A coalition of agitators

By Cathy Keim

The cancelled Trump rally in Chicago last week has caused many people to worry about what lies ahead in the months leading up to the Presidential election. As one friend put it, “It has that 1968 feeling.”

For their part, Cleveland police are preparing for a contentious GOP convention:

Both parties’ conventions are eligible for $50 million in federal spending for event safety. The news website Cleveland.com reported that the city’s police will call on suburban forces to boost staffing to about 5,000.

(snip)

City officials on March 9 opened bidding for the purchase of 2,000 sets of riot-control gear, including batons, upper-body and arm protectors, shin guards and reinforced gloves.

A look at Craigslist job ads in Cleveland today showed this interesting new employment opportunity:

Cleveland screen shot

That sounds like somebody in Cleveland is getting ready for political action.

Next we have Breitbart’s Aaron Klein reporting on “Democracy Spring”:

With little fanfare and almost no news media attention, some of the same radical groups involved in shutting down Donald Trump’s Chicago rally last week are plotting a mass civil disobedience movement to begin next month.

Klein adds that “the group is backed by numerous organizations, including the George Soros-funded groups MoveOn.org, the Institute for Policy Studies, and Demos.” The Democratic Socialists of America and the AFL-CIO also support the group.

In addition, CAIR and other Muslim Brotherhood affiliated groups are jumping on the bandwagon by pledging to join Black Lives Matter, Hispanics, and other people of color. Watch this video clip to see Khalilah Sabra, the Executive Director and Project Developer for Muslim American Society Immigrant Justice Center, ask the audience why can’t we have that revolution in America?

The protests that started with the Occupy movement morphed into the Black Lives Matter protests in Ferguson, Missouri. Now we are seeing protests coalescing around the Trump rallies. While Donald Trump has been more vocal in his comments about immigration than other candidates, it is probably his position as front runner that is adding to the attention he is receiving. If Cruz is able to grab the lead from Trump, I believe that the protests would just shift to Cruz rallies. Indeed, no matter who wins the position of Republican candidate for President at the convention in Cleveland, he will be faced with ongoing protests as long as the groups feel that it is worth their while to stir up trouble.

Sheriff David Clarke of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, makes the case that:

Friday night in Chicago, at the site of the Donald Trump rally, we were awakened to what America will be like if we continue to kowtow to the radicalized left and their violent intimidation tactics to shut down Constitutionally protected speech. Theirs is not a protest movement. It is pure anarchy.

Please read his whole piece as it is right on target with what we need to do to stand our ground. The protestors in Chicago were jubilant when they succeeded in shutting down the Trump rally. It is not surprising that many of the protestors were students from the University of Illinois at Chicago on whose campus the rally was scheduled to be held.

Haven’t the students at universities across the nation been shutting down guest speakers that they disagreed with by screaming and interrupting them until they gave up trying to give their speech? Even better, they have protested and successfully forced their college administrators to cancel the speakers before they could even get on campus.

Our First Amendment rights to free speech have already been seriously curtailed on colleges across the country. The students at elite universities have to have safe spaces where they are protected from hearing anything that might upset them.

Political correctness is causing people to self-censor for fear of retribution or social alienation (shunning). If that is not sufficient, then there are also classes offered by employers to re-educate the employees into the correct attitudes. If an employee is sufficiently contrary, they can be forced into anger management remediation to help them overcome their anti-social behavior.

The most violently enforced censorship is that of sharia where a joke about Mohammed can result in your execution. While we are not at that point in the USA, there are plenty of groups pushing for speech codes about all things Muslim.

Our right to freedom of speech is only there if we continue to exercise it. Sheriff Clarke adds:

Law-abiding Americans must not and cannot back down to these freedom-squashing goons. It is time for all of us to understand just what our enemies want to achieve – chaos and fear — and to rally around the fundamental truths of the Constitution.

Get ready for a long, hot campaign season. Brace yourself for what is coming. The anarchists, CAIR, unions, Black Lives Matter, and assorted other groups will not back down unless forced to do so. If we equivocate and wobble, then the next step to losing our freedom of speech will be taken.

David Horowitz explains:

Battles over rights and other issues, according to Alinsky, should never be seen as more than occasions to advance the real agenda, which is the accumulation of power and resources in radical hands. Power is the all-consuming goal of Alinsky’s politics. This focus on power was illustrated by an anecdote recounted in a New Republic article that appeared during Obama’s presidential campaign: “When Alinsky would ask new students why they wanted to organize, they would invariably respond with selfless bromides about wanting to help others. Alinsky would then scream back at them that there was a one-word answer: ‘You want to organize for power!'” In Rules for Radicals, Alinsky wrote: “From the moment an organizer enters a community, he lives, dreams, eats, breathes, sleeps only one thing, and that is to build the mass power base of what he calls the army.” The issue is never the issue. The issue is always building the army. The issue is always the revolution.

We had better get this concept in our minds, because our opponents most certainly have.

Obama Colorado campaign office struck by bullet, no one hurt

I leave the actual news reporting to other outlets, but once I heard about this Colorado incident it jogged my memory about a somewhat similar incident in Denver. The stakes are a little higher this time, though.

Back in 2009 there was another act of vandalism at the state’s Democratic headquarters, where nearly a dozen windows were shattered. Originally blamed on “the other side,” as the state Democratic chair at the time said, it turned out one of the key suspects was Maurice Schwenkler, a Democratic volunteer in the 2008 election. Is it below them to try a similar tactic this time around in a swing state?

Needless to say I don’t condone vandalism, whether it’s stealing or defacing yard signs, spraypainting a business because you disagree with their political stance, or firing weapons through windows. And I understand there can be heated rhetoric from both sides, such as the Frank Kratovil noose incident I condemned in 2009.

But it seems to me the majority of these vandalism incidents come from the Left, with perhaps the most classic recent examples being the Occupy movement and the protests against Scott Walker in the spring of 2011. Compared to that, TEA Party protests are quite clean, a fact I can attest to. Generally there is one side which is more restrained while the other is boorish, rude, and impatiently interrupts like an 8-year-old when it can’t get a word in edgewise or hears something it doesn’t like.

Yet I don’t think an 8-year-old fired that shot into Obama headquarters, and after all Colorado has been through with crazed people wielding guns in so-called “gun-free zones” thank goodness no one was hit.

Update: Linked at The Tunnel Wall – thanks Bill! He adds more to the story as well.

Occupying the basement?

You know, there was supposed to be a protest in Salisbury yesterday. But I’m pretty convinced the Occupy movement doesn’t have much traction, or, for that matter, a fawning press, within these local confines. I had better things to do than to cover these whiners, but one local blog and one local news station delivered short new items on the protests.

Perhaps a tactic change is in order? Well, we’re not exactly a major metropolitan area but I suspect we have a few people around who are as nuts as these people photojournalist ‘El Marco’ detailed in Denver.

It’s more than that, though. One has to ask what possible grievance these committed liberals really have? I suppose it’s because they don’t have absolute control of all the levers of power? Maybe they would like to institute a dose of fascism, allowing the businesses they choose to survive while others are crushed under the bootheel of regulations written in tandem by these chosen businesses and government bureaucrats? It’s the way we are headed under this regime.

By no means am I a fan of crony capitalism, as I think the rules should be simple and fair for everyone who wants to play. It doesn’t matter to me if you’re ExxonMobil, Walmart, or the corner store – everyone should compete on as level of a playing field as possible. It’s why America was enough of a land of opportunity for ExxonMobil and Walmart to get to their level, but apparently somebody wants to close the door now that they’re safely inside.

There’s something to like about the idea of protest, as the Occupy movement is billed as the flip side of the TEA Party protests – well, TEA Party protesters tend not to get arrested, deal drugs, copulate (willingly or not) in sleeping bags, or trash their surroundings, yet the idea is sort of the same – but there’s the question of identity.

People may not have agreed with every facet of the TEA Party’s demands and their use of our Constitutional right to peaceably assemble, but the TEA Party’s theory of restoring power to the people resonated with a large number of voters. On the other hand, the narcissistic entitlement mentality of the Occupy movement abuses that right of assembly by trashing its surroundings and committing violence in the name of exerting their rights. Anyone walking by Zuccotti Park may wonder what they are getting into, although by many accounts pedestrian traffic is being driven away thanks to the garbage and smell.

Fortunately, the Salisbury protest was of much shorter duration and peaceful – perhaps thanks to the watchful eye of the law. But for how much longer?

Where will they find work?

Last night – when I actually wrote this thanks to the magical ability to prewrite posts for this website – something reminded me of a short discussion I had with a customer at one of the stores I worked at this week. She brought up a point I hadn’t thought about. I will, however, cheerfully admit I don’t know the protocol about military enlistment so I’m not sure at which point the problem will occur.

The gist of what she said is that I was working pretty hard at the task I was doing, but I should be glad I have the job. She then pondered out loud what the soldiers coming back from Iraq will do for jobs now that they’re being pulled out.

Continue reading “Where will they find work?”

1 vs. 100

Well, okay, it’s not quite on the scale of the game show but one has to snicker at the thought of covering a protest in front of Andy Harris’s office that draws 20 people. Shoot, the TEA Party got more than that to go to former Congressman Frank Kratovil’s office, brought a noose, and still couldn’t get any local media attention besides local bloggers like me. Never mind that we’d get 300 or 400 for a nice local gathering, whether in the bright sunshine or pouring rain.

Continue reading “1 vs. 100”

Roemer: I will occupy Wall Street

A quick Facebook note I spied:

Throughout our great Nation’s history, its citizens have risen and joined together to fight against many injustices. Today, the Occupy Wall St. Movement stands up to fight against the corruption and greed that has taken over our political sytstem (sic) and financial system. I will proudly join them on Tuesday in NYC.

This came from Buddy Roemer, who is on perhaps the lowest tier of known GOP Presidential candidates. Well, if he’s looking for votes or sympathy he’s not going to find a lot of it there, nor will he attract all that much attention. He’ll just be a sideshow to the freak show that’s going on there.

Continue reading “Roemer: I will occupy Wall Street”

The 99 percent solution

You know, I haven’t been following this whole “Occupy Wall Street” protest all that closely because, to be perfectly honest, I work for a living (unlike them.)

It must be nice to be able to go protest all day without a visible means of support, since one has to assume that for them to hang out at Wall Street for days on end they must not have jobs, unless they’re selling their bodies or some such act. Judging by what many say they must be getting a government check of some sort, probably unemployment benefits.

On the other hand, I have two jobs outside the home and writing clients I do work for inside the home, plus I run this website, volunteer in my community, and try to spend a little quality time with someone special when I can. Now, would that make me a member of the REAL 99 percent?

Perhaps those playing anarchist in various cities around the country don’t understand that demands like a “free” education or forgiveness of debt would make Atlas shrug in a heartbeat. I was reading their idea of a “fair” salary for everyone and saw that many millions of Americans would take a tremendous pay cut. Do you REALLY think union employees would agree to that? And why would you start a business in order to take a $10,000 salary when you have to pay your hired laborers twice that much?

I guess the first thing not being taught in schools is basic economics, because it’s obvious whoever came up with this redistribution scheme has flunked the course. Nor do they understand human nature.

Continue reading “The 99 percent solution”

Odds and ends number 35

Gee, and I just did one of these last week. But I keep picking up more interesting items, so here we go.

On Saturday it’s quite likely your bank started charging you a monthly fee for using a debit card, whether once or multiple times a day. The most infamous example is the $5 monthly fee Bank of America enacted, but many other banks got into the act as well.

But as John Berlau of the Competitive Enterprise Institute wrote in the American Spectator, we have someone else to blame as well:

The irony of these developments is that if the media and politicians wanted to blame a greedy big business for these new consumer costs, there is one industry that would accurately fit the bill. This would be the giant big-box retailers that lobbied for these price controls to fatten their bottom line.

In fact, one report I found said Home Depot stood to save $35 million a year by cutting the interchange fees in roughly half, as the new federal regulations do. Of course, that is split out among everyone who shops at Home Depot whether they use a debit card or not. But don’t hold your breath waiting for prices to miraculously come down since each store has thousands of items that may cost a few pennies less for the retailers to sell. Bank customers will be stuck with the fees, though.

Continue reading “Odds and ends number 35”