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Posts Tagged ‘Progressives’

Coming to a City Near You

by Bunk Five Hawks X ( 89 Comments › )
Filed under Crime, Open thread, Progressives, Regulation, Socialism at August 19th, 2010 - 7:00 pm

By now, most of you have heard about the bizarre racketeering in the City of Bell California, one of the poorest cities in California with a per capita average annual income of less than $40,000. Recently it was discovered that the city council, fire chief and others were paying themselves six figures, up to a jaw dropping $1.5 million for the city manager Robert Rizzo, paid for with property taxes and extortion using a towing company with connections to the police department. Rizzo, btw, lives in Huntington Beach.

Now, let’s talk about subterranean extortion. From the Huntington Beach City News:

HUNTINGTON BEACH...The Huntington Beach City Council on Monday night voted to charge out-of-town residents a fee that could be has high as $2,000 to $3,000 if they have an emergency response service in Surf City. The fee would be used to recover charges for time and equipment that respond to the scene (fire trucks, police patrol vehicles, helicopter, etc.) of a accident.This fee would include vehicle accidents and fires, pipe line and power line damages. This fee would not apply to Huntington Beach residents as their taxes go toward paying for this service.

Four Orange County cities already have fees to charge non-residents, Costa Mesa, Fullerton, Garden Grove and Santa Ana. Santa Ana charges a fee for both residents and non-residents alike. The extra billed fees would be passed on to the person’s insurance company. This would most likely increase the premium of everyone’s insurance policy as more cities decide to charge fees for emergency response services. Those who were without insurance, the bill would go directly to the driver and most likely not be paid.

Huntington Beach expects that these fees would bring in approximately $100,000 a year to go for equipment repair and replacement and other city needs.

Typical emergency response service fees

Car accidents with fluids (oil, gasoline, diesel) : $595
Car fire: $750
Extrication: $2,000
Pipeline or power line basic response: $405
Pipeline or power line intermediate response: $1,120
Fire Chief response: $210 an hour
Miscellaneous equipment charges: $405-$505 an hour

Huntington Beach, CA, has been operating in the red for years, and this economy hasn’t helped. Up and down Beach Boulevard and throughout the city, car dealerships, professional buildings and other commercial property are either boarded up or mostly empty. Recently, H.B. has been strong arming one of the last small beach communities to annex them, even though most of the residents of Seal Beach oppose being told what to do by the socialists of Surf City.

So where to get the money? Extort it from insurance companies, which means you.

Lookee here. Say you have a fender bender with an uninsured motorist within the city boundary. Say your vehicle skidded to a stop near a power pole, the radiator’s leaking, but no one’s trapped inside a vehicle, no injuries. Say the other vehicle is disabled and blocking traffic.

While you and Mr. or  Ms. Uninsured are discussing ways to settle,

The Fire Department is dispatched to verify the antifreeze is not flammable;
The Police Department is dispatched to make sure you’re not duking it out and to direct traffic until the city-sanctioned towing company arrives;
Helicopter surveillance (miscellaneous);
City Public Works inspectors are sent to verify that the power pole is still standing.

Assuming that the city folks with hourly rates keep their visits to 60 minutes, and not 60 minutes + 1, (that’ll never happen, right?) you’re gonna be nailed with a minimum of $2,020 up front, not counting the rate increase on your insurance for merely driving through the city. Plus, unless you pay for collision insurance,  you’ll have to pay repair your car yourself because Huntington Beach is an undeclared “Sanctuary City” with a lot of uninsured drivers.

As for Huntington Beach spokesholes claiming they’re only going to get $100,000 per year, it’s bogus. Ignoring fatalites, extrications, etc., in 2008, there were a total of 1,755 accidents reported. Multiply that by A MINIMUM of $2,020 per accident  produces a minimum value of OVER THREE MILLION FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS PER YEAR FOR MAINTENANCE.

Oh yeah. They said it’s for maintenance and [ahem],  “other city needs.” Pheeeeew.

Two Rat-Bastard Commies and a Brilliant Capitalist

by Bob in Breckenridge ( 92 Comments › )
Filed under Barack Obama, Democratic Party, Economy, Elections, History, Misery Index, Politics, Progressives, Socialism at August 12th, 2010 - 4:30 pm

Of course, the commies are President Obungler himself, and that blithering idiotic libturd fossil from yesteryear, Phil Donahue.

The brilliant capitalist is the late, great Nobel-prize winning (ya know, from back in the olden days, when you actually had to have accomplished something to win one) economist, Dr. Milton Friedman.

First, we have a damn good GOP commercial that will hopefully soon be coming to a TV near you, about how Obama, Reid, Pelosi, etc. have screwed the pooch (FYI, no insult meant to dogs) since day one when it comes to fixing the economy, and only made things exponentially worse.

But it wouldn’t surprise me a bit if they are actually f#*king up our country and economy on purpose, since we know they want as many Americans as possible dependent upon brain-dead libs for their existence. And just this week, we reached an all-time high, with well over 40 million Americans (over 13% of our population) now receiving food stamps. Congratulations libturds, hope you’re all proud of yourselves.

And on top of that good news comes this, on youth unemployment hitting an all-time high, and this, about 484 thousand new unemployment claims filed for in July, highest since February, and this, about the near rioting that occurred in Atlanta by people Obama voters wanting section 8 (which is government taxpayer subsidized) housing.

But, I, like you, sure am damn glad that the economy is actually recovering, as Obungler tells us it is, and that we’re on the right track, because if he didn’t tell us, our only other choice would be to believe what we see, hear, and read, about how bad things are.

Then we have a vintage video of the still clueless after all these years (hat tip to Paul Simon, the singer, not the dead lib Senator from IL) Phil Donahue, yet another libturd dolt who never met a commie dictator he didn’t admire, getting bitch-slapped and kicked in the nuts by Dr. Friedman for suggesting that socialism will even the playing field between the haves and the have-nots better and fairer than capitalism will. Watch the part where Friedman attempts to tell Donahue why he’s an economic ignoramus, and Donahue has this glazed look in his eyes like he’s high. Nope, he’s not stoned, just stupid.

Liberals. Gotta love detest the sons of bitches. I know I do.

Hat tip to Denny for the videos.

Another Hidden Zinger in Obamacare

by 1389AD ( 43 Comments › )
Filed under Barack Obama, Democratic Party, Healthcare, Progressives at July 25th, 2010 - 10:00 am

In Fundamentally Transforming the United States, Phyllis Schlafly explains how the Democrat party voter base is founded upon those who get (or hope to get) their livelihood from the federal government. It goes much further than Chicago-machine patronage politics writ large; the federal government is deliberately destroying the family structure so as to make people more dependent on the federal government and the Democrat party. Unmarried mothers are a key part of Obama’s voter base. Thus, it is in his interests to discourage men and women from getting and staying married.

How do the Democrats go about attacking the family structure? The attacks go much further than promoting gay marriage and abortion on demand, or free condoms and salacious “sex education” in the public schools. Detrimental as those things are, at least they are visible. It’s the progressives’ stealth jihad against the family that I’m talking about here.

Check out this hidden zinger in Obamacare:

Marriage Penalty in Health Care

A huge marriage penalty is hidden in Obama’s Health Control Law. This law is another federal program providing financial incentives to subsidize marriage avoidance and illegitimate offspring.

Even though all evidence shows that marriage is the best remedy for poverty, lack of health care, domestic violence, child abuse, and school dropouts, federal welfare programs continue to discriminate against marriage and instead give taxpayer handouts to those who reject marriage. This isn’t any accident; it is a central part of the Democrats’ political strategy that produced 70% of unmarried women voting for Obama for President in 2008.

Here is the approximate cost in the Health Control Law for an unmarried couple who each earn $25,000 a year (total: $50,000). When they both buy health insurance (which will be mandatory), the combined premiums they pay will be capped at $3,076 a year. But if the couple gets married and has the same combined income of $50,000, they will pay annual premiums up to a cap of $5,160 a year. That means they have to fork over a marriage penalty of $2,084.

The marriage penalty is the result of the fact that government subsidies for buying health insurance are pegged to the federal poverty guidelines. Couples that remain unmarried are rewarded with a separate health care subsidy for each income.

When the Wall Street Journal reporter quizzed the Democratic authors of the health care bill, they made it clear that this differential was deliberate. The staffer justified the discriminatory treatment because “you have to decide what your goals are.” Indeed, the Democrats have decided what their goals are. They know that 70% of unmarried women voted for Obama in 2008, and the Democrats plan to reward this group with health insurance subsidies.

The House staffer told the Wall Street Journal reporter that the Democrats can’t make the subsidies neutral towards marriage because that would give a traditional one-breadwinner married couple a more generous subsidy than a single parent at the same income level. Horrors! The Democrats certainly are not going to allow traditional marriage to be preferred over couples who just shack up!

Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously and accurately explained the disastrous results of welfare back in 1965. The welfare system created a matriarchy with millions of children lacking their father in the home. It’s no wonder illegitimate birthrates are soaring and unmarried mothers now give birth to 4 out of every 10 babies born in the United States.

Means-tested welfare programs already cost taxpayers close to $1 trillion a year (even more than national defense!), and Obamacare is projected to add another $2.5 trillion after all its provisions take effect. There’s no end in sight to the increasing costs of these entitlements. In one year, the Obama Administration will spend more taxpayers’ money on spreading the wealth to non-taxpayers than George W. Bush spent on the entire Iraq war.

Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, a liberal firm that consults for clients such as Bill Clinton and John Kerry, admitted: “Unmarried women represent one of the most reliable Democratic cohorts in the electorate . . . leading the charge for fundamental change in health care.”

It used to be that a husband was responsible for the financial support of his wife and children, but the feminists’ agenda calls for replacing husbands with Big Brother Government. The feminists call their movement “women’s liberation,” and Obamacare is one more way to help them achieve their goal.

Feminists keep tightening their control over the social policies of the Democratic Party, and Obamacare will be his third payoff to the feminists. The first bill Obama signed as President, the Lilly Ledbetter Act, enables women to sue employers years many years after any alleged workplace discrimination (when no one is still alive to defend against allegations), and the second payoff was getting Obama to give the majority of taxpayer-paid Stimulus jobs to women even though men have suffered the big majority of job losses.

Read it all.

The scavenger hunt is on

I am neither a lawyer nor an accountant nor a “policy wonk” (whatever that is supposed to be). Sorting through the huge pile of paperwork that makes up the Obamacare bill, or for that matter, the recent financial regulatory bill, and piecing together the hidden “zingers” that are poised to harm each sector of our economy and society, is beyond my capabilities. This is not a one-person job. I would like to urge everyone who is able to do so, to help complete this task by researching how those bills will affect their community and their sector of the economy, and submit that information to 2.0: The Blogmocracy.

The scavenger hunt is on, and the only prize is preserving your freedom.

Saturday Lecture: The 45 Goals of Communism

by coldwarrior ( 17 Comments › )
Filed under Cold War, Communism, Open thread, Progressives, saturday lecture series at July 17th, 2010 - 8:00 am

These are the 45 goals of Communism (as cited by Beck and by Jim Quinn). I know many of you have already seen this list, some may have not. I want to get them back into the conversation here as a reference point on what the progressive trans-nationalist are trying to do the the US. Some may be a little antiquated, others are right in the leftist playbook to this day. So for today’s lecture, read each one and think yes/no/in progress. What is the grade for the left and the grade for the right?

Congressional Record–Appendix, pp. A34-A35

January 10, 1963, Current Communist Goals, EXTENSION OF REMARKS OF HON. A. S. HERLONG, JR. OF FLORIDA

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Thursday, January 10, 1963:

Mr. HERLONG. Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Patricia Nordman of De Land, Fla., is an ardent and articulate opponent of communism, and until recently published the De Land Courier, which she dedicated to the purpose of alerting the public to the dangers of communism in America.

At Mrs. Nordman’s request, I include in the RECORD, under unanimous consent, the following “Current Communist Goals,” which she identifies as an excerpt from “The Naked Communist,” by Cleon Skousen:

[From “The Naked Communist,” by Cleon Skousen]

CURRENT COMMUNIST GOALS

1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.

2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.

3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament [by] the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.

4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.

5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.

6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.

7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.

8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev’s promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.

9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.

10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.

11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)

12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.

13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.

14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.

15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.

16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.

17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers’ associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

18. Gain control of all student newspapers.

19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.

20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.

21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.

22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to “eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms.”

23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. “Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art.”

24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them “censorship” and a violation of free speech and free press.

25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.

26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as “normal, natural, healthy.”

27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with “social” religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a “religious crutch.”

28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of “separation of church and state.”

29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.

30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the “common man.”

31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the “big picture.” Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.

32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture–education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.

33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.

34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.

36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.

37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.

38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand [or treat].

39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.

40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.

42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use [“]united force[“] to solve economic, political or social problems.

43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.

44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.

45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction [over domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction] over nations and individuals alike.