Progressive community organizing is based around a principle you have to deceive people in order to maintain a ruse of assistance. How weak is your position when your only hope for support is to convince ? (HatTip Weasel Zippers)
USA TODAY – America’s ruling class has been experiencing more pushback than usual lately. It just might be a harbinger of things to come.
First, in response to widespread protests last week, the Department of Homeland Security canceled plans to build a nationwide license plate database. Many local police departments already use license-plate readers that track every car as it passes traffic signals or pole-mounted cameras. Specially equipped police cars even track cars parked on the street or even in driveways.
The DHS put out a bid request for a system that would have gone national, letting the federal government track millions of people’s comings and goings just as it tracks data about every phone call we make. But the proposal was suddenly withdrawn last week, with the unconvincing explanation that it was all a mistake. I’m inclined to agree with TechDirt’s Tim Cushing, who wrote: “The most plausible explanation is that someone up top at the DHS or ICE suddenly realized that publicly calling for bids on a nationwide surveillance system while nationwide surveillance systems are being hotly debated was … a horrible idea.” (more…)
If you want to use a walk-off homer to silence the insufferable leftists on the issue of Gay Rights vs. Religious freedom simply ask the following question of the Anderson Coopers and watch them squirm:
If the owner/operator of a “Quick Print” media printing shop is Muslim, and I walk in there with a template image depicting the Prophet Mohammed standing in feces, should the print shop be required or forced to print my bumper stickers or T-shirts ?
Would the progs demand the shop owner be compliant ? {{{crickets}}}
My liberty driven answer would be “yes”, the shop operator should be allowed to refuse the request based on his/her central tenet of faith. But, well beyond that easy example my own perspective on freedom and liberty extends to: Any individual should be free to engage in commerce – or not, contact – or not, relationship – or not, employment – or not, service – or not, for any reason they desire without needing justification.
I respect all people and views, it doesn’t mean I have to agree with them or desire the company of those who afford them. Respect also means – leave me the hell alone, and don’t force me into relationships that are not determined by my own individual values.
(Via Moonbattery) The Arizona State Senate has once again placed itself in the liberal establishment’s crosshairs, this time by affirming our right not to be compelled to do business with overt homosexuals in situations that violate religious principles.
Media liberals, being extremely overrepresented in the current media, preposterously but predictably screeched like scalded cats that the rights of homosexuals are violated if private citizens are not compelled by the government to enter into relations with them that violate their consciences. Their attempt to equate this with civil rights struggles of the past is an insult that should enrage blacks.
Senate Bill 1062 was explicitly inspired by an outrageous case from neighboring New Mexico, where a Christian photographer was sued for refusing to photograph a ceremony that according to her Christian beliefs was a blasphemous travesty. (more…)
WASHINGTON DC – The latest list of big lobbying spenders contains a surprising name: George Soros. Well, not the billionaire himself, but the Open Society Policy Center, the Washington-based advocacy affiliate of his Open Society Foundations.
Soros and his generous support of liberal causes, through his philanthropy and his personal political spending, have long been the subject of conservative ire. But, until now, he hasn’t done much on the formal lobbying front, and the group’s huge increase in reported spending — it hit $11 million in 2013, more than triple the $3.25 million it spent the previous year — has drawn remarkably little notice.
(New York) It’s a made-for-TV face-off with a possible chance of thunder and lightning.
Mayor de Blasio and Al Roker are scheduled to go mano-a-mano on the “Today” show Monday. Hizzonor has been invited to cut the ribbon on the NBC breakfast program’s new and enhanced plaza outside its Rockefeller Center studios.
But show officials announced Sunday that a de Blasio-Roker showdown is in store. (more…)
(Politico) – CNN President Jeff Zucker has decided to bring an end to Piers Morgan’s low-rated primetime show, network sources told POLITICO on Sunday. “Piers Morgan Live” could end as early as next month, though Morgan may stay with the network in another role.
Morgan, a former British tabloid editor, replaced Larry King in the 9 p.m. hour three years ago, prior to Zucker’s tenure as president. His show earned consistently low ratings, registering as few as 50,000 viewers in the 25-to-54 year-old demographic earlier this week.
“CNN confirms that Piers Morgan Live is ending,” Allison Gollust, head of CNN communications, told POLITICO on Sunday after an earlier version of this post was published. (more…)
(Via Newsbusters) In an interview with the black website TheRoot, incoming MSNBC host Joy Reid repeated the usual network mantra that “Everyone at MSNBC has a different, unique perspective,” and she hopes her new 2pm Eastern show will be a “table-setter for prime time.” Translation: whatever “War on Women” or Bridgegate segment I’m doing at 2 will be repeated at 5, 6, 7, 8, 9…..by one “unique perspective” after another.
Reid claimed to lament a political climate that she says has “just become really nasty” and made civilized disagreements few and far between. It’s thanks in part to what she calls a “very virulent strain that is sort of in the underbelly of society.” It’s racism, or the right wing’s horrid tendency to counter-accuse MSNBC of racism, like the accusation is a weapon: (more…)
It would take an entire fleet of whaaaambulances to load up this self-indulgent diatribe.
There simply is no way to summarize the content, save to say Alec Baldwin is declaring to the world he is quitting all aspects of his public life. Within the psychology of such a declaration he obviously feels the need to tell the world about his intentions.
In Austin Texas a woman was jogging. Police claim she J-walked while jogging so they forcibly stopped her, handcuffed her and demanded id.
She did not have id in her skimpy jogging outfit, so they arrested her for “failure to identify”.
The Texas cops put her in a police car, took her to jail, booked her, mug shot, finger-prints etc., for J-walking and jogging without identification.
A guy across the street saw the whole thing and thought it was ridiculous. He recorded the incident and took pictures.
Then the general public began using social media to express their outrage.
A growing national database containing school students names, addresses, test scores, learning disabilities, attendance records, disciplinary actions, extracurricular activities, vocational and technical training…. [household income, parental political affiliations, voting records, gun registrations, criminal histories, regulatory and compliance activity, IRS tax records, Obamacare medical records, known affiliations, religious beliefs, car registration, purchasing habits, energy consumption, carbon footprint compliance, etc.] ….for contractual and/or employment review, dontchaknow… Gee, what could possibly go wrong ?
RFID Tracking chips on school ID’s. Take home laptops with GPS and spy-cam functions. And… Oh yeah, and those pesky ALPR (automatic license plate readers) are for what use again?
NEW YORK – In an unprecedented move, education officials will hand over personal student data to a new private company to create a national database for businesses that contract with public schools.
Working with the city, state education officials are already uploading private information about students — their names, addresses, test scores, learning disabilities, attendance and disciplinary records — into a $100 million database called inBloom. (more…)
