NoCoPolitics.com

The Faith and Politics Double Standard

Remember the scare about George W. Bush supposedly pushing us toward theocracy?

What if he had called one of his domestic policy proposals "a core ethical and moral obligation"?

Or if he had said that his political opponents "are frankly bearing false witness"?

David Harsanyi:

As CBS News recently reported, Obama has thrown around the name of God even more often than George W. Bush did. Then again, no group couches policy as a moral obligation more than the left. On nearly every question of legislation, there is a pious strawman tugging at the shirtsleeves of the wicked.

Pushback Against the Eco-Nannies (in Seattle)

The Seattle City Council passed a tax on plastic shopping bags last year. 

So how did the proposal fare when put before the voters of one of the most liberal cities in the country?

Seattle voters firmly rejected Referendum 1, which would have made Seattle the first city in the nation to go after both plastic and paper shopping bags.

The defeat — 58 percent to 42 percent, with more than half of the expected votes counted — means an ordinance passed by the Seattle City Council last year will not take effect. Had Referendum 1 passed, grocers, convenience marts and drugstores would have charged shoppers 20 cents for each bag they were provided at checkout counters.

Why?

Matt Welch explains "The Real Reason Americans Are Angry":

This isn't about liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican. A majority oppose Obama's policies because they fly in the face of this country's bedrock values of personal liberty and limited government. Robbing Peter to pay Goldman Sachs does violence to that fundamentally American ethos.

Read the whole thing.

Where Was the Media?

The media has been breathlessly reporting on how "threatening" the conservative Town Hall protesters are.

Funny, I don't remember too much reporting on this.

Diggs Brown on the Release of Mohammed Jawad

Read this.

The PPC Breaks the Colorado Dem Vandal Story

It was a left-wing activist.

Funny how the actual violence seems to come from the left? 

You know, like the people convicted for plotting to blow up the RNC last year in Minneapolis? 

You read about that, right? 

Right?

Not Your Average Right-Winger

Nat Hentoff: "I am finally scared of a White House administration"

I was not intimidated during J. Edgar Hoover's FBI hunt for reporters like me who criticized him. I railed against the Bush-Cheney war on the Bill of Rights without blinking. But now I am finally scared of a White House administration. President Obama's desired health care reform intends that a federal board (similar to the British model) — as in the Center for Health Outcomes Research and Evaluation in a current Democratic bill — decides whether your quality of life, regardless of your political party, merits government-controlled funds to keep you alive. Watch for that life-decider in the final bill. It's already in the stimulus bill signed into law.

Deja Vu: Michael Barone's Report From Michigan

Don't some of these sound like the union initiatives that were slated for last year's ballot in Colorado?  (These are actual proposals from Michigan's Democrat State Chairman).

Their aim apparently is to improve the lot of Michigan citizens. But the result, as anyone with an iota of sense can see, would be to inflict horrifying damage on an already staggering state economy. They include:
        
● Mandating all employers to provide affordable health care for all their employees and dependents or pay a penalty.
        
● Raising the minimum wage from $7.40 per hour to $10 per hour and covering all workers with no exceptions.
               
● Increasing unemployment benefits by $100 a week, making all workers eligible and adding six months to the time one can   receive benefits.
          
● Cutting utility rates by 20%.
               
● Imposing a one-year moratorium on home foreclosures.

Some of these, I suppose, are arguable, depending on the dollar amounts—the employer health insurance mandate and increasing unemployment benefits. But overall this is a program to pillage the private sector and drive it out of Michigan.

Barone's mocking suggestions:

● Mandating all employers to provide health insurance that covers everything for all employees and dependents or face a penalty of life imprisonment without parole. (Michigan’s Constitution has banned capital punishment since 1855.)

● Raising the minimum wage from $7.40 per hour to $100 an hour and covering all workers or people who apply for a job.

● Increasing unemployment benefits by $1,000 a week, making all workers and job applicants eligible and adding 10 years to the time one can receive benefits.

● Cutting utility rates by 99%.

● Imposing a 100-year moratorium on home foreclosures.

Paid "Volunteers" in Colorado?

(But the Democrats accuse conservatives of "astroturfing"). 

This link from Instapundit caught my eye:

"Wanted: Obama healthcare reform volunteers willing to be paid $15 an hour."

The L.A. Times is reporting that:

It seems that, despite all the media attention lavished on e-mail appeals to his supporters, not everyone pushing for President Obama's embattled healthcare reform plan these warm August days is an idealistic volunteer in it for the sake of helping move the country forward and gaining medical attention for millions of uninsured Americans.

The website's large-type headline announces: "Work to Pass Obama's Healthcare Plan and Get Paid to Do it! $10-15 hr!"

The Times reports that the Craigslist ad "links to the Boston-based Fund for the Public Interest, an umbrella organization that rounds up people to round up support, money and signatures for all kinds of campaigns..."

So is this going on in Colorado?

Checking out Denver Craigslist, there's this ad:

Why is now the time to work for change?

Because we have a new president and a new hope for a better America.

Because we need change like never before, on everything from the economy to climate change and more.

And because we know that the challenges we face, from ending our dependence on oil to winning the battle for equal rights, are huge – and the politicians and powerful interests who stupidly and stubbornly resist change aren’t calling it quits anytime soon.

America’s leading advocacy groups are gearing up to meet these challenges this summer. In order to win, they need citizen support and grassroots action. That’s where we come in.

At the Fund for the Public Interest...

But while the ad title says CoPIRG, the ad itself identifies the "Fund for the Public Interest" - the same group in the L.A. Times story.

More importantly, the link given in the Colorado Craigslist ad, www.JobsThatMatter.org, goes directly to the exact same recruitment page on the exact same web site from the L.A. Times story.  (Here's the original Craigslist ad from L.A.)

Same link, same group.

So the next time you see "volunteers" in Colorado pushing for "progressive" causes, remember - they might not be "volunteers" after all.

Is Betsy Markey Hiding?

She's only allowing 15-20 people into her meetings (and avoiding the eastern plains entirely). 

(More over at Draft Diggs Brown for Congress).  Here's the ColoGOP's release: Download Markey Town Mtg Rls-8-13-09