The Democrats are trying to cram through another special-interest piece of legislation, which they are calling (depending on the audience) either a tax-extenders bill or a stimulus bill. But they’ve been having trouble getting enough votes for this motley collection of welfare-state provisions and special-interest tax breaks, in part because of the public’s growing hostility to wasteful and corrupt Washington spending. The proposal finally has been approved by the House, but only after the leadership made some (mostly cosmetic) changes to  get the votes of a sufficient number of gullible “Blue Dog” Democrats.

The Blue Dogs claim to be fans of fiscal responsibility, but they look at the issue through a very distorted lens. As the Obamacare vote demonstrated, they will vote for big and bloated government so long as the new spending is “offset” – at least on paper – by big tax hikes. This is one of the reasons why Pelosi & Co included billions of dollars in corporate tax hikes in the tax-extenders/stimulus legislation.

What the Democrats (either the blue or pink variety) apparently don’t understand, though, is that corporations don’t pay taxes. Yes, companies often write checks to the IRS, but all corporate taxes are really a burden on workers, consumers, and shareholders. Moreover, in a world where jobs and investment can cross borders looking for better tax policy, a high corporate tax rate is a huge competitive liability for a nation. These are some of the main points in this video on corporate taxation.

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Last night, to kick off the Memorial Day weekend, Prism Beer Company in Pennsylvania debuted it’s Tea Party Unfiltered Pale Ale. Why didn’t someone think of this before? Every serious political movement should have its own beer! (As far as we know, no one has created a beer for Organizing for America.) Fan Tom Sytsma enjoys the Ale with Brewer Rob DeMaria (left).

Just one day after the Democrats seized control of Congress, the Chief Executive of Fannie Mae, Franklin Raines, received the patent for a residential cap-and-trade system (Patent 6904336), What this means is that Raines, along with several colleagues who also “own” the patent, could stand to make huge amounts of money if the cap-and-trade regime was ever brought to the residential marketplace. What does this have to do with Fannie Mae? Absolutely nothing.

To understand the implications, a little discussion about patenting is needed. Patents are basically “ownership” rights to an invention. If you invent something, you can license it to others to produce and collect royalties. Each year, thousands of patents are sent to the US Patent Office for consideration. Many “patent houses” simply put in very general patents so they can turn around and sue businesses later for “stealing” their inventions. Sometimes it’s legit, many times its bogus.

As examples, Amazon holds the patent of “one-click purchasing”. Litigation ensued on that. There’s a patent on a “self-executing webpage” which is the reason why a few years ago Microsoft had to convert Internet Explorer to not automatically play media as soon as someone visited a webpage. (i.e. why you have to click a YouTube video for it to play).

Here is where things get interesting. Cap-and-trade legislation literally creates an asset out of thin air. It requires some means to “value” the asset and some means to trade it. In essence, it would lead to government created assets and trading mechanisms. However, when this patent was awarded and applied for, cap-and-trade was not even on the public radar yet.

It is important to remember a few things. Franklin Raines has privileged access to Congress and politicians. He knew and could talk to them about what they were thinking and what they planned to do. As head of a government corporation, he also had a degree of access to the Patent Office to help “smooth the way” to get a patent.

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It’s a court document signed by the Assistant U.S. Attorney representing the Government: The document can be read in its entirety here.

As I noted in a more detailed post below, the Government sought to bury this admission by omitting it from their press release, and attempting to avoid reading it aloud in court when setting forth the factual basis. I have updated that post to note that I have now obtained the filed version of the document, with the signature of the Government’s representative. Now I think it’s time to start asking the U.S. Attorney’s Office why they tried to hide this language from the public. (more…)

In 1988, young Karen Toshima was gunned down by crossfire between rival gangs in the affluent area of Westwood Village, CA.   In the subsequent weeks, L.A.P.D. flooded the district, known for its proximity to UCLA and as a hotspot for Los Angeles nightlife.  So began the downfall of Westwood.  Over the next 15 years, this prime location for Hollywood movie premieres, bars, and restaurants transformed into a moribund, decaying relic of the go-go 80’s.

There were many reasons for the Village’s deterioration, but one of the contributing factors was that Westwood suddenly transformed into a real-life version of the town in Footloose.  A knee-jerk reaction to the shooting by the City Council resulted in a ban on the issuance of cabaret licenses in the Village.  And if you wanted your patrons to dance in your establishment, you had to have a cabaret license.

Ergo, no dancing.   Let’s hear it for the boys.

Twenty-two years have gone by.  I’ve lived in Los Angeles that entire time.  I’ve seen the decline of Westwood and its recent resurgence, albeit without most of the primo movie theatres that had peppered the area.  The stars had long ago shifted the glittery premieres elsewhere.  A few legendary storefronts survived.

But to this day, there is no dancing in Westwood.

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Over at Forbes I recently wrote about the union plan to organize your neighborhood fast food joint, which could turn the process of ordering a Number 3 with Coke into a culinary trip to the DMV. Well, maybe now we know why: they have been laying the groundwork to organize the entire food chain, as it were, since they have organized a pot shop in Oakland. Now you can Super Size it and smoke a spliff without ever crossing a picket line.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana has filed a court document admitting that James O’Keefe did not intend to tamper with the phones at Mary Landrieu’s office, or commit any other felony.

Oh — and the good folks at the Department of Justice don’t particularly want you to know that. This post reveals that, at O’Keefe’s hearing, the Assistant U.S. Attorney tried not to read that part of the document in court. What’s more, the U.S. Attorney pointedly omitted this critical information from their press release.

The news of the Government’s admission broke yesterday, when Big Journalism’s Larry O’Connor reported that a court document filed in James O’Keefe’s criminal case bearing the title “Final Factual Basis” contains the following language:

In this case, further investigation did not uncover evidence that the defendants intended to commit any felony after the entry by false pretenses despite their initial statements to the staff of Senatorial office and GSA requesting access to the central phone system. Instead, the Government’s evidence would show that the defendants misrepresented themselves and their purpose for gaining access to the central phone system to orchestrate a conversation about phone calls to the Senator’s staff and capture the conversation on video, not to actually tamper with the phone system, or to commit any other felony.

This news, which O’Connor relayed at the end of a post about Media Matters’ dishonesty, is a significant piece of news that deserves its own post. It is especially noteworthy because this paragraph comes from a version of the facts that the Government has agreed to by way of stipulation. The document contains the following language showing the Government’s agreement: (more…)

Yesterday’s announcements of slitting our own throat of domestic energy production gives cause to revisit who the man is and where he wants to take us.

Rahm Emanuel among others in the Obama administration are on record asserting their philosophy that no “crisis” should ever go to waste. This mentality, of course, carries the moral hazard of promoting “crises” in the news cycle, and as an operating mentality. We have seen this among green activists (including Obama appointees) for decades.

With crises being your strategic plan for hooks to impose an unpopular and radical agenda, you might even allow crises to develop where they could have been nipped into mere incidents. Who knows.

We do know that Obama has a record of words and now deeds declaring war on all sources of energy that work, including their domestic production: shale gas, coal, oil shale, and petroleum.

Barack Obama and his gloomy band seek to force you out of your lifestyle, meaning your freedoms, all of which they find intolerable and that you cannot be trusted with. Obama even noted in a speech that, in a world where he is president, we can’t eat what we want, drive what we want, or put our thermostat where we want (other than that, you are perfectly free to do what you wish…until further notice).

His “energy czar” later added policy meat to these very strange rhetorical bones when she told U.S. News that you shouldn’t even have the right to control your own energy use. But changing that, she comforted readers, will be a savings to you. They’re saving a fortune in India and other poor countries right now, for example.

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ShoreBank’s connections to the White House and Capitol Hill, as well as to the green jobs movement, have been documented here at BigGovernment.com. Yesterday, Angela Caputo of Chicago Now revealed that the “community development” bank became a predatory lender in African-American and Hispanic communities when it ran short of cash.

New video evidence (after the jump) reveals that Rep. Jan Schakowsky promoted ShoreBank to consumers in January 2010, even as she was trying to get taxpayers to bail it out.

And the recent mob protests of the SEIU, also exposed at BigGovernment.com, illuminate another aspect of the scandal: the use of intimidation and even illegal tactics to force Americans to comply with the corrupt self-dealing of the Obama administration–before it even took office.

SEIU rallies workers at illegal Republic Windows strike, Dec. 2008

ShoreBank is about to receive $75 million in federal taxpayers’ money for a bailout that has become the prime example of “crony socialism” under the Obama administration. It is not the first federal money ShoreBank has received. In May 2009, it was awarded $35 million in stimulus credits for “green projects” in Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland. The grant was part of Van Jones’s “green jobs” push, with a focus on home weatherization.

President Barack Obama was so enthusiastic about weatherization that he made it the centerpiece of his jobs program, prompting a nonplussed Jon Stewart to comment on the Daily Show: “These ideas sound like the people we got tired of.” President Obama and Vice-President Joe Biden praised one company in particular, Serious Materials, which was the only “green” window company to receive tax credits in the stimulus bill.

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With the government takeover of healthcare becoming law and our ever-increasing national debt weighing down on our children’s future, Washington’s agenda looks nothing like the American peoples agenda. It’s no wonder people all across America are continually asking the same question: why isn’t Washington listening to us?

I’ve had enough. Have you? Well, here’s a new outlet - www.AmericaSpeakingOut.com – to voice your ideas to change America. This is an outlet where these ideas will not fall on deaf ears. Together, we can create something new, something bold, and something to act as a check and balance to Washington’s out-of-touch agenda. And we can work to craft this agenda now, instead of waiting to let more bad policy go unchecked. The stakes are just too high to wait any longer. American families continue to struggle from job losses month after month, all while Congress continues to increase Washington spending, pile onto the debt, mettle with American free enterprise, and ignore national unemployment that hovers near ten percent.

Thankfully, millions of Americans are engaged and continue to offer ideas, even though the majority in Congress shuns the idea of listening to the people. As a Member of the minority in the House of Representatives, I’ve seen this firsthand. I held two healthcare town halls last summer, and about five thousand people showed up to overwhelmingly support saying no to the government takeover of healthcare. But, Washington did not listen to our voices, and the voices of countless other Americans. Instead, the backroom deals prevailed over the majority of America. Well, we can change that. That is why were trying something different.

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That was some press conference by Obama Thursday. The president once again showed that the thrill is gone when he’s off the prompter — which is why this was Obama’s first press conference since July 2009 when he shoved his loafers into his mouth by saying the cops “acted stupidly” in arresting his obnoxious, race-baiting, disturbing-the-peace friend, Skip Gates.

It’s hard picking the best (or worst) “off the prompter” moment from Thursday. It was pretty bad that minutes after saying of the Gulf oil spill (in so many words): “I’m all over it … I think about it first thing in the morning and last thing at night … I’ve been taking control of the situation from the beginning …” that he admitted that he didn’t know for sure if the bureaucrat in charge of oil and mineral rights in the Interior Department had been fired this morning or resigned. You see, Obama had “a whole bunch of other stuff going on,” such as greeting the Duke men’s basketball team at the White House.

I wouldn’t make too much of this if not for Obama’s defensive posture, insisting he’s all over the situation — and claiming some responsibility for the federal government’s less than ideal response — while simultaneously pushing most of the blame on the Bush administration and BP. Either he’s too busy with “other stuff” to have all the details down, or he’s taking a “big picture” approach and delegating the details to others. He can’t really have it both ways, as that question from The New York Times reporter revealed. If I’m in his press shop, and am looking at the president’s performance with a critical and not sycophantic eye, I cringe.

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It was an article of faith among Obamacare supporters that worry over so-called death panels was simply a cynical ploy by conservative leaders to scare the peasants. Blatant fearmongering, they claimed. Now it’s looking more and more like a valid concern.  Writing at the Daily Caller, Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute highlights quotes from Dr. Donald Berwick, President Obama’s nominee to be director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which suggest that death panels might be on his wish-list.

“I am romantic about the National Health Service. I love it,” he has said about the British health care system.  His favorite part of British health care seems to be its rationing arm, the National Institute for Clinical Effectiveness (NICE).  NICE is responsible for determining whether or not the life-extending benefits a patient receives are worth the cost to the government.  Dr. Berwick calls this institution a “global treasure.”

How much is a human life worth? About £30,000 per year, according to NICE.  Anything more than $44,000 per year of extended life, and NICE is likely to deny treatment.  Important drugs that prolong the life of cancer patients, such as Lapatinib and Sutent, are not allowed.  Alzheimer’s drugs are also heavily restricted for those in the early stages of the disease despite the fact that the early stages are when treatment can provide the most benefit.  Originally pitched as nothing more than a board to promote “best practices,” NICE has become a rationing, death panel machine.

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Unless you are brand new to the Blogosphere, you are very well aware of the thuggish protests organized by President Obama’s closest political and community-organizing allies, targeting Bank of America and its employees.

Potential motives for these actions have been examined, but there are a couple that we would like to add to the mix because they deserve some attention. Motives #1 and #2 have been covered on the Bigs, but motives #3 and #4 might be the most important.

Motive #1 – SEIU owes Bank of America $90 Million! – One of the organizers of this type of campaign owing nearly one hundred million dollars to the target of the action should offer deep context and insight as to motive.

Motive #2 – Shaking down the banking system for a Shorebank bailout – Known as the “community organizing bank,” this Chicago institution was facing total collapse, but around the same time as these bank protests, the very banks who were the targets of the hostile action made generous “contributions” to the dying leftist ATM known as Shorebank. You do the math.

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Recently, wannabe dictator Hugo Chavez opened a twitter account. (No, you really can’t make this stuff up.) Yesterday, Big Government friend Christian took to the tweet-waves (?) to criticize Venezuelan carny barker and ended up blocked from Chavez’s twitter account. Why let Christian have all the fun…we hereby declare today, Friday May 28th as “International Hate Tweet Hugo Chavez Day.” His twitter ID is @chavezcandanga Have at it. And, have a great holiday weekend.

Last Saturday I published a post entitled “Whittaker Chambers: The New Deal as Revolution.” The main premise of the post was Chambers’s view of the New Deal as a revolution of bookkeeping and lawmaking, providing a shift in power from business to politics.

Chambers’s indictment of Alger Hiss as part of the New Deal revolution led to Hiss’s conviction on perjury. To me, Chambers’s view of the New Deal [as reflected in the lives of Hiss and others] is in line with reality.

I was surprised, but also pleased, to notice that one of the comments on my posting was from Chambers’s grandson David Chambers. I was intrigued, though, with the thrust of his comment: he disagreed with my major premise. We dialogued in the comments section, and he requested that his viewpoint be presented in a posting rather than relegated to the comments. I agreed. Herewith, I present Mr. Chambers’s comments and my responses. The comments were long enough that I had to edit, but I trust I’ve captured the essence of what Mr. Chambers was saying.

He began:

One of the strangest trends I’ve seen vis-a-vis my grandfather, Whittaker Chambers, is support for attacks on the New Deal by quoting him. The passage you cite is the most quoted. The citation omits, however, a very important sentence:

“It is surprising how little I knew about the New Deal, although it had been all around me during my years in Washington.” (Whittaker Chambers, Witness, p. 471) Clearly then, Whittaker Chambers spoke about the New Deal with the caveat that he “knew little” about it.

Why would those attacking the New Deal cite someone who has so clearly disqualified himself?

Much of the time, I see others quote the entire paragraph and then ignore that sentence in what they go on to write. In those instances, readers have at least some chance of catching my grandfather’s disclaimer and weighing it against the rest of the quotation. Sadly, your citation does not afford readers that opportunity.

I responded: ”David, I in no way meant to quote out of context, and I don’t believe I did. That one sentence does not disqualify him from making a judgment on the New Deal. All he is saying is that up to that point in his life he had known little about it. Writing after the Hiss case, he certainly had plenty of time to learn more. In fact, that’s what the rest of that section of Witness is all about–his newfound understanding of the New Deal. Consequently, I don’t really agree with the point you are making, but please know that I have the utmost respect for your grandfather.”

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M. Night Shyamalan’s latest film production, The Last Airbender, was recently awarded over $35 million in film tax credits from Pennsylvania over two years.  The award is the largest in the history of Pennsylvania’s Film Tax Credit (FTC), breaking the record held by his previous project, The Happening, which received $12 million in tax credits.  His film Lady in the Water also received a film production grant. The only good news is that taxpayers are only forced to subsidize these movies, not to watch them.

Pennsylvania first created a film tax credit in 2004, replaced it with a film grant program in 2006, then enacted its current $75 tax credit program in 2007, in which films can receive up to 25 percent of production costs in the form of tax credit. The state’s FTC was temporarily reduced, as the 2009 state budget agreement reduced all tax credits by 33% for three years.

Forty-four states offer tax incentivizes or grants to filmmakers for in-state production, according to a recent report on film tax credits by the Tax Foundation.  Pennsylvania is among the 26 states that offer transferable (or in some states refundable) tax credits to film producers.  This means that tax credit awarded is more than the actual state taxes the recipient owes, they can sell the remaining credit to another business.

But movie incentives by-and-large have failed as economic policy.  As the Tax Foundation notes:

Movie production incentives are costly and fail to live up to their promises. … Among these failures, the two most important are their failure to encourage economic growth overall and their failure to raise tax revenue.

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With oil flowing into the Gulf of Mexico for weeks, we’ve known about efforts to stop the flow. We’ve heard details about 75 ton concrete domes, freezing methane gas, catheter piping siphoning off 20% of the flow, top kill. So it at least seems, that round-the-clock efforts were underway from the beginning.

What about the containment side of the problem? We originally heard about oil containment booms and the challenges with deploying them in choppy Gulf waters. However, it then went quiet. We’ve not heard much lately. We’ve held our breath, assuming – or at least hoping – that these challenges have been overcome or worked around. We’ve hoped that critically sensitive areas were being closely monitored and guarded, that contingencies (to utilize booms or naturally or commercially available oil-adherent or oil-absorbent products) had been identified and were ready to be deployed as a last line of defense.

Now we learn that oil is upon us, that beaches are slicked over, that marshes are impacted, that some critical estuaries are lethally inundated. It seems now that our hopes and assumptions have been wrong. Where is the federal government? Is this just BP’s problem? Is this just Louisiana’s problem? Is just another localized economy in shambles, not a problem to the rest of the country, not a concern to the federal government? Is destruction acceptable if it furthers an agenda?

What happened to the last line of defense?

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“I had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage with my books, my family and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post, which any human power can give.” - Thomas Jefferson

Having dramatically expanded the role of the government in your doctor’s office and your bank this year, the Obama administration is turning its attention to your kitchen. Sara Burrows, a reporter for the Carolina Journal, reported on the ramifications of the Obama administration’s war on salt, announced recently as a nationwide decade long program by the FDA. I followed up with her on a podcast for Health Care News:

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Hold your breath for the potential casualties — that’s right, we’re talking about ham and bacon.

It’s all about the war on salt, which has been previously discussed at BigGovernment. Essentially, the Food and Drug Administration, acting at the behest of the Institute of Medicine, is cracking down nanny state fashion on the amount of salt you get from pre-packaged foods and in restaurants.
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Just when you thought it was safe to start expressing your right to free speech, Democrats in Congress are gearing up for a vote on a new piece of legislation to blatantly undermine the First Amendment. Known as the DISCLOSE Act (HR 5175), this bill – written by the head of the Democrats’ congressional campaign committee – is their response to the recent Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. In short, the Supreme Court found that the government could not restrict the free speech rights of individuals or other entities wishing to participate in the political dialogue.

It is hard to see how establishing a level playing field for free speech – as our Founding Fathers did by making it a right under the Constitution and which the Supreme Court upheld – is a threat to our democracy. Nevertheless, the White House and their allies on Capitol Hill see honest criticism as a threat to forcing their big government, liberal agenda through Congress. So, there is no time like the present – namely five months before an election – to start putting the muzzle on those individuals and organizations not sticking to the Democrats’ talking points.

Under the DISCLOSE Act, certain incorporated entities would be restricted in how they can exercise their free speech rights. There is an exemption for some in the media sphere like newspapers, TV news, and the like. However, there is one driving force in today’s public debate that is NOT exempt. Bloggers will not have the same exemption provided to other media sources. Never mind that the Supreme Court’s opinion in the Citizens United case stated, “Differential treatment of media corporations and other corporations cannot be squared with the First Amendment.”

For many bloggers to exercise their free speech rights, they would have to jump through the same onerous new hoops as many businesses, nonprofit groups, and even such threats to democracy as your local chamber of commerce. If this sounds like an absurd overreach by one party in power, I invite you to take a look at their government takeover of health care, taxpayer-funded bailouts, and general hostility to private sector economic growth.

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