The Fair Society

“To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.” — Thomas Jefferson, letter to Joseph Milligan — 1816.

For the first 12 years on my life I lived with my parents in a rented house in the inner city of Cleveland Ohio. Life there was not bad as I was living with our extended family in old, drafty three-story house. My dad worked hard and my mom worked part-time in order to save up enough money to buy a new home in Parma, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland. In 1948 we moved to this new home and said good bye to Cleveland’s inner city with its growing crime rate and bad management by a corrupt Democratic Party machine.

The vacant lot is where my house in the inner city of Cleveland once stood

Abandoned house on the street where I lived in Cleveland. Typical of the area

Abandoned retail business with living quarters in the neighborhood where I once lived.

I didn’t realize it at the time but this was my parent’s exercising the Constitution right for Life, liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness by working hard to no longer be tenants, but to become owners of their own property — something they were very proud of.

House in Parma my Father purchased in 1948 and where I graduated high school from.

 

Street in Parma where our 1948 house was situated as it looks today (2011)

This phenomenon of upward mobility continued all over the United States for the next 60 years as people fled the dismal, mismanaged cities with rising crime rates, lousy facilities, and failing schools to move to what we call the suburbs. At the time this was called “white flight”, but over the ensuing years all races and creeds have taken flight from the decaying cities like Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles. Husbands, and sometimes wives, worked hard to acquire the funds to make a down payment on a house in the suburbs where they could breathe clean air, own their homes, and where their children could attend better schools. They also believed they could have more control over how their community and schools were managed and property taxes were allocated.

As the home ownership in the suburbs grew businesses shopping malls, industrial parks, movies theaters, churches, schools, highways, and business centers soon followed. This was America of the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s. It’s where the people wanted to live and raise their families. It should also be pointed out that with the creation of the suburbs our economy grew in leaps and bounds as millions of jobs were created in the construction and allied industries. This was post-war America where wealth was being created and people were living better lives. The United States had the highest percentage of home ownership in the world at 70%.

On the other hand the old inner cities were dying as the people were fleeing and the tax-base was decreasing. More and more of the people left were on welfare and did not own their own homes. Even government financed housing projects soon became crime-ridden ghettos. The inner city schools became worse and K-12 graduation rates decline to as low as 45%. With the failing graduation rates and test scores these children were not able to obtain good jobs or higher education and many turned to crime and gangs — even with the advantages of President Johnson’s Great Society, Model Cities, and affirmative action. Today this is the state of inner cities. They have become warehouses for the welfare class.

With all of the billions poured into The Great Society and the War on Poverty our cities have gotten worse not better. There is no doubt that education, children have children, and the massive welfare state are the main contributors to this mess. The Teachers Unions resist charter schools and school vouchers. Politicians pander to the inner city voters offering more and more free stuff. And in almost all of these failing cities the dominant political party is the Democrat Party, and has been for the past 40 years.

The Great Society has failed the inner cities. Central government planning by experts and masterminds has failed. Massive infusion of federal government money has failed. Those who worked had to move to the suburbs and are willing to pay local property taxes to support those communities are being taxes more and more through their income taxes (federal and state) to subsidize the failing inner cities.

Now President Obama wants to create a new “Fair Society”. This one is called the “Regional Equity Management Program.” (Note the word “equity”). The goal of the REMP is basically to destroy the suburbs in order to build up the inner cities — in essence the property from the industrious, hardworking responsible “makers” and give it to the irresponsible “takers”, something our Founders such as Madison, Hamilton and Jefferson would find reprehensible. The opening paragraphs of Socialism and Democracy in its report entitled “Regional Equity is a Civil Rights Issue” states:

“The color line in the U.S. is nowhere more visible than between its cities and its suburbs. Urban America, comprised largely of people of color mired in poverty, is the flip side of White suburban prosperity. Gentrified urban neighborhoods and declining inner-ring suburbs are also two sides of that same coin. These patterns of racial and regional disparity define the landscape of metropolitan areas. They also reflect the maldistribution of power and opportunity. Indeed, White suburban privilege is made possible precisely because of urban distress and racial oppression. In short, it matters where one lives.

Despite these seemingly intractable conditions, progressives are increasingly challenging this social order. One strategy community organizers are pursuing is to inject themselves into current regional planning debates. Urban activists have turned towards regional level organizing because community-building efforts are being undermined by larger regional-and global-forces. Community builders are witnessing the undoing of hard-fought gains on a daily basis. Powerful actors and developments in other parts of metropolitan areas are severely altering the shape of urban neighborhoods-from the availability of jobs, housing, health care, education, and public space, to crime and punishment-no matter what activists and residents do. These conditions demand a new approach to community organizing: one that not only takes regional developments into account, but can also affect them.”

This is a program with the total support of Barack Obama and his administration. He stated as much in his 2007 speech at Hampton University where he said “we don’t need any more bridges and highways in the suburbs, we need the money in the inner cities.” What he failed to mention is that with the inner cities have a reduced tax base the people in the suburbs will have to pay for it. This what Obama considers “fair.”

As Thomas Sowell writes in Townhall:

“Senator Obama, as he was then, pointed out that this requirement was waived in the case of New York and Florida because the people there were considered to be "part of the American family." But the people in New Orleans -- predominantly black -- "they don't care about as much," according to Barack Obama.

If you want to know what community organizers do, this is it -- rub people's emotions raw to hype their resentments. And this was Barack Obama in his old community organizer role, a role that should have warned those who thought that he was someone who would bring us together, when he was all too well practiced in the arts of polarizing us apart.

Why is the date of this speech important? Because, less than two weeks earlier, on May 24, 2007, the United States Senate had in fact voted 80-14 to waive the Stafford Act requirement for New Orleans, as it had waived that requirement for New York and Florida. More federal money was spent rebuilding New Orleans than was spent in New York after 9/11 and in Florida after hurricane Andrew, combined.

Truth is not a job requirement for a community organizer. Nor can Barack Obama claim that he wasn't present the day of that Senate vote, as he claimed he wasn't there when Jeremiah Wright unleashed his obscene attacks on America from the pulpit of the church that Obama attended for 20 years.

Unlike Jeremiah Wright's church, the U.S. Senate keeps a record of who was there on a given day. The Congressional Record for May 24, 2007 shows Senator Barack Obama present that day and voting on the bill that waived the Stafford Act requirement. Moreover, he was one of just 14 Senators who voted against -- repeat, AGAINST -- the legislation which included the waiver.

When he gave that demagogic speech, in a feigned accent and style, it was world class chutzpah and a rhetorical triumph. He truly deserves the title Phony in Chief.”

President Obama is not a fan of America’s suburbs. Indeed, he intends to abolish them. With suburban voters set to be the swing constituency of the 2012 election, the administration’s plans for this segment of the electorate deserve scrutiny. Obama is a longtime supporter of “regionalism,” the idea that the suburbs should be folded into the cities, merging schools, housing, transportation, and above all taxation. To this end, the president has already put programs in place designed to push the country toward a sweeping social transformation in a possible second term. The goal: income equalization via a massive redistribution of suburban tax money to the cities.

Obama’s plans to undercut the political and economic independence of America’s suburbs reach back decades. The community organizers who trained him in the mid-1980s blamed the plight of cities on taxpayer “flight” to suburbia. Beginning in the mid-1990s, Obama’s mentors at the Gamaliel Foundation (a community-organizing network Obama helped found and based on the principles set forth by Saul Alinsky) formally dedicated their efforts to the budding fight against suburban “sprawl.” From his positions on the boards of a couple of left-leaning Chicago foundations, Obama channeled substantial financial support to these efforts. On entering politics, he served as a dedicated ally of his mentors’ anti-suburban activism.

The alliance endures. One of Obama’s original trainers, Mike Kruglik, has hived off a new organization called Building One America, which continues Gamaliel’s anti-suburban crusade under another name. Kruglik and his close allies, David Rusk and Myron Orfield, intellectual leaders of the “anti-sprawl” movement, have been quietly working with the Obama administration for years on an ambitious program of social reform.

In July of 2011, Kruglik’s Building One America held a conference at the White House. Orfield and Rusk made presentations, and afterwards Kruglik personally met with the president in the Oval Office. The ultimate goal of the movement led by Kruglik, Rusk, and Orfield is quite literally to abolish the suburbs. Knowing that this could never happen through outright annexation by nearby cities, they’ve developed ways to coax suburbs to slowly forfeit their independence.

One approach is to force suburban residents into densely packed cities by blocking development on the outskirts of metropolitan areas, and by discouraging driving with a blizzard of taxes, fees, and regulations. Step two is to move the poor out of cities by imposing low-income-housing quotas (Title 8 housing) on development in middle-class suburbs. Step three is to export the controversial “regional tax-base sharing” scheme currently in place in the Minneapolis–St. Paul area to the rest of the country. Under this program, a portion of suburban tax money flows into a common regional pot, which is then effectively redistributed to urban, and a few less well-off “inner-ring” suburban, municipalities.

(It should be noted that the term Section 8 refers to housing vouchers provided to low-income individuals and families by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Some people have the mistaken impression that Section 8 housing refers to certain housing developments, and while HUD may maintain such housing, a person may use this voucher as a real estate allowance at any real estate rental available that accepts these vouchers. This means that a Title 8 voucher holder might be your neighbor).

The Obama administration, stocked with “regionalist” appointees, has been advancing this ambitious plan quietly for the past four years. Efforts to discourage driving and to press development into densely packed cities are justified by reference to fears of global warming. Leaders of the crusade against “sprawl” very consciously use environmental concerns as a cover for their redistributive schemes.

The centerpiece of the Obama administration’s anti-suburban plans is a little-known and seemingly modest program called the Sustainable Communities Initiative. The “regional planning grants” funded under this initiative — many of them in battleground states like Florida, Virginia, and Ohio — are set to recommend redistributive policies, as well as transportation and development plans, designed to undercut America’s suburbs. Few have noticed this because the program’s goals are muffled in the impenetrable jargon of “sustainability,” while its recommendations are to be unveiled only in a possible second Obama term.

Obama’s former community-organizing mentors and colleagues want the administration to condition future federal aid on state adherence to the recommendations served up by these anti-suburban planning commissions. That would quickly turn an apparently modest set of regional-planning grants into a lever for sweeping social change.

In light of Obama’s unbroken history of collaboration with his organizing mentors on this anti-suburban project, and his proven willingness to impose ambitious policy agendas on the country through heavy-handed regulation, this project seems likely to advance.

A second and equally ambitious facet of Obama’s anti-suburban blueprint involves the work of Kruglik’s Building One America. Traditionally, Alinskyite community organizers mobilize leftist church groups. Kruglik’s group goes a step further by organizing not only the religious left but politicians from relatively less-well-off inner-ring suburbs. The goal is to build coalitions between urban and inner-ring suburban state legislators, in a bid to force regional tax-base sharing on middle-class suburbanites. That is how the practice came to Minnesota.

The July 2011 White House conference, gathering inner-ring suburban politicians for presentations by Rusk and Orfield, was an effort to place the prestige of the Obama administration behind Kruglik’s organizing efforts. A multi-state battle over regional tax-base “sharing,” abetted by the president, would usher in divisive class warfare on a scale likely to dwarf the puny efforts of Occupy Wall Street.

Obama’s little-known plans to undermine the political and economic autonomy of America’s suburbs constitute a policy initiative similar in ambition to health-care reform, the stimulus, or “cap-and-trade.” Obama’s anti-suburban plans also supply the missing link that explains his administration’s overall policy architecture.

Since the failure of Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty and the collapse of federal urban policy, leftist theorists of community organizing have advocated a series of moves designed to quietly redistribute tax money to the cities. Health-care reform and federal infrastructure spending (as in the stimulus) are backed by organizers as the best ways to reconstitute an urban policy without directly calling it that. A campaign against suburban “sprawl” under the guise of environmentalism is the next move. Open calls for suburban tax-base “sharing” are the final and most controversial link in the chain of a reconstituted and redistributive urban policy. President Obama is following this plan. This is what he calls “Fairness.”

Stanley Kurtz, the author of Spreading the Wealth: How Obama is Robbing the Suburbs to Pay for the Cities writes about Obama’s plan for the Cleveland, Ohio in Townhall:

“President Obama aims to help Ohio’s Democrats bail out your state’s struggling cities by forcibly transferring suburban tax money to urban treasuries. It’s a bold plan to redistribute the wealth of Ohio’s suburbs. It also calls for halting the sort of highway and commercial development that brings jobs and taxes to the suburbs. The shorthand for this is “regionalism.” Should Obama be reelected, a redistributive city-based regionalist agenda will likely be imposed on Ohio’s suburbs. The best way to envision the future of suburban Ohio in a second Obama term is to see how close this regionalist agenda came to enactment in Obama’s first four years.

Around 2006, Cleveland-area planners began floating proposals to grant the city access to taxes collected by surrounding suburbs. Their model was the Minneapolis–St. Paul region, where the Minnesota state legislature forces reluctant suburbanites to “share” their tax revenue with the cities. Cleveland’s regionalists also touted Portland, Ore., for its metropolitan planning agency. Portland’s planning commission has laid down an “urban growth boundary” that forbids highway or commercial development around the edges of the metropolitan area. Regionalists blame the plight of the cities on the loss of tax base to the suburbs. Blocking new highways that could ease commutes or serve as gateways to newly constructed suburbs is designed both to prevent further exodus and to press current suburbanites back toward the cities. This is what Obama was getting at in that recently released 2007 video where he said, “We don’t need to build more highways out in the suburbs.”

As written in the Regional Equity as a Civil Rights Issue:

“Regional-level solutions-particularly at the political level-can address varying kinds of problems that affect different groups. The challenge regionalism poses for community-builders is to forge effective coalitions that make racial and class equity a central part of their everyday operation. Fortunately, recent successes by groups promoting regional equity offer direction and promise. While there is much ground yet to cover, the mobilization of democratic regionalists has begun to reshape the color line-not in the manner of those who push for colorblind policies (such as abolishing affirmative action and bilingual education) - but on their own terms. Community organizers are moving resources to people and people to resources, making regionalism a civil rights issue.”

According to the definition, as stated by the Department of Agriculture Regional Equity is:

“A provision enacted in the 2002 Farm Act that requires that each State be allocated an amount of conservation funding through specific conservation programs, that collectively exceeds a predetermined minimum amount.”

This provision has very little to do with farms and a great deal more to do with cities and suburbs. Political experts left and right agree: the coming election will be decided by America’s suburbanites. From Florida to Virginia on across the country, in every battleground state, they are the key demographic. All of which raises a question that has not been considered as yet, and ought to be: is President Obama’s re-election in the suburbanites’ interest? The answer emphatically is no. Yet this issue has all but been buried in the MSM.

As many Americans do not know, in the eyes of the leftist community organizers who trained Obama, suburbs are instruments of bigotry and greed — a way of selfishly refusing to share tax money with the urban poor. Obama adopted this view early on, and he has never wavered from this ideological commitment, as a review of his actions in office goes to show.

President Obama’s plans for a second-term include an initiative to systematically redistribute the wealth of America’s suburbs to the cities. It’s a transformative idea, and deserves to be fully aired before the election. But like a lot of his major progressive policy innovations, Obama has advanced this one stealthily — mostly through rule-making, appointment, and vague directives. Obama has worked on this project in collaboration with Mike Kruglik, one of his original community organizing mentors. Kruglik’s new group, Building One America, advocates “regional tax-base sharing,” a practice by which suburban tax money is directly redistributed to nearby cities and less-well-off “inner-ring” suburbs. Kruglik’s group also favors a raft of policies designed to coerce people out of their cars and force suburbanites (with their tax money) back into densely packed cities. And you wonder why Obama is not concerned about the price of gasoline approaching five dollars per gallon and is opposed to drilling for more oil or the Keystone Pipeline.

Obama has lent the full weight of his White House to Kruglik’s efforts. A federal program called the Sustainable Communities Initiative, for example, has salted planning commissions across the country with “regional equity” and “smart growth” as goals. These are, of course, code words. “Regional equity” means that, by their mere existence, suburbs cheat the people who live in cities. It means, “Let’s spread the suburbs’ wealth around” – i.e., take from the suburbanites to give to the urban poor. “Smart growth” means, “Quit building sub-divisions and malls, and move back to where mass transit can shuttle you between your 800 square foot apartment in an urban tower and your downtown job.” In all likelihood, these planning commissions will issue “recommendations” which Obama would quickly turn into requirements for further federal aid. In fact, his administration has already used these tactics to impose federal education requirements on reluctant states. Indeed, part of Obama’s assault on the suburbs is his effort to undercut the autonomy of suburban school districts.

Suburbs are for sellouts: That is a large and overlooked theme of Obama’s famous memoir, Dreams from My Father. Few have noticed the little digs at suburban “sprawl” throughout the book, as when Obama decries a Waikiki jammed with “subdivisions marching relentlessly into every fold of green hill.” Dreams actually begins with the tale of an African American couple who’ve come to question their move from city to suburb – the implication clearly being that the city is the moral choice.

Early on in Dreams, Obama tells of how his mother and Indonesian step-father, Lolo Soetoro, were pulled apart by a proxy version of the American dream. Lolo got a job with an American oil company, bought a house in a better neighborhood, and started dining at the company club. Obama’s mother, who had come to Indonesia in search of Third World authenticity, wanted nothing to do with the “ugly American” types who frequented this new world, and she taught her son to disdain them as well. From Obama’s perspective, American-inspired upward mobility had broken his new family in two.

Back in Hawaii after his Indonesian interlude, Obama came to see his grandparents as strangers. The realization dawned as they drove him along a sprawl-filled highway. Obama then threw in his lot with an African-American mentor named Frank Marshall Davis, who lived in a ramshackle pocket of the city called the “Waikiki Jungle” where his home was a gathering place for young leftists and nonconformists. Rejecting assimilation into America’s middle-class, Davis hit on socialist politics and identification with the urban poor as the way to establish his racial credentials.

In Dreams from My Father Obama describes Davis’s efforts to pass this stance on to Obama. At Occidental, with Davis’s advice in mind, Obama worried that he was too much like “suburban blacks, students who sit with whites in the cafeteria and refuse to be defined by the color of their skin.” This fear of becoming a middle-class suburban “sellout” is the background to the famous passage of Dreams where Obama explains why he started hanging out with “Marxist professors” and other unconventional types. Recalling Davis’s admonition to reject the standard path to success, “the American way and all that shit,” Obama left Occidental’s suburban campus for Columbia University, “in the heart of a true city.”

To this day, Obama quietly coordinates his administration’s policies on urban/suburban issues with Kruglik, Orfield, and Rusk. Kruglik’s anti-suburban battle is set to become one of the defining themes of Obama’s second term. Although calls for “regional tax-base sharing” will strike the public as something entirely new, the program is the fulfillment of the president’s lifetime ambition. Still trying to avoid being mistaken for a middle-class, suburban “sellout,” Obama has hit upon the ultimate solution: a massive redistribution of suburban tax money to America’s cities.

That would not be in the interests of America’s suburbanites or, ultimately, anyone else. Redistribution kills the growth that benefits everyone. Once voters realize that there has never been a president more ideologically opposed to the suburbs, or more reliant on redistribution as a policy, they should know what to do — especially all those suburbanites on whose judgment the election itself will turn. But, what will it take for the red flag of warning to be noticed by all who have worked so hard to attain the castle in the suburbs and live the American Dream?

The Chicken War Goes On

“The dons, the bashaws, the grandees, the patricians, the sachems, the nabobs, call them by what names you please, sigh and groan and fret, and sometimes stamp and foam and curse, but all in vain. The decree is gone forth, and it cannot be recalled, that a more equal liberty than has prevailed in other parts of the earth must be established in America” — John Adams letter to Patrick Henry — 1776.

Liberty is the cornerstone of Constitution and its Bill of Rights – but liberty for whom. It appears as though the liberty insured by the First Amendment to the Constitution only applies to the Left. If Bill Maher calls Sarah Plain a “C” word or Ed Schultz of MSNBC calls conservative radio talk show host Laura Ingraham a “slut” their protectors on the left cry for freedom of speech. On he other hand if someone with a conservative or Christian point of view expresses their opinions about Obama, abortion, federal funding for contraception, or same sex marriage they are chastised by the left and MSM. Freedom speech does not apply to them.

One of the more blatant displays of left-wing thuggery is playing itself out in Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Chicago. Boston Mayor Thomas Menino threatened to keep fast food franchise Chick-fil-A from opening any restaurants in that city because he doesn't want any business operating there "that discriminates against a population." In Chicago, Alderman Proco "Joe" Moreno announced that he will pursue the same course in his district for the same reason. "If you are discriminating against a segment of the community, I don't want you in the 1st Ward," Moreno told the Chicago Tribune. Such "tolerance" is based on an effort to deliberately mischaracterize as anti-homosexual what Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy said about traditional marriage. That mischaracterization has been aided and abetted by a media more than willing to amplify the distortion.

The latest big city to pile on Dan Cathy is The Philadelphia City Council Jim Kenney. Todd Starnes of Fox News Radio reported:

“The Philadelphia City Council will consider a resolution condemning Chick-fil-A for what one city leader called “anti-American” attitudes that promote “hatred, bigotry and discrimination.”

City Councilman Jim Kenney sent a letter to Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy telling him to “take a hike and take your intolerance with you.

My effort is to allow people to understand that in certain segments of corporate America there are folks who are using their dollars to promote hatred, bigotry and discrimination,” Kenney told Fox News.

He is introducing a resolution to “condemn this anti-American attitude of trying to deny civil liberties that every American enjoys.”

Kenney joined the mayors of Boston, Chicago and now San Francisco in blasting the Atlanta-based company for supporting a biblical definition of marriage – a union between one man and one woman.

Cathy told Baptist Press that he is “guilty as charged” when it comes to supporting traditional marriage.”

The true story — as opposed to what is currently being presented — involved an interview of Cathy by Biblical Recorder editor K. Allan Blume. Blume asked Cathy about his support for traditional marriage. "Guilty as charged," Cathy answered. Further on into the interview, he explained what he meant. "We are very much supportive of the family — the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that," he said. Blume also revealed that Cathy does not impose his beliefs on others. "We're a business that serves the public, all people are welcomed into Chick-fil-A, and frankly we do not feel called to weigh in on a lot of social activism that's taking place as it relates to the definition of the family, but we do definitely want to encourage strong families."

"Homophobic" references regarding gay marriage? None. That "inconvenient" fact was corroborated by Blume. "He was not saying 'guilty as charged anti-gay,” noted Blume, who further revealed that Cathy "never even brought up that subject. Everything he stated was on the positive side. He never stated anything negative." The Biblical Recorder published the interview on July 7th. It was re-posted on July 16th by the Baptist Press, and subsequently picked up by the Huffington Post, the Associated Press, USAToday, the Los Angeles Times, and other news agencies.

The level of willful distortion media and public figures have engaged in, portraying Cathy's statement of a popular and religiously based position as a hateful rant, is chilling. Like the Huffington Post, which published the piece, "The Onion' Introduces Chick-Fil-A's 'New Homophobic Sandwich (note the foul language used by the left)," Chik-fil-A critics have vigorously made the case that Cathy's support of traditional marriage is little more than homophobic hatemongering. They further assumed that if Cathy is homophobic, that prejudice must be reflected in his company's policies regarding hiring and customer service. They did this despite Cathy's assertion that his company "does not feel compelled to weigh in on a lot of social activism that's taking place as it relates to the definition of the family." I was not aware of any special mind-reading capabilities granted to the left.

Hack politicians were more than comfortable to ride atop that wave of distortion. "Chick-fil-A doesn't belong in Boston," said Menino, who delivered a warning to the franchise. "If they need licenses in the city, it will be very difficult — unless they open up their policies." Menino added an Orwellian outburst to his diatribe as well. "We're an open city. We're a city that's at the forefront of inclusion. That's the Freedom Trail. That's where it all started right here. And we're not going to have a company, Chick-fil-A or whatever the hell the name is, on our Freedom Trail." Thus, the "forefront of inclusion" is off-limits to those who don't align themselves with the reigning government's position.

Chicago alderman Moreno echoed Menino's faux self-righteousness, as well as his jackboot aspirations. In an op-ed piece presented to the Tribune by one of his aides, Moreno referred to Cathy's statements as "bigoted, homophobic comments." Then came the hammer. "Because of this man's ignorance, I will now be denying Chick-fil-A's permit to open a restaurant in the 1st Ward."

Leftist Mayor Rahm Emanuel supported Moreno's distortions and ambitions. "Chick-fil-A values are not Chicago values," the mayor said in a statement. Emanuel's most recent discussion of Chicago values prior to this one was to tell the city's street thugs, who have driven Chicago's murder rate up 30 percent over last year, to "Take your stuff away to the alley." Since Mr. Emanuel is apparently resigned to a certain level of mayhem in his city, he has hectored those perpetrating it to move to another location away from children, but seemingly within the city limits — the same city limits that he and his alderman would prevent a Christian-run business from occupying.

Thus the bankruptcy of progressive, left-wing values, literally enforced by the heavy hand of government, is illuminated. One is left to wonder how many other would-be business owners in Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Chicago will be forced to reveal — and perhaps "revise" — their political ideology in order to set up shop in those cities. One might also wonder how many existing businesses will be checked to see if they also have the "proper" ideological credentials to remain in operation. With respect to Chick-fil-A, Moreno noted that's exactly what is expected. After contemptuously dismissing First Amendment concerns with, "zoning is not a right," he explained how the company could get back in his good graces. "They'd have to do a complete 180," the alderman said. "They'd have to work with LGBT groups in terms of hiring, and there would have to be a public apology from Cathy."

Such arrogance is remarkable, especially when one considers the virtual certainty that these same people and their fellow travelers would be screaming "fascism!" if some conservative-minded community sought to ban gay-friendly companies such a Starbucks, Ben and Jerry’s or Oreo Cookies from operating within their confines — based on nothing more than comments made by company executives. Thus, another aspect of progressive bankruptcy is revealed: the complete lack of intellectual consistency, and the massive amount of hypocrisy such inconsistency produces.

Americans should be outraged by this overt intolerance masquerading itself as open-mindedness, the attempt to use government power as an ideological billy club, and the media's calculating effort to take what Cathy said and twist it into something completely different. Yet for progressives and their media enablers, this is the price one is expected to pay for refusing to kowtow to the parameters of political correctness.

On the other hand, it is very likely both Chicago and Boston are violating Mr. Cathy's First Amendment rights. Three Supreme Court cases, Consolidated Edison Co. v. Public Service Commission, Rust v. Sullivan, and Board of County Commissioners v. Umbehr, make it clear that government may not deny a private business permits because of something said by its owner. Unless officials in either Boston or Chicago can produce evidence of discrimination by Chick-fil-A, preventing the company from operating within their respective cities is unconstitutional.

Michael Foust reports in the Baptist Press:

“David Cortman, an attorney with the legal group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), said a restaurant cannot be blocked from opening because of the restaurant's or the owner's beliefs.

"It absolutely is not constitutional," Cortman told Baptist Press. "And I think the irony here is that they are claiming this is an issue of freedom and civil rights, but they're actually the ones who would be violating the civil rights of Chick-fil-A not to allow them to open up their business simply because of their views."

But the issue concerns more than just Chick-fil-A, Cortman said, and impacts any business or organization in America whose owners hold views different from that of the government. Boston and Chicago would be practicing viewpoint discrimination — a violation of the Constitution's Free Speech clause, Cortman said.

"It does create both a dangerous and an illegal precedent," Cortman. "The government shouldn't be in the business of threatening or punishing people for their thoughts or ideas — whether they are individuals or businesses themselves. And, there's certainly a double standard. You did not hear a politician threatening to deny permits to companies like Home Depot or Starbucks or Target over those companies' aggressive promotion of the homosexual agenda."

Mat Staver, president of the legal group Liberty Counsel, said he, too, believes the attempts would be unconstitutional.

"No city can ban Chick-fil-A because the [company] president has his own view regarding marriage — a view that is held by much of the American public," Staver told Fox News. "To discriminate against Mr. Cathy because of his biblical view and then to extrapolate that to Chick-fil-A is illegal. It would be unconstitutional and certainly any city trying to do so would not win that battle."

Eugene Volokh, a law professor at UCLA, wrote on his blog, "Denying a private business permits because of such speech by its owner is a blatant First Amendment violation."

The Chicago alderman who initially spoke up against Chick-fil-A, Joe Moreno, told local media he might simply block a proposed new Chick-fil-A in his ward because of traffic concerns. Moreno, though, previously said he opposed a new Chick-fil-A because it was "intolerant" and because he disagreed with Cathy. On Thursday (July 26) Moreno told WBEZ radio he wants an explicit guarantee from the potential local owners of the restaurant that they won't donate to political causes. But that, too, apparently would be unconstitutional.

Cortman, the ADF attorney, said Moreno won't legally be able to use a legitimate reason -- traffic concerns -- as cover for his previous comments.

"His true motivations already have been made public, so I think any attempt to backtrack to create what normally would be a legitimate reason wouldn't work in this situation," Cortman said.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) — which supports gay marriage — also said the politicians' attempts would be unconstitutional.”

In essence these mayors and councilmen are saying you cannot sell your chicken in our city unless you subscribe to our values. Just imagine the outcry from the left if a conservative mayor said this to Ben and Jerry’s, a known left-wing advocate of abortion and other progressive causes, about their ice cream?

In other words, this controversy has been manufactured, plain and simple. It represents the epitome of the left-wing, progressive impulse to control individual thought, using the threat of government retaliation as persuasion. It has been egged on by a corrupt media that no longer bothers to get the story right, when the right story doesn't accrue to progressive interests.

Furthermore, the idea that opposition to gay marriage is tantamount to homophobia is nothing more than a progressive construct aimed at forcing people to accept the gay activist agenda in its totality. It is a ham-fisted attempt to label someone who might be open to homosexuals receiving the same government-mandated services and benefits that married people do, but uncomfortable with redefining "marriage" — a word commonly understood by every culture in the world for more than five thousand years — as a hopeless bigot. As far as the activists and their enablers are concerned, one is all in with the gay activist agenda, or unrepentant homophobe who can literally be run out of town. It is precisely this kind of thinking on which the attempt to deny Chick-fil-A the ability to operate in Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Chicago is based. In other words, for "progressives," tolerance and totalitarianism are two sides of the same coin.

Here are a few thoughts expressed by other writers on this subject.

Mark Steyn writes in National Review Online:

“The city’s mayor, Rahm Emanuel, agrees with the alderman: Chick-fil-A does not represent “Chicago values” — which is true if by “Chicago values” you mean machine politics, AIDS-conspiracy-peddling pastors, and industrial-scale black youth homicide rates. But, before he was mayor, Rahm Emanuel was President Obama’s chief of staff. Until the president’s recent “evolution,” the Obama administration held the same position on gay marriage as Chick-fil-A. Would Alderman Moreno have denied Barack Obama the right to open a chicken restaurant in the First Ward? Did Rahm Emanuel quit the Obama administration on principle? Don’t be ridiculous. Mayor Emanuel is a former ballet dancer, and when it’s politically necessary he can twirl on a dime.

Meanwhile, fellow mayor Tom Menino announced that Chick-fil-A would not be opening in his burg anytime soon. “If they need licenses in the city, it will be very difficult,” said His Honor. If you’ve just wandered in in the middle of the column, this guy Menino isn’t the mayor of Soviet Novosibirsk or Kampong Cham under the Khmer Rouge, but of Boston, Massachusetts. Nevertheless, he shares the commissars’ view that in order to operate even a modest and politically inconsequential business it is necessary to demonstrate that one is in full ideological compliance with party orthodoxy. “There is no place for discrimination on Boston’s Freedom Trail,” Mayor Menino thundered in his letter to Mr. Cathy, “and no place for your company alongside it.” No, sir. On Boston’s Freedom Trail, you’re free to march in ideological lockstep with the city authorities — or else. Hard as it is to believe, there was a time when Massachusetts was a beacon of liberty: the shot heard round the world, and all that. Now it fires Bureau of Compliance permit-rejection letters round the world.

Mayor Menino subsequently backed down and claimed the severed rooster’s head left in Mr. Cathy’s bed was all just a misunderstanding. Yet, when it comes to fighting homophobia on Boston’s Freedom Trail, His Honor is highly selective. As the Boston Herald’s Michael Graham pointed out, Menino is happy to hand out municipal licenses to groups whose most prominent figures call for gays to be put to death. The mayor couldn’t have been more accommodating (including giving them $1.8 million of municipal land) of the new mosque of the Islamic Society of Boston, whose IRS returns listed as one of their seven trustees Yusuf al-Qaradawi. Like President Obama, Imam Qaradawi’s position on gays is in a state of “evolution”: He can’t decide whether to burn them or toss ’em off a cliff. “Some say we should throw them from a high place,” he told Al Jazeera. “Some say we should burn them, and so on. There is disagreement. . . . The important thing is to treat this act as a crime.” Unlike the deplorable Mr. Cathy, Imam Qaradawi is admirably open-minded: There are so many ways to kill homosexuals, why restrict yourself to just one? In Mayor Menino’s Boston, if you take the same view of marriage as President Obama did from 2009 to 2012, he’ll run your homophobic ass out of town. But, if you want to toss those godless sodomites off the John Hancock Tower, he’ll officiate at your ribbon-cutting ceremony.”

From Hot Air’s Allahpundit:

“I love the idea of this cretinous princeling dangling building privileges in return for promises not to do anything politically that might upset him. It’s vintage Chicago sleaze, except that instead of handing him a fat envelope with money in it, you promise instead not to hand that envelope to a group he doesn’t like. By all means, the owners should agree to his terms — and then drop a nice big check on the NOM on the day the new site opens for business. I want to see him try to enforce their written guarantee not to offend him via donations to disfavored orgs in court.

Here’s his op-ed in yesterday’s Tribune. The best part? His imperiousness paired with his self-congratulation at being such a freedom-minded, forward-thinkin’ guy:

There are consequences for one’s actions, statements and beliefs. Because of this man’s ignorance, I will deny Chick-fil-A a permit to open a restaurant in my ward…

Obviously, Cathy has the right to believe, say and give money to whatever cause he wants. But my belief in equality is resolute, and if I were to take the easy way out and turn a blind eye to his remarks, I would be turning my back on the principles I stand for…

I represent a diverse, forward-thinking community, and I’m sure the majority of 1st Warders find Cathy’s comments and attitude repugnant. Even if I did give Chick-fil-A the go-ahead, I suspect many in my community wouldn’t spend their dollars there.”

Again from Hot Air’s Allahpundit:

“It grieves me to say it but I think we might owe Mike Bloomberg for this. When even America’s most meddlesome micro-managing mayor endorses the libertarian approach on this subject, the Overton window of acceptable state interference is closed. Best for Rahm to have a spokesman issue a quiet climbdown and then slink away in defeat.

Cutting one’s losses is a “Chicago value” too:

Emanuel press secretary Tarrah Cooper called Friday to clarify the mayor’s stance on whether a Logan Square Chick-fil-A location would be vetoed because of the company’s views on gay marriage.

“He never said he’d block the restaurant from coming,” Cooper said…

To clarify, Cooper said Emanuel still believes “their values are not Chicago values.” But that doesn’t mean he would block them.

“If they meet all the requirements, they’re welcome to open a restaurant here.”

Taken together with yesterday’s retreat by Mumbles, that makes two Chick-fil-A dragon slayers who have thrown in the towel. Are there no hardcore liberal mayors left who are willing to try to quash the company’s First Amendment rights for the glory of The Cause? Actually, maybe.”

Daniel Halper writes in The Weekly Standard regarding Rahm Emanuel’s turning to Louis Farrakhan, a professed opponent of homosexuality, to assist in stopping Chicago’s increasing youth crime:

“In Chicago, Mayor Rahm Emanuel has told Chick-fil-A that the fast-food company is not welcome in his town because "Chick-fil-A’s values are not Chicago values." In other words, because Chick-fil-A ownership believes in traditional marriage, it shouldn't bother opening up shop in Chicago.

But Emanuel is welcoming Louis Farrakhan, who is against same-sex marriage and who blasted President Obama two months ago for endorsing the practice.

At a speech in California, Farrakhan, the well-known anti-Semite, had this to say about Obama and same-sex marriage:

Minister Louis Farrakhan recently responded to President Obama's endorsement of gay marriage calling him "the first president that sanctioned what the scriptures forbid," according to a video posted by the Nation of Islam's "official" news source, Finalcall.com.

During an address at the California Convention Center on Sunday, the Nation of Islam leader ridiculed the media for its portrayal of Obama after the announcement, and chastised politicians and clergy for hypocritically supporting gay marriage despite the fact that the Bible forbids it.

Throughout his speech, Farrakhan carefully points out that he does not condone homophobia, saying "I'm not your enemy. I'm your brother, and I do love you." However, he said "sin is sin according to the standard of God."

Males coming to males with lust in their hearts as they should to a female," he said. "Now don't you dare say Farrakhan was preaching hate; he's homophobic. I'm not afraid of my brothers and sisters or others who may be practicing what God condemned in the days of Lot. That's not our job to be hateful of our people. Our job is to call us to sanity."

Farrakhan goes on to call out clergy who support gay marriage, saying they are placing society's needs over God's.

"Is this the book that you believe in, but now you('re) backing down from an aspect of it because people will get offended?" he asked.

Nevertheless, Emanuel is welcoming Louis Farrakhan and rejecting Chick-fil-A.”

Brent Bozell had this to say on News Busters:

“The latest solid proof that Hollywood really can’t stand traditional Christianity has arrived in an unfolding boycott of Chick-fil-A, a Georgia-based fast-food chain that’s rapidly spreading franchises across America.

Chick-fil-A demonstrates a public faith by closing all its stores on Sundays and on Thanksgiving and Christmas. It’s something the Left ridicules, but something anyone of any faith respects.

It’s the company’s donations through its WinShape Foundation have launched the intolerant gay Left into action. Chick-fil-A have dared to donate their profits to groups like the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (horrors!) and the Marriage and Family Foundation (no!).

Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy told the Baptist Press that “We are very much supportive of the family -- the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that.” This man just has to cut it out. Who does he think he is?

But what really infuriated the Left was Cathy’s comments on a radio show that “I think we are inviting God's judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at Him and say, ‘We know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage.’”

One of Hollywood’s first moves came from The Jim Henson Company, the iconic family entertainment group that invented the Muppets. They issued a statement on Facebook proclaiming they were withdrawing any association through kid’s-meal toys with the chain. “The Jim Henson Company has celebrated and embraced diversity and inclusiveness for over fifty years and we have notified Chick-fil-A that we do not wish to partner with them on any future endeavors,” they declared. “Lisa Henson, our CEO is personally a strong supporter of gay marriage and has directed us to donate the payment we received from Chick-fil-A to GLAAD.”

In other words, they’re suggesting that they’ll be better corporate citizens by giving their Chick-Fil-A kiddie-meal money to the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), a group that fervently seeks to censor all traditional Christians from being allowed to say anything “anti-gay” on television news or entertainment programs. Even the Muppet people are in thrall to speech-squashing political correctness.

Other critics emerged on Twitter. "Chick-fil-A doesn't like gay people? So lame," actor Ed Helms (of “The Hangover” movies) tweeted. "Hate to think what they do to the gay chickens! Lost a loyal fan." Several other bold-type Hollywood moralists – Miley Cyrus, Lindsay Lohan and Kim Kardashian – also backed a Chick-fil-A boycott.

But few can compare with the undiluted spite of Roseanne Barr, who grabbed all the attention with her death wishes on Twitter: "anyone who eats S--t Fil-A deserves to get the cancer that is sure to come from eating antibiotic filled tortured chickens 4Christ".

This came after she had called them “chick filet- nazi chicken f---ing pricks.” She also cracked she was “off to grab a s--it fil-A sandwich on my way to worshipping Christ, supporting AIPAC and war in Iran.” When people attacked her for saying people “deserved” cancer, she lectured “Giving [your kids] Cancer from processed fast food is child abuse”. To think that this genius just tried to run for president of the United States on the Green Party ticket is mind-boggling.

Chick-fil-A put out a corporate response making the obvious point (at least to their customers) that you will find no disrespect at their restaurants. “The Chick-fil-A culture and service tradition in our restaurants is to treat every person with honor, dignity and respect — regardless of their belief, race, creed, sexual orientation or gender.”

The statement added, “Going forward, our intent is to leave the policy debate over same-sex marriage to the government and political arena.” That’s exactly what Hollywood wants to hear. On the Internet, they photograph themselves with taped mouths and paint “No H8" on their cheeks, but they display more hate and more desire to shut people up than the wackiest of right-wing yahoos.

The Left will always go further. Steven Kurlander, a blogger on the Huffington Post “Gay Voices” site, is mastering Orwellian speech: “Chick-fil-A's continued support of anti-gay groups and Cathy's discriminatory comments cross the line of decency.” In the 21st century, we’re told it’s indecent to be a Bible-believing Christian. He added that Chick-fil-A should be banned from taxpayer-supported facilities and should not be allowed to “work with public school children.”

Dan Cathy is right. We really are shaking our fist at God. Giving him the finger, too. Do we deserve forgiveness?”

And finally from Cal Thomas writing in the Patriot Post:

“…The reaction tells you everything you need to know about certain liberals who believe every sort of speech, activity and expression should be protected, except the speech, activity and expression of evangelical Christians.

Boston Mayor Thomas Menino said he would try to deny Chick-fil-A's application for permits to open restaurants in that city. Now that's discrimination. Menino wants to ban Chick-fil-A in Boston, not for discriminating against customers or employees, but because of its owner's beliefs, a threat he has since backed away from. Does Boston have "thought police" who might be ordered to investigate whether other business owners already operating in the city hold similar views? I'll bet there's someone at Durgin-Park who holds similar views. What about a player for the Boston Red Sox? Better follow them to see if any of them go to church.

Maybe Mayor Menino would like to force business owners in the city to testify before an official panel of grand inquisitors and then deny operating licenses to anyone who believes traditional marriage should be the norm?

In Chicago, Mayor Rahm Emanuel has said, "Chick-fil-A's values are not Chicago values." Are Chicago values represented by the anti-Semitic firebrand Louis Farrakhan with whom Emanuel is going to partner in hopes of reducing the number of homicides in his city? Are Farrakhan's anti-Semitic and anti-gay sentiments somehow more palatable, more of value, than Dan Cathy's support of marriage and family?”

….

This is more than an economic battle. It is a First Amendment issue. Freedom of speech is guaranteed by the Constitution. Dan Cathy has a right to his opinion, so does Farrakhan, so do we all.

The real "war" in this country is not only against the supposed civil right of nontraditional marriage. It is a war against conservative Christians and a denial of the same rights the LGBT community claims for itself. Free speech is an American value. We shouldn't settle for anything less.”

Time and time again you see the intolerance from the left. Our values count, yours don’t and if you don’t march in lock-step with us we will punish you. So much for freedom of speech when left-wing progressives get into the fray.

Third City in California to go Broke

“A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have.” — Thomas Jefferson

This is an update for my blog posted on June 28, 2012 – “The Tale of Two Cities.” In this post I compared Stockton, California with Sandy Springs, Georgia. Stockton, due to its lavish spending and bloated public employee costs filed for bankruptcy, while Sandy Springs, through sound fiscal management and outsourcing of most of its public services, is thriving.

Today Reuters announced that The City of San Bernardino, California has filed for Bankruptcy. This is the third city in California to take this action with the Town of Mammoth Lake being the second and announcing its decision to take the bankruptcy route on July 4^th. This also goes along with the city of Scranton, Pennsylvania declaring that it would reduce the pay of all municipal employees to minimum wage due to its total lack of money and rising debt.

Reuters announced:

“The city council of San Bernardino, California, voted on Tuesday to file for bankruptcy, marking the third time in recent weeks a city in the most populous U.S. state has opted to seek protection from its creditors.

The decision by the leaders of San Bernardino, a city of about 210,000 residents approximately 65 miles (104 km) east of Los Angeles, followed a report by city staff that said the city faced an imminent financial crisis.

The report said the city had exhausted its reserves and projected spending would exceed revenue by $45 million in the current fiscal year which started on July 1.

Chapter 9 bankruptcy would give San Bernardino an opportunity to restructure its battered finances, city staff said during a webcast of the city council meeting.

But the council's vote may backfire on San Bernardino in the municipal debt market, and raises concerns about local officials in California potentially looking to bankruptcy protection as an easier solution than making tough decisions about spending cuts and raising revenue, said Dick Larkin, director of credit analysis at muni bond broker-dealer HJ Sims.

"Am I troubled? You bet," said Larkin. "I couldn't believe how quickly this vote happened."

Larkin noted the concerns of San Bernardino's staff about the risk of the city not meeting its payroll in coming months may be eclipsed by concerns it could be frozen out of the muni debt market if it goes through with a bankruptcy filing.

It may take San Bernardino 30 days to complete the actual filing, according to its city attorney.

"I hope California isn't becoming the flashpoint for municipal bankruptcy because if that happens then everyone in the state will be paying for it," Larkin added. "If there are more coming, there will be big penalties to (municipal debt) issuers in California, all the way up the state level."

San Bernardino will join the California communities of Stockton and Mammoth Lakes in bankruptcy court.

Stockton failed after three months of talks with its creditors to obtain concessions to close its $26 million budget gap and the city of nearly 300,000 in the state's Central Valley last month became the most populous U.S. city to file for bankruptcy.

Mammoth Lakes, a ski resort town of about 8,000 residents, last week filed for bankruptcy due to a nearly $43 million legal judgment against it.

Like Stockton, San Bernardino has suffered from the housing crash and high unemployment. According to the report to its city council, the city "has reached a breaking point and faces the reality of deficient cash on hand to meet its contractual and debt obligations due in July 2012."

"The city has declared numerous fiscal emergencies based on fiscal circumstances and has negotiated and imposed concessions of $10 million per year and has reduced the workforce by 20 percent over the past four years," the report said.

"Yet, the city is still facing the possibility of insolvency due to a variety of issues including accounting errors, deficit spending, lack of revenue growth, and increases in pension and debt costs."

I can guarantee this is not the end of this story. The lavish spending, bloated public employee staffs, out of control public service union pension and benefit costs, welfare payments, and reduced tax revenues due to the depressed housing market are forcing more and more cities to go broke.

Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette — Alive at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

“Let them eat broccoli.” — Michelle Obama

It only took a few hours for President Obama to jump into the middle of the Wisconsin budget debate. He was quick to defend his labor union supporters by saying public sector workers are our neighbors. On the other hand it took him days to develop a clear message on Egypt and he still hasn’t made a clear and definitive statement on the revolution going on Libya. So what is our president and his queen been doing these past few days while the Middle East is turning upside down and the states are dealing with union protests as they try to balance their budgets? Well he is partying down at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

The President has done nothing about the crisis in Libya except give a press conference in which he called the situation “unacceptable,” then proceeded to accept it. He’s holding consultations about having meetings to design a committee that could help the world “speak with one voice to the government and the people of Libya,” a move that will doubtless be appreciated by anyone who survives Qaddafi’s Last Stand. Americans trying to escape the Libyan civil war were left stranded on a chartered ferryboat that was too small to handle the Mediterranean Sea while the French, Italians, Chinese, and other nations were able to get their citizens out of Libya.

Not a word has been uttered from the White House to condemn the fugitive Democrats who acted to shut down democracy in Wisconsin and Indiana. Widespread violence and hatred from union foot soldiers has gone unremarked.

The pirates of Somalia sail through the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden with confidence after slaughtering four innocent Americans. Middle Eastern unrest is poised to blow the price of oil into the stratosphere, a death blow to the economy Obama has already crippled, since he has moved forcefully to make us wholly dependent on foreign oil, while Obama cronies — including George Soros, who is what the Left likes to fantasize the Koch Brothers are — stand to make billions from useless “green energy” boondoggles.

His hapless Secretary of Homeland Security gapes in wonder as Americans are murdered on the southern border, while a young Saudi national is caught on the verge of deploying weapons of mass destruction. The nation teeters on the edge of ruin, and the President responds by submitting an absurd dead-on-arrival budget that increases federal spending.

Where is President Obama during all this? He’s enjoying the sounds of Motown at a star-studded White House event.

As the Associated Press reports, “The White House reverberated like a long-ago basement sound studio in Detroit on Thursday as the likes of John Legend, Seal, Jamie Foxx, Nick Jonas and Sheryl Crow channeled their inner Motown before Michelle and Barack Obama.” Other performers at this grand affair included Natasha Bedingfield, Smokey Robinson, Jordin Sparks, and Stevie Wonder. If you were not in attendance, don’t worry — you can watch the whole thing next Tuesday, on taxpayer-subsidized PBS.

To emphasize the historic importance of this White House concert, the President declared, “At concerts in the South, Motown groups literally brought people together — insisting that the ropes traditionally used to separate black and white audience members be taken down.” Back here in 2011, Obama’s loyal union supporters are howling racist, sexist, and homophobic insults into the faces of all who dare oppose them, and the President is utterly silent. So much for civility.

First Lady Michelle Obama got back from her lavish President’s Day ski retreat in Vail just in time to enjoy the concert. “As Motown rose, so did the forces of change in this country,” she declared. “During that time, it was the time of King and Kennedy, it was a time of marches and rallies and groundbreaking civil rights laws.” How many of those groundbreaking laws were passed by cowardly legislators who fled their states to avoid tough votes?

Presidents host big parties at the White House all the time. No one would begrudge Obama a bit of ceremonial elegance if he wasn't completely MIA during major crises. The sounds of Motown are indeed sweet, and historic, but last night they vanished into a howling void of leadership. Even the Supremes could do a better job than the anointed one.

Savor the bitter irony of the President taking the night off in the midst of national and global crises, many of his own making, to enjoy the music of a city that has been utterly destroyed by fifty years of his Party’s governance.

50 years of Democratic party leadership in Detroit

At least we know there was nobody in the Oval Office doing anything important that might have been disrupted by all the noise. If there were just let them eat cake.

65 Years Latter

Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either.” — Albert Einstein

Yesterday a friend of mine sent one of those viral emails that seem to go round and round. This one was entitled “65 Years Latter.” The photos imbedded in the email showed Hiroshima in 1945 after the Atomic Bomb had destroyed the city. Then it showed a series of photos of Hiroshima today with its brilliant neon lights and tall buildings — a real modern metropolis. The third set of photos showed Detroit as it exists today with its abandoned buildings and decaying infrastructure. The photos do not lie, but the context is misleading. The first photo shown below is of Hiroshima, August 1945. The second is Hiroshima today and the third is of Detroit today – 65 years later.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I sent this email to a few friends as an illustration of our decaying cities. One friend replied that he was disturbed at the lack of context in which the photos were displayed Evidently he has a Belgian neighbor who continually bad mouths the United States and claims that Europe should be our guiding light. I cannot or will not address this Belgians prejudice and will only say that planes leave for Europe every day.

After reading my friends comments I began to reflect on the email and its message and I too took issue with it. Here is my view of the message in the email.

First of all I don’t think the email is meant to reflect a superiority of the Japanese. After all we put a great deal of money into rebuilding Japan after WWII. I see it more of a comparison of what we do with the money. We have poured billions into cities like Detroit for the past 50 years. We have built public housing that turned to slums soon after he were opened. We have supported generation after generation with welfare and aid to dependent children only to create more dependent children — mothers having babies out of wedlock and their children and grandchildren doing the same. In essence we have promoted economic serfdom in the urban inner cities with our misguided giveaway policies. All to make liberals and bleeding hearts feel good. We have poured billions down the public education rat hole with declining results. This is what I see in photos.

My friend’s Belgian neighbor is wrong about Europe. We gave them billions under the Marshal Plan and paid for their national defense for the past 65 years through NATO. They too have a welfare system that is going broke. He has no right to brag about anything. We saved Europe in two world wars and then rebuilt the continent and defended them against soviet aggression for 65 years. They are nothing more than client states. Their day of reckoning is upon them. Their multiculturalism, social spending and selfishness are beginning to pay them unwanted and unplanned dividends — all bad.

The Japanese on the other hand took what we gave them and turned it into a plus. They rebuilt their industries, their cities and their society. Every dollar they spent was with practical purpose. They educate their children better than we do and they are not a multicultural society — in fact they are a racist society. I have been to Japan. And most of Europe is racist to some extent. When you scratch the liberal surface skin of a German, Frenchman or Belgian the racist nature of their society will begin to bled through. I have experienced it. (The photo at the left is of he graffiti stained memorial to the Marshal Plan in Frankfurt, Germany)

Let us not forget that once we were a nation like Japan is today. We had Free enterprise, an entrepreneurial spirit and small, unrestrictive government. We built a world class Interstate Highway System where Americans could travel the country with ease and good could be shipped quickly and cheaply. We built a nation where two-thirds of Americans owned their homes with a yard, a garage, car and a picket fence. Very few Japanese or Belgians have the same. In fact my friend’s Belgian neighbor lives in such a house, something you won’t find in Brussels, Liège or Antwerp. We had farms that feed the world and a great manufacturing base. Our R&D was second to none, after all it was our Atomic Bomb that ended WWII and probably saved millions of lives — American, Japanese, British and Russian.

Our problems developed not from the American spirit, but from years of Democratic control of big city governments. Their policies of prostituting themselves to public sector unions and the recipient class so they could maintain their power drove these cities into virtual bankruptcy

Japan and Belgium are not saddled with 18 million illegal aliens who are draining our economy. Their cost to the city of Los Angeles alone is $600 million per year. We have an unsecured border and an immigration policy that is not enforced. No European nation or Japan has such an immigration policy. If you don’t believe me just try to walk into any European county and set up residence. It won’t happen.

Our education system, which used to be second to none, has fallen to that of a developing country. We have schools that are more concerned with security and teachers more concerned with their collective bargaining rights than teaching. We have a union driven tenure system that allows bad and lazy teachers to continue while the good ones have to stand by a keep their mouths shut. They are forced to join unions that collect hundreds of millions of dollars in dues and then use that money to finance the campaigns of Democratic candidates who continue the death spiral of the cities and states where they have power. Japan and Belgium do not have teachers unions to degrade their education systems. Teachers are respected for the professionals they are, not the union tradesmen and women they have become in his nation.

One more thing to remember in this comparison is the millions of Americans who were killed and maimed fighting a war so Japan and Europe could be free and prosperous.