If you feel no one has quite captured how you may feel about the ‘Occupiers’, look no further than this. There are seriously no words for how much awesome is packed into this 9 minute rant. That’s really all that can be said about it.

That and I guess we should warn you there’s some foul language contained throughout.

Enjoy as Adam verbally rips them to shreds, explains the problem, then provides us with a solution. (Language Warning…once again for good measure)

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Talk show host Michael Berry alerted us to the upcoming event of the Harris County Democrat Party. One doesn’t have to be a dedicated pro-life activist to find the idea of this event kind of sick. I think even the majority of those who believe abortion services and clinics should be available would agree that an abortion clinic is the wrong venue for a Christmas Party.  (Yes, I realize they say “Holiday Party,” in the invitation below but for the vast majority of Americans, the holiday they celebrate in December is Christmas. Heck, the invitation even used green and red lettering, the traditional colors of Christmas.)

demwomenholidayparty

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In 2010, Governor Quinn signed into law a landmark budget reform law called “Budgeting for Results”.  The goal was quite simple, that spending should be tied to measurable goals of the state and that funding should change according to what best achieves those goals.  It was designed to promote transparency and accountability in the many agencies and programs of the state forcing them to measure the effectiveness of their programs with an eye of weeding out those programs that achieve little to nothing for the taxpayer.

That was the stated goal at least.  Now that the first report has been issued by the Budget for Results Commission, we see that it wasn’t about spending reform at all.  It’s about yet another attempt to justify increased mandated and structural spending at a time when Illinois has already passed a 67% income tax hike and is still operating a deficit.

Here is what the commission says about their goal:

Budgeting for Results changes the way the State allocates resources across government agencies. Rather than setting budgets agency by agency based on historic funding levels, BFR allocates resources based on state-wide goals.

…

Measurement is crucial to accountability and transparency. Reliable data and analysis are essential to inform funding decisions and make sure taxpayers see the impact of their tax dollars.

It all sounds good, so far.  In fact, it sounds downright reasonable.  Government has to do things and spending should be calibrated to do those things as efficiently as possible.

So what was the very first recommendation of this august panel to deal with a state that has a chronic and uncontrolled spending problem?

Recommendation 1:

Establish a seventh Result to acknowledge the importance of ensuring that all Illinois residents have access to quality, affordable health care, and to recognize medical assistance distinct from the human service goals. Separating costs will provide greater transparency to spending on Medicaid and spending on other human service activities. The newest Result area recommended is:

All Illinois residents have access to quality affordable health care.

You read that right.

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MUSKEGON, Mich. – We’ve always known that teachers unions are very political organizations, and many of their more radical members are active in left-wing causes.

That’s their right, as long as they pursue their activities after school.

But more and more American K-12 teachers are bringing their politics into the classroom, brazenly acknowledging their effort to indoctrinate and recruit a new generation of radical, anti-American students.

“The long period of self-censorship among educators regarding class and labor issues may no longer hold,” wrote radical educator Rob Linne in his book “Organizing the Curriculum.”

“We cannot claim to be teaching for social justice if we ignore the class warfare being waged all around us. Bringing labor into the arena of K-12 education will undoubtedly meet political resistance, but an increasing number of educators are motivated to take up the challenge.”

That frightening approach to teaching is what motivated Education Action Group to publish a new book titled “Indoctrination: How ‘Useful Idiots’ are Using Our Schools to Subvert American Exceptionalism.”

You can watch a short promotional video for the book by clicking here.

The book, authored by EAG Chief Executive Officer Kyle Olson, with assistance from staffers Ben Velderman and Steve Gunn, is available on Amazon.com.

It explores dozens of examples of radical public school teachers and their politically active unions taking liberty with our children by teaching left-wing philosophy as fact.

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From Accuracy in Media’s Benjamin Johnson and Logan Churchwell:

Now that the holidays and winter weather are upon us, it will be a critical time for the Occupy Movement. Will they continue to slum in public (and private) parks illegally, or do they go back to their parent’s house? But more important, will unions of all kinds dedicate work days and member dues to pick up the slack? Accuracy in Media has found lately that the AFL-CIO, CWA, SEIU and others are more than willing to co-opt the movement.

Accuracy in Media has documented and captured additional footage of unions looking to take advantage of the movement, but this is the most blatant collusion to date. The combined efforts of labor, churches and academia have reminded us all what an AstroTurf movement looks like; despite the conventional media narrative.

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Pejman Yousefzadeh and Kevin Holtsberry are joined by Hunter Baker to discuss the eventful and impactful books they read in 2011 including autobiographies of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Condeleza Rice; the growth – and subsequent persecution – of the church in China; and more.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

Hunter Baker
No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington
Known and Unknown: A Memoir
In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir
God Is Red: The Secret Story of How Christianity Survived and Flourished in Communist China
American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us
Adventures of an Accidental Sociologist: How to Explain the World Without Becoming a Bore
Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, Book 3)

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The hosts and guests of Coffee and Markets speak only for ourselves, not any clients or employers.

From the The Telegraph (UK):

The Bank of England and central banks in the United States, eurozone, Japan, Switzerland and Canada have launched co-ordinated global action to ease a growing credit crisis among eurozone banks.

“The purpose of these actions is to ease strains in financial markets and thereby mitigate the effects of such strains on the supply of credit to households and businesses and so help foster economic activity,” the Bank of England said in a statement.

The central banks are providing liquidity to the financial system by lowering the price on existing dollar swaps, making it easier for banks to get access to dollars.

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With the Occupy movement becoming increasingly confrontational nationwide, there are indications that the anti-capitalist movement is turning violent deliberately.  The adroit agitators intermixed among the idealistic but misguided young people, the street radicals bent above all on attacking the U.S. economic system, see violent revolution as a key route to the transformation of our country into their version of the socialist utopia.

A look at the organizers of the most recent pre-planned Day of Action spotlights a large, radical group, a latter-day Red Army of seasoned activists who have been discreetly guiding Occupy since the movement’s onset and whose history is colored with previous mayhem while their plans for the immediate future raise serious questions. Just yesterday, the Occupy movement posted online plans for “alternative forms of protest,” including flash mobs that can be deployed nationwide.

Just over a week ago, Occupy Wall Street held a three-day “Direct Action Preparation and Training” course in downtown Manhattan to gear up for the latest round of riots, including last Thursday’s three-course meal of in-your-face tactics aiming to block subways and bridges as well as shut down the stock market.

Revealingly, official resources provided on the Occupy site as part of the planning for last week’s chaos shows several manuals from the Ruckus Society, whose mission is to provide “environmental, human rights, and social justice organizers with the tools, training, and support needed to achieve their goals”; this includes training radical activists in direct action techniques.

The same Ruckus Society that helped to spark the 1999 World Trade Organization protests in Seattle, which devolved into violent unrest, was listed as a “friend and partner” for last week’s Day of Action.

The Ruckus training manuals provided at the Occupy site leave little to the imagination. Titles include: “Blockading for Beginners,” “Anonymous Riot Guide,” “Define White Supremacy,” “Uncle Sam the Pusher Man” and, of course, the (still!) Communist Party-connected National Lawyers Guild’s “Legal Observer Manual.”

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Listening to the current debate on immigration within the Republican ranks, one would think that demons occupy either side. Proponents of amnesty or quasi-amnesty (or anything that could even marginally be construed as any form of amnesty) are targeted with insults challenging their conservative credentials and sense of justice. On the opposite extreme, hard-liners are labeled “haters”, “heartless”, and anti-immigration, their compassion questioned and grotesquely distorted.

Both of these extremes do great disservice to the party. Conservatives need to avoid painting caricatures of each other. These insults weaken the party, prevent reasoned debate, and offer Democrats potential talking points like Christmas presents wrapped with silver bows.

The immigration debate involves many principles worthy of serious discussion. The two most important—often exaggerated or underestimated by opponents and the media—are justice and compassion.

The principle of justice is intimately connection to the rule of law. Those who prioritize justice above all focus on the following question: Does a sovereign nation like the United States have the right to set immigration policy and, as a result, remove any and all breakers of immigration law, even if certain persons have lived in the United States for decades, have contributed to society, and attend church? Hardline conservatives answer with an impassioned and simple “yes”.

Many conservatives, on the other hand, believe that the primary concern in the immigration issue should be compassion. Presumably, many consider it immoral to deport whole swaths of people from their homes, especially those hardworking and otherwise moral people who have resided here for decades and who have contributed something important to society. Many undoubtedly are interested in garnering support specifically from the Latino community, hoping that the fastest growing minority voting bloc could be swayed by compassionate immigration policy.

The crucial point here is that for those whose number one priority is justice, compassion is not unimportant. Conversely, those who emphasize compassion generally do not dismiss the rule of law. It appears that Newt Gingrich, for example, seeks to prioritize both. Many hardline conservatives appeared crestfallen by their interpretation of his immigration policy, which equated a plea for compassion with amnesty. But Gingrich never suggested that compassion should trump justice—only that it should be a crucial consideration.

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From the Associated Press:

More than 1,400 police officers, some in riot gear, cleared the Occupy Los Angeles camp early Wednesday, driving protesters from a park around City Hall and arresting more than 200 who defied orders to leave. Similar raids in Philadelphia led to 50 arrests, but the scene in both cities was relatively peaceful.

Police in Los Angeles and Philadelphia moved in on Occupy Wall Street encampments under darkness in an effort to clear out some of the longest-lasting protest sites since crackdowns ended similar occupations across the country.

Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck praised the officers and the protesters for their restraint and the peaceful way the eviction was carried out.

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Always happy to attack Big Labor’s enemies, Sherrod Brown (D-OH) did so from the Senate floor during the debate over Craig Becker’s appointment to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). After being placed during a recess, Becker has driven NLRB’s lurch to the Progressive fringe, shoring up the power of key Democratic Party donors at the expense of workers and businesses across the country.

The Progressive fringe is Sherrod Brown’s wheelhouse (he is, after all, America’s left-most senator), so here is Sherrod’s response to complaints about Becker’s work for the union bosses NLRB oversees:

Whining that conservatives call his Socialist beliefs Socialist is a well Sherrod visits often, and Becker has helped Sherrod look ridiculous yet again. Poor, moderate, sensible Becker, before his recess appointment and subsequent bureaucratic rampage, was described thus by The Hill:

He is an adamant supporter of card-check legislation — a proposal that allows unions to form more easily, supported by the White House — and has done considerable work for the AFL-CIO and the Service Employees International Union.

Republicans pointed to Becker’s glaring conflicts of interest, and Sherrod Brown’s rebuttal was to cry foul and call names. Anyone following the NLRB for the past two years knows how that turned out.

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There is almost no way the Euro can survive. What is unknown is how bad the consequences will be.

On Sunday, former Secretary of State under George Bush, and purported Conservative visited with Christiane Amanpour on the Sunday news show This Week. Powell made some interesting comments about America’s founding fathers and compromise.

The federal government is in the midst of a crackdown on medical marijuana dispensaries across the state of California.

This is despite repeated claims from President Obama and his Department of Justice that they would not devote federal resources to circumventing state medical marijuana laws.

“The law has been hijacked by profiteers who are motivated not by compassion, but by money,” said Melinda Haag, one of California’s U.S. Attorneys, at a DOJ press conference on October 11, 2011.

Aaron Sandusky, owner of G3 Holistic, a group of medical marijuana dispensaries in California’s Inland Empire, is one such target of the DOJ’s crackdown on medical marijuana “profiteers.” The DOJ sent him a letter promising to shut down his operations within 14 days. And they followed through.

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Welcome to Wisconsin. Home of recallmania.

As the unions strike back against the governor who forced them to ask permission to collect dues from public employees, controversy over the ongoing recall process is emerging. One liberal organization is saying people have a right to sign more than one recall petition. The state regulators admit it’s true, they have that right and although only one signature per eligible voter is supposed to be counted as vaild, their temporary workers won’t be accountable for finding duplicates.

Huh?

This MacIver News’ report provides the details.

The state board overseeing the potential recall election of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker tells the MacIver News Service that they will rely upon temporary workers to scrutinize recall petitions and those individuals will not be expected to catch any duplicate signatures submitted by recall organizers.

This revelation comes as one statewide liberal group is actively promoting the collection of duplicate signatures, paving the way for a lengthy process wherein Walker supporters will challenge the validity of the recall petitions.

One Wisconsin Now, a liberal non-profit, posted on its website “you can circulate or sign a recall petition even if you have already signed another recall petition.”

This advice, however, will complicate the signature challenge process and runs counter to the advice of nonpartisan state election regulators.

“While it is not illegal to sign more than once, we do not suggest people sign a second time unless they have good reason to believe the first petition they signed was somehow fraudulent,” Reid Magney, GAB Spokesman.

One Wisconsin Now follows their advice with this disclaimer: “[N]ote, however, that only one signature per person will be counted,”

That is not necessarily true.

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From the Desert News:

With the release of a new book, ongoing protests and recent reports about Congressional insider trading and stimulus corruption, the phrase “crony capitalism” is getting noticed.

When Occupy Memphis members met with tea party members on Nov. 17, the Associated Press reported they found common ground in their opposition to crony capitalism, where ties between lobbyists, businesses and other interests influence government and hurt free-market capitalism.

“We all want the same form of government, which is one that listens to its constituents,” protester Tristan Tran told tea party members.

“It sounds to me that you all ought to be joining us,” tea party member Jerry Rain said. “You have a lot of the same goals we have.”

Crony capitalism is the dark side of American politics and economics, Jeffrey Sachs writes at The Huffington Post.

“The level of corruption in Washington is staggering, growing, and rife in both parties,” Sachs says. “The White House and Congress dispense billions of dollars of favors to political supporters like a non-stop vending machine.” (more…)

Michelle Malkin reports today, based on the Obama administration’s latest document dump of visitor logs, that convicted fraudster and community organizer Robert Creamer has visited the White House sixty times since January 2009–five times in August 2011 alone.

As first reported at Big Government, Creamer is the apparent architect of the Democrats’ political strategy for imposing Obamacare on the nation, composing a “blueprint”–that was later endorsed by high-level Obama advisers–while he was in federal prison. Creamer also claims to have been “one of the major architects of the successful 2005 campaign to defeat the Bush plan to privatize of Social Security.” In 2010, Creamer led efforts to rally the Democratic base by demonizing Republicans and making wildly optimistic predictions of victory:

Big Government also reported in May that Creamer, who worked for the Obama campaign in 2008, has also set up a nationwide political consulting firm to provide field operations and propaganda for Obama and the Democrats in the 2012 elections.

The timing of the August 2011 efforts is particularly interesting, given Creamer’s efforts this fall to promote the Occupy Wall Street movement and to target Bank of America in particular. Creamer told the New York Times in October that he hoped the Occupy movement would “inspire the progressive base” and help President Obama frame the issues for his re-election campaign. (more…)

I’ve been called many things in the last two weeks  with the release of my new book Throw Them All Out by politicians from both political parties, but never a “sock puppet.”

That is how Robert Kennedy Jr. has chosen to respond to my book Throw Them All Out where I disclose the fact that a politically-connected solar company called Brightsource  (of which Mr. Kennedy’s firm is the largest investor) landed a sweetheart billion-dollar plus taxpayer-guaranteed loan.

What has been so remarkable to me with the reaction to the book is the incredible disconnect between those on the inside getting these deals and those of us on the outside watching the rich getting rich with our money.   I think the vast majority of people had no problem with the late Steve Jobs getting fabulously wealthy.  He simply provided products and services people wanted.  But those getting richer courtesy of our money and special loans? People are sick of it.

The bottom line is that Brightsource Energy got a sweetheart deal and it did so thanks to political connections. This is a company that admittedly has huge problems.

Kennedy never disputes that Brightsource got the money, nor that a former Principal at his firm, Sanjay Wagle, was a fundraiser for Obama and went to work in the Department of Energy’s alternative energy grant program after the 2008 election.   Nor does he dispute that Brightsource admitted in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that the Ivanpah project is highly risky, or that Brightsource is in financial trouble.  (The company is $1.8 billion in debt,  had total revenue of just $13.5 million in 2010 and ran an operating loss of $71 million.)  The company openly admits that its technology may not perform as planned and that it faces technological challenges.  It’s also curious to note on the SEC filing (on page 42 linked above) that Brightsource is spending almost six times as much on “marketing, general and administrative” costs than research and development. And more than twice in those areas than it is spending on project development. Does this sound like a company that could survive without taxpayer money?

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Dinesh D’Souza once said of Richard Dawkins’ problematic references to history that, “This is what happens when you let a biology major out of the lab.”

D’Souza was on to something, especially judging from a recent Slate article written by famous Harvard biologist and professor Martin Nowak and Harvard postdoctoral fellow David Rand. In it, they explain that America needs “motivation” when it comes to reducing it’s carbon footprint. This article has everything that makes conservatives squirm: love of the Prius, hardcore environmentalism, and longing for absurd government regulation. See for yourself [Caution NSFL - Not Safe For Libertarians]:

This is, after all, the end of the world we are talking about, so why stop there? Why not go full Scarlet Letter? People with more than 2 kids should have to carry signs with them apologizing for over populating our sensitive planet. People who can’t afford $25,000 hybrids, lets call them the “commons”, need to be branded with a “I Cause Cancer” stamp on their forehead.  And if you don’t recycle, Gaia forbid, you should go straight to jail. Wouldn’t that “motivate people to reduce their carbon footprint”?

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