From the Baltimore Examiner:

…Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, with about $60 billion in assets each, are America’s richest men. With all that money, what can they force us to do? Can they take our house to make room so that another person can build an auto dealership or a casino parking lot? Can they force us to pay money into the government-run retirement Ponzi scheme called Social Security? Can Buffett and Gates force us to bus our children to schools out of our neighborhood in the name of diversity? Unless they are granted power by politicians, rich people have little power to force us to do anything.

A GS-9, or a lowly municipal clerk, has far more life-and-death power over us. It’s they to whom we must turn to for permission to build a house, ply a trade, open a restaurant and myriad other activities. It’s government people, not rich people, who have the power to coerce and make our lives miserable. Coercive power goes a long way toward explaining political corruption….

Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s hawking of Barack Obama’s vacated U.S. Senate seat; Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel’s alleged tax-writing favors; former Rep. William Jefferson’s business bribes; and the Jack Abramoff scandal are mere pimples on the government corruption landscape. We can think of these and similar acts as jailable illegal corruption. They pale in comparison to what’s for all practical purposes the same thing, but simply legal corruption….

From Chicago Boyz:

I think a threshold or tipping point exists in the ratio between the political power of those who pay taxes and those who consume taxes directly. After that tipping point is reached, those who pay taxes become the economic slaves of those who consume taxes.

I think California has passed that point. [h/t Instapundit] Tax consumers now control the state government and can vote themselves almost any level of personal income and benefits they wish while taxpayers cannot muster the political capital to defend themselves…

…California has ~2.3 million unionized government workers and ~18.6 million civilians. With so many people organized with a laser-like focus on increasing taxes and spending, the private working citizens of California find it nearly impossible to prevent government workers from voting their own paychecks.

In effect, government workers have hijacked democracy. Instead of state employees working for the people, the people now work for the state employees. As far as the state government is concerned, people in the private sector work merely so that they can be taxed for the benefit of the tax consumers. They’ve entered a condition not unlike like that of pre-industrial serfs…

And, from the San Diego Union Tribune:

For years, the Democrats who dominate Sacramento have made it clear in 100 ways that their No. 1 priority is protecting and enriching unions…

…When Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed his “Million Solar Roofs” initiative, Democratic lawmakers blocked it because he wouldn’t require that the solar panels be installed by union shops. When a bill was introduced to use the Internet to make it easier for poor families to enroll their kids in health care programs, Democrats killed it because it might prompt layoffs of union members who handled paper applications.

So much for their party’s support for environmentalism or social services for the needy. Democratic officeholders know their political futures largely depend on keeping unions happy and behave accordingly.

Now the state budget crisis has yielded the starkest example of this subservience yet. Controller John Chiang, a Democrat who aspires to be governor, is refusing to enforce Schwarzenegger’s order that state workers take two unpaid furlough days a month beginning Feb. 1 to ensure the government has enough money to continue to perform its basic functions…

From Reason:

…After the 2000 Census, the richest county in America was Douglas County, Colorado. By 2007, Douglas County had fallen to sixth. The new top three are now Loudon County, Virginia; Fairfax County, Virginia; and Howard County, Maryland. All three are suburbs or exurbs of Washington, D.C. In 2000, 14 of the 100 richest counties were in the Washington, D.C., area. In 2007, it was nine of the richest 20…

…The problem is that, save for the tech corridor in D.C.’s Virginia exurbs, the Washington Metro area doesn’t actually produce anything. Washington doesn’t create wealth, it just moves it around—redistributes it. As government grows and takes control of more and more of the private economy—either through spending, regulation, or taxes—more and more wealth that’s created elsewhere comes to Washington to be devoured.

The Washington wealth boom is the result of the massive expansion in government over the last 10 years, which has populated the region with an increase in well-paid federal employees, and wealthy federal contractors and lobbyists…

…The Cato Institute’s Chris Edwards estimates that in 2005, the average federal employee made $106,579 per year including benefits, about twice as much as the average person makes in the private sector. Federal wages are also rising at about twice the rate that wages are rising in the private sector…

Lifted in its entirety from Powerline:

Eric Holder illustrates the dangers of ambition married to weak character. His subservience to the interests of Bill Clinton in approving the corrupt pardon of Marc Rich and the indefensible pardons of the FALN terrorists was a disgrace. His role in these pardons should disqualify him for higher office.

Holder himself does not defend his role in the Rich pardon. He concedes it was a mistake. He claims somewhat paradoxically that he learned so much from his mistake that he will be a better Attorney General. Holder makes no such concession or claim in the case of the FALN terrorists. Joseph Connor is the son of one of their victims. He testified against Holder in the confirmation hearing yesterday. In “Terrorists killed my father,” Connor writes:

At the time of the [FALN] pardons, Eric H. Holder Jr. was deputy attorney general. In considering his department’s recommendation on clemency, he met with supporters of the terrorists but ignored their victims. He pushed staff members to drop their strong opposition to a presidential pardon for the FALN members and alter a report they had prepared for the president recommending against clemency. Today, although two turned down their pardons because they were unwilling to renounce violence, many of the convicted FALN members walk free. And a man who was instrumental in their release may become the highest law enforcer in the land.

Holder said at his confirmation hearing Thursday that he thought Clinton’s decision to pardon the FALN members was “reasonable.” But they were bad people. During their Chicago trial, some of them threatened the life of Judge Thomas McMillen, who was hearing the case. Carmen Valentin, one of those later pardoned by Clinton, told the judge, “You are lucky that we cannot take you right now,” and she told other officers of the court, “You will be walking with canes and wheelchairs. … Revolutionary justice can be fierce.” She also declared war against the United States. Dylcia Pagan, another recipient of Clinton’s gift, warned the courtroom: “All of you, I would advise you to watch your backs.” McMillen was convinced the defendants would continue being terrorists as long as they lived. “If there was a death penalty,” he said at their sentencing, “I’d impose the penalty on you without hesitation.”

In its editorial today supporting the confirmation of Eric Holder as Attorney General, the Washginton Post adopts Holder’s defense of the FALN pardons:

Mr. Holder defended his support for Mr. Clinton’s commutation of the sentences of 16 members of a Puerto Rican terrorist group based on the facts that none of the 16 had been convicted of murder and that most had served almost 20 years in prison. There is still much to dislike in the commutations themselves. But no new evidence emerged to challenge Mr. Holder’s assertion that the recommendation was based on his best judgment.

This defense of the FALN terrorists lacks a certain logic. Whether or not the FALN terrorists were convicted of murder, they wantonly perpetrated it. Does Holder dispute that? Morevoer, if the recommendation was based on Holder’s best judgment, Holder shouldn’t be a partner at a prominent Washington law firm, let alone the Attorney General of the United States.