Who Funds the Radical Left In America?
By Steve Baldwin for the Western Center for Journalism:
Very few Americans realize there exists a large network of far left philanthropists and foundations in America dedicated to destroying the American way of life, our Christian-based culture and our free enterprise system. They seek to remove America from its constitutional foundations and move it toward a European-style socialism. Much of this effort is coordinated by a little known group called the Tides Foundation and its related group, the Tides Center.
The Strategic Principles of the Tides Foundation
Over the course of its 33 year history, the Tides network has given hundreds of millions of dollars to anti-free enterprise groups, gun control groups, anti-private property groups, abortion rights groups, homosexual groups, groups engaged in voter fraud, anti-military groups, and organizations that seek to destroy…
The Wal-Mart Hippies
David Brooks disses tea partiers, the ‘New Left’ and conspiracy theorists in the New York Times (where else?):
About 40 years ago, a social movement arose to destroy the establishment. The people we loosely call the New Left wanted to take on The Man, return power to the people, upend the elites and lead a revolution.
Today, another social movement has arisen. The people we loosely call the Tea Partiers also want to destroy the establishment. They also want to take on The Man, return power to the people, upend the elites and lead a revolution.
There are many differences between the New Left and the Tea Partiers. One was on the left, the other is on the right. One was bohemian, the other is bourgeois. One was motivated by war, and the other…
Bill Maher: Conservatives Need To Lighten Up – And Get Glitzier Stars
Bill Maher. Photo: David Shankbone (CC)
Bill Maher rants in Variety:
New Rule: Conservatives have to stop complaining about Hollywood values.
It’s the Oscars this weekend, which means two things, one, I’ve got to get waxed, and two, talkradio hosts and conservative columnists will trot out their annual complaints about Hollywood: We’re too liberal, we’re out of touch with the heartland, the theater floors are always sticky, our facial muscles have been deadened with chicken botulism, there aren’t as many Goobers in a box as there used to be, and we make them feel fat.
To these people, I say — shut up and eat your popcorn. And stop bitching about one of the few industries in America that still makes something people all over the world want to buy. Not to rub it in,…
Mapping The American Burger Wars
The excellent WeatherSealed by Stephen Von Worley graphically illustrates the battle for dominance in the American fast food stakes:
Imagine, if you will, the burger force – a field of energy that radiates from every freshly-cooked patty, earth-penetrating and inverse-squared with distance, compelling the hungry carnivore to seek out and devour the well-done ground beef at the source.
Now, wrap that concept in a Star Wars motif – set in the present day, with the second-tier burger chains as the rebels – each, by themselves, without mutual aid, battling the 12,000-plus restaurant McEmpire. The situation is most dire, for the upstarts control but a few significant islands of territory amid the overwhelming and darkly-rendered influence of the McForce:
Territory controlled by the eight largest U.S. burger chains.
In this and the following graphic, each individual restaurant location has equal power. The…
Basically, It’s Over: A Parable About How One Nation Came To Financial Ruin
Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett’s less famous but no less capable colleague at the helm of Berkshire Hathaway, makes some ominous predictions for 2012 (albeit in the form of a modern-day parable), and this time there’s nothing sketchy about the science. Be afraid, people. His parable appears in Slate:
In the early 1700s, Europeans discovered in the Pacific Ocean a large, unpopulated island with a temperate climate, rich in all nature’s bounty except coal, oil, and natural gas. Reflecting its lack of civilization, they named this island “Basicland.”
The Europeans rapidly repopulated Basicland, creating a new nation. They installed a system of government like that of the early United States. There was much encouragement of trade, and no internal tariff or other impediment to such trade. Property rights were greatly respected and strongly…
Christians Want To Change Name Of Mt. Diablo
A devout Christian wants to change the name of Mt. Diablo. Maria L. LaGanga writes all about it for the Los Angeles Times, below, but first BREAKING NEWS from Claycord.com,
Just seconds ago, the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors decided against the requests to change the name of Mt. Diablo to Mt. Reagan, and also decided not to support a last minute request to change the mountain’s name to Mt. John Muir.
The Board doesn’t have the final say, however, so it could still happen…
Reporting from Mt. Diablo State Park – Arthur Mijares never saw it coming when he filed the federal paperwork to change the name of Contra Costa County’s most famous landmark from Mt. Diablo to Mt. Reagan.
It’s not that he’s such a big fan of the 40th president…
Tom Brokaw Explains Canada To Americans
From a pre-recorded short film, narrated by Tom Brokaw, that aired on NBC prior to the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver:
America’s Most Miserable Cities
Cleveland photo by Lisa Chamberlain (CC)
Cleveland leads a slew of Midwestern towns on Forbes’ annual list, but thanks to high taxes New York and Chicago make it too:
The city of Cleveland has had a colorful history. The Cuyahoga River, which runs through the city, famously caught fire in 1969 thanks to rampant pollution, and it wasn’t the first time. In 1978 it became the first U.S. city to default on its debts since the Great Depression. Cleveland sports fans have had to endure more anguish than those in any other city. The city has been dubbed with a less than endearing nickname: the Mistake by the Lake.
This year Cleveland takes the top spot in our third annual ranking of America’s Most Miserable Cities. Cleveland secured the position thanks to its high…
Stephen Fry And Friends Slam U.S. On Prison Population
British comedian/actor Stephen Fry and his pals ham it up on British TV show ‘QI’, making some very salient points about the ridiculously high levels of incarceration in the United States. You might think they are being anti-American, but listen more carefully: they are actually anti-human rights abuses.
U.S. Budget Deficit To Hit $1.3 Trillion In 2010
This is really out of control … how do you ever recover from that kind of deficit? Hard times are ahead in the U.S., the only question being how long can the government postpone the inevitable. This report at Marketwatch:
The U.S. budget deficit will hit $1.3 trillion in 2010, congressional budget analysts estimated Tuesday, in a fresh piece of grim news for President Barack Obama.
The estimate from the Congressional Budget Office assumes current laws and policies remain unchanged.
Economic growth will also probably be “muted” for the next few years, the CBO said in its budget outlook for 2010.
The CBO’s estimates come about a week before Obama transmits his fiscal 2011 budget to Congress, on Feb. 1. Obama is under mounting pressure to cut the deficit but also to create jobs,…
Oil in Haiti – Economic Reasons for the UN/US Occupation
From the Pakalert Press blog, an October 2009 article by Marguerite Laurent:
There is evidence that the United States found oil in Haiti decades ago and due to the geopolitical circumstances and big business interests of that era made the decision to keep Haitian oil in reserve for when Middle Eastern oil had dried up. This is detailed by Dr. Georges Michel in an article dated March 27, 2004 outlining the history of oil explorations and oil reserves in Haiti and in the research of Dr. Ginette and Daniel Mathurin.
There is also good evidence that these very same big US oil companies and their inter-related monopolies of engineering and defense contractors made plans, decades ago, to use Haiti’s deep water ports either for oil refineries or to develop oil tank farm sites or…
Why America And China Will Clash
Gideon Rachman explains in the Financial Times:
Google’s clash with China is about much more than the fate of a single, powerful firm. The company’s decision to pull out of China, unless the government there changes its policies on censorship, is a harbinger of increasingly stormy relations between the US and China.
The reason that the Google case is so significant is because it suggests that the assumptions on which US policy to China have been based since the Tiananmen massacre of 1989 could be plain wrong. The US has accepted – even welcomed – China’s emergence as a giant economic power because American policymakers convinced themselves that economic opening would lead to political liberalisation in China.
If that assumption changes, American policy towards China could change with it. Welcoming the rise of…
Top 100 U.S. Liberals And Conservatives
Telegraph.co.uk presents its latest list of the 100 most influential conservatives and 100 most influential liberals in America a year after Barack Obama took the oath on the steps of the Capitol to become the 44th President of the United States:
The first lists, produced exactly a year before the 2008 election, sent then unprecedented traffic to the website and generated controversy that resonated on American cable television and talk radio for weeks.
Top conservatives: 81-100
Top liberals: 81-100
Since then, more than one political figure has approached us to inquire gently about what position they might occupy second time around. Some have cited their 2007 positions in publicity and biographical materials.
The difference between our new lists and the ones published last time reflect the unprecedented political and economic upheaval that has happened since then…
Requiem For The Dollar: Mourning The Gold Standard
Here’s a very insightful essay by James Grant, editor of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer. He’s a famous financial curmudgeon … but on this issue I think he’s 100% right, writing in the Wall Street Journal:
Ben S. Bernanke doesn’t know how lucky he is. Tongue-lashings from Bernie Sanders, the populist senator from Vermont, are one thing. The hangman’s noose is another. Section 19 of this country’s founding monetary legislation, the Coinage Act of 1792, prescribed the death penalty for any official who fraudulently debased the people’s money. Was the massive printing of dollar bills to lift Wall Street (and the rest of us, too) off the rocks last year a kind of fraud? If the U.S. Senate so determines, it may send Mr. Bernanke back home to Princeton. But not even…
