Tag Archives: Leftism

Greece and France vote against fiscal responsibility

Greece is the most fiscally irresponsible country in Europe. Recently, their socialist government has been receiving bailouts from the  more responsible nations of the EU, especially Germany. These bailouts have come with the requirement that austerity measures be imposes. The spoiled Greeks have now voted against austerity measures, which will certainly imperil future bailouts, and will probably lead to the collapse of Greece and its withdrawal from the European Union.

Here’s a story that explains what happened on the weekend.

Excerpt:

The two mainstream parties that approved the second international £110 billion rescue loan and its stringent requirements for cuts were heavily punished as support surged for the Left and Right.

The shattering of the political status quo threw into doubt Greece’s commitment to meeting the terms of its debt and could spread instability throughout the euro zone.

Weeks of uncertainty are likely to follow as numerous parties vie to cobble a majority coalition, with a fresh election within two months a distinct possibility.

There will also be fears that ensuing political instability will see a return to the street violence that has scarred Athens since the debt crisis surfaced two years ago.

Exit polls said the conservative monolith New Democracy would finish first with a maximum of 20 per cent, while Pasok, the main socialist party, would suffer a dramatic fall to 13-14 percent, a third of what it received when winning the 2009 election. Voters held both responsible for years of mismanagement and corruption.

[…]Greeks angry at record unemployment, collapsing businesses and steep wage cuts ignored warnings that a vote against the harsh terms of the bailout would push Greece towards bankruptcy.

“The exit polls confirm what has been patently clear for some time: there’s no political consensus for the kind of reforms that Greece must implement if it wants to remain in the euro zone,” said Nicholas Spiros of Spiro Sovereign Strategy.

Othon Anastasakis, director of southeast European studies at Oxford University told Reuters: “Greeks are sending a very strong message abroad, which is enough with austerity.”

As they voted, many Greeks expressed their rage at the parties who accepted the harsh conditions of two bailouts that have kept the country from bankruptcy.

“My vote was a protest vote because they cut my pension,” said 75-year-old pensioner Kalliopi, her fists clenched in anger. “I live in a basement but pay the same (property) tax as someone who lives in a penthouse,” said Kalliopi after voting.

“I voted for Left Coalition, even if this means elections again in a month. I feel vindicated, things are changing little by little because people decided to speak up,” said 22-year-old student Klelia Avgerinopoulou.

[…]International lenders and investors fear success for the small anti-bailout parties could lead to Greece reneging on the harsh terms of the program, risking a hard sovereign default and dragging the euro zone back into the worst crisis since its creation.

Euro zone paymaster Germany has warned there would be “consequences” to an anti-bailout vote and the EU and IMF insist whoever wins the election must stick to austerity if they want to receive the aid that keeps Greece afloat.

What is most disturbing to me are the quotations from Greek citizens. Their knowledge of economic policy seems to be limited to that of spoiled children.

“The politicians who got us into this mess continue to mock us. Neither of them will do anything, all they are interested in is pulling the wool over our eyes so they can get into power again,” said Yiorgos Vrassidis, 55, after casting his vote at a “Voting for them would be like committing national suicide.”

He opted for the anti-austerity Syriza, an acronym for Coalition of the Radical Left, which shocked political observers by heading for second place. Three years ago it received just a few percent.

[…]Yianna Kiritsi, who was made redundant 18 months ago, said: “I want Greek people to decide for themselves, not the troika to decide for us. They make decisions for everybody. We are not allowed to take decisions.” Greeks routinely and derisively refer to the EU, International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank which imposed the debt terms as “the troika”.

Dimitris Davos, a Communist voter, said: “We have to restore our dignity and national sovereignty. This election in Greece will send a strong message from the south of Europe to the rest that we can’t take any more pain. We need to be rid of these loan sharks and bankers.”

France also had elections, and they are taking the same anti-austerity (anti-reality) stance.

Excerpt:

 On Sunday night Mr Hollande had won 51.56 per cent of the vote compared to Mr Sarkozy’s 48.41 per cent with 90 per cent of the ballots counted.

Over 100,000 jubilant supporters gathered at Paris’s revolutionary Place de la Bastille, a pilgrimage site for the Left, chanting “François President”.

Many were too young to remember that it was here that a gigantic crowd gathered for the 1981 victory of the last Socialist president, François Mitterrand.

But even as the festivities got under way, officials close to both Mr Hollande and Mr Sarkozy were fearful of a market backlash against the Socialist’s plans to tax the wealthy and expand jobs in the state sector.

There are concerns that Mr Hollande will be unable to respect fiscal discipline targets while enacting a tax — and-spend programme that would see him create 60,000 more state education posts, partly revoke a pension reform and slap a 75 per cent tax on millionaire owners.

A senior Conservative source told The Daily Telegraph that fears France was about to reverse course would cause turmoil and uncertainty.

He said: “Clearly it’s going to focus a lot of market attention on the French public finances, which are nothing to write home about. I don’t think it is going to make life in the bond markets any easier next week.

“We haven’t chosen austerity because it’s fun. We have to do austerity, and so does France.

“He will have to be very careful about his public spending commitments and the lack of welfare reform.”

So the grown-ups have been voted out and the children are now in power. European voters want their ice cream, and they want it now, and they don’t want to have to behave to get it. How money is earned, how goods and services are produced, and how prices are set, etc. are all irrelevant to them. They have no idea why their goodies are being taken away, and they are having a tantrum.

Human Rights Campaign leaks list of pro-marriage donors and their addresses

Here are the facts from the National Organization for Marriage.

Excerpt:

The National Organization for Marriage (NOM), today demanded a federal investigation of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to determine who was responsible for releasing NOM’s confidential federal tax return information to the Huffington Post. Last week the publication posted a copy of NOM’s federal tax return for 2008 (Form 990—Schedule B) listing its major donors, which is a confidential document filed only with the IRS. The tax return listed the names and addresses of dozens of NOM’s major donors in 2008. All of this information is submitted to the IRS on a confidential basis and is not available for lawful public disclosure.

And the latest from the National Organization for Marriage.

Excerpt:

The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) today released documents showing that their confidential U.S. tax return containing private donor information came directly from the Internal Revenue Service and was provided to NOM’s political opponents, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). Joe Solmonese, president of the HRC, is a national co-chair of President Obama’s reelection campaign.

“The American people are entitled to know how a confidential tax return containing private donor information filed exclusively with the Internal Revenue Service has been given to our political opponents whose leader also happens to be co-chairing President Obama’s reelection committee,” said NOM President Brian Brown. “It is shocking that a political ally of President Obama’s would come to possess and then publicly release a confidential tax return that came directly from the Internal Revenue Service. We demand to know who is responsible for this criminal act and what the Administration is going to do to get to the bottom of it.”

On March 30, 2012, the Huffington Post published NOM’s confidential 2008 tax return filed with the IRS, which it said came from the Human Rights Campaign. The HRC has said on its own site the documents came from a “whistleblower.” However, NOM has determined that the documents came directly from the Internal Revenue Service.

What does it mean that the names of pro-marriage donors are now in the hands of pro-gay-marriage groups, via the Obama administration’s IRS?

What did some gay activists do to Proposition 8 donors?

Here’s what happened to pro-marriage donors in California.

Excerpt:

Gay rights supporters, dressed in pink and black, stormed a Lansing, Mich., church during its services Nov. 9 throwing condoms, pulling the fire alarm and yelling such things as “It’s okay to be gay” and “Jesus was a homo.”

One media account said two lesbians then went to the pulpit at Mount Hope Church where they began making out in front of the congregants, which included children.

Police were called and the demonstration, sponsored by a group called Bash Back, ceased. The group is described as pro-homosexual and pro-anarchist. The group’s blog promoted its actions saying it was “targeting a well known anti-queer, anti-choice, radical right-wing establishment.”

[…]The incident is one of dozens reported in California and across the country in the aftermath of the passage of Proposition 8, which has prompted passionate protests nationwide. In California, cases of violence were reported even before the election. Post-election, the Mormon church has been a major target because its members donated millions to the cause.

Catholics, including the Knights of Columbus, have also been targeted for their support.

[…]Mormon temples in Los Angeles and Salt Lake City, as well as the Knights of Columbus headquarters in New Haven, Conn., were sent suspicious looking white powder, reminiscent of the 2001 anthrax attacks and scares.

At least eight Mormon buildings in Salt Lake have been vandalized with spray-painted epithets criticizing the church’s support of Proposition 8.

A group of young Christians with the Justice House of Prayer— meeting on a sidewalk for their weekly prayer session in San Francisco’s Castro district—had to be escorted out of the area by police, some in riot gear, as an angry mob turned on them shouting, “Shame on You,” blowing whistles and screaming profanities.

Marjorie Christoffersen, daughter of the owners of the Los Angeles restaurant El Coyote, left town after hundreds of protesters targeted her parent’s eatery because she made a personal $100 contribution to the Yes on 8 fund. Police in riot gear were called to restore order. Gay rights activists also began a campaign to post negative restaurant reviews online. The restaurant employs several gays and lesbians who said they were taken aback by the protests.

A Palm Springs news crew captured an unruly protest group ripping an oversized cross from a woman’s hands and then stomping on it. A reporter trying to interview the woman, Phyllis Burgess, about the incident had to move the woman to safety as the crowd encircled them while shouting.

Numerous blog sites reported that gay African-American men were the subject of racial slurs while trying to join the crowd in an anti-Proposition 8 protest. The men were targeted because exit polls showed a large amount of African-Americans supported Proposition 8. In one case a black man was warned to stay out of West Hollywood “if they knew what was best for them.”

The artistic director of a Sacramento theater was forced to resign his post after donors, ticket holders and others protested outside the theater because the man, Scott Eckern, a 25-year employee of the venue donated $1,000 in his personal money to the Yes on 8 campaign. In a separate case reported at press time, the director for the Los Angeles Film Festival resigned under pressure from gay activists for donating $1,500 to Yes on 8. Richard Raddon, who tried unsuccessfully to resign several days earlier but was blocked by his supportive festival board, resubmitted his resignation when the berating calls and e-mails failed to cease.

[…]A Carlsbad man was arrested Nov. 3 for punching two elderly neighbors in the face after they confronted him about trespassing on their property to place a No on 8 sign in front of their Yes on 8 sign.

On election morning, a Carlsbad jogger was also attacked and bitten by a dog when he tried to stop two men from stealing a Yes on 8 sign. Several weeks ago police in that same city arrested at least two people for stealing Yes on 8 signs.

In Fresno, a prominent pastor, who had campaigned publicly for Proposition 8, received credible death threats that also targeted the mayor, another traditional marriage supporter. The threats were deemed credible enough for the police department to assign officers to protect the men. The church was also targeted for vandalism.

In Modesto, a Protect Marriage volunteer received 16 stitches under his eye after a man tried to steal his Yes on 8 signs outside a local church where he was waiting to distribute them after Mass.

A week before the election, a San Jose couple, who posted a Yes on 8 sign in their front lawn, discovered that someone spray-painted “No on 8” on their car, their garage and the garage of their neighbor.

Also in San Jose, vandals painted the back window of an SUV with the words “Bigot Live Here,” with an arrow pointing to a house boasting a Yes on 8 sign.

In other areas of the state, cars were keyed, signs defaced and a block was thrown through the window of an elderly couple who displayed a Yes on 8 sign in their yard.

But what about this “Human Rights Campaign” organization that sent the leaked list of donors to the Huffington Post for publication?

The Human Rights Campaign organization

You may have seen a logo on car bumpers that feature a yellow equal sign on a purple background. That logo is the logo of the Human Rights Campaign, which opposes traditional marriage. They also believe in firing people who support traditional marriage, as we shall see below.

Here is an example of what the Human Rights Campaign does to people who support traditional marriage.

Excerpt:

Larry Grard admits he had “a lapse in judgment.” But Grard – who’s been a reporter for thirty-five years, the last eighteen of them at the Morning Sentinel in Waterville – says the e-mail he sent from his personal account to a national gay rights group shouldn’t have been grounds for his dismissal.

Grard was fired by Bill Thompson, editor of the Sentinel and its sister paper the Kennebec Journal in Augusta, shortly after the Nov. 3 election in which Maine voters repealed a same-sex marriage law approved by the Legislature. Grard said he arrived at work the morning after the vote to find an e-mailed press release from the Human Rights Campaign in Washington, D.C., that blamed the outcome of the balloting on hatred of gays.

Grard, who said he’d gotten no sleep the night before, used his own e-mail to send a response. “They said the Yes-on-1 people were haters. I’m a Christian. I take offense at that,” he said. “I e-mailed them back and said basically, ‘We’re not the ones doing the hating. You’re the ones doing the hating.’

“I sent the same message in his face he sent in mine.”

Grard thought his response was anonymous, but it turned out to be anything but. One week later, he was summoned to Thompson’s office. He was told that Trevor Thomas, deputy communications director of the Human Rights Campaign, had Googled his name, discovered he was a reporter, and was demanding Grard be fired. According to Grard, Thompson said, “There’s no wiggle room.”

He was immediately dismissed.

[…]The week after Grard was fired, he said, his wife, Lisa, who wrote a biweekly food column for the Sentinel as a freelancer, received an e-mail informing her that her work would no longer be needed.

Is this some sort of poorly-funded, fringe organization like Earth First! or the Animal Liberation Front? Actually, despite the radical actions I described above, they are well-funded by mainstream corporations, who apparently endorse such tactics as normal and acceptable.

Companies that support the Human Rights Campaign

I found a list of companies on the Human Rights Campaign web site that are also strongly oppose traditional marriage.

Platinum Partners:

  • American Airlines
  • Citi
  • Microsoft
  • Nationwide Insurance
  • VPI Pet Insurance

Gold Partners:

  • Bank of America
  • Deloitte
  • Ernst & Young LLP
  • Lexus
  • Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams
  • Prudential

Silver Partners:

  • Beaulieu Vineyard
  • BP
  • Caesars Entertainment
  • Chevron
  • Google
  • MGM Mirage
  • Nike

Bronze Partners:

  • Chase
  • Cox Enterprises
  • Cunard
  • Dell
  • Goldman Sachs
  • IBM
  • Macy’s Inc.
  • MetLife
  • Morgan Stanley
  • Orbitz
  • Paul Hastings
  • PwC
  • Replacements, Ltd.
  • Shell
  • Starbucks
  • Toronto-Dominion (TD) Bank
  • Tylenol PM

And you can find the full listing of companies that promote discrimination against traditional marriage on the Human Rights Campaign web site. I noticed that they have about 1 million people who like them on Facebook and 85 thousand Twitter followers.

Alberta judge rules that it is legal to disagree with homosexuality

Political map of Canada
Political map of Canada

Good news in Alberta.

Excerpt:

Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Paul Jeffrey has dismissed a Crown appeal of a decision from a lower court that acquitted Bill Whatcott of trespassing charges for distributing “Truth about homosexuality” pamphlets at the University of Calgary in 2008.

On Friday, March 30, Jeffrey upheld the November 2011 ruling by provincial court Judge John D. Bascom that stated the University of Calgary infringed on Whatcott’s Charter rights to freedom of expression when campus security arrested and detained him for distributing a pamphlet that addressed the “harmful consequences” of homosexuality.

The university had argued that the Charter only applied to “government actors and government actions,” not to the university itself since it was a private entity.

Bascom ruled, however, that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms applies to the University of Calgary since “the University is not a Charter free zone,” in that it carried out “specific” governmental work by providing post-secondary education to the public in Alberta, making its actions subject to scrutiny under the Charter.

“Mr. Whatcott entered the university property with a purpose to distribute his literature to students, staff and public,” said the judge, adding, “His activity was peaceful and presented no harm to the university structures or those who frequented the campus. … Although Mr. Whatcott’s pamphlet is not scholarly, freedom of speech is not limited to academic works.”

Bascom concluded that “the means used by campus security halted Mr. Whatcott’s distribution of these flyers and violated his right of free expression.”

The judge also lifted the University’s ban against Whatcott that would have indefinitely prohibited him from setting foot on the campus again, stating that the ban was “arbitrary and unfair.”

Do you all remember that the University of Calgary is one of the ones that harassed pro-lifers with armed policemen? That’s still better than Carleton University, which actually had pro-lifers arrested by armed policemen.

This Alberta ruling dovetails nicely with a 2010 ruling from the province of Saskatchewan:

In 2010 Whatcott won an appeal in Saskatchewan when Justice Darla Hunter of Saskatchewan’s Court of Appeal overturned a 2006 Saskatchewan Human Rights Tribunal ruling that found him guilty of violating the province’s human rights code by publicly criticizing homosexuality through a series of flyers he distributed in Saskatoon and Regina in 2001 and 2002.

The tribunal had ordered Whatcott to pay $17,500 and imposed a “lifetime” ban on his freedom to publicly criticize homosexuality.

In her decision Justice Hunter ruled that Whatcott did not violate section 14(1)(b) of the Saskatchewan Human Rights Code by distributing flyers to oppose the teaching of homosexuality in Saskatoon’s public schools.

“It is acceptable, in a democracy, for individuals to comment on the morality of another’s behaviour. … Anything that limits debate on the morality of behaviour is an intrusion on the right to freedom of expression,” Justice Hunter had remarked.

Alberta and Saskatchewan are the two most conservative provinces in Canada. Let’s hope that other provinces move in the same direction.