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With Support Surging, Progressives Push Pelosi on Single-Payer Common Dreams But the time to act on the legislation is now, said Donna Smith, executive director of Progressive Democrats of America (PDA). In fact, it is "long overdue," she stated Friday. "Because of my family's harrowing experiences with failures of the American ... and more »

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With Support Surging, Progressives Push Pelosi on Single-Payer - Common Dreams

ARIE KLAPHOLZ, COLUMNIST 10:45 a.m. ET April 28, 2017

My friend and mentor, Irv Homer, used to call random observations and thoughts brain droppings. He offered many of them, and often.

Most progressives would have you believe government is good and bigger government is better. Most progressives I know believe government micromanagement is wonderful. Most progressives believe not only does big government benefit the general population, but that it is the only way for the general population to properly survive.

However, the only unions growing today are government employee unions. My work experience and service as a shop steward for a number of years in two very different work environmentsis this: Unions exist to protect the employee from the bad practices and abuses of the employer. If government is so benevolent and so good, why is there a need for government employee unions?

I guess governments are not so good after all, and need to be restrained from poor behavior and abuses.

Its April. Many people have recently learned what their forced contribution to supporting the government totals is. My own contributions were more than $20,000. Almost 200 years ago, Chief Justice John Marshall said the power to tax is the power to destroy.

Progressives are so intent on forcing income equality, they are willing to destroy the very fabric of a free, capitalistic society. Again and again we are told the rich dont pay their fair share. President Obama repeatedly spoke of a $200,000 threshold to designate who is rich.

Here are the facts progressives overlook. The top 50 percent of taxpayers pay 97 percent of all income tax collected. The top 10 percent pay 71 percent. The top 1 percent pay 40 percent of all income tax collected.

These are 2014 figures, the most recent available. What escapes all logic is if you went from marginal 39 percent to 80 percent, you could not collect enough to make a spit of difference to Washingtons spending habits.

That is where the real problem lies, and until 500 of the 535 elected members of Congress are replaced with sane, smart and financially astute officials, we will never have enough tax receipts to satiate the financial morons who run Washington.

We only have ourselves to blame, because we keep sending people to Washington who are more interested in giving away free stuff than trying to pay for what is necessary. Proof of this: During the Obama administration, overspending and misspending doubled the national debt in just eight short years.

It seems progressives have adopted a philosophical and moral position as arbiters of truth, with no room for opposing views. Across this country, it appears diversity of thought is not encouraged, not fostered and in most places, not allowed.

Whether it is Ann Coulter or Condoleezza Rice denied speaking engagements, to not listen and get involved in a meaningful dialogue is the height of fascism. The Supreme Court allowed the Nazis to march in Skokie, Illinois.

To add insult to injury, violent protestors wear black attire and masks showing they are not brave enough to show the world who they are. Someone needs to teach progressives about free speech and the First Amendment.

Arie Klapholz retired to Ocean Pines after 33 years of civil service in construction management and 40 years in newspaper production services.

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Random thoughts about progressives - Delmarva Daily Times

Because the California National Guard couldnt be mobilized in time, Ann Coulter had to withdraw from giving a speech at Berkeley.

If you take it seriously, thats the import of UC Berkeleys decision to do everything it could to keep the conservative provocateur from speaking on campus over safety concerns.

If somebody brings weapons, theres no way to block off the site, or to screen them, the chancellor of the university said of Coulters plan to go ahead and speak at an open-air forum after the school canceled a scheduled talk.

The administrator made it sound as if Coulter would have been about as safe at Berkeley as she would have been addressing a meeting of MS-13 and he might have been right.

We have entered a new, much less metaphorical phase of the campus-speech wars. Were beyond hissing, or disinviting. Were no longer talking about the hecklers veto, but the masked-thugs-who-will-burn-trash-cans-and-assault-you-and-your-entourage veto.

Coulter is a rhetorical bomb thrower, which is an entirely different thing than being a real bomb thrower. Coulter has never tried to shout down a speaker she doesnt like. She hasnt thrown rocks at cops. She isnt an arsonist. She offers up provocations that she gamely defends in almost any setting with arguments that people are free to accept, or reject, or attempt to correct.

In other words, in the Berkeley context, shes the liberal. She believes in the efficacy of reason and in the free exchangeof ideas. Her enemies do not.

Indeed, the budding fascism that progressives feared in the Trump years is upon us, although not in the form they expected. It is represented by the black-clad shock troops of the antifa movement who are violent and intolerant, and easily could be mistaken for the street fighters of the extreme Right in 1930s Europe. That they call themselves anti-fascist speaks to a colossal lack of self-awareness.

It is incumbent on all responsible progressives to reject this movement, and just as important the broader effort to suppress controversial speech. This is why former Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Deans comments about hate speech not being protected by the First Amendment were so alarming. In Deans defense, he had no idea what he was talking about, but he was effectively making himself the respectable voice of the rock throwers.

Deans view was that Berkeley is within its rights to make the decision that it puts their campus in danger if they have her there. This justification, advanced by the school itself, is profoundly wrongheaded.

It is an inherently discriminatory standard, since the Berkeley College Republicans arent given to smashing windows and throwing things when an extreme lefty shows up on campus, which is a near-daily occurrence.

It would deny Coulter something she has a right to do (speak her mind on the campus of a public university) in reaction to agitators doing things they dont have a right to do (destroy property, among other acts of mayhem).

It would suppress an intellectual threat, i.e., a dissenting viewpoint, and reward a physical threat. This is perverse.

For now there is a consensus in favor of free speech in the country that is especially entrenched in the judiciary. The anti-fa and other agitators arent going to change that anytime soon. But they could effectively make it too burdensome for certain speakers to show up on campus, and over time more Democrats like Dean could rationalize this fact by arguing that so-called hate speech doesnt deserve First Amendment protection.

So, it isnt enough for schools like UC Berkeley to say that they value free speech, yet do nothing to punish disrupters and throw up their hands at the task of providing security for controversial speakers. If everyone else gets safe space at UC Berkeley, Coulter deserves one. If the anti-fa are willing to attack free speech through illegal force, the authorities should be willing to defend it by lawful force.

Heck, if necessary, call out the National Guard.

Rich Lowry is the editor of National Review. He can be reached via e-mail: [emailprotected]. 2017 King Features Syndicate

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Ann Coulter the Liberal - National Review

BOSTON -- House and Senate progressives, eager to seize whatever momentum there might be for comprehensive criminal justice reform this session, implored their colleagues Tuesday not to let the chance slip by to overhaul all aspects of the justice system.

The lawmakers, many of whom are black and Latino, said they sense an opportunity over the next year and half to capitalize on the completion of an independent review of the Massachusetts criminal justice system.

At a press conference in the midst of the second day of debate in the House on the state's annual budget, the lawmakers said reforms must include changes to sentencing laws as well as bail reform, parole reform and improvements to mental health and substance abuse treatment for inmates.

They used the occasion of the House budget debate to draw attention to the issues as lawmakers, lobbyists and reporters buzzed around the capitol and the House chamber.

"We believe that the discussion and the publicity around the release of the (Council of State Governments) report in February has moved many of our colleagues to look at accomplishing criminal justice reforms at every stage of the justice system. We believe we are ready this session to address the whole spectrum of criminal justice processes," said Assistant House Majority Leader Byron Rushing.

Following the release of the CSG report, Gov. Charlie Baker filed legislation with the support of House Speaker Robert DeLeo and Senate President Stanley Rosenberg that took a rather narrow approach to reform.

The bill focused on allowing prisoners to reduce their time of incarceration by participating in jail and prison programs aimed at reducing recidivism and making the transition back into the community easier for offenders.

House Speaker Robert DeLeo earlier on Tuesday called the governor's bill a "great start," and suggested his focus might be on passing the governor's bill first and allowing other ideas to percolate.

"I fully expect there are going to be other pieces of legislation that we're going to be dealing with to supplement what we will be doing," DeLeo said.

Rushing said he did not have a problem with the speaker's comment. "We're not insisting on a process. We're insisting on an end," the South End Democrat said.

The rally outside the House chamber with criminal justice reform advocates was organized by the Legislature's Progressive Caucus, the Black and Latino Caucus, the Harm Reduction Caucus and the Caucus of Women Legislators' Task Force on Justice Involved Women.

Rep. Mary Keefe, a Worcester Democrat, said bail reform must be part of any overhaul, citing statistics from an unnamed county in Massachusetts where bail amounts are four times higher for blacks than whites and black arrestees account for 25 percent of pretrial detainees despite representing just 2.4 percent of the county population.

"We know that our present practices disproportionately impact the poor and people of color," Keefe said.

Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz, who has filed a more comprehensive reform bill, said black and Latino residents make up less than one-fifth of the state's population, but account for half of the incarcerated population and 75 percent of the population serving mandatory minimum sentences.

"Justice, we can all agree, should be color blind, but today there is no denying the complexion of incarceration in our state," Chang-Diaz said.

The Jamaica Plain Democrat said reforming sentencing laws would save money that she said could be reinvested into mental health and substance abuse treatment. "When we incarcerate fewer non-violent offenders, focusing our resources instead on drug treatment and poverty alleviation, we are saving taxpayer dollars," she said.

Rep. Paul Heroux, an Attleboro Democrat who once worked for the Department of Correction, said any reforms must be accompanied by more complete data collection to measure whether policies are achieving their goals.

Rep. Christine Barber, of Somerville, said women who make up a growing portion of the state's inmate population also have twice as many cases of mental illness and "longer histories" of substance abuse. Female inmates, she said, are often mothers with sole custody of their children at the time of their arrest.

"We need to make sure 100 percent of people who need care are getting it," Barber said, arguing lawmakers could help "break the cycle of orphaned children."

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House progressives are making criminal justice reform a priority - Sentinel & Enterprise

The presidential victory of Donald Trump in November of 2016 has been under systematic assault by Democrats, their institutional and media organs, and their followers in an effort to delegitimize him. Why? Progressives thought they had won the battle and would be in power in perpetuity. The election of President Trump demonstrated otherwise. Consequently, Progressives responded with protests, marches, riots, and sustained rage in an effort to undermine his effectiveness in order to restore Progressive governance, now and forever.

Their purpose is to delegitimize not just President Trump but all Republicans and Independents that oppose a Progressive agenda and its stranglehold of policies that undermine American democracy, free speech, and constitutional liberties. Just consider how easy it is to boycott and ban conservative speakers on university campuses these days under the guise of concerns about safety. The result is the loss of divergent opinions that lie at the very heart of liberty.

Progressive outrage is directed against President Trump and is unrelenting. Nearly all television, Internet, and newspaper coveragesave for Fox News and conservative outletshas become a series of hit pieces that make no pretense of impartiality or fact-driven analysis.

Why the vitriol? Progressives believed their revolution had succeeded under President Obama and that Hillary Clinton would ipso facto secure the mandate. What would that encompass? It would include national health care, a European-style socialism, an emphasis on open borders, and a focus on global initiatives at the expense of national issues that responded to the needs of ordinary Americans and their desire for better jobs with the potential of higher incomes. Why was the Progressive agenda rejected by so many voters? It failed to address the anguish of many Americans whose incomes in 2015 remained the sameas measured in real dollarsas 1999.

Progressives never understood the significance of that indicator or the pain that ordinary Americans felt. Consequently, President Trump won and his victory signified the dismantling of the Progressive dream of socialist revolution and replaced it with the hope of reinvigorated capitalism.

Despite the onslaught of attacks against Present Trumps administration, its important to understand that these are but a proxy war for the real villain, the Republican Party and its supporters. The objective in demonizing President Trump is to turn the American tide so decisively away from conservative values that no Republican-leaning leader will ever win again. To this end Americans must never hear, read, or understand the opposing perspective. Social media, television, news, and the Internet must be saturated with a sustained and unrelenting war against conservative beliefs unanchored by pesky facts or true evidence. The outcome, if Democrats had their way, would be nothing less than a perfectly executed coup dtat resulting in 1,000 years of Progressive rule.

What would Progressives advocate? Above all, a foreign policy in which our national goals are sacrificed in favor of interests characteristic of a post-American world. To that end, Progressives would promote measures aimed at ameliorating the conditions of the underprivileged everywhere. However, these improvements typically come not from social directives, but through sustained and systematic changes in the infrastructure that alter the nature of labor, the products produced, and their inherent value. Thus, global socialism, even if it were commendable, would not measurably enhance peoples lives overall. Meanwhile, America, saddled with this global mission, would no longer pursue objectives that would benefit our citizenry and improve their social and economic circumstances.

How would Progressive values be manifest here at home? Socialized health care would replace best practices with palliative care, thereby jettisoning medical advances and excellence. Governmental programs would encourage individual and familial dependence on the state at the expense of empowering Americans to achieve their own economic success. Our educational system would focus on multiculturalism, instead of universal national values committed to excellence. America would be rendered economically and militarily powerless due to its inability to create wealth, enforce borders, and support mandates that champion democratic freedoms both here and around the world.

The case for what was is at stake in the 2016 election was pervasively argued by Michael Anton, a senior staffer at the National Security Council, under the pseudonym Publius Decius Mus in his essay The Flight 93 Election. It was published in September of 2016 on the website of The Claremont Review of Books, a conservative journal associated with the Claremont Institute.

Antons premisecharge the cockpit or you diewas bold and to the point. Failure of the Republican Party to align behind Trump in the 2016 election, he argued, was analogous to doing nothing as terrorists hijacked a plane. Failure to act, he implied, would result in death for everyone onboard and, if the metaphor was extended nationally, imperil our country. Sadly, many Republicans and Independents have yet to heed Antons message.

Why werent Americans outraged of the recent evidence of wiretapping and the unmasking of Trump and several of his advisors during the campaign and the transition to the presidency? Why werent Americans distressed by the illegal public disclosure of national security documents leaked by governmental officials with associations to the former Obama administration that targeted President Trump and some of his team?

These were actions that breached our national security and suggest illegal practices that dwarf the Nixon administrations 1972 illegal break-in to the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Washington, D.C. Watergate complex. What will it take to unite the Republicans, Independents, and fair-minded Democrats against a Progressive agenda intent on a dictatorship-style coup dtat through the illegal use of national security information to bolster a failed regime and its misguided agenda?

Dr. Diana E. Sheets is a Research Scholar at the University of Illinois. She writes literary criticism, political commentary, and fiction. Much of it can be read on her website, http://www.LiteraryGulag.com. Her latest book, The Doubling: Those Influential Writers That Shape Our Contemporary Perceptions of Identity and Consciousness in the New Millennium, is published by Nova Science Publishers.

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The Progressive Coup d'tat That Wasn't Quite - Huffington Post