National Tax Day Tea Party - April 15, 2010

Well, since the controversy's already building, I should mention that I'll be rallying at my local local Tax Day Protest, April 15, 2010, at the Santa Ana Civic Center. Jenny Erickson of Smart Girl Politics will be speaking, as well as a number of other friends I've met since April 15, 2009.

Events are planned around the nation. And some big-gun personalities are coming out: "Cincinnati Tax Day Tea Party rally to include Sean Hannity."

And from Sir Smitty, "A Million Plus Protesters Around the Country on Tax Day?"

Pushback Against Move On Race-Baiting!

Great story at Politico, "Liberal Group March Meets Pushback" (via Memeorandum):

A handful of liberal groups — but only a few dozen protesters — marched on the Republican National Committee offices Thursday to denounce the threats against members of Congress during the health care vote.

But in an oddly Washington moment, the gathering of MoveOn.org, Color of Change and CREDO, was met by Jordan Marks, a 28-year old conservative activist who interrupted the event and held up signs accusing the group of race-ba-ting.

Marks, of Young Americans for Freedom, shouted that the protestors were “politicizing race,” as the progressive groups sought to deliver a petition to RNC Chairman Michael Steele asking him to denounce threats against lawmakers and incidents of vandalism.

Of course they're politicizing race. Everyone's a racist now since Obama came to office.

And at Gateway Pundit, "Unreal. Lib Hate Groups Demand Apology From RNC (?) -- For Fabricated Hate at Tea Party Rallies."

Of course, Moveon.org is the same hate group that slandered General Petraeus and created Bush-Hitler ads during the 2004 election:

But of course, idiot slob JBW will be blathering, but, b... but ... "both sides do it"!

Anarchists to Crash April 15th Tea Parties!

Jim Hoft is all over this story, "Anarchists Plan War On April 15th Tea Parties." (Via.)

And not this from Illinois Review:

Conservatives tend to be up front about who they are and what they want to do. The thought of infiltrating a lefty organization to cause mischief has probably never crossed the minds of most conservatives. Lefties have proven that they will, and they are planning to do so. Be prepared for people to show up at the April 15th rallies trying to subvert what is happening. It wouldn't surprise me to see people show up and act like racists Obama haters. They may come with Hitler signs. They may come with signs that suggest violence. They will probably be plants. Don't let them con people into thinking that they are with us. On the other end of the spectrum, expect counter protests. Come with your cameras. Come with your camcorders. Just because you are law-abiding and peaceful, don't expect those on the left to act the same way. Kenneth Gladney found that out.

But of course, idiot slob JBW will be blathering, but, b... but ... "both sides do it"!

Yeah. Right.

Austerity Program for Long Beach City College

The Long Beach Press-Telegram has endorsed LBCC Trustee Jeff Kellogg for reelection to the board on April 13th. See, "LBCC Trustees Area 1: Jeff Kellogg Points Out Record of Fiscal Responsibility." I don't know him personally. He's got a reputation as a pretty boy of the city's old-money power establishment. Be that as it may, the college is facing the most severe budget crisis in my ten years. Reserves have run out and last week tensions were running high between faculty and administration over a cost-cutting proposal to cancel the 2010 summer session. When students at the college turned out in large numbers for a recent board meeting, administrators and board members saw some real emotion on display. Too bad Kellogg turned himself into a Class-A prick:

That said, the college president published a long letter in Tuesday's Press-Telegram, "An Austerity Program for Long Beach City College." It's worth posting in its entirety:

For generations, Long Beach City College has been synonymous with success in Long Beach. The college has produced many of this community's leaders, including former mayors and its current superintendent of schools.

Just last week, LBCC was joined by Long Beach Unified School District, California State University Long Beach and the community to celebrate the second anniversary of the Long Beach College Promise - the unique seamless partnership that has put the Long Beach education system in the national spotlight.

Through the Long Beach College Promise, the Pathways to Success Partnership with CSU Dominguez Hills and the Student Success Initiative, LBCC students have experienced measurable improvements in the successful completion of their education goals. LBCC is now the number one transfer college to CSULB and has nearly tripled its applications to CSUDH.

However, these and other student successes are now in jeopardy. Due to the state budget crisis, LBCC has experienced a significant reduction in revenue that has dramatically reduced the number of students it can serve. Coupled with a tremendous surge in enrollment resulting from large high school graduating classes, high unemployment and cuts to CSU and UC, the competition for classes at LBCC has left thousands of students without the classes and services needed to succeed. Despite the efforts of the Board of Trustees to set aside funds for a rainy day, the loss in revenue and costs to operate the college have nearly erased that reserve.

These pressures have become visible to the public. This academic year, LBCC has cut 12 percent of its course sections. Programs and services that serve the neediest students have been reduced even further. Layoffs have occurred and the management team has taken a 5 percent reduction in salary through a one-day-a-month furlough. Recently, discussions about scaling back summer classes brought out teary eyed students to a board meeting expressing their frustration and fears for their future. Despite the economic realities faced by the college our faculty leaders have protested the canceling of classes and union leaders have pointed fingers instead of offering realistic solutions.

While LBCC has decided to offer one summer session this year to further our students' progress, this does not change the fact that the state is not providing funding to meet our enrollment demands. Without additional funding, which is highly unlikely, this shortfall will force further reductions in course and service offerings unless other savings in fixed costs can be achieved.

LBCC now stands at a crossroads. In order to continue to serve the most fundamental needs of our students: career certificates, Associate Degree and transfer success, I have asked the college to do the following: to reduce or eliminate programs that do not serve the core mission of the college and to streamline or consolidate services while protecting the courses that students need to graduate or transfer.

Most importantly, I have asked that every employee group make reductions to its salary and benefits in an equitable way to ensure that our students continue to have the classes they need to succeed. This point is critical since nearly 90 percent of the college's operating budget consists of salaries and benefits for employees.

If our employee groups join with the administration and temporarily reduce their salaries, and agree to health benefit plan modifications to reduce overall health insurance costs, we can preserve access for over 1,000 full-time students next year alone. This task will not be easy but it is necessary for the college to continue its long tradition of academic excellence and student success.

I ask for this community's continued support as we work through these issues. I hope that you will support our efforts to preserve access for students and that you will communicate to our legislature and the governor that the education of our youth can no longer be compromised.

You have my commitment that Long Beach City College will remain steadfast in its commitment to student success for this and the generations to come.

Eloy Oakley is president of Long Beach City College.

My union, the leadership of which I haven't the highest regards, has responded, FWIW: "CCA Response to Eloy Oakley's Press-Telegram Editorial."

I'll have more later ...

National Census Day

Today is National Census Day. April 1st is the deadline to turn in the census form. I'm heading over to the post office in a few minutes to mail mine. It's been sitting on my kitchen table. I brought it to school today to discuss with my classes. Hispanics are asked to identify their "national origin" (in 2010 Hispanic background is not classified as race). The follow-up question asked respondents to identify themselves by race, and some folks are just saying "American."

I filled out the racial sections of the forms. Despite my concerns over partisan manipulation and abuse, the census is nevertheless an important document. That said, Abigail Thernstrom has more, "Answer the Race Question":

Many of us believe America is too preoccupied with race. The race question on the census reflects that preoccupation. Why answer it, when it just perpetuates race-think? Aside from the question of whether doing so is against the law, why not refuse to fill in the blank?

Race is an obsession, and we conceptualize the term in a peculiar way. We are an ethnically diverse society, and presumably that’s good. But, in defining the diversity of the nation, why focus on blacks and Hispanics and ignore, for instance, Jews? Like Hispanics, Jews are an ethnic group. In fact, if we are going to understand America as a pluralistic society, why not both expand the definition of ethnicity and add a religious question?

In addition, the race/ethnic categories are a mess. For instance, East Indians are classified as Asians, but only because East Indian spokesmen in the 1980s pressured to have the group treated as a protected minority group by the Small Business Administration in order to get below-market-rate loans — even though East Indians generally have incomes far above the national average. The census picked up the classification from the SBA. It’s an arbitrary classification — and not uniquely so.

Many legitimate arguments are being made for refusing to answer the race question on the census by dear and admired friends of mine. But I see two problems: One, if you don’t answer, census officials will just impute your race, most often on the basis of the color your neighbors. Refusing to answer is thus a no-win strategy.

More important, if we want accurate information on, say, black unemployment, would we rather rely on census data or on the NAACP, which is driven by a political agenda that is not necessarily in the national interest? Steve and I make much use of census numbers in writing about race and ethnicity in America; we like to think we are conveying an accurate picture, thanks to the Bureau of the Census.

Added: At Red State, Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC), "Returning the Census is Our Constitutional Duty" (via Memeorandum).

From Cynthia McKinney to Hank Johnson: Boy, Georgia's Fourth District Got teh Awesome Congressional Representation!

I met Cynthia McKinney in March 2009. She was on something of a speaking tour to maximize her exposure following a confrontation with the Israeli navy. To simply say she's a consiracy nut is charitable. In any case, it turns out her successor is pretty far out there as well, Representative Hank Johnson:

Via Top of the Ticket and Memeorandum.

About That Playboy in My Drawer . . .

I don't keep a copy of Playboy in my office drawer, but Bret Stephens does:

It's time to make a personal and professional admission: I keep a copy of the Feb. 2007 issue of Playboy in a desk drawer in my Wall Street Journal office.

This is not the sort of thing I ever thought I'd publicly confess. But I'm prompted to do so now in response to a string of online rebuttals to my Tuesday column, "Lady Gaga Versus Mideast Peace," in which I argue that Western liberalism (in its old-fashioned sense) has done far more than Israel's settlements to provoke violent Muslim anti-Americanism.

In particular, I was taken to task by Andrew Exum—the "Abu Muqawama" blogger at the Center for a New American Security—for allegedly failing to watch my share of racy Arabic-language music videos, such as those by Lebanese beauty queen and pop star Haifa Wehbe. "With music videos like this one," writes Mr. Exum, "Stephens can hardly argue that Lady Gaga is the one importing sexual provocation into the Arabic-speaking world and stirring things up, can he?"

So let me tell you about that Playboy, and how I came to purchase it.

In the spring of 2007 I wrote a series of columns from Indonesia about the battle lines then emerging between religious radicals and moderates in the world's largest Muslim-majority country. I profiled Abdurrahman Wahid, then the former (now late) president of Indonesia and a champion of his country's tolerant religious traditions. I visited a remote Sumatran village that had expelled an itinerant Islamic preacher for his militant Wahhabi teachings. I interviewed Habib Rizieq, head of the Front for the Defense of Islam, a vigilante group known for violently suppressing "un-Islamic" behavior.

I also spent a delightful evening in the company of Inul Daratista, the Indonesian equivalent of Shakira, who had been accused by a council of Muslim clerics of committing pornoaksi—or "porno action"—for gyrating a little excessively in one of her music videos. A million Indonesians had taken to the streets to denounce the video, and legislation was introduced in Indonesia's parliament to ban pornoaksi, which could be defined as any female behavior that could arouse a sexual response in a man, such as the sight of a couple kissing in public or a woman wearing a backless dress.

One person I didn't manage to interview was Erwin Arnada, the editor of the Indonesian edition of Playboy. I did, however, get hold of a copy of the magazine (the one now in my office): It contains not a single picture of a naked woman. The Playmate in the centerfold is clad in the kind of lingerie that would seem a bit old-fashioned in a Victoria's Secret catalogue; a second photo essay in my magazine looks as if it belongs in a J. Crew ad.

Nevertheless, upon beginning publication in 2006 Mr. Arnada was almost immediately charged with violating Indonesia's indecency laws. (He was ultimately acquitted.) His Jakarta offices were violently attacked by Mr. Rizieq's goons, forcing the magazine to move to the predominantly Hindu island of Bali. "For Arnada," wrote New York Times reporter Jane Perlez, "all the fuss represents fears about the intrusion of Western culture. 'Why else do they keep shouting about Playboy?' he asked."

Mr. Arnada's comment gets at the crux of the argument I made in my column, which is that it is liberalism itself—liberalism as democracy, as human rights, as freedom of conscience and expression, as artistic license, as social tolerance, as a philosophy with universal application—to which the radical Muslim mind chiefly objects, and to which it so often violently reacts ...

More at the link.

Steven Givler Online Back Online!

My good friend Maj. Steven Givler, USAF, is now blogging again after completing the geographical logistics of his reassignment from Saudi Arabia to Portugal.

He's taken some photos of the scenery ...

And his new digs ...

The home features a beautiful interior, and Steven writes:

After two weeks of looking, here's what we've chosen. There are lots of newer houses, but none had the room, central location, and uniqueness of this place. It's about 5 blocks from the ocean, and within easy bicycling distance of where I'll be working.

I'm thankful for Steven's service. Stop over and comment at blog.

Take Another Little Piece of My Heart Now, Baby...

It's Joplin's screaming, seriously. I mean she's bluesy, but the guttural emotion in those screams toward the end of "Piece of My Heart" is simply unmatched. I've been enjoying this song more recently since listening to Chrystal Bowersox sing it (posted here previously). And 100.3 The Sound played it during my drive time the other day. Enjoy:

From the comments at the second video, "This song is brilliant. Its a metaphor for intense love that you know is bad for you but you keep coming back for more."

That's it for me tonight. Check out Ken Davenport, Right Klik, The Other McCain, Theo Spark, and Washington Rebel.

Democrats Don't Like Sports!

And that's only a slight exaggeration. See, "Sports Viewers Largely Republican." And check out that graphic:

If you're a GOP strategist looking for key primary votes, spend your valuable advertising money on PGA Tour events. If you're a Dem trying to win over your base, focus on advertising during NBA games.

So says a new study among hundreds of thousands of Americans examining the correlation between viewers' favorite sports and their voting habits. And, the survey shows, most dedicated sports watchers are much more likely to vote with the GOP than they are to vote with Dems.

Researchers at National Media Inc., a GOP firm, analyzed survey results from a total of 218K interviews between Aug. '08 and Sept. '09. The polling was conducted by Scarborough USA, a joint project of Nielsen and Arbitron, the 2 top ratings agencies in the country. The data helps TV and radio stations and the country's newspapers set ad rates by evaluating viewership habits.

GOPers are most likely to watch the PGA Tour, college football and NASCAR, according to the study. But if GOP ad buyers want to reach more frequent voters, they should focus on the PGA; golf fans told researchers they were much more likely to vote than NASCAR fans say they are. Meanwhile, Dems hold the largest advantages among basketball fans, both those who watch the NBA and the WNBA. And fans of World Wrestling Entertainment are also much more likely to favor Dems -- if they vote. Wrestling fans are less likely to cast ballots than any other sports fans.

Another signal, emerging independent of the Obama-media-industrial-complex, that leftists are not only outside the mainstream, but literally un-American according to key indices of popular culture. Sure, some Democrats are sports fans. But these data really should give pause to those on the left claiming to represent middle America. (And notice the elitists at Democratic Strategist trying to blow off the findings.)

Via Memeorandum.

The RNC Debacle

From Hugh Hewitt:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
2 Girls 1 GOP
http://www.thedailyshow.com/
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Rarely have the e-mails flowed in as quickly as they did Monday as news spread of the RNC's profligacy and of its highly objectionable choice of entertainment venues. They are coming from individuals who, as recently as Friday, had at my urging sent money to the National Republican Congressional Committee to help in the effort to oust Nancy Pelosi. They are coming from people who are living on tight budgets in an era of economic uncertainty but who had sacrificed because the country cannot afford another two years of a Pelosi-Reid led Congress.

They are coming from very, very angry Republicans.

And they are right to be angry.

Whether or not RNC staffers share the very traditional beliefs on moral questions of the vast majority of their regular voters, the idea of partying at even "upscale" sex-themed nightclubs is quite obviously not only at the top of the stupid charts, it also reflects thorough-going contempt for the folks that sent them to work in the first place.

This latest scandal follows another one wherein the crackerjack staff at the RNC circulated a memo dripping in disdain for the conservative rank and file . The memo-flap soon passed as staff memos just aren't that interesting.

This scandal will not soon pass. It is a huge blow at a time of otherwise gathering momentum, and the GOP's elected leadership need to respond decisively, as do Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, John Thune and Sarah Palin – the four Republicans most likely to seek the party's nomination in 2012 and to have a shot of gaining it.

RTWT.

Plus, social conservatives aren't happy either. See, "Tony Perkins Urges Conservatives to Stop Giving Money to RNC" (via Memeorandum).

Rachel Maddow Can't Confirm Anything in Her Militia Member Smear on the Tea Party Movement

This Rachel Maddow segment pretty much sums up the total journalistic amateurism at MSNBC. She's spends five minutes stretching to find some kind of connection between the Hutaree militia and the "right wing extremists" (read tea partiers) who've been marching in anti-ObamaCare protests in D.C. And to top it off, her "expert" is the completely asinine hack Dave Neiwert, who argues that Americans freaked out over a few men with "turbans" on September 11, while the "real threat" to the United States is "right wing domestic terrorism." These people are bad.

I'll be the first to condemn the militia movement's extremism. I want nothing to do with them, and I can't name a single conservative blogger or tea partier -- and that by now includes dozens, even hundreds, of leaders in the conservative movement today -- who would even deign to associate with potential domestic terrorists. Meanwhile, the Obama administration keeps close ties with Code Pink fanatics who're serving as a direct link to the Taliban insurgency. This White House refused to condemn the Fort Hood attacks as domestic jihad, and the "system worked" when Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attempted to blow up a plane over Detroit. But hey, I better watch it: That's RAAACIST!!!

And for comparison, see my earlier entry, "The Left/Right Divide: Which Side Would You Choose?"

In any case, TPM-Muckraker's working hard to generalize and normalize the militias, "For Hutaree, Militia Ethos Extended To Family Life."

But see tonight's New York Times, "Militia Members Draw Distinctions Between Groups."

'Stupid Evil Bastard' Attacks Tea Party 'Clueless Dolts'

My guess is the fact that Congress' own Members didn't even read their healthcare monstrosity is lost on "Stupid Evil Bastard," although he nevertheless attacks citizen patriots as "dolts" for not being able to pinpoint what page "death panels" were found.

Actually, I did read the original 1000-page House bill last summer, and Page 429, Lines 10-12 was widely interpreted at the time as limiting coverage to control costs (rationing). But hey, when your whole schtick is attacking conservatives as "dolts," who's got time for facts and superior argumentation:

It never ceases to amaze me how many people can be so willing to work against their own self-interests because FOX “News” told them to. These people have nothing but Republican talking-points to spew out in response to the questions being asked. None of them has put any thought into it beyond what they’ve been told by Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh. None of them has made the effort to find out what the bill really has in it on their own. They freely admit that they watch FOX because it reinforces what they believe already. They’re protesting something they have only misinformation about.

BREAKING! MoveOn to 'Condemn the Hate' Outside RNC Headquarters Thursday

From NewsReal, "MoveOn Plans Hate-In Outside RNC Headquarters Tomorrow":

The Democrat-media complex has been pushing the idea that patriotic nonviolent resistance and opposition to ObamaCare and President Obama’s drive to turn America into a full-blown socialist state somehow constitutes “hate.”

Leftists keep trying to invent new incidents supposedly showing how their political adversaries in the Tea Party movement are sinister racists.

They claim –in the absence of proof– that black Democratic lawmakers were called the N-word as they walked to the U.S. Capitol building to vote on ObamaCare. They claim –in the absence of proof– that an anti-gay epithet was hurled at Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), an openly gay lawmaker.

It is an indisputable fact that the violence America is beginning to see is almost exclusively on the left, whether it’s a deranged registered Democrat flying his plane into a federal building in Austin, Texas, or a progressive coward calling in a death threat against a Republican lawmaker.

It is all part of the left’s push to delegitimize opposition to the socialist takeover of America. If you oppose the murder-in-progress of the American republic you are smeared as a redneck, teabagging, racist obstacle to progress — and you deserve what’s coming to you.

So it’s not surprising that the street theater specialists at MoveOn.org are planning to host a propaganda event tomorrow intended to reinforce this false notion that Constitution-loving pro-limited government enthusiasts are eeeevil haters.

The leftist thugs at MoveOn plan to hold a rally outside Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C. to urge the Republican Party to distance itself from the alleged “hate” caused by the passage of ObamaCare.

Of course, the left, and in particular the George Soros-led character assassins at Media Matters for America (I mean you, Jamison Foser, Eric Boehlert, and Terry Krepel) are largely responsible for the civil unrest that is growing across America. Anyone who supported ObamaCare is responsible for the tide of discontent that now threatens to tear the nation apart.

And take notice, MoveOn, Jamison, Eric, and Terry, that the American people will not silenced.

Here’s the call-to-arms email MoveOn just sent out ...

Follow the link for the letter.

'The Free Ride's Over for the Rich in This Country...'

A really angry, frequently incoherent, rant for socialism, from the Harry Reid thug who threatened Andrew Breitbart last weekend. At Founding Bloggers, "Class Warfare All The Rage in Searchlight, Nevada":

This kind of abuse, which is typical of Obama-era Democrats, is not going over well with the public. See Greg Sargent, "Gallup: Majority Says Dem Health Reform Tactics Were “Abuse Of Power”." (Via Memeorandum.)

See also, Gay Patriot, "Americans’ Negative View of Obama’s New Kind of (Chicago) Politics."

BUSH = HITLER: The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same...

Scott Johnson has the background:

Evan Coyne Maloney is the documentary filmmaker and proprietor of Brain Terminal. During the Bush administration, Evan was out in the field with his camera observing protests and interviewing protesters. He is therefore in a good position to recall the signs and symbols of the left-wing opposition to the Bush administration's post-9/11 national security policies. How do they compare to the Tea Party protesters expressing their opposition to Barack Obama's program of national socialism?

Evan has now produced a timely new video splicing together footage that he calls "A trip down memory lane." He describes it as four minutes of nonstop examples of violent imagery and extremist rhetoric employed by left-wing anti-Bush protesters. He writes: "For some reason, despite it being well documented at the time by me and many others, the media chose to ignore it." Indeed.

Here's another photo of the BUSH = NAZI ideological demonization from March 20, in Hollywood:

Recall that "SS" stands for "Schutzstaffel," Hitler's paramilitary security state within the state.

Plus, posted previously, "BOOSH," the racist Bush slur.:

Here's Brian Maloney at Brain Terminal, "A Trip Down Memory Lane":

Not too long ago, taking to the streets to protest your government was considered a patriotic act.

It’s true!

But it seems that publicly airing your grievances stopped being patriotic right around noon on January 20th, 2009.

Once President Obama was sworn in, protesting became incitement to violence ....

Why the difference in coverage? Did the media cheerlead the protests against President Bush to hurt him politically? Are they trying to marginalize the increasingly powerful Tea Party movement because they favor President Obama’s agenda?

One thing’s for sure: If there is such a thing as dangerous rhetoric, then the media is at least one president too late in reporting the story.

When it comes to the Democrats, I'm ashamed for my country. But I'm not resigned. The tea parties are the salvation of democracy.

And since I know lefties will say "both sides do it." .... No, sorry, there's nothing -- absolutely nothing -- comparable to the secular demonization and violent rhetoric against the GOP during the Bush years, and it contiues today.

See, Zombie, "Death Threats Against Bush at Protests Ignored for Years."

Imperial History of the Middle East

God, I love this video:

Hat Tip: William Jacobson, who links to Isreally Cool: "See if you can spot when a palestinian state existed."

Get the link code at Maps of War.

RELATED: See David Phillips, "The Illegal-Settlements Myth":

The conviction that Jewish settlements in the West Bank are illegal is now so commonly accepted, it hardly seems as though the matter is even open for discussion. But it is. Decades of argument about the issue have obscured the complex nature of the specific legal question about which a supposedly overwhelming verdict of guilty has been rendered against settlement policy. There can be no doubt that this avalanche of negative opinion has been deeply influenced by the settlements’ unpopularity around the world and even within Israel itself. Yet, while one may debate the wisdom of Israeli settlements, the idea that they are imprudent is quite different from branding them as illegal. Indeed, the analysis underlying the conclusion that the settlements violate international law depends entirely on an acceptance of the Palestinian narrative that the West Bank is “Arab” land. Followed to its logical conclusion—as some have done—this narrative precludes the legitimacy of Israel itself.

BONUS: Melanie Phillips, "Israel as Czechoslovakia."

AAPS v. Sebelius

At Fox News, "Medical Society Files Lawsuit to Block Health Care Overhaul":

First, do no harm. Second, sue the government.

With the president's ink barely dry on the health care overhaul's final fixes, a group of nearly 5,000 American physicians is filing suit to stop the mammoth new law dead in its tracks.

"I think this bill that passed threatens not only to destroy our freedom in medicine but to bankrupt the country," said Dr. Jane Orient, executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons.

The Arizona-based medical coalition filed suit on March 26, arguing that congressional reforms illegally coerce individuals into buying insurance from private companies.

Starting in 2014, anyone who chooses not to buy health insurance faces a small federal penalty, but in 2016 the fine jumps to $695 a year per person or 2.5 percent of overall income, whichever is greater. That means that anyone earning more than $27,800 would be subject to increasing penalties, with a maximum fine of $2,085 per family.

Supporters of the law call it a simple tax meant to shore up coverage nationwide; but the AAPS says the mandate is an "unprecedented overreach" — an unconstitutional grab that rewards insurance companies and allows the federal government to seize private property in violation of the 5th Amendment.

See also, MAINFO, "Physicians Sue to Stop Obamacare."

VIDEO HAT TIP: Bottom Line Up Front, "Sebelius-Obamacare Will Raise Taxes on Small Businesses Making Over $200K."

RELATED: At ABC News, "GOP Wary of Health Law Repeal Push in Fall Races" (via Memeorandum).

Jacob Laksin Interview at FrontPage Magazine

Jacob Laksin, the managing editor at Frontpage Magazine, is interviewed by Jamie Glazov, "The Threat We Face":

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Jacob Laksin, the managing editor of Frontpage Magazine. As a fellow at the Phillips Foundation, he reported about the war on terrorism from East and North Africa and from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He is co-author, with David Horowitz, of One-Party Classroom: How Radical Professors at America’s Top Colleges Indoctrinate Students and Undermine Our Democracy. His work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Philadelphia Inquirer, The Weekly Standard, City Journal, Policy Review, as well as other publications.

FP: Jacob, welcome to Frontpage Interview.

I’d like to talk to you today about your view of the terror war, how the Obama administration is handling it and how a U.S. administration should preferably and ideally be handling it.

I would like to begin this discussion by talking with you about the nature of the threat we face in general. You and I have had a few disagreements (I think) in our own private discussions about Islam and to what extent it represents the “problem” in terms of the enemy we face. Tell us a bit about your thoughts on this issue, in terms of Islam and in what way you deem it to represent, or not represent, “the threat” to us in this terror war. And share with us some of your travels to the Islamic world that have, perhaps, influenced your outlook.

Laksin: First, thank you for having me, Jamie. It’s not often I find myself on this side of an interview, let alone in this space, but the honor is doubly great since one of my favorite interviewers is conducting it.

Islam is a complicated subject but I suppose where we disagree is in our definition of the threat it poses. You believe that Islam is the problem; I think there’s a good deal to that. Robert Spencer and others have made a convincing case that Islam is foundationally less tolerant, more supremacist, and more militant than other major religions and hence presents a unique threat. I’m willing to accept that argument, though more on empirical than doctrinal grounds: Wherever terrorism takes place today, Islam is usually connected. That is surely no coincidence.

But while I agree that Islam as such is a threat, I don’t agree that it is the threat. As I see it, Islamic texts may be immutable but Islam is not monolithic; it is a reflection of the society at large. Thus, Islam in Arabia is very different than Islam in Africa, and the differences are apparent even within the same continent. I’ve drunk boukha (a kind of fig liquor) with educated Muslims in Tunisia who have read the Koran, and I’ve been accosted and forcibly converted to Islam by a Muslim gang of young and likely illiterate thugs in East Africa. (I happen to be an atheist by persuasion, but when it comes to potentially life-threatening situations, I am not a stickler for principle.)

The lesson I draw from those experiences is that culture makes the difference. If you take the hothouse culture of, say, Saudi Arabia – tribal, puritanical, violent, sectarian – you are very likely to get something that resembles Wahhabi Islam. That also means that even if Islam ceased to exist tomorrow, the threat we associate with its terrorist followers would persist. I think this is what T.E. Lawrence was getting at when he wrote so lyrically of Wahabism that:

It was a natural phenomenon, this periodic rise at intervals of little more than a century, of ascetic creeds in central Asia. Always the voteries found their neighbors beliefs cluttered with inessential things, which became impious in the hot imagination of their preachers. Again and again, they had arisen, had taken possession, soul and body, of the tribes…the new creeds flowed like the tides or the changing seasons, each movement with the seeds of early death it its excess of rightness.

I see it similarly. So, while it may sound paradoxical, I think it’s simplistic to blame Islamic texts, which many in the Muslim world have not read – even in Egypt, a relatively modern state by the Arab world’s standards, almost half the population is illiterate – for the threat posed by Islamic extremism. Meanwhile, arguably the worst “Islamic” terrorist organization of the last half century, the Palestinian PLO, was at least notionally secular.

All that said, I think the points of agreement here are more important than the differences. Whether you think that Islam is the problem, or whether you think the culture from which it emerges is the problem, the same policy implications should follow: a reduction in immigration from Muslim countries; a skepticism about the Western world’s ability to transport its values and forms of government to that part of the world; a vigilance about Muslim extremism in the U.S.; and a steadfast support for democratic countries like Israel that live surrounded by the threat. If there can be some agreement on these points, I will accept that the rest is academic. Finally, though I don’t fully agree with the thesis that Islam as a religion is the main threat, I am dismayed that this is considered a fringe view while the idea that Islam is a “religion of peace” enjoys the status of mainstream truth. In a saner, more observant world, that would be reversed.

FP: Thanks Jacob, the debate on whether “Islam is or is not the problem” continues in many places and, obviously, also here at Frontpage and at NewsReal. So, while we disagree on several realms, we aren’t going to engage in a debate on it here today — and that is also not our purpose. For those interested, Robert Spencer has recently crystallized his argument at Newreal, and my own position is pretty much synthesized in my debate with Dinesh D’Souza.

Let’s follow up on the policy implications that you mention should be put in place in countering the threat we face. You point to a reduction in immigration from Muslim countries. Why is this important in your view and how could it be administered, especially in a climate of political correctness – that appears to not only shape the boundaries of national discourse but also the policies of the country?

More at the link.

The Overthrow of ObamaCare

From Yuval Levin, at the Weekly Standard, "REPEAL: Why and How Obamacare Must Be Undone":

To see why nothing short of repeal could suffice, we should begin at the core of our health care dilemma ....

Liberals ... propose ways of moving Americans to a more fully public system, by arranging conditions in the health care sector (through a mix of mandates, regulations, taxes, and subsidies) to nudge people toward public coverage, which could be more effectively managed. This is the approach the Democrats originally proposed last year. The idea was to end risk-based insurance by making it essentially illegal for insurers to charge people different prices based on their health, age, or other factors; to force everyone to participate in the system so that the healthy do not wait until they’re sick to buy insurance; to align various insurance reforms in a way that would raise premium costs in the private market; and then to introduce a government-run insurer that, whether through Medicare’s negotiating leverage or through various exemptions from market pressures, could undersell private insurers and so offer an attractive “public option” to people being pushed out of employer plans into an increasingly expensive individual market.

Conservatives opposed this scheme because they believed a public insurer could not introduce efficiencies that would lower prices without brutal rationing of services. Liberals supported it because they thought a public insurer would be fairer and more effective.

But in order to gain 60 votes in the Senate last winter, the Democrats were forced to give up on that public insurer, while leaving the other components of their scheme in place. The result is not even a liberal approach to escalating costs but a ticking time bomb: a scheme that will build up pressure in our private insurance system while offering no escape. Rather than reform a system that everyone agrees is unsustainable, it will subsidize that system and compel participation in it—requiring all Americans to pay ever-growing premiums to insurance companies while doing essentially nothing about the underlying causes of those rising costs.

Liberal health care mavens understand this. When the public option was removed from the health care bill in the Senate, Howard Dean argued in the Washington Post that the bill had become merely a subsidy for insurance companies, and failed completely to control costs. Liberal health care blogger Jon Walker said, “The Senate bill will fail to stop the rapidly approaching meltdown of our health care system, and anyone is a fool for thinking otherwise.” Markos Moulitsas of the Daily Kos called the bill “unconscionable” and said it lacked “any mechanisms to control costs.”

Indeed, many conservatives, for all their justified opposition to a government takeover of health care, have not yet quite seen the full extent to which this bill will exacerbate the cost problem. It is designed to push people into a system that will not exist—a health care bridge to nowhere—and so will cause premiums to rise and encourage significant dislocation and then will initiate a program of subsidies whose only real answer to the mounting costs of coverage will be to pay them with public dollars and so increase them further. It aims to spend a trillion dollars on subsidies to large insurance companies and the expansion of Medicaid, to micromanage the insurance industry in ways likely only to raise premiums further, to cut Medicare benefits without using the money to shore up the program or reduce the deficit, and to raise taxes on employment, investment, and medical research.

The case for averting all of that could hardly be stronger. And the nature of the new law means that it must be undone—not trimmed at the edges. Once implemented fully, it would fairly quickly force a crisis that would require another significant reform. Liberals would seek to use that crisis, or the prospect of it, to move the system toward the approach they wanted in the first place: arguing that the only solution to the rising costs they have created is a public insurer they imagine could outlaw the economics of health care. A look at the fiscal collapse of the Medicare system should rid us of the notion that any such approach would work, but it remains the left’s preferred solution, and it is their only plausible next move—indeed, some Democrats led by Iowa senator Tom Harkin have already begun talking about adding a public insurance option to the plan next year.

Because Obamacare embodies a rejection of incrementalism, it cannot be improved in small steps. Fixing our health care system in the wake of the program’s enactment will require a big step—repeal of the law before most of it takes hold—followed by incremental reforms addressing the public’s real concerns.

RTWT.

Also, at USA Today, "Health Care Law Too costly, Most Say":

Nearly two-thirds of Americans say the health care overhaul signed into law last week costs too much and expands the government's role in health care too far, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, underscoring an uphill selling job ahead for President Obama and congressional Democrats ...

RELATED HOPINESS: At NYT, "Obama Defends Health Care Law" (via Memeorandum). And at WSJ, "Obama Steps Up Confrontation."

Yeah. That'll work.