Archive for April, 2010

Brian Garst

The Left Claims They Can’t Find Anyone Who Says Obamacare is Illegal

by Brian Garst

The University of Washington held a “debate” over the constitutionality of the health care bill in which none of the participants argued it was at all unconstitutional.  Explaining this farce, the university claimed they couldn’t find any law professors to argue the opposing view.  Liberal blogs such as TalkingPointsMemo and Think Progress, the blog for the Soros funded mouth-piece known as Center for American Progress, picked up the story to brag that the left can’t find any law professors to argue that Obamacare is unconstitutional.  Clearly they haven’t looked hard enough.

Cato Institute legal scholar Ilya Shapiro, who is also an adjunct professor at George Washington University Law School, has issued a simple challenge.  He’ll debate the constitutionality of Obamacare “anywhere at anytime.”


It’s not as if he’s the only one.  Randy Barnett teaches constitutional law at Georgetown University and recently wrote in the Washington Post about different possible challenges to Obamacare.  He concluded that several “constitutional challenges to health-care reform have a sound basis in the text of the Constitution.”  Richard Epstein, of the University of Chicago, is another well-known skeptic of the bill’s constitutionality, and several months ago authored a piece explaining why in the Wall Street Journal.  There are plenty more.

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Jim Hoft

It Was a Setup?… Did State-Run Media Conspire on Racist Tea Party Attack

by Jim Hoft

The American Thinker did an outstanding job describing the events on March 20th, when democratic members of Congress in Washington DC were reportedly taunted by tea party activists with racial and sexual slurs. It appears from the timeline of the events that this race-baiting story was in the works before the Black Caucus members paraded through the tea party crowd on Capitol Hill.

Now Doug Ross found this—–

McClatchy
released their story on the reported attacks on the Black Caucus members at 4:51 PM EST. The McClatchy reporter William Douglas refers to Huffington Post contributor Sam Snead as a source in his article.

But… The Huffington Post did not post their article until 4:56 PM EST:

Amazing.

If this timeline is accurate, it looks like the democratic-media complex was working on this story before it even occurred.

…If it even occurred.

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K. Douglas Lee

Liberty in Action: First Private Lawsuit Challenging ObamaCare Filed in Mississippi

by K. Douglas Lee

Mississippi State Senator Chris McDaniel and I have filed a class action lawsuit today, Good Friday 2010, challenging the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as “ObamaCare” and a variety of other less polite euphemisms.

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We believe that the PPACA is DOA for several equally important reasons, but only one of which has received much attention. Most folks know by now that Congress has invoked the Commerce Clause to justify this massive expansion of governmental power. Our “Good Friday” Complaint spends many pages discussing how Congress has clearly exceeded the limits of its power under the Commerce Clause. I strongly urge you to read the entire Complaint. What I really want to point out, though, are some things you probably don’t know, and definitely will not like — even if you consider yourself a “Liberal.”

Consider for a moment that you have now been commanded to enter into a contract with an insurance corporation, whether you want to or not, whether you need to or not. Yes, there are many who actually choose to be uninsured. For most, it is simply an economic decision that often works out to the uninsured’s economic advantage. Not always, of course, but that’s the beauty of liberty — you get to make the decisions, and live with the good or bad that comes of them.

Now that you realize that a dictate has been handed down, compelling you to contract with an insurance corporation or else, consider what you have to do. It’s not like you can go to a vending machine, swipe your debit card and pull out a policy. You still have to apply. True, they cannot turn you down, but so what? You still have to give a big, scary, mean corporation a lot of private medical and psychological information about yourself and your family. Then, forever after, the insurance corporation’s bureaucrats will gather this private information without even bothering to let you know. As our Complaint states:

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Andrew Breitbart

Barack Obama’s Helter-Skelter, Insane Clown Posse, Alinsky Plans to ‘Deconstruct’ America

by Andrew Breitbart

UPDATE: The bounty is now $100,000 for any audio/video footage of the N-word being hurled at Congressmen John Lewis and Andre Carson.

***

After 14 months of committing 100% to health care reform, the day after the signing of the Health Care bill was to mark the Democratic Party’s new primary concern: destroy the uprising, annihilate by all means necessary, the Tea Party movement.

The first sign that a plan was in place was the ham-fisted, high-camp posturing of the most controversial members of the Democratic caucus walking through the peaceful but animated “Tea Party” demonstrators on Capitol Hill. There is no reason for these elected officials to walk above ground through the media circus amid their ideological foes. The natural route is the tunnels between the House office buildings and the Capitol. By crafting a highly symbolic walk of the Congressional Black Caucus through the majority white crowd, the Democratic Party was looking to provoke a negative reaction. They didn’t get it. So they made it up.


The proof that the N-word wasn’t said once, let alone 15 times, as Rep. Andre Carson claimed, is that soon thereafter — even though the press dutifully reported it as truth — Nancy Pelosi followed the alleged hate fest, which allegedly included someone spitting, by walking through the crowd with a gavel in hand and a shit-eating grin on her face. Had the incidents reported by the Congressional Black Caucus actually occurred the Capitol Police would have been negligent to allow the least popular person to that crowd – the Speaker – to put herself in harm’s way.


That crowd was a sea of new-media equipment. Not only were tens of thousands people armed with handicams, BlackBerrys and iPods, so also was the mainstream media there, covering every inch of the event. Why did not one mainstream media outlet raise the specter that perhaps a video would exist to prove the events occurred? I am still dealing with the same press telling me we didn’t prove that ACORN was aiding and abetting criminal activity because we “did not provide enough audio and video evidence.” (Insert laugh track.) Is there not a blatant double standard at play here? Nancy Pelosi tipped her hand that race was a central part of her strategy. She invoked the Civil Rights Act and compared it with the universally reviled health care bill. Her caucus is doubling down on the civil-rights rhetoric. There are no coincidences.

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Mike Flynn

Media Matters Criticizes Study Without Even Looking at It

by Mike Flynn

mmfa_logo300

Admittedly, Media Matters doesn’t have a deep well of credibility, but even I was shocked by the sloppiness of this hack-attack yesterday. Their headline:

Nate Silver takes the Hot Air out of Cato’s stimulus attack

And opening line:

Right-wing blogger Allahpundit put some Hot Air behind a piece of Cato Institute research that sought to attack stimulus spending as unfairly tilted in favor of Democratic congressional districts.

Except, you know, it wasn’t a Cato study. It was a Mercatus Center study. If Media Matters had even bothered to look at the actual study, pausing just a few moments from launching their attack, they would have seen that. Here is the study, technically a ‘working paper,’ but the title page is very clear, Mercatus Center: George Mason University.

Media Matters also identifies the study’s author, Big Government Contributor Veronique de Rugy, as a “Cato Scholar.” But, their own link for de Rugy makes it clear that she is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center and used to work at Cato. AKA, in the past.  Does Media Matters even follow their own links?

Sure, these may seem like minor points, but getting obvious facts so completely wrong is indicative of the drive-by, hit-and-run style of analysis employed by Media Matters.

There is, actually, a much more substantial error on their part.

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Publius

Hedge Fund ‘Golden Boys’ Bet on Bailouts; Win Big

by Publius

From Agence France Presse:

The world’s top hedge fund managers made hay last year with record pay because their much-maligned sector bet heavily on recovery of the financial sector after it received state aid, a survey showed.

george-soros1

The 25 chief executives of global financial heavyweights pocketed a total of 25.33 billion dollars (18.6 billion euros), doubling their earnings from 2008, according to a ranking by industry magazine AR Absolute Return+Alpha.

“The world may still be coming out of the Great Recession, but for the richest hedge fund managers, 2009 was the best year ever. And it couldn’t have happened without the carnage of 2008,” the magazine said.

Seven hedge fund managers broke the one-billion-dollar mark last year, while the last one on the top-25 list made 350 million dollars.

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Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA)

Soviet Socialism, American Leftists, and European PIGS

by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA)

We have heard a lot lately about my comments relating Obamacare to the failed socialist policies of the Soviet Union. Liberals and a host of radical leftists have mocked my observation in their blogs and some mainstream news outlets have even poked fun at me. However, the transformation of America is no laughing matter.

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The parallels between leftist policies today and those of failed socialist states are undeniable; so much so that even a Russian state-owned news commentator was forced to concede my point:

Republican Devin Nunes accused the bill of continuing the failed Soviet experiment. He was overly emotional but there is a grain of truth in what he said… Apparently, the socialist experience has proved too tempting to be resisted.” (RIANOVOSTI News, March 22, 2010)

Thanks to increasing regulation, rising taxes and greater centralization of power in Washington America is slowly leaving behind the foundation of its economic strength; namely the entrepreneurial energy that comes from freedom. And while a full-fledged Marxist revolution may not be on the horizon, the transformation of America in the image of European socialism is real and it should be of great concern to us all.

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Kyle Olson

Frances Fox Piven Joins Board of Project Vote – What Could Go Wrong?

by Kyle Olson

While ACORN has earned much of the scorn of the press and public in recent months, its voter registration arm, Project Vote, is actually the entity that has been conducting the questionable voter registration drives.

Project Vote has been accused of voter registrations fraud in more than a dozen states.  Its parent group ACORN, along with a staff member, are scheduled to be tried for fraud in Nevada in a matter of days. Recently, ACORN was nailed under the RICO Act in Ohio and ordered to never come back to the state.  More importantly, the settlement also said ACORN couldn’t simply morph into another organization and cause the same type of trouble in Ohio.

In short, Project Vote is at the root of ACORN’s voter registration fraud problems.

So as ACORN is transforming, Project Vote is transforming, too.  According to a new article in The Nation, Frances Fox Piven of “Cloward-Piven Strategy” fame, recently joined the Project Vote board of directors.

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The New Ledger

The United States of Deficits Forever

by The New Ledger

[tweetmeme]

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’re talking about deficits, the economic future, entitlement spending and the possibility of a grand compromise on taxes.

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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:

National Affairs: America in the Red
Steven Malanga: How Much Debt is Too Much?
WSJ: What to Expect From Jobs Report
KSK: Death Panel Podcast on Health Care Reform
Daily Caller: CEOs Won’t Challenge Waxman, Even With Facts
TNL: The Real Goals of Health Reform = Redistribution

Larry O'Connor

Did the Democratic Party Field Director Lie to Police?

by Larry O'Connor

Yesterday we asked our readers for information about this guy:

Lie to police

Quincy Pundit thinks they found him.  According to them, this guy is a dead-ringer for Brian Dimarzio.

Considering Dimarzio is the Field Director for the Nevada Democratic Party and prior to that job, he worked for the AFL-CIO, it seems like a pretty good match.  What are the odds that a guy who looks exactly like our pal in the video also worked for the AFL-CIO and is now the Field Director for the Nevada Democratic Party?

I guess stranger things have happened.

Andrew Breitbart gave him a call.

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Rep. Peter Roskam (R-IL)

ObamaCare Is Already Threatening the Economy

by Rep. Peter Roskam (R-IL)

Last week, Democrats in Congress rammed through a wildly unpopular healthcare bill before heading out of town to celebrate the accomplishment. As it turns out, not all Americans are celebrating.

PH-OBAMACAT

In the few short days since, a growing wave of U.S. employers have come forward to denounce the massive new costs, hidden problems and bureaucratic hurdles contained in the recently passed healthcare legislation—costs that will choke off job creation and be passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices on a wide array of goods and services.

Under one deeply misguided provision in Speaker Pelosi’s health overhaul legislation, for example, companies will face a costly new tax on prescription drug benefits they provide to retired workers. Those benefits ensure high quality drug coverage for retired seniors and spare the taxpayer the full cost of covering these individuals under the Medicare program. Due to the healthcare bill, though, employers will now face massive new costs, while retirees stand to lose their prescription drug coverage.

The legislation hits Illinois particularly hard.

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Publius

Friday Free For All: Jefferson Edition

by Publius

Today, in 1743, Thomas Jefferson was born, which makes this an especially great Good Friday. (It turns out, April 2 is true for an old style of dating. Today, April 13 is commonly accepted as Jefferson’s birthday. We’re happy to celebrate twice.)  We think he’d approve of this billboard, sponsored by the folks of the Quincy Tea Party.

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Andrew  Marcus

Jon Stewart To Reid’s Egg Throwers: ‘You’re Not Helping!’

by Andrew Marcus

Now that Jon Stewart says they did it, will the Liberal deniers cop to the truth?

Publius

Rep. Phil Hare (D-IL): ‘I Don’t Worry About the Constitution’

by Publius

Within one week of ObamaCare being crammed through the Congress, we had Rep Jesse Jackson Jr. admiting that programs would need to be cut to pay for it and we had Sen. Max Baucus admit that it was really a wealth re-distribution plan.

Now we have Rep. Phil Hare admitting that when it comes to health care “reform,” he doesn’t “worry about the Constitution”:


“Jackpot” is right, brother.  And the greatest shock of all?  He’s an Illinois Democrat. (You can find info on his opponent here.)

Can’t wait to see what next week will bring.

Kyle Olson

Paranoid NY Daily News Columnist Makes Tea Party Scapegoat for Anti-Obama Attitude

by Kyle Olson

Tea Party Paranoia is apparently setting in for progressives.  It’s like the old Bob Dylan song, “Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues:”

Well, I wus sittin’ home alone an’ started to sweat
Figured they wus in my T.V. set
Peeked behind the picture frame
Got a shock from my feet, hittin’ right up in the brain
Them Reds caused it!
I know they did . . . them hard-core ones

*Mar 28 - 00:05*

Case in point?  New York Daily News columnist Mike Lupica uses graffiti on a stop sign to launch into the prevalent anti-Obama attitude that is currently strong in America.  You see, without a single shred of evidence, Lupica presumes Tea Party crazies must have painted ‘Obama’ under ‘Stop’ – 100 yards from a school no less!!  Won’t someone think of the children?!?

Why has somebody done it? Because in the current climate, people have been convinced they can. Or, more likely, that they should.

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Warner Todd Huston

Obama’s Biggest Lobbyist Winners from Left-Wing Advocacy Organizations

by Warner Todd Huston

On the campaign trail, now President Obama regularly excoriated lobbyists. He said he’d make the government “open and transparent” and said he’d make it hard for lobbyists to “curry favor” with his administration “based on how much they can spend on a fancy dinner.” Once elected, John Podesta, a member of his transition team, said that Obama would be implementing the “strictest ethics rules ever applied” to those scoundrel lobbyists. In his 2009 State of the Union address Obama puffed up his chest, proud of himself that he “excluded lobbyists” from important jobs in his administration.

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With all that bombast and populist wind from Obama and his cohorts, then, one would expect to see a dearth of lobbyists in important positions in Obama’s Washington. One’s expectation, however, would easily be dashed by the truth.

Remember the rarefied air of Obama’s campaign for president? Wanna see some, shall we say, “broken promises”?

Transcript of Obama campaign appearance: (My bold for emphasis)

I’ll also institute an absolute gift ban so that no registered lobbyist can curry favor with members of my administration based on how much they can spend on a fancy dinner. I’ll make our government open and transparent so that anyone can ensure that our business is the people’s business. Justice Louis Brandeis once said “Sunlight is the greatest disinfectant,” and as president I am going to make it impossible for congressmen or lobbyists to slip pork barrel projects or corporate welfare into laws when no one’s looking because when I’m president meetings where laws are written will be more open to the public… no more secrecy, that’s a commitment I make to you as president. No more secrecy!

And, when there’s a bill that ends up on my desk as president, you the public will have five days to look on-line and find out what’s in it before I sign it so that you know what your government’s doing. When there are meetings between lobbyists and a government agency we’ll put as many as pos… as many of those meetings as possible on-line for every American to watch. When there’s a tax bill being debated in Congress you will now the names of the corporations that would benefit and how much money they would get. And we will put every corporate tax break and every pork barrel project on-line for every American to see, you will know who asked for them and you can decide whether your representative is actually representing you!

Oh, the dreamy dream of hope-n-change. It’s what you voted for, America. So did we get it?

Not even close.

In fact, at least 50 some lobbyists have won the Obama lottery and found themselves landing plumb jobs in the Obama administration. All sorts of Obama’s favorite special interests have found their lobbyists suddenly riding the gravy train. From Big Agriculture, to Big Financial and Big Banking, to Trial Lawyers, to Military, Communications, and Big Bio, Obama’s buddies have lined up around the block to get his favor and found the honey pot well supplied.

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Nick Gillespie

Reason.tv’s Nanny of the Month: Salt-Banning NY State Rep. Felix Ortiz

by Nick Gillespie

Last month Reason.tv highlighted the heartland pol who’s waging a very real war on fake pot, but who will be this month’s top nanny?

There are the New Jersey cops who wouldn’t tolerate a naked snowwoman and Pennsylvania state troopers’ armed crackdown on unlicensed beer.

But the Nanny of the Month goes to the Empire State politician who wants to ban salt from New York restaurants and dole out $1,000 fines to any rogue chefs who dare to sneak a sprinkle of the white stuff on their meals.

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Andrew  Marcus

Is Jim Nardi The Man Who Threatened Andrew Breitbart?

by Andrew Marcus

This just in…Potential identification of the man who threatened to behave in a way which would necessitate his imprisonment if Andrew Breitbart was allowed to remain on a public sidewalk in Searchlight, Nevada.

Another_Eggman

Last night we received an email from blogger Liberty Chick potentially identifying the man who threatened Andrew Breitbart:

Can’t say 100% but I think the dude from Searchlight that threatened Andrew (said to keep him away from him or “I’m goin to jail”) might be Jim Nardi, who belongs to a whole slew of progressive groups in Nevada, for example:
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1239570278&ref=mf
http://www.facebook.com/OFA.Nevada#!/profile.php?ref=sgm&id=1239570278
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Join-the-Coffee-Party-Movement-in-Las-Vegas-NV/321014126431

So, I went back to the second video posted on http://biggovernment.com/amarcus/2010/03/30/video-the-egg-man-of-seachlight-nevada .  You have to listen and watch really carefully – at 1:51 in that video, the black guy in the dark wool cap & dark coat on the right (holding the rolled up American flag) says “Come on, Jim” and holds him back just as he steps in between the “or I’m goin to jail” guy and Andrew to try and calm the situation.  You have to listen a few times to hear it.

Anyway, take it for what it’s worth.  Maybe someone else can confirm for you 100% whether it’s Jim Nardi.

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Jim Hoft and  Kevin Jackson

It’s Time For the Black Caucus Race Hustlers to Apologize For Slandering Tea Party Patriots

by Jim Hoft and Kevin Jackson

Nobody likes a racist…
Nobody likes a race hustler either.

On Saturday March 20th the leftist media reported what they described as a horrible story from their sources at the conservative-hating Huffington Post. The media claimed that members of the Congressional Black Caucus were called n*ggers and spat on by tea party protesters as they walked from the Longworth office building to the Rayburn office building. At least one report said that it was “a chorus” of racist hatred. Another report said the Congressional members heard the n-word at least 15 times. Reporters from ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX News, (including Bill O’Reilly), MSNBC, and so on, repeated this horrible story.

Unfortunately, it was a fake. The media had no evidence… Nothing. As the story was a complete fabrication. It was totally made up.

In fact, several videos were later released that proved that there was no “chorus” of racist hatred and no one screamed the n-word. It was all a lie.

Several people, including Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. filmed the entire episode and could not find any evidence of racist hate. Let’s get his video, before the DNC alters it!

He found nothing.

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Thomas Del Beccaro

The Great Voter Silencer: CA’s Prop 14

by Thomas Del Beccaro

California’s June primary features one of the most undemocratic initiatives ever foisted upon voters by politicians.  Falsely called an “Open Primary,” when actually it is a Top 2 Primary, the initiative actually reduces voter choices, effectively silences third parties and will harm our democratic process.

citizen-kane

Our current system features a primary process in which various partys, Green and otherwise, participate.  The nominees of those partys then square off in November throughout the state along with “write in” candidates.   Prop 14, which is opposed by The California Republican Party, and is pushed by some of the proponents of the failed 2009 Prop 1A tax increase, would end that system in favor of a Top 2 Primary.  Under Prop 14, all of the parties and candidates are forced into a single primary in June and then only the Top 2 vote getters square off in the Fall – no one else has a voice.

1. The End of 3rd Parties in California.  It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Prop 14 would put a literal an end to third parties.  Third parties already have a difficult challenge to be heard under our present system.  Lack of money makes it very hard for them to compete with the major parties.  Even so, over time, third parties have made an enormous contribution to our system in their minority role.  For instance, it was the Reform Party of the 1990’s that focused America on the perils of deficit spending while the two major parties failed to lead on the issue.

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