Carlos Santana was so moved by his “Beacon of Change” award that he took the opportunity to call the state in which he received it “racist” and “anti-American”.

From the Atlanta Journal Constitution:

Santana took his turn at the podium on the field in a pre-game ceremony before the Braves-Phillies game to criticize the immigration bill just signed into law by Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal Friday.

“I represent the human race,” the Mexican-born Carlos Santana said. “The people of Arizona, the people of Atlanta, Georgia, you should be ashamed of yourselves.”

The Georgia immigration law, HB 87, cracks down on illegal immigration by increasing enforcement powers and requiring many employers to check the immigration status of new hires.

Ashamed?  Really, Carlos?  What is there in the law that we should be ashamed of it?  Never mind that there are between 10 million and 15 million people living in the United States who have never been screened for disease, crimilar history or terrorism ties.  Never mind that the law is similar to Arizona’s law, which merely requires state and local governments to do what the Federal government should already otherwise be doing.  Never mind that it requires employers to use the Federal e-Verify system to ensure that employees are legal residents of the United States.  Never mind that the law is innocuous in comparrison to Mexican immigration law.  According to Carlos Santana, this is just a return to the 1960s race wars:

“It’s an anti-American law. It’s a cruel law, actually,” Santana said. “If you all remember what it was like here with Martin Luther King and the dogs and the hoses, it’s the same thing, only it’s high tech. So let’s change it.”

That’s right!  Requiring employers to verify their employees are legal residents is just like releasing the dogs and fire hoses on Civil Rights activists!  Requiring government offices to ask for ID before giving out welfare benefits is just an extension of Jim Crow!  The only difference is it’s “high tech”!  It’s just about RAAAAACISM!™

Oy.

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I just spent 90 minutes watching the Republican primary debate.  Tim Pawlenty, Herman Cain, Gary Johnson, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul each answered about a dozen questions on topics ranging from the war in Afghanistan to Obamacare to the economy.  Tonight’s big winner?

Herman Cain.

The loser(s)?

Gary Johnson and every candidate who didn’t attend.

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Even before the news that Barack Obama’s birth certificate was being released to the public, I wanted to write a piece on why Donald Trump’s potential candidacy for the GOP nomination was a joke at best and intentionally harmful to the conservative movement at worst. Now he’s claiming credit for Obama’s release of the birth certificate and says he’s “proud” and “honored”.

Donald Trump, whose popularity as a possible Republican presidential contender shot up after he started questioning the whereabouts of President Obama’s birth certificate, said Wednesday he is “so proud” the president has finally released the forms.

“I am so proud of myself because I’ve accomplished something that nobody else has been able to accomplish,” Trump said from Portsmouth, N.H., where he was giving early primary voters a close-up look at a potential presidential campaign.

“I feel I’ve accomplished something really, really important and I’m honored for it,” Trump said.

The billionaire real estate mogul and host of “Celebrity Apprentice” brought the issue of the president’s birth certificate to the forefront after years of complaints from a small segment of society, come to be known as “birthers,” who said it is not satisfied with the short-form version of the president’s certificate provided during the 2008 presidential campaign.

There is only one reason why Barack Obama would release his birth certificate now after more than three years since Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign brought it up: Because it benefits him politically to do so.

Since the “Birther” issue came up, Barack Obama, the Democrats and the Leftist media have milked it for all it’s worth. Despite the small number of vocal proponents of the idea that Obama was born outside the United States, the Left has made political hay of the derranged individuals who cling to the idea that if, somehow, some way, Obama could be proved not a U.S. citizen, he could be removed from office! The fact that his mother was a U.S. citizen which gives him birthright citizenship is meaningless! These people are on a mission!

The Birthers, of course, are quite different from regular skeptics. After the question was raised and after the months and years dragged on without a birth certificate, it was healthy to simply wonder about whether Barack Obama was actually born in the United States. Once again, however, his mother was a U.S. citizen, so even if he’d been born in Kenya or Indonesia or Bhutan or on the planet Vulcan, he’s still be a birthright U.S. citizen by virtue of his mother’s citizenship.

None of that has mattered to the Birthers, nor did it matter to Donald Trump whilst he cavorted about the evening news programs, bringing back to the forefront an issue that had long-since faded into the background.

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President Obama recently stated he would be forming an inquiry into petroleum futures markets to ensure there has been no price fixing or gouging that might have harmed consumers. The President (and many on both the Right and Left) have made “Speculators” their on-again/off-again scapegoat for high fuel prices for at least the last decade. They posit that speculators have driven up the price of petroleum outside of normal supply and demand and have done so to line their own pockets.

“The truth is, there’s no silver bullet that can bring down gas prices right away,” Obama said in prepared remarks for his opening statement at a townhall-style meeting in Nevada.

“The Attorney General’s putting together a team whose job it will be to root out any cases of fraud or manipulation in the oil markets that might affect gas prices – and that includes the role of traders and speculators. We are going to make sure that no one is taking advantage of the American people for their own short-term gain,” Obama said.

This simply isn’t true. In fact, futures traders have an important job of ensuring that the supply of fuel, food or other products never run out as long as people demand them. Rather, if the President wants to know who is responsible for high fuel prices, he need only look in the mirror. It is the government that has played a heavy hand in raising the cost of fuel and other products to the high levels we see today. The “speculators” are just doing their job and dealing with the consequences of poorly-conceived goverment actions.

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How is the media reacting to the news in Wisconsin that the State’s Senate has voted to restrict some collective bargaining for government employee unions?

In the manner you’d expect from a biased liberal media:

• Wisconsin senators strip workers of collective-bargaining rights – Detroit Free Press
• Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and His Allies Drop All Pretenses - US News & World Report
• Wisconsin governor’s policies polarize state – Reuters
• Labor Lambasts Walker, GOP Senators – TIME
• Scapegoating Educators – Huffington Post
• Crushing Workers Won’t Solve Deficits – Huffington Post
• Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Tea Party Are Faces of GOP Overreach – US News & World Report
• The Wisconsin union fight goes nuclear – Salon
• Governor Walker’s Coup D’Etat – The Business Insider

Those are just the headlines. Sure, a lot of them are blogs and commentary, but the Detroit Free Press and Reuters articles are “straight news” stories. The actual articles and blogs are even more vitriollic than the headlines. I particularly enjoy the writings from places like The Socialist Worker Online and Socialist Alternative. Worker’s World goes so far as to call the union activities a “People’s Rebellion”.

I find it amazing that union workers and the American public are so indoctrinated to socialist dogma that they can’t see the words of Lenin, Marx and Trotsky coming from these “labor leader’s” mouths.

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Union members at Lockheed’s Marietta, GA plant chose not to strike over a benefits dispute in the new contract offered by the company. The plan keeps the existing pension for Lockheed’s workers and puts new employees on a 401(k)-style plan. The last-minute inclusion of some cash benefits and a Blue Cross/Blue Sheild-style HMO, covered by the company at 85 percent, sealed the deal, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

On a 1,366 to 1,006 vote members of the Local 709 of the International Association of Machinists decided to stay on the job.

[...]

Roughly 3,000 union members would have stopped working early Monday morning if it had decided to reject Lockheed Martin’s three-year deal. The current deal expired today.

The union leadership contended Lockheed wanted to take pensions from future employees and saddle all employees with what it considers an inferior health insurance plan.

While not a landslide, a victory margin of 14% is decisive by any standard.

Lockheed, like many companies that began operation before the 1970s and 1980s, has a pension plan for its unionized workforce wherein the company contributes to a fund that is later disbursed to those employees after they retire. Pensions are expensive to maintain and contributions by the company are usually very high compared to other retirement plans. Retirement benefits like pensions and retiree medical coverage are some of the highest costs that many companies face today in attempting to remain competitive.

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Republicans and Democrats are each trying to blame the other for not passing a budget.  Fox News reports that Party leaders are facing off against each other with “disdain”.  The Republicans in the House have proposes at spending bill with $61 billion in spending cuts, while the Democrats in the Senate have countered with their own bill cutting just $6.5 billion.

“We’ll end up back at square one without consensus, without a budget for the rest of this fiscal year, and without assurances that we can keep the country running,” Reid said. “So, once these votes are behind us, and everyone’s voice is heard, I hope each senator and member of Congress will find renewed motivation to do what we needed to do since the beginning, come together, negotiate in good faith.” 

“Good faith”?  “Good faith?  That’s what Harry Reid thinks we need?

This country doesn’t need “good faith”, it needs ruthlessness!  What this country needs is for people like Harry Reid and the rest of the politicians in Washington to do is start taking the budget deficits seriously, because so far neither side has!

It’s time for the Tea Paties to start back up.  It’s not enough that we voted the Democrats out because we have too much of the same-old, same-old in Washington.  Too many of the politicians inside the Beltway are just doing the same dance to a different tune.  That’s not why I attended those Tea Parties last year.

It’s time for Americans to get ANGRY!  Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have come up with anything resembling the necessary cuts to balance our budget.  Every American should be livid at how so little has changed.  We’re projecting a $1.6 trillion budget deficit this year, and the Republicans and Democrats want to argue over the difference between a 4% cut and a 2/5% cut?!  It’s like arguing over whether to use a gauze pad or a band-aid on a sucking chest wound when they really just need to get to a hospital!

THIS IS LUDICROUS!

Get angry, people!  Call your Congressman, Republican or Democrat, and tell them that $61 billion isn’t even a good start.  It’s not even a drop in the bucket!  The GAO reports there’s $200 billion in wasteful spending.  That should be their starting point!

Get wrathful, people!  Go to Town Hall meetings.  Find your Congressman’s and Senator’s local office and show up there demanding answers.  “Why won’t my Congressman vote to cut $200 billion in wasteful spending?”  “Where does my Senator stand on cutting the deficit?”  “Why can’t we find places to cut a budget that has doubled in just one decade?”

Get mad, people!  We live in a free Republic.  If our “leaders” don’t fix these budget woes, we have no one to blame but ourselves.  Get angry and stay angry until the dolts in Washington get their act together.

If you watch “The Daily Show” on a regular basis since Craig Kilborn left, your brain has probably turned to mush.  The economic ignorance spouted by John Stewart on a daily basis (no pun intended) is absolutely stunning.

Just in case the embed doesn’t work, here’s the link.

That’s it! It’s the Bush Tax Cuts! They’re to blame for Wisconsin’s current woes! John Stewart said so! Darn those pesky Republicans and their tax cuts for the Rich!  Keep the meme going!  It’s all Bush’s fault!

This is asinine.  John Stewart doesn’t have anything else, so he plays the same hand of cards he always does: Blame the rich, blame the Republicans.

Associating the $700 billion dollar tax increase that would have come from allowing the 2003-2010 Federal tax rates to sunset with teacher salaries in Wisconsin is a logical leap akin to trying to leap the Grand Canyon on a tricycle. The one has nothing to do with the other. Federal budgets and state budgets are only linked insofar as the Federal government gives assistance to the states. Those Federal assistance dollar amounts haven’t changed. What has changed is Wisconsin’s budget deficit, which has swelled from roughly neutral to $3.6 billion in the next two years.

Listening to John Stewart however, the uneducated masses are taught that Federal tax cuts are to blame for state budgetary woes, and (miracle of miracles!) they get to blame their favorite whipping boy, George W. Bush!  That might work in Bizarro World and in the minds of people who simply don’t know any better, but it’s hardly truthful.  Meanwhile, back in reality, Wisconsin has a major budget deficit that has to be dealt with.

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Governor Scot Walker (R-WI) is working hard to make sure that government schools can meet their budgets this year, but you’d have to be interested in more than the sound bite if you’re reading the Main Stream Media reports. From USA Today:

MADISON, Wis. — Republican Gov. Scott Walker on Tuesday outlined a $59.3 billion, two-year budget plan that would cut $749 million in aid to public schools over that period and reduce county and municipal aid by $96 million in 2012.

It isn’t until the tenth paragraph that the bias–and the reason for Governor Walker’s stance against public-sector unions–becomes clear:

Walker’s move to end collective bargaining for most public employee unions, said Todd Berry, president of the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance, a non-partisan research group, is his way of helping schools and local governments cut costs.

“If you’re going to really slam local government and you have no choice given the budget math,” he said, “then the only way to deliver them some … relief on the other side of the ledger” is to give them ways to cut labor costs.

In other words, the State of Wisconsin needs to cut $3.6billion from its budget over the next two years, and the Governor intends to do that is by slashing State funding for education (among dozens more programs and cost-cutting measures). To make sure that local school districts can afford to pay their bills, he and the Republicans in the state capitol are giving those school districts greater ability to control their labor costs.

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The President made a big deal about and frequently referred to “Invest[ing]” during his State of the Union speech (or so I heard, since I didn’t watch it). Lots of “investing” in more government programs and top-down, centralized economic planning. Lots of “investing” in social safety nets. Lots of “investing” in more pet projects for politicians.

Actually, the President was talking about “spending”, but his handlers have informed him that the “S-word” doesn’t fly well with voters right now. So they did some polls and focus groups and determined a good word to use instead would be “invest”. Then they pulled up the Tools menu in Word and clicked “Replace”, changing every instance of the word “spend” to “invest” in all the President’s speeches. So the President plans to spend billions of dollars in taxpayer–okay, let’s be honest, borrowed–money on the same stuff he wanted to do before the landslide Republican victory in November. But now it’s okay because it’s “investing” instead of “spending”.

This isn’t “investing” in the future. It’s just more of the same Washington horse-hockey. The old Potomac Two Step.

If the President really wants to jump-start our economy and drive investment, he has a powerful–but politically unpopular with his base–tool in his arsenal: He can ask the Congress to eliminate the Corporate Income Tax.

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