Today, in 1943, Sergei Rachmaninoff died. He was the last great composer of classical music. With him a genre died.

Jason Mattera is a smart guy.  More than that, he’s utterly unafraid of the left, a leading member of the new breed of conservative warriors who are not frightened by the Alinsky tactics of the Democrats and their allies.  You may remember him from his encounter with Charlie Rangel:

Or his undercover reporting at an ObamaCare rally:

Or his recent speech at CPAC, for which the New York Times labeled him a racist:

(more…)

When Cynthia Rice told me, “I wouldn’t want to wish this upon anybody, especially with all the complications,” she was referring to the long and challenging road she and Jim, her husband of 16 years, have traveled prior to and following his successful liver transplant operation March 21, 2006. After speaking with her at their St. Louis home Tuesday (see video), I’m convinced the same sentiment applies to the government-run health care legislation signed into law this week by President Barack Obama.

The transplant became necessary long before anyone knew about ObamaCare and only five months after Jim, then 52, was diagnosed with Autoimmune Hepatitis, inflammation in the liver that occurs when a person’s immune system attacks his own liver.

Prior to the onset of symptoms during the summer of 2005, Jim weighed 185 pounds and was an active tennis player, said Cynthia, de facto spokesperson for the couple. By the time of his diagnosis, neighbors had begun to notice changes in Jim’s appearance and asked if he had some sort of cancer.

In addition to retaining excessive amounts of fluid in his body, he began to have other serious problems — including hallucinations and the inability to perform even the most mundane tasks — that resulted from his liver’s inability to cleanse his system of toxins, including ammonia. After some prodding by Cynthia, he agreed to see a doctor.

“When we were first told (about Jim’s need for a transplant), we were both very resistant to the idea, because we knew it would be very expensive,” Cynthia said, “but our private insurance came through for us just fantastically. We received excellent care from the hospital where he received the transplant.”

Did she say private health insurance provided quality care for Jim despite the fact that he had changed jobs only nine months before the transplant operation and only a handful of months before symptoms surfaced for the first time? Cynthia confirmed her statement, then we talked about ObamaCare.

Cynthia offered many reasons why she opposes the new law and hopes Republicans in Congress are somehow able to repeal it.

(more…)

In a response to Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett’s decision to join 13 other states in filing a lawsuit against the federal health care legislation, PA House Appropriations Chairman Dwight Evans threatened to “do whatever it takes” to thwart the AG’s efforts. Incensed, Evans even went so far as to say he would be willing to cut off all state appropriations to the Office of the Attorney General to prevent Corbett from fighting this legislation. Here is the key quote from Evans:

PA State Rep. Dwight Evans

We are accountable to the voters of this state. He [Corbett] cannot think that he can do whatever he wants with taxpayer money. No one can protect him from being accountable.

For starters, Evans should think about following his own advice, as he is one of the most notorious proponents of “WAMs” in the Pennsylvania Legislature, using taxpayer dollars going to fund his own community group and a failed nightclub venture.

Second, President Obama, Gov. Rendell, and others used far more taxpayer funding – with no objection from Evans – on their public relations campaign on  health care reform than any lawsuit by the AG would cost. Tax dollars were used for everything from rallies to newsletters to press conferences.

Furthermore, Evans’ threat seems a clear violation of the separation of powers, and threatens the independence of the Attorney General. Indeed, it seems particularly curious, coming a mere two days after Corbett secured a conviction against Evans’ former House Democrat colleague Mike Veon, and is continuing his investigation and prosecution of House Democrats.

(more…)

The biased writers at the Associated Press said the tea party in Nevada would draw angry protesters today.

They were right.

Supporters of Democratic Senator Harry Reid attacked the Tea Party Express bus today in Nevada.
This statement was just released:

Supporters of Senator Harry Reid have just thrown eggs at the Tea Party Express bus caravan – striking at least one of the three buses (the red Tea Party Express bus) with multiple eggs.

About 35 Reid supporters had lined Highway 95 in front of the Nugget Casino in Searchlight where they were attempting a counter-demonstration the tens of thousands of tea party supporters who are gathering for the “Showdown in Searchlight.”

More details to follow…

Do you suppose the state-run media will be as outraged about this as they were about the bogus hate crimes or coffingate story? Don’t count on it.

(more…)

As a surgeon, at least until ObamaCare goes into effect, I have been trained to dissect issues and results into their component parts. My current focus is on the similarities between the two biggest missed political opportunities over the past two years:

1. Senator McCain’s suspension of his campaign to fly back to D.C. to work out a “Bipartisan” solution to the TARP fiasco. By compromising his fiscal principles and NOT drawing a line in the sand….he lost the Public.  It was the beginning of the end of his Presidential bid and opened the door for the election of Barrack Obama.
2. The attendance of Republican leadership ( the same leadership that supported the TARP fiasco above) at the recent” Bipartisan” Health Summit at Blair House.  This smoke and mirrors event purported to compare Republican ideas with the dogma of Obama, Pelosi and Reid.  The event confused and misled the public.  By attending the event, Republicans snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in their opposition to the Obama’s use of our health care system to implement socialist reform.

Rather than being mesmerized by the “illusion” of Bipartisanship at Blair House, the GOP leadership should have walked past Blair House, marched to local clinics and hospitals, and listened to doctors, nurses and patients on the front line of health care.  This could have sent a powerful message to every American and delivered a death blow to ObamaCare.  The symbolism could have ended the debate once and for all.  Picture this:  the Democrats sequestered in a government building talking to themselves, versus The GOP hand in hand with The American People.

It should be noted that some Republicans opposed the Blair House meeting and were pushing for a grassroots frontal assault.  Congressman Thad McCotter and a handful of other GOP members advocated for this action.  I believe this approach would have brought victory to all who support Freedom and Liberty.

(more…)

When the dust has settled, partisan rancor has gone the way of all flesh, and the history of our times gets written sine ira et studio, what will observers say about developments in February and March, 2010. No one really knows, but I will hazard the following guess:

In those days, there was a clock ticking in the background, but no one in Washington seemed to pay it any heed. Nancy Pelosi was in her counting house counting all the votes. Steny Hoyer was exploring whether one could somehow bend the rules so that his colleagues could pass a controversial bill while telling their constituents that they had nothing to do with it. Bart Stupak, caught between the dictates of religious faith and political allegiance, was pondering when and how to sacrifice the former to the latter. And President Barack Obama issued threats to members of his own party in the House of Representatives. All of this was done in pursuit of passing into law a profoundly unpopular bill that promised to bankrupt the country, drive prospective physicians out of the profession, deprive the elderly of Medicare benefits they had paid for long ago, and reduce the quality of medical care for all but those comfortably ensconced within what came to be called the American nomenklatura. There was also material for burlesque. After being accused of sexually harassing the fellows on his staff, one Democratic Congressman attacked the White House Chief of Staff, calling him a “son of the devil’s spawn” and describing in arresting terms the manner in which the man practiced in the shower the ballet steps learned in his days as a bagman for the Daley machine in Chicago. It would have all been quite comic had there not been that clock in the background steadily ticking . . . in a country far away of which the Americans knew little or nothing.

There were, to be sure, other events. In a coordinated effort directed by the President, Joe Biden picked a quarrel with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; Hillary Clinton vented her spleen against the Israeli government for announcing that it intended in a modest manner to increase the size of a long-established, already sizable, strategically located settlement on the outskirts of Jerusalem; Robert Gibbs snarled and sneered and ran his mouth on a subject about which he knew little or nothing and cared even less; and the President met with the Israeli Prime Minister in circumstances designed to broadcast his disdain to the Arab world. All of this was done with an eye to bringing down a democratically-elected Israeli government and setting the stage for a Middle East settlement between Israel and a Palestinian leader who lacked firm Palestinian support, who would have fallen from power when Hamas seized the Gaza strip had the Israelis not used their checkpoints on the West Bank to thwart Hamas’ operations there, and who was in no position to negotiate any sort of lasting agreement with anyone about anything at all. This, too, would have been a matter of comic relief had that infernal clock not gone on ticking . . . in distant Teheran.

(more…)

It’s time for your weekly dose of Coffee and Markets, featuring The New Ledger’s Francis Cianfrocca, a podcast brought to you by the fine folks at Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com and LibertyPundits.com, your home for conservative podcasts. In this week’s edition, we talk about the controversial issue of political violence in response to health care’s passage, the upheaval in the marketplace, and whether the United States is becoming more like Europe.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Download Podcast | iTunes | Podcast Feed

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: Can States Opt Out of the Individual Mandate?
VDH: False Piety
TNL: McArdle Fights for Accountability
Redstate: If King George Will Not Listen
FNC: Shots Fired at Cantor’s Richmond Office

“There ain’t no rules around here, we’re trying to accomplish something.”  Thomas Edison

Often in life you are told that you can’t or won’t be able to do something. They tell you it is not possible or that you should not even try.  Ride 2 Recovery has always believed that anything could and should be tried in the effort to make one’s life better or regain normalcy.

On January 30, an email came across my desk from a certain injured veteran inquiring about the Ride 2 Recovery program.  The email was short and to the point.

“Hello, my name is Delvin McMillian and I’m a disabled vet who wants to become a participant with the ride 2 recovery program.  How would I go about doing so?”

So immediately I wrote him back and asked about how he had come to know about Ride 2 Recovery and some info on his background. He had told me about how a former R2R participant, UHC employee Walter Chwalik, who had recently been on the Florida Challenge was showing him some pictures of the ride. When he saw the photo’s, he thought he would like to see if he could join in the fun.

R2R STEALTH “MAD MAX”

Delvin McMillian and his fighting spirit was not squashed when he contacted the Hantavirus in 2001 in his dorm room at Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho. The disease attacked his circulatory system and caused his lungs to collapse and his kidneys to fail. Both of his legs were amputated, below the knee, and one hand and a part of the other hand were amputated.

(more…)

I know a little something about coffins.  And I know when I’m being lied to.

An email arrived in my inbox this afternoon from Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan’s baby-brother, Congressman Russ Carnahan (D-Missouri).  In this email, Carnahan pledges to not be intimidated by Coffingate, and then asks me for money.  This email may be the most despicable yet of the campaign season.  After a brutal 48 hours of press retractions about an incident regarding a coffin placed near his house, Carnahan is attempting to hustle money for intimidation that did not occur.

Carnahan provides a link to a piece in Politico – the very piece that was suggested to Politico reporter Jake Sherman by a Carnahan spokesperson, (and subsequently corrected).  Here is some text from his email.

They’ve tried every dirty trick in the book to block critical reforms that will stop insurance companies from rejecting children with preexisting conditions or denying care to those who are sick. Try as they may, we will not be intimidated.
Help me send a message that threats and extreme tactics will not work. Please contribute $100, $50 or even $25 right now to help me fight back against those who will stop at nothing to block health care reform for Missouri families….

It must be hard to get good help these days.  At the center of the controversy is Sara Howard, Congressman Carnahan’s spokesperson for his re-election campaign.  Howard comes from SEIU, where she spent a number of years learning the ins and outs of labor-press relations.

(more…)

Today, in 1989, Russian voters were able to cast ballots in a free election with a choice of parties. Communists were roundly defeated. The Gorbachev Administration tried to spin the losses as a vindication of their policies. It didn’t work.

There appears to be a concerted effort among the political Left and many mainstream media people to demonize and marginalize the expanding citizen-based movement known as the tea party movement. This effort flows from both a fear of what these tea parties represent and a contempt for everyday Americans. But those ordinary citizens are poised to be the ones laughing when it’s all over, when democracy takes its course.

There seems to be a consensus now among the liberal elite when it comes to the tea parties. Senior administration officials deride them, as do liberal congressional Democrats. These elitists characterize the tea partiers as extremists, some drawing analogies between these ordinary citizens and right-wing militias, fanatics, and religious zealots. Some members of Congress are even saying that these tea party people are racist, which is pretty much the worst label that can be slapped on you in modern politics.

And many leftist talking heads in the media parrot this message, with their own biting editorial, adding that some in the tea party crowd are dangerous. Some talking heads, including some Hollywood actors and others who don’t seem to have any credentials as policy analysts but are nonetheless given air time, are really playing up the racism angle, and even suggest that some tea party attendees may be domestic terrorists.

Try the decaf, people.

(more…)

NEW ORLEANS – Joseph Basel, age 24, Stan Dai, age 24, Robert Flanagan, age 24, and James O’Keefe, age 25, were charged in a one-count bill of information with entering real property of the United States under false pretenses, a misdemeanor, announced the U. S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana.

According to the Bill of Information, between January 20, 2010, and January 25, 2010, Flanagan, Basel, O’Keefe, and Dai met on several occasions. During their meetings, they discussed, among other things, possible scenarios in which they would talk with members of the staff of Senator Mary Landrieu inside of her New Orleans, Louisiana office, in the Hale Boggs Federal Building, and record the interaction using audio and visual equipment. As a result of this planning, on January 25, 2010, Basel and Flanagan entered the Senator’s office dressed as telephone repairmen, said they were following up on reports of problems with the telephone system, engaged in conversation with the staff members, and pretended to test the phone system. O’Keefe, who had also entered the office, recorded the interaction between Basel, Flanagan, and the staff members. (more…)

My previous post about using tax competition to restrain greedy and bloated government generated a lot of email, much of it focused on whether so-called tax havens are good or bad. This is a challenging issue. In an ideal world, there would be no need for financial refuges because every jurisdiction would have low tax rates and limited government. In the real world, though, politicians frequently impose oppressive tax laws targeting the “rich” as part of divisive class-warfare politics. This is bad news for investors and entrepreneurs, to be sure, but it is also bad news for the rest of us because high tax rates and pervasive double taxation of saving and investment slow growth and reduce competitiveness. This is why tax havens, as explained in this video, play a vital role in the global economy by discouraging politicians from imposing self-destructive policy.

The fight over tax havens is not just a matter of economics and tax policy. It also deals with the critical issue of national fiscal sovereignty.  International bureaucracies such as the United Nations and the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development want the power to veto national tax laws, something that should horrify any sensible person.

But this issue should be important even for people who don’t care about sovereignty because it has enormous implications for America’s economic vitality. Simply stated, the United States is a tax haven. Indeed, by some measures, we are the biggest tax haven, and even though the tax haven policies only exist to attract foreign capital, the rest of us benefit because beneficial tax rules for “non-resident aliens” bring trillions of dollars of investment to America.

(more…)

This week, nominated by Tom Costella of Canton, MI, the “Educated Idiots Award” goes to…

Fidel Castro (remember him)?

The communist octogenarian/anachronism has come out of semi-comatose retirement to praise President Obama’s trillion dollar government takeover of Americans’ health care.  Herewith Cuba’s bath-robed butcher sings a few bars of praise for our President:

“We consider health reform to have been an important battle and a success of his (Obama’s) government,” Castro opined in a published screed.  Though, he couldn’t resist poking a newly socialist Uncle Sam:  “It is really incredible that 234 years after the Declaration of Independence …. the government of that country has approved medical attention for the majority of its citizens, something that Cuba was able to do half a century ago.”

Yet, ominous clouds hover over the dictator’s socialist Utopia.  The very socialism that has earned Comrade Castro “global praise” – “free” health care and education, and heavily subsidized food, housing, utilities and transportation – is not sustainable in the nation’s perpetually depressed economy according to the Cuban regime.

(more…)

The United States Air Force was handed good news on March 23^rd when the World Trade Organization made its final ruling on a complaint brought by the United States Government.  It found that $178B in launch aid given to France-based EADS/Airbus for its family of jetliners was improper and illegal.

Further, the WTO determined that $5B given specifically to provide EADS with an unfair advantage over America’s Boeing to build new U.S. aerial refueling tankers broke trade laws – and the spirit of legal and fair international competition.

That the subsidies were illegal or that EADS/Airbus cheats to win contracts comes as no surprise to trade watchers.  The ruling that they broke laws and put an American company at an unfair disadvantage should remove any obstacles for the Pentagon to move forward immediately with a contract for these much-needed flying gas stations.

Emphasis, “should.”

(more…)

Yesterday The Hill reported  that Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that “keeping a Democratic majority in the House is ‘too important to the country,’” which is why “she had no intention of ceding control of the House in this fall’s elections, despite Republican optimism that they can win control of the chamber.” Appearing on PBS, Pelosi addressed potential Democratic losses due to Sunday’s health care vote, “I’ve said if passing this bill means I have to walk out of my office that night, it would be with the greatest pride.” However, she cautioned, “I haven’t any intention of losing the Democratic majority.”

Sure. Here is another reason Mrs. Pelosi might want to keep a democratic majority. That’s because, as it turns out, based on my new analysis of the Recovery.org data, Democratic districts are getting 1.8 times more money on average than Republican districts. Using Recovery.gov data, and cleaning it up seriously to be able to use it, we find that Republican districts are getting on average $260.6 million in stimulus awards while democratic districts are getting on average $471.5 million. The average is award per district is $385.9 million.

(more…)

When Barack Obama decided to launch his political career in the living room of unrepentant domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, he tacitly endorsed using violence as a political tactic.

And when two staunch allies of the Democratic Party–the SEIU and ACORN–drove busloads of protesters to the private homes of AIG executives, just days later, President Obama told a meeting of bankers that “my administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks.”

Implicitly, Obama was using the threat of violence to get the bankers to acquiesce.

During his presidential campaign, Barack Obama didn’t shy away from confrontation. In fact, he encouraged it by telling supporters to “argue with” opponents and to “get in their face[s].”

The Obama Administration’s confrontational tone included some violent imagery last August, when one White House official encouraged Obama supporters to “punch back twice as hard” against opponents.

Later that day, at an anti-ObamaCare rally in St. Louis, a black man named Kenneth Gladney was handing out “Don’t Tread on Me” flags when he was approached by pro-ObamaCare SEIU union members. One of the men asked Gladney, “What kind of n*%%er are you to be giving out this kind of stuff?”

The union thugs then beat him so badly he required overnight hospitalization.

Obama’s supporters got the message. They were getting in people’s faces, and they were punching. And kicking. Repeatedly.

(more…)

A member of the terrorist support group Code Pink assaults then Sec. of State Condoleezza Rice at a Congressional hearing, Oct. 24, 2007. AP Photo by Charles Dharapak

Code Pink co-founder and Democrat activist Jodie Evans and President Barack Obama, Oct. 15, 2009.

[Note: This is the latest segment in an ongoing series about Code Pink and its co-founder Jodie Evans. Click here to read earlier articles.]

House Majority Whip Rep. James Clyburn (SC)  recently accused Republicans of “aiding and abetting terrorism” because of their support for the Tea Party movement. With all due respect, Rep. Clyburn needs to clean out his own party first before he has standing to say anything on the subject.

Top Democrat Party activists Jodie Evans and Medea Benjamin, through their group Code Pink, have spent the past eight years terrorizing soldiers, their families and public officials on the homefront while working with terrorists and state sponsors of terrorism abroad. Rather than being condemned and disowned, Code Pink is embraced by President Barack Obama and leading Democrats while being celebrated by the media.

The Code Pink Democrats have harassed wounded soldiers and their families at military hospitals in Washington, D.C. and San Diego; they have repeatedly targeted military recruiting centers for abuse; they cruelly taunted the children of military families at a White House Halloween party; they have terrorized government officials at their homes and they have led a campaign for the kidnapping of former President Bush and his wife Laura (for this they enlisted the support of the Muslim Brotherhood).

(more…)