Say Anything Blog

Glenn Spencer puts the coercion and thuggery behind the horribly misnamed “Employee Free Choice Act” into perspective.

Today, unions represent a scant 7.5 percent of private-sector workers, with the rest of their members employed in government, their only significant growth market. Demographically, the news is even worse: The largest single group of union members is between the ages of 45 and 54, nearing retirement — while just 6 percent of unionized workers are between 16 and 24.

Sadly, many unions seem to be choosing government power and restrictive legislation as their way out of the wilderness, instead of enhancing their value proposition. . . .

What makes this massive political spending so concerning is the element of coercion that lies behind labor’s political agenda. The centerpiece of that agenda is the Employee Free Choice Act, a masterpiece of Orwellian doublespeak.

The act would effectively strip workers of the protection of secret ballots in union certification elections. Replacing the privacy of the voting booth, workers would be asked to publicly sign cards indicating support for a union, exposing them to harassment and intimidation. Unions could badger workers repeatedly, at work and at home, to sign a card acquiescing to representation and, in most cases, employers would have limited ability to give workers their side of the story.

There’s not a lot of “free choice” in the “Employee Free Choice Act” and the unions like that just fine.

As Rob reported the other day, the new Scott Hennen show is starting off with a bang next Monday.  Scott’s going to have Presidential Candidate John McCain on his show.  Scott’s soliciting questions from the public to ask the Senator.

Now I could submit my questions but I don’t think that my questions would be asked.  I expect that Scott will pick someone with a question like “How do we beat Obama?”.  Scott’s in the McCain camp and he’s not going to ask him a question from the conservative point of view.  Of course it’s Scott’s show and he can do what he wants.

But I think some hard questions from the conservative side would be a good thing for McCain.  After all McCain’s got problems with the base.  He needs to campaign to us to. 

I got to thinking what question I would ask if I had the chance.  Now I’d want to stay away from the ‘gotcha’ type, but the Senator isn’t above being challenged.

The questions I can think of would go along the line of this:

You’ve said that you wouldn’t support legislation allowing illegal aliens to stay in the county until the border was secure.  Exactly how would you certify that the border was secure before signing any legislation?

You’ve expressed support for global warming legislation.  Does the fact that the Earth hasn’t warmed for ten years and that 2007 was one of the coolest winters on record make you think the matter deserves more study before we act?

While we’re on the subject of global warming legislation.  Polls have shown that the public is unwilling to pay more for gasoline or electricity to combat global warming.  On the other hand studies show that your cap and trade legislation will nearly double the price of those energy supplies.  How do you convince cash strapped families that they need to sacrifice so much for something that’s unproven?

Senator 30,000 scientists have signed the Oregon petition saying that climate science cannot guarantee that the global warming theories are correct.  Does this make you reconsider your position on global warming?

Won’t doubling the cost of energy result in the loss of jobs in this country?  (Follow-up question if he brings up his ridiculous statement that his cap and trade legislation will create jobs.) What economic theory says that increasing the costs of an activity results in more of that activity?

That’s the questions I can come up without resorting to zingers.  What would you ask Sen. McCain?

Why are these goons people not in prison?

A police SWAT team raided the home of the mayor in the Prince George’s County town of Berwyn Heights on Tuesday, shooting and killing his two dogs, after he brought in a 32-pound package of marijuana that had been delivered to his doorstep, police said.

Actually the police delivered it to his doorstop. 

Calvo described a chaotic scene, in which he—wearing only underwear and socks—and his mother-in-law were handcuffed and interrogated for hours. They were surrounded by the dogs’ carcasses and pools of the dogs’ blood, Calvo said.

Spokesmen for the Sheriff’s Office and Prince George’s police expressed regret yesterday that the mayor’s dogs were killed. But they defended the way the raid was carried out, saying it was proper for a case involving such a large amount of drugs.

Where I read about this story I read that the police had not received a no knock warrant nor notified the local police as they are supposed to.  The authorities have arrested an employee of the package delivery company who apparently was part a ring that shipped drugs via the package company diverting shipments before they could be diverted. 

So why are the cops who illegally broke into an house and shot the family’s dogs not in jail on a felony terrorizing charge?

This sounds pretty sinister...

Nearly 10,000 of the biggest donors to Republican candidates and causes across the country will probably receive a foreboding “warning” letter in the mail next week.

The letter is an opening shot across the bow from an unusual new outside political group on the left that is poised to engage in hardball tactics to prevent similar groups on the right from getting off the ground this fall.

Led by Tom Matzzie, a liberal political operative who has been involved with some prominent left-wing efforts in recent years, the newly formed nonprofit group, Accountable America, is planning to confront donors to conservative groups, hoping to create a chilling effect that will dry up contributions.

“We want to stop the Swift Boating before it gets off the ground,” said Mr. Matzzie, who described his effort as “going for the jugular.”

The warning letter is intended as a first step, alerting donors who might be considering giving to right-wing groups to a variety of potential dangers, including legal trouble, public exposure and watchdog groups digging through their lives.

So if you, as a private citizen, make a contribution to a group these guys don’t like they’ll come after you.  They’ll sue you.  They’ll try to embarrass you.  And they’re telling you this ahead of times in the hopes of coercing you into not supporting political groups with your money.

Does this sort of thuggery and intimidation really have a place in American politics?  Outside of the obvious chilling effect it would have on free political speech (and yes, political contributions are an extension of free speech) if these guys have any sort of success all it’s going to do is drive currently relatively transparent political contributions underground.

Rather than openly supporting candidates and political causes big-money donors will instead try to hide their support.  I don’t think that’s something that benefits any of us.

Your tax dollars hard at work.

The folks at Time think McCain is calling Obama “an antichrist” in this ad called “The One.”

Is McCain calling Obama “the antichrist?” Of course not.  Instead he’s poking a bit of fun at the cult of personality that has sprung up around Obama.  His followers treat him like a savior.  Oprah herself calls him “the one.”

If that’s not worth of mocking, I don’t know what is.

If anything, I think the folks at Time are reacting more to their own embarrassment at being called out for treating Obama like a messiah than anything else.

This isn’t going to end well.

(via Red Planet Cartoons)

The word “propaganda” has been tossed around in a few threads, and quite frankly, if Inigo Montoya were here, I’m sure he’d say:

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

For an example of real propaganda, we turn to the Main Stream Media’s treatment of the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) as it pertains to oil drilling. These pictures should come as no surprise to anyone, but when the MSM speaks of those wascally Wepubwiccans wanting to drill in the “pristine” wildlife refuge, they typically show pictures like these:

When the reality is…

This is so stupid:

It’s taken time, but Sen. McCain and his party have finally found—in energy—an issue that’s working for them. Riding voter discontent over high gas prices, the GOP has made antidrilling Democrats this summer’s headlines. . . .

Still, it was probably too much to assume every Republican would work out that their side was winning this issue. And so, last Friday, in stumbled Sens. Lindsey Graham, John Thune, Saxby Chambliss, Bob Corker and Johnny Isakson—alongside five Senate Democrats. This “Gang of 10” announced a “sweeping” and “bipartisan” energy plan to break Washington’s energy “stalemate.” What they did was throw every vulnerable Democrat, and Mr. Obama, a life preserver. . . .

That’s because the plan is a Democratic giveaway. New production on offshore federal lands is left to state legislatures, and then in only four coastal states. The regulatory hurdles are huge. And the bill bars drilling within 50 miles of the coast—putting off limits some of the most productive areas. Alaska’s oil-rich Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is still a no-go.

The highlight is instead $84 billion in tax credits, subsidies and federal handouts for alternative fuels and renewables. The Gang of 10 intends to pay for all this in part by raising taxes on . . . oil companies! The Sierra Club couldn’t have penned it better.

So the plan from this “gang of ten” is to create massive new subsidies for the biofuel industry (which will do nothing to help fuel prices), funded by massive new taxes on the oil industry (something that’s only going to exacerbate the gas price problem) and in exchange Americans would get only marginal progress toward opening up more land for domestic oil drilling.

Sound like a good deal?  It’s not.  So why are these Republicans on board with it?  Lindsey Graham is from South Carolina.  John Thune is from South Dakota.  Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson are from Georgia.  Bob Corker is from Tennessee.  Every one of these states has a significant base of agriculture that’s tied in with the ethanol industry.  What these guys are doing is putting what’s best for the ethanol lobbyists, who are no doubt regular visitors to their offices, over what is best for the country.

Jake Tapper of ABC News reports:

Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign appears reluctant to have any sort of roll call vote at the Democratic convention this month. Why? They have no interest in highlighting the narrowness of his victory.

This would mean the first Democratic convention without a roll call vote since President Lyndon Johnson ran unopposed for reelection in 1964.

”highlighting the narrowness of his victory” In other words, if this candidate smells like three day old fish to the Democrats, why should the rest of the country vote for him? Patterico quotes Denis Keohane, on the possible strategic missteps of O’blurry within his own party :

“It looks like Obama’s belief in his inevitability may have led him into a blunder, making it easier for Hillary supporters to prevent a nomination on the first ballot. After that point, anything goes, as all super delegates and many pledged delegates are free to vote their preferences.

Maybe Obama’s pandering to the center/right in recent weeks has weakened him with his far Left, Move-On dot troofer moonbat base, giving them second thoughts about the Obamessiah? Would enough superdelegates sit out the first roll call to throw the nomination into a free for all? This could be a very entertaining convention!
(For the Republicans!)

I like the way Mr. Tapper ends his piece:

Kumbaya, my Lord. Kumbaya. Oh, Lord, Kumbaya.

Hat tip Patterico’s Pontifications
Cross Posted at Proof Positive

From The Houston Chronicle.

The Emperor is gone. So is Cyber Wabbit.

Three years after Houston police seized these and hundreds of other sex toys worth $50,000 from the Adult Video Megaplexxx, the devices may be missing from the department’s property room.

The discovery came to light when a lawyer for the adult-entertainment shop sought to reclaim the 564 items that the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently declared legal to sell.

After initially telling attorney Richard Kuniansky the sex toys would be returned, Houston police then said they were destroyed.

“They said no problem you can send somebody by to pick them up, and then we get another call and it’s ‘Whoops, we don’t have them,’ “ Kuniansky said.

Kuniansky said police told him they were destroyed, but he doubts that explanation.

“There is apparently no court order authorizing destruction of the property or any record of what happened to the property,” he said.

A check of Harris County court files did not turn up a destruction order in any of the cases involving the store’s employees.

A Houston Chronicle request to interview a police supervisor who could discuss the toys’ whereabouts was not immediately answered.

Its probably just as well that the Appeals Court threw out the charges in this case.  The best the prosecution could have hoped for was a hung jury.

I’m no fan of John McCain, but I sure don’t think the fact that John McCain got a divorce from his first wife should matter that much.

First of all if you don’t want to vote for McCain there are plenty of policy problems to focus on. 

Secondly they got divorced after he spent his years as a prisoner of war.  During this time she had a life changing auto accident.  There were some issues about how he went about it, but the bottom line is that they were two different people when they were reunited. 

“he is a leader...we know that he’ll be doing astounding things for years to come...”

Hat tip Hot Air
Cross Posted at Proof Positive

Despite the best efforts of Democrats to paint McCain as the “Exxon candidate” it turns out that the money Obama has taken from the oil industry hasn’t been at all insignificant:

Through June, Exxon employees have given Obama $42,100 to McCain’s $35,166. Chevron favors Obama $35,157 to $28,500, and Obama edges out McCain with BP $16,046 vs. $11,500. McCain leads the money race with nearly every other top giver in the oil and gas industry, though — Koch Industries, Valero, Marathon Oil, Occidental Petroleum, ConocoPhillips, the list goes on. (You can see detail on all these companies in the spreadsheet linked below.) McCain also has a big edge with Hess Corp. — $91,000 to Obama’s $8,000 — which has gotten some attention. And, overall, McCain’s campaign has gotten three times more money from the industry than Obama’s has — $1.3 million compared to about $394,000.

Comparing Obama’s and McCain’s financial ties to the oil industry, there’s no question that McCain has benefited more from the industry’s contributions, just as his Republican Party has for years and years. But Obama’s edge with the oil producers Americans know best — and might be cursing most these days — makes it harder for him to continue to tar McCain as the industry’s darling.

I actually don’t see what the big deal is.  Pretty much every single citizen in this country does regular business with the oil companies.  They’re providing us with goods and services at an overall profit margin that’s much, much smaller than most other industries.  And the political contributions the companies, and their employees, are making to both candidates are perfectly legal and totally transparent.

So what’s the big deal?  I know it’s hip on the left to hate oil companies, but as I’ve asked before: Are we really supposed to believe that “big oil” is so inherently evil that the mere act of accepting perfectly legal political contributions from the industry is in and of itself enough to tarnish a candidate’s reputation?

If it is, Obama’s should be about as tarnished as McCain’s.

I’d entitle this one “It’s good to be home.”

From Alex Castellanos, writing at HufPo:

To earn the Democratic nomination, as Fred Thompson points out, Obama ran as George McGovern without the experience, a left-of-center politician who would meet unconditionally with Iran, pull us precipitously out of Iraq, prohibit new drilling for oil, and grow big government in Washington by all but a trillion dollars. In his general election TV ad debut, however, Obama pirouetted like Baryshnikov. With a commercial Mike Huckabee could have run in a Republican primary, Obama now emphasizes his commitment to strong families and heartland values, “Accountability and self-reliance. Love of country. Working hard without making excuses.” In this yet unwritten chapter of his next autobiography, Obama tells us he is the candidate of “welfare to work” who supports our troops and “cut taxes for working families.” The shift in his political personae has been startling. Obama has moved right so far and so fast, he could end up McCain’s Vice-Presidential pick.

General-election Obama now billboards his doubts about affirmative action. He has embraced the Bush Doctrine of pre-emption saying, “I will do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon...everything.” He tells his party “Democrats are not for a bigger government.” Oil drilling is a consideration. His FISA vote and abandonment of public campaign finance introduce us to an Obama of recent invention. And as he abandons his old identity for the new, breeding disenchantment among his formerly passionate left-of-center supporters and, equally, doubts among the center he courts, he risks becoming nothing at all, a candidate who is everything and nothing in the same moment. In one of the most powerful marketing books of the past few years, Authenticity, an exploration of our demand for what’s real in an increasingly contrived world, authors Gilmore and Pine quote philosophy professor Crispin Sartwell about Al Gore. “Every attempt to regain authenticity,” Crispin says, “only casts a new, infinitely repeated image through the hall of mirrors that is his political life and our media experience of that life.” Those reflections set the authenticity of John McCain in high-relief. McCain has revealed himself to his core.

In the defining moment of his life, McCain was willing to give everything for one thing, and that one thing was his country. Contrast that with Obama, who has told America that he is “a proud citizen of the United States and a fellow citizen of the world.” Obama is the talented salesman who seduced one state after another saying “Iowa, this is our moment,” “Virginia, this is our moment,” “Texas, this is our moment,” and then tells Europe, “people of Berlin, people of the world, this is our moment.” How many times can Barack Obama sell the same moment to everyone, before he becomes Mel Brooks in “The Producers”? Who is Barack Obama? His campaign, as it reupholsters him before our eyes, says we can never know—perhaps because Barack Obama does not know himself.

Dreams from My Father is a staggeringly beautiful book, lyrical, powerful and poetic. It is also the story of a man who has been many men, all named Barack Obama. In his own eyes, he is one race, but also another. He is an American, but also a Kenyan. He is from Hawaii and also the Kansas heartland. He is Harvard elite, then the Chicago streets. At times he decries the very clay from which he was made, only to remake himself again…

John McCain is a complete and well-formed man. Barack Obama is completing himself. As he moves to fit what he perceives to be a right-of-center country, he distances himself from the simple and authentic passion of a young candidate who once pledged “Change We Can Believe In.”

This is the trap Barack Obama has made for himself, the one he cannot escape, the one Hillary Clinton foresaw, the one that may doom him. The Obama campaign knows it too. In fear the dream is being lost drop-by-drop, they are going negative on John McCain.

Read the whole thing.  There is no “there” there with Barack Obama.  Only dreams.  Its not enough.

You can read the whole thing here.

I haven’t read it all yet, but the bit about the second amendment jumped out at me:

We recognize that the right to bear arms is an important part of the American tradition, and we will preserve Americans’ continued Second Amendment right to own and use firearms. We believe that the right to own firearms is subject to reasonable regulation, but we know that what works in Chicago may not work in Cheyenne.

As Marc Ambinder notes, that’s quite a change from the 2004 platform which read simply: “...we will protect Americas’ Second Amendment rights to own firearms.”

In the wake of the Heller decision is it really a good thing for Democrats to go wobbly on gun rights?

And what’s this “what’s right for Chicago may not be right for Cheyenne” business?  Are citizens in Chicago somehow less endowed with a right to keep and bear arms than the people of Cheyenne?

This smacks of policy set by political expedience and not, you know, what’s actually in the Constitution.

This bit on abortion jumped out at me too:

The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports...Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to choose a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay, and we oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right.

If I’m reading that right, Obama is proposing that women don’t just have a right to murder their unborn children (which is disputable in and of itself) but also a right to demand that other people pay for it.

I’d note that my right to keep and bear arms is actually in the Constitution (unlike abortion), but I’m not expecting my fellow taxpayers to subsidize my ammo purchases.

If you’ll scroll down on the front page of this blog you’ll find a video of Obama saying that America just ain’t what it used to be. And guess what?

He’s right.

Just a short while back it would have been impossible for a black man or woman of any color to have been serious contenders for the office of President of the United States. Now it’s not only possible - it’s now history. It just happened, and will happen again.

Not too long ago people had to march by the thousands to ensure that minorities got the right to drink out the same water fountains, sit at the same lunch counters, be educated, and vote like the rest of the folks.

Just two generations ago diseases like polio crippled thousands.

Once upon a time pollution was unchecked. Industries and private citizens dumped chemicals and waste into the water without a thought. The Cuyahoga River even caught fire.

Fifty years ago being a black senator or mayor or general or governor would have been an impossible task.

Anyone over the age of forty can remember when a woman running a major corporation or doing something like, oh, being the Secretary of State, would have been an nearly impossible dream.

The standard of living in America is truly incredible for the vast majority of people. Nearly everyone has a cell phone, and if they don’t personally have the internet they have access to it through, of all places, the public library.

And the list goes on and on and on. So...Obama, when he says it just isn’t the same country as it used to be, is right. 

He just doesn’t seem to know how right he is.

In a recent OpEd, CNBC business reporter Charlie Gasparino nails the economic disaster that awaits us if Obama is elected president and his economic policies are enacted by a gleefully fiscal-illiterate Congress.

(I)t’s hard to see how a President Obama would be good for Wall Street. He wants to raise the capital-gains tax to a whopping 28 percent from the current 15 percent. That’d be great for the tax-shelter business, but stocks would tank…

At bottom, Obama is about taxing wealth creation - not the piles of cash these guys have already accumulated.

He won’t have an opposition Congress to restrain him. With Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi in charge there, Obama can and will tax and spend as he wants.

Wall Street traders are a gloomy lot these days given all the writedowns, losses and layoffs, but Obama makes them especially queasy. Many traders I speak to think the markets have yet to fully digest the impact of Obama’s economic plan on stock prices. The guess is that it will hit after Labor Day, when the campaigning picks up and traders stop taking Fridays off to hit the Hamptons.

In others words, the markets could fall further from their already beaten-down levels once the street begins to focus on an Obama presidency.

Wait, you say: Wall Street’s woes don’t necessarily translate into Main Street problems. The markets can go down, but people still go to work.

Sorry, those days are over. Never before have Wall Street and Main Street been so intertwined: Nearly every American has a 401-k plan to save for retirement. Here in New York, city and state budgets rely on Wall Street bonuses for tax revenues like never before - just ask Gov. Patterson, who last week warned of budget disaster, largely thanks to the Wall Street slowdown.

One trader recently reminded me of another president who raised taxes and clamped down on free trade, as Obama seems set to do - just after the stock-market crash of 1929: His name was Herbert Hoover. And you know what happened next.

Raising taxes, as Obama has promised to do, would be an economic disaster for the country… completely counter-productive.

Barack Obama is as clueless about the economy and tax policy as he is about military affairs and the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.  We can not afford the risk of his ignorance and ineptitude in either area of national policy.

H/T: Don Luskin