John Hinderaker over at Powerline reviews the rioting and vandalism and the complete unwillingness of the police to stop it and asks, “why do we have police?” A valid question, to be sure. Why have police if they’re not going to stop a riot?

And one, for which, actually know the answer.

The reason the cops aren’t moving seriously against the rioters is very simple – you do that, and you’ll get in trouble. The liberal narrative is that the thugs running amok are just kind, caring people who want to save the world – club a few of them in to submission and you’re going to have nothing but trouble. Reports to fill out. Investigations to endure. Possible loss of job. Just not worth it – better to just let them do their thing and then supervise the clean up after its all over.

Other stories are emerging that the police in Toronto are taking a harsh stance against one group of people – the reporters in Toronto who are informing the world both of the riots and the lack of police response to same. Allowing that to happen would upset the apple cart – meaning, if you get a story out there that creeps are rioting and cops aren’t stopping it, then that could be used to force the police to do something. And that, in turn, runs the very risk the cops don’t want to run…taking action which might get them in trouble.

The plain fact of the matter is that no one ever has a right to riot. No one has a right to block public thoroughfares. No one has a right to vandalize public or private property. People who do such things have placed themselves outside the law and if they don’t stop, after a clear warning and very short time frame, they are subject to a violent response from the authorities – up to and including deadly force as the police shouldn’t have to place their own lives unduly at risk to stop people who are acting quite insane in the public square.

But liberalism doesn’t allow such things – doesn’t allow, that is, the rational conduct of public business. First liberalism will create a fantasy world where some nefarious group (in this case, the leaders of the G20) are wrecking the world. Second, liberalism will write a script which has it that the authorities are always wrong. Third, liberalism will marshal the entire weight of publicity against anyone who reacts properly to a riot. Toronto’s riots are the natural outgrowth of the liberal world view – any place long under liberal governance will see the same thing happening; riots and lack of police response.

Those of us who care about civilization and the average, hard working people who live in it must take a different view. We must recover a willingness to see things as they are and react to them based upon thought – and as soon as you think about it, you realize that the primary victims of the rioters are average, work-a-day people who actually make society work. It is they whom society is supposed to be built for – not for people who want to smash things.

We need to work for a society where the honest and hard working rule the roost – not the dishonest layabouts who riot at the drop of the hat.

From Reuters:

…”I was surprised and extremely disappointed to hear that $18 billion in new assessments and fees were added in the wee hours of the morning by the conference committee,” Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown said.

He issued the statement after negotiators from the Senate and House of Representatives emerged from a marathon session early Friday morning with a final compromise on a bill that would bring about the most sweeping financial rules revamp since the 1930s…

As usual, grafting Democrat politicians have slipped things in to the bill in the dead of night, planning on ripping us off on the sly. Its just the way they operate – when you’re dishonest enough to create the financial crisis and then claim you can fix it, this is par for the course.

We’ll see if Brown stands firm and whether the rest of the Senate GOP can muster the courage to block this boondoggle of government waste which won’t do anything to fix the problem, but will open up vast, new areas of Democrat corruption, if passed.

UPDATE: Senator Byrd’s illness (which I bet is life threatening, or they wouldn’t be announcing it) could also kill the bill. Amazing that America’s policy may depend on the fate of a man elected to the Senate 6 years before I was born. Term limits are a necessity.

Heck with a bunch of working people, we’ve got an environmentalist ideology to advance – from JS Online:

Up to 1,000 jobs at Bucyrus International Inc. and its suppliers could be in jeopardy as the result of a decision by the U.S. Export-Import Bank, funded by Congress, to deny several hundred million dollars in loan guarantees to a coal-fired power plant and mine in India…

…The fossil fuel project was the first to come before the government-run bank since it adopted a climate-change policy to settle a lawsuit and to meet Obama administration directives.(emphasis added)

But we’ll get those back in green jobs. Some where. Some day. As soon as we get the dratted windmills to work properly…and their turbines delivered from China.

India wants the products; an American company is able to provide the products. Now, the US government has effectively killed US participation because of a quite mindless devotion to programs designed to thwart an imaginary threat of global warming. You think that plant won’t get built? If you do, then you are quite simply an idiot – someone will step it. Our jobs will be taken by some other nation not quite as hamstrung as we are.

Completely stupid – and liberalism in a nut shell.

Seems that “courageous restraint” might not stick around quite as-is – from the Telegraph:

“There will be no change in overall policy but all aspects of tactics and implementation will be looked at afresh,” a Pentagon official told The Daily Telegraph. “The issue of ‘courageous restraint’ is a controversial one on the ground and there may be ways it can be modified.”

War is a brutal business and can’t be made otherwise – what is chivalrous in war is to not deliberately harm non-combatants. To offer mercy to the vanquished. But when someone starts shooting at you, “restraint” must be left aside and only once the shooting has stopped can restraint be exercised.

A dose of realty has been needed in Afghanistan policy, and its looks like we’re goig to get it.

John Mauldin rates it fairly likely:

…My take is that Bush cut taxes in 2001 and again in 2003 in the face of weak economic circumstances. Unless something changes, we are going to enact the largest tax increase in US history. And that will be matched by equally large tax increases and spending cuts by state and local jurisdictions. And we are going to do it at a time when the above research suggests that growth may be in the 1% range and unemployment will still be in the 9-10% range. Extended unemployment benefits will be long gone for many people. Housing will still be in the doldrums (more on that in next week’s Outside the Box) and housing prices are likely to fall from here.

Growth in the first quarter was revised down (again!) to 2.7%, or about half that of the 4th quarter of last year. Much of what passed for growth was inventory rebuilding and stimulus. The underlying economy may be weaker than the headline number reveals. And by the 4th quarter, there is very little stimulus.

Given the above, I think we have to increase the odds of a 2011 recession to 60%, and those odds will rise and fall based on the economic performance of the next two quarters.

Personally, I don’t think we ever really left the recession – in terms of real growth absent the massive, bankrupting bit of borrow-and-spend from Obama and his Democrats, my belief is that the private economy has not stopped contracting since 2007.

There is probably no way, at this point, to stop the GDP numbers from slipping back in to recession either later this year or early next. The only thing we can do is soften the blow – and the best means of doing so is to renew the Bush tax cuts.

This is not likely to commend itself to Democrats who are salivating over the huge tax increase – they think it will provide them the revenue to allow another round of vote-buying spending initiatives. They don’t realize that any revenue gains will be swiftly offset by renewed economic decline, and thus lower revenues.

Meanwhile, the debt burden remains – public and private. And once there comes a time when the money men figure that the governments of the world can’t meet their debt obligations, then there will be a run for the financial exits. We’re in for a long, rough year, at least.

Have a thing to do early Saturday morning, boys and girls, and so am unable to write something go for you in the AM.

Plenty to talk about – how about starting with just what make a person a crazed sex poodle?

The power of prayer?

A Raleigh abortuary that has seen constant prayer from pro-lifers with the popular 40 Days for Life campaign has ceased performing abortions.

The Raleigh News and Observer reported Wednesday that National Women’s Health Organization of Raleigh is, in the words of one local pro-abortion affiliate, “in transition.” The affiliate, Ann Rose, said that the last abortions would be conducted on Saturday, but she would not explain what other changes the “transition” would entail…

Did the endlessly repeated prayers work a chance in some one’s heart? We don’t know – and won’t be able to know while we live on this earth. But it is heartening to see such a miserable, anti-human place willing to change. However it was done, it was well done.

An unanswerable attack – and if this ends up being the way the immigration issue is framed in November, then the GOP will win it handily.

Townhall has constructed the list and you can view it here in PDF. I have to say, it hurts a bit – I figure that I’m hated more than Michael Barone (#100), and who the heck has even heard of Philip Anschutz (#89)? I mean, has anyone ever advocated having Barone beaten up, or suggested that Anschutz be strung up from a lamp post with a meat hook? I might not be as famed as some, but I really do get the lefty hate-juices flowing!

I pledge this to you, my fellow Americans, I will do all I can to make the list next year!

From the BBC:

US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has told the BBC that the world “cannot depend as much on the US as it did in the past”.

He said that other major economies would have to grow more for the global economy to prosper.

Geithner, you sniveling, little coward – what you are really saying is that because your tax and spend liberalism can’t fix America, America can’t be fixed. The world can depend on America – we just can’t depend on you and your boss.

Just another example of the spinelessness of liberals – and their willingness to consign average Americans to destruction, as long at rich, powerful liberals can remain rich and powerful. Geithner doesn’t care – he’s got his pile of money and once he’s out of DC, he fully expects to be re-hired in the corporate world where he can pile up even more money – and then cheat on his taxes some more, because taxes are for the little people to pay.

Have you had enough of these weak, worthless liberals?