Fox News reports: By MARK STEYN / Syndicated columnist
Every two years, our country conducts federal elections to determine the course of the country on significant public policy issues. This mechanism – free, fair elections – is the centerpiece of our representative democracy.
In between elections, of course, citizens are free to petition their government for redress of grievances, and they can pass judgment on the extent to which their current representatives respond to those grievances at the next election. This system is now being attacked by radical, undemocratic protesters in the so-called Occupy Movement.
“We’re no longer settling for 'we live in a democracy because we voted for a politician,'" left-wing rabble rouser and propaganda moviemaker
Michael Moore has explained. “Those days are over,” he said. “Capitalism is an evil system.”
As
Moore explained, Occupy is not about organizing for the next election – an election that looks increasingly likely to be another landslide in favor of limited government. Occupy is about
replacing our democratic institutions with naked force, replacing the rule of law with the intimidation of street thugs, and our constitutional republic with the same type of autocratic tyranny that (notwithstanding naïve good intentions) always ends up accompanying socialism.
The occupiers arrogantly call themselves "the 99 percent,' but well over 50 percent of voters picked Republican candidates campaigning to restrict government power, and we can probably conclude – by virtue of their participation in the elections – that most voters who voted for Democrats also prefer electing their leaders to appointing them via street mob.
Read more:
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/11/18/occupy-movement-is-not-what-democracy-looks-like/#ixzz1e9lvQZSq--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
American Thinker writes: A citizen activist and reader of my website AtlasShrugs.com wrote to Butterball, one of the most popular producers of Thanksgiving turkeys in the United States, asking them if their turkeys were halal. Wendy Howze, a Butterball Consumer Response Representative, responded: "Our whole turkeys are certified halal."
In a little-known strike against freedom, yet again, we are being forced into consuming meat slaughtered by means of a torturous method: Islamic slaughter.
Halal slaughter involves cutting the trachea, the esophagus, and the jugular vein, and letting the blood drain out while saying "Bismillah allahu akbar" -- in the name of Allah the greatest. Many people refuse to eat it on religious grounds. Many Christians, Hindus or Sikhs and Jews find it offensive to eat meat slaughtered according to Islamic ritual (although observant Jews are less likely to be exposed to such meat, because they eat kosher).
Others object because of the cruelty to animals that halal slaughter necessitates. Where are the PETA clowns and the ridiculous celebs who pose naked on giant billboards for PETA and "animal rights"? They would rather see people die of cancer or AIDS than see animals used in drug testing, but torturous and painful Islamic slaughter is OK.
Still others refuse to do so on principle: why should we be forced to conform to Islamic norms? It's Islamic supremacism on the march, yet again.
Non-Muslims in America and Europe don't deserve to have halal turkey forced upon them in this way, without their knowledge or consent.
Read more:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/11/happy_halal_thanksgiving.html#ixzz1eLW5NXOV-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Politico reports: It’s still possible to see NBA All Stars in action this year — if you’re willing to cough up cash for the Obama Victory Fund.
With extra time on their hands because of pro basketball’s lockout, super hoopsters Kevin Durant, Chris Bosh, Dwight Howard and Blake Griffin are among a few dozen current and former NBA players who have committed to hit the hardwood for the first “Obama Classic” on Dec. 12, according to an Obama campaign Web page set up for the event.
“Athletes who support President Obama … will play actual games at the event in Washington, D.C.,” Michael Blake, deputy director of the Obama campaign’s “Operation Vote,” wrote in an e-mail to prospective donors that was obtained by POLITICO.
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Forbes opines: The history of America’s recessions is provided at the website of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). Before this last recession, since the Great Depression recessions in America have lasted an average of 10 months, with the longest previously lasting 16 months. Yet here we are
47 months after the last recession started, and we still have no real recovery.
Instead, unemployment has been stuck at 9% or above for the longest period since the Great Depression. Unemployment for blacks has remained over 15% for over 2 years, with Hispanic unemployment stuck well into double digits over that time as well. Teenage unemployment has persisted at nearly 25%, with black teenage unemployment still nearly 40%.
The U6 unemployment rate, reflecting all of the unemployed still wanting work and the underemployed who can’t get full time work, is still 16.2%. That includes an army of the unemployed or underemployed of over 26 million Americans. And that still doesn’t fully count the millions of Americans who have given up and dropped out of the work force altogether.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2011/11/17/there-are-no-longer-any-excuses-for-obamanomics/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
udicial Watch reports: The ousted Obama “Green Czar” who describes himself as a “rowdy black nationalist” turned communist has found a job as the official spokesperson and leader of the national movement to end economic segregation and social injustice in the United States.
Among the movement’s goals is to get major banks to stop preying on the poor and people of color, according to the organizer of a Massachusetts rally promoted as Take Back Boston. Protesters also demand that politicians stop giving tax breaks to the rich while slashing vital services families depend on. In short, they want to “rebuild” the American dream to make it more inclusive.
Leading the campaign is President Obama’s good friend, civil rights lawyer Van Jones, the highly-touted “Green Czar” who was booted amid controversy over his
radical history. A Yale Law School grad, Jones became a communist after the 1992 Rodney King riots in Los Angeles and says he loathes capitalism because it exploits nonwhite minorities worldwide. Jones is a committed Marxist-Leninist-Maoist who became a revolutionary after meeting “young radical people of color” in jail and views police officers as the arch enemies of black people.
Jones’s proudest moments include publicly supporting convicted cop killer Mumia abu-Jamal, signing a petition suggesting the U.S. government had a hand in the 2001 terrorist attacks, accusing “white polluters” of “environmental racism” for steering poison into poor black communities and referring to Republicans in vulgar terms unbecoming of a presidential advisor.
The movement is also in the process of recruiting 2,000 candidates to run for office under the 99 percent banner, he said.
http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2011/nov/ousted-wh-green-czar-becomes-occupy-movement-s-official-leader
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World Net Daily reports: The identity of the man responsible for loosing a few shots at the White House last week
[Oh! You hadn't heard that either, the gunshots into the window of the private residence area where the Obamas live?] has been made public by the D.C. police but one little fact is being buried by every news report about this guy. He is linked to the Occupy movement. Yet the media refuses to make the connection explicit. Imagine how the media would be wailing if the guy was a Tea Partier! But that this shooter was part of the Occupy movement seems somehow unimportant to the Old Media.
http://kleinonline.wnd.com/2011/11/18/silence-of-the-media-man-who-attempted-to-assassinate-obama-connected-to-occupy-d-c-why-the-media-has-no-questions/
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Fox News reports: The Obama administration pressured analysts to change an environmental review to reflect fewer job losses from a proposed regulation, the contractors who worked on the review testified Friday.
The dispute revolves around proposed changes to a rule regulating coal mining near streams and other waterways. The experts contracted to analyze the impact of the rule initially found that it would
cost 7,000 coal jobs.
But the contractors claim they were subsequently pressured to not only keep the findings under wraps but "revisit" the study in order to show less of an impact on jobs.
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SAN FRANCISCO (CBS/AP) — San Francisco’s public health department has declared the
Occupy San Francisco encampment in Justin Herman Plaza a public health nuisance.
The declaration came on Thursday, though city authorities so far are allowing the demonstrators to remain in the plaza.
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2011/11/18/occupy-sf-camp-declared-public-health-nuisance-eviction-deadline-passes/
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The UK Telegraph writes: Spain votes as conservatives head for crushing victory
Crisis-hit Spaniards voted in rain-swept elections all but certain to hand a thundering victory to the right and topple yet another debt-struck eurozone government. Bowed by a 21.5-per cent jobless rate, economic stagnation and deep spending cuts, the first voters of the 36-million-strong Spanish electorate headed to polls ready to punish the ruling Socialists. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/spain/8902172/Spain-votes-as-conservatives-head-for-crushing-victory.html
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CNS News reports: Occupy Oakland Calls For Shutdown Of ALL West Coast Ports
Vandalism, violence, burning and shutting down the
nation’s fifth busiest port weren’t enough for Occupy Oakland. On Friday, the General Assembly for the group voted unanimously for “a coordinated shutdown of ports on the entire West Coast on December 12."
According to a statement from
Occupy Oakland, this move is in “response to coordinated attacks on the occupations and attacks on workers across the nation.” “We call on each West Coast occupation to organize a mass mobilization to shut down its local port.”
http://cnsnews.com/blog/dan-gainor/occupy-oakland-calls-shutdown-all-west-coast-ports
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The Hill wonders where Obama is: Now in a week when leadership is needed to push this critical committee to do something big and bring the nation’s fiscal house back into order, the president once again disappears. It causes one to wonder, why? The general consensus is that neither he nor the people around him feel there is a great upside to doing something that involves making so many difficult decisions to straighten out our nation’s fiscal future.
Like House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), he sees no real need to move in this direction. After all, any significant action would require fixing Social Security; overhauling taxes; returning to healthcare reform, especially as it affects Medicare and Medicaid; and, most importantly, agreeing not just to slow growth of the federal government but in fact to reduce it.
There is no great concern at the White House that our government is getting too large. They look at Europe — where governments routinely absorb 30 percent to 40 percent of the economy — and believe we can certainly have the same
http://thehill.com/opinion/columnists/judd-gregg/194747-where-in-the-world-is-obama -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The New York Post writes: Unless a miracle happens today, the so-called super committee (otherwise known as the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction) will end in ignominious failure. It’s yet another blow to responsible representative democracy in an increasingly dysfunctional Washington.
The super committee — six Republicans and six
Democrats charged with cutting at least $1.2 trillion in federal spending — was born during the debt-ceiling turmoil last August as an attempt to save
Congress from its own dereliction of duty. It’s now been more than 900 days since the Democratic-controlled
Senate passed a budget (it voted down Rep. Paul Ryan’s House-passed “Path to Prosperity” budget, 57-40, in May and voted down President Obama’s extravagant $3.8 trillion budget 97-0), and yet even the looming Thanksgiving deadline hasn’t seemed to focus the 12 minds on the panel.
That’s because at least one side in this cold civil war never wanted to succeed in the first place. “The worm has turned a little bit,” one Democratic aide was quoted as saying by Politico. “The national conversation now is about income inequality and about jobs, and it’s not really about cutting the size of government anymore or cutting spending.”
So the super committee’s failure was preordained, as the Dems have thrown in their lot with Obama’s demonize-the-productive-class 2012 campaign.
Read more:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/the_debt_committee_inevitable_fizzle_jWzfP8aKGvdih97WFTyjrK#ixzz1eLQt88hT
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The UK Telegraph writes: The sight of well-off white kids rummaging around in black history for a few choice phrases that might make their public temper tantrums appear "with it" and historic is deeply embarrassing. It strikes me that there at least five key differences between the glorified Scouts camping trip that is the Occupy movement and the properly inspiring US civil-rights uprising.
1) Blacks in the American South faced serious repression.
2) Civil rights activists had to bear the full brunt of state violence. When they marched to demand equality, they were frequently water-cannoned and truncheoned off the streets or attacked with police dogs.
3) The civil rights movement was a mass movement. In 1963 it got a million people to march on Washington. The Occupy movement is an infinitesimally tiny clique in comparison.
4) Civil rights activists were thirsty for freedom. If Occupy London’s
“Safe Space Policy” is anything to go by, today’s occupiers wouldn’t know freedom if it accosted them in an alleyway.
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“Words mean things”, as President Obama said. Media continues to ignore the words of Barack Obama, much of which has fueled class warfare in America. During his election campaign he told Joe the Plumber Wurzelbacher that we must “spread the wealth around”, openly stating his intention to take money from those who produce jobs and wealth and give it to those who don’t, inspiring the demands of Occupy Wall St., which our President openly supports. He recently said that we must “spread out the sacrifice so that it is fair”.
![[cnbc explains]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_srU7JZZ1eTImL1pLq_h9--IWlvI6xAQrS3udt2KcL4rnhVlqMMc1URtjpbjb9BTVbe4rItzVQvnVW-9oG-CzJQMcACHrF4mQROhS6LtPBw1Qzxihe5QhiHPH6Q0cMaPzR4kHvOW5gtsvNsZneoa4Va26adPexGrGa886hBLB4as0Ge8TXUQ_p5W0BjtMZQnA=s0-d)
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