Sunset Comes to Britain

Sad it is to see the British slow cultural suicide unfolding before our eyes.  The people who once explored the world have sunk to an unimaginable level.  In the once-upon-a-time home of Kipling and Churchill, of Clive and Cook, Lawrence and Livingstone, we now have the spectacle of a British soldier murdered by Muslims fanatics in broad daylight on a busy London street, surrounded by a crowd of onlookers.

The Muslim murderers shouted Allah Ahkbar while unarmed British constables cowered nearby waiting for the arrival of policemen who actually carry weapons.  Then does the British government clamp down on radical Muslims? Of course not.  Rather, it ferrets out and threatens those few Britons brave enough to tweet or email comments of despair and outrage deemed to be anti-Islamic.  How shriveled Britain has become, unwilling to fight for its freedoms and its culture. 

If the British were once described as lions led by donkeys, today a more apt description would be sheep led by asses.

John M Greco

 

The Boston Marathon Bombings – Obama, Democrats, & Muslim Terrorism

As if we needed any more evidence that Obama, his team, and his acolytes are soft, very soft, on Muslim terrorism, one only needs to look at the case of the Boston Marathon Bombers.  Despite apparently repeated warnings from the Russians, the Russians no less, about the older brother’s escalating radicalism and growing ties to known Muslim terrorists, Obama’s crack team did nothing.  Nothing.  Their focus is on those dangerous, let’s-live-within-our-means white grandmothers in the Tea Party, otherwise known as Republicans.

Obama actually has some terrorist friends – after moving to Chicago, among the many ultraliberals he befriended was one Bill Ayers, who, along with his wife, are unrepentant murderous terrorists embraced by Obama and his kind (Columbia, Northwestern, and the University of Illinois at Chicago, inter alia, have such people on their faculties).  In fact, there’s a new movie out by ultraliberal Robert Redford that lionizes left-wing terrorism – that is, the good kind, like Muslim terrorism, that, though regrettably excessive at times, is nevertheless seen to be an understandable and righteous response by those feeling aggrieved by the power of Judeo-Christian Western culture.  It’s not about the murdering, it’s about whether the killers have the correct grievances against the correct oppressors.

Obama’s minions have created a hostile work environment for any government official interested in protecting Americans from Islamic extremism, from the Army General who bemoaned the effect the Fort Hood Muslim murdering terrorist might have on the military’s efforts at “diversity”, from nitwit Homeland Security boss Janice Napolitano’s refusal to call the Fort Hood massacre an act of terrorism, ridiculously labeling it as “workplace violence”, to the FBI’s downplaying Islamic terrorism in its training manual.

We now learn that the brothers were living off taxpayer money in Massachusetts, long a Democrat utopia.  On welfare, the older brother, who was supposed to be a political refugee, had enough money to return to the place in which his life was supposedly threatened, Russia, for six months.  Back in the States, on welfare he’s driving a Mercedes.   

Here’s the defining Rorschach test illustrating the divide in attitudes toward Muslim terrorism.  State the following:  most Muslims are not terrorists, but most terrorists are Muslim.  If a head explodes, it’s a liberal, and not one who was going to keep us safe.

Michael Walsh (link):  “I’ve long said that the relationship between the American Left and Islam is that of masochist and sadist; the perfect Suicide Cult meets the Death Cult of its dreams. No wonder [in Boston] they got along so well together, right up to the moment when they didn’t.”

 

John M Greco

Obama Seeks to Seed Credit Crash 2.0

They're baaaaack.......

Obama, in his community "organizer" days, along with similarly-minded Democrats, led the fight, starting with the Community Reinvestment Act, to force banks to give mortgage loans to potential borrowers with bad credit.  Well, some would say that ended very badly, in , oh, about 2008.  Since then lending standards have returned to the time-tested, rational way of doing such things.

However, if one takes the view that the true goal of some politicians is to bring the system down upon itself, expecting then that the "people" will clamor to give more power to those who seek to control the proletariat, then this comes as no surprise:

Headline from the very-liberal, no less, Washington Post (link):

"Obama administration pushes banks to make home loans to people with weaker credit"

When at first you don't succeed, ....

John M Greco

Taxes are For the Little People -- In France & USA

As the saying goes, taxes are for the little people.

As if we need any more evidence past the 20th Century that the enforced equality of "socialism" is just a smokescreen to fool the rubes for what amounts to control by self-appointed bosses who do not expect to actually live by the rules (and the consequences) they impose on the proletarian masses otherwise known as the mythical "people", comes this out of France (link):

France's former budget minister Jérôme Cahuzac admitted [on April 2] that he had held a secret bank account .... in Switzerland [and siphoned money there] in order to avoid paying taxes in France.

Remember it was his team of socialists who just last year dramatically raised taxes in France.

How quaint --  in France, being a tax cheat actually disqualifies one for high office.  Recall how much trouble Obama had in finding Democrat potential cabinet appointees who had not cheated on their taxes; obviously not being bothered by such trivialities the way actual taxpayers were, Obama went ahead and appointed a confirmed tax cheat to head the Treasury and IRS (links below).

Democrats and Tax Evasion, Like Sterling and Silver -- Tax Law Writer Rangel Joins Tax Collector Geithner and Former Senate Leader Daschle in the Tax Cheaters Hall of Fame

Geithner Tax Evasion Story Indicates the Severity of the Democrat & Media Double Standard in the Age of Obama

For the “You Can’t Make This Stuff Up” File: Obama Tax-Challenged Democrats Worried About Other People & Companies Not Paying Their Taxes

John M Greco

Climate Change Hypesters Reject "Two-Sided Debate"

Who says liberalism is not a religion? 

As evidence mounts to undermine human-caused global warming fanaticism and as well to reveal widespread fraudulent manipulation of data (see, for example, the now infamous "hockey stick" chart and also the "hide the decline" emails from the British climate hypesters), the need to quash the truth grows ever more urgent for the fanatics.  With medieval religious zeal, they seek ever more to silence the non-believers (link): 

[A] petition ... by the League of Conservation Voters ... is aimed at executive producers of nightly news programs for major broadcast networks — ABC, CBS, and NBC — who the groups say don’t focus enough news coverage on climate change issues and, when they do cover the issue, portray the issue as a “two-sided debate” by featuring climate skeptics.

A "two-sided debate".  How blasphemous!

I am a strong supporter of responsible, evidence-based environmentalism, but faked data, grossly exaggerated claims, fear-mongering for profit, and repression of debate is not good for anyone, the environment included, because, weary of all the lies and hype, we may actually be slow to respond to real dangers and true opportunities.

JM Greco

Chicago Mob Attacks Resume & Dems In Control Can't Stop It

On the first warm evening of the year, yet another mob of "youths" invaded Chicago's north Michigan Avenue shopping and tourist district and caused lots of trouble and terror (link; link).  Newspapers decline to identify the race or origin of these youths, but everyone knows they are young black men and women from outlying neighborhoods who travel by train and bus to descend on the area, and cause trouble on public transportation as well.  These episodes are seemingly becoming more frequent, and come amidst record-setting murder and mayhem in Chicago's black neighborhoods.  Pols, newspapers, and business leaders seem to play down these events, as they are bad for business and political futures.

The Chicago police seem powerless to prevent or control these events, and stay stuck in reactive mode; even at that, their response has been criticized as inadequate.  Chicago's police chief, one McCarthy, who soon after being appointed by Democrat Mayor Emanuel blamed Sarah Palin (link) in part for the city's escalating violence, thinks his police department is doing a pretty good job.  The Chicago Tribune reports (link):     

Chicago police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said ... that his officers responded effectively to a number of disturbances ... involving large groups of teens on Saturday night that led to nearly 30 arrests ranging from bumping into passersby on sidewalks to attacking women aboard a CTA train....  He echoed the same sentiment regarding an incident that occurred an hour after the CTA attack in which 17 more teens were arrested for causing a series of disturbances along the Magnificent Mile.  “We were on top of it, and we dispersed it immediately,” McCarthy told reporters. “And I also want to be clear that there were no assaults, robberies or property damage that was reported.....

Hey, what's the beef, says McCarthy.  Once the violence started, we dispersed the youths and arrested a relative few.  And after all, "there were no assaults, robberies or property damage that was reported", so no harm no foul.  Emanuel might want to hold yet another "take back the streets" rally (link).  At the rate of escalation of murder and mayhem since he and his hand-picked team have been in charge, soon he'll be holding one a day.

UPDATE:

April 3, 2013 Headline at Chicago Tribune web site:

              "Schmich: Let's turn down the alarm over loud teens downtown" 

              "I don't mean to minimize what happened in Chicago over the weekend, only to suggest there has been some overreaction." [The rest is behind the pay wall]

Hey, that wasn't a dangerous situation or anything.....  A  few assaults, some terror, some pushing of some elderly and tourists, a few robberies, some "attacking of women"....  Hey, that's just urban life, what's the big deal......  Those complainers must have been from the suburbs......    They overreacted.....  Just some "loud" Chicago teens.....    Nothing to see here, move along.....  There's no problem here, really.  Now just move along....  Nothing to see here......  Everyone don't stop coming downtown to shop, there're no safety issues, really.......  NOW MOVE ALONG, NOTHING TO SEE HERE.......

John M Greco

Latest Culture War Skirmish -- Stomping on Jesus at Florida Atlantic University

The skirmish of the week in the ongoing culture war between those who would preserve and those who would weaken traditional Judeo-Christian cultural values broke out at Florida Atlantic University.  Often the dust-up involves a cowardly teacher asserting his power position over powerless students just trying to get a grade and not cause trouble.  In covering this story (link), Dennis Prager calls the modern indoctrination-prone university "left-wing seminaries", referring to the quasi-religious nature of the modern leftist/ultra-liberal movement.

At this particular school there is a teacher, one Deandre Poole, who also happens to be an official with the local Democrat party.  This fellow happens to be black, so undoubtedly he's familiar with the current cultural ethos on sensitivity and diversity.  However, apparently he doesn't feel cultural sensitivity should extend to Christians.


Florida Atlantic Univ Teacher Deandre Poole

Poole ran a classroom exercise in his Intercultural Communications class which involved students being asked to write "Jesus" on a piece of paper, then to place it on the floor and stomp on it.  All no doubt in furtherance of some important purpose in this guy's head.  One student refused to participate and supposedly told the teacher that the exercise was inappropriate and that he should stop it.  Apparently stomping on Mohammad was not part of that day's exercise -- the teacher must have been saving that for another time.

This story followed the usual trajectory in skirmishes like this.  Step One -- defiance.  First, the University defended the teacher and the exercise on the grounds of some gobbledygook about it fulfilling the purpose of education, [speak now like Yul Brenner] etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.  The school also denied that it was taking any disciplinary action against the student, but this turned out to be a lie, because at the same time a Florida Atlantic beaurocrat, one Rozalia Williams, informed the student in writing of pending disciplinary action (link), ostensibly for his non-cooperation but more likely because he went public with the whole affair.

However, according to a letter written by Associate Dean Rozalia Williams, [student] Rotela is facing a litany of charges – including an alleged violation of the student code of conduct, acts of verbal, written or physical abuse, threats, intimidation, harassment, coercion or other conduct which threaten the health, safety or welfare of any person.”  “In the interim, you may not attend class or contact any of the students involved in this matter – verbally or electronically – or by any other means,” Williams wrote to Rotela. “Please be advised that a Student Affairs hold may be placed on your records until final disposition of the complaint.”

Florida Atllantic Univ Dean Rozalia Williams

The administrators at Florida Atlantic don't seem to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time.  They send the student a hostile disciplinary letter yet deny it to the press.  They're mendacious and stupid -- with university leaders like this our children are in the best of hands.

Interesting is the role a teacher from a Catholic University played in this (link), although the anti-Christian values espoused by some at supposedly Catholic institutions are getting more commonplace these days (witness Notre Dame's honoring (link) of Barack Obama, a prominent defender of partial birth abortion and infanticide (link)):

[Florida Atlantic] Communications department director Noemi Marin had earlier defended the assignment, saying, "while at times the topics discussed may be sensitive, a university environment is a venue for such dialogue and debate."The exercise came from an instructor's manual written by St. Norbert College communications professor Jim Neuliep. The assignment was part of a chapter about dealing with the power of certain words."This exercise is a bit sensitive, but really drives home the point that even though symbols are arbitrary, they take on very strong and emotional meanings," the exercise states. "Most will hesitate. Ask why they can't step on the paper. Discuss the importance of symbols in culture."

FSU Assoc Professor Noemi Marin

"The exercise is a bit sensitive", says professor Marin.  Ya think?  Wait till they get around to stomping on Muhammad or Martin Luther King.  That, of course, will never happen, since the point of the leftist exercise is to weaken Christianity, the perceived religion of those in power -- white males -- as viewed through the prism of race/gender/class.

Step Two -- the reaction, which was swift and widespread.  Too busy waging their cultural war by bullying their students, the brain trust at this University apparently is unaware of the power of the internet.

Step Three -- the apology and retreat.  It's very important to remember that the first response of the University was to defend the teacher and punish the student.  Initially, the school issued a weak pseudo-apology if anyone "took offense", but now after the Republican Florida Governor Rick Scott asked for an investigation (link) of the incident the school is in full tactical retreat (link):

On behalf of all of us here at FAU, we are deeply sorry for any hurt that this incident might have caused our students, people in the community and beyond,” says Charles Brown, senior vice president for student affairs, in the recording. “As an institution of higher education, we embrace academic freedom. But with that comes a level of responsibility which we did not uphold.” Brown went on to promise and swear that FAU faculty will never use the exercise again. He then swore that the school would take no disciplinary action against any student concerning the incident.

The school's retreat is surely just tactical, and it will regroup to repress another day.  The forces of liberty, light, and tolerance must forever stay vigilant.

John M Greco

Government Run Medical Care -- Dispatches from the UK

From the UK (link), the home to a government-run medical care system gushed over by Obama acolytes such as one of his big-name heath care experts, the controversial Dr Donald Berwick:

This morning, the British government released a major report outlining 290 recommendations for the country’s health-care system, the National Health Service. The move came in response to widespread disgust over the failures of Britain’s nationalized system, epitomized by the Stafford Hospital scandal, in which between 400 and 1,200 preventable deaths occurred from 2005 to 2008 at one hospital.

Hmm.  290 recommendations?  That's quite a big number.  As long as they got into that neighborhood, why not a nice round number, like 300, or something catchy, like 299?  They got to 290, and with all their problems couldn't come up with 10 more?  Then again, why not 289?  Did they stretch the count to have a number rounded to the nearest 10?

I doubt very much that Berwick and the left like the UK system because it results in better outcomes, because I very much doubt it does, accurately and honestly measured and reported.  The intellectual vanguard of the left likes it because it is a system controlled by self-appointed experts like themselves.  It's  all about undemocratic control by experts (see Liberalism as Bossism, & the Obamacare Medical Care Rationing Board).

Government-run medical care -- what could possibly go wrong, and how could it not be better than what we have now?

John M Greco

Also see:
More Liberal Love & Lies From MSNBC About Healthcare in Repressive, Socialist Countries

Will Cyprus Be a Sarajevo?

This Monday morning I'm trying to understand why there is, apparently, no run on Eurozone banks in countries with troubled banks and shaky sovereign debt.  Over the weekend news of the latest Eurozone bailout emerged, in which the EU, which I read as Germany, has agreed to bail out the Cypriot banks but only upon the condition, never seen before, that such banks seize from depositors a hefty amount of deposits, some of which have guarantees.  On the other hand, the deal does not require that the equity holders or bondholders take a hit, which would be how it should be.  The reason, as I'm reading, appears to be because the equity holders and bond holders are to a great extent foreigners who would truly collapse the banking system in Cyprus, and then perhaps elsewhere, with a run if they were to take a hit.  So Cyprus agrees to seize a percentage of guaranteed deposits from small depositors, many of whom, like the 3,000 Brits living there at the moment (link), are not even Cypriots. 

I understand that underneath this is a reluctance by German leaders to put the German people on the hook for yet another bailout if Cypriots themselves don't have to pony up as well.  But seizing guaranteed deposits appears to be in violation of bank guarantees, if not the law, so in essence the deal upends the law and sound business practice to protect the big players and screw the little ones.  Boy, sounds exactly like Obama's seizure (link) of Chrysler and General Motors to circumvent normal bankruptcy procedure and replace it with a forced deal that illegally screwed bondholders to unjustly enrich the unions.  And in another nod to the machinations of Obama, the Cypriot government is calling the seizure not a seizure but a "tax", which apparently as with Obamacare makes it all OK.  Gangsta government is in vogue all over the West.

Now it seems the Cypriot government is having second thoughts about illegally screwing small depositors, and is mulling it over while it keeps the banks closed.  Meanwhile, apparently no run on banks in Greece (what's left there to run on), Italy, or Spain, despite this clear indication of bank insolvency and EU treachery.  Has socialism turned Eurozone people into sheeple?  Will Cyprus be a Sarajevo, or will the sheeple roll over?

John M Greco  

From the Annals of Inanities

In talking to students about racial diversity at the racially mixed Oak Park High School in suburban Chicago, one woman speaker, described by the school's principal as "a woman of color", made reference to "colored people" in a historical context.  This apparently offended some people of color who do not like hearing the term "colored people", forcing the principal to issue an apology (link) for what he called "offensive" speech.

In a new development, it is rumored that some women of color colored women minority  women females who received the letter were offended by the principal's use of the term "woman of color" and are demanding an apology, preferring, instead, to be referred to as "women with color".  In yet another related development, some females people were offended by the use of the term "woman", preferring to be referred to as "persons", finding the term "woman" to be offensive sexual stereotyping. 

UPDATE: Unconfirmed reports have it that the school principal has apologized to all self-defined identity groups for every word that was said at the event, and, in response to those who were offended about his apologies believing he had nothing for which to apologize, he apologized for apologizing.

JM Greco

Democrat SequesterMania

Legendary liberal journalist Bob Woodward, of Watergate fame, apparently maintains a shred of integrity and so broke with the liberal media palace guard protecting the Democrat president and called Obama’s dishonest rabble rousing behavior on the sequester “madness”.  Of course, we all now know, thanks in part to Woodward himself, that the so-called sequester, or automatic budget cuts, was Obama’s idea.

The Democrats are wailing about cutting about 2.4% from the federal budget, or as it seems, as it usually is, cutting 2.4% off the rate of growth of the federal budget.  That’s cutting just a bit off a federal budget that’s already mushroomed beyond recognition under Obama.  Larry Kudlow writes (link):  “The White House and the CBO are predicting a 0.5 percent to 0.7 percent decline in GDP, post-sequester, and a loss of 750,000 jobs. All this from a spending reduction of roughly 2.4 percent over the next ten years, in which Uncle Sam’s spending growth will be $44.8 trillion rather than $46 trillion.”  And while Obama and his minions and acolytes have been wailing, new US Secretary of defense Long John Kerry just promised $250 million more to the Islamist government of Egypt.  Can’t possibly cut there!     

To listen to Obama and Democrats, 2.4% less spending will cut the federal government to the bone and will impact countless essential services.  Democrats are of course claiming that they can’t possibly find even 2% of fat to cut, or even 2% of non-essential services.  Not a penny is there to cut.  On local Chicago CBS news radio, a woman identified as chief economist for Mesirow Financial, apparently a money management firm, talked about some seniors losing their government subsidized housing and being forced out onto the street in the cold of late winter.  It seems Mesirow is on board with the Obama agenda.

Mark Steyn writes (link): “Can you pierce the mists of time and go back all the way to the year 2007? Back then, federal spending was 40 percent lower than it is today. In a mere half-decade, has all that 40 percent gravy become so indispensable to the general welfare that not even a teensy-weensy sliver of it can be cut?”

 

Obama is not trying to find a negotiated settlement with Republicans – far from it.  For the Obama Democrats, this whole debate is really not about trying to find a budget solution to the massive deficit.  It’s really about a radical position to spend, spend, and spend, borrowing all the way, until the system breaks down, until it collapses upon itself, and in the ensuing crisis of their own making, Democrats think they will be able to expand and solidify their centralized control over a bigger piece of America and every person in it. 

John M Greco

American Egyptologist – Breasted & The Oriental Institute

Jeffrey Abt has written a fascinating and detailed account of the life of James Henry Breasted, the much celebrated University of Chicago ground-breaking epigrapher and founder, at UChicago, of the Oriental Institute.  Abt thoroughly covers Breasted’s work in epigraphy and archaeology, and also many interesting aspects of UChicago’s early history.  Abt’s book is exhaustingly researched, and is handsomely bound in rich, dark blue cloth by the University of Chicago Press (at one time, and maybe still, the largest university press in the world).

Breasted was foremost an epigrapher, studying ancient inscriptions and language, and though not trained as an archaeologist he became one by necessity, given the need to find, excavate, and explore ancient sites.  Working from the 1890s into the 1930s, his primary focus was ancient Egypt, and as a young man, struck by the deterioration of the known sites, he began a lifelong project to record and interpret the inscriptions.  In time, Breasted became famous; he was, for example, at the opening of the chamber containing the sarcophagus and mummy of King Tutankhamum.  He emphasized studying not just past events but past conditions and institutions, which seemed novel for the time. 

Breasted also became, through books and lectures, a very well-known popular educator about ancient Egypt and early Eurasian civilizations.  In his teaching and writing, he was a pioneer in the use of visual, diagrammatic displays of information, and coined the now well-known term “fertile crescent”.  He was one of the first to appreciate the important influence of Egypt’s ancient civilization on that of Greece.  The Oriental Institute’s projects eventually encompassed all the civilizations of the Near East and the field work spread out accordingly; its museum displays one of the finest collections of ancient Near East artifacts in the world, and I have enjoyed many a desultory stroll through the exhibits.      

The Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago

Breasted was born in Rockford, Illinois, in 1865, and grew up in Chicago’s western suburbs.  He started out in pharmacy, of all things, and graduated from what is now North Central College in suburban Naperville.  He eventually turned to theology (at the Chicago Theological Seminary), then to languages (studying Hebrew at Yale), and then finally to epigraphy which became his life’s work.  As his career moved on, he became as much an administrator and fundraiser (Rockefeller money) as researcher and educator, and at that point in the story the book gets dry with detail I imagine not of particular interest to the casual reader, who I suspect might be inclined to tread lightly over those sections.  An abridged version for the general reader would not be misplaced.

Breasted was the first archaeologist to be elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences, and became so well-known that he made the cover of Time magazine in 1931.  When he died at 70 in 1935, his memorial service at Rockefeller Chapel on the UChicago campus featured the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and was broadcast nation-wide on CBS radio.  He was buried in Rockford, with a large granite cube from ancient Egypt placed as his tombstone.  Years later, when a film maker was creating the fictional story of a young, dynamic epigrapher, he placed his character at the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute, no doubt because he figured where else would you find someone like Indiana Jones. 
 

American Egyptologist:  The Life of James Henry Breasted and the Creation of His Oriental Institute
By Jeffrey Abt (University of Chicago Press, 2011)

Richard R Balsamo

Related Posts at this blog:
The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago
Ancient Assyria & the Transience of Economic Strength
The Oriental Institute's "Striding Lion" of Babylon

La Boheme at the Lyric

Original Poster for La Boheme

Everyday people (sort of), everyday life (mostly), and an everyday love story (maybe not quite).  Opera Verismo.  Certainly not grand opera, not an Aida or even a Lucia.  But rather a small, simple love story, direct and tragic, encased in some of the most beautiful melodies in opera.    

The other day with family and friends I took in the first of two Lyric Opera ensembles performing Puccini’s La Boheme this winter at Chicago’s Civic Opera House, with Ana Maria Martinez and Dimitri Pittas very enjoyable in the leads.  I first saw Boheme at the Lyric around 30 years ago, with Pavarotti in the male lead role.  The strength, depth, and breadth of his voice seem to have almost been unique, and other tenors since then have sounded a touch thin, but that’s just me. 

Mr Pittas is a New York native who is quoted in the Program saying that he was first turned on to opera listening to the collection of duets by Bjorling and Merrill.  Well, for 30 years I myself have been enjoying those duets, coincidentally given to me by a friend also at the performance that night, and anyone who can listen to them and not want to hear more is a lost cause, operatically speaking.

Main Hall of Chicago's Civic Opera House

Unfortunately the set was underwhelming, and we know just whom to blame – owned and constructed, says the Program, by the San Francisco Opera, clearly a budget conscious outfit.  The garret shown in Acts One and Four consisted of a small elevated platform in the middle of the stage with a large border around it that took up most of the space, so that it all looked like a small painting in a frame three sizes too big.  But it’s La Boheme, after all, where the characters and the music get all the attention, which, of course, they should.

R Balsamo

Brokest Illinois Dems Go On Spending Spree On Themselves

In the Utopia called Illinois, controlled for generations by Democrats and the occasional Democrat-like Republican, something has gone wrong with the model -- it's the brokest state with the lowest credit rating in the brokest country in the world.  Its debt is staggering.

But hell, what's the use of being a liberal Democrat if you can't spend like one.  The Illinois Senate and House, both controlled by Democrats with super-majorities, and the Democrat Illinois governor have just all enacted a new spending bill of about $1.6 billion that the state doesn't have, no doubt all going to Dem constituencies and Dem donors.  Illinois voters sure like Democrats.

That's new Democrat spending of $1.6 billion, after just having fallen further behind in 2012 on state employee pension obligations despite a recent 67% hike in the state personal income tax and an almost 50% hike in the state corporate income tax.  

The Chicago Tribune says (link) the "Republicans decried the measure as including ill-timed, pork barrel money."  So what else is new. 

From a commentator to the Trib article:

$10,000 to the Life Center Church of Deliverance for infrastructure; $28,461 to the Chabad Living Room (?)for infrastructure improvements; $528,000 for Wings Program to buy a building; $225,000 to Fulfilling Our Responsibility Unto Mankind for infrastructure improvements; $100,000 to the Uhlich Children's Advantage Network to buy a building; $1 million to the Children's Museum Foundation to buy a building; $115,000 to the Illinois Basketball Hall of Fame. The list goes on and on. Don't these people know that Illinois is broke? That Illinois owes billions of dollars to doctors, pharmacies and others providing services to residents? Owes billions of dollars to its delinquent pension funds, aka its employees? WTF?

Not for nothing is Chicago's unofficial motto (with outstretched palm) "Where's mine?" as in "Where's my share of the loot?"  Something that can't go on forever won't, and the end to this graft and madness will not be pretty.

John M Greco

Obama's Latest Nominee a Big Obamacare Supporter -- For Her Competitors But Not For Herself

Well, she was for it before she was against it.  She still thinks Obamacare is right for you and me, just not for her.

From the Daily Caller (link):

President Barack Obama’s newly-named nominee to run the Department of the Interior, REI CEO Sally Jewell, sought and received a waiver from Obamacare requirements for her outdoor clothing and equipment company [REI] in 2011....  Obama welcomed Jewell to the White House in 2009 to jointly argue for the passage of Obamacare.  Obama held REI up as a model company.

But after passage, Obamaphile Jewell's not so hot on Obamacare for her own company.  Better that her competitors spend the money to comply.

Two years later, Jewell secured an exemption from the law for REI.  REI received an Obamacare waiver around the same time that nearly 20 percent of the businesses in House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s Northern California district received waivers.

So that's the scam.  Pass an onerous law expensive to comply with, then give your friends, but to be sure not their competitors, a pass.  Reminds me of how the Democrats in Illinois play this same game.  They recently passed an almost 50% hike in the state corporate income tax, then welcomed the stream of supplicants from big companies and selectively passed out various exemptions, all of course behind closed doors.  If you're a midsized Illinois company not making contributions to Democrats, either because of cost or ethics, you're screwed.

John M Greco

Obama Says It Is "Legal, Ethical, and Wise" For Him To Kill Americans (But Bush's Waterboarding Was Reprehensible)

Latest Dispatch from the Obama Wonderland:

It is “legal, ethical and wise” (link; link) to kill American citizens suspected of terrorism on Obama's say-so without a shred of due process, but it is morally reprehensible, if not clearly illegal, for the US government (i.e., George Bush) to waterboard for 10 minutes captured foreign terrorists who are reasonably felt to hold vital information about future terrorist plans.

Perhaps Obama feels he's doing those "suspected" American Muslim terrorists a favor by facilitating their deaths in the cause of jihad, whisking each one to heaven to frolic for eternity with his very own 72 perpetual virgins.  Or maybe Obama feels Americans are better off not trying to capture and interrogate suspected American terrorists and learning their current contacts and future plans, since that could only serve to cause some Neanderthals among us to look askance at a non-assimilated Muslim or two, and what could be worse than that?

Obama's crack team of lawyers say Obama's ordering of killings -- assassinations -- is all fine and dandy under US law, but remember Obama came within a hair of prosecuting Bush lawyers who said waterboarding was OK. 

And countless liberals and foreigners who want George Bush tried as a war criminal for waterboarding say what to all this?  The sound of silence.  

John M Greco

Obama's Ultimate Agenda

Orwellian was the very word that occurred to me when I read how, in his Second Inaugural Address, Obama used the language of America's founding principles in which to couch his socialist, collectivist true agenda, as a kind of misdirection confidence game to fool the rubes, the masses who need governing by wise elites.  For Obama, the Constitutional limitations on government power must be subverted.

The meaning of Obama's speech has been covered by many, of course; some particularly worthwhile analyses are here, here, here, and here.  Now, at National Review Online Michael Auslin has posted a particularly trenchant commentary (link), excerpted here, that to me gets at the root of the matter:

Perhaps the keynote of Obama’s second inaugural address, the Magna Carta of the new liberalism, is this line: “Preserving our individual freedom ultimately requires collective action.”  The line was certainly banal, as well as Orwellian. But it would be a mistake to ignore it as a rhetorical weapon. What Obama hopes to achieve, above and beyond his policy goals, is to move American society to a point where he won’t even have to give lip service to concepts such as “individual freedom,” at least when talking about his statist agenda. Today, he must still use such traditional American concepts, must still appeal to what one hopes is deeply rooted in our national psyche....  While he was certainly more unbound in his second inaugural, ... one can see where he is still constrained, perhaps by an understanding (distasteful to him, no doubt) as to how far he can push without stirring some deeper unease among even those sympathetic to his less far-reaching goals. 

But this is clearly a gambit to shift the country’s political philosophy ... by utilizing the vital role of rhetoric. Changing how we talk is a prerequisite to changing how we think, shaping reality through our words. Over the next four years, how far will Obama, with the support of the media, universities, and popular culture, have succeeding in changing forever our national rhetoric, where the liberal statist conception of the American collectivity supplants our timeless appeal to individual freedom? 

[Obama’s] thrust to more subtly shift how we think of ourselves and our relation to the state is a necessary ingredient for softening current and future opposition to the expansion of government and the dependency society. Even more insidiously, it is a bid to redefine the American character, from which all else flows.

John M Greco

Tough Times in Democrat Utopia Illinois – How’d That Happen? And When's the Rally?

The breakdown of the Democrat Party social model continues apace, and the day of reckoning draws ever near. 

Illinois has just been recognized as the brokest state in the Union, with the worst credit rating of all.  In Chicago, a city with some of the strictest anti-gun regulations in the country, gun violence continues to set new records (link).  No more Second City! 

Illinois should be a liberal paradise after a generation of almost complete control by Democrats and the occasional liberal Democrat-like Republican.  That’s Democrat-like as in fiscal irresponsibility, social license, and corruption. 

The latest skirmish just broke out in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood, home to the private University of Chicago, which has just opened an expensive, new hospital sans a trauma unit.  Even the ultraliberals now in control there understand that shouldering most of the burden on the South Side for caring for gang banger shooting victims is a sure path to bankruptcy, especially since the Democrat-controlled state is beyond broke and can’t even make timely payments on Medicaid claims, the rates for which are of course paltry compared to private insurance. 

Democrats know just what to do, what they’ve been doing for decades about all the serious problems that are much of their own making – hold a protest (link).  But now they’re just protesting against themselves, their own social model, but are too dim to realize it.  Touchingly, a sweet little old white lady from the neighborhood complains that the lack of a trauma center affects not just bullet-ridden black gang bangers but people like her, perhaps though not able to realize that there are likely 25 insurance-less gang banger cases for every one with a patient like herself, who is by the way as a Hyde Parker statistically highly likely to be a lifelong Democrat voter.  Fifty years of destructive liberal social policies and attitudes and excuses have ruined cities and communities, and the money is gone, long gone, and it’s just smoke and mirrors now.  Chicago’s new top cop, a fellow named McCarthy new mayor Emanuel found somewhere on the East Coast, blames (link) racism and Sarah Palin for the escalating gun violence (I kid you not); not mentioned were liberal policies.  Doctors will tell you that effective treatment requires the correct diagnosis, but then these Democrats aren't brain surgeons.  Next up, no doubt – a rally! (link)

John M Greco             

Naked City Redux

In this time of economic instability, escalating global Islamic terrorism, and an increasingly imperial presidency, one savors pleasant distractions wherever they can be found.  In recent months I’ve caught some episodes of the old TV series Naked City, a police drama set in New York City which a cable station has been airing of late. 

The plots often move slowly, but the window into the mores, language, and look of the time, and the many great outdoor shots of NYC, can be captivating.  The show was recognized, even at the time as I vaguely recall, for its gritty realism.  The stories often, if not usually, revolved around the guest stars, and one can see in vivid black and white young actors, unknown at the time, who later became stars; Robert Duvall and Sandy Duncan are two I’ve seen lately.  The writing was character-driven and has a larger component of psychological drama than later cop shows like Kojak (who loves you baby?).  Naked City can seem a bit brooding, almost noirish, as it brought to television a gritty realism, almost documentary-like in parts.  In retrospect, a simpler time, not that they thought so then.

Said the famous voice-over narrator at the end of each episode, referring I presume to the population of New York City:  "There are eight million stories in the Naked City. This has been one of them."  Unfortunately, there turned out to be only 138 of them, all told.

R. Balsamo

Will Illinois Dems Snooker Repubs on Pension Reform? Don't Answer That

Despite a recent 67% hike in the personal income tax flat rate and an almost 50% increase in the corporate income tax rate, Illinois is sinking deeper in debt because the increased revenues are not keeping up with ever-increasing pension payments.  For years, Illinois Democrat politicians, abetted by the occasional Republican, have rewarded their state employee party supporters with salary and benefit packages that are not only higher than the private sector but unaffordable.  For years, in a state that has been dominated by Democrats for generations, Democrat pols have used fiscal chicanery and massive borrowing to hide the debt and delay the day of reckoning.  But that day is just about here.

Per the Wall Street Journal (link) on January 7:

Illinois is wrestling with a $95 billion pension gap that has left it neck-and-neck with California for the worst state credit rating in the country. The Democrat-controlled legislature has been stalled over how to reverse its failure over decades to adequately fund pensions for state workers.... Several states are struggling to right their pension funds, which have been battered by lackluster investment returns, increases in benefits paid out and chronic underfunding. But Illinois stands out as the worst, with only 45% of assets needed to meet future obligations based on 2010 data....

After the Democrat governor and the state House and Senate, both with Democrat super-majorities, failed once again to enact some kind, any kind, of reform, the governor came up with a bold new plan.  A "bipartisan" commission appointed by the super-majority Democrats and the rump band of surviving Republicans that would come up with binding changes.  That's right -- pawn the whole mess off to a committee that Dems would give, for once, equal representation to Republicans so the latter can take equal heat for cuts to the over-generous pension benefits.  Do Democrats possibly think that Illinois Republicans could be stupid enough to fall for such a transparent ploy?  ... Don't answer that question.

From the Chicago Tribune (link) yesterday:

The Illinois House adjourned this afternoon without even voting on Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn's desperation pension reform plan. Quinn threw his support behind a bill that would set up a commission to decide how to fix Illinois' financially failing government worker retirement systems. Conventional efforts to craft a compromise on pension changes have gone nowhere during the lame-duck session. The new measure filed today would set up an eight-member commission appointed by the four legislative leaders. The panel would issue a report on pension system changes that would become law unless the General Assembly voted to overturn it.

One way or another, pensions will be reduced, though I feel for honest retirees.  But public employees vote heavily Democratic, so in some large sense it's their own fault, to say nothing of the rampant abuse like final-year salary spiking that guarantees by formula a higher, undeserved pension.  What is unsustainable will end, and what can't last forever won't.

John M Greco