From the Associated Press:

A federal appeals court on Wednesday handed the government a victory by temporarily blocking a judge’s finding that Congress was wrong to halt federal funding to the activist group ACORN.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan also agreed to expedite the government’s appeal of U.S. District Judge Nina Gershon’s rulings that the funding cutoff was unconstitutional. Oral arguments were likely to occur before July.

The appeals court’s one-paragraph decision to freeze Gershon’s two rulings that found Congress acted unconstitutionally will remain in place until the 2nd Circuit rules on the merits of the government’s appeal. It acted a day after hearing arguments.

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Alexis de Tocqueville traveled to the United States of America in 1831 on assignment from the French government to study the American prison system.  One result of those travels was a rather prophetic study of American society, “Democracy in America.” The study consists of two volumes.  The first considers American political society, and the second considers American civil society.  The entire study is a must read, but my focus is on one of the last chapters.

What Sort of Despotism Democratic Nations Have to Fear

It would seem that, if despotism were to be established amongst the democratic nations of our days, it might assume a different character; it would be more extensive and more mild; it would degrade men without tormenting them.

In essence, the sort of despotism we might find in America today would not be of the sort found in ancient Rome or imperial Russia.  The tyrants exercising that sort of despotism were confined to tyranny upon the ruling classes.  The vast majority of people would have been unaffected by the actions of one tyrant to another because they were not a source of power.  Democracies derive their power from the people, which means despotism cannot exist openly, but that it also affects more people.  It becomes “soft despotism,” operating both in the name, and at the expense, of the people.

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SEIU THUGS PLEAD NOT GUILTY IN BRUTAL BEATDOWN–
After a health care town hall meeting in August Kenneth Gladney was beaten, kicked and called racist names by Rep. Russ Carnahan’s SEIU supporters. Gladney was hospitallized after this unprovoked attack in South St. Louis County.

Gladney, a cancer survivor, was selected for the beatdown because he was handing out “Don’t Tread On Me” flags and because he was black.

The St. Louis Post Dispatch reported at the time:

Kenneth Gladney, a 38-year-old conservative activist from St. Louis, said he was attacked by some of those arrested as he handed out yellow flags with “Don’t tread on me” printed on them. He spoke to the Post-Dispatch from the emergency room of the St. John’s Mercy Medical Center, where he said he was waiting to be treated for injuries to his knee, back, elbow, shoulder and face that he suffered in the attack. Gladney, who is black, said one of his attackers, also a black man, used a racial slur against him before the attack started.

The national media and NAACP ignored the hate crime. Gladney didn’t fit the mold.

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President Obama signed into law what will surely be known as one of the worst pieces of public policy in American history.  His big-government takeover of America’s healthcare system passed against the will of many Americans.  It marks a loss for liberty and a victory for greater government control.

The Democrats rejected bipartisan input and compromise to pass this misguided legislation along a narrow, partisan vote.  They hit us with a bloated, constitutionally-suspect bill that grows government and fails to achieve the reforms necessary to constrain the costs of American health care.  The bill not only forces intolerable new costs on consumers and state budgets during an economic downturn, it fails to include basic protections against illegal immigrants in the system.

Consumers will bear the burden of higher health insurance premiums and health care costs, in addition to an onerous federal mandate that will require residents to have health insurance, whether they want it or not.  The Congressional Budget Office estimates that by 2016, premiums in the individual market will be 10 percent to 13 percent higher under the health care bill than they would have been under current law.  The chief actuary at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimates that, overall, the bill will increase health care spending by $222 billion over the next ten years.

Californians will also have to bear the burden of an enormous new strain on state finances.  The health care bill achieves expanded health coverage in part by radically enlarging the Medicaid program.  State governments pay a substantial portion of Medicaid’s costs.  The chief deputy director for California’s health care programs has stated the bill’s Medicaid provisions will add an additional $2 billion to $3 billion to the state budget annually.  Our state has already been struggling to close a $20 billion budget gap.  Now the health care bill will force us to pay for expansion of a program riddled with waste and abuse.

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In The Excellent Powder: DDT’s Political and Scientific History, Richard Tren and Donald Roberts argue that the infamous insecticide is the world’s greatest public-health success stories, saving millions of lives by preventing insect-borne disease. Unfortunately for those in areas still infested with mosquitoes and other flying bugs, DDT is also the world’s most-misunderstood substance, the target of a decades-long scientifically ignorant and ideologically motivated campaign that has vastly limited its use and applications.

From Rachel Carson in the 1960s to contemporary critics, DDT has been the object of what Roberts, a professor of tropical public health at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, calls “scare campaigns” that link DDT to “theoretical harms to wildlife and human life that simply don’t exist.”

Dubbed “the excellent powder” by Winston Churchill for its life-saving qualities, DDT has the potential to transform the developing world from a malarial hell into something else again. Yet as Tren, the winner of the 2009 Julian L. Simon Award, warns, under current international conventions, global DDT production is scheduled to be halted in 2017, thereby consigning much of the world to less-effective and more-expensive alternatives that will consign millions of poor people to living hell.

Reason.tv’s Nick Gillespie sat down with Tren and Roberts, who are part of Africa Fighting Malaria, to talk about how DDT got such a bad rap and what can be done to set the record straight.

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Right off the bat, hear my barbaric yawp: “Less Government!”

I want to strip the bark off and tenderize the tough meat of Uncle Sam until he heels without so much as a cross look from likely voters.   I want to make government our bitch.

So to those who are terribly angry – relax, I’m on your side.   That said, it is time for Republicans to start talking about a new theory of government.

Listen up, Luntz!  The phrase we need to drumbeat is GOV2.0.

Republicans need to stand for MODERN GOVERNMENT.   Breathe.  Don’t freak out.  Supporting government in any form right now is not heresy, and acting like it…  is political suicide.   We have to put forward plans that work, plans that will save Medicare, plans that can save Social Security.   This is the way to win deep gains in purple districts, lock in the elderly votes in FL, and get the young urban turks to stop and take notice of the GOP.

Ask yourselves:

1. Are private sector unions strong in MODERN AMERICA?  No.
2. Have massive productivity gains reduced headcount (and prices) in MODERN COMPANIES while increasing value?  Yes.
3. Can we find jaw dropping savings in MODERN GOVERNMENT? Yes.

This is not “waste, fraud, and abuse.”   This is not John McCain going over the budget line by line.   We need to laugh at those concepts.   Ho-ho, Barry. No, we’re talking about firings.  Reducing headcounts at government agencies, bringing in new web based technologies, outsourcing public services to non-union private contractors.

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Apparently CEO Bertha Lewis said of ACORN yesterday “we’re on life support”. Well, I think ACORN’s remaining benefactors might be a little closer to pulling the plug once and for all after watching this bizarre rant from Ms. Lewis from just a few weeks ago. She is speaking at the Winter Conference of the Young Democratic Socialists on March 25, 2010 – watch:

As I’ve said elsewhere, I think it is unbecoming of conservatives to engage in hyperbole and personal attacks. We should allow this to remain the primary tool of our opponents. Lewis is clearly a bit unhinged here, but the underlying debate is an important one for the future of America. Frankly, I wish more “progressives” would express their views so openly. The debate between socialist values of collectivism and government control, and traditional American values of individual liberty and free enterprise is one we should relish.

The White House recently rescinded the ban on federal funding for ACORN after a court order, as reported by Matthew Vadum here yesterday. While the Justice Department is vigorously appealing in an attempt to re-instate this ban, it is a little late for the President, key Democrats, and certain members of the progressive media to distance themselves from Lewis and ACORN now. As much as they might like to.

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Bipartisanship with Progressives is a myth. But don’t take our word for it. We know this is true because Progressives tell us it is so.

Digging through the internet archives can be fun. For example, you must read this Nation article printed in January of 2001, and proudly distributed by the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

The article maps out the Progressive-Democrat rejection of bi-partisanship with Republicans, and it proudly names names, quoting Socialist Democrat Bernie Sanders and Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.

Below are some enlightening excerpts, but the whole article is worth reading if you have any interest in understanding the aggressive Progressive powers that be.

The biggest concern of Sanders and other progressives is that the fantasy will be aided, not hindered, by Democrats who think they can play nice with Bush early on and then channel fury over the 2000 election into a Congressional sweep in 2002 and a reclaiming of the White House in 2004. “Either we break up this congenial, very nice, big-smile lie of bipartisanship or we will see our message corrupted by the suggestion that Democrats and Republicans really aren’t all that different,” says Democratic Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. “If that happens, we will make it look like Ralph Nader was right when he said there were no differences between the parties, and we will lose any advantage coming out of the 2000 election.’’

“Florida is over. That fight is done. We can and we should continue the struggle for voting reforms that expand our democracy, but we have to recognize that this is just one of the issues we have to focus on in what is going to be a very dangerous period of great struggle,’’ argues Jackson. He’ll work with both the Congressional Progressive Caucus and the Congressional Black Caucus–where fury at the way in which Bush was elected bubbled over in late December with threats by veteran members to boycott the Bush inaugural. Jackson can muster equal fury, and he’ll be at January demonstrations led by his father, the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr., and NAACP president Kweisi Mfume, but he says the primary focus must be on the legislative battles that could begin even before Bush is sworn in.

Kinda adds perspective to their contemporary demands for bi-partisanship, no? Also in the article:

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FreedomWorks staff and volunteers have suffered through bomb threats, endless hostile abuse from union patch-through calls laced with profanity, death threats, the N-word directed at an African-American employee, and a host of full-frontal creeps.  You can find many of these documented here and here.

Many of these orchestrated attacks were launched in the days leading up to our September 12th Taxpayer March on Washington.  Where was the moral outrage when we received a bomb threat on September 11^th?  “There’s a f***ing bomb in your building, bitch,” the caller said.  Then, did the media write stories about how the Democrats and their hard left adjuncts had gone too far with their threats, their hate, their racism?

We need to draw a line in the sand. Across this line you do not cross! Let’s all agree to hold the individuals acting badly personally responsible for their actions.  As far as I can tell, the bad actors are likely phony infiltrators from tea party crasher groups.

We are a grassroots movement made up of people who believe in individual freedom and individual responsibility.  Racism and hate are inherently collectivist ideas.  As individualists we judge people as individuals, based on the content of their character, not the color of their skin.

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In old movies (and a lot of new ones too), there is the usual formula of romantic tension between the leading man and the leading lady.  They usually start out hating each other but ultimately find themselves drawn to each other.  This usually culminates in a climactic argument, during which the woman expresses her total contempt and disdain for the man:  “I hate you!” He then grabs her, pulls her close, and plants a big, passionate kiss on her.  She, of course, succumbs, and the two then declare their undying love for each other.

President Obama and the Democrats are engaged in this coy Love-Hate faux drama with Goldman Sachs and the rest of Wall Street.  Obama has railed continually against the “fat cats” on the Street, whom he blames loudly and repeatedly for the financial crisis.  They do, of course, bear some of the responsibility.  But wouldn’t it be nice and refreshing to hear him level
his ire at the ACTUAL main perpetrators of the crisis: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?   Of course, he can’t do that, because that would mean admitting fault with the social engineering of the Jimmy “My Name is Earl” Carter and Bill “Bubba” Clinton-supported Community Re-Investment Act and other misguided and destructive left-wing economic policies.

No, he’s stuck to the safe script: the surefire populist message that all of the banks are bad, Goldman is the worst of the worst, and that they need to be spanked like a Terrible Twos Terror Child.

Just one problem:  Obama accepted nearly $1 million from Goldman folks during the 2008 presidential campaign.

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The fact is that Democrats in congress are trying to protect their own.  This financial reform bill gives government the power to permanently bailout Wall Street. Should government have the authority to pick and choose who gets the designation of “too big to fail” ?, a direct ticket to the gravy train and a further expense to tax payers.

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Gloominess and despair are not uncommon traits among supporters of limited government – and with good reason. Government has grown rapidly in recent years and it is expected to get much bigger in the future. To make matters worse, it seems that the deck is stacked against reforms to restrain government. One problem is that 47 percent of Americans are exempt from paying income taxes, which presumably means they no longer have any incentive to resist big government.

Mark Steyn recently wrote a very depressing column for National Review Online about this phenomenon, noting that, “By 2012, America could be holding the first federal election in which a majority of the population will be able to vote themselves more government lollipops paid for by the ever shrinking minority of the population still dumb enough to be net contributors to the federal treasury.” Walter Williams, meanwhile, has a new column speculating on whether this cripples the battle for freedom:

According to the Tax Policy Center, a Washington, D.C., research organization, nearly half of U.S. households will pay no federal income taxes for 2009…because their incomes are too low or they have higher income but credits, deductions and exemptions that relieve them of tax liability. This lack of income tax liability stands in stark contrast to the top 10 percent of earners, those households earning an average of $366,400 in 2006, who paid about 73 percent of federal income taxes. …Let’s not dwell on the fairness of such an arrangement for financing the activities of the federal government. Instead, let’s ask what kind of incentives and results such an arrangement produces and ask ourselves whether these results are good for our country. …Having 121 million Americans completely outside the federal income tax system, it’s like throwing chum to political sharks. These Americans become a natural spending constituency for big-spending politicians. After all, if you have no income tax liability, how much do you care about deficits, how much Congress spends and the level of taxation?

Steyn and Williams are right to worry, but the situation is not as grim as it seems for the simple reason that a good portion of the American people know the difference between right and wrong. Consider some of the recent polling data from Rasmussen, which found that “Sixty-six percent (66%) believe that America is overtaxed. Only 25% disagree. Lower income voters are more likely than others to believe the nation is overtaxed” and “75% of voters nationwide say the average American should pay no more than 20% of their income in taxes.” These numbers contradict the hypothesis that 47 percent of Americans (those that don’t pay income tax) are automatic supporters of class-warfare policy.

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In his 2007 book, Outrage, Dick Morris said it best: “There’s nothing wrong with America’s schools that breaking the power of the teachers unions wouldn’t cure.”

Few have had the courage to put it that directly.  Our organization’s similarly blunt language puts a target on our back, but when you deal with organized labor, you know that comes with the territory.  Expecting unions to act like professional organizations is like expecting the government to be frugal.  It’s not in their DNA.

As Education Action Group Foundation chronicles daily on NEAexposed.com and AFTexposed.com, the national teachers unions and their state affiliates bully and punish school boards and administrators during contract negotiations and school elections.  They work aggressively to elect union sympathizers to local school boards, then up end up negotiating friendly contracts with the candidates they just helped to elect.  It’s a corrupt system that works to  the detriment of children, parents and taxpayers.

And the teachers unions’ answer for school financial problems is always “more taxes,” rather than offering a few concessions that would save schools a ton of money.

When I was invited to speak to the Americans for Prosperity Tax Day rally at the state capitol in Lansing, Michigan last week, it was a first for me.  I had never spoken at such an event.  It was probably one of the few speeches around the country that zeroed in on the pirates of public education: the teachers unions.

The understanding that teachers unions are the problem, not the cure for our public schools, is finally starting to sink in with the public. Even President Obama, whose campaign collected millions from the teachers unions, has come out in favor of school reforms that the unions violently object to.

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The “Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010″, authored by Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), will be considered by the Senate in the very near future and it will make federal bailouts of private enterprise permanent.  The House has already passed Congressman Barney Frank’s (D-MA) bailout bill by a 223-202 vote in December.  Both bills, supported by President Barack Obama, expand bailout authority for the federal government.   These bills provide a back door bailout of Wall Street.

The debate between Republicans and Democrats has centered on a $50 billion bailout fund in the Senate bill.  The provision would have the effect of bailing out a failing business’s creditors during the liquidation process.  The President has called for the pre-funded $50 billion bailout fund contained in the bill to be removed.

The irony is that the Obama Administration supports a different provision in the bill that provides an even bigger bailout of Wall Street.  The other provision, which appears in both the House and Senate bills, provides the Federal Reserve unlimited amounts of money in the form of “loans” to failing businesses.  If you like the AIG bailout, get ready for that style of bailout for companies deemed to be friends of the Fed and “too big to fail.”

The House bill contains an authorization for the Federal Reserve for $4 trillion in “secured loans” to bailout individuals, partnerships or corporations in financial distress.   Page 506 of the House passed bill, titled the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act states in part:

The amounts made available under this subsection shall not exceed $4,000,000,000,000.

The Senate bill has the same loan authority with no cap on the amount of funds available to failing businesses.

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Today, in 1910, Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) died.

One of the dirty little secrets of Capitol Hill is that most politicians – even the ones the horserace-focused media depicts as irredeemably ideologically divided – actually have no coherent driving ideology. The secret is revealed only occasionally. If powerful oversight chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) hadn’t reconsidered his plans this week to call the CEOs of major companies into committee chambers for his version of Beltway blackmail, the American people might have had an opportunity to witness it being revealed.

Waxman originally called the hearing in a characteristic fit of pique. After more than nine months of labor, the House of Representatives had finally given birth to the gargantuan ogre of Obamacare. Yet before the Democratic leadership could finish tousling the hair of the prop children at their signing ceremonies, corporate America started following the law, in the most inconvenient manner possible: they reported to their investors and employees the effects the new legislation would have on their benefit plans.

In each case, the analysts employed by major companies like AT&T, Verizon Communications, Caterpillar, Deere & Co. and others did their job: they delivered reports detailing the ramifications – higher premiums, dropped drug coverage, and forcing their employees into taxpayer-funded plans – thanks to the new bill. Waxman, infuriated, demanded the CEOs of these troublesome companies turn over all internal communications about the predicted results, as if he thought they would reveal some devious Republican plot, instead of the simple mathematical calculations of the green eyeshades and the diligent efforts of company lawyers to ensure that the companies complied with federal disclosure laws.
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It’s not often the two Republican Senators from Maine safeguard the country from excessive government with more vigilance than a Republican Senator from Tennessee.  But on the issue of Financial Reform, Sen. Collins and Snowe have become champions for the taxpayers — holding the line against more bailouts and bureaucracy — while Sen. Bob Corker continues to push the country toward permanent bailouts and a Washington regulatory scheme “one like we have not seen before.”

Big Government readers are well aware of Corker’s repeated attempts to cut a deal with “Countrywide” Chris Dodd.  Despite signing a letter pledging to oppose the legislation, Corker is now taking to the airwaves denying the legislation contains a permanent bank bailout provision.

Neat trick Senator. Swear to your constituents that you oppose further bailouts and then push a bailout bill by simply saying it contains no bailouts.

Corker has become to Financial Reform what Sen. Lindsey Graham is to climate change legislation — a sucker.  And his words are being used by left-wing activists to deny there is a bailout in the legislation.

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From the great Peter Wallison in today’s Wall Street Journal:

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that, in the wake of the housing bubble and the unprecedented deflation in housing values that resulted, the government’s cost to bail out Fannie and Freddie will eventually reach $381 billion. That estimate may be too optimistic.

Last Christmas Eve, Treasury removed the $400 billion cap on what the government might be required to invest in these two GSEs in the future, and this may tell the real story about the cost to taxpayers. In typical Washington fashion, everyone has amnesia about how this disaster occurred.

The story is all too familiar. Politicians in positions of authority today had an opportunity to prevent this fiasco but did nothing. Now—in the name of the taxpayers—they want more power, but they have never been called to account for their earlier failings.

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It’s appreciably more difficult for Washington politicians to amaze Americans who paid any attention at all to what has been transpiring in Washington. And that number is growing. But the Democrats are giving it their best shot.

Read this just out from Politico, explaining that the Senate’s committee process simply must be suspended to jam through Obama’s energy/cap-and-tax Power Grab, because it is so expansive that it would invoke the jurisdiction of six Senate committees. These include the tax-writing Finance Committee, because cap-and-trade and the new gas tax (styled by some cheerleaders who think you’re stupid as a “carbon-linked fee”).

So, again, Harry Reid is going to write a couple of thousand pages — and try to buy off the U.S. Chamber of Commerce with revenues taken from you — in closed-door, back room deals. The ability to do so is one reason the bill in its House version grew to 1,400 pages, bigger and bigger with each closed-door deal. There are so many ways to design this takeover and the wealth transfers and lost freedoms involved, and to hide and target the hurt.

If that sounds like the health care takeover, it should. It’s the same thing. As the perpetrators admit to Politico. So possibly C-SPAN might ask to be involved. Surely the White House can come up with a better response than last time.

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