From Ben Smith at Politico:

Service Employees International Union President Andrew Stern, one of America’s most prominent labor leaders, is set to resign, according to a member of the union’s board and another SEIU official.

The President of an SEIU local based in Seattle, Diane Sosne, broke the news to her staffers at 11:35 this morning, local time.

“Last night I received confirmation that Andy Stern is resigning as President of SEIU. He has not yet made a public announcement; we will share the details as we become aware of them,” Sosne wrote in an email obtained by POLITICO.

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Hopefully by now you are aware that Senator Chris McDaniel and I have filed a citizens class action lawsuit against the PPACA, the liberty-robbing “Obamacare” statute, in the federal court for the Southern District of Mississippi.  Please see our prior article on this subject here. The response from liberty-loving Americans has been overwhelming — from Big Media, not so much.  I understand their disinterest, though, because really important things like the travails of a billionaire golfer takes up so much of their time.

That’s quite alright, because I would rather come directly to you to make important announcements like this:  Lt. Governor Phil Bryant has entered our class action lawsuit against the PPACA as an individual, private citizen.  He is serving as a Petitioner, and is the class representative for a uniquely important class:  employees of the State of Mississippi.

Lt. Governor Phil Bryant addresses crowd in Jackson, Mississippi

Why this new class is important.

Congress is now dictating what must be — and must not be — in your health insurance plan.  In other words, they are controlling the health insurance that your employer is offering you.  Socialism is defined as “government ownership or control of all the means of production (farms, factories, mines, and natural resources) and all the means of distribution (transportation, communications, and the instruments of commerce).”  Realize, “socialized medicine” is here, right now.  Even worse, by controlling what health insurance plans must be offered, Congress and the Executive branch are controlling your employer, and thus your employment.

Your liberty depends on the survival of your republic.  The PPACA is a direct attack on the republican form of government.

Every kid who’s ever put hand over heart and recited the Pledge of Allegiance knows that we live in a republic:  “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

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From the people who claim to consider dissent the highest form of patriotism:

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) – Opponents of the fiscally conservative tea party movement say they plan to infiltrate and dismantle the political group by trying to make its members appear to be racist, homophobic and moronic.

Jason Levin, creator of http://www.crashtheteaparty.org, said Monday the group has 65 leaders in major cities across the country who are trying to recruit members to infiltrate tea party events for April 15—tax filing day, when tea party groups across the country are planning to gather and protest high taxes.

“Every time we have someone on camera saying that Barack Obama isn’t an American citizen, we want someone sitting next to him saying, ‘That’s right, he’s an alien from outer space!’” Levin said.

Tea party members said the backlash comes from ignorance. (more…)

My all-time favorite former intern, Hiwa Alaghebandian, has just narrated a new Economics 101 video about the cost of the tax code for the Center for Freedom and Prosperity. I won’t spoil the surprise by giving the details, but you if you’re not angry now, you will be after watching.

In the video, Ms. Alaghebandian notes that a study from 1996 (back when the tax code was not nearly as complex) estimated that a flat tax would reduce the compliance burden of the income tax by 94 percent. In my video on the flat tax, I mostly focused on how a single-rate, consumption-base system would boost growth and competitiveness, but simplicity also would be a remarkable achievment. Not only would real tax reform reduce compliance costs by hundreds of billions of dollars, it would also put a big dent in the corrupt practice of distorting economic choices with deductions, exemptions, credits, preferences, shelters, and other loopholes. That’s a profitable game for politicians and lobbyists, but the rest of us pay the price because the tax code is even more of a nightmare.

There is also an under-appreciated connection between simplicity and fairness. My colleague Will Wilkinson sagely observed that “…the more power the government has to pick winners and losers, the more power rich people will have relative to poor people.” The tax code is a good example. Many leftists want the tax system to penalize success with high tax rates. I’ve explained why this is economically misguided in a video on class-warfare tax policy, but it’s also worth pointing out that a simple and fair tax system like the flat tax makes it much more difficult for the well-connected to take advantage of complexity. Simply stated, the tax system should not punish the rich with high rates (notwithstanding the neurotic views of self-loathing trust-fund heirs), and it shouldn’t reward them with special deals.

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It’s hard to find a politician who isn’t eager to “do something” about high unemployment. Turns out California has found one way to save and create certain kinds of jobs—spend like mad and raise taxes.

That job-creation strategy has worked quite well for government-sector workers. Problem is the statewide unemployment rate is still among the highest in the nation, and many private-sector employers are heading to states like Texas, where taxes are lower and regulations are lighter.

“I would love to have companies calling me saying, ‘We’d like to move to California, can you help us with that relocation?’ I get none of those calls,” says business relocation coach Joe Vranich. “The calls I do get are, ‘Hello, we want to move out of California, can you help us do that?’”

Vranich says there’s no one reason why businesses leave. He calls it “death by a thousand cuts,” where job creators get fed up with everything from high taxes to traffic gridlock and legal hassles.

Take Rick and Jack Newcombe, the father-son team that runs Creators Syndicate.

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On Saturday morning, I was stopped short by a text message-  a plane crash had killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski and 96 others.  Immediately, I called and asked the location… Russia.

With tragic irony, the Polish Presidential delegation was wiped out while enroute to memorialize the 1940 Katyn Forest Massacre.  During World War II (April 1940), the Russians murdered 22,000 members of the captured Polish Officer Corps. On Stalin’s orders, the Russians killed captured Polish military officers, civil servants, and intellectuals, including lawyers, physicians, teachers, professors, engineers, priests, rabbis and other professionals.  By “liquidating” the Polish Officer Corps and much of the professional class, the Russians eased future “communization” of Poland.

The Russians had never apologized for the Katyn Massacre and for 50 years had denied culpability.  Scheduled for last weekend, the memorial event was meant to extend a hand and unclench a fist.  Instead, the Polish State aircraft crashed nearly at the same site.

Polish President Lech Kaczynski was hated by the Russians;  he was blunt, and a tough negotiator.  As a friend of Lech Walesa, member of Solidarity, and former mayor of Warsaw, President Kaczynski had been jailed while resisting communism.

The historic Polish motto, “Our Freedom is Yours”, is deeply ingrained in the national political culture.

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[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.]

2008 campaign flier about then candidate Alan Grayson’s ties to Code Pink

Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood and Obama ally Jodie Evans with President Barack Obama, October 15, 2009.

Top Obama funder, terrorist supporter and Code Pink co-founder Jodie Evans said in a radio interview last Friday night that Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) spoke with her earlier that day to express his support for Code Pink’s efforts to kidnap former adviser to President George W. Bush, Karl Rove.

Jodie Evans had made an attempt to handcuff and detain Rove that afternoon at a Las Vegas book signing appearance where Rove was promoting his recently released memoir, “Courage and Consequence: My Life As a Conservative in the Fight.”

This was the second attempt in recent weeks by Jodie Evans to kidnap Rove and hold him under the pretext of making a citizens arrest for what Code Pink calls war crimes (aka defending America in the war on terror.)

Though the previous attempt in Beverly Hills made national headlines, no mainstream media outlet reported about Jodie Evans’ deep ties to President Barack Obama, the Democrat party, terrorist groups and state sponsors of terrorism.

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Holocaust Day (Yom HaShoah in Hebrew) is today. I, for one, am sick and tired of the fetishism of dead Jews and the endless memorials to Holocaust victims, while the world rubs its hands in gleeful anticipation of “Holocaust — the Sequel.” I am sick of the false narrative. The role of and that of the Muslim leader of the ummah, the Mufti of Jerusalem, was pivotal to the extermination of the Jews during World War II, and yet his role and that of jihad was scrubbed from the history books.

And here we are 60 years later, and Islam is back in full bloom, with Muslims sharpening their machetes for the beheading of the Jewish state — much the way Muhammad annihilated the Qurayzah tribe, beheading all the men of the last Jewish tribe of Arabia (after he exiled the other two). Sixty years after the Mufti Hajj Amin al Husseini sent 400,000 Jews to their deaths in Poland, we have Ahmadinejad and every Islamic leader, imam, and cleric calling for the death of the Jews.

Now a new survey shows that 2009 was the worst year for anti-Semitism in at least two decades. Anti-Semitic attacks and events around the world more than doubled in 2009. The European Jewish Congress (EJC) and The Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism at Tel Aviv University say that part of this increase came from an “orchestrated and concerted attempt to delegitimize the Jewish People and Israel” in Western Europe. There were “mass demonstrations and verbal and visual expressions against Israel and the Jews, with “the worst offenders” appearing in “Western Europe, particularly in the UK and France, followed by Canada.”

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Have you wondered how healthcare reform will play out? You only need to look at how healthcare has been laid out by the World Health Organization (WHO). The International Classification of Disease also known as the ICD is the coding system that is used to classify diseases. It is published by the (WHO), and it is also the basis for reimbursement for hospitals and physicians.

There have been several iterations of the ICD. The most recent is ICD-10. Seven countries have adopted it to date. The first country to adopt it for clinical use was Australia in 1998 then Canada in 2000. The most recent country to adopt it was Thailand in 2007. The United States is scheduled to adopt it in 2013. Just in time for the major pieces for the healthcare reform pieces to take effect. The mad rush to pass healthcare reform makes a lot of sense when this time table is taken into consideration. It finally brings the US healthcare system into the global healthcare system overseen by the WHO.

How will our healthcare system change when 30 million new people will be covered and will need healthcare? The system in British Columbia, Canada provides an example of what we can expect. They have adopted a healthcare system that has clinical treatment guidelines set forth by a protocols advisory committee. Our healthcare reform system also sets up an advisory panel that will use evidence based medicine.

These advisory panels set up treatment flow sheets that will make it easy for healthcare providers such as physician assistants to provide care. Now I understand how Governor Rendell can make the statement that he did a couple of weeks ago that health care providers are “just as good as primary care physicians”. Although we have a shortage of physicians, the statement is clearly based in the premise that anyone can use algorithms to cookbook medical care. All you need to do is connect the dots.

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President Obama is convening a Global Nuclear Security Summit in Washington beginning on Monday. “The purpose… would be to achieve the highest levels of nuclear security, which the president believes is essential for enhanced international security and for the peaceful development and the global expansion of nuclear energy…” (italics mine)

How would the peaceful development and the global expansion of nuclear energy be accomplished? By Americans supplying enriched uranium to other countries.

Sound far-fetched? Not if President Obama intends for American to bankroll an international nuclear fuel bank to dissuade countries from building their own uranium enrichment facilities.

We know that the creation of an “international nuclear fuel bank” is a distinct possibility on President Obama’s agenda by reviewing legislation he sponsored and introduced in the Senate during his tenure as a U.S. Senator. According to S. 1977, The Nuclear Weapons Threat Reduction Act of 2007, Obama’s policy would “provide for sustained United States leadership in a cooperative global effort to prevent nuclear terrorism, reduce global nuclear arsenals, stop the spread of nuclear weapons and related material and technology, and support the responsible and peaceful use of nuclear technology.” (Italics mine) Sound familiar?

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SEIU heavy Andy Stern has often been quoted saying, “Workers of the world unite – it’s not just a slogan anymore.  It’s the way we’re gonna have to do our work.”

According to the latest LM-2 financial report filed with the federal Department of Labor, Stern’s 2009 compensation totaled $306,388.  By comparison, the “Executive Secretary to the President,” Doris Butler, received a paltry $48,666.

Another strong proponent of Marxist principles – in fact, the co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America – SEIU Executive Vice President Eliseo Medina took home a cool $242,286.  Fellow frequent White House visitor and SEIU Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger? $252,724.

Perhaps SEIU’s new motto should be: “Socialism For Thee, Not Me.”

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As we watch Obama’s Chicago-style politics in action, it’s time to answer the question the old media, both in and outside Chicago, ignores to this day. Who were the key people in the Chicago Machine who helped advance Obama to the White House? One, Alderman Edward M. Burke, was an early supporter of Barack.

In the mid-1980’s, Chicago Outfit Lawyer Robert Cooley voluntarily went undercover for the FBI as part of an investigation called Operation Gambat. Cooley wore a wire on, among others, Burke’s good friend and made-man, Alderman Fred Roti.  The Chief Judge of Cook County’s Chancery Court and an Assistant Senate Majority Leader of the Illinois State Senate were also targeted. Cooley’s work eventually led to the only judge in U.S. history being convicted of fixing a murder trial. More on that Judge in Part 3.

Operation Gambat resulted in a series of trials, guilty pleas and convictions involving 24 people – mobsters, police officers, politicians, attorneys, and judges.

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Today, in 1861, Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter, a federal fort in Charleston Harbor. The attack kicked off the U.S. Civil War. It was widely expected to end quickly…it didn’t.

Press play button to listen to the podcast.

This week, we’re joined by NY Post sports writer Ursula Hennessy who discusses The Final Four and The Masters, Mike Murphy on politics and being the odd man out on “Meet The Press”, and a we bestow a priceless surprise gift on our favorite Democratic candidate Mickey Kaus. Also, Rob Long discusses the not-so-glamorous life of a TV writer in the midst of pilot season. Don’t miss it!

The University of Illinois Alumni Association recently awarded it’s “International Alumni Award for Exceptional Achievement” to the current President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa Delgado.  Since the University of Illinois is the premier university for the state of Illinois, let’s see the list of accomplishments President Correa can boast of while claiming this prestigious award:

• Transparency International listed Ecuador as one of the world’s most corrupt countries under Correa.
• He has seized numerous TV and Radio outlets in his country.
• He has jailed reporters critical of his government.
• Organzied crime has had a magnificient rise during his reign.
• He has rammed through constitutional changes to increase his power and extend his term of office.
• He was found to have FARC terrorists fund his campaigns.
• Documents found by Colombia show that he has actively worked with FARC terrorists. FARC has also been involved with kindnapping Americans.
• Ecuador has provided a safe haven for FARC terrorists to launch attacks on Columbia, an ally of the United States.
• Ecuador has ties to both Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and has increased ties to Iran.

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In the wake of the Court of Appeals judgment last week that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) lacks sufficient authority to regulate broadband services, senior congressional Democrats are reaffirming their support for alternative methods of executing what some critics charge would be a de facto government takeover of the internet.

Rep. Ed Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts and co-author of the House’s Internet Freedom Preservation Act, said the FCC should “take any actions necessary to ensure that consumers and competition are protected on the internet,” and offered to “continue to work with my colleagues in Congress to provide the Commission any additional authority it may need to ensure the openness of the Internet for consumers, innovators and investors.”

Markey, like FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, is a backer of net neutrality, a policy that would inadvertently be instituted were the FCC to reclassify broadband services under existing rules relating to telephone services, and directly instituted were his bill passed and signed into law.

Fellow Massachusetts Democrat Sen. John Kerry, meanwhile, insisted that while it is within the authority of the FCC to reclassify broadband he is not advocating such aggressive action.

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When I read Monica Crowley’s piece on Big Government, I must admit to being thoroughly disgusted.

Not because she posted racial-slur laden voicemails sent to Dr. Christopher Metzler, Associate Dean of Continuing Studies at Georgetown University because of his opposition to ObamaCare. No, I am disgusted because for years the mainstream media has invited black conservatives on their radio and television programs to be an opposing voice to the black liberals who are often sought as the voice of black America. We’ve told them (off the record) of the response we normally get after our appearances.

We know what the headlines would read if something were said to annoy Al Sharpton. But it took racist phonecalls to a dean to invoke outrage.

I know many other black conservatives have endured the racial slurs from the left for decades, and the media has never had our backs.

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`Left’ and `Right,’ Americans today call their political life out of joint, and therefore
painful. A news cycle cannot go by without another show of genteel hand-wringing over Tea-Party activists and radio-show callers—their rage, their seemingly endless array of `phobias,’ the menace they pose to decent people everywhere. Complementarily, Americans on the `Right’ are outraged or, more precisely, morally indignant. This has nothing to do with the thought-crimes and sentiment-felonies of racism, sexism, homophobia; rather, as seen in the recent passage of health-care legislation in the face of public opposition,, conservatives see a representative form of government that no longer, well, represents the majority of Americans.

Both sides feel a dislocation in America, a dislocation of public opinion from government.

In our Constitution “we the people” announce that we rule ourselves, through our elected representatives. But our eyes and ears tell us that our elected representatives listen not to us but to party leaders and other purveyors of elite or `advanced’ opinion, `expert’ opinion, `academic’ opinion. The Right deplores this; the Left says, `Thank God!’—or it would, if the Left did not now insist on a chaste separation of religiosity from state.

If public opinion in some form rules and thus preoccupies republican regimes, how should it rule? What is the proper relationship between citizens, their opinions, and their government?

As the designers of what Madison called the first “purely republican” regime in the modern world the American founders thought carefully about the role of public opinion in popular self-government. None thought more clearly than did Madison himself. And today, no one thinks more clearly about Madison than the Villanova University scholar, Colleen Sheehan. In her recent book, James Madison and the Spirit of Republican Self-Government (Cambridge University Press, 2009) Sheehan she explains how Madison understood both the promise and the perils of American political life, particularly as they center on the question of public opinion.

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Today, in 2002, opposition forces in Venezuela attempted to overthrow Hugo Chavez. Sadly, they failed.