No fight, nor sovereign nation, is too small to find tax revenue:

On August 25 of this year, a federal-court judge in Brooklyn handed down a verdict addressing the Unkechaug’s motion to dismiss. Federal Judge Carol Amon denied the motion and ruled that the state appellate court had misinterpreted the law in question. She ruled that regular tax law indeed applied to the tobacco trade on Indian reservations, as it does everywhere in the state. She issued a temporary injunction banning all further cigarette sales at four stores identified in the city’s suit. Chief Wallace and the Unkechaug appealed. On September 25, the court announced that though the appeal would be heard, the injunction would continue. But that leaves ten other smoke shops in the Poospatuck reservation, and the cars are still backed up around Squaw Lane. “The city will go after every dollar that is owed to city taxpayers,” said Bloomberg in a statement.  

Wallace is far from ready to smoke the peace pipe, however. He says it’s the same as it was with whaling in the seventeenth century. “The goal here is not to stop us from selling cigarettes,” Chief Wallace said. “It’s to try and destroy us as a people, because every effort that we made to resolve these things has met with resistance. They don’t want to do it. They want to take it as far as they can to try and kill us.

 “They need a scapegoat for not blaming his friends on Wall Street,” said the chief, his tone slowly rising. He began pacing in circles, literally hopping mad. “Who is a convenient scapegoat? The smallest tribe in New York, selling a demonic product—that’s a good scapegoat.”

Read the whole thing here.

A friend of mine on Facebook recently wrote the following about an article on the life of the late Irving Kristol:

“Once upon a time, not too many years ago, the Republican Party was the party of ideas. Would even its staunchest supporters say so today? I think not. The sole substance of the Republican Party today is opposition to whatever the Democrats are for, period.”

Were it true, it would be damning.  Thankfully it’s not.

My friend, a former White House high-ranking employee in both the Reagan and Bush 41 administrations, grew angry, very angry, about the direction of the Republican Party under President Bush 43, something upon which I agree with him.  But, unlike him, I prefer to stay and fight for what’s right within the party I agree with most, not abandon it. He grew so angry that he voted for Obama in 2008.  Now, I don’t claim to know how any human being works internally, but I don’t understand how someone who claims to be a conservative could make that sort of switch. Simply because your side didn’t live up to their ideals doesn’t mean, to my mind, that  you switch to the side that advocates explicitly the opposite point of view.

But that’s neither here nor there. My friend, and everyone else, is free to vote for whomever they want, for whatever reason they want.  What I take issue with his the common mantra of the Left, echoed by my friend, that Republicans are out of ideas and Democrats are a fountain new ones.

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Remember the good old days, when the federal government was, shall we say, smaller? And by “smaller,” I mean half the size it is today.

Well you should, because that was only nine years ago.

Economist Chris Edwards ran the numbers, and found that since 2000, the federal government’s budget has doubled, from $1.79 trillion to an estimated $3.65 trillion today. Much of that can be contributed to former president Bush’s giant spending programs and the increase in defense spending to pay for the wars, but the largest upswing occurred just in the past year.

In 2009, the federal budget exploded from $2.98 trillion to an estimated $3.65 trillion, which would be the largest one-year leap in nearly 60 years when adjusted for inflation.

DownsizingGovernment.com has all the details, including a breakdown of federal spending by each federal department. It might even make you pine for those “old days.”

From NOLA.COM:

An internal review by the board of directors of the community organization ACORN determined that the amount allegedly embezzled from the community organization was $5 million, well more than the previously reported amount of nearly $1 million, according to a new subpoena in an investigation by Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell.

The subpoena, released this afternoon, says, “It is still unclear if some of the monies embezzled are from state, federal or private funds.”

Caldwell issued subpoenas in August seeking documents related to Acorn International then-President Wade Rathke and his brother Dale Rathke, who kept the group’s books. Those subpoenas were focused on possible Acorn violations of state employee tax law, obstructing justice and violating the Employee Retirement Security Act.

Whole blockbuster story here.

Update: According to the new subpoena issued by the Louisiana Attorney General, it seems ACORN leadership was aware of the full extent of the embezzlement. That they have covered up the true figure cast doubt on their ability to truely reform the organization. In other words, they will only admit to what they get caught at.

“I’m Recognized to be a Fairly Dangerous Fellow Out There in the Community” – Wade Rathke

Let’s be honest, if Wade Rathke saw me walk into his book signing last Tuesday, he wouldn’t have been at his most candid.  I wanted insight into the man who created this racket that is the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or is it the American Institute for Social Justice, or Citizens Consulting Inc?  I’m still not too sure.  I know it operates under 361 different affiliates in at least 43 states and the District of Columbia.

In his newly released book Citizen Wealth, he paints himself as a modern day Robin Hood, stealing from the evil faceless corporations to give to the poor.  But as he recounts these campaigns it becomes clear the corporations have faces, their CEOs, who he doesn’t hesitate to harass at home to demand financial concessions.  Wade’s stilted story almost makes him sound noble as he provides innocuous reasons why he would like to collect and store copies of people’s personal financial records and birth certificates or as he tries to rationalize why people would be well served by becoming dues paying ACORN members.

These past few months I believed Wade’s the blissfully ignorant captain whose been stripped of his command but still seems intent to go down with the ship.  He hasn’t “run” the organization since the very public revelation that his brother embezzled close to $1 million from ACORN and Wade went about covering it up.  He was negotiated out of the coveted “chief organizer” role that he had held for decades.  The ACORN Board allowed him to retain control of ACORN International, but when public pressure started building, he even went ahead and changed its name to COI – Community Organizations International.

Even in exile he denies that ACORN is a criminal enterprise and claims that allegations that federal and tax-exempt funds have been used for political purposes are a “complete fabrication.”

I had to hear him speak.  I had to see for myself if he really bought what he was selling.  But let’s be real.  I’m a twenty-eight year old Republican lawyer… and I look like one.  I wear Brooks Brothers suits, bold ties, and nine times out of ten there’s a pair of elephant cufflinks on my wrists.  If he saw me coming I doubted he would be as open in his proselytizing for community organizing.

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What appears to be the official blog of President Obama’s administration is all aflutter because the President will welcome, “doctors from across the United States to the White House to share their unique perspective on the struggles that American families face every day when it comes to health care.”  (They posted today’s agenda in the name of transparency!)

The post even links to a National Public Radio (NPR) story in which a survey of medical professionals indicates they are among the biggest supporters of the so-called “public option.”  A co-sponsor of the study, Dr. Alex Federman, indicates that, “physicians favored Medicare when it came to delivering care to patients. They thought Medicare was better when it came to autonomy and their decision making and their ability to get patients the care that they thought the patients needed.”

Furthermore, the American Medical Association (AMA) has endorsed the public option after an appeal from the President and despite, according to ABC News, the fact that “some member physicians at the group’s annual meeting [in June] likened the notion to communism.”

Beverly Gossage, Research Fellow for Show-Me Institute and founder of HSA Benefits Consulting wondered which insurance companies rejected the most claims.  She found her answer in the AMA’s own 2008 National Health Insurer Report Card.  The chart below appears on page 5 of the 16-page report.

Of the eight insurers listed, Medicare is most likely to reject a claim, sending away 6.85% of requests.  This is more than any private insurer and double that of the private insurers’ average!

In short, the AMA is endorsing a plan whose closest existing example is the most frequent denier of claims.  How the public option exemplifies “delivering care to patients” is unclear.

From the office of U.S. Senator Mike Johanns:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Ann Marie Hauser (202) 224-4796

October 5, 2009 Chris Hunt (402) 476-1400

Jake Thompson (202) 224-8795

JOHANNS, NELSON INTRODUCE BILL TO BAN FRAUDULENT ORGANIZATIONS FROM RECEIVING FEDERAL MONEY

WASHINGTON – Senators Mike Johanns and Ben Nelson today introduced a bill to cut off all federal funding for any organization whose employees have been convicted of voter fraud. The bill comes after Senator Johanns successfully barred the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), whose employees have been convicted on 70 counts of voter fraud, from receiving funding via three spending bills recently passed by the Senate.

“Senator Nelson and I strongly believe in the protection of taxpayer dollars, and this bill is a clear way of working towards that goal,” Johanns said. “Let the message be clear: Americans should not be helping to fund any organization whose employees use the money to commit fraud or any other reprehensible practices.”

“This legislation builds on actions taken to cut off federal funding for ACORN,” Nelson said. “To further protect taxpayers’ money, this bill extends that prohibition to all forms of federal assistance, and all groups who violate our election laws. And we require a report, so Congress can know exactly which organizations we need to watch out for.”

Full text of the legislation can be found here.

The really nice thing about having left-wing comedy hosts is that Democrat officials have absolutely no problem appearing on their talk shows. It’s really nice to have these people interviewed in a comfortable non-confrontational setting, because the darndest things will come out.

Bill Maher in a rare hard-nosed moment, presses EPA administrator Lisa Jackson to answer a tough question about whether the EPA intends to regulate meat. After she dodges the question, Bill asks it again.

Now I could be wrong, because she was stuttering badly, but didn’t the United States EPA Administrator say that she is looking into Meat Control? She certainly advocated a restriction on food grown outside of the US.

But MEAT CONTROL? I’ve met a lot of vegetarians in my travels. I don’t really care about those who practice it themselves, although I often question their logic. I look at vegetarianism as a sort of religion, and have no problem with it being practiced in the privacy of one’s own cat-filled home. But in America we have a separation of church and state, and if you intend to force me to conform to your religious dietary restrictions, I’m going to make a little noise.

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Over the last week, Big Hollywood and Big Government have been extensively covering the August 10 conference call between the National Endowment for the Arts and a group of artists – a call on which the artists were encouraged to support President Obama’s agenda, with the tacit promise that they would be handsomely rewarded with government grants.  The NEA representative on the call was then-Communications Director of the NEA Yosi Sergant.

Now we have new evidence that the White House itself has been using its sway to recruit artists – not just to support President Obama’s “volunteerism” initiatives, but to support basic planks of his political agenda, including health care.  In fact, the White House has been tapping its extragovernmental political allies to work with artists with the tacit promise that NEA funds will be in the offing for those who join the Obama Administration political program.

According to a briefing report from Arlene Goldbard, the Pratt Center for Community Development, State Voices, and the Nathan Cummings Foundation, on May 12, 2009, “more than 60 artists and creative organizers engaged in civic participation, community development, education, social justice activism, and philanthropy came together for a White House briefing on Art, Community, Social Justice, National Recovery.”  Each of the sponsors of the meeting was contacted by – yes, you guessed it – Yosi Sergant, who had just been promoted from the Office of Public Engagement to serve at the NEA. (more…)

Several days ago, Capital Research Center’s Matthew Vadum published research here indicating an ACORN alumni in the White House (other than the president): Political Director Patrick Gaspard.  As I did three weeks prior at ACORNcracked.com, Matthew used a Wade Rathke blog as the source, which Rathke, the founder of ACORN,  immediately changed after Vadum’s report, citing “memory tricks.”  Politico led the way in poo-pooing the connection once Rathke played cover-up.

Rathke said it not only on his blog, but also at a book signing in New Orleans, which was recently covered in the Fox News Special: The Truth About ACORN.”  While we attended that book signing and were not able to get that portion on tape, the Fox documentary crew did.  Sadly, the remarks apparently ended up on the cutting room floor.

The fact is, Patrick Gaspard, Obama’s “Glue Man,” is more important than Van Jones ever hoped of being.  The fact is, one of the most critical and influential jobs in a White House, the Director of Political Affairs, is occupied by a former SEIU health care lobbyist and ACORN organizer.  To be exact, he was Executive Vice President–the #2–at SEIU 1199 in New York City.

After Gaspard was appointed to the White House, Carribbean Voice quoted him as saying, “I grew up in 1199…and I will always be an 1199er wherever I am.”  SEIU’s luxury is that now taxpayers are paying for it.

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Unfortunately, items like this don’t really surprise us anymore:

There shall be no cupcakes. No chocolate cake and no carrot cake. According to New York City’s latest regulations, not even zucchini bread makes the cut.

In an effort to limit how much sugar and fat students put in their bellies at school, the Education Department has effectively banned most bake sales, the lucrative if not quite healthy fund-raising tool for generations of teams and clubs.

The change is part of a new wellness policy that also limits what can be sold in vending machines and student-run stores, which use profits to help finance activities like pep rallies and proms. The elaborate rules were outlined in a three-page memo issued at the end of June, but in the new school year, principals and parents are just beginning to, well, digest them.

Read the whole dreadful thing here. Special pull quote:

“Schools are supposed to be a place where we establish a model environment, and the last thing kids need is an extra source of pointless calories.”

Last week was both good and bad for the leftist “activism for profit and power” leadership of ACORN. Their tentacles will finally reach New York City Hall – and the Pension funds of New York City ,when the Democratic nominees for Public Advocate and City Comptroller, both of whom owe their nomination to the ACORN front- the New York Working Families Party, are elected this November. At the same time  a scandal started to unravel in a upstate New York county where, for the first time, ACORN is under the scrutiny of a District Attorney who is not a Democrat cross-endorsed by the WFP.

Make no mistake about it , the so called Working Families Party, a party with no county chairmen or county committees, and no unpaid workers, is merely a front for ACORN. They share the same office and addresses. ACORN Executive Director Bertha Lewis is the Co-Chair and de-facto boss of the well heeled little “party”. Labor pours in millions to leverage the Democratic Party to the Left….on their issues. With New York deeply in the hole and with state revenue dropping sharply, there is no discussion of cutting the state’s bloated labor costs.
 
The WFP, controlled by  ACORN, has no shortage of cash, indeed the party’s founder embezzeled $1 Million dollars but the ACORN elected not to prosecute him for fear of a court laying bare their financial books and records. 

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It seems New York politicians are running into a slight problem with the Laffer Curve. According to an AP report, the state’s 100 richest taxpayers have paid $1 billion less than expected following a big tax hike. The story notes that several rich people have left the state, and all three examples are about people who have redomiciled in Florida, which has no state income tax. Other rich people, of course, stay in New York but choose to earn less taxable income. With Obama planning big tax rate increases, we may see the same thing happening for the entire country. For more background information on why higher taxes on the rich do not necessarily raise revenue, see this three-part Laffer Curve video series (here, here, and here):

Early data from New York show the higher tax rates for the wealthy have yielded lower-than-expected state wealth. …Paterson said last week that revenues from the income tax increases and other taxes enacted in April are running about 20 percent less than anticipated. The concern about millionaire flight has prompted some states, including New York, New Jersey and California, to increase the highest tax rates only temporarily. …”People aren’t wedded to a geographic place as they once were. It’s a different world,” said New York Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch. He said last year’s surcharge on income taxes, set to last three years, won’t likely meet expectations. So far this year, half of about $1 billion in expected revenue from New York’s 100 richest taxpayers is missing. …State officials say they don’t know how much of the missing revenue is because any wealthy New Yorkers simply left. But at least two high-profile defectors have sounded off on the tax changes: Buffalo Sabres ownerTom Golisano, the billionaire who ran for governor three times and who was paying $13,000 a day in New York income taxes, and radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh. Golisano changed his official address to Florida, and Limbaugh, who also has a Florida home, announced earlier this year that he was relinquishing his home in Manhattan. Donald Trump told Fox News earlier this year that several of his millionaire friends were talking about leaving the state over the latest taxes. …And it’s not just the well-known leaving. Nancy Bell is moving her Science First manufacturer of scientific products from the Buffalo site her father founded in 1960 to Florida… “It was the higher tax brackets, the so-called millionaire’s tax” that forced the move, she said. “We feel we have to look to the future … I’m leaving wonderful, wonderful friends. It’s not our first choice. It’s our 100th.” Maryland enacted higher tax rates for wealthier residents in 2008 to boost revenues but income from those taxes is down 6.7 percent so far this year.

A few days ago I received a call from my cousin. He’d been hearing some chatter from the family about something happening with a series of NEA articles that I’d written for Big Hollywood and wanted to find out from the horse’s mouth what was going on. His question was simple and concise.

“What did the White House do wrong,” he asked.

“The White House attempted to use federal agencies for political gain,” I blurted out.

President Obama with former NEA Communications Director Yosi Sergant

And that is The Big Truth in a nutshell. A moment of clarity hit me, and as with most eureka moments, a path of how to explain this big truth came into sight. The full story needed to be told – including possible collusion, the White House’s novel mode of operation, and the eventual cover-up – to fully understand and illuminate the government’s intention with their arts effort.

Up until now, I have not discussed Sergant’s former job in the White House Office of Public Engagement, where Buffy Wicks currently resides, because the story had to develop to understand the significance. I also haven’t discussed the email that I received from Michael Skolnik, the moderator of the call, immediately after the publication of the original conference call article – an email that attempted to revise history and the role of the NEA and the White House in the meeting. And what has yet to be discussed is the White House’s recent ability to set up an ArtistCorps, brought into existence with less than 20 words in the Serve America Act. (more…)

This political ad first came out a couple weeks ago, when James and Hannah’s video sting first broke, but is still worth noting. If Ken Cuccinelli, running for Attorney General in Virginia this year, gets traction with this ad, look for the political floodgates to overwhelm ACORN. No matter how many people rise to their defense, if ACORN becomes politically toxic…game over. Watch this race:

Ever since Hannah and O’Keefe boldly cracked open ACORN with their video expose of  ACORN counselling dirty deeds on our dime, I’ve been inundated with emails and interviews asking me how wifey and I raised such a plucky kid.  

Matter of fact, because of the insane interest in Hannah and what makes her tick, I’m brewing up a book on raising righteous and rowdy girls in today’s culture.  Evidently, the Giles formula works.  I think I’ll name it Contra Mundus Mamas.  How does that sound? 

 Until that book pops on the scene, though, there is another option. If you’re curious and you would like to get a taste of how the weird Giles family rolls when up against a rock and a hard place, you should check out my latest book, If Youre Going Through Hell, Keep Going!.  It’s a tasty and short read that’ll give you the proper piss-n-vinegar perspective to plow through the various crud life slaps us all with.  Details below:

Doug Giles, popular Townhall.com columnist and father of Hannah Giles, who played the prostitute in the now famous nation-rocking ACORN expose, has just released a new book that shows us how to thrive when things “stink worse than a sundried manatee carcass.”   

Giles’ latest tome, If You’re Going Through Hell, Keep Going! (Bridge-Logos 2009) is for people who are experiencing a rough earthly patch and are looking for some powerful, practical and faith-filled answers to help them plow through life’s mud.  

In this fast and funky read Giles points out that if you’re currently being stretched then you’re in line for growth and . . . you’re in good company.  Some of the most powerful and amazing folks who have ever graced this globe have gone through prolonged periods of internal and external crud that wasn’t enjoyable.  And get this: They actually grew—even prospered—through their pain. 

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Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller, a democrat, told Eric Shawn on FOX News that ACORN was hiring convicts still in prison -CONVICTED OF IDENTITY THEFT- for canvassing voters.

Ross said that by executing a search warrant at ACORN headquarters in Nevada the authorities were able to substantiate charges and have a very solid case against ACORN. They believe they can prove that it’s not just a few bad apples it went much higher up in the organization. Ross believes that ACORN and the regional director should be held accountable for the criminal activity that took place in the state.

Ross told FOX News that they found prisoners on the ACORN payroll: (more…)

We’ve always given at least bit of credence to the theory that the most interesting stories in the Washington Post and New York Times run on Saturday, when editors try to dump any real reporting that happens to slip through their filters. This Saturday, the Washington Post added another data point supporting this theory with decent reporting on ACORN’s troubles with its big donors:

The liberal political organizing group ACORN, battered by the release of embarrassing videos and allegations of financial mismanagement and fraud, has also been losing support from several major foundations.

The Ford Foundation, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the Marguerite Casey Foundation and Bank of America have stopped funding the group and its affiliates over the past year and a half.

Read the whole article here.