1. Balanced Approach: The Tax Hikes That Democrats Should Propose

2. Verizon Strikers Using Children, Harassing & Menacing Replacement Workers

3. The Enemy Within

4. Verizon Offers $50,000 Reward After Sabotage On Day Two Of Militant Union Strike

1. Balanced Approach: The Tax Hikes That Democrats Should Propose

So this year’s fiscal-policy code word is “balanced approach.” This means nothing more or less than higher taxes on high earners, business income, and capital gains.Congressman Eric Cantor remarked at one point in the debt-ceiling debate that the Democrats (including Obama) were totally stuck on the idea of raising taxes. But Cantor stressed that they never presented an economic rationale for higher taxes. It was all about class warfare, pure and simple.Class warfare is like catnip to progressives. The problem with class warfare is that it doesn’t give us growth and jobs. At least a few of the Democrats recognize that growth is a mandatory part of a fiscal-reform strategy (higher taxes and spending/entitlement cuts are the other two).Remember the Bush tax-cut debate last year? Then, Democrats readily admitted the numbers: the Bush tax cuts on high earners were worth an estimated $700 billion in revenues over ten years, while the same cuts on everyone else were worth about $2.8 trillion.You can raise taxes on high earners, but you don’t solve any economic problem that way. There just aren’t enough rich people to buy candy and bubble gum for everyone else. Plus, you kill job growth by wiping out their incentives to take on economic risk.So it’s plain and obvious that the ONLY motivation that Obama and the Democrats have for their “balanced approach” is class envy. Economics has nothing to do with it.Please click here for the rest of the post.

2. Verizon Strikers Using Children, Harassing & Menacing Replacement Workers

It’s only been a few days since 45,000 CWA and IBEW members walked off their jobs at Verizon, however, incidents of harassment, sabotage, and illegal picketing have already begun to pile up.On Tuesday, Verizon obtained an injunction in Pennsylvania and filed for one in Delaware “to prevent ‘illegal’ and ‘reprehensible’ strike activities such as keeping managers out of buildings.”In one deplorable incident, a foul-mouthed IBEW member in New Jersey put his young daughter in front of a Verizon truck turning into a driveway as he berated the driver using expletives.Please click here for the rest of the post.

3. The Enemy Within

Rick Perry said a prayer on Sunday.After you’ve picked yourselves up off the floor and recovered from your collective shock, you can read the full transcript of it here, or if you are so inclined, you can watch the video here. As is perfectly obvious to everyone who has ever met someone who’s attended a Christian church, Perry’s prayer was standard-fare mainstream evangelicalism – and painstakingly non-partisan. . . . Perry had the audacity to suggest – in keeping with the beliefs of virtually every religious person I know (including non-Christians) – that a nation needs the blessings of God in order to survive and thrive . . . .This innocuous statement provoked some truly idiotic and bigoted responses on twitter from some folks who are regularly given column inches on prominent conservative blogs. Jenn Rubin, token “conservative” at the Washington Post, was really upset that the event was supposed to be inclusive, but Perry used the word “Christ.” Or something. Furthermore, Rubin posited that nobody outside of Texas likes Jesus or people who believe in Jesus, and therefore this was going to hurt Perry on the national stage.At this point, though, it’s pretty clear that David Brooks is a more reliable barometer of conservative thought than Rubin. Perhaps more disturbing is that bloggers who are regularly given platforms at actual conservative sites went much farther (and stupider) than Rubin.Please click here for the rest of the post.

4. Verizon Offers $50,000 Reward After Sabotage On Day Two Of Militant Union Strike

It’s been less than 24 hours since the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) called 45,000 of their respective members out on strike against Verizon and, already, there are reports of sabotage of Verizon equipment, as well as illegal picketing.Please click here for the rest of the post.