Ann Althouse notes:

“[W]hat if we could just be China for a day?… You know, I mean, where we could actually, you know, authorize the right solutions….”

“… and I do think there is a sense of that, on, on everything from the economy to environment. I don’t want to be China for a second, OK, I want my democracy to work with the same authority, focus and stick-to-itiveness. But right now we have a system that can only produce suboptimal solutions.”

So said Thomas Friedman on “Meet the Press”…

As The Anchoress additionally notes, we’ve also had Woody Allen and Andrea Mitchell chime in on the “wish we had a dictator” theme. Why? Because people of the left simply don’t like the tedious process of convincing people they are right. They already know they are, and thus they should just be able to get the job done.

A few years back I opined that liberals in America were junior-league Leninists. I caught a bit of flack for that – outraged that I would dare compare some of my fellow Americans to that inhuman beast. But, really, the only difference between Thomas Friedman and Lenin is that Lenin actually managed to obtain absolute power – had Lenin never done that, he’d be remembered today as no more than one in a long line of leftist thinkers…but he got his power and piled up millions of corpses.

For Friedman – and others – to pine for a dictator is just a natural outgrowth of the leftist world view. It is a demand that reality be forced to fit theory once it is realized that reality makes a mockery of liberal theory.

While we can laugh at such things – and we should – we must not lose sight of the fact that if they could impose a dictator on us, they would. They would strip away our liberty in an instant – because in their minds our liberties are just getting in the way of their worldview – a worldview they are convinced will make all perfect in the world.

So, be on guard – watch for these liberal fascists and oppose them at every turn. Leave no statement uncontested, no action without strong opposition – any weakness on our part will result in a redoubled leftist effort to get at whatever we have left. These people can and will be defeated – but it will take all of us, fighting hard, to do it.

Love it:

The people are riled up and not about to put up with liberal garbage any longer.

From Rasmussen:

Support for repeal of the new national health care plan has jumped to its highest level ever. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 63% of U.S. voters now favor repeal of the plan passed by congressional Democrats and signed into law by President Obama in March.

No one wants it. Its a lousy law. It doesn’t do what its supposed to do. It costs too much money. It gives too much power to the government.

Yeah, we should run on repeal – its a winner for us.

Answered:

The sad news:

The number of mass layoffs by U.S. employers rose in April led by manufacturers who shed workers…

The Labor Department said the number of mass layoff events — defined as job cuts involving at least 50 people from a single employer — increased by 228 to 1,856 as employers shed 200,870 jobs on a seasonally adjusted basis.

The number of mass layoffs in the manufacturing sector totaled 448 resulting in 63,616 initial jobless benefit claims, the department said. That was more than 24,000 higher than the previous month…

Its an MSM report, so if you read it you’ll see they’re still spinning this as good news – its not as bad as it was in 2009! But its still worse than it was a few months ago – and that tells the tale.

Sharp economic observers were pointing out that the allegedly good numbers in the last part of 2009 and first part of 2010 were really just a matter of climbing out of the basement for a moment. Things had gotten so low by the end of the third quarter of 2009 that there was no way but up – for a while.

That while is now over and economic decline is resuming. If, of course, it ever stopped. Personally, I think that later, comprehensive studies of this time – not possible for some years until all the data are known – will show that in spite of some “up” GDP numbers, the economy never ceased to contract all through 2009 and in to 2010.

We still have too much debt chasing too little wealth – and, in fact, thanks to Obamunism, we have far more debt than we otherwise would have. At the end of the day, Obama has put us in a worse situation – in return for a few quarters of so-called growth, we’re mortgaged a great deal of the future. Now, before we can really rise, we’ll have to absorb this Obama debt, in addition to all the other debt we already had.

Stories are starting to abound about how the second half of 2010 will be brutal. We’ll have to see – mostly it depends right now on whether or not the Euro-zone can plug the gap and keep not Greece from defaulting, but keep Spain, Italy and other countries from following Greece down the economic abyss. I’m doubtful they’ll be able to – but when government threw over gold and gave itself a printing press, it gained massive ability to manipulate financial systems.

But, come what may, we are in for a bad time. It can’t be sustained – the debt cannot be repaid and default will have to happen to clear the economic decks. The longer we hold it off by means of increasing debt, the worse it will be when it finally does happen.

Our President – trust him?

For all the liberal talk about what Israel is doing to Gaza, the truth is how hideous Palestinians are making it:

…An iron curtain of a strict theocracy is slowly descending on Gaza, but many human rights proponents still prefer to depict it as the embattled bastion of freedom fighters.

“Immoderately” dressed women are frowned upon in today’s Gaza. Strolling with a man or even riding a motorcycle with one’s husband can invite questioning. “Modesty patrols”inspect cars to catch unmarried women with men who aren’t relatives.

Male hairstylists are banned from beauty parlors. Women lawyers have, on occasion, been required to don headscarves. The hijab and loose robes are mandatory in secondary schools. Men aren’t allowed to swim in the sea shirtless.

The degree of devotion and prayer habits by mosque worshipers are strictly monitored by appointed commissars. Internet cafes and Christian institutions are particularly popular targets…

Throw in rampant corruption and summary executions, and you’ve got yourself the nauseating mix which is Gaza – and none of it done with an Israeli anywhere to be seen. This is Palestinians eating their own – and the liberals of the west, who will toss a condemnation at Israel at the drop of a hat, remain silent.

Why? Well, part of it is rank fear – cross an Islamist, and you could get killed. So, better not to cross them. The other part of it is the fact that hating Israel has become a matter of ideology on the left, and ideology always trumps in leftist circles.

The best thing which could happen to Gaza right now is the re-imposition of Israeli rule. The Israelis at their most obtuse and oppressive were never as bad as the Palestinians have proved – and, yes, the Israelis did wrong things…but there’s a difference between the wrong done by a boneheaded politician or an over-reacting soldier and the wrong done as a matter of policy. The Palestinian leadership’s evil is not a bug, its a feature.

Its a sad state of affairs and we’ll sadly watch a lot more people die – mostly off camera and thus out of mind – and no change can be made until there is a change in American government…a change away from a policy of considering the Palestinian leadership a responsible partner for peace.

No, I’m not kidding – from Gateway Pundit:

Dan Margolis, chair of the New York State Communist Party USA and 2004 coordinator for the Democratic Party, recently wrote about the Communist Party’s influence in democratic politics.

KeyWiki Blog reported:

When there were setbacks in the fight for health care, there was demoralization and frustration. Our Bronx club, which was instrumental in building an Organizing for America-based local organization, helped fight this feeling and, in the process, gained a good deal of experience. It can be said that, without the Communist Party, and solid leadership from one comrade in particular, the OFA group could have easily disbanded itself…

First off – Matt, is this guy a cousin of yours? Just curious – and if he is, don’t feel too bad. I’ve got a Marxist half-sister, after all (she’s a perpetual student/writer and I’d link to her stuff, but I’ve got a definitive impression from her that she wishes I’d drop off the face of the Earth, so we’ll leave that aside….wouldn’t want to cause her any trouble…imagine if her friends at Columbia found out her brother is a Republican! She’d have to undergo re-education, at the least).

That aside – fascinating that the commies are claiming credit for saving an Obama group. Fascinating, but not surprising. It is clear that under Obama, communism has become acceptable in the Democrat party.

That communists are, at best, fools and, at worst, beasts in human skin doesn’t seem to matter to the Democrats these days. That really does tell the tale of the Democrat party, and tells us why voting Republican in 2010 is a patriotic duty – we have to clear these people out before they wreck the nation.

Time to MoveOn to the next “we’re all gonna die/give us money” scam:

The economic case for global action to stop the destruction of the natural world is even more powerful than the argument for tackling climate change, a major report for the United Nations will declare this summer.

The Stern report on climate change, which was prepared for the UK Treasury and published in 2007, famously claimed that the cost of limiting climate change would be around 1%-2% of annual global wealth, but the longer-term economic benefits would be 5-20 times that figure.

The UN’s biodiversity report – dubbed the Stern for Nature – is expected to say that the value of saving “natural goods and services”, such as pollination, medicines, fertile soils, clean air and water, will be even higher – between 10 and 100 times the cost of saving the habitats and species which provide them.

Par for the course with environmentalism – but I thought we wouldn’t see it for a couple decades. Until, that is, global warming simply didn’t happen. No one counted on the beans being spilled and the resultant collapse of the anthropogenic global warming scam.

But, a scam is needed – lots of people gain power and wealth over environmental alarmism, so a replacement was needed. Presto! Biodiversity is the new thing – watch as this becomes a “crisis” and calls rise for massive amounts of spending to fix the problem.

Breaking out the big money in order to save their Congressional majority:

At least two influential unions will spend close to $100 million on the 2010 election, with most of those funds going to protect incumbents.

Union officials told The Hill they plan to help endangered members — particularly freshmen — who made politically difficult votes in a year during which an anti-incumbent mood has filled the country.

Anti-incumbent? A bit – but its mostly an anti-Democrat mood. At any rate…

The unions see their very large monetary investment going down the drain. They’ve spent untold millions – stolen from their own members – to advance an ultra-liberal set of politicians to power in Washington, and now they fear power may be lost. They are doubling down.

Will it work? No. Money doesn’t buy elections. Corrupt politicians – especially on the left – think it does, but that is not true. Money can make it easier, but victory comes in spite of money, or the lack thereof.

But the unions will still pour it on – we’ll have a huge blast of union-paid lies aired courtesy of the dues of hard working union members, a large number of which prefer the Republicans. It will be a sad and disgusting spectacle – and it won’t affect the outcome in the slightest.