Obama’s #Occupy army threatened to disrupt and physically assault conservative speakers at the CPAC convention this week in Washington DC. Andrew Breitbart and Newt Gingrich are two conservatives who they will be targeting at the event.

Lachlan Markay at The Foundry reported:

The “Occupy DC” protest group is planning to disrupt the upcoming Conservative Political Action Conference using a range of potentially illegal tactics that could even include violence against participants, Scribe has learned.

The planned disruptions at CPAC come only days after U.S. Park Police raided Occupiers’ tent cities at McPherson Square and Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C., confiscating a number of tents, and prohibiting Occupiers from camping out there any longer.

During a Thursday meeting at McPherson Square, until Saturday the epicenter of the protests, Occupiers brainstormed tactics for shutting down or disrupting the conference, according to a source who was present at the meeting.

The protesters suggested pulling fire alarms in the hotel where the conference will take place, screaming “fire” during conference activities, “glitter-bombing” participants, cutting electrical power, and barricading entrances to the hotel, according to the source, who requested anonymity.

“Speakers will be physically assaulted, not just verbally confronted,” the source told Scribe in an email. Two Occupiers, who the source also identified as members of the New Black Panther Party, “said they would be disappointed if they didn’t get arrested and planned to ‘make it count.’”

The source quoted another protester as saying, “Mitt [Romney] has Secret Service now, but [Newt] Gingrich and [Andrew] Breitbart don’t,” seemingly suggesting that the latter two would not be as heavily guarded.

Protesters planned to conduct most of these activities on Saturday, the last day of the conference, so as not to overlap with the recently announced protests by labor groups on Thursday and Friday.

It’s not yet clear how beating conservatives is supposed to help the #occupy cause. But since when did leftists ever include logic in their decision-making process?

Nevada, or, as I like to call it, “Snowfall,” may be poorly named after the blizzard of ads we’ve been seeing elsewhere in Florida, South Carolina, New Hampshire, and Iowa; but beneath the calmness and lack of exposure is a well-oiled strategic machine that is methodically getting out the vote.

If the latest poll is to be believed, Mitt Romney might just strike political gold in the “Silver State.” Romney is the favorite of 50% of likely GOP caucus-goers, according to the Democratic-leaning polling firm Public Policy Polling. He’s leading his next closest rival, Newt Gingrich, by 25 points. Ron Paul is third at 15 percent, and Rick Santorum is fourth at 8 percent.

Nevada has been particularly hard hit by the economic downturn, with a high number of home foreclosures and an unemployment rate that recently soared to an all-time high of 14.9%. In other words, Nevada’s looking for a turnaround; Nevada Republicans think that the guy who turned around the Olympics next door might be able to help.

For the Mitt supporters out there, Romney is doing especially well in the state that went for Barack Obama in 2008, with 55% of the vote. I quote the PPP poll:

Romney hits the 70% favorability mark in Nevada, something we’ve seen for him in very few states. Just 25% see him unfavorably. That’s partially due to an 89/8 standing with Mormons, but he’s at a still very strong 64/30 with non-Mormons as well. One thing that’s contributing to Romney’s strength in Nevada is a strong advantage on the electability question. 56% think he would be the strongest candidate against Barack Obama this fall with no one else topping 21%.

He has several things going for him that other candidates will have a hard time matching. The first is that a caucus, unlike a primary, discourages turnout, which helps Romney, who has had some of the most predictable polling of any candidate thus far. The second is that a well-organized caucus operation can be “turned on” to win a swing state later on. These two insights were what led Barack Obama, who narrowly lost the caucus to Hilary Clinton, to capture the nomination.

The way to think about Nevada is that it is really three different cultures, all of which are nominally tied together in a distant capital. There are two urban areas—Los Vegas and Reno—and the rest is about as rural as you can. That’s part of the reason it is so hard to poll. This became evident in 2008 when Nevada went 37.4% for Romney when only 5% was predicted.

Las Vegas, Nevada’s biggest city, itself tends to have very low turnout in general. Part of this is the transient population; part of it is also that everyone works all night and sleeps during the day. But there is, at least, on the GOP side, one major exception to this rule: the Mormons. Vegas, as with much of Nevada, was first settled by Mormons as part of the Mormon corridor. Nevada’s two senators, Dean Heller and Harry Reid, are both members of the church of LDS. Reid is a convert and the atypical Mormon Democrat. But even Mormon Democrats look upon Mitt Romney favorably.

But there are two groups that are going to help determine the general election: Latinos and Labor.

If Romney can do as well among Nevada Latinos as he did among Cuban Americans, he will win Nevada in the general election. It is one of the big open questions of this race as to whether or not the son of a Mexican Mormon can defeat the first black president, Barack Obama.

As to the second group, Romney just isn’t going to get the Labor vote, but he can help to fight it by aligning with its biggest foe and his biggest foe’s backer: Sheldon Adelson. Adelson became politically active when the labor unions that wound up endorsing Barack Obama began organizing in front of his non-union hotels. He was miffed, so he began donating to the Republican Party.

Were I Romney, I would make a quiet overture to Sheldon Adelson.  Not only will this suck the oxygen out of the Gingrich campaign—Adelson will be less likely to donate to Gingrich if Romney can show him that there is no space between them on key issues—but it will also send a signal to some of the other casino moguls leery about supporting Romney.

Though Mormons personally oppose much of what Vegas stands for, much of the hotel industry in the city is run and staffed by them. Indeed, Romney’s first name, Willard, comes from J. Willard Marriott, the hotel magnate and best friend to George Romney. Romney sat on the board of the Marriott hotels between 1992 to 2001. He ought to stress that, based upon that experience, he understands the issues facing casino and hotel owners and can fight against the demonization of Las Vegas by Barack Obama.

By focusing on how President Obama’s policies have made Nevada’s recovery nonexistent, Romney can use the springboard of his probable win tomorrow when he comes back in November. As Romney has put it, the economy is “my power alley.”

High School teacher Al Levie refused to accept an MLK award from Rep. Paul Ryan because, well, Paul Ryan is a conservative no matter how Levie tries to frame it. Levie stated that “Paul Ryan has no business being at an MLK event.” That’s a pretty bigoted action.

Levie’s speech can be found here.

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EGT officials say they have not scheduled a date for the ship’s arrival. The freighter is expected to haul thousands of tons of grain to Asia, but opposition groups are already marshaling their forces to support the lengthy protest by union dock workers at the grain terminal.

“We just want to swell the population of the city to show there are people behind us,” said Jeff Washburn, president of the Cowlitz Wahkiakum Central Labor Council, which passed a resolution calling for a protest this week.

He added that the labor council plans no attempt to stop the ship, a sentiment echoed in a similar call for protest by leaders of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union.

However, the Occupy movement it taking a more aggressive stance, calling for members nationwide to gather outside Port of Longview gates and thwart efforts to load the ship, said Paul Nipper, an organizer for Occupy Longview. The group shut down the ports coastwide, including Longview, Dec. 8.

Read more at Longview’s The Daily News.

The implication–brilliantly conveyed, though completely untrue–is that we have a “do-nothing Republican Congress,” though in fact the Republican-controlled House of Representatives has been extremely active.

It would be more accurate to say that we have a “do-nothing Senate“–by design, since it’s clear that the Demcorats’ leaders in the Senate believe that legislative gridlock works to their political advantage. It’s been nearly 1000 days since the Demcorat-controlled Senate even passed a budget–a violation of the Congressional Budget Act.

With tomorrow’s official unemployment number looming, and with today’s ADP employment report for December 2011 suggesting some improvement could be on the way, it’s worth asking what happened to Obama’s “Jobs Bill”–without which, he warned, “there will be fewer jobs.” Voters wanted Washington “to do something big and something bold,” Obama said–even if it was a stimulus packed with boondoggles and bailouts, much like the “Porkulus” that launched the Tea Party.

Lo and behold–there is a little bit of life in the job market; manufacturing is improving moderately; and consumer confidence, while still shaky, is up significantly from where it was when Obama was demanding his jobs bill.

And no jobs bill was enacted.

The American economy, fueled by the irrepressible energy of American entrepreneurs and workers in our still-free economy, is beginning to rebuild–as it likely would have, if it had been allowed to do so.

No doubt Obama will try to take credit for whatever improvement takes place–though the only parts of his jobs bill that passed were approved by the Republican-controlled House, as Democrats in the Senate delayed bringing it to a vote.

The truth is that Obama never cared about passing a jobs bill, and that the legislation was designed to fail. What he wanted–and achieved–was a campaign-worthy confrontation with Congress that has continued to the present day.

But by stopping the jobs bill (a.k.a Porkulus II) in the midst of a debt crisis, and preventing Democrats from raising income tax rates in a weak economy, the “do-nothing [Republican] Congress” created the (relatively) more stable fiscal and economic conditions that have allowed the American economy to regain a bit of its strength and confidence.

The economy is still in awful shape–thanks partly to the damage done by Democrats in the last Congress through ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank; and by hyper-regulation in every domain in which Obama has tried to circumvent the legislature. The Senate’s intransigence on House-approved economic bills is also a major legislative impediment to growth.

But aside from the Democrat-controlled Senate, the “do-nothing Congress” has worked out fairly well. It is certainly better than the “do-everything Congress” that ruled from 2007 to 2011 and which presided over massive job losses, enormous deficits, and expanding regulations.

No more bailouts + no new taxes = better economic prospects.

Two cheers for a “do-nothing Congress”!

UPDATE: The Labor Department reported this morning that the economy added 200,000 jobs in December. While some of these jobs were related to the Holidays and are temporary, it was still a good report overall. Funny how the economic data keep improving the longer Obama’s latest policy proposals languish.

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) – Indiana’s Republican House leader on Tuesday promised swift movement on a push to make his state the first in more than a decade to ban labor contracts that require employees to pay union fees.

Speaker Brian Bosma of Indianapolis told the Associated Press he is confident he can push the “right-to-work” bill through his chamber during the 2012 session that begins Wednesday and is spending a lot “personal capital” to do so.

“We assume nothing,” Bosma said. “I don’t assume we have all the Republicans votes, in fact I know I don’t and I don’t presume we don’t have some Democrat votes either.”

Bosma, who has been the measure’s most ardent supporter, said he hadn’t yet taken a formal tally of supportive votes, but added he “also wouldn’t bring it forward if I wasn’t confident of success.”

The proposal would bar private employee unions from seeking contracts that mandate all workers pay union fees regardless of whether they are members. Supporters say the law would help attract new business to the state. Opponents call it an attempt to weaken organized labor.

Indiana’s House Democrats successfully blocked the measure last year with a five-week walkout that denied House Republicans the numbers needed to conduct daily business. Democratic leaders have so far declined to say whether they’ll walk out again this session.

Read more here. Here’s to hoping they walk out again. An awesome frame for the upcoming election.

RALEIGH — Since as early as January 2011, and perhaps before then, Gov. Bev Perdue’s press office has received access to confidential employment data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics hours if not days before its scheduled release, quite likely in violation of federal law. The governor’s staff used its early access to massage the monthly employment press release that reported jobs data to the public.

Documents and correspondence obtained by Carolina Journal show that the Division of Employment Security, formerly known as the Employment Security Commission, sent a draft of the press release each month to Perdue’s press office. The governor’s spokesmen typically rewrote the text and added a positive spin, even if the data did not support Perdue’s talking points.

The glowing quotes were attributed to Lynn Holmes, director of the employment agency, but the documents show the quotes were approved and probably written by a Perdue press aide, either Chrissy Pearson or Mark Johnson.

In several instances, DES spokesman Larry Parker cautioned Pearson or Johnson against using extraneous or unverifiable information in a release to boost Perdue’s image. At times, the Perdue communications team would push back, and the release would undergo several revisions before final publication.

While the operation may sound like a harmless effort to add political spin to the release of jobs data, sharing confidential BLS estimates while they are protected by an embargo violates a federal law barring the early release of employment data. This is no small matter: A conviction for breaching the Confidential Information Protection and Statistical Efficiency Act of 2002 carries a fine of up to $250,000, up to five years in prison, or both.

The data, including monthly estimates for current job totals, the labor force, and the unemployment rate, are produced by BLS with some minor assistance from the Labor Market Information Division of DES.

Read more here.