And how many of us would still be alive, if tomorrow, we started doing everything right to restore it?

Socialist tipping point

The only true blue dawgs are Parker Griffith (D-AL) in the U.S. House of Representatives, who voted against the Stimulus, Cap and Trade and ObamaCare and who vows to vote against Nancy Pelosi as Speaker is he wins re-election in 2010; and Huckleberry Hound in the Dog House. (My apologies to the the Hound for the past use of his image to represent such a sorry lot. This will be his last appearance in columns related to that mythical creature called the moderate Democrat.)

Yesterday’s caving of Ben Nelson joining the other 59 yellow dawg Dem-o-bats on ending debate on socialized medicine, may well be the tipping point of no return from the end of the Miracle that began in 1776.

The fact is that America can not be protected from the Left is they elect Democrats to make laws, and certainly the return of the Democrats to congressional power in 2007 and to filibuster-proof super-majorities in 2009 sealed the vote ObamaCare.

The GOP can’t do as a minority, what they didn’t prevent in the majority, but let’s not delude ourselves that our failures are the proximate cause of the precipice we are falling off of.

What set the stage for American voters to put this crowd in power, especially after the Reagan Revolution?

Was it FDR and New Deal or was it the Republican majorities and Ike who acquiesced in the fact of Big Government in the 50s?

Was it LBJ and the Great Society, or was it Nixon’s expansion of same?

Was it the failure of conservatives to occupy positions in academia, the press and other cultural institutions before and after Rush Limbaugh?

Was it the puniness of Newt’s Contract with America, or was it too late by then, not to mention was it too late by the time Dubya and Delay got power?

Do enough Americans have the right stuff to save us?

When even conservative members of the armed forces won’t protect themselves from obvious dangers at Fort Hood; students instructed to draw a picture about Christmas are sent for psychiatric counseling for drawing a picture of Christ; and when even Sean hannity buys the liberal health care narrative so much that he favors forcing private insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions, I have to wonder of the political correctness and economic ignorance long ago reached a tipping among We the People, that the slouching towards Gomorrah that Robert Bork wrote of is inexorable.

McCain’s honorable friends and Coburn as the atom bomb

Laws are made in Congress, where representatives cast votes. Most members cast votes like those in their party and having the majority determines what gets votes on.

Since the 70s, the votes cast by the vast majority of Democrats have not only been wrong, but have been hostile to American values and usually in favor of policies already shown to be failures.

The Party has also been un-patriotic in foreign policy.

Yet, Republicans still call them honorable friends and most of the public views the parties as not having a dime’s worth of difference between them, which is a damnable lie?

But who can blame them when Democrats regularly accuse the GOP of being heartless towards the weak at home and warmongers abroad, while nice little Republicans shrug and suggest that their honorable friends just have a disagreement.

A friendly disagreement? I guess that what Patrick Henry had with King George? Not!

What passes for tough action now is when Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) forces a clerk to read a long bill, and then, only at the 11th hour. Couldn’t we have shut down the socialist law-making machine via refusals to grant unanimous consent before Friday and even now?

The miracle may not have been sustainable

But I have to temper my criticism of our champions in elected office when I remember that America’s past 200+ years is THE LONE Liberty miracle of the past 5000 years and that its all been damage control since Eve bit the apple.

Affluence weakens a people. Liberty brings on affluence. See the problem?

And we certainly can’t prolong the miracle when we won’t draw the obvious sharp lines between us and our opponents.

Pilgrim’s Progress

As a Christian, I have felt a tension concerning how I should economize the use of my time for God’s will. I am not of the school of thought that advocates isolation from the secular world. I am of the other school, yet, given that most Christians lived under circumstances alien to the 200+ -year mircale we call America, I wonder if it isn’t time to re-evaluate my time management?

There are only 24 hours in the day, and given the cultural rot that made the Cornhusker cave-in and Hannity’s ignorance  possible, is it time for conservatives to spend more of their time addressing that culturerather than politics and, not to mention, trying to make enough money to eat?

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson

Originally published @ Examiner.com, where all verification links may be accessed.

Even with the mandate that every American buy health insurance, premium prices would skyrocket and skyrocketing premium prices would result in a demand for single-payer health care, i.e. socialized medicine

This simple fact and the fact that most Americans, including Republican elected officials, support a mandate that insurance companies not be allowed to turn down applicants due to pre-existing conditions is why ANY health care bill the ObamaDems would pass would have catastrophic consequences.

For this reason, yours truly has not joined in the excitement of the various “successes” with respect to abortion coverage in the House; and the public option and Medicare expansion in the Senate.

In fact, even if the tax increases; personal mandate; draconian Medicare cuts and any other onerous provisions are dropped and all that remains is a one-page bill mandating coverage of pre-existing conditions, it must be opposed with all of the parliamentary tactics available to Senator Tom Coburn and others with courage.

Economic ignorance, political cowardice a threat to American prosperity

The problem is that the public is so ignorant of economics that it would be politically risky even for conservative Republicans to oppose such a bill.

Risk assessment is at the heart of what makes insurance a viable industry.

If they have to sign up anyone that applies with little or no price differential (and arguably even with large price differentials), then eventually, their premium receipts will not cover treatment payouts.

Don’t get me wrong, I want all Americans to have access to health care in places other than emergency rooms. I favor a safety net for the truly needy, but ObamaDems would ensure that most Americans are truly needy and have the safety net engulf the private economy that pays for everything government does.

Universal health coverage and lower costs can be achieved

There is a way to achieve universal coverage without any of the provisions mentioned above, and that is for Congress to end the District of Columbia and 50 state monopolies that keep premium rates artificially high. This economic fact is fundamental and is why the interstate commerce clause was made a part of Article I of the Constitution.

If there were truly a nationwide free market in private health insurance, the number of individuals owning satisfactory coverage would more resemble the number with cell phones.

Federal tort reform with respect to medical malpractice suits would also be very helpful in lowering premiums as well, both with respect to limiting payouts, but even more importantly, in arresting the relative decline of the supply of physicians able to make a decent living while paying confiscatory rates.

Basic economics again: Lowering the supply of doctors makes the price go up!

Then, a health care reform plan that dealt with those remaining who could not afford insurance would be viable, as the number would be exponentially lower.

Courage required

No Republican dares say this though? I haven’t heard one Republican say this. Is that because it is easier to attack the other provisions? I suspect, but the day may well be coming when about all that is left is a mandate for pre-existing condition coverage, and if that happens I suspect many Republicans will jump on board and lose the issue forever.

To be followed sooner than you might expect by the loss of what used to be These United States as we knew it.

We will soon discover if We the People lost this debate when ObamaDems got a 60-vote senate, as it appears that many Democrats have decided that they are willing to defy the American people by passing this monstrosity, so dire are their 2010 prospects any way given the great recession and their socialist admissions in this process even if all of them aren’t enacted.

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson

Originally published @ Examiner.com, where all verification links may be accessed.

Cap-and-tax high energy tax attack on the poor and middle class is dead

Finally,  a so-called Blue (moderate) Dawg Democrat stands up to the Hectorer-in-Chief, and conservatives could do a lot worse than for that democrat to be the Scots-Irish author of Born Fighting who famously tried to start a fight with the former occupant of the White House.

One of the most passionate and enduring dreams of President Barack Hussein Obama, directly consistent with the Marxist dreams of his Kenyan father, is that Americans learn a lesson from high energy prices even if it bankrupts the coal industry.

But the lesson Americans learned when gasoline reached $4/gallon two summers ago is that man-made global warming aka climate change was a fetish of an affluent society, a relic of the pre-Great Recession salad days.

The fact that ObamaDems’ cap-and-tax attack on the poor and middle class bill has been stalled for months concentrates the mind. Obama’s pending pilgrimage to the climate change revival required that the Nobel Messiah perform a miracle before his Transfiguration, so he had his EPA Gabriel issue a threat to his congressional subjects.

The threat got caught in a Virginia Webb:

Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) sent a letter to the president late last week warning Obama against agreeing to any binding climate change agreement during a conference in Copenhagen, Denmark this month.

“I would like to express my concern regarding reports that the Administration may believe it has the unilateral power to commit the government of the United States to certain standards that may be agreed upon at the upcoming [conference],” Webb wrote to Obama.

“Although details have not been made available, recent statements by Special Envoy on Climate Change Todd Stern indicate that negotiators may be intending to commit the United States to a nationwide emission reduction program,” Webb added. “As you well know from your time in the Senate, only specific legislation agreed upon in the Congress, or a treaty ratified by the Senate, could actually create such a commitment on behalf of our country.”

It appears that even if the pagan religion were true, Webb long ago decided that it would not justify the draconian measures desired by the Left, as evidenced by his appropriately puny bill to continue the Bush Administration research in wind and solar power.

But after the climategate emails showing the scientific data was fraudulent, all you hear now are death rattles.

There will be no new taxes on energy, just as Cockstradamus crowed two years ago.

I don’t think Charles Krauthammer need worry:

Not everyone is pleased with the coming New Carbon-Free International Order. When the Obama administration signaled (in a gesture to Copenhagen) a U.S. commitment to major cuts in carbon emissions, Democratic Sen. Jim Webb wrote the president protesting that he lacks the authority to do so unilaterally. That requires congressional concurrence by legislation or treaty.

With the Senate blocking President Obama’s cap-and-trade carbon legislation, the EPA coup d’etat served as the administration’s loud response to Webb: The hell we can’t. With this EPA “endangerment” finding, we can do as we wish with carbon. Either the Senate passes cap-and-trade, or the EPA will impose even more draconian measures: all cap, no trade.

Thank you for the clarity on this issue Senator Webb.

Now, how about Virginia tobacco?

Just as the EPA threat is based on a non-Congressionally approved, unilateral executive overreach “finding” that what humans breathe out is an “endangerment” to human health, so is the recent action by the FDA to regulate tobacco, but to only apply the law to “clove” and other flavored cigarettes as dangerous to children.

But just as the EPA can’t selectively apply its regulations only to big business, the FDA can’t just protect children. Adults matter too! The problem is that everyone knows CO2 is not a health hazard. Kim Strassel points out the legal problem:

But the EPA’s legal vulnerabilities go beyond that. The agency derives its authority to regulate pollutants from the Clean Air Act. To use that law to regulate greenhouse gases, the EPA has to prove those gases are harmful to human health (thus, the endangerment finding). Put another way, it must provide “science” showing that a slightly warmer earth will cause Americans injury or death. Given that most climate scientists admit that a warmer earth could provide “net benefits” to the West, this is a tall order.

Then there are the rules stemming from the finding. Not wanting to take on the political nightmare of regulating every American lawn mower, the EPA has produced a “tailoring rule” that it says allows it to focus solely on large greenhouse gas emitters. Yet the Clean Air Act—authored by Congress—clearly directs the EPA to also regulate small emitters.

The laws being passed by this ObamaDem Congress are disastrous enough (non-stimulus, $1.8T budget deficit, etc).The Republic can’t stand Napoleonic edicts and this conservative Republican is glad that at least one Democrat is willing to stand up for the separation of powers to protect We the People from the ideological leftist nut who garnered the necessary electoral votes to appoint 911-truthers and Maoists to the executive branch.

I suspect that Webb won’t be getting an invitation to White house parties given his Copenhagen executive overreach warning epistle, and we suspect that Obama won’t be making a get tough with John Conyers-type phone call to Webb as well.

The Secret Service’s diligence on party-crashers just got a priority alert. The problem is though, that the people who have invitations to White House parties and who occupy the offices are the danger, not tabloid moguls.

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson 

Senator Nelson, do not be fooled and do not try to fool We the social conservative pro-life people

The fate of America could well be decided before Christmas as it appears the ObamaDems in the U.S. Senate are no more than four votes short of ushering in socialized medicine or its slippery-slope equivalent that makes a government option monopoly inevitable.

At least one so-called Blue Dawg Democrat seems to have either fallen for the Obama-Pelosi-Reid abortion trap or is playing the Blue Dawg Mutt to those three Jeffs in trying to fool the public. Ben Nelson (D-NE) says his vote is dependent on banning abortion funding from any health care reform bill, as if that would make the bill acceptable to his conservative constituents, despite the remaining onerous parts of the 2000+ page bill.

Don’t let Reid’s “new language” allow his Dem-o-bats to suck the blood out of U.S. health care and American Liberty.

Nelson’s amendment failed to pass yesterday, but Majority Leader Harry Reid promises new language will be forthcoming to appease him. Reminds me of the old “language” of the Clean Air Act that never applied to what humans breathe out, but which the Obama Administration proposes to “reinterpret” to impose its cap and trade equivalent energy tax attack on the poor and middle class, even absent approval from ObamaDems in the Senate. It appears that one Blue Dawg, Jim “Born Fighting” Webb (D-VA) nipped President Barack Hussein Obama’s attempt to “ratify” a Copenhagen treaty on same, in the bud, but I digress (column on Webb to follow).

The Reid promise of new language also reminds of how ObamaDems’, especially on the bench seem to be able to find the right to abortion from penumbras. Keep this in mind later when we confront the abortion trick head on.

But before we get to the abortion ban fallacy, let us address the other two ruses being used to get America hooked on “free” medical insurance for “all,” i.e. public options and Medicare cuts.

The public option and Medicare cuts ruses

The term public option is just that, semantics. Reid promises new language on the public option to make it a mere unlikely threat to hold over private insurance companies if they don’t meet the “minimal” requirements of the bill, or, even more likely, the as yet unwritten regulations that will be promulgated by an ObamaDem bureaucracy from the broad language of the bill.

The whole bill is nothing but an attack on the ability of private insurance companies to make a profit, so that the public will end up demanding that the government save them. Much like the refusal of the Congress, under the interstate commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution, to break up the 51 private insurance monopolies in D.C. and the states is an accommodation with power-hungry states. Somehow, it took Chief Justice John Marshall, at the behest of Lawyer Daniel Webster, to break up state ferry boat monopolies, thus showing Congress the way, but all they could come up with was to misuse the Clause to tell farmers how much grain they can grow for personal consumption.

Bottom line: Any bill that does not break up state monopolies that keep insurance premiums high, must not be passed.

Secondly, the Medicare cut ruse. Reid will get the explicit Medicare cuts out of the bill before the vote. Count on it. Now, of course, Medicare will be cut under any ObamaCare. He has told us that when he told the daughter of the 100-year old Mom that her mom should take pain meds rather than get life-extending care, based on objective (see death panels) underwriting criteria. In fact, all medical care for all people except for government and/or union workers will be cut.

The Abortion ruse

But now, to abortion. First, a history since 1973: 49 million abortions and counting, with no help from socialized medicine.

Forty-Nine Million babies killed without ObamaCare.

Pro-lifers, can we talk? Zero lives would be saved by excluding abortion coverage from ObamaCare and no more than a minimal number more would be killed if it is included? Want to know why? Abortions are cheap. It would be like a subsidy for bubble gum or not. Americans are going to chew their gum and have their abortions.

The health care bill is NOT about abortion.

Rather, it is about surrendering a massive amount of Liberty to Big Government. It is about wrecking like in these United States. It is about whether we are going to continue to Slouch Towards Gomorrah like children or whether we are going to take off the diapers and be adults.

I choose putting my pants on; defeating this abomination called ObamaCare; and fighting for an end to abortion in churches, neighborhoods, states and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Don’t be fooled Ben Nelson, and don’t try and fool us.

You chose to associate yourself with an untrustworthy crowd when you accepted that “D” next to your name. You have cast votes for the budget and the non-stimulus. For gosh sakes, you voted to make Reid your Leader.

Prove yourself truly Blue and not just one of Obama’s mutts.

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson

Originally published @ Examiner.com, where all verification links may be accessed

ObamaDems don’t care about winning wars, honoring the troops, deterring terrorists, creating non-government jobs or allowing anyone to secure a loan in this country without their prior approval.

This is the first in a series, focusing on the governing concept of President Barack Obama that we identified early in his Administration and dubbed “expostfactObamalism”, due to ObamaDems’ attempts last Spring, to retroactively tax AIG-bonuses at a 90% confiscatory rate and to criminalize the enhanced interrogation techniques and the giving of legal advice justifying same, that CIA agents and Justice Department lawyers used to keep us safe after 911.

The recent decision to provide Khalid Sheik Mohamed (pictured, courtesy of TMR) with a civilian trial and return to the scene of his horrific handiwork near Ground Zero in New York City inspired the need to return to this issue, given its departure from fundamental American principles and comparability to the the regular criminalization of politics by Third World banana republics.

Actions of this kind so violate fundamental fairness that  the U.S. Constitution and state constitutions explicitly state, for example, that:

No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed. – US Const. Art. 1, sec. 9

No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, retroactive law, or any law impairing the obligation of contracts, shall be made. – Texas Const. Art. 1, sec. 16

U.S. Supreme Court precedents have severely limited the applicability of these concepts to criminalization of deeds deemed legal at the time, but have allowed their applicability, at least in the criminal realm to similarly-situated groups rather than just named individuals. However, our culture and traditions have, until the rise of the ObamaDems, have mostly followed the concepts embodied by the most detailed language of the Lone Star State’s language cited above.

Our purpose today, is to re-introduce the concept of expostfactObamalism in a number of contexts, which we will revisit over the coming week in more detail, as indicated below:

KSM trial in NYC

Possibly the most vile and cynical action taken by the liberal Democratic Administration, the decision to refuse to accept a guilty plea from the mastermind of 911 is a direct assault on previous administration. Such a trial serves no useful purpose as Attorney General Eric Holder (in the role of Janet Reno as Bill Clinton’s Waco raid foil) admits that KSM can be held indefinitely as an enemy combatant.

KSM was about to be convicted and executed under the rights-sensitive, U.S. Supreme Court-demanded, Democratic Party majority passed and signed  by Obama into law, military tribunals at Gitmo. The result of civilian trial in NYC can produce no better outcome, and promises to be a show trial that indicts President George W. Bush et al, with KSM and the other four terrorist defendants testifying essentially as witnesses corroborating the “testimony” of candidate Barack Obama’s campaign criticisms of the United States at war.

As we have oft repeated, Dems say and do for free, what the terrorists would gladly pay them to say and do. We suspect the irony of Mohamed echoing the words of ObamaDems, including Barack Hussein Obama and other ObamaDems, will not be lost on the American people.

Jobs summit fraud

The stimulus wasn’t, but could have been. Even the Keynesian part wasn’t. We know this because now ObamaDems are post-2009 Election Day in Virginia and know that they don’t have enough wealth to spread around to cover the stench of the fact that Dems Don’t Care about the poor and middle class.

If ObamaDems cared about actual people having actual jobs (save for government and union jobs), they would have front-loaded the recovery act with shovel-ready jobs. That they didn’t is an admission that they only care about the perception of progress on jobs leading up to Election Day 2010.

If they cared about creating jobs, they would celebrate the cooling Earth of the past 11 years, breathe a sigh of relief that we discovered the fraud of the global warming/climate change claim, and accept the reality of oil as the now and indefinite future fuel of prosperity and liberty. Read George Will, here.

We will have extensive coverage of this issue after the President’s address to the nation on Tuesday, but suffice to point out for now that:

• Obama is whining about the deficit and consequent lack of resources after his $1.8T first budget deficit, squandered the moment and our currency on a government growthulus bill posing as a stimulus;
•  ObamaDems reject any and all of the proven supply-side policies that produced the Reagan-Clinton 25-year recovery and tie all proposals for tax relief to crony capitalism that requires investors to follow the advice of federal bureaucrats;
• Seeks to monopolize mortgage, student and small business loans within the federal government’s discretion in order to enforce the above; and
• Creates two Americas that John Edwards never hinted at, i.e. One Union, One Non-Union, and guess which gets the shaft.

The non-surge in Afghanistan is expost facto pre-911 mentality

West Point address admits ObamaDems’ Bushlied Era and campaign claims that the Afghan war was one of necessity was a fraud

Charles Krauthammer’s paraphrase of Winston Churchill as Obama:

We shall fight in the air, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields, we shall fight in the hills — for 18 months. Then we start packing for home.

President Obama’s cynical use of West Point cadets as props for his diatribes, insults and lies against his predecessor as Commander in Chief (and oh, btw, I am sending 30,000 more of you chumps into war) showed just what a small man he is. I got through two pages of the eight-page transcript before having to write this column, the main follow-up to which will detail the vile hurlings from Obama’s mouth later in the week. For now, consider:

1. No mention of victory
2. Enemies of liberty described as mere ”extremists”, never terrorists
3. No praise for Iraq victory
4. Blames Cold War muhajadeen strategy that defeated the Evil Empire, for 911. We “allowed” 911 to happen
5. Blames Taliban resurgence on Iraq War
6. Lies concerning supposed denials of Afghan Theater troop requests by then Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld
7. Ad nauseum ad infinitum….in next column

 The AJC’s Jim Wooten Thinking Right:

It is tacky and disrespectful of the Office of the President for the Commander-in-Chief to assemble his troops, as Obama did at West Point, and use the occasion to trash their former Commander-in-Chief. This is the action of a small-bore leader.

We were told during the Bushlied Era, that we had to get Usama bin Laden, but now, not so much. But a war tax? We need that.

More later, every day this week…

But before we conclude part one, one comment on the relatively strong support the President has received from prominent Republicans, like Newt Gingrich, for his decision to send 30K troops to Afghanistan. Newt, like Karl Rove and Bill Kristol, disagree with exit strategies that telegraph to allies and enemies alike that we haven’t the stomach to finish the job, but do think that General Petraeus can win the war with the extra troops.

I was asked by an Astute Conservative Political Observer in Alabama is Newt had gone over to the dark side due to his praise of Obama’s decision on the increase of troops in Afghanistan.

No, he hasn’t, although some of his actions on climate change, support for moderates in contested GOP primaries and other actions do show he has been inside the Beltway too long.

However, the main lesson to be drawn from this exercise as contrasted with the behavior of Democrats (including then Senator Obama who refused to vote the fund the troops as a campaign game of chicken with Hillary) is the consistency of Republicans in supporting Commanders in Chiefs and troops in the Field.

By contrast, Democrats use war and the troops as political issues and pawns.

Dems are vile.

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson

Originally published @ Examiner.com, where all verification links may be accessed

Gamecock just announced the dawning of the first Black Friday in his memory that won’t be black and Cockstradamus crows at the dawning of the feared double-dip recession; but JimmyCrackCorn and ObamaDems don’t care.

Red Friday I

DeVine Law won’t be in the North American shopping mall equivalent of the Running of the Bulls today, but he never is nor will be. His three main goals in life are to never get hot; never be forced to speak to a Police between Dusk and Dawn; and never, ever go to a shopping mall (Drug stores on Christmas Eve have plenty of presents to choose from, but I digress.)

But now that Thanksgiving Day 2009 (brought to you by Pilgrims, Washington, Lincoln and God) is over, can we get serious about how much more we would like to be thankful for on Thanksgiving Day 2010 so that Black Friday 2010 has a darker hue than today’s in the red one?

Character Test

We spoke last year of being tested as a people no matter whether Obama or McCain prevailed, given the loss of so much housing and other wealth and given the state of debt held by individuals and government.

The test was going to be bad enough without a government, at one hostile to the Liberty that leads to wealth creation and enamored of economic-crisis driven blank checks for government growthulus.

Porkulus is more caring than Govenment Growthulus

Then we were served up a Dems Don’t Care about the poor and middle class non-Stimulus better characterized as Government Growthulus, not the more ubiquitous epithet of “porkulus.”

Cockstradamus laughed on January 13th of this year when Hugh Hewitt’s wide-eyed economic optimist Brian Wesbury announced the “most intense” period of the recession behind us. We hope that HH. BW and Larry Kudlow-ites have enjoyed moving the shells of the Dow Jones game around as they have followed the wave of deficit spending on saved and created pencil-pushing state, local and federal government jobs as well as Bernanke’s assault on the once Almighty Dollar. Hope that 2.8% downward revised GDP in the Third Quarter warmed your soul for the intensity of accumulated long-term unemployment that will make January 2009 look like salad days even to Wesburyites, as they read CBO Director Doug Elmendorf:

CBO Director Elmendorf said today the country has not yet seen the worst of joblessness, despite some encouraging signs of economic growth.

Speaking at the American Association for Budget and Program Analysis’ fall conference, Elmendorf said the CBO projection of this past summer, which saw the unemployment rate peaking at 10.5 percent next year, underestimated the autumn’s rise in jobless numbers. The rate hit 10.2 percent in October.

“We are weighing our precise forecast going forward,” Elmendorf said, adding that the employment picture is expected to get worse before it gets better.

CBO has forecast that it will take years before unemployment falls to a “sustainable” level of 5 percent, Elmendorf said, because the current jobless numbers are so high.

“If one judges the pain of a recession by the excess of the unemployment rate over the long-run level … this picture is very clear that most of the pain of the recession is ahead of us, not behind us,” he said.

All things Stimulus

Stimulus I consisted of several parts:

a) safety-net unemployment and COBRA health insurance for the truly needy;
b) one-time, approx. $400 individual tax cuts for incomes under $250K;
c) public works pork; and
d) Government Growthulus increases in the federal bureaucracy and aid to states, who used them to retain government employees.

Ford has a better idea

Ford Motor Company and many other non-bailed out companies have so far weathered the creative destruction of this Great Recession to post profits with less employees. But never let government have to do that. We all know we need every last school administrator backing up the lowly teachers.

COBRA

But, Gamecock favored the extensions of unemployment and COBRA and favors even further extensions now. Unemployment comp has been extended, but I urge all to support H.R. 3930, introduced by Rep. Joe Sestak, D-Pa., on extending COBRA.

We also favored a massive public works program to put people to work IN 2009! But instead, we got a puny public works program that mainly printed signs in 2009 with most all of the tiny budget for public works to be spent in the few months before Election 2010, so that voters see a shovel beside a “This project funded by the Recovery Act” sign.

ObamaDems don’t care about the poor

ObamaDems didn’t care about the suffering of the 10-17% unemployed in 2009 and the first half of 2010. They do care about getting re-elected and hope they have made enough of the unemployed victim dependents by next Election day.

I only wish Stimulus I had served up more pork, as we await the likely servings of no better than Tofu with the Jobs Summit and Stimulus II.

Yes, I would love for a real stimulus to come out of Obama’s December Jobs Summit and that it be called Stimulus II, or even, Barack Obama We Love you II, if it were a real stimulus.

While I don’t share the optimism of Rush Limbaugh and others that even the supply-side tax and regulation cuts that have always worked in the past (see 1920s, 1960s and 1983-2006) would work as quickly as in the past, until we start laying the foundation for wealth and job creation, we are simply prolonging suffering unnecessarily.

Or is the suffering necessary?

Maybe it is necessary that we suffer so that our minds are concentrated on the hideous results of Big Government and failed liberal Democratic Party policies.

Democrats took over the House and Senate in January 2007. The Great recession started in December 2007, nine months before the credit crunch. The repeal of Bush Republican policies on taxes and regulations is the reason, even before the Dems’ Fannie Mae protection plan via Senate filibusters took hold.

Is it possible that fears of a massive Gingrich-like 1994 repeat could get ObamaDems to rethink the spread the wealth already accumulated strategy and actually enact policies that would encourage, rather than demonize private sector job and wealth creation?

I doubt it, but if we are to have more to be thankful for next year, the Reagan, JFK, Coolidge way is the only way.

Savings are key to future growth

But one other way will also be a necessary part of any recovery, and that will be the way the author of Thanksgiving set out in his Holy Bible, and that will be to build houses on solid rock rather than sand and to store up goods for rainy days.

The fact is that Obama can push housing tax credits (and I favor them); small business loan subsidies (and I favor them), but until people save up money that makes them feel secure enough to risk money on a business and until lenders see the likelihood of profits being earned from new loans, there won’t be any real, REAL job producing loans. Instead, all we will get are the next moves towards the next bubbles.

Want to have a more stimulating 2010 with more to be thankful for on the last Thursday in November and really, really Black Friday?

Dare ObamaDems

Dare Blue Dawgs to vote for any health care bill that doesn’t end state monopolies and enact federal tort reform. Dare them to pass an energy tax assault on the poor and middle class cap and trade. Dare them lest we cap them and trade them in for Republicans that won’t make Pelosi and Reid sycophants for ObamaDems and JimmyCrackCorn, because them don’t care.

We do remain thankful for God’s Providence, especially including Obama’s inexperience. Can you imagine the threadbare clothing we would be in crisis over if the Obama Administration were actually competent?

We are also very thankful for the good work that Rush Limbaugh (no thanks to Newt) has done over the years in exposing the hoax of man-made global warming, which forms the latest basis for post-Berlin Wall socialists to tear down Liberty and the wealth it produces that makes us lemmings less dependent on Obamas.

Yet, even in the face of the exposed hoax, President Obama is going to Copenhagen to vow the continues assault on American Tiny Tims this winter.

The Ghosts of Christmas past, present and future await Scrooge in 2010 and 2012.

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson

Originally published @ Examiner.com, where all verification links may be accessed.

Before disabusing readers of Drive-By Media-driven notions that moderate Democrats and extremist Republicans actually exist [portions of this column originally appeared as, generally, "Moderate Democrats and Extremist Republicans don't exist" at Modern Conservative, as well as Examiner.com and here at Redstate.com] in the modern world, let this Gamecock’s announcement of his Modern Conservative dawn (debut) also crow of what modernized this former liberal Democrat into a proud Reaganite.

DeVine Law will conclude with suggestions of how social conservatives and libertarians must strongly ally themselves to prevent the de-modernization of these United States.

Pre-modern conservatives lost elections

From the 1950s debut of William F. Buckley‘s National Review magazine and Whittaker Chambers‘ publication of his ”Witness” autobiography; through the Barry Goldwater and Gerald Ford defeats in the 60s and 70s, the only Republican bright spots were Richard Nixon‘s electoral victories, which were basically devoid of any conservative policy triumphs.

The most conservative events before the 1981 Dawn of the Modern Conservative Era, were President John F. Kennedy‘s recovery-inducing supply-side income tax rate cuts and blockade of Russian missile-laden Cuba.

Fortunately, America was able to survive and prosper in the pre-modern era due to many shared conservative values among the members of both, then moderate, parties. That circumstance basically ended when Lee Harvey Oswald‘s magic bullets found their mark in 1963.

The left took over the world’s oldest political party while the still-moderate Grand Old Party eventually secured tennis court passes from Speaker Tip O’Neil, but were unable to prevent the betrayal of the Hmong, South Vietnamese and the kicking of the black man out the house so Uncle Sam could be daddy.

Then came Reagan, Newt and Rush

Modern conservatism has incorporated all, and I mean all, that was good about classic liberalism, whether it be President Ronald Reagan‘s acceptance of the “safety net for the truly needy”; Martin Luther King’s content of character mantle; or the liberty to retain most of the fruits of one’s labor so as to maximize happiness pursuits.

Unapologetic and unabashed conservatism wins every time it’s tried. I know, for, as a county chairman, delegate, and activist in the Democratic Party during the 80s and 90s, I waved good-bye to national security, pro-life democrats wracked by the failed policies of the filibuster-proof Democratic Party majority James Earl Carter years, as they joined the Gipper and saved America and the World from inflation-caused economic disaster and the Red menace.

But it wouldn’t be until my 2001 move from trial lawyer to corporate work/column writing and from Spartanburg to Atlanta that my conservative epiphany would be made manifest.

After 5000 years, conservatives have reached some conclusions

Unshackled by the parochial concerns in my hometown, and educated for 12 years by Rush Limbaugh’s EIB network, this former JFK Democrat proclaimed himself a Modern Conservative before September 11, 2001. After all, I had:

• Always called the Soviet empire, evil;
• Experienced the fruits of supply-side throughout the Reagan recovery, including the Newt-induced continuation during the Clinton years; and was
• Repulsed by the Borking of Judges Robert and Clarence.

I eschewed the failed policies of Democrats from 1964-2000, including those of President Bill Clinton before the 1994 Rush/Gingrich revolution; was repelled by merely bombing Afghanistan night watchmen after the 1998 African embassy bombings while seducing near-minor interns; and favored George W. Bush’s tax cuts to McCain’s crooked-talk and Gore’s multiple personalities.

One of my favorite quotes of William F. Buckley from his Firing Line PBS talk show, was that one of the main differences between liberals and conservatives is that “after 5000 years of human history, conservatives have reached some conclusions.”

After 38 years, DeVine Law reached those same conclusions.

Then came the ObamaDem assault on all things exceptional about America

I, like Charles Krauthammer in the latest National Review cover story (dead-tree magazine only), don’t mind self-identifying as a “neo-con”, given my support for a robust and aggressive foreign policy that liberates Grenadas and makes Iraqs into Connecticuts after removing evil regimes that threaten American security. I see national security conservative as a synonymous label.

I usually self-identify as a social conservative, though, due to the ubiquity of false stereotypes in the media and even within the conservative movement, and because this country was founded upon Judeo-Christian values that are under assault, and have been since the 60s.

But in truth, conservatism is most aptly defined economically by a preference for as small a government as we can stand, for whenever we hand over responsibilities to the government, we necessarily give up a portion of our Liberty.

Conservatives and Americans of all stripes that still share a love of Liberty and a belief in American exceptionalism, now face an unprecedented threat to our liberty that requires that we all ally ourselves electorally behind a force that can not just arrest the advance of ObamaDem socialism (much as Reagan with Boll weevils and Newt with a triangulator), but that can REVERSE it.

For that one must coalesce in ONE PARTY in a filibuster-proof Senate, strong majority House of Representatives and the White House. It begins in Election 2010.

The loss of Liberty will not be reversed by a third party nor by a coalition of Republicans and Blue Dawg Democrats

You dreamers of a new third-party GOP rising from Whig ashes, wake up. Ain’t gonna happen.

Dreamers that Blue Dawgs in the Senate (There is only 1-8 real blue dawgs in the joke of a House, so we skip it.) will continue to protect us from high energy taxes via Cap and Trade and a Public Option, wake up.

For ObamaDems and Bernankes that are destroying the U.S. dollar with trillions in non-stimuli (that passed the blue dawg House and Senate btw) as we speak, don’t you know the lessons of Louisiana (Landriue) Purchase II, will not be lost on Nelsons, Bayhs and Lincolns. Start the bidding at $300M.

And abortions will be banned to give some dems cover. But don’t worry, you can count on one hand, the number of abortions that won’t happen because of that. Its a non-issue the dems will use to get socialism writ large as we all thank God that “only” 49,000,000 more abortions will be had in the next 26 years as since 1973′s Roe v. Wade, rather than the 49,000,004 that would be had if government paid for them. Not even enough lives saved to put 5 basketball players on the court, but I digress.

But what of Independent Democrat Senator Joe ‘don’t need no stinkin’ public option’ Lieberman? The ObamaDems will find nomenclature and devices to satisfy Joe. I hope he proves me wrong, and I certainly admire his career-long hawkish national security defense stances and his moral voice against Bill Clinton, but somehow I think a provision protecting the insurance industry (See stronger mandate threats of imprisonment if you don’t get the Colonial Life rider?) will be inserted that will re-write what “public” and “options” mean in Merriam-Webster.

Bottom line: We face permanent deconstruction of America if WE THE PEOPLE don’t reverse, and I mean REVERSE (not just stop further advances) the policies put in place by ObamaDems before the 2010 election.

The GOP is the ONLY vehicle to save America short of a Revolution

And given the action against the Navy Seals and the KSM trial, I think the ObamaDems are perfectly capable of instigating a revolution. In fact, one could argue that Obama already fired on Fort Sumter equivalents.

I said all the above, in part, to say this to my social conservative friends

In some cases, in order to win super, filibuster-proof majorities in Congress, we will have to support economic conservatives that are libertarian on social issues. Do the math.

But not to worry, most social policy is made at the state and local level or the courts, and as of now, we have a 5-4 majority on most social issues. Yes, on abortion, we need another vote, but let’s cross that bridge in 2012 by retaining the pro-life plank, pro-traditional marriage plank, federalism advocacy; and nominate only a pro-life presidential nominee.

But conservatives can re-take the GOP only with libertarian help, and an appeal to federalism is the ticket to satisfy both sides. I don’t think this media and Frum-Brooks supposed schism is actually very real, and don’t think social conservatives will have to compromise on this matter very often. But let us embrace the John Stossel’s of the world who share our abhorrence of the far left meddlers that would take away all of our liberty unless we reverse this slouching towards Gomorrah, NOW!

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson

Originally published @ Examiner.com, where all verification links may be accessed.

[Part one of Mike DeVine's report on Fox Business Channel's, John Stossel's speech last week at Atlanta's Emory University Law School may be reviewed here.]

No more Emmys for you

John Stossel made a name for himself at ABC as the nation’s best consumer affairs reporter. Last Wednesday, before  his “Bashing Business” lecture at Emory Law School’s Tull Auditorium, John Stossel was introduced as a six-time Emmy award winner.

After describing his metamorphosis from big government liberal to free market libertarian, Stossel advised the audience that he won no more Emmys when he started defending private business. He thinks that the fact that market competition actually protects consumers more than government is just too counter-intuitive for too many people in an affluent society that take wealth creation for granted.

DeVine Law agrees, but during a conversation with Atlanta’s guest, we both also agreed that possibly the best hope for a political education in the incompetence of Big Government is taking place as we speak, courtesy of the ObamaDems.

Americans don’t like meddlers

Your humble rooster greeted Stossel as a conservative fan, and even after he described his radical libertarianism (favors abortion on demand; same-sex marriage and drug legalization), we still welcome his philosophy with open arms as his consistency in opposition to government meddling in the affairs of adults, is quite impressive.

No, DeVine Law is still a pro-life defender of marriage who favors a go slow approach on surrendering in the Drug War, and would a oppose such libertarian GOP primary candidates who face strong conservatives that share Stossel’s pure conservative economic views.

But we can’t build a governing majority at the federal level without libertarians, and Stossel is as good an advocate for the free market in economics as one can find. Stossel recently on the Health Care Bill now before Congress:

The 1,990-page bill is breathtaking in its bone-headed audacity. The notion that a small group of politicians can know enough to design something so complex and so personal is astounding. That they were advised by “experts” means nothing since no one is expert enough to do that. There are too many trade-offs faced by unique individuals with infinitely varying needs.

Government cannot do simple things efficiently. The bureaucrats struggle to count votes correctly. They give subsidized loans to “homeowners” who turn out to be 4-year-olds. Yet congressmen want government to manage our medicine and insurance.

Competition is a “discovery procedure,” Nobel-prize-winning economist F. A. Hayek taught. Through the competitive market process, we producers and consumers constantly learn things that force us to adjust our behavior if we are to succeed. Central planners fail for two reasons:

First, knowledge about supply, demand, individual preferences and resource availability is scattered — much of it never articulated — throughout society. It is not concentrated in a database where a group of planners can access it.

Second, this “data” is dynamic: It changes without notice.

No matter how honorable the central planners’ intentions, they will fail because they cannot know the needs and wishes of 300 million different people. And if they somehow did know their needs, they wouldn’t know them tomorrow.

His opposition to “meddlers” reminds of what I consider the sine qua non discourse on same at Hillbilly Politics:

We all know at least one person who meddles in everybody else’s business… and we hate them. There are any number of reasons why we hate them but the most frequent answer to such a question as why is we are adults, not children, and can handle our own lives just fine without interference…

So what does that have to do with politics, you ask?

Simply, if we hate that kind of interference in our daily lives, why did a majority of Americans elect to office a bunch of meddling mothers and mothers-in-law?

* You can’t stimulate the economy by restricting it. If you’re lucky you merely maintain the status quo. If you’re unlucky, as is usually the case, the meddlers make things worse. Propping up failing businesses that didn’t tend to the business of business, aka customer service, only closes the window of opportunity for others to do it better. Entrepreneurship languishes in limbo in this case.

* You can’t replace existing energy with energy that hasn’t been developed yet and you can’t force it by restricting the use of existing energy resources…

You can read all of StephC’s essay here.

After that, check out John Stossel’s 2006 bestseller,  Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity: Get Out the Shovel – Why Everything You Know is Wrong (now in paperback).

Liberals prefer to pass new laws when existing laws are more than adequate

One of the most prescient points that Stossel made in Atlanta last week, that was also made by Bob Barr of the AJC, echoes something I discerned about liberals long ago, when in my trial lawyer heyday. Someone would commit a crime or someone would be hurt at work or by a product and the liberal (and, to be fair, not a small number of Republicans in legislatures) knee-jerk response would be to pass a new law to “solve the problem.”

No matter that the “problem” is us. Since Eve bit the apple or, to be more specific, since Cain slew Abel, man has killed, stolen, and been negligent. Moses gave us the Ten Commandments and England gave us the Common Law, and there hasn’t been much improvement on them over the past 3000 years.

But that doesn’t stop leftist Utopians from thinking they can meddle with Titanic deck chairs and make man perfect, and it surely doesn’t stop politicians from the goal of being seen as “doing something” in order to keep the cushy job that requires them to hold their hands out like beggars 24/7 365.

The (Bob) Barr Code:

At a recent Commerce Committee hearing, during which concerns were raised about the constitutionality of such legislation, and about the principle of “federalism,” Rockefeller proudly proclaimed his constitutional disinterest thus — “I don’t really give a hoot about states’ rights or federal rights on this one.  I care about results.”  The “results” include another nail in the coffin of constitutional governance in the United States.

Meddlers will never cease, so neither must we small government conservatives and libertarians. Let us reason together at the federal level and compete over social issues at the state level.

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson

Originally published @ Examiner.com, where all verification links may be accessed.

DeVine Law thinks it’s about time

Gamecock has long called for Martin Luther King, Jr.-style (with all due respect also to Henry David Thoreau and Mahatma Gandhi) civil disobedience in oil drilling even before ObamaDems took over D.C. with economic policies that prevent We the People from bailing ourselves out of this Great Recession.

Now, religious and social conservatives see a potential Liberty-destroying menace from the American left with respect to many other issues, akin to the losses of free speech rights in Canada and Europe at the hands of ObamaDems’ ideological allies.

The bases for civil disobedience are the threat of the enactment of unjust laws and/or the existence of unjust laws; failure to repeal or prevent the enactment of same via normal political and legal processes; the willingness of movement members to accept the punishment for the breaking of duly and legally enacted laws; and the existence of a political culture that is receptive to moral persuasion.

Ghandi and MLK would have been mowed down by Nazis or Communists in Germany, Cuba or the Soviet Union. Their success was predicated on the fact that the Judeo-Christian values of the British in India and the Americans in America could be shamed into changing their ways. Both did.

Now comes my fellow Southern Baptists, including Dr. Richard Land joining other prominent Christian clergy and others with the Manhattan Declaration (get full text here):

Drafted by Dr. Robert George, Dr. Timothy George and Chuck Colson and signed by more than 125 Orthodox, Catholic and Evangelical Christian leaders, the Manhattan Declaration was made public today following a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington.

Excerpts from the declaration include:

“We are Christians who have joined together across historic lines of ecclesial differences to affirm our right—and, more importantly, to embrace our obligation—to speak and act in defense of these truths. We pledge to each other, and to our fellow believers, that no power on earth, be it cultural or political, will intimidate us into silence or acquiescence.”

“We recognize the duty to comply with laws whether we happen to like them or not, unless the laws are gravely unjust or require those subject to them to do something unjust or otherwise immoral.”

“We will not comply with any edict that purports to compel our institutions to participate in abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide and euthanasia or any other anti-life act; nor will we bend to any rule purporting to force us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriage or the equivalent or refrain from proclaiming the truth, as we know it, about morality and immorality and marriage and the family.”

One of the great dangers of much of the gay rights activists agenda, especially including hate crimes, civil unions and same-sex marriage laws are that they could invite activist court decisions (if the enacted laws by their express terms don’t impinge rights directly) that could impinge the rights of political religious free speech under the First Amendment with the threat of imprisonment.

Like most conservatives, I oppose hate crimes laws on the merits as they unnecessarily confuse the ordinary general criminal intent or mens re required for deprivations of liberty via due process, with an inquiry into motives and specific intent that are either wholly irrelevant or bet left for consideration in the sentencing phase. Moreover, such laws inevitably devalue the seriousness of harm to and the lives of groups not protected by hate crime laws and threatens the one’s very right to conscious. People do have the right to hate, whether we like it or not, and unless one’s speech reaches the level of “fighting words” or “incitement to imminent violence”, traditionally very strict legal standards, then one should have the right to express such hate. Moreover, from what we have seen in Canada and Europe, the hate crimes laws punish expressions that merely object to certain activities that do not rise to the level of hatred of individuals or groups. Hate the sin and not the sinner comes to mind.

The threat of the above is also present with the enactment of civil union laws that require a determination of one’s sexual “orientation”, as courts may deem such laws as placing the imprimatur of approval on sexual activity outside of traditional marriage and thus threaten the right of parents to have their values inculcated and affirmed, or at least not directly contradicted, by local schools.

These kinds of problems are why the Founders favored maximizing happiness pursuits through the recognition of only individual rights, as opposed to factions or group rights that impinge on the rights of others and for the like-minded to congregate together geographically and exercise power over traditionally local affairs, at the local level and not impose said values on all the people.

DeVine Law will sign the Manhattan Declaration.

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson

Originally published @ Examiner.com, where all verification links may be accessed.

Michelle Malkin has a great piece up about wealth redistribution and tax-increment financing associated with the O·lympics done Chicago-style:

When I worked in Seattle covering corporate welfare and city government, I became strange bedfellows with a diverse alliance of libertarians on the right and Ralph Naderites on the left who oppose “public-private partnership” deals between developers and statist Democrat AND Republican politicians.

These “public-private partnership” scams inevitably involve tax-increment financing gimmickry to siphon off tax dollars to subsidize developers/builders/contractors who then reward politicians with big campaign donations. (See here for how it works.)

The Chicago Olympics bid involves TIFs at a massive level.

And voters oppose it at their own risk — including threat of violence against them by their own representatives!

Byron York reports Michelle Obama saying… It’s a ‘sacrifice’ to travel to Europe to pitch for the Olympics. But I’m doing it for the kids.

First lady Michelle Obama(AP Photo/ Richmond Times-Dispatch, Dean Hoffmeyer, Pool)

In her speech in Copenhagen today, First Lady Michelle Obama said her trip to Denmark, along with the travel of her “dear friend” and “chit-chat buddy” Oprah Winfrey, as well as tomorrow’s visit by President Obama, is a “sacrifice” on behalf of the children of Chicago and the United States. “As much of a sacrifice as people say this is for me or Oprah or the president to come for these few days,” the first lady told a crowd of people involved in the Chicago project, “so many of you in this room have been working for years to bring this bid home.”

“As first lady, as many of you know, I’ve made it a priority to bridge the gap between the White House and communities across D.C. and across the country,” Mrs. Obama continued. “I’ve spent much of my first nine months trying to open the doors to the White House to kids who might not otherwise see themselves having access to these institutions, because that’s where I came from – communities like that where kids never dreamed that they could set foot in the White House, let alone live there…And Barack and I made a point of doing the same thing when we lived in Chicago – making the concerns of kids in all sorts of communities our own.”

And JammieWearingFool thinks, and I agree these don’t look like members of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy?

Get a load of this lineup. If I were a betting man I’d say they sure look like a bunch of Obama supporters. Whatever the case, it appears they sure don’t want the O-lympics in Chicago for reasons known only to them, apparently.

Six people arrested Tuesday evening in a small protest of Chicago’s bid for the 2016 Games were charged with mob action Wednesday.

The five men and one woman interrupted crews that were attempting to hang an Olympic laurel from the Picasso statue in Daley Plaza by dragging the Olympic banner and tossing it into the “eternal flame,” authorities said.

Charged are 24-year-old brothers Jeremy Hammond and Jason Hammond of Glendale Heights, Brian Brown, 22, of Itasca; Jeremy Sorkin, 21, of Chicago; Johnathan Clark, 21, of Rocky Mountain, N.C.; and Anna Stafford, 20, of Wheatfield, Ind., said Tandra Simonton, a spokeswoman for the Cook County state’s attorney’s office.