It's possible to thwart the designs of squishes

I'm getting increasingly involved in the statewide activities of Americans for Prosperity, and I'm glad, because, given Mike Pence's strange new fondness for federal intrusion into health care, we probably need to launch an effort much like that which got results in Tennessee:

"In December, Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam, a Republican, got the deal he wanted from the Obama administration: Tennessee would accept more than $1 billion in federal funding to expand Medicaid, as allowed for in the Affordable Care Act, but Obama aides would allow Haslam to essentially write staunchly conservative ideas into the program's rules for the state. He dubbed the reformed Medicaid program "Insure Tennessee." 

But the state's chapter of Americans for Prosperity, the national conservative group whose foundation is chaired by controversial billionaire David Koch, argued Haslam was just trying to trick conservatives into implementing Obamacare in their state by giving it a new name. AFP campaigned aggressively Haslam's plans for the next six weeks, even running radio ads blasting GOP state legislators who said they might vote for it. 

On Wednesday, Haslam's bill died in a committee of the Tennessee state senate. The vote was one of the clearest illustrations of the increasing power of AFP and other conservative groups funded in part by the Koch brothers. 

When the coalition of conservative groups allied with Charles and David Koch announced recently they would spend $889 million over the next two years, much of the discussion was about how that money could shape the upcoming presidential election. But AFP and other Koch-backed conservative organizations may be having their biggest impact on state politics, where targeted advertising and a strong organization can make a huge difference. 

"We're the third-worst state in the country for accepting federal dollars," said Andrew Ogles, AFP's state director said in an interview here. "It's time for us to stop. Anytime we have a problem, instead of coming up with a Tennessee solution, we run to the federal government with our hands out. No more." 

The aggressive action in Tennessee by AFP was not unusual. The group, started in 2004, now has chapters in 34 states. The state operations' general goals, like AFP and other Koch-allied groups nationally, are to oppose taxhikes, increases in government spending and what they view as excessive regulation. 

But AFP is playing a unique role in effectively serving as a conservative watchdog against fellow Republicans at the state level. In many states in the West and South, like Tennessee, both houses of the state legislature are controlled by the GOP and the governor is also a Republican. The policy debates are between more moderate Republicans and the party's conservative wing. 

I think the author of this MedHelp.org article has a clear bias that is not grass-roots conservatism, given his / her seizing of every opportunity to point out that AFP is partly funded by the KOOOOOCHS!

Still, even if the author's inent is to stir up concern, he/she presents the facts - which, of course, we here at LITD find encouraging.

The Tennessee legislature and its pointy-headed administrative / managerial class has its share of those afflicted with Reasonable Gentleman Syndrome:

The AFP effort made some Republican legislators wary and others angry. 

"We can't have a politics of intimidation," said Glen Casada, one of the Republican leaders of the Tennessee House. Casada was an early opponent of the Medicaid expansion, but he publicly criticized AFP for launching ads attacking fellow conservatives. 

Some of the Tennessee legislators, like Casada, had announced their opposition to Haslam's plan weeks ago. But many of them, on the eve of the vote this week, simply wouldn't say how they would vote, including House Speaker Beth Harwell, a Republican who is usually a Haslam ally. The undecided kept arguing they needed more information, which both Haslam allies and opponents said privately was really an indication that undecided Republicans were weighing the politics of the vote. 

"The problem is not many in the public understand the program," said Craig Becker, president of the Tennessee Hospital Association. "They just hear from Americans for Prosperity, the Koch brothers, saying 'this is Obamacare' and they say,'we don't like that." 

The committee's rejection of Haslam's bill saved many of the legislators from a choice they did not want to make: either rebuking the well-liked governor or conservative activists they fear. 

Fear.  I like that.  I want every Pub squish in the land to fear us to the depths of their beings.

"They pretty much own Libya"

The reach of ISIS has extended well into northern Africa:

hile the world has been riveted by the latest high-tension ISIS hostage drama, U.S. officials are expressing alarm over the less-publicized expansion by the terrorist group's "caliphate" from Syria and Iraq into neighboring regions.

In particular, several counter-terrorism officials expressed deep concern about ISIS asserting itself in Libya, where the U.S. is still reeling from the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on a diplomatic post in Benghazi that killed four Americans, including the U.S. Ambassador to Libya.

"I am becoming concerned with how quickly their new affiliates are getting organized," one counter-terrorism official closely watching ISIS developments told ABC News last week.

"They pretty much own Libya," a second official involved in counter-terrorism operations said. "We have zero collection there and zero authorities there."

The West is losing this.

The fruits of patty-cake - today's edition

In the P5+1 "negotiations" with Iran over its nuclear program, Iranian "negotiators" yell at post-American "negotiators," Iran declares that it won't ship any uranium to Russia, and the pointless talks keep getting their deadline extended.

I'd say this elite Iranian military commander has it just about right:

A top Iranian military leader claims that U.S. officials have been “begging us” to sign a nuclear deal during closed door negotiations with Tehran over its contested nuclear program, according to recent comments made to the Iranian state-controlled media.

Mohammad Reza Naghdi, the commander of the Basij, a paramilitary group operating under the wing of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC), recently claimed that the “Americans are begging us for a deal on the negotiation table,” according to comments published in Persian and independently translated for the Washington Free Beacon.

Naghdi added that American officials routinely “plea” with Iran in talks and that the United States is negotiating from a position of weakness, according to his comments, which follow earlier reports claiming that Iran’s leading negotiator “frequently shouts” at U.S. officials.

The military leader’s remarks appear to jibe with new reports that the United States is conceding ground to Iran in talks and will now allow it to “keep much of its uranium-enriching technology,” according to the Associated Press.

Iran, the AP reported, “refuses to meet U.S.-led demands for deep cuts in the number of centrifuges it uses to enrich uranium, a process that can create material for anything from chemotherapy to the core of an atomic bomb.”

Regional experts say that the Iranians feel that they are in a position of power in the talks and believe that the Obama administration is desperate to ink a deal.

Planned decline is going to result in incinerated cities.

Secretary Global-Test gets the respect he deserves

 . . . from the nation's top foreign-policy scholars - to the torment of the MSM:

Al Kamen does not sound very happy about these results over at the Washington Post. He seems equally peeved by the survey’s choice of most effective Secretary of State:

Secretary of State John Kerry, working diligently on some extraordinarily difficult foreign policy issues — China, neo-Soviet Russia, Islamic State, Iran, etc — isn’t getting even a tiny bit of credit these days from the tweedy, elbow-patched, wing-chair crowd.

Foreign Policy magazine this week announced the results of its 2014  Ivory Tower survey of 1,615 international relations scholars from 1,375 U.S. colleges.

One question they were asked was: “Who was the most effective U.S. secretary of state of the past 50 years?

The winner? Nobel Peace Prize winner Henry A. Kissinger, who was secretary for four years during the Nixon and Ford administrations. Since the Vietnam thing didn’t turn out so well, the scholars must have been grading him on openings to China and the Soviet Union?

Kissinger got 32.21 percent of the vote, which is extraordinary in such a large field.

“Don’t Know” came in a relatively distinct second, with 18.32 percent.

Is there any chance we could get Don’t Know to take over as Secretary of State immediately? What else is Don’t Know doing these days, besides making the odd guest appearance in “Family Circus” cartoons?

Kamen defies the wisdom of these tweedy solons by picking James Baker, their Number Three choice, as the true Most Effective Secretary of State. Rounding out the top five are Medeleine Albright (who waltzed North Korea into the nuclear club) and Hillary Clinton (who did absolutely nothing except rack up frequent-flyer miles, lie about Benghazi, make a laughingstock of the United States with her “Russian reset button” tomfoolery, and proclaim Bashar Assad to be a reformer.)

This Kamen is a real Ellsworth M. Toohey.  He apparently likes his iconic figures good 'n' mediocre.

Post-Americans may have "evolved" on the matter of distorting the definition of marriage, but they don't go for persecuting Christians to achieve it

An encouraging finding:

support for same-sex marriage rights is not the same thing as support for the trampling the religious convictions that lead millions to believe that gay marriage is a sin and should be opposed. In Oregon, a local bakery could be forced to pay a $150,000 fine after the business’s owners were found guilty of discrimination following their refusal to make a wedding cake for a lesbian couple in 2013. According to a new survey, a majority of Americans believe that is an injustice. 

While finding that Americans narrowly favor allowing gay and lesbian couples to legally marry, a new Associated Press-GfK poll also shows most believe wedding-related businesses should be allowed to deny service to same-sex couples for religious reasons.

Roughly half the country also thinks local officials and judges with religious objections ought to be exempt from any requirement that they issue marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples, according to the poll.

That view of the same-sex marriage issue echoes that of the Mormon church. Last week, the church called on state legislatures to pass new laws that protect gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people from discrimination but also to protect the rights of those who assert their religious beliefs.

According to that AP/GfK poll, conducted from January 29 to February 2 of 1,045 adults, 57 percent of the public believes that Americans offering wedding-related services should be legally allowed to refuse service to gay couples if it would violate their religious convictions. That same poll also found that a plurality, 44 percent, back the right of gay couples to marry in their home state while 39 percent oppose that right. 

Interestingly, AP/GfK found that the nation is evenly split at 48 to 48 percent on whether the Supreme Court should decide once and for all whether denying same-sex couples the right to wed constitutes discrimination.

Does the push toward redefining marriage inevitably find itself at loggerheads with not only the right of Christians to conduct business according to the tenets of their faith, but the obvious Judeo-Christian underpinnings of American culture?

Probably, and a SCOTUS decision one way or the other probably won't stave that off.

Brokaw to Williams: You've sullied the legacy, dude, and now you must go

The National Broadcasting Company's woes have been piling up of late.  There's MSNBC's most recent ratings slide, leading to talk of a "bloodbath."  There is, of course, Brian Williams's lie about the Chinook helicopter.

Now, its news division's last anchor of old-school stature, Tom Brokaw, is ratcheting up the pain a notch:

You know you’re in trouble when Tom Brokaw is out for your blood.

NBC’s most revered journalist is furious that Brian Williams is still in the anchor chair after he sheepishly admitted he hadn’t traveled on a helicopter hit by enemy fire.

“Brokaw wants Williams’ head on a platter,” an NBC source said. “He is making a lot of noise at NBC that a lesser journalist or producer would have been immediately fired or suspended for a false report.”

Brokaw was still the anchor in 2003, and has seethed about this for years.  Now that the truth has been made public, he doesn't want his successor, whose legacy is going to be He Who Damaged The Brand Irreparably, to stick around for another moment.

Other NBC folks are none too keen on Brian, either:

One longtime NBC employee who has worked with Williams on several occasions had a few dirty words to describe the celebrated anchor, calling him a “real pompous piece of s–t.”

“He’s an a–hole,” he fumed. “He’s not a journalist. He’s a reader.

“Oh, the fireworks that are going off inside,” he said. “It’s embarrassing. He’s the face on NBC. He’s a liar.

“Everyone knew it.”

The suits are still talking a good game about standing by their man at the moment, but something will have to give, sooner than later.

Debunking the dog vomit

I like what Streiff at Red State has to say about the Most Equal Comrade's prayer-breakfast remarks:

Obama’s criticism of the Crusades is really bizarre. While I’d be the last to assert that the Crusades were carried out under the Hague and Geneva Conventions the fact remains that the areas of the Middle East we consider to the muslim were Christian areas. Saint Paul was from Turkey. Saint John and Mary, mother of Christ, died in Turkey. Saint Augustine was born in Algeria. The current populations are muslim because their forefathers were conquered and forcibly converted to Islam from Christianity and Judaism. To look at the Crusades as Western aggression is something only a community organizer could do. The Crusades were the West’s counter-reaction to Islamic aggression.Likewise, the Inquisition (which I hasten to point out was not a concept limited to Catholics, Elizabeth I cheerfully burned Catholics just as her sister Mary had burned Protestants) has been studied and explained.

While he is correct that Jim Crow and slavery were both justified by their supporters using religious texts he ignores the fact that Christians, using those same texts, led the fight to end the slave trade, emancipate slaves, and give civil rights to former slaves. This is something that still has not been accomplished in the Islamic world. By the same token, holding up finite events that are 500 years old as a valid comparison to what is happening in Europe and the Islamic world today is just the worst sort of demagoguery.

The MEC is ashamed to be a Westerner, and aims to see the civilization that spawned him obliterated.  I do not engage in hyperbole when I say this.

The Most Equal Comrade hates the nation he presides over - today's edition

I've encountered some foul, scurrilous moral equivalence during my lifetime, which has coincided with the final stages of America's ruin, but this takes it to a whole new level:

At the National Prayer Breakfast, President Obama reminded attendees that violence rooted in religion isn’t exclusive to Islam, but has been carried out by Christians as well.

Obama said that even though religion is a source for good around the world, there will always be people willing to “hijack religion for their own murderous ends.”

“Unless we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ,” Obama said. “In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ.”

The world hears these utterances.  Our enemies, rivals, allies and friends.  They all reach a common conclusion: post-America is ripe for the raping.

One noteworthy sign of a moribund culture

Post-American society can't find any music being currently produced worth listening to:

Music Business Worldwide reports that it is the first time catalogue releases have sold more than new albums over the course of a full year – with a previous victory for old records during one month in 2012 considered a "momentary blip."

One example of a catalogue album selling well is Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers' Greatest Hits – originally released in 1993 – which is currently in the iTunes top 100 albums chart. 

Industry expert Tim Ingham says it's a worrying trend for the music business and adds that it's only a matter of time before catalogue records outsell new releases on physical formats such as CD and vinyl as well as online.

He says: "Such data asks two very clear questions of record labels: are people merely starting to consume their new music on streaming services rather than buying it in album form? Or are they increasingly less impressed with the new album releases that arrive year-in, year-out?

"One thing looks certain. It now only appears a matter of time – very possibly in 2015 – when catalogue albums outsell new releases across all formats in a single year.

"If the decline in current album sales continues at its current pace, catalogue albums will almost certainly outsell new albums on all formats by 2016, and possibly even in 2015."

I know, I know.  The kids - even the young adults - hell, even the old adults - are tapped into sources of   music that give them exactly what they want, often for free, and a large portion of that consists of strong followings for various kinds of "musical" acts that are out there busting their asses to build followings.  And none of them are worth your time of day.

The fact is, everybody sees that the emperor is naked.  None of the crud being "created" today, from electronic pop to "roots Americana" to esoteric "jazz," holds a candle to what was created up to about 1970.

I am an adjunct lecturer in rock history at our local state university campus, and last night, I posted a lengthy collection of recordings by artists performing tunes composed by Brill Building songwriters in the late 1950s and 1960s.  I literally wept as I did so.  The craftsmanship of the compositions, the arrangements, the vocal delivery are, by comparison to anything that has come down the pike since, is so exquisite, so expressive of a deep understanding of the human condition, that it's no wonder it survives and Nine Inch Nails doesn't, and  Katy Perry won't.  And then consider that 50s and 60s Brill Building pop was a mere emulation of the artistry wrought by the previous generation of songwriters to occupy the Brill Building and similar haunts along Broadway - the works of Harry Warren, E.Y. Harburg, the Gershwin brothers, Dorothy Fields and Jimmy McHugh, Cole Porter, et al.

And the thing that most makes me feel like weeping is that these sales of "classic" "music" consist of fairly recent mediocrities such as the above-cited Tom Petty.  The culture had been lost for a good long time by the time he was deemed worthy of any kind of recognition.

Our fate if we don't defeat them

Just when you thought they couldn't top their own evil:

According to the Jerusalem Post, ISIS posted pictures to its website purporting to show the Jordanian pilot who was captured by the group in December being burned alive.

Apparently the pilot was led into a cage, with his clothing soaked in gasoline.

We're losing.  If this is happening, we're losing.

Get your kids out of government schools - today's edition

Creepy in the extreme:

 Concerns have arisen over the perceived teaching of Islam in California’s seventh grade school curriculum. Questions have been raised as to whether the education within these classrooms are merely teaching about Islam or preaching the faith, in what many now view as a scandal of indoctrination of youth.

That question was central to a recent lecture and discussion addressing the topic of Islam in public elementary schools hosted by the American Freedom Alliance (AFA) at the Luxe Hotel in Los Angeles. A panel of four speakers, three of whom are public educators, conveyed their personal experiences with this subject.

One of the textbooks in question was History Alive, which was approved and adopted by the Palo Alto-based California state Board of Education in 1998. The text is part of their adoption of the History, Social Science Content Standards for CA Public Schools.

While teaching Islam, along Christianity and Judaism, is an important part of history, the educators present at the AFA lecture pointed out that History Alive pays an enormous amount of time and attention to Islam (55 pages) in the seventh grade. When teachers were asked whether Christianity (16 pages, which focused mainly on the Crusades) and Judaism (1 page) were given the same amount of attention in the classroom, they were told yes — but in sixth grade.

This proved to be untrue — Jewish and Christian curriculums were reportedly given half as much attention as Islam was. The lecturers found this to be particularly concerning when noting America’s Judeo-Christian foundation, where there is a separation of church and state. In Islam, there is no separation of church and state.

This is indoctrination of a transparently precise nature:

Maurey Williams, who taught History Alive between 1995-2001, pointed out that certain teachers in City Heights Horace Mann Middle School in San Diego would ask students to recite the “Shahada”. The “Shahada” is the Islamic profession of faith. Students were also reportedly asked to select a Muslim name from a list of 30. The same treatment reportedly did not apply when teaching Christianity or Judaism.
ACT! for America’s Samira Tamer expressed that “most modern American textbooks avoid painting a rosy picture of Christianity” by teaching about the Crusades in graphic detail. Yet, History Alive failed to include the fact that the bloody war was waged to retrieve land that was forcefully stolen from Christians by Muslims, noting that “they leave out major portions of the truth.”
Samira added that the text is riddled with severe implications about other faiths that could steer impressionable young minds. She noted that when teaching about Christianity, the textbook presents disclaimers such as “Christians believe,” implying an absence of credibility or historical evidence. Whereas the teachings of “Islam are presented as facts.” In a segment on Judaism, the book writes, “Moses claimed to receive the 10 Commandments from God.”

When it came to Islam? “Muhammad received the Qur’an from God.” 

This is the real face of the push for "diversity" and "inclusion."  And it's going to get us all murdered in our beds.

Why we call them Freedom-Haters - today's edition

The arrogance necessary to publicly presume this is breathtaking:

With the release of its 2016 spending blueprint Monday, the Obama White House officially signaled its intent to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans, in part by placing limits on retirement savings.

The proposed budget, which allots $4 trillion in spending for fiscal year 2016, proposes to cap tax-deferred saving in 401(k) and Individual Retirement Accounts at about $3.4 million. 

That amount of savings generates more than $200,000 in income annually when annuitized, an amount that should be sufficient for most, according to the Obama administration’s rationale behind the proposal. 

The Most Equal Comrade is really stoking the class envy this year.  It's The Great Leveling Project in action.  Punish ambition.  Keep the cattle-masses dependent on Leviathan's machinations:

The cap – an idea that Obama proposed last year as well – is a relatively small gambit in the budget’s larger effort to raise revenues by increasing capital gains taxes, inheritance taxes, and taxes on foreign revenue streams of U.S. multinational companies.  

If the Most Equal Comrade says one syllable about having an interest in sound policy, it's a God-damned lie.  His motivation is pure ideology. Recall his 2008 conversation with ABC's Charlie Gibson:

Mr. Gibson: “In each instance, when the [capital gains tax] rate dropped, revenues from the tax increased; the government took in more money. And in the 1980s, when the tax was increased to 28 percent, the revenues went down.
“So why raise it at all, especially given the fact that 100 million people in this country own stock and would be affected?”
Mr. Obama: “Well, Charlie, what I’ve said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness.”

Willing to take in less money just to stick it to "the wealthy."  You don't get any more socialist than that. 
Listen up, you totalitarian jackboots.  A person's money is his or her money and it matters not a whit whether he or she is rich, middle class or poor.  Your government ought to have to puke all over itself to justify taking one more penny than is needed to carry out the functions specified in Mr. Madison's precious document.

What the hell was that stimulus money five years ago supposed to be for?

It's like the Most Equal Comrade is sending ever-less-likely-to-be-passed ideas up to the new Congress just to have an excuse to call it intransigent.

Remember all those signs we saw along the highways right after the stimulus was passed touting the upgrades made possible by downgrading our grandchildren's shot at a decent standard of living?  Well, it wasn't enough, and this time, the nasty capitalists who are going to pony up are those greedy corporations that go overseas to avoid having their money seized by Leviathan:

 The $4 trillion budget that President Barack Obama sends Congress on Monday proposes higher taxes on wealthier Americans and corporations, and an ambitious $478 billion public works program for highway, bridge and transit upgrades.

The grab-bag of proposals, many recycled from past Obama budgets, already is generating fierce objections from Republicans, who control both chambers of Congress for the first time in his presidency. They will move ahead on their own, mindful they eventually must strike a deal with Obama, whose signature is needed for the budget to become law.

[snip]

Obama's six-year $478 billion public works program would provide upgrades for the nation's highways, bridges and transit systems, in an effort to tap into bipartisan support for spending on badly needed repairs.
Half of that money would come from a one-time mandatory tax on profits that U.S. companies have amassed overseas, according to White House officials who spoke on condition of anonymity before the budget was released.

The tax on accumulated foreign profits would be set at 14 percent, significantly lower than the current top corporate rate of 35 percent. 

Can you say "Cloward and Piven?"

Bad guys smelling weakness - today's edition

The bear probes the West:

Tensions between Russia and the UK have heightened after it was revealed that the Russian bomber intercepted by RAF fighter jets was carrying a nuclear missile designed to destroy Trident submarines.

The TU-95 aircraft were spotted on long range radar flying down from Scotland towards the English Channel, where they were close to entering British airspace, the Sunday Express report.

>Ministry of Defence sources revealed the ‘seek and find’ nuclear warhead missile which can destroy the British Vanguard submarines which form the country’s nuclear deterrent.

It led to the incident being described as “yet another in a series of deliberately provocative” actions by Vladimir Putin and shows that the Russians have put NATO countries in the list of adversaries.

Putin-ruled Russia may have a collapse ruble, but it has will.

The evil that encroaches upon us

These are the monsters who, when they're finished with Iraq, will work their darkness on America:

When Islamic State group militants invaded the Central Library of Mosul earlier this month, they were on a mission to destroy a familiar enemy: other people's ideas.

Residents say the extremists smashed the locks that had protected the biggest repository of learning in the northern Iraq town, and loaded around 2,000 books — including children's stories, poetry, philosophy and tomes on sports, health, culture and science — into six pickup trucks. They left only Islamic texts.

The rest?

"These books promote infidelity and call for disobeying Allah. So they will be burned," a bearded militant in traditional Afghani two-piece clothing told residents, according to one man living nearby who spoke to The Associated Press. The man, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared retaliation, said the Islamic State group official made his impromptu address as others stuffed books into empty flour bags.

Stamping out knowledge and, indeed, the whole notion of anything being precious, is precisely their agenda:

A University of Mosul history professor, who spoke on condition he not be named because of his fear of the Islamic State group, said the extremists started wrecking the collections of other public libraries last month. He reported particularly heavy damage to the archives of a Sunni Muslim library, the library of the 265-year-old Latin Church and Monastery of the Dominican Fathers and the Mosul Museum Library with works dating back to 5000 BC.

Citing reports by the locals who live near these libraries, the professor added that the militants used to come during the night and carry the materials in refrigerated trucks with Syria-registered license plates. The fate of these old materials is still unknown, though the professor suggested some could be sold on the black market. In September, Iraqi and Syrian officials told the AP that the militants profited from the sale of ancient artifacts.
The professor said Islamic State group militants appeared determined to "change the face of this city ... by erasing its iconic buildings and history."
Since routing government forces and seizing Mosul last summer, the Islamic State group has destroyed dozens of historic sites, including the centuries-old Islamic mosque shrines of the prophets Seth, Jirjis and Jonah.
An Iraqi lawmaker, Hakim al-Zamili, said the Islamic State group "considers culture, civilization and science as their fierce enemies."

 

We're talking about some of the oldest works in the history of any civilization, as well as the expressions of Iraqi culture, safeguarded even during the Saddam Hussein era and the ensuing tumult of the aftermath.

Demonic.

Where they think the gravy will come from to go on a path other than austerity is beyond me

Podemos, Spain's version of Syriza, held a huge rally rally in Madrid, calling for a casting-off of the troika-imposed measures that the last few responsible voices in Europe have insisted upon in return for letting these Mediterranean basket cases die on the vine.

At least 100,000 people marched through Madrid on Saturday in a show of strength by a fledgling radical leftist party, which hopes to emulate the success of Greece's Syriza party in the Spanish general election later this year.

Podemos supporters from across Spain converged around the Cibeles fountain Saturday before packing the avenue leading to Puerta del Sol square in what was the party's largest rally to date.

Police said at least 100,000 people participated in the march while Podemos put the figure at 300,000.

Podemos ("We Can") aims to shatter the country's predominantly two-party system and the "March for Change" gathered crowds in the same place where sit-in protests against political and financial corruption laid the party's foundations in 2011.

The party's rise is greatly due to the charisma of its pony-tailed leader, Pablo Iglesias, a 36-year-old political science professor.

Hailing from the Madrid working class neighborhood of Vallecas, Iglesias prefers jeans and rolled up shirt sleeves to a suit and tie and champions slogans such as Spain is "run by the butlers of the rich" and that the economy must serve the people.

 Podemos sees itself as an alternative to the two parties that dominate the Spanish political landscape. And what kind of different way does it envisions?

Podemos has often expressed its support for some of the policies of left-wing governments in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, which makes many Spanish mainstream politicians bristle.

In Europe, it openly supports Syriza, which won national elections in Greece on Jan. 25 and which has pledged to challenge the austerity measures imposed on the country by the European Union and International Monetary Fund.

While there are major political and economic differences between Spain and Greece, both countries have suffered severe economic crises, massive unemployment and austerity measures while simultaneously having to put up with myriad political corruption scandals.

Ah, yes!  Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador!  Those bastions of prosperity and self-reliance!

And in 1991, Francis Fukuyama thought we'd reached the End of History.  The Cold War's over!  That means that everybody gets the obvious efficacy of the free market and the obvious failure of socialism!

Didn't work out that way, did it?  Socialism may be a phenomenally bad idea, but the illusion with which it tempts the susceptible is so juicy - the idea that no matter how poor you get, there is always some supposed uber-class from which to demand "economic justice" - that it doesn't die the easy death of earlier historical follies.  At least none of the lessons to be learned from it have been hard enough yet to kill it off.