Tag Archives: Socialism

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SEIU union thugs rage against private citizen on his own front lawn

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SEIU union thugs storm private citizen's home

Story here from CNN Money. (H/T Peter Sean Bradley at Lex Communis)

Excerpt:

Last Sunday, on a peaceful, sun-crisp afternoon, our toddler finally napping upstairs, my front yard exploded with 500 screaming, placard-waving strangers on a mission to intimidate my neighbor, Greg Baer. Baer is deputy general counsel for corporate law at Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), a senior executive based in Washington, D.C. And that — in the minds of the organizers at the politically influential Service Employees International Union and a Chicago outfit called National Political Action — makes his family fair game.

[…]As bullhorns rattled with stories of debtor calls and foreclosed homes, Baer’s teenage son Jack — alone in the house — locked himself in the bathroom. “When are they going to leave?” Jack pleaded when I called to check on him.

[…]Now this event would accurately be called a “protest” if it were taking place at, say, a bank or the U.S. Capitol. But when hundreds of loud and angry strangers are descending on your family, your children, and your home, a more apt description of this assemblage would be “mob.” Intimidation was the whole point of this exercise, and it worked-even on the police. A trio of officers who belatedly answered our calls confessed a fear that arrests might “incite” these trespassers.

And why were the SEIU trying to intimidate a private citizen on his own property?

[Bank of America] is the union’s lender of choice — and SEIU, suffering financially, owes the bank nearly $4 million in interest and fees. Bank of America declined comment on the loans.

Now you know everything you need to know about the people who get Democrats elected. When I think of the SEIU, I think of Hitler’s brown-shirts. (Just as when I think of Obama’s former employer ACORN, I think of the mafia).

This new tactic of violent intimidation defines what it means to be a Democrat today. They don’t want to debate with those who disagree with them, they want to shout obscenities and intimidate dissenters with threats of violence and vandalism – or to attack people and their property, if that’s what is needed. There was a time when Democrats were a mainstream, respectable party – the party of JFK. But that time is gone.

It’s not difficult for me to compare Democrats gangs with the socialist Greek rioters who murdered three people while burning down a bank – it’s the next stage of the “striking” and “community organizing” that the left is so fond of. They want their inflated salaries, their pensions, and their generous health care plans – and they will use violence and intimidation in order to get someone else’s money to pay for it.

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How well did a government-run green energy policy work in Spain?

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Story here from Pajamas Media. (H/T Stuart Scheidernman)

Keep in mind that the socialists under Zapatero are running Spain now, and that’s where this green energy policy came from. Is it working out for socialist Spain?

Excerpt:

Pajamas Media has received a leaked internal assessment produced by Spain’s Zapatero administration. The assessment confirms the key charges previously made by non-governmental Spanish experts in a damning report exposing the catastrophic economic failure of Spain’s “green economy” initiatives.

[…]Unsurprisingly for a governmental take on a flagship program, the report takes pains to minimize the extent of the economic harm. Yet despite the soft-pedaling, the document reveals exactly why electricity rates “necessarily skyrocketed” in Spain, as did the public debt needed to underwrite the disaster. This internal assessment preceded the Zapatero administration’s recent acknowledgement that the “green economy” stunt must be abandoned, lest the experiment risk Spain becoming Greece.

The government report does not expressly confirm the highest-profile finding of the non-governmental report: that Spain’s “green economy” program cost the country 2.2 jobs for every job “created” by the state. However, the figures published in the government document indicate they arrived at a job-loss number even worse than the 2.2 figure from the independent study.

Spain is giving up their green energy / green jobs initiative. What does Obama learn from Spain’s failure?

Excerpt:

This document is not a public report. Spanish media has referred to its existence in recent weeks though, while Bloomberg and the Washington Examiner have noted the impact: Spain is now forced to jettison its plans — Obama’s model — for a “green economy.”

Remarkably, these items have received virtually no media attention.

An item which has been covered widely, however, is that President Obama is now pressuring Spain to turn off its spigot of public debt in the name of averting a situation similar to that of Greece.

Also covered widely is Obama’s promotion of the American Power Act — the legislation which would replicate Spain’s current situation in the United States.

Put simply, Obama is currently promoting a policy in the U.S. which is based on a policy that he wishes to see Spain abandon.

Why can’t we learn from Spain’s failure and avoid making the same mistakes they did? Is that too much to ask?

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The truth about government-run health care in the United States

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Two stories today, the first from the Houston Chronicle, about Medicare. (H/T Stuart Scheiderman)

Excerpt:

Texas doctors are opting out of Medicare at alarming rates, frustrated by reimbursement cuts they say make participation in government-funded care of seniors unaffordable.

Two years after a survey found nearly half of Texas doctors weren’t taking some new Medicare patients, new data shows 100 to 200 a year are now ending all involvement with the program. Before 2007, the number of doctors opting out averaged less than a handful a year.

[…]More than 300 doctors have dropped the program in the last two years, including 50 in the first three months of 2010, according to data compiled by the Houston Chronicle. Texas Medical Association officials, who conducted the 2008 survey, said the numbers far exceeded their assumptions.

[…]The opt-outs follow years of declining Medicare reimbursement that culminated in a looming 21 percent cut in 2010. Congress has voted three times to postpone the cut, which was originally to take effect Jan. 1. It is now set to take effect June 1.

The uncertainty proved too much for Dr. Guy Culpepper, a Dallas-area family practice doctor who says he wrestled with his decision for years before opting out in March. It was, he said, the only way “he could stop getting bullied and take control of his practice.”

“You do Medicare for God and country because you lose money on it,” said Culpepper, a graduate of the University of Texas Medical School at Houston. “The only way to provide cost-effective care is outside the Medicare system, a system without constant paperwork and headaches and inadequate reimbursement.”

What’s wrong with government running health care? If there is no money to be made in health care, then there is no one who invests in it. The government is left to bear the full brunt of the costs, and they pass it on to taxpayers. After helping themselves to piece of the tax revenues, of course. The patients are the least of their concerns – especially the elderly, who no longer pay taxes into the system.