No one likes child abusers. Before the Supreme Court decided to codify in our Constitution the European notion that child molesters should suffer repeated rape in prison rather than be put to death, Louisiana made child molestation a death penalty offense.

However, as any conservative knows, “for the children” is a codeword for “this is going to hurt.” Anyone who watched daycare workers and parents put through Hell because overzealous prosecutors, usually without children, wanted some plum prosecutions and found a convenient target, knows the story. (I’m looking at you, Janet Reno. But only reflected in a well-buffed shield.) The cases follow a familiar pattern: A child is locked in a room with intimidating authority figures — police, teachers, or some combination — and told to simply tell them where daddy/mommy/the teacher/the daycare provider touched them. If the child denies it, well, she must be scared of punishment, right? Just keep asking. Lean in a little closer. When she asks to leave, well, she must still be scared she’ll get in trouble. Make clear she can’t leave just yet, but as soon as she tells you where she was touched/where the animal sacrifice was held (that’s not a joke), someone will get her something to drink and everything will be ok. The police/teachers are just here to help. Just talk. Then you can go.

Once she talks — even if she recants — the target is basically looking at a certain conviction, because child abuse is so terrible, juries rush to verdict, and defense attorneys know this. A parent’s child becomes a gateway to ripping away his civil rights and the presumption of innocence. Every attorney charged with defending an accused child molester knows he’d have a better chance defending a charge of genocide. I’ve been there, and God knows I’m not the only one.

Fortunately, we have nine robed masters who look all primed to set a muddy balancing test for prosecutors to follow in the future. The Washington Post tells us that the Supreme Court is going to pretend to care about an accused child molester’s rights. Here are sketches of the facts — facts that are extremely common in these cases.

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Hello! There’s no one clear theme of things to discuss tonight. It’s a diverse list of topics, so let’s just muddle on through and see what’s going on.

We’ve got some good news from what the Republicans in Washington are going. On the Senate side, the side we haven’t heard nearly as much about thanks to the Obama-Reid majority there, conservative Republicans are taking key roles. Senators Toomey, Rubio, and Ayotte will join the Senate subcommittee responsible for FCC oversight. Get to it, gentlemen and lady.

Meanwhile, in the House, Speaker Boehner has come out strong against Net Neutrality, calling it a threat, and warning about follow-on regulation like the Fairness Doctrine. Committee members are active too, judging by H. J. Res. 37 by Greg Walden, Fred Upton, and the gang. This simple, readable, eight-line resolution disapproves the Net Neutrality power grab.

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Could ethanol-driven food price increases be at the root of recent unrest in Egypt and the greater Middle East? An article by Robert Bryce in the Energy Tribune explores the connection between the Iowa Presidential Caucuses, ethanol subsidies, and the rising tide of discontent:

Biofuels Driving Up Food Prices As Iowa Primary Approaches

This year, the US corn ethanol sector will consume 40 percent of all US corn – that’s about 15 percent of global corn production or 5 percent of all global grain – in order to produce a volume of motor fuel with the energy equivalent of about 0.6 percent of global oil needs. …

The quantity of grain to be consumed this year for US ethanol production – 4.9 billion bushels – boggles the mind. That’s more than twice as much as all the corn produced in Brazil and more than six times as much as is grown in India. Put another way, that’s more corn than the output of the European Union, Mexico, Argentina, and India combined.

Observation: Some people believe that a 0.2% increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide can disrupt global climate. I’m skeptical about that. But it’s altogether believable that diverting 15% of global corn production might disrupt the global economy and lead to mass unrest in the developing world, enough to topple governments.

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Imagine, if you will, a Denial Of Service attack on George Soros’ Open Society Institute (Orwell would love this name). Would the lefties be sitting, mute, taciturn at their voices being squelched? Would they be pleased?

The Americans for Prosperity, an activist organization on the Right, has been fighting against a non-stop Denial Of Service attack by leftist goons intent on silencing the organization and their supporters. The marauding coders gleefully trumpet their squelching of speech to Politico:

It has come to our attention that the brothers, David and Charles Koch–the billionaire owners of Koch Industries–have long attempted to usurp American Democracy. Their actions to undermine the legitimate political process in Wisconsin are the final straw. Starting today we fight back.

…Anonymous cannot ignore the plight of the citizen-workers of Wisconsin, or the opportunity to fight for the people in America’s broken political system. For these reasons, we feel that the Koch brothers threaten the United States democratic system and, by extension, all freedom-loving individuals everywhere. As such, we have no choice but to spread the word of the Koch brothers’ political manipulation, their single-minded intent and the insidious truth of their actions in Wisconsin, for all to witness.

I’m guessing that these same egomaniacs would be against a Middle Eastern regime from turning off the internet switch in the respective countries and howl about the stomping of free speech. We’ve seen the press be rightfully upset about the internet being killed, too.

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Most Americans are probably unfamiliar with the union known as the Industrial Workers of the World (also called the Wobblies). However, the Wobblies have been around since 1905 and, although the IWW has declined significantly since its 100,000-member peak in 1923, it has been getting some notoriety of late trying to unionize Starbucks and Jimmie John’s.

As a union, the IWW is a well-known union known for its class-based radicalism. In fact, the Preamble to the IWW’s Constitution pretty much sums up just how radical the IWW is:

The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of the working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life.

Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the means of production, abolish the wage system, and live in harmony with the Earth.

Historically, the IWW has always supported the concept of the general strike—all workers uniting to shut down commerce. In 1919, the IWW and other Leftists were successful in holding Seattle hostage to a general strike. Since then, while there have been industry-wide strikes in the U.S.—the 1959 Great Steel Strike and various UAW strikes in the auto industry as examples—there have not been general strikes across all industries.

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I’m going live at 7:05 p.m. ET. You can listen live at http://wsbradio.com and call in at 1-800-WSB-TALK.

I’ll be talking about Washington Post reporter Greg Sargent calling for union violence in Wisconsin.

I’ll also be talking about the continuing resolution and Frank Buckles passing away.

Plus more.

Consider this an open thread.

This is the latest web ad from FreedomWorks. Focusing on the ongoing union protests, the video promotes their new website, FreedomConnector.com. I’ve used the site several times and it is a fantastic way to keep track of particular congressional districts, including who is holding events, when, where, and why. It also connects users to other politically active folks in their area. It’s very useful, very user friendly, and as Glenn Beck points out, it removes “the middleman“. It’s well worth checking out, and the video above gives you a compelling look at why it’s so important to do now.

That’s the plan, at least.  The current situation in Maine is as follows: people don’t have to belong to a union to work, but non-union employees (both private and public sector) may still have to pay the unions a ’service fee.’ This supposedly represents the recouping of the cost of unions ‘representing’ non-union members in labor disputes - whether or not the non-union members wanted to be part of the labor dispute in the first place - and it’s a common feature in contract negotiations in Maine.  There’s legislation going through the state legislature right now to close that loophole; new Maine governor Paul LePage (R) is enthusiastically supporting it.

Whether this will work or not will largely be up to the Maine grassroots.  Maine is currently majority-Republican in both houses of the state legislature, but it’s, well, Maine: I found LePage to be pretty tough-minded, but there’s a limit to how much he can do without legislative backup.  And, needless to say, the unions have already begun the usual reactionary Koch conspiracy theorizing.  Everybody involved is expecting a fight; and the impression is that Governor LePage, at least, is looking forward to it.  Interesting times ahead…

Moe Lane (crosspost)

From the diaries by Jeff

There is a classic Bob Newhart skit about a man visiting the home of a friend who has a large and vicious dog. After being intermittently dragged around the room and pinned to the furniture by the beast, Newhart’s character manages to mollify it with handfuls of gumdrops out of a bowl. This works fine until he realizes he’s running low on gumdrops and his host nonchalantly advises him that if you stop feeding the dog “he doesn’t understand.”

If there is a better analog to the current entitlement-withdrawal syndrome we are witnessing in Wisconsin and elsewhere — both in terms of the brute stupidity of its participants and the growing horror with which it’s being observed — I am at a loss to find it.

In a period of less than a week union thugs have made their displeasure with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Fox News, Glenn Beck, FreedomWorks, various Tea Party representatives, and pretty much anyone else who can’t sing “Joe Hill” from memory manifest by making sure the expression “when push comes to shove” is anything but figurative.

Consider this calorically challenged defender of the working man — who probably can’t see his belt, much less tighten it — heroically blind-siding a Tea Party activist then waddling off at high speed (relatively speaking):

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“From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”

Given the tumult in the Middle East, as well as in Wisconsin and other states, it is worthwhile to explore some of the brains behind today’s “revolutionary” spirit—especially, given the Left’s hatred of the free-market, today’s socialists’ renewed interests in “revolution” and anarchists ambushing Seattle police.

Unless you’re a Glenn Beck watcher, you’ve probably never heard of Francis Fox-Piven. At the sry age of 79, Fox-Piven is a professor of political science and sociology at The Graduate Center, City University of New York. However, her Marxist activism spans nearly five decades.

In 1966, Fox-Piven, along with her now-deceased husband Richard Cloward, wrote an article in the Nation magazine entitled The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty. The article outlined what later became known as the Cloward-Piven Strategy (and often cited by Beck), calls for income redistribution by adding people onto welfare rolls.

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From the diaries by Bill S.

Update from Erick: The U.S. Naval Institute has more here.

Frank Buckles, the last of the 4,734,991 Americans who served in World War I, has passed away. When you think of most kids today, his story is just staggering.

He was born on a Missouri farm when William McKinley was President. When the US entered WWI in April 1917, he had turned 16 barely two months earlier, but was determined to enlist.

After being rejected by Marine and Navy recruiters, Buckles tried the Army. When the recruiter asked to see his birth certificate, Buckles said Missouri didn’t keep birth records when he was born and the only record was what was written in the family Bible.

That was good enough for the Army and he enlisted that August at age 16-1/2. He said a sergeant told him, “If you want to get to France in a hurry, then join the ambulance service.” He did that and was on his way to England by that December. He wanted to get closer to the fighting and was eventually sent to France, then after the war ended he helped bring POWs back to Germany.

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It’s the end of the world as we know it (it’s time I had some time alone)
It’s the end of the world as we know it (it’s time I had some time alone)
It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine (it’s time I had some time alone)

- R.E.M “It’s The End of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine) Lyrics. (HT: Lyrics007)

Perhaps we are all fortunate that Walter M. Miller, Jr. wrote A Canticle For Leibowitz before the era of Global Warming Chic. He, Neville Shute, and all the fine Rock Singers who jammed at the No Nukes Concert, seemed to believe there wasn’t a silver lining around the mushroom shaped cloud of a nuclear holocaust that didn’t consist of Strontium-90.

Now, our scientific overlords inform us that if you just pop a few nukes, somewhere far away from where Dr. Genius parks her SUV, it may not be a total suckage field. Nothing quite reverses the Demon Global Warming like a nice, billowing cloud of carbonaceous aerosols. These particles, known in Atmospheric Science literature as Black Carbon, could potentially exert a downward forcing effect on global temperature by blocking incoming insolation.

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