diversity”– are always the first to condemn mention of all things Christian, Western, or (gasp) white.

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MCLUHAN, IN FULL: Tom Wolfe explains everything you wanted to know about Marshall McLuhan, in a 23-minute video that was recorded in the 1990s, during the period, where thanks to the heady early days of Wired magazine and the birth of the World Wide Web, McLuhan’s theories were undergoing something of a renaissance. (Some even credited McLuhan with inspiring the Blogosphere…)

Wolfe interviewed McLuhan in the mid-1960s, when McLuhan’s career as a pop theorist and corporate sponsored guru were at their zenith, asking, “What If He’s Right?” As Wolfe noted, McLuhan would tell GE, “Gentlemen, the General Electric Company makes a considerable portion of its profits from electric light bulbs, but it is not yet discovered that it is not in the light bulb business but in the business of moving information.” GE certainly went out of their way to eventually prove that statement true.