Calling Christopher Hitchens “one of the most dynamic voices of our generation“, Sonicfrog laments the passing of this iconoclastic columnist:

With the exception of being an ardent atheist, he was impossible to pin down and categorize as belonging to any one political movement or ideology. He truly called them as he saw them. Without question, he truly was his own man. He burned as bright as anyone I can recall in my lifetime, and now the flame is no more. I can’t say I always agreed with him, but he was one HELL of a writer, and I am a better writer because of his influence!

The man always spoken his mind and while leaning to the left, never really subscribed to any ideology.  Just look him stand up to Bill Maher:

Joy McCann called him a “man was made of class“:

This amazing writer was fearless. And smart. And from what I could see, a good, decent man who stared death in the face and remained just as decent as he had been before, albeit in much more pain.

Goodbye, Mr. H. You will be sorely, sorely missed.

Indeed. In this increasingly ideological age, we need more of his kind.

Like many conservatives, I don’t yet have a candidate in the presidential race and still hope that an accomplished former governor of a large state may yet jump in the race.

Although I appreciate Newt Gingrich’s rhetorical feistiness, having interned for the guy, I question his executive aptitude.  Every time I come close to backing Mitt Romney, he does — or says — something that causes me to question his conservatism.

Not just that, with the election still eleven months away, I, like many Americans am already getting tired of the campaign.  According to USA Today/Gallup poll, ”70% of registered voters across the country and 74% of those living in the battlegrounds say they can’t wait for the campaign to be over.”

Annoyed with the never-ending campaign we may be, but we Republicans are going to have to pick a candidate and that man, as Rush put it, is not going to be perfect:

I don’t want to be misunderstood as seeking perfection, because it doesn’t exist. We’re all imperfect, everybody. There is no such thing as perfection. And there is no way to remove risk from life. You can’t achieve perfection. You can try for it. It’s a great motivation. You can’t remove risk and you can’t achieve perfection. Nobody is going to be flawless.

His commentary, sage though it is, is not helping me pick a candidate, but it may help those of us who are as yet undecided because none of the candidates excites us rally around the eventual nominee.

In his commentary, Rush mentions three candidates about whose “conservative credentials” there is, his his mind, “no doubt,” Rick Perry, Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann.  Interesting that those more social conservatives are currently floundering in most polls.

Kind of undermines the media/Democratic narrative that the GOP has gone so far to the right that Ronald Reagan couldn’t win nomination today.

* (more…)

Maybe the editors at the AOL/Huffington Post aren’t quite the Obama shills we think them to be. Now, to be sure the “news” headlines on their main page tend to promote stories favorable to the administration, like this one linked today and critical of conservatives.

That said, their leading story this morning points to one of the many administration failings:

“Social Security,” reports Chuck Saleta, “is in dire financial straits, but that’s nothing new for this long-troubled program“:

Social Security spent $49 billion more in 2010 than it took in as tax collections. By the time 2011 ends, it expects to outspend collections by another $46 billion. At this rate, the program’s much-touted “Trust Fund” is expected to be depleted by 2036; without that fund, benefits are expected to fall to about three-quarters of current promised levels.

. . . .

Even with repeated efforts to shore up the program by raising taxes and cutting benefits, Social Security’s collapse seems virtually inevitable.

Despite the problems of this popular program, the president has not considered any serious reform proposals.  Indeed, even members of his own party have faulted him for backing a program (which he has been grandstanding in recent days) which could “undermine Social Security“: “many liberal Democrats. . . have argued for months that cutting the payroll tax will drain Social Security coffers and threaten seniors’ benefits.”

This headline thus reminds people that under Obama’s watch, things have gotten worse for a program that his predecessor tried to reform.  And that when it comes to making bold reforms, Obama’s presidential record doesn’t match his campaign rhetoric.

In a post over at Hot Air, Tina Korbe cites a “new poll from the Institute of Politics at Harvard University” showing that millenials prefer the incumbent Democrat to a generic Republican by a margin of 35 percent to 29 percent.  When it comes to specific candidates:

They’d pick Obama over Mitt Romney by an 11-point margin (37 percent to 26 percent) and over Newt Gingrich or Rick Perry by a 16-point spread (39 percent to 23 percent).

Nevertheless, the blogress adds, “poll experts suggest the results could mean what I’ve said for some time: An opening exists with millennials for any candidate willing to take advantage of it.”

What is striking about the poll is not that Obama is leading, but the percentage he garners among the group which gave him the largest margin of support in the 2008 election.  In no poll does he comes close to the 66% he won in 2012.  In fact, he doesn’t even muster a majority.

Let’s say those who didn’t register an opinion in the latest poll break evenly for the incumbent and the Republican challenger, that would give him a 53-47 margin over a generic Republican or a 55-45 margin over Mitt Romney.  It would only be 59-41 over Gingrich or Romney.  In any case, that represents a significant slide in his support since 2008.

We should also note that undecideds tend to break against the incumbent, so those numbers represent an optimistic scenario for the Democrat.

Seems Michael Barone was prescient about this poll: Under Obama, Millennials move into the GOP column.

Remember back in the early years of this century how many on the left — and in the Democratic Party– faulted then-President George W. Bush for going it alone on foreign policy. Despite the fact that this good man had developed strong relationships with the leaders of a great variety of nations, including the United Kingdom, Japan, Spain (until 2004), Australia, Poland and Denmark to name but a few, his critics all focused on the opposition generated by the then-President of France.

That man, a Monsieur J. Chirac famously rebuked European nations working with Bush on liberating Iraq for losing a “good opportunity to keep quiet”.  The problem was not that Bush did not forge strong relationships with our allies, but that Chirac (and members of his government) actively sought to frustrate them.

Seems like the Frenchman has gotten his comeuppance. According to Glenn Reynolds, the immediate past president of the Fifth Republic has been

CONVICTED OF CORRUPTION CHARGES. “Jacques Chirac, mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995, is the first former French head of state to be convicted since Marshal Philippe Petain, the leader of the wartime Vichy regime, was found guilty in 1945 of collaborating with the Nazis.”

George W Bush could not be reached for comment.

Can you imagine the reaction if a Republican candidate had penned the fundraising missive that Julianna Smoot, Deputy Campaign Manager Obama for America wrote. According to Bookworm who has “signed up” for Obama campaign e-mails in order “to see what the opposition is doing“:

Everyone’s got that special conservative in their life.

Maybe it’s your dad, who forwards you every chain email about the President’s birth certificate, or your neighbor, who just put up a Mitt Romney sign.

Dealing with these folks can be … frustrating.

This holiday season, we’re giving you a chance to have a little bit of fun at their expense. Let a Republican in your life know they inspired you to make a donation to the Obama campaign — chip in $3 or more today.

When you give to the campaign, simply enter your Republican friend’s email address and they’ll get a note letting them know that they motivated you to donate — which will surely make their day.

“Sure enough,” writes James Taranto who linked the above,

BarackObama.com has a special Web form for donors who wish to have “fun at the expense of a Republican.” Let’s say you’re a Republican and your 20-something daughter is an Obamabot. (Have you had a DNA test?) She makes a $10 donation to the president’s campaign, which sends her an email tweaking you–and your name and email address are now on a list of dissenters against the most powerful man in the world.

In his roundup, Jim Geraghty quotes Nice Deb who suggests this tack could sow divisiveness:

It’s not cute, and it’s not funny. Family members will fight and friendships will be lost over this. What person in their right mind would do something like this to someone they like? Wouldn’t it have to be someone they don’t like? So the Obama camp is purposefully egging on their followers’ basest instincts to hurt people during the holidays? (more…)

(H/t Jim Geraghty)

In his thoughtful commentary on the president’s speech in Osawatomie, law professor and Theodore Roosevelt biographer Joshua D. Hawley offers this observation about the liberal notion of equality:

Following Roosevelt’s lead, liberals have advocated government as the guarantor of equality, as the principal agent of national improvement, and indeed, as the source of shared national identity.

Emphasis added.

And this is why we need be wary of those who promote “equality” through legislation.  For someone must adjudicate equality.  It seems those on the left are comfortable with having the state serve as adjudicator.  But, those of who us value our freedom should always be wary of granting more power to the state.

Back when I was in law school, I would, from time to time, run with a lesbian quite open about her sex life. Unlike most women (I had theretofore met) of her orientation, she liked to sleep around (with women) and watch gay (male) porn.

At the time, I had thought this was one of her quirks, but as time passed, I met other women who love women who enjoy watching films featuring men, well, sexing other men.  I had heard there was a scene in last year’s The Kids Are All Right where a lesbian couple watches just such a film.  Well, the DVD just arrived from Netlix; I watched it last night.  (It’s a good flick, well worth your time.)

Early on, Annette Bening‘s Nic asks her life-partner Jules (Julianne Moore) if she wants to watch a movie.  A “movie movie,” Jules responds, all excited.  They’re going to watch two men, well, enjoying each other’s company in the back of a pickup truck.  Nic laments that the men’s chests were waxed (less of that masculine hair?).

When their son learns of their interest in such all-male cinema, he asks “Why do you guys watch gay man porn?”

Nic tries to dodge the issue, but Jules offers an explanation:

Well, sweetie, human sexuality is complicated and somethings desire can be, you know, counterintuitive, you know, um, for example, because woman’s sexual responsiveness is internalized, sometimes  it’s exciting for us to see responsiveness externalized like with a penis.

As her beloved speaks, Nic has a quizzical expression on her face.  The explanation doesn’t work.

She may be perplexed about the explanation.  I am perplexed about the phenomenon.  We gay men tend to prefer porn featuring guys doing things we fantasize about doing.  And these guys often tend to be the type we fantasize about doing them with.

So, why do some gals like to watch individuals about whom they don’t even fantasize — or with whom they don’t seek intimate relations — going at it?

Jus’ wondering.  (Yeah, I know I’m not the first to wonder at this phenomenon.)

Had been working on a post on sex differences, but my mind is jut not in a writing mood right now.  So, I’ll do a quick post on the departure from ABC News’s “This Week” of one of the most biased reporters in broadcast journalism:

Christiane Amanpour will soon step down as host of ABC’s “This Week” to take on a new role at the network, where she’ll host about six primetime specials a year and appear on ABC News programs, while also launching a new global affairs show on CNN International, according a source familiar with the emerging arrangements. (UPDATE: Amanpour confirmed the news in a statement.)

“Good Morning America” co-host George Stephanopoulos, who previously hosted “This Week,” will take over once again. He’ll continue hosting GMA during the week.

. . . .

“This Week” — which has traditionally focused on domestic politics — has slipped in the ratings. And lately, it’s CBS’s “Face the Nation” — not former number two “This Week” — that’s battling NBC’s “Meet the Press” for first place among Sunday morning news shows.

No wonder the show slipped in the ratings.  Miss Amanpour has a haughty attitude toward Americans, as if her British accent renders her wiser than her less eloquent interlocutors.

Not just that, her worldview is more in line with bureaucrats at international agencies than one attuned to the realities of popular opinions and the dynamics of national governments  – and their interactions with one another.  She often takes world leaders and resistance figures at their word if they express views critical of the United States — or of the longest-lasting democracy in the Middle East (Israel) without bothering to verify their claims.

She seems skeptical of the claims by American and Israeli officials, not to mention those of other less “internationalist” leaders.

Nice to see her depart from David Brinkley’s seat at ABC, but unfortunate that the network will keep her on.  Unfortunate also that a former Clinton administration official will be replacing her.  Guess the show will only be slightly less skewed to the left.

If even-handedness were a criterion for work in broadcast journalism, Miss Amanpour would never have advanced as far as she had.  And her departure from “The Week” would not have her retaining responsibilities at ABC and returning to CNN, but following in the footsteps of Keith Olbermann.

One wonders if the president would have delivered his paean to “progressive” (i.e., big) government last week in Osawatomie had he seen these numbers from Gallup:

Americans’ concerns about the threat of big government continue to dwarf those about big business and big labor, and by an even larger margin now than in March 2009. The 64% of Americans who say big government will be the biggest threat to the country is just one percentage point shy of the record high, while the 26% who say big business is down from the 32% recorded during the recession. Relatively few name big labor as the greatest threat.

Via Instapundit.
Interesting how the first poll to ask this question after the Occupy rallies gained media attention shows a tapering off in distrust of big business. “In fact,” writes Elizabeth Mendes on Gallup’s web-site, “Americans’ concerns about big business have declined significantly since 2009.”

What’s also notable is the spike in those concerned about the threat of big government since Obama took office in 2009. He doesn’t seem to have rallied the American people to his vision of large and more active federal government.

Over at Hot Air, Tina Korbe finds it “notable” that “the recent rise in distrust of big government . . . has been driven by Democrats“. Sounds like a Republican candidate with the right kind of appeal, emphasizing his commitment to reducing the size of the federal government could not only rally the Republican pass and reach out to independents (64% of whom “view big government as the biggest threat”), but also pull some Democrats into his camp.

The numbers simply don’t support the kind of rhetoric the president has offered.

FROM THE COMMENTS:  Zendo Deb puts the fear of big government in a larger context:

Actually it looks like fear of big government has increased since George W Bush was in office. Not surprising given the Patriot Act – which the Dems hated and complained about then reauthorized as almost the first thing Obama did.

And to be a bit more to the point, that fear of government has increased since Nixon was in office. With a downward blip after 911 because the government was going to “save us” from the evil terrorists.

That fear has increased in both good time and bad, and under both Democrats and Republicans. Maybe there is some hope for the US population.

The bigger the government gets, the more Americans fear it.

Shortly after posting this piece, I wondered that the president cast Republican opposition to his policies in strictly personal terms.  In his 60 Minutes interview, the Democrat contended the Republican strategy was to oppose anything he’s for:

“Anything Obama’s for, we’re against, because that’s our best chance of winning an election,”

As if it’s all about him and his ambitions.  You’d think a man billed as so bright could appreciate that Republicans may well oppose his programs on philosophical grounds.  Or on financial ones.  As McCain put it, “WE DON’T HAVE THE MONEY TO PAY FOR THIS CRAP!”

Well, at least he’s not emulating a rising mafia boss:

Seen on a hybrid SUV in the (San Fernando) Valley:

FROM THE COMMENTS: James doesn’t “get the point of this post. We have free speech in this country, and that person is exercising his or her view to not support enlisting in the military.”

He’s right. The driver does have the freedom to express his view of the military. And I have the freedom to mock the driver for trying to discourage men and women from enlisting in order to defend this man’s freedom to criticize military service.

That said, point well taken, James, especially about liberals not being the only ones who drive hybrids. I have met a handful of conservatives who drive such vehicles–and sometimes with great enthusiasm.

In a previous post, I quoted my pal Sonicfrog’s (rhetorical) question on the president’s speech last week in Osawatomie, Kansas, “OK, so what is your solution to fix the problem of the diminishing middle class?”.  His comment is particularly telling because unlike most conservative critics of the speech, Sonic thought it  a “good speech“.  Even as the Democrat defined the current crisis, he, the blogger observed, “has absolutely no idea what to do about any of it… Except campaign.”

In a similar vein, libertarian law professor Richard Epstein, in his commentary on the question wrote:

The substantive question is whether Obama has proposed a reform agenda that has any chance of achieving his stated goal of restoring to the middle class the prospect of decent wages that will allow them to educate their children and provide for their own retirement. That kind of analysis is always difficult to do on Obama’s speeches because he flits from topic to topic with such rapidity that it is next to impossible to get a fix on his substantive positions.

Via Instapundit.  While other pundits faulted the address for what Epstein might calls it “demagogic” tone, Epstein found the real problem was its intellectual incoherence:

As a matter of high principle, the president announces his fealty to markets. As a matter of practical politics, he denigrates and undermines them at every step. It is a frightening prospect to have a president who lives in a time warp that lets him believe that the failed policies of 1935 can lead this nation back from the brink.

The speech seems almost a paean to the policies which had long since been repealed, as if we no longer had an aggressive public sector, indeed, as if the speaker had spent the last three years in the political opposition and not as the chief executive who had succeeded in enacting many of his spending proposals and cherished initiatives.

As the Democrat lamented the state of our union, he has as Charles Krauthammer put it on Friday, avoided “addressing the underlying structural problems, which would require modernizing the totemic programs of the New Deal and Great Society.”   (more…)

Stacy McCain watched “clips of Steve Kroft’s 60 Minutes interview with President Obama” so you don’t have to.  That caustic blogger quoted the Democrat saying this:

If I can’t get Republicans to move, partly because they’ve made a political, strategic decision that says, “Anything Obama’s for, we’re against, because that’s our best chance of winning an election,” I don’t think the American people would see that as a failure on my part. My preference is that they’d have a different attitude.

Kroft did not challenge him on this.  The Democrat goes on to list a number of spending proposals (“investments” as he bills them) Republicans oppose just because, as he claims, he backs them.

Hey, Mr. President (and Mr. Kroft), Republicans aren’t opposing them because you’re proposing them; they just don’t think they will work as advertised.  (You know like that “stimulus,” er, Recovery and Reinvestment Act.)  As Stacy so delicately puts it, “WE CAN’T AFFORD! YOU ALREADY BLEW A TRILLION DOLLARS ON THIS STIMULUS CRAP AND WHAT DID IT GET US, HUH?”

Obama thinks he can just rattle of a laundry list of spending projects, call them “common sense, mainstream ideas” and — POOF! — the money magically appears to pay for this stuff.

Read the whole thing.  (H/t Instapundit.)  Just wonder why Mr. Kroft didn’t even bother to challenge Mr. Obama’s allegation about Republican opposition to his big-spending initiatives at a time of records deficits.

Someone should ask the Democrat why he summarily rejected the recommendations of the Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction commission.  Or why his fellow partisans gave a similar thumbs-down to Republican U.S. Senator Pat Toomey’s tax reform proposals.

Like many insightful pundits who heard (or bed) the president’s speech last week in Osawatomie, Kansas, Michael Barone (as I noted earlier) came away most unimpressed. On Friday, he began his commentary on the address by reminding us of the intellectual pretensions of the president’s party:

Democrats like to think of themselves as the party of smart people. And over the last four years we have heard countless encomiums, and not just from Democrats, of the intellect and perceptiveness of Barack Obama. But a reading of the text of Obama’s December 6 speech at Osawatomie, Kansas, billed as one of his big speeches of the year, shows him to be something like the opposite.

Even by the standards of campaign rhetoric, this is a shockingly shoddy piece of work. You can start with his intellectually indefensible caricature of Republican philosophy: “We are better off when everybody is left to fend for themselves and play by their own rules.” Or his simple factual inaccuracy: “The wealthiest Americans are paying the lowest taxes in over half a century.” Or his infantile economic analysis, blaming job losses on the invention of the automated teller machine (they’ve been around for more than four decades, Mr. President, and we’ve had lots of job growth during that time) and the Internet.

Barone faults the Democrat for the “weakness of his public policy arguments”.   The president’s weak arguments are accompanied by only a paucity of programs to address the very big problems the country faces.  Perhaps that’s because, as Barone claims, the incumbent “has no serious interest in public policy”:

He has spent nearly half his 15 years in public office running for other public office. The only difference now is that, having run out of higher offices to run for, he is just running for reelection instead. Those who pride themselves on belonging to the party of smart people should be embarrassed.

Read the whole thing.

Questioning the president’s latest strategy of “framing the choice between the parties in class-warfare terms“, Michael Barone doesn’t think the president’s speech last week in Osawatomie, Kansas will help him much with independent voters:

Undaunted, and perhaps feeling he has no better option, Obama made it plain he’s staking his chances on class warfare.

He did so even though the policies he trotted out amounted to little more than the Democrats’ 2009 stimulus package (road building, high-speed rail), education spending (a payoff to the teacher unions), and higher tax rates on high earners.

It’s hard to see how this thin gruel is going to strike independent voters as (to use Bill Clinton’s 1996 re-election theme) a bridge to the 21st century. And it’s notable that Obama scarcely made reference to the Democrats’ signal legislative accomplishment, Obamacare.

He has thrown away his image, established in his 2004 convention speech and maintained through the 2008 campaign, of a compromise-minded conciliator.

Barone’s analysis was tame compared to that of Charles Krauthammer who didn’t mince words when he said that the incumbent

. . . gave a nice historical rundown except that he left out a critical three years – his presidency. It is as if it did not exist. It’s as if we jumped from ‘08 to today. This speech was intended to say that everything that happened the past three years has nothing to do with my administration or policies – economic stagnation, debt, high unemployment. It is the result of the malice of the rich.” (more…)

In his post yesterday on the House (Republican) bill “to extend the FICA tax holiday”, John Hinderaker explores some issues left unexplored by a mainstream media which seems sometimes all too eager to repeat the administration’s defense of its policies — and criticism of Republicans.

He reminds us that the payroll tax, part of which has been on holiday pays for a popular program:

There are two things going on here, one superficial and one relatively profound. On the surface, this is all about politics. The Democrats, after decades of posing as the guardians of Social Security, have carelessly and out of political expediency undercut the financing of that program in a manner that is likely to be critical. Their only purpose is to be able to characterize Republicans as tax-raisers on the middle class. The Republicans properly refuse to take that bait and instead are going along with the Democrats’ “destroy Social Security first” ploy. This effectively takes the payroll tax extension out of play as a political issue, no matter how the Democrats may try to spin it.

But there is something more serious going on as well. If the payroll tax holiday extension passes–and both parties are now on record as favoring it–the dam will have been breached, and Social Security will be massively insolvent, not at some point in the future, but today.

Read the whole thing.

Seems like this is a tax cut the Democrats aren’t paying for.  (Recall how much the incumbent faulted his predecessor contending that Republican didn’t pay for the policies enacted under his watch?) And wonder why we don’t see more scrutiny of the administration’s insistence on taking money out of Social Security.

FROM THE COMMENTS:  V the K reports some interesting news and offers some insightful commentary:  ”Nancy Pelosi claims that Congress shouldn’t even try to pay for the payroll tax cut extension. So, if deficit spending doesn’t matter, why are they so hot to raise taxes?”

Good question.

“The junior senator from Texas,” James Taranto wrote in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, “is decidedly unenthusiastic about the current state of the institution he joined nine years ago”:

“It’s not what I would call the world’s greatest deliberative body now,” John Cornyn, a Republican, says on a recent visit to the Journal. “The Senate has been pretty much dysfunctional. I mean, we haven’t had a budget for well over 900 days. We don’t have legislation that’s introduced and then referred to committee, and actually have it marked up in committee, where people can offer amendments and debate them. . . . It’s all been sort of prepackaged. [It] shows up on the floor, [Majority Leader] Harry Reid denies the opportunity to . . . offer amendments, and then he complains about Republicans filibustering the legislation.”

Given the efforts of the president and his fellow partisans to blame the nation’s problems on the intransigence of a do-nothing Republican Congress, you’d think the Senate Majority’s management of the one chamber with a Democratic majority might get more coverage, particularly its failure to fulfill its basic fiscal responsibility, passing a budget.

As House Republicans have done the hard work of putting together a budget that controls spending — and shown the American people where they stand by voting on it, the president, instead of offering counter-proposals, has offered only speeches.  He and his fellow Democrats may attack the Republican budget, but the only budget the president has authored in the past year couldn’t muster even a single Democratic vote in the Senate.  He still hasn’t put forward a specific proposal in line with his much-ballyhooed April 13 budget speech.

No wonder the Texas Republican . . .

. . .  imagines the president with an angel sitting on one shoulder and a devil on the other: “He’s listening to the devil, who’s telling him, ‘Don’t make a deal.’ Paul Ryan in the House proposed a constructive solution to . . . our fiscal problems. And rather than engage and propose something constructive himself . . . [the president] decided to go into the class-warfare mode, where, as you know, you can’t raise taxes enough to solve the problem.” (more…)

Glenn today links a post on the damage the folks at OccupyBoston did to the “scenic Rose Kennedy Greenway,” quipping that Boston Occupiers Leave Site In The Kind Of Condition The Country Would Be In If They Were Listened To:

[Nancy] Brennan [executive director of the Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy] said the grass, which has turned into a mud pit, will need to be completely resodded, and she fears several trees that have been damaged will have to be replanted.

“Three or four trees might be lost. There’s browning of the foliage, and there are some broken and bent limbs,” she said. “Part of what we need to do is check on the root systems, and that is just going to take a little bit of time.”

Brennan also expects that the sprinkler system was damaged so much it will have to be repaired or replaced. Also in need of replacement are about 20 percent of the shrubbery and the pebbles from a pedestrian walkway that runs along Purchase Street.

And that’s just a partial listing of the damage.  Wonder how much the cleanup’s gonna cost.

In Los Angeles, Democratic Mayor Antonio “Villaraigosa has said the cleanup and repair to the park might cost more than $1 million.”  Oh, and let’s not forget the “overtime costs for city employees” during the “occupation.”  According to the LA Times, “Overtime costs for the General Services Department, which runs the police force assigned to City Hall and other municipal buildings, exceeded $100,000 even before the overnight raid [ending the 'occupation'].”

If taxpayers foot the bill, as seems likely, the occupiers can just say, “Well, that’s what democracy looks like.”