California Economic Recovery Stumbles, New Jobs Report Shows

Atlas is still shrugging.

At Los Angeles Times, "California employers drop 29,200 jobs in May."

California's employers halted hiring in May, shedding 29,200 jobs from payrolls in yet another worrying sign that the nation's economic recovery is foundering.

The state's unemployment rate fell to 11.7%, from 11.8% the month before, according to the state Employment Development Department, but the job losses are the most significant since September of last year. The unemployment rate can fall when the state loses jobs because people drop out of the labor force, either because they're frustrated or are leaving the state.

California has the second-highest jobless rate in the nation, after Nevada.

The jobs data comes among worrying signs in California and the nation. Home sales in California dropped 13.3% in May from a year ago, and prices dropped 10.4%. Stocks teetered this week amid renewed fears that Greece will not be able to service its significant debt burden. And debates in Congress led some economists to worry that the U.S. will default on its debt payments, which would create further financial problems.

Still, economists said the ups and downs in the job market are to be expected in a tepid recovery.

"This is completely consistent with what we expected in California — the recovery is going to be slow," said Bill Watkins, director of the Center for Economic Research and Forecasting at California Lutheran University.

Right.

To be expected, since this is the Obama Depression. They just don't call it that.

Wisconsin Vindication

At Wall Street Journal, "Unions Lose Their Second Challenge to Walker's Labor Reforms."

Plus, a lot of action on the ground in Madison, and Althouse has coverage:

Stripper Ginger Lee Alleges Anthony Weiner Pressured Her to Lie About Online Relationship

At Los Angeles Times, "Ex-porn actress alleges Anthony Weiner told her to cover up online activities."

Also, at New York Post, "Weiner text pal Ginger Lee set to strip again tonight."

And at The Other McCain, "Weiner’s Teen Tweeter."

Huffington Post Beats New York Times in Traffic

I read the New York Times just about everyday, although not for the "objective" analysis or anything. The paper still has phenomenal resources and tremendous talent, but you gotta keep 'em honest. And Huffington Post? Well, Pamela Geller calls 'em PuffHo, so there you go.

At Forbes, "Huffpo Tops NY Times in Traffic, But With a Huge Asterisk."

RELATED At Nieman Lab, "#Twittermakesyouloved: Jill Abramson’s now on Twitter." (Background at Glenn Reynolds.")

Amanda Marcotte's #Weinergate Embarrassment

I checked out Amanda Marcotte's Twitter feed yesterday morning. She's a strange woman. I was tempted to write something but didn't. Kinda burnout out on #Weinergate, although the complete destruction of progressives on this is simply too much. (Joan Walsh was off Twitter all day Monday, hoping to avoid an expected backlash.) Anyway, count on Robert Stacy McCain to come through with an epic report on Ms. Marcotte, "WeinerGate Götterdämmerung":

Life is a big joke and Ms. Marcotte is the punchline, so that all we need do is to say, “Hey, go read what this idiot wrote,” and everyone will see for themselves why she is so transparently absurd.

Yet Amanda Marcotte is taken seriously by influential people, who pay her to preach to the rest of us, and it would be wrong to dismiss her without at least attempting a serious analysis of her errors. It may be true of Ms. Marcotte, as Mary McCarthy said of Lillian Hellman, that every word she writes is a lie, including “and” and “the.” But exactly why and how her writing is so pervasively false requires further explanation.

Note how Ms. Marcotte deploys “ideologue” as an epithet against Breitbart when she is herself an avowed adherent of the ideology of feminism. Indeed, if it weren’t for her idolatrous devotion to feminism, Ms. Marcotte would have nothing to write about. Her entire raison d’être as a writer is to filter the world through a feminist lens.

She is one of those writers who, despairing of achieving notoriety in the larger literary world, seeks a readership in some ghetto niche occupied almost entirely by third-rate talents, so that her occasional second-rate contributions appear conspicuously impressive by comparison. And in her feminist niche, the only standard by which anyone may be judged is according to their zealous devotion to The Sacred Cause:

Weiner has an outstanding record supporting sexual rights of others, with100% ratings from NARAL and Planned Parenthood, and has a strong record of support for gay rights.

See? He votes the right way. And isn’t that what really matters?

RTWT. It's a long exegesis of Amanda Marcotte's utter depravity. She's got some kinda record. Wow. Even Jill Stanek piles on: "Liberal Feminists Blow Off Weiner Sex Scandal." (And linked there is Jessica Dweck at Slate, "The Case for Tolerating Left-Wing Lotharios.")

My interest wavers on radical feminism, because it's so complicated, frankly (radical feminists can be found on the left and right, although those on the latter side deny it). But considering all that's happened of late, I should probably have more on this in upcoming posts shortly.

Photo Credit: Flickr.

Demonic: How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America

A longer discussion with Ann Coulter, at Sean Hannity's.

I've been looking forward to reading this. I'm interested in Coulter's theory. She talks about how mobs are always demonic, but there's more to it. So, until I've read some of it. Available at Amazon: Demonic: How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America.

Karen Alloy, Polls, Religion, and Gay Marriage

Okay, here's a placeholder, since I'll be away for a few hours.

And, well, it's a good chance to check out Karen Alloy, who's been scarce around here, which is lame. Anyway, she's right about Islam. And more on religion, from Gallup, "More Than 9 in 10 Americans Continue to Believe in God."

And strangely, folks still believe in God, but, hmm, maybe not so much the Bible, which frowns on homosexuality. See LAT, "Support in polls for same-sex marriage could influence Proposition 8 legal battle, experts say." Gallup's cited, for example.

But wait! Compare to Maggie Gallagher, "The Left's Endless Culture War."

Anyway, you're probably not gay if you like Karen Alloy, potty mouth and all.

Okay, check back with me tonight!

Mitt Romney Officially Launches 2012 Campaign

From PBS:

And at NYT, "Romney, Opening Race, Presents Himself as the Candidate to Face Obama."

I like Romney. But as I've said, I worry he's not conservative enough to generate enthusiasm, and if he's the nominee he may not differentiate himself enough from Obama, especially on the RomneyCare albatross.

Kevin Williamson's Guide to Socialism

Have you read his book? I've read some longer snippets, but held off going further for now, mainly because I think he's taken a public goods approach and applied it broadly to any economic situation where states supplant markets. Socialism in this sense isn't necessarily Marxism, but that's all I can say until I finish it. You get the gist of it at the clip, in any case:

Dr. Charli Carpenter and the Laws of War

Charli Carpenter is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She's also a progressive Israel-hater at Lawyers, Guns and Murder. I wrote previously on Charli's entry on Palestine. See, "Israel-Bashing Progressives Paint Iran/Syrian-Backed Border Incursion as 'Martin Luther King-Style Non-Violence'." Not only is Charli's post itself a disgraceful bit of anti-Israel propaganda, the anti-Semitic comments therein are shocking, as I noted:

It's like a bloodthirsty mob that's mainlined a toxic zombie cocktail of Noam Chomsky and the Hamas Charter's genocidal jihad. Seriously. It's Western Jew hatred condensed in netroots fever-swamp form, available on an ostensibly responsible academic political science blog.

I tried to generate serious discussion at the thread (who knows why?), but Robert Farley childishly scrubbed my link and replaced it with his favorite jail-bait pop songster. Che's chicken, I guess. Manchild loser.

Anyway, Charli's an expert on civilian protection in international conflict, and her writing is quite conducive to the extreme left's campaign of delegitimation of Israel as an apartheid state. In two recent essays at Foreign Affairs, Charli utilizes the widely discredited Goldstone Report as a launchpad for a theoretical and legalistic discussion on reducing civilian casualties through international law. See "Fighting the Laws of War: Protecting Civilians in Asymmetric Conflict," and "War Crimes Reporting After Goldstone: Filling the Geneva Regime's Gaps Through Monitoring." Charli shifts to a more systemic focus, but, especially in the first essay, which is a book review, the abstraction at the argument ends up leaving her case missing the most important problems when applied to Israel's recent wars. One of the more inane points she makes (or not inane, if we understand it as essentially a crude Code Pink-style gambit), is that the U.S. should actually abjure precision-guided remote weapons technology in favor of sending in boots on the ground. Basically, if nation-states had skin in the game they wouldn't kill civilians. Rebutting a point made by Michael Gross, in Moral Dilemmas and Modern War, she argues:

In outlining the limitations presented by the laws of war in addressing modern conflicts, Gross argues that the current legal framework for civilian protection must change to meet state interests. He is sympathetic to the new tendency among Western states to broaden the scope of acceptable military targets to include civilians who assist insurgents. Yet this is a deviation from the existing norm by states seeking to pursue their interests outside the bounds of the law. Were this trend adopted as a new legal standard, it would be nothing less than an abandonment of the current rules, weakening civilian protection rather than strengthening it.

Moreover, underlying Gross' belief that the laws of war must change to meet states' needs is the historically flawed notion that modern combat presents unique challenges. The kinds of asymmetries in the warfare he writes about are hardly unprecedented. The laws of war have in fact already adapted to many of the questions that, according to Gross, have been raised for the first time by recent wars. The current framework distinguishes, for example, between civilians who support warring factions by providing food and shelter, who are not automatically rendered legitimate targets, and civilians who take up arms themselves, who do lose their immunity. Gross points out that these rules place critical restraints on the actions of state militaries. But he overstates the case when he suggests that the laws of war tie their hands completely. To Gross, there seem to be only two options for state forces engaged in asymmetric wars: bend the rules by fighting guerrillas with an expanded notion of legitimate targets, or prepare to lose.

Yet a third option exists: militaries can choose to place their uniformed men and women in harm's way rather than cede the moral high ground by placing civilians in greater danger. When Gross describes the fundamental dilemma of asymmetric war as "who do we bomb when there are no more accessible military targets?" he assumes that states must deploy aerial firepower to defeat their unconventional enemies. But this is not the only tool in the arsenals of Western states. To combat insurgents and protect civilians simultaneously, governments could choose to use ground troops, which are arguably better equipped to discriminate between innocent bystanders and insurgents and their accomplices. Although militaries risk significantly higher casualties by deploying their troops rather than dropping precision bombs, this sacrifice is precisely what the logic of just war requires: that civilians not become more expendable than a country's armed forces.

Three points: Charli's reflexively resistant to an expanded definition of combatants (at the highlighted passage above), which is an odd thing considering that from Afghanistan to Iraq, and most definitely in the case of Israel's wars against state-backed Islamist movements, it's increasingly non-conventional combatants who are waging war against states. Such fighting forces aren't generally paying attention to the Marquess of Queensberry niceties of supranational legal institutions. And while true that ground units would be more likely to avoid killing non-combatants, the argument goes explicitly against trends in anti-insurgency toward unmanned high-technology warfare. Americans don't necessarily tolerate casualties, especially over time and when victory in war in unassured. Thus making a case for increasing the number of engagements with boots on the ground is sneaking in an antiwar argument to increase the political costs of war and perhaps reduce military effectiveness in some cases.

Also, it's basically dishonest to begin analysis of civilian casualties with the Goldstone Report. Even before Richard Goldstone renounced his own investigation in the Washington Post, the legitimacy of the Goldstone Report was highly contested (it's an international solidarity hit piece). In her most glaring omission, Charli neglects mention of the use of human shields by irregular forces, which was one of the most important aspects of Palestinian war fighting during the 2008 war. See the Jerusalem Post, "'Hamas Used Kids as Human Shields'":

Hamas gunmen used Palestinian children as human shields, and established command centers and Kassam launch pads in and near more than 100 mosques and hospitals during Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip last year, according to a new Israeli report being released on Monday that aims to counter criticism of the IDF.

The detailed 500-page report, obtained exclusively by The Jerusalem Post, was written by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (Malam), a small research group led by Col. (res.) Reuven Erlich, a former Military Intelligence officer who works closely with the army.

The IDF and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) cooperated with the report’s authors and declassified hundreds of photographs, videos, prisoner interrogations and Hamas-drawn sketches as part of an effort to counter the criticism leveled at Israel in the UN-sponsored Goldstone Report.

Work on the Malam report began immediately after former judge Richard Goldstone issued his damning report of Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip in September.

One example of the material revealed in the Malam report is an-until-now classified sketch of the village of Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza discovered by IDF troops during the operation, that details the extensive deployment of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and snipers inside and adjacent to civilian homes.

The sketch was discovered in a home of a Hamas operative together with several IEDs and Kalashnikov rifles.

“The Goldstone Report is one-sided, biased, selective and deceptive, since it simply accepts Hamas claims at face value and presents everything through Hamas’s eyes,” Erlich said.

The Malam report also provides an analysis of another sketch found during the offensive in the Atatra neighborhood in northern Gaza City that Erlich said proves Hamas’s culpability for the ensuing death and destruction.

“By placing all of their weaponry next to homes, by operating out of homes, mosques and hospitals, by firing rockets next to schools and by using human shields, Hamas is the one responsible for the civilian deaths during the operation,” Erlich said.

More at the link, and see also the full report, "Response to the Goldstone Report: Hamas and the Terrorist Threat from the Gaza Strip; The Main Findings of the Goldstone Report Versus the Factual Findings."

Finally, Charli Carpenter has long exhibited an anti-American streak in her research under the guise of scholarly inquiry. It was blatantly obvious during her writing on WikiLeaks, although perhaps less so in her writings on civilian protection. But reading over her second piece cited, "War Crimes Reporting After Goldstone," one finds a confidence in the effectiveness of international law that's hardly warranted in the case of Israel. Charli argues for the creation of a new monitoring agency centered at the United Nations. But of all places in international politics, the U.N. is without a doubt the most hostile to the existence of Israel, and thus it goes without saying the the Jewish state would never get a fair hearing in such monitoring activities so long as investigative power rests among the anti-colonialist majority at the world body. (The essential discussion is Dore Gold's, Tower of Babble: How the United Nations Has Fueled Global Chaos.) Again, even if we take her analysis as abstracting to the system level, Charli's ineluctable referent is the Israeli case: "The hubbub over the Goldstone report raises the question of whether the UN is capable of independent human rights investigations." It's thus easy to see why Charli would post a lame piece of anti-Israel propaganda (on the ridiculous notion of the May 15th Nakba border incursions as "non-violent"). And soon enough the bird-brained LGM commentariat started spouting off about Israel's "apartheid state" now oppressing those poor Palestinians who enjoy more rights in Israel than in any Arab regime in the region.

IMAGE CREDIT: Serr8d's Cutting Edge.

ObamaCare's Culture of Corruption

From Michelle, "Waivers for favors: Who applied, who was denied, and why?":

Jason Mattera Asks Sen. Bernie Sanders, 'How does an avowed socialist go about selling a book?'

When Noam Chomsky spoke at UCLA, I took a copy of his book, Gaza in Crisis: Reflections on Israel's War Against the Palestinians. It wasn't a book signing event, but it was suggested, given the opportunity, that I actually present The Anti Chomsky Reader for a signature instead. That would have been a laugh riot, and apparently Jason Mattera would have agreed. He actually had the chance for some book-signing fun with socialist Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont, who has a new book out, The Speech: A Historic Filibuster on Corporate Greed and the Decline of Our Middle Class. The full report's at Human Events:

Israel-Bashing Progressives Paint Iran/Syrian-Backed Border Incursion as 'Martin Luther King-Style Non-Violence'

I write about Israel a lot, but once again I'm blown away by the left's complete disconnect from objective reality. Charli Carpenter, at Lawyers, Guns and Murder, posts an entry, citing The Economist, making the case that the Nakba Day uprising was a "Martin Luther King-style" example of non-violent resistance. The videos tell another story, naturally.

But there's a number of reports as well that indicate a much more complicated picture than political scientist Charli Carpenter lets on, much less the dolts at The Economist. There's major concern, for example, that outside powers, Iran and Syria, played a major role in fomenting violence among what for many may have indeed been a planned day of peaceful protest. See, Allison Kaplan Sommer, "‘Nakba Day’ Incidents Worry Israelis and Embarrass the IDF":"

For days, the military — and, to be fair, also the Israeli and the international press — had been focusing on expected violent protests and provocation in Jerusalem and the West Bank, when it should have been looking northwards, where the worst “Bloody Sunday” clashes took place in the Druze village of Majdal Shams and on the Lebanese border.

It was the infiltration of the Syrian border by hundreds of unarmed civilians, who successfully trampled the border fence and crossed into Israeli territory near Majdal Shams, that was the real shock of the day. Protests in that area were a matter of routine on Nakba Day and were expected: for nearly 1000 Syrians to gather at the border and for hundreds to rush across the fence into Israeli-controlled territory was not a scenario that was forseen or prepared for.

Israeli politicians and pundits quickly theorized that the infiltration was a Bashar Assad production. Israel was clearly being used in a public relations exercise, they said, deliberately orchestrated by the Assad regime in an effort to take the spotlight off of their brutal suppression of protest movements in Syria and draw attention instead to the border with Israel. The infiltrators reportedly were Palestinians from refugee camps in Syria. Presumably, for the operation to succeed, it had to have been tolerated, if not actively assisted, by the strong Syrian government. The IDF intelligence failure appeared even more embarrassing when it was reported that the operation was planned carefully over the past several months — and that participants were recruited and logistics organized on Facebook. (As of this writing, Israeli journalists poring over Facebook have not yet found evidence to back up the claim.)

If Syria was indeed an active player, it was successful: international headlines emphasized the events on the Israeli border and downplayed a continuing crackdown in a Syrian city on the Lebanese border on the very same day that claimed more Syrian lives than the IDF incident.

Also mentioned are the border incursions from Lebanon, at Maroun al-Ras, from Gaza, and from the West Bank and Jerusalem.

Omri Ceren, at Commentary, has more on this, "Naturally, the UN Condemns Israel for Nakba Day Violence":

To distract the world from how he’s been massacring his own people, Bashar al-Assad opened up the Israeli-Syrian border to rioters on Sunday, hundreds of whom infiltrated Israel. In Lebanon, Hezbollah—a recognized terrorist organization and a proxy for the Iranian government—organized protesters, ensuring that enough Palestinian flags were distributed. Israeli soldiers watched as Syrian, Lebanese, and United Nations soldiers stepped aside to let hostile mobs rush their border, and only when rioters were at the fences—or had climbed over them—did they react.

Naturally, then, the UN is condemning Israel.

“I am shocked by the number of the deaths and the use of disproportionate, deadly force by the Israeli Defense Forces against apparently unarmed demonstrators, which I condemn,” said Michael Williams, UN’s Special Coordinator for Lebanon.

Amnesty International is also calling for an investigation into Israel’s actions, although for some unknown reason they are not calling for a similar investigation of the Lebanese Armed Forces, which also opened fire on protesters. No surprise here. A little chagrin on the part of the UN, though—perhaps even some reticence to condemn Israel—might have been expected, given how UN forces’ severe dereliction of duty enabled the rioters to rush the Israeli border. Apparently not.

And more on the Lebanese Armed Forces. It turns out that Israel has decided NOT to release video that captured Lebanese troops killing protesters. See, "IDF withholds video of Lebanese firing on protesters." Also, on the terrorist truck rampage that killed one on Nakba Day: "Police increasingly sure TA truck rampage deliberate."

I'll have more later. Meanwhile, check the comments at Lawyers, Guns and Murder. It's like a bloodthirsty mob that's mainlined a toxic zombie cocktail of Noam Chomsky and the Hamas Charter's genocidal jihad. Seriously. It's Western Jew hatred condensed in netroots fever-swamp form, available on an ostensibly responsible academic political science blog. A frenzied, deranged malice, directed solely at Israel, which unleashed would bring about a bloodbath of world historical significance.

Say your prayers.

Communists and SEIU March in Los Angeles on May Day 2011

RACIST REPSAC = CASPER dropped in for a drive-by comment at Lawyers, Guns and Murder on Saturday, and he again offered up a variant of his pathetic delusion that there are no communists allied with the Democratic Party in contemporary American politics. Read the verbatim comment here. But to be clear: All Democrats are not socialists or communists. But old school Democrats of the Joseph Lieberman mold are a dying breed. And the Democrat hardline base is clearly populated by a large number of people either formally allied with socialist and communist organizations, or willing to stand shoulder to shoulder with them at protests and rallies and job actions, whatever. We saw this most powerfully at last year's "One Nation" rally in D.C., and earlier this year in Wisconsin. And we have yet another example from May Day in Los Angeles last week. Zombie has an entry on this, "SEIU drops mask, goes full commie." And following the links takes us to Ringo's blog, "Unions and Communists March Side By Side at May Day Rally - Los Angeles, Ca 5/1/2011."

Be sure to check the entire post. Ringo says he's never seen so many communist flags in his entire life. And he's got this video below as well, of the ANSWER contingent --- the ubiquitous neo-Stalinist organization involved in everything from antiwar protests to anti-Prop 8 demonstrations to the anti-SB 1070 marches in Arizona:

So, again, Democrats are not necessarily communists. But the Democrat Party base, made up of self-styled "progressives," are neo-Marxist collectivists who advocate statist redistributionism and social justice. As I've written previously:

In any case, progressives today are not social and economic reformers, or those who're directed toward modernization and social improvement. They're totalitarian ideologues working for the idealized utopia that always historically ends in the terror and the gulag.

The evidence is all around. It's a matter of objective fact. Those like RACIST = REPSAC = CASPER who weasel out of truth recognition are the ideological and intellectual Luddites of the day. Paul Kengor wrote on the Democrat-socialist alliance after the "One Nation" rally last year, "Progressives and Communists: Out of the Closet -- Together":

A close look at the Saturday "One Nation" rally in Washington reveals something quite telling. It was a major gathering of the "progressive" left, highly billed, vigorously promoted. And it happened to include -- in fact, it warmly accepted -- the endorsement of Communist Party USA.

Expectedly, a bunch of the rally's endorsers carried the word "progress" or "progressive" in their title, from People’s Organization for Progress to Progressive Democrats of America. More still unhesitatingly describe themselves as progressive, from racial eugenicist Margaret Sanger's Planned Parenthood to Norman Lear's heirs at People for the American Way, plus the usual suspects from the "social justice" Religious Left.

And then, too, there was CPUSA.

Why is this so remarkable? It's remarkable because historically, communist involvement at these rallies has been meticulously concealed, hidden from progressives, with the communists using the progressives as props -- as dupes. That the two sides here, on Saturday, happily accepted one another, proudly uniting, shows how far to the left progressives have moved, not to mention their unflagging confidence under the ascendancy of Obama-Pelosi-Reid.

Once more, the majority of rank-and-file Democrats --- who political scientists identify as members of the "party-in-the-electorate" --- are not communists. But the loudest, most activist segments of the Democrat coalition, most importantly SEIU, seen at May Day in Los Angeles, are now clearly aligned with the Communist Party in a coalition of "No Enemies on the Left." According to watchdog website Open Secrets:

During the 2010 election cycle, SEIU spent nearly $15.8 million on advertisements and other communications known as independent expenditures that overtly advocated for or against federal political candidates, with Democrats benefiting from almost all of them.

I do not believe RACIST REPSAC = CASPER is a communist. He may be an anti-Semite, in addition to being a racist, and he's definitely a progressive. But that doesn't matter much to the foregoing analysis. The post shows conclusively the infiltration of the Democrat Party by the long-term ideological enemies of the United States. It's fact. That said, facts to not penetrate the world of blind hatred of RACIST REPSAC = CASPER, so this is just for the record, once again. But be warned: Pathetic RACIST REPSAC = CASPER, unfortunately, is potentially even more dangerous than those hoisting banners on the street, for he works in the Alinsky mold of destroying American greatness from within. You gotta watch out for these people. They'd kill you if they get the chance.

Violence at 'Day of Anger' Protests Calling for 'Worldwide Social Revolution' Against Capitalism (VIDEO)

At Monsters and Critics, "Skirmishes Mar May Day Protest in Berlin":

Berlin/Hamburg - Radical left-wing demonstrators clashed with police in Berlin on Sunday, while May Day marches remained mostly peaceful across the rest of Europe.

At 6 pm (1600 GMT) more than 9,000 radical left-wing protesters began their annual 'Revolutionary May 1 Demonstration' in Berlin, where more than 6,000 police officers were on duty.

Demonstrators dressed in black and masked with sunglasses and hoods threw stones at banks and shops, and in isolated incidences police officers were targeted with bottles and fireworks.

Protesters carried banners proclaiming a 'Day of Anger' and calling for a 'Worldwide Social Revolution' whilst rallying against capitalism, the political establishment and the police.

The march expressed solidarity with the uprisings in the Arab world. From the top of a building protesters unveiled a huge banner proclaiming 'Yalla,' or 'let's go!' in Arabic script, as they set off fireworks.

The riot police initially held back as the mood became heated but later emerged in large numbers to face demonstrators with water cannons. Shortly after the onset of darkness, the authorities ended the march. Police said they made several arrests.

More at Deutsche Welle, "Police Battle Rioters in May Day Clashes."

May Day! — Democrat-Socialists Rally Around Unions

Of course.

It's May Day, the "International Day of the Worker."

And right on cue, at Los Angeles Times, "California Democrats rally around unions":

Framing the union battles taking place across the nation as a fundamental attack on working Americans, Democratic leaders on Saturday accused Republicans of scapegoating public employees for political gain.

"They are intent on dismantling the very economic ladder that lifted our middle class and made California the richest and greatest state in the greatest nation in the world," Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris told thousands of delegates and supporters gathered at the Democrats' annual convention in Sacramento.

As cities, counties and states struggle to balance budgets, public employee unions have come under fire from critics arguing that their benefits, especially their pensions, are overly generous. Some of the most notable battles are in Wisconsin, where Gov. Scott Walker sought to eliminate collective bargaining rights for many state workers, and Ohio, where an anti-union measure is the subject of a proposed voter referendum.

Several speakers tied the Wisconsin controversy to Costa Mesa. A budget shortfall in the Orange County city led officials to issue layoff notices to much of its workforce and to push to privatize many city services.

Orange County Employees Assn. General Manager Nick Berardino described Costa Mesa as "ground zero for working men and women in California" and said the actions there "represent a direct threat to the Democratic Party and democracy itself."

Right.

Because for socialists "democracy" is always defined in terms of economic redistribution. Like as found at University of Missouri's labor studies seminar, which featured Tony Pecinovsky, Communist Party USA, who indicates:

In my opinion... I think in the opinion of the Communist Party, politics is all about nuance. Just like there’s different trends and tenedencies within the labor movement, the Democratic Party is very much the same. It’s not one hegemonic whole. There’s different perspectives and points of views within a spectrum, right? And so we tend to focus on and help those candidates who as Don said, share our values.

"Don" would be Don Giljum, who was fired by the university for advocating violence.

This are what Democrats are all about.

May Day! — Police Prepare for Communist Open-Borders Rally in Los Angeles

At Los Angeles Times:

This year's May Day rally is expected to draw fewer immigrant rights activists to downtown Los Angeles than in past years, but police said they would be prepared for any problems that might occur.

Marchers will assemble at 10 a.m. Sunday at the intersection of Broadway and Olympic Boulevard and walk north on Broadway toward City Hall, officials said. The march will conclude with a rally on Broadway between First and Temple streets near City Hall.

Organizers said the demonstration could draw more than 50,000 people, but permits sought for the march estimate a crowd of about 10,000.

Whatever the turnout, police said, they would be ready with a significant deployment of officers.

"We are going to have a large enough deployment to handle anything," said LAPD Deputy Chief Jose Perez. "Our posture will be consistent with what we've had the last two years. We want to keep a lid on anything, but, ideally, we are going to maintain a low profile and facilitate allowing everybody to express their 1st Amendment views in a peaceful and organized manner."