Archive for December, 2009

The New Ledger

Obama’s Credit Solution: ‘Serious Talk’ With Bankers

by The New Ledger

President Obama says he’s going to have a “serious talk” with bankers today to pressure them to provide more credit. Why? Well, because if you’re upside down on your house and want to take advantage of low rates, your bank is just as likely to say, “eh, no thanks, we’ll just keep making money.” We’ll discuss this and more on today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, a daily podcast from The New Ledger on politics, policy and the marketplace with Francis Cianfrocca, brought to you by BigGovernment.com.

Coffee and Markets

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You can subscribe to the podcast by following the links above, and if you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

TNL: Want to Refinance? Tough Luck Pal
Business Insider: Citi’s TARP Repayment Bilks Taxpayers
Bloomberg: Obama to Have “Serious Talk” With Bankers
NYT: Refinancing Woes Mount

Jon David Kahn

ObamaHair

by Jon David Kahn

On October 12, 2008, then Presidential candidate Barack Obama made a campaign stop in a quiet suburban neighborhood in Toledo, Ohio. What was supposed to be an uneventful run of the mill “Grip and Grin,” turned into something quite the contrary.  Our future President and the world were introduced to Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher: a proud American who unwittingly became the symbol of the “every man” trying to escape the far reaching arm of Big Government.

Joe the Plumber….a great American….A great bald American.  I do not come from a critical place when I mention the state of Joe’s hair, or the lack thereof. In fact, despite the flowing mane of the anonymous avatar under which I post here today, I too, am a follicly challenged American….but not for long.

And this is where the press and the world missed the real story behind that fateful exchange in October of 2008.

As are most Americans, I am closely monitoring the status of S.1796 – America’s Healthy Future Act of 2009.  When it comes to Healthcare everybody has a different horse in the race. For example, we have all heard the concerns that a government run healthcare system would potentially “Kill Grandma.” Now this is a legitimate beef, but being that my grandmothers are currently not alive, this is not at the forefront of my concerns. However, what did occur to me was that in the growing chorus of objections to the bill, nobody seemed to be concerned about “Grandpa.”  Why? Why was Grandpa never mentioned? How come nobody was talking about killing him? Why does he get to live?

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Matthew Vadum

ACORN’s Federal Lobbying Shenanigans

by Matthew Vadum

ACORN is no stranger to shady lobbying practices.

Months before GOP  investigators on the House Oversight and Government Committee revealed that ACORN appears to be lobbying illegally in Delaware, a former ACORN employee alleged ACORN violated federal lobbying laws.

The ex-ACORN employee, Ron Sykes, said that Citizens Consulting Inc. (CCI), the shadowy financial nerve center of the ACORN network, filed false lobbying disclosure reports with Congress.

lobbying

This is important because, as former ACORN national board member Charles Turner said earlier this year on “The Glenn Beck Program,” CCI “is where the shell game begins.”

“ACORN has over 200 different entities that the money gets moved around to – for this purpose to that purpose, this organization to that organization,” said Turner. “We believe the way the money has been moved around, they’ve been laundering money.”

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Jim Hoft

Fistgate VII: Explosive… After Years of Silence Massachusetts Teacher Speaks Out About What She Saw at Fistgate (Audio)

by Jim Hoft

After years of silence a traumatized Massachusetts teacher spoke out in an interview about what she witnessed at GLSEN’s Fistgate Conference in 2000. She also describes Barack Obama’s Safe Schools Czar Kevin Jennings’ role in the infamous conference that discussed “fisting” and “watersports” with children.

The Massachusetts teacher in this interview attended the conference and actually took the photo of Obama’s Safe School Czar Kevin Jennings sitting and holding a conference program during a break. Jennings was the keynote speaker at the conference. The teacher claims that there is “no way” that Obama’s Safe School Czar did not know about the pornographic and sexually explicit material that was presented and discussed at the conference. Kevin Jennings is the founder of the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN).

Here is a partial transcript of the interview:

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Publius

Monday Open Thread: UN Edition

by Publius

Today, in 1946, the UN General Assembly voted to establish its headquarters in New York City. (Parking enforcement would never be the same.)

united-nations

Publius

Federalist No. 39: The Conformity of the Plan to Republican Principles

by Publius

To the People of the State of New York:

james_madison

THE last paper having concluded the observations which were meant to introduce a candid survey of the plan of government reported by the convention, we now proceed to the execution of that part of our undertaking. The first question that offers itself is, whether the general form and aspect of the government be strictly republican. It is evident that no other form would be reconcilable with the genius of the people of America; with the fundamental principles of the Revolution; or with that honorable determination which animates every votary of freedom, to rest all our political experiments on the capacity of mankind for self-government. If the plan of the convention, therefore, be found to depart from the republican character, its advocates must abandon it as no longer defensible.

What, then, are the distinctive characters of the republican form? Were an answer to this question to be sought, not by recurring to principles, but in the application of the term by political writers, to the constitution of different States, no satisfactory one would ever be found. Holland, in which no particle of the supreme authority is derived from the people, has passed almost universally under the denomination of a republic. The same title has been bestowed on Venice, where absolute power over the great body of the people is exercised, in the most absolute manner, by a small body of hereditary nobles. Poland, which is a mixture of aristocracy and of monarchy in their worst forms, has been dignified with the same appellation. The government of England, which has one republican branch only, combined with an hereditary aristocracy and monarchy, has, with equal impropriety, been frequently placed on the list of republics. These examples, which are nearly as dissimilar to each other as to a genuine republic, show the extreme inaccuracy with which the term has been used in political disquisitions.

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Jim Hoft

Merry Fist-mas Media Matters… No, We’re Not Finished Yet

by Jim Hoft

Media Matters congratulated itself yesterday for its stellar defense of Barack Obama’s Safe Schools Czar Kevin Jennings, whose organization held conferences where teens as young as 14 years old were taught about fisting (“It gets a bad rap.“) and the joys of pi$$ing on their partner. The fact that Kevin Jennings’ GLSEN organization also pushed porn in the classroom was defended as a non-scandal by the Media Matters folks.

Here are a few of the reports defended by Media Matters this week:

FistGate: Jennings Conference Promoted Dangerous ‘Fisting’

FistGate II: Jennings Conference Distributes ‘Fisting’ Kits

FistGate III: ‘Little Black Book: Queer in the 21st Century’

FistGate IV: Gay Bar Guides for Teens

FistGate V: Teacher Laments, ‘Fisting…often Gets a Bad Rap’

FistGate VI: ‘No Dookie on Your Noodle’

Those are a few of the articles this week related to Barack Obama’s Safe Schools Czar Kevin Jennings.
But, were not finished yet… There’s more to come.

Here’s a clue for what’s up next– It has something to do with this photo:

jennings fistgate (more…)

Publius

Meet Stephen McIntyre: Amateur Runs Rings Around Climate ‘Professionals’

by Publius

Canada’s Macleans has a profile of the skeptic at the center of the ClimateGate e-mails (what, you expected an American newspaper to cover this story?):

091211_coby-1

The private emails and logs leaked last month from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia can’t tell us whether industrial activity is really heating the earth’s atmosphere and endangering civilization. But they have settled the identity of the Great Satan of climate science. Torontonian Stephen McIntyre, a gentle, persistent amateur who had no credentials in applied science before stepping into the global warming debate in 2003, is mentioned more than 100 times.

In the emails, leading climate researchers dismiss him as a capitalist hireling or a hapless “bozo,” and argue about the relative merits of ignoring him versus counterattacking him, even as others acknowledge that his criticisms have merit and imitate his use of the Web as a venue for hyper-detailed scientific discussion. At one point in 2005, CRU director Phil Jones, now under suspension, ponders the possibility that McIntyre might use U.K. freedom-of-information laws to obtain raw weather-station data compiled by the CRU. He grumbles: “I think I’ll delete the file rather than send to anyone.” The overall impression is that of 100 elephants stampeding in confusion and panic around a mouse.

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Christopher C. Horner

The Global Warming Campaign Issue, There for the Taking

by Christopher C. Horner

the-goracle

Kim Strassel writes, in “The EPA’s Carbon Bomb Fizzles” in the Wall Street Journal, with typical insight that:

“President Obama, having failed to get climate legislation, didn’t want to show up to the Copenhagen climate talks with a big, fat nothing. So the EPA pulled the pin. In doing so, it exploded its own threat.”

Far from alarm, the feeling sweeping through many quarters of the Democratic Congress is relief. Voters know cap-and-trade is Washington code for painful new energy taxes. With a recession on, the subject has become poisonous in congressional districts. Blue Dogs and swing-state senators watched in alarm as local Democrats in the recent Virginia and New Jersey elections were pounded on the issue, and lost their seats.

But now? Hurrah! It’s the administration’s problem! No one can say Washington isn’t doing something; the EPA has it under control. The agency’s move gives Congress a further excuse not to act.”

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Publius

Sunday Open Thread: Giving Thanks Edition

by Publius

Today, in 2000, Al Gore gave up his campaign to steal the Presidential Election.

al_gore_not_planning_on_it A Nobel Peace prize, an Academy Award, a temporary fixation on a bogus issue and hundreds of millions of dollars to Al because of all this, are small prices to pay to keep this man away from the levers of real power. Al’s father ultimately expressed remorse for his efforts to block the Civil Rights Act, perhaps Al the Lesser will one day atone for his own ‘inconvenient’ sins.

Paul A. Rahe

The Coming Republican Surge

by Paul A. Rahe

Back in early May, James Carville gleefully published a book entitled 40 More Years: How the Democrats Will Rule the Next Generation.

09-dems1-450

In part, an extended rant against George W. Bush and his administration, it also purported to show that “the Republicans are going to keep getting spanked again and again for forty more years because we’re right and they’re wrong, and Americans know it.”

Of course, Carville added, “the Republicans have been down before, and the Democrats have won Congress before, and we’ve still managed to lose.” But, he continued, “this time we strung our policies together into a coherent, appealing narrative. And we did it with the help of the historically diverse, historically Democratic young people who will be the foundation for a lasting Democratic majority.”

This may have seemed a plausible claim late in 2008 or early in 2009 — when the ragin’ Cajun sent off his book to Simon & Schuster. By the time of publication, however, the Republicans in Congress had shown that they still had some fight in them, and the Tea-Party Movement had already made its appearance.

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Kyle Olson

Activist Brooklyn Judge Delivers for ACORN, Re-funds Group

by Kyle Olson

File this one under the category of Predicable News of the Year: A Brooklyn federal judge, appointed by former President Bill Clinton, adopted the argument of hometown Congressman and ACORN apologist Jerrold Nadler that Congress’s efforts to “defund” ACORN amounted to a bill of attainder, and thus were unconstitutional.

acorn

Judge Nina Gershon imposed an injunction on the Congress to prevent it from cutting off funds, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The Center for Constitutional Rights filed suit in Brooklyn federal court on behalf of ACORN.  That’s curious, given that ACORN is now headquartered in Washington, DC.  Not to mention the Congressional action, of course, occured in Washington, DC.

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Marinka Peschmann

December 22: Rally to Stop Gitmo Detainees from Coming to Illinois

by Marinka Peschmann

While countries around the world, in virtual lockstep, refuse to accept the relocation of their own citizens– suspected terrorists–from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,  a House-Senate panel of the Illinois legislature will consider Governor Quinn’s (and the Obama Administration’s) plan to sell the Thomson Correctional Center,to the federal government to house the Gitmo detainees. The panel will meet in northwest Illinois, where the correctional center is located.

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But not so fast. There are residents in Illinois who are outraged by the Obama Administration’s plans for their backyard and they are holding a rally to tell lawmakers “Not here.”

“This is America and our government is supposed to be of the people, by the people, for the people, and we the people were not even consulted about this decision to bring suspected terrorists to Illinois.” Beverly Perlson, founder of the Band of Mothers, and one of the rally organizers, said during a phone interview.

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Brian  Johnson

Leaked SEIU Card Check Cheat Sheet

by Brian Johnson

As if Andy Stern and Anna Burger lobbying without being registered wasn’t enough for the Service Employee International Union (SEIU) to deal with, they are still trying desperately to pass the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). Unsuccessfully, I might add.

However, they have developed a new tool of misinformation — “Language Tips on Employee Free Choice.”


SEIU EFCA Tip Sheet_Page_2 PDF

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Bob McCarty

Army Officer Kills Al-Qaeda Operative, Imprisoned After Prosecutors Ignore Own Expert Witness

by Bob McCarty

By Bob McCarty and Carrie Fatigante

An e-mail Dr. Herbert Leon MacDonell sent to Capts. Meghan Poirier, Jason Elbert and Erwin Roberts — Army prosecutors all — just after 4 o’clock in the afternoon Feb. 27, 2009, should have warranted their attention for several reasons, but they opted to treat the information it contained in exactly the same manner as they had treated it when delivered in person a day earlier.

Largely as a result of the prosecutors’ decisions, Army Ranger 1st Lt. Michael Behenna is now serving a 20-year sentence at Fort Leavenworth after being convicted by a seven-member court-martial panel of unpremeditated murder in the shooting death of Ali Mansur, a known Al-Qaeda operative.

Michael Behenna

Why should the prosecutors have paid attention to what Dr. MacDonell had to share with them?

For starters, they should have paid attention, because Dr. MacDonell is the expert witness in blood stain forensics they had flown to Fort Campbell, Ky. to testify in the case. Now serving as director of the Laboratory for Forensic Science in Corning, N.Y., Dr. MacDonell’s expert forensics career spans five decades and includes such high-profile and complex cases as the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and the case against O.J. Simpson. In other words, he’s no slouch when it comes to investigations.

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Publius

Saturday Open Thread: Moscow Edition

by Publius

Today, in 1812, Napoleon began his retreat from Russia:

napoleons_retreat_from_moscow

We have, admittedly, very mixed feelings about this…

Debra Burlingame

Obama Will Live to Regret Sending Gitmo Detainees to Illinois

by Debra Burlingame
Who would have believed after 9/11 that our own president, the commander-in-chief who recently announced that he was sending another 30,000 troops to risk their lives in Aghanistan, would order that the enemy combatants captured on the battlefield must be brought into the United States.  We will live to regret this.
Barack Obama continues to cast the closing of Guantanamo and the importation of Al Qaeda terrorists into the American heartland as a moral victory.  But this is nothing more than moral vanity and rank political theater aimed at satisfying his liberal soulmates at the ACLU and Human Rights First.   In truth, the security nightmare he is about to visit on this country will only be surpassed by the legal morass which will accompany the transfer of foreign terrorists to American soil.   The moment the detainees arrive, their lawyers will drop an avalanche of legal challenges on the federal courts seeking to set them free, destroy what is left of the military commissions, and turn the 9/11 trial into a tragic farce.  Americans should remember this:  it didn’t have to happen.  The Supreme Court said that Gitmo was lawful and that preventative detentions were Constitutional.  Barack Obama–and members of Congress who stood by and did nothing to stop him–will own this national security disaster, but our troops and innocent citizens will be the ones who are forced to pay for it.

Who would have believed after 9/11 that our own president, the commander-in-chief who recently announced that he was sending another 30,000 troops to risk their lives in Afghanistan, would order that enemy combatants captured on the battlefield must be brought into the United States.  We will live to regret this.

Barack Obama continues to cast the closing of Guantanamo and the importation of Al Qaeda terrorists into the American heartland as a moral victory.  But this is nothing more than moral vanity and rank political theater aimed at satisfying his liberal soul-mates at the ACLU and Human Rights First.  In truth, the security nightmare he is about to visit on this country will only be surpassed by the legal morass that will accompany the transfer of foreign terrorists to American soil.   The moment the detainees arrive, their lawyers will drop an avalanche of legal challenges on the federal courts seeking to set them free, destroy what is left of the military commissions, and turn the 9/11 trial into a tragic farce.  Americans should remember this:  it doesn’t have to happen.   The Supreme Court has said that Gitmo is lawful and that preventative detentions are constitutional.  Barack Obama–and members of Congress who stand by and do nothing to stop him–will own this national security disaster.

Jim Hoft

Media Matters Defends Kid Fisting Lectures and Children Sex Books as Non-Scandal

by Jim Hoft

The Soros-linked far left Media Matters today announced that the Kevin Jennings GLSEN scandal reported here on this blog and at Big Government is a non-scandal that was rightfully ignored by the state-run media.

Here’s a question: If it is such a non-scandal then why did Media Matters write 18 different articles on the non-scandal this week?

mma jennings

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The Pork Report

Pork Report, December 11, 2009: Puppet Show Edition

by The Pork Report

Nearly one in five federal employees paid $100,000 a year or more, and that doesn’t count overtime pay or bonuses

Congress to increase the federal debt ceiling by $1.8 trillion before year’s end

Minneapolis puppet show receives federal stimulus dollars

Columbus City Schools have more than 120 buildings, but the district is renting banquet halls, high-end hotels and conference centers with $145,000 in federal grant dollars intended help low-income students

Washington, DC receiving nearly 10 times as much federal stimulus funds per capita as the rest of the nation

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Publius

Delaware Official: ACORN Illegally Lobbying in State

by Publius

As part of House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Ranking Member Darrell Issa’s (R-CA) ongoing investigation into the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now’s (ACORN) lobbying and election activities, the Delaware State Public Integrity Commission responded to a letter of inquiry sent by Issa revealing that “no person has ever registered to represent any of the ACORN affiliates identified in the Committee’s letter” and that after being notified that a “lobbyist must register” they had yet to do so while still engaging in lobbying activities.


12-11-09 Deleware State Public Integrity Commission Letter to Issa – ACORN Deleware Lobbying

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