progressives – Page 2

April 11, 1913: the day Woodrow Wilson federalized segregation.

[Expletive deleted]ing Progressives.

One hundred years ago today, Woodrow Wilson brought Jim Crow to the North. He had been inaugurated on March 4, 1913. At a cabinet meeting on April 11, his postmaster general, Albert S. Burleson, suggested that the new administration segregate the railway mail service; and treasury secretary William G. McAdoo, who would soon become Wilson’s son-in-law, chimed in to signal his support. Wilson followed their lead.

Scratch one of those guys, find a racist; an eugenicist; or both. Mind you, it’s one of the deeper ironies that American political life that the most Wilsonian* (in terms of outlook and managerial style) President we’ve had since him is technically** the first African-American President of the United States…

Via Instapundit.

Moe Lane

*As you may guess, I don’t mean that as a compliment. Woodrow Wilson was a fascist so-and-so who nearly did this country a ton of permanent damage. Or a ton more.

**To be honest about it, Barack Obama is about as authentically African-American as I am. The man’s an Ivy League liberal academic, which is about as white-bread as it gets.

Some helpful reminders to progressive protesters at Charlotte.

I thought that I’d be useful and walk the slave’s flatteries and child’s imitations that are the modern Left protest movement through what’s expected of them this week at the Democratic convention in Charlotte, as well as what their betters will tolerate from said protesters. I know, I know: some of the folks on my side feel that one should not give those people any sort of help whatsoever: to which I reply, noblesse oblige. Or possibly mild sadism; after all, I’m happily aware of the fact that there’s almost nothing that the progressive activist Left hates more than to know that somebody out there is laughing at them, and that they can’t make the Bad Man stop.

But enough about me. Let’s go over a few things: Continue reading Some helpful reminders to progressive protesters at Charlotte.

#rsrh 2012 Democratic House budget: tax hikes on over 70K/year households.

No, I will not fig leaf this by pretending that having this budget originate with the Congressional Progressive Caucus makes for a meaningful distinction. The CPC has 72 sitting Representatives, and had oversight over half of the standing committees in the last Congress; even in this one they make up 37.5% of the Democratic caucus. Progressives may be a fringe group out there in the larger world, but in the distorted maniacal funhouse reality that Congress operates in they have to be taken seriously. Continue reading #rsrh 2012 Democratic House budget: tax hikes on over 70K/year households.

Wisconsin progressives attack charter school.

Yup, ‘attacked.’ Those locks didn’t vandalize themselves, and they weren’t vandalized by the Scott Walker administration. That leaves a pretty small list of suspects from which to choose. Anyway, I’m just putting this video about the protests at Messmer Preparatory Catholic School (via Hot Air) up, without any of the (scathing) editorial comments that I had originally written.

But see if you can guess what the major difference was between the ‘choice’ school kids being protested at, and the screaming vandals doing the protesting. Hint: if you know anything about the DC school choice saga then you already know what I’m talking about – which is also true if you’re a typical progressive activist. The only difference there is, you’d rather gargle razor blades then admit that you do know what I’m talking about*. Continue reading Wisconsin progressives attack charter school.

The PEOPLE’S BUDGET!

…yeah, you know what’s in it already, don’t you? That “People’s” bit is what we call a tell: a promise of big, honking wholesale confiscation of Other People’s (Not Really The Real People) Money. And lo! – this is precisely what the Congressional Progressive Caucus wants to do:

Increase payroll taxes. Both sides.
Reintroduce the tax hikes on small businesses that were threatened last year.
Impose new tax hikes on highest bracket, reaching 47%.
New taxes on foreign earnings.
“Crisis responsibility fee.” Which sounds better than “Soak stockholders of banks for accepting TARP money tax.”
“Financial speculation tax.” Which sounds better than “the twenty-first century equivalent of the Stamp Act:” it’s a tax on electronic stock transactions.
$1,450,000,000,000 in new spending.
Public option.
Cuts to military.

Continue reading The PEOPLE’S BUDGET!

Reason discusses Reality Non-Unicorn.

Mind you, Matt Welch reveals himself to be a rampaging optimist in his last sentence:

In the truer-believing regions of the progressive political world, the broad agenda of carbon price hikes, centralized health care, greater regulation, increased taxes, and government-mandated diversity in boardrooms are not just sound and moral policy. They are inherently popular, if only the usual obstacles to justice and reform can be neutralized or removed. Back when he was still considered a plausible stand-in for “the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party” (enough to win 2.7 percent of the presidential vote in 2000, much of it from progressives disgruntled at New Democrat policies), Ralph Nader insisted on a daily basis that his agenda was essentially “majoritarian.”

Such fantasies can serve as a salve when you live on the margins of the policy debate. And as long as you remain on the sidelines, the underlying proposals tend to go largely unchallenged. But now that progressive economic thought has its first real foothold in Washington since the 1970s, many long-marginalized ideas are being dusted off for real-world testing, from taxing stock transactions to “getting people out of their cars.” If we’re lucky, those debates will take place before the ideas are cemented into law. Better yet, maybe the growing unpopularity of central planning will dissuade the enthusiasts from inflicting their experiments on the rest of us in the first place.

Bolding mine, and no: that’s not going to happen. A scapegoat will be found. Remember: we are talking about a group that is currently claiming with a straight face that having a 59/41 split in the Senate, a 255/178 split in the House, and the Presidency is not sufficiently overwhelming to let them accomplish their goals. Losing the House will not act as a laudable shock to their system; losing the House and the Senate will not do it, either. Losing both Houses of Congress in 2010 and the Presidency in 2012 won’t do it. God could descend from Heaven in all His glory (with Thorstein Veblen and William Jennings Bryan in attendance) and carrying a signed note from Franklin Delano Roosevelt telling progressives that they are being muddle-headed – and it won’t dissuade them from their belief structure.

Fortunately, it’s not them that we have to convince. Just the centrist voters who are swiftly coming to understand that what they signed up for is not what they’re getting…

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

The progressive populist, and other inane myths.

I would whale upon this Matt Bai column, except that at the end it’d just boil down to two thoughts:

Only a graduate of Tufts and Columbia Universities could even seriously entertain the notion that a graduate of Columbia and Harvard Universities would ever be accurately described as being a ‘populist’;
And only a progressive journalist would think that being compared to Woodrow Wilson was complimentary.

Via Hot Air Headlines.

Moe Lane

PS: Well, why not? This video still gets me hate mail, so I figure it still stings.

Crossposted to RedState.

Democrats contemplating just passing the Senate HCR bill?

(H/T Instapundit) While I see Mickey Kaus’ point in the abstract:

People in the know in Washington appear to have already considered and dismissed the “ping pong” option–the possibility that if the Senate finally passes a compromise health care bill, Pelosi’s House might simply vote “yes” on the exact same bill, avoiding the need for a “conference” to reconcile the House and Senate versions and instead sending the bill directly to the President for his signature. But from outside Washington, out here in the real America, this “ratification” route still looks awfully appealing–especially this week.

…there are pragmatic problems to consider: the House health care rationing bill passed with only two votes to spare, and only because of the Stupak amendment. The Senate version currently lacks similar language, and it will probably not even get to a vote unless ‘public option’ is removed. Put another way: for this gambit to work it’ll require no public option and hefty rules against federal funding of abortion. Put yet another way: this gambit doesn’t just metaphorically gut-shoot progressives. It requires that progressives metaphorically gut-shoot themselves as part of the process.

I’m not saying that they won’t do it. Progressive Democratic legislators are quite good at emulating jellyfish. But this would be above and beyond the usual spinelessness.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.