Entitlement Addiction...the story of

The people who visit this site may have like-minded views or perhaps they simply stumbled upon it...maybe even Googled some key word.  Of those that stop by and read a little, my hope is that they have gained a little understanding of from whence we came or, better yet, where we're at...and why.  Dr. MacHan gives us a little of the why...if only my liberal friends could comprehend. ~ Norman E. Hooben

Source: The Daily Bell

4/9/2011 - Dr. Tibor Machan

The Story of Entitlement Addiction

Dr. Tibor Machan

Welfare states rely on a complacent population, like spoiled children on spineless parents. So when finally the jig is up, no more vital fluids to leach, it is impossible to change course without serious pain. What the Republicans are asking for now is that the Democrats and their constituents agree to simple withdrawal and not scream from the pain of it all. With the public philosophy of the Democrats this is hopeless since they have been preaching that all you need to pay for it all is to rip off the rich, to rob them of their wealth and redistribute it throughout the land. But no amount of confiscation from the rich is going to fulfill the expectations of the millions of people who have become hooked on entitlements.
Of course, for a good while this entitlement mania could be satisfied because its comeuppance could be kicked down the path for the next generation to deal with. Social security, medicare, subsidies of all sorts, unemployment compensation, funding of wildly speculative and minimally productive scientific adventures, price supports for farmers, military adventures, nearly limitless support for state colleges and universities, foreign aid, and so on and so forth – all this piled up and now the chicken are coming home to roost. And politicians and their bureaucrats didn't prepare the population for it, so it just crashed upon the country even though many marginalized smart and decent people who knew better kept warning us. One good example was F.A. Hayek's The Road to Serfdom, not to mention several of Ludwig von Mises's long and short books. And then there was Ayn Rand's monumental novel of 1957, Atlas Shrugged, that pretty much foretold what we are now witnessing and must tell about to our children and grandchildren who will be the most severely hit by it all. All these warnings were waved aside by the entitlement pushers, the ones who wanted to be elected and to run the managerial state. They misunderstood or more likely refused to see how it goes when one postpones coming to terms with Draconian profligacy.
Even today the statists among us are blaming everything on freedom, on the admittedly present but certainly not decisive corruptions that occur in the welfare state's market place – which lack the proper institutional restrains of a genuine free market. All one needs to do is follow the writings of Paul Krugman, the most avid and visible contemporary apologist for the welfare state – the more his chicken come home, the more he advocates stricter controls of people's economic conduct. Yes, control, control and more control is the statist's answer to everything, as if statists had a clue how to manage things without running them to the ground like virtually all statists systems (that do not benefit from cheap oil or other vital resources) do eventually.
Truth is we are in for a rough ride and few people will weather it well. And our leaders – would be rulers, in fact – don't want to admit it since they always want to reserve the right to restart the welfare state so they can continue to pretend to serve the public. But as I recently discovered Charles de Gaulle to have said, "In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant." We all will be asked for sacrifices and to accept that those in charge of the public treasury are blameless; they were merely responding to their constituents and hadn't a chance to inform them of the facts of economic life, the plainest of them being that one just cannot get blood out of a turnip.
One bit of silver lining: all this isn't new; states throughout human history have gone bankrupt and somehow climbed out but mainly because they did not hesitate to subdue and plunder neighboring countries, to kill and maim their populations without mercy just to stay the course. But in our time, at least in the West, that option is no longer welcome a great deal; it is generally frowned upon to start a war to rip off largely peaceful countries. Instead, rulers resort to financial chicanery which ultimately amount to trying to square circles around the globe. All in the name of serving the people!
Still, lessons might be learned and the very slow and oft-interrupted road to liberation may continue.

The Budget Deal ...aaah what budget would that be?

CONSERVATIVES and LIBERALS...THE FACTS PROVE THAT IT IS THE PEOPLE WHO ARE AT FAULT

Source: News With Views

BORN TO FREEDOM AND LAID TO REST IN SHAME

By Sheriff Jim R. Schwiesow, Ret.
April 5, 2011
NewsWithViews.com

Good morning Mr. and Mrs. America I have a news alert for you. The United States is dying, it is a terminally ill nation that moves through current times on tottering legs, derives an ever dwindling sustenance from the rapidly dissipating vestiges of its former greatness, and gropes its way through the Godless- darkness of a fallen world via a disease-ridden brain.

A post mortem of the demise of this once great giant will disclose that it succumbed to a pestilence born of the elements of lawlessness so grievous, so deep, so filthy, and so certifiably fatal that its life was unsustainable and forfeit to the decaying plague that was upon it. The eulogy given upon its self-inflicted death will read: “Born to freedom and laid to rest in shame.” Few will grieve.

THE CONSERVATIVES ARE TO BLAME

Oh, yes! You say, as a compassionate liberal I feel I must agree. This baneful circumstance must be laid at the feet of the conservative constituency in this nation, which with gloating glee and malicious satisfaction cheers the invasions and bombings of undeclared wars. It is these, who pridefully extol with sadistic joy the deployment of exceedingly superior weaponry against militarily inferior nations and the rains of terror upon the non-combatants thereof, which are to blame. Nobody respects a belligerent bully that militarily suppresses the internal will of weaker nations for purely selfish reasons.

Indeed it is unquestionably these same neocons, who have championed nearly sixty years of a nigh onto continuous prosecution of undeclared wars and the dumping of life destroying and environmentally pernicious chemical agents, volatile ordnance, and igneous precipitants upon the most wretched of inhabitants of the most chronically deprived and backward societies that are responsible for such a demise.

Further it is a fact that the remorseless strives of these conscienceless advocators of mayhem on the foreign front were replicated domestically by their enablement and political support of the heartless machinations of the corporate barons that induced the loss of jobs and the disruption of livelihoods by their deliberate obliteration of domestic industry, this that they might avail themselves of cheap foreign labor and reap the benefit of obscene profits at the expense of an indigenous American work force. If the American destiny is destruction the circumstances of such demise must be adjudicated and historically commemorated that it was the conservatives who were at fault.

NO! IT’S THE LIBERALS WHO ARE CULPABLE

Ah-Hah! Just like the liberals to lay the blame for the seeds of destruction, that they themselves have sown and nurtured, upon the conservative ilk. Surely my liberal zealots you jest; do I not detect a goodly amount of grime upon your self-proclaimed lily-white souls? Have you not led this nation’s people down depraved and crooked paths that they stand upon the precipice of the fiery hole of hell from which the devil’s stink settles upon them?

Were you not the facilitators of medical infanticide, the bloody magnitude of which far exceeds the deeds that you decry? Do you deny that you were the officious donkeys who usurped the Constitutional authority of state and local governments to administer their own affairs? Was it not your statutes and decrees that paved the way to the great degradation of the youth of this country and gave freedom to every discernable and filthy vice? Were you not the cretins who gave license to pornography and licentious media under the guise of a misapplied First Amendment? Surely you cannot deny that your advocacy for biblical condemned and forbidden social abominations have destroyed the family and mocked the principles upon which the nation was founded.
Without a doubt history will record that it was you who rendered the demise of this once great republic.

THE FACTS PROVE THAT IT IS THE PEOPLE WHO ARE AT FAULT

America’s politicians are the finished product of the great unwashed…

Are not the politicians of the two national parties the progeny of a dim-witted rabble that worships the ideology of their chosen political collective with rabid fanaticism and messianic zeal, who else can we accuse, but the people? The fact is that the citizens of this nation were brought to their present tyrannical circumstance not by a force of arms, but by their own volition.

In truth the disordered state of this nation was wrought by a people who have elected, and re-elected to office repeatedly, the worst of the worst in regard to those who have undermined and destroyed the principles upon which the nation was founded.

LAWLESS PEOPLE ELECT LAWLESS LEADERS

Only in America - currently a nation of perverse anomalies - could a Kenyan born national be slipped into the country illegitimately, taken to the bosom of treasonous socialists, nurtured by criminal miscreants, indoctrinated in delusive religiosity by false prophets, embraced by the political extremists of a national political party, promoted by an ignorant national media as the messiah, and then be elected by an equally ignorant population to the Office of President. Is this a great country for charlatans or what!

Who can deny that this nation is presently in the totalistic control of a foreign born national of not even a naturalized citizenship? Donald Trump, and the great many who agree with him, is correct. The Constitution prohibits all but natural born citizens from occupying the Office of Presidency, and a prerequisite to the taking of the oath must be proof of American born citizenship, this by virtue of the production of a genuine and valid Certificate of Live Birth. There are no substitutes, no alternatives, and no adjuncts that will suffice as proof. Obama by his refusal to provide a Certificate of Live Birth, or any other record of his residency in the United States, marks himself as an imposter and a bald-faced liar.

Despite their declarations to the contrary the national media, the congress, and the people know that Barak Obama cannot produce a verification of live birth in the United States. The Governor of Hawaii who claims to have proof that Obama is American born is full of crap and everybody knows that he is full of crap. If he had the proof in the form of a genuine Certificate of Live Birth he would produce it forthwith in order to ingratiate himself with the progressives of his party.

If the congress had any guts, or probity for that matter, they would initiate action to remove this interloping fraud from office and initiate proceedings for his deportation as an illegal alien. It would be justice served, but there no longer exists any semblance of what is moral, right, proper or good in the American system.

ABSOLUTISM PREVAILS

Now, Mr. and Mrs. America, you are presently subject to, and a victim of, the greatest fraudulent governance in the history of this nation. Your oppressor Barry Soetoro a/k/a Barak Hussein Obama has seized despotic control of your nation, your lives, and your destiny. He is accountable to no one but himself and he circles the globe bartering away the sovereignty of the American people.

Do you know what he says to the foreign leaders in private? No! And neither does the congress. He commences war on foreign nations without either a declaration of war or a vote of approval by congress, and boldly circumvents a constitutional stricture on the consolidation of power in one branch of government. There is no separation of power or checks and balances in his eyes. He places domestic rule into the hands of personally appointed non-congressionally approved political tsars. Rather than being held accountable by the media for his dictatorial excesses he is instead protected in his trespasses by the media. People this nation is in big trouble, and the fact that the latest polls indicate that nearly half the population would support retention of this pestilent fake points up the fact that the forthcoming misery is well deserved.

OBAMA JUST THINKS THAT HE IS IN CHARGE

Who is in charge? God is in charge. He holds our future in His hands and beholds the wisdom of men with derision. The people of this nation have no concept of the true God of creation. Because they are scripturally ignorant and spiritually blind they have no understanding of His nature, His righteousness, His Justice, or His might. Nor do they know of His absoluteness of purpose, or of His infallibility and invulnerability.

Men assess the Creator by their standards, by their fallibilities, by their warped sense of justice, and by their incompleteness of knowledge in regard to His laws and His purpose of mind. Men think of themselves as gods, when in fact they are no more than a worthless piece of clay that has been temporarily endowed with a God-given spirit that will be separated from the body at the time of death.

Men do not have the ability to function apart from God, when left to their own devices and deprived - by their disbelief - of God’s wisdom they will always default to evil.

Nations and men fight over ownership of territory and the minerals and commodities brought forth from the earth, they fight over territorial control of the oceans and the produce of the oceans. It is beyond the pale of their thinking to understand that the entire world and everything of the world is the property of God, and that includes every man, woman, and child upon the earth believer and pagan alike. His ownership extends across the entire universe, which consists of matter that He brought into being out of nothingness by the Word of His mouth. All that is in the possession of men is simply on loan from God, and nothing that happens upon this earth comes about without His knowledge and His permission.

This nation and this world is about to be overwhelmed by the day of the Lord, whether the destruction of the United States will precede the great wars, come about as a circumstance of the great wars, or if the nation will collapse from within as a result of its great sin and apostasy is a matter of conjecture.

Whatever the case, prepare to meet thy God.

© 2011 - Jim R. Schwiesow - All Rights Reserved

Jim Schwiesow is a retired sheriff with 46 years of law enforcement service. He served with the Unites States Army with the occupation forces in post war Berlin, Germany, and has a total of nine years of military service, which includes six years in the U.S. Army Reserve.

His law enforcement service includes: three years in the military police, fifteen years as an Iowa municipal police officer, and twenty-eight years as the duly elected sheriff of Sioux County, Iowa.

Jim has written a number of articles, which have been published in various professional law enforcement journals.

E-Mail: jimr@orangecitycomm.net

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Little do teachers, firemen and policemen know that they are merely being used as useful idiots

Source: News With Views

UNIONS, PROTESTS AND THE COLLAPSE OF THE U.S. ECONOMY
PART 1

By Dr. Michael S. Coffman Ph. D.
April 9, 2011
NewsWithViews.com

During the February/March Wisconsin Public Union Debacle the union workers were portrayed by the mainstream press as underpaid, overworked public workers who were having their bargaining “civil rights” unjustly attacked by Republicans bent on destroying the Union. The truth, however, paints a very different and dangerous picture that threatens the very foundations of America.

It used to be that public sector unions were shunned even by progressives. President Franklin Roosevelt, a strong friend to unions, warned in 1937, “The process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service.” The reason for his concern? “[A] strike of public employees manifests nothing less than intent on their part to obstruct the operations of government until their demands are satisfied. Such action looking toward the paralysis of government by those who have sworn to support it is unthinkable and intolerable.” Roosevelt’s fears are literally coming true today.

Roosevelt wasn’t the only one warning that public employees should not be unionized. George Meany, the first president of the AFL/CIO remarked in 1955, it was "impossible to bargain collectively with the government." But starting with Wisconsin in 1959, states began to allow collective bargaining in government. Again the AFL/CIO warned; “in terms of accepted collective bargaining procedures, government workers have no right beyond the authority to petition Congress—a right available to every citizen.” It wasn’t until Democrat progressives realized that public sector unions would give the Democrats and progressives millions of campaign dollars and votes in any election did progressives begin to clamor for the right of public employees to unionize.

Public sector unionization provides the perfect circle of corruption. Once public employees were unionized, progressive Democrats could promise union members the moon to get their votes and campaign contributions. Once in office, there was no incentive for the elected official to protect the taxpayer when bargaining with the union. After all, to progressives, the taxpayer is merely a faceless, bottomless pit of tax revenue. Conversely, politicians have every incentive to capitulate to the unions to get their vote and campaign funding in the next election. In effect, public unions help elect the very politicians who will act as "management" in their contract negotiations. In essence, unions can handpick the officials who will sit across from them at the bargaining table.

A private corporation cannot do this. They must be tough, or their labor costs will become so high they will go out of business. Collective-bargaining laws also gave government workers a powerful incentive to join unions. The portion of full-time unionized public employees jumped from 10% to 36% of the public-sector work force between 1960 and 1980.

Today, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) has more than 1.5 million members. In comparison, the largest exclusively private-sector union, the United Food and Commercial Workers has a paltry 1.3 million members. As large as the AFT is, however, it is dwarfed by the largest labor union in the United States: the National Education Association (NEA), which claims 3.2 million members. The NEA also claims that in a single decade it became the most powerful union in the nation.

Although highly variable, public unions have generally given their members incredible retirement benefits. For example, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association successfully negotiated a contract with California in 2006 giving the average union member $70,000 a year, and more than $100,000 with overtime. Corrections officers can also retire with 90% of their salaries as early as age 50. These kinds of benefits are not universal, but they are not uncommon either.

Nationwide the Bureau of Labor Statistics at the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), reported that private sector employees receive an average of $40,768, while public workers receive $54,933 annually in wages.

The DOL also reported that state and local government employees received benefits that were 69 percent higher than those in the private sector in 2010. State and local government employees earn $13.85 per hour in benefits compared to the private sector workers who earn an average of $8.20 per hour. The Cadillac benefit packages for state employees have resulted in unfunded pension liabilities from $1 to $2.8 trillion, according to StateBudgetSolutions.org. The National Center for Policy Analysis calculates an even higher unfunded pension liability for all states at $3.1 trillion.

Regardless, of the amount, it far exceeds the private sector and the individual state’s ability to sustain it. The cycle of corruption between progressives and public unions has been repeated time and time again until the public sector unfunded benefit packages now threaten to bankrupt the states. Hence, states across the country suffering this corruption must take direct aim at public employee unions and their grossly out-of-line pension benefits.

Certainly, not all states have fallen victim to the public union corruption cycle. The public employees and teacher salaries and benefits are in line with the private sector. However, many of these states are also suffering from staggering unfunded liabilities because past progressive-dominated legislatures and governors have raided or not contributed their share to retirement funds. These progressives needed to pay for their altruistic social programs and they got it from retirement funds. The money is gone now, leaving the current legislature and governor (usually Republican) the nightmare of trying to bring the state back from bankruptcy to solvency without being blamed for the nightmare.

Once it became apparent that the corruption caused by the past cozy relationship between unions and progressive politician is threatening state solvency, taxpayers are outraged. Last November candidates who promised fiscal responsibility were sent by the voters en masse to Congress, state legislatures and governor offices to fix the insolvency mess. However, fixing the mess is easier said than done. As soon as the Republicans try to apply fiscal responsibility, the unions scream their civil rights are being violated. They protest loudly, sometimes violently and generally claim they are due every dime they make.

Other than a willingness to make small concessions, unions so distort the facts that they make it sound as if the taxpayers are ripping off underpaid public workers. Tragically, their tactics are working. Millions of dollars in union sponsored attack ads are convincing voters that the Republicans are mean and are trying to destroy the unions when in fact they are trying to save their respective states.

New Jersey, Illinois and Wisconsin

Some states like Indiana addressed the pension/collective bargaining issue several years ago and are generally in good fiscal condition today. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was the first governor to take on the unions following the November 2010 Republican Revolution. New Jersey was $11 billion in the red and getting worse every day.

On his first day in office Christie signed an executive order preventing state employee unions from making political contributions. That broke the union/politician corruption cycle that kept New Jersey’s public union’s fat and progressives in power. Christie also battled the teacher’s unions by preventing pay raises in 2010 and lifetime health benefits for the union’s members. He also asked for a one year freeze on salaries, changes in the pension rules to limit future benefits and for the employees to pay a tiny fraction of their salaries to help cover the costs of their health insurance.

Christie’s proposals met with a firestorm of condemnation from the unions. Politicians who lost most of their campaign contributions under Christie’s executive order also joined the chorus of vitriol. The unions alone spent over $6 million in attack ads against Christie. Christie stood his ground and retorted, "If we don't win this fight, there's no other fight left." He was correct. Without his changes, the state would soon be in bankruptcy. Ironically, many of the public employees would have $0 salaries and benefits because of layoffs, while others would be forced to take severe salary and benefit reductions.

Unions never see it that way, however. Invariably, they accuse the state of hiding money or not prioritizing budgets to allow public employees what they deserve. Even though their toes are hanging off the edge of the bankruptcy cliff, they refuse to acknowledge it and continue to demand more. This bizarre refusal to accept reality is one of the reasons the private sector unions have lost so many members. It would have closed the doors of GM forever, if President Obama hadn’t bailed GM out and paid the union off with taxpayer money.

Unlike New Jersey, Illinois (surprise, surprise) voted the progressives back into power in 2010. The unions convinced the reelected progressive legislature that they should raise taxes by a whopping 66 percent to cover the $13 billion deficit it faces in 2011. Thirteen billion dollars is half of the state’s $26 billion budget! Raising taxes is the standard progressive solution to fiscal ills in the public sector. However, most analysts warn the tax increase will backfire and can possibly even reduce total tax revenues as businesses close and workers lose their jobs.

The comparison between New Jersey and Illinois will provide the perfect test of tea party vs. progressive economic theory. Worse, the Illinois solution merely kicks the can down the road as the state faces exponentially increasing deficits in the future. The root problem of the shortfall is not addressed with radical increases in taxes. The root problem centers on the grossly overpaid public employees receiving unconscionable benefits. These costs are rising exponentially as more and more people retire with the bloated benefits.

Governor Scott Walker and his Republican majorities in Wisconsin’s legislature were next state on the firing line. They had to reconcile a $137 million shortfall in 2011 and a $3.6 billion deficit in their two year 2012-2013 budget cycle. The 2011 hole could be filled if the public unions agreed to pay a 5.8 percent of their salary towards their pension fund, and 12.6 percent of their health care package. This is still less than most public employees have to pay in other states. However, after failing in New Jersey, the unions capitulated and agreed to the terms – temporarily.

While the agreement solved the immediate deficit, the root problem was the corrupt nature of collective bargaining in the public sector. As Wisconsin’s 2011 to 2012-13 huge increase in deficits illustrated, the deficit problem was going through the roof in the future. If the future excessive pension benefits were not stopped they would bankrupt Wisconsin within a few years, even with higher taxes and employee contributions. In other words, like New Jersey, the union’s demands were not sustainable.

Walker not only asked for employee contributions and some other give-backs, he asked for a severe reduction in the collective bargaining power of the unions. The Republican majority in both houses of the legislature agreed, and wrote legislation that would increase employee contributions and eliminate almost all union bargaining rights on everything except salary. Additionally, the unions would also have to hold annual votes to stay organized and would be unable to force employees to pay dues. Without these concessions, Governor Walker said 1500 state employees would have to be laid off.

If Governor Christie’s actions provoked a firestorm, Governor Walker’s and the Wisconsin legislature’s actions resulted in war. Raucous protestors occupied the capital. Initially the protests were civil and teachers brought their primary and high school students into the capital building to protest. The students were allegedly brought to demonstrate “democracy” to them. Of course, there is no chance of students this young truly understanding what was happening or what was at stake, other than what the teachers told them. Some called this child abuse despicable.

The unions put up $3.4 million in attack ads against the governor and Republican legislators, crying that the governor and legislator were union busting, denying workers their “rights,” and destroying “democracy.” Fourteen democrat senators fled the state so there would not be a super majority to pass funding-related legislation in the state senate. It turned into a fiasco that was exploited by the union attack ads.

Again, as the debacle heated up, the mainstream media faithfully spun the story to support the unions. Conflicting reports on salaries and benefits were reported daily, raising so much smoke and confusion so that very few understood the real facts. That was by design. The unions had to confuse the public to get their support.

Stripping the smoke away showed Walker to be correct. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor, Wisconsin state employees earned average salary and wages (not including benefits) of $51,305 annually compared to only $38,625 a year for private sector employees in Wisconsin. Interesting, local government employees earned $38,121 annually, about the same as private employees. This is not unusual for less populated states where local taxpayers are more in tune with what is happening locally.

Most of the media attention was focused on the tens of thousands of Wisconsin teachers. The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction’s Statistical Information Center on School Staff and Salary Data shows the average school teacher/staff salary of $51,675 with $25,596 in fringe benefits for a total of $77,271. That does not include school administrators which have average salaries of $77,857 with benefits of $29,694.

The average public union employee salary in Wisconsin is about $13,000 higher than the private sector employee. Even when the fact that teachers have college degrees is considered, the salaries are way out of line with the private sector. Although no one would dispute that teachers need to earn a living wage, it is often forgotten that teachers only work about ten months out of the year. That is either a huge benefit no one else gets.

Although there are other considerations, Wisconsin teachers and public sector employees generally are paid a minimum of 25 percent more in salaries than the private sector employees who ultimately pay their salaries. Yet, the mainstream media continue to describe the union employees the poor underdogs in the crisis whose rights are being violated by the heartless Republicans.

The Unions eventually brought in union thugs from other states to ratchet up the protests. Governor Walker and the Republican’s in the legislature had repeated death threats. Union thugs protested on their lawns at home and threatened their families. Of course, that is never reported in the mainstream media.

The Republican legislature held firm against this intimidation. The governor and legislator finally removed the financial aspect of the legislation, which allowed them to vote with a simple majority. The union thugs went berserk, literally storming the capital building through windows and doors, pushing back security and doing millions of dollars of damage. Of course, the taxpayers get to pay for the repairs. This is nothing less than politics by thuggery.

After the legislature passed the bill to limit collective bargaining and Governor Scott Walker signed it, Dane County Judge MaryAnn Sumi issued a temporary restraining order blocking the law from taking effect. The stay was requested by Democrat Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne. Ozanne’s lawsuit claimed the legislature acted without the 24-hour notice required by Rule 93 in Wisconsin’s open meeting law.

Republican’s accused Secretary of State Doug La Follette of delaying the publication of the law to allow the union’s to find a sympathetic judge to issue the restraining order on the newly passed law. The unions found what they were looking for in Judge Sumi. However, the non-partisan Legislative Clerk, Rob Marchant, backed up the Republicans by saying, “In special session, under Senate Rule 93, no advance notice is required other than posting on the legislative bulletin board.”

Wisconsin state case law also supports the Republicans. Both LTSB v State and Lafollette v Smith found that legislative rules are completely within the jurisdiction of the legislature. Courts may “not intermeddle in purely internal legislative proceedings.” In spite of these legal precedents, Judge Sumi’s ruling still stands.

The unions have mounted a multimillion dollar attack campaign to recall several of the vulnerable republican legislators and Governor Walker himself. It is working. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported on March 5 that 54 percent of Wisconsinites disapprove of Walker’s performance while 43 percent approved. It is amazing how citizens can believe that massive budget woes brought on by progressive legislation can be corrected without an all-out battle in the legislature. Especially when the unions are involved.

So why are the unions battling Wisconsin and other states so hard? The answer centers on an incredible lust for power and a heinous agenda. Unions can’t afford to lose in Wisconsin, or it will begin a rapid unraveling of their power across the country. Little do teachers, firemen and policemen know that they are merely being used as useful idiots (to use Stalin’s vernacular) to that end. In the final analysis, it is total power and a new form of government that the unions want. Read Part II to learn more about this shocking radical agenda.

© 2011 Michael Coffman - All Rights Reserved

HELLO?? Are you there?? ...your hero has been caught doing the same things that George W. Bush did

Cross-post from Texas Fred
AP Exclusive: Terror suspects held weeks in secret

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — “Black sites,” the secret network of jails that grew up after the Sept. 11 attacks, are gone. But suspected terrorists are still being held under hazy circumstances with uncertain rights in secret, military-run jails across Afghanistan, where they can be interrogated for weeks without charge, according to U.S. officials who revealed details of the top-secret network to The Associated Press.
The Pentagon has previously denied operating secret jails in Afghanistan, although human rights groups and former detainees have described the facilities. U.S. military and other government officials confirmed that the detention centers exist but described them as temporary holding pens whose primary purpose is to gather intelligence.
The Pentagon also has said that detainees only stay in temporary detention sites for 14 days, unless they are extended under extraordinary circumstances. But U.S. officials told the AP that detainees can be held at the temporary jails for up to nine weeks, depending on the value of information they produce. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the program is classified.
The most secretive of roughly 20 temporary sites is run by the military’s elite counterterrorism unit, the Joint Special Operations Command, at Bagram Air Base. It’s responsible for questioning high-value targets, the detainees suspected of top roles in the Taliban, al-Qaida or other militant groups.
Full Story Here: AP Exclusive: Terror suspects held weeks in secret

I think we ALL know, Democrats in general, and libbers all over this nation are, without a doubt, the most seriously challenged, mentally challenged, individuals that have ever walked the face of this earth.
Does anyone remember the OUTRAGE that the Dem/Libbers let loose against the Bush administration when it was disclosed that they had used ‘secret prisons’? And how the Dem/Libbers totally lost it when it was divulged that the CIA had maybe, possibly used an enhanced interrogation method called water boarding?
The emotions exhibited by the Dem/Libbers was more than outrage, they were incensed, they were out of their minds, they called Bush and Company every name in the book and demanded that Bush free these ‘political prisoners’ and step down from the Presidency.
Now, I don’t hear the hue and cry of the Dem/Libber masses. They are strangely silent on this little factoid regarding the Obamanation having ‘secret prisons’.

The site’s location, a short drive from a well-known public detention center, has been alleged for more than a year.
The secrecy under which the U.S. runs that jail and about 20 others is noteworthy because of President Barack Obama’s criticism of the old network of secret CIA prisons where interrogators sometimes used the harshest available methods, including the simulated drowning known as waterboarding.

Dems?? Libbers?? HELLO?? Are you there?? Are you outraged now that your hero has been caught doing the same things that George W. Bush did? What about Guantanamo? Wasn’t that a big thing for you guys? Closing Gitmo and giving those poor, misunderstood ‘religious warriors’ a break? He didn’t do that either.
Where is the outrage from the left? Anyone?

Human rights advocates say the severest of the Bush-era interrogation methods are gone, but the conditions at the new interrogation sites still raise questions. Obama pledged when he took office that the United States would not torture anyone, but former detainees describe harsh treatment that some human rights groups claim borders on inhumane.

The duplicity of the Dem/Libbers, the utter hypocrisy, that is what has made the Democratic party the pathetic, un-American cretins that Conservatives believe them to be.
And quite frankly, the Republicans aren’t much better. They have their political correctness and the *BIG TENT* idea that says there’s room for everyone in THEIR tent. Well, there’s not. The GOP/RNC has turned into Dem Lite, and lately, I have to wonder just how Lite it really is.
The Dems have gone FAR left, very far to the left, and it appears that the vacuum sucked the GOP/RNC into the abyss.
BOTH parties are arguing over this budget fight and are threatening to shut the Federal government down. I saw an explanation somewhere today that equates the differences in the left and right regarding the compromise needed to keep everything funded as being the equivalent of a family making $100K a year losing it ALL over a $200.00 discrepancy.
Secret prisons, interrogation facilities and government shutdowns be damned, it doesn’t take a lot to keep an angry Jihadist alive while you pick his mind to pieces and leave an empty shell of a human behind. It’s not the Islamic warriors I care about, it’s the hypocrisy of the Democratic party, it’s leader, it’s members and Dem/Libbers all over the United States.
I just want to know WHY the Dem/Libbers aren’t screaming their heads off right now.

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In other news... 

This is great!  Ann Barnhardt should run for President...

Ann Barnhardt Rips Lindsey Graham and burns Koran

Published April 6, 2011 | By Cato Uticensis

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Ann Barnhardt tears into Lindsey Graham and burn the Koran. She exposes Lindsey Graham for the buffoon he is and exposes the true teachings of the Koran. Ann Barnhardt doesn’t back down from either Lindsey Graham or anyone else as she gives her address and invites anyone to come after her.

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Part 2: