My Piece Too Politically Incorrect for Karkhanis's Patriot Returns

My good friend Sharad Karkhanis publishes a newsletter that goes to about 13,000 City University of New York faculty and employees called Patriot Returns. To give you an idea as to how controversial Patriot Returns is, Sharad just settled a multi-year libel suit by one of the union officers whom he had ruthlessly satirized for years.  Sharad has asked me to write for him a number of times, most recently concerning David Seidemann's law suit against the faculty union and concerning the Charles Rangel Center at the City University of New York (forthcoming). 

But even Patriot Returns is too tame for some of my stuff.    I had submitted a piece to him concerning an article in the faculty union's newsletter, the Clarion.  Karkhanis told me that it is simply too controversial even for Patriot Returns.  The New Caucus is the extreme left-wing "party" that runs the CUNY faculty union. I suppose my claim that the CUNY faculty is more racist than the membership of the Tea Party is simply too hot for anyone in academia to handle, even though it is true.

 New Caucus Racism

Mitchell Langbert, Ph.D. *

Recently, William Tabb, professor emeritus of Queens College, made accusations of racism against the so-called Tea Party in the pages of the Clarion, the newsletter of the CUNY faculty union.  In fact, the Tea Party is a highly decentralized and diverse group that is scattered across thousands of locales around the country. Racism may exist in some locales, just as racism may exist in some quarters of CUNY.   I have attended eight meetings of the Kingston/Rhinebeck Tea Party near my home town as well as one or two in my home town of Olive, New York.  I did not detect a single instance of racism.  There is more racism on the CUNY faculty than in the Kingston/Rhinebeck Tea Party.  I very much doubt that Professor Tabb or the NAACP have done any research as to whether there is actual racism.  I am a former contributer to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which made similar kinds of irresponsible allegations. I voiced my concerns to Morris Dees, the founder, directly, and have ceased any involvement with that organization.  

Competent academic research poses hypotheses and then attempts to falsify them through evidence.  Professor Tabb offers no evidence. Rather, he asserts unfounded, lynch-mob style accusations.  This disturbs me.  Professor Tabb is a distinguished professor from Queens College.  If his standards are so low as to make wild, ungrounded accusations about Tea Party racism one must wonder about standards among the New Caucus in general.

 In response to Professor Tabb's allegations of racism, I did an informal survey of the Professional Staff Congress's representation of various minorities.  I counted the number of African-Americans, Native Americans, Mexicans, Asians and South Americans in its leadership group.  My finding is that the proportion of minorities who are officers of the Professional Staff Congress is lower than the proportion of minority group members who have have attended the Kingston/Rhinebeck Tea Party.  In other words, the evidence is that Barbara Bowen, Steve London and the rest of the New Caucus are MORE RACIST THAN THE TEA PARTY.

My affirmative action plan is straightforward. The CUNY faculty needs to replace PSC's president, Barabara Bowen.

*Mitchell Langbert is associate professor of business at Brooklyn College. He blogs at http://www.mitchell-langbert.blogspot.com.

Bureau of Land Management and US Forestry Service Racketeering Organizations--Sheriff Defends Wayne Hage, Threatens Force

 Congressman Maurice Hinchey recently proposed to turn the Hudson Valley into a federal park.  The legal ramifications of this proposal have been ignored by the area's woefully uninformed media. Mike Marnell forwarded this series of videos, which illustrates how federal regulation can easily escalate into ugly violence against landowners. This video appears on Daily Paul.com.

In the video Sheriff Tony DeMeo describes that the Bureau of Land Management and the Forestry Service attempted to steal Wayne Hage's, a rancher's, water rights in order to stop him from ranching.  This resulted in a law suit.  During the course of the law suit Hage was surrounded by armed federal agents who violently stole his cattle. In 2006 Hage died but the law suit continues.  Special Agent Matthews tried to seize Hage's cattle again following Hage's death.  Demeo describes Matthews as ignorant of basic concepts of the US Constitution.

In response to repeated threats of violence from the two federal agencies, Sheriff Demeo told them that  he would enforce the Constitution.  He told the a US Forestry Service official that he would arrest their agents if they illegally harassed Hage.  A US attorney threatened DeMeo with arrest.  DeMeo told his deputy that if the US government used armed agents he would employ his swat team against them and arrest them.  DeMeo had to explain basics about civics, specifically about the Bill of Rights, to ignorant federal employees. DeMeo told them that they could not seize cattle without a court order. BLM attempted to serve Hage with a bogus summons for leaving garbage in a dumpster on his own property.

Surprisingly, a federal court gave the land rights to Hage (the spirit of racketeering has not reached the lower level federal courts...yet) and awarded him $4 million.  The federal government continues to issue trespassing summonses against Hage's son and heir, the rightful owner of the land.  DeMeo asserts that the case is related to an attempt by the federal government to monopolize control of food production.

In 2004 BLM petitioned Nevada counties to give them law enforcement authority.  Sheriff DeMeo opposed this proposal to breach the Tenth Amendment.  This is the kind of affront to expect in the wake of a federalized Hudson Valley Park. 

Boy Scouts Boo Obama Video

H/t Jim Crum.



Jim writes:

Rather than speak to the BoyScouts on a 100th anniversary, he decided to go tape a show for The View, and then go on vacation.


Priorities?

These young men we not fooled by the shallow show of support, or the poor understanding of leadership shown by Mr. Obama. What he did was a serious insult, and they got the message loud and clear. The better question is whether Mr. Obama got their message or not.

JJC.

Phillips: Hinchey’s Federal Park Proposal Will Do Harm

I just submitted this piece to Mike Marnell's Lincoln Eagle.

Kingston, August 2. In a press conference held on the courthouse steps on Wall Street, congressional candidate George Phillips outlined problems with incumbent Congressman Maurice Hinchey’s federal park proposal for the Hudson Valley. “Turning the Hudson Valley into a federal park would cause further economic decline here,” Phillips said. Phillips noted that the region’s economy is suffering and that the additional regulation and bureaucracy that the United States Parks Service would impose would cost even more jobs than have been lost during Mr. Hinchey’s tenure in office since 1992. Since then, employment in Ulster County has grown at one fifth of the national rate. Perhaps the best part of the economic picture in Ulster County is the inaccurate one that the Democratic media has painted concerning the “pork” that Mr. Hinchey has won. Although Hinchey has obtained pork, he has harmed the economy more generally, with a net economic loss to the region because of his incumbency. “Saying that Mr. Hinchey has been helpful to the economy here when employment growth in Ulster County has been a small fraction of the national average is silly,” Phillips noted in an extended interview at Dunkin’ Donuts after his press conference.

Even the Democratic Party media’s misleading depiction of the effects of Mr. Hinchey’s activities has been faltering. Phillips pointed out that on July 4 the New York Times reported on ethical malfeasance on Hinchey’s part. To avoid a congressional ban on earmarks to for-profit firms, Mr. Hinchey and his associates set up a shell corporation called the Solar Energy Consortium that received $30 million and is now improperly funneling the money to for-profit firms.

“But don’t believe for a minute that despite Mr. Hinchey’s ethical problems there is enough pork to undo the damage that he has done to the local economy,” Phillips noted. The county’s economy has declined since Mr. Hinchey assumed office in the early 1990s. The reason is a set of environmental regulations that Mr. Hinchey advocated called the “greenway.” Mr. Hinchey supports limiting economic growth in Ulster County, except for grants to his political supporters, and the outcome has been slower employment growth than elsewhere in the country. Now that the banking crisis has further limited growth, population is likely to exit the region. “Only wealthy summer residents from New York City can afford to live here because of Mr. Hinchey’s incumbency,” congressional candidate Phillips observed.

Mr. Phillips adds that almost every single pork project that Mr. Hinchey has obtained has involved “money being put into the Congressman’s own pockets or those of his cronies and donors.” Moreover, “Pork cannot compensate for the economically depressing regulation and high taxes that Mr. Hinchey has consistently supported.”

Phillips offers an alternative vision for the region: “less government, lower taxes and a new focus on ethics.”