Today, USA begins its 2010 World Cup with a match against England. The USA team is better than people assume and England often underperforms and has been hit by some key injuries. That said, we would need some really good odds to bet on USA in this match.

The days of pausing between primary and general elections are over.  The stakes for election these days are simply too high.  Our problems are great and we need leaders up to the task.  Jerry Brown, in but two days, proved to everyone that he is not up to the task.

Going Negative Because Brown Has No Plan.

Ultimately, voters prefer to vote for something over voting against something.  The greatest of our leaders seek not just to get elected – but to get elected with a mandate for action.  In order to achieve that mandate, a leader must provide a clear road map of where he or she wants to take the state or the country.  To be sure, campaigns – especially between candidates of the same party – feature negative ads – especially down the wire.  But if we learned anything from the Whitman/Poizner race, it is something we already knew: if the voters perceive your first action is to go negative – then you will drive up your own negatives as well – and they may never know what positive you have to offer.

Before we get to Jerry Brown, it is important to note that there can be little doubt that Meg Whitman has a plan.  Months ago she published a stunning 48 page brochure on that plan.  It is stunning because most politicians don’t want to go on record with such exactitude lest they open themselves up to criticism.  Leadership, however, doesn’t pause for fear.

In that 48 pages, you can find Meg’s 3 point plan (1) to create jobs, (2) cut spending, (3) and fix education.  Those are incredibly pressing problems and her focused plans tell me that she already knows the first lesson of a new government executive:  don’t chase too many rabbits at once – lest you catch none of them – and so she plans to veto the hundreds and hundreds of yearly bills outside those 3 priorities.

(more…)

For long time Obama watchers this comes as no surprise. Bill Kristol is reporting  that the United States plans to abandon Israel at the UN Security Councel next week.  According to the Weekly Standard Editor, the Obama administration has been informing  foreign governments that it will support a resolution to set up an independent UN Commission to investigate Israeli actions in the guerrilla flotilla incident.

Apparently the President does not care

a) this is an extraordinary singling out of Israel, since all kinds of much worse incidents happen around the world without spurring UN investigations.

b) that the investigation will be one-sided, focusing entirely on Israeli behavior and not on Turkey or on Hamas.

c) that this sets a terrible precedent for outside investigations of incidents involving U.S. troops or intelligence operatives as we conduct our own war on terror.

The most recent  ’independent” investigation of Israel conducted by the UN, the Goldstone Report, threw any standards of investigation out the window. The report violated international standards for inquries, including UN rules on fact- finding. The Commission systematically favored witnesses and evidence put forward by anti-Israel advocates, and dismissed evidence and testimony that would undermine its case. The commission relied extensively on mediating agencies, especially UN and NGOs, which have a documented hostility to Israel; and reproduces earlier reports and claims from these agencies. And that’s just for a start. It is clear that Barack Obama is looking for the UN to create another anti-Israel Kangaroo court.

While UN Ambassador Susan Rice is reported to have played an important role in pushing for U.S. support of a UN investigation, the decision is, one official stressed, of course the president’s. The government of Israel has been consulting with the U.S. government on its own Israeli investigative panel, to be led by a retired supreme court justice, that would include respected international participants, including one from the U.S. But the Obama administration is reportedly saying that such a “kosher panel” is not good enough to satisfy the international community, or the Obama White House.

Remember, earlier this week Obama spoke about his desire for an international of inquiry. Also,  Ambassador Rice’s recommendation was foreshadowed when she remained mute during the UN’s Human Rights Council condemnation of Israel over the indecent.

(more…)

In this week’s edition of Coffee and Markets, featuring The New Ledger’s Francis Cianfrocca, we’re talking about the BP spill, the right approach to tax policy, and why Obamacare won’t work. We’re brought to you as always by Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com and LibertyPundits.com.

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

Download Podcast | iTunes | Podcast Feed

You can subscribe to the podcast by following the links above, and if you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

TNL: Dances With Bears
BigGovernment: Obamacare Isn’t Medicine for Deficit
Avik Roy: Orszag’s Weak Response
Barack Obama: Frat Boy in Chief?

The two national teachers unions thought they had it all figured out: seek a $23 billion bailout for public schools and it would result in a windfall of dues money.  Nearly $19 million for the National Education Association and almost $8 million for the American Federation of Teachers by my calculation – a handsome payback for the unions’ election support.

But the trough appears to be closing just as the unions were straightening their bibs.

That, of course, is a good thing for the American taxpayers – and the kids the union purports to put first who would ultimately be stuck with the bill.

U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) recently failed to garner the votes necessary to attach the Keep Our Educators Working Act to a supplemental defense spending bill, but D.C. lawmakers are expected to continue to push for the legislation.

Harkin would have needed 60 votes, and the support of Republicans, to attach the fund as an amendment to the defense bill, which recently passed without the school employee bailout amendment.

“I have no Republicans who will vote for it,” Harkin told Reuters.

My guess is that he’s got a few Democrats eyeing the November election and sensing a pitchfork mentality among the voters and they wouldn’t support it, either.

(more…)

New Census data shows the continued trend that the United States is becoming a nation increasingly less white.

According to this latest report, 48.6% of children born in the U.S. between July 2008 and July 2009 were “non-white minorities.” That’s up two percentage points from two years earlier, and soon the figure will cross the 50% mark.

The largest growth demographic is Hispanics, who accounted for almost 55% of our population growth. And, most of this growth – two thirds – came from births, not from immigration.

Aside from the knowledge that the country is becoming more colorful, an obvious thing we’ve got to be thinking about is what this means politically. Given that Democrats have been getting the majority of Hispanic and black votes – the two largest minorities – the straightforward conclusion appears to be that demographic trends favor the Democrat Party.

In the 2008 elections, white voters, for the first time ever, accounted for less than 75% of the total vote. It’s been noted that if each ethnic group voted as it did in 2008, but made of up the same percentage of the electorate as it did 20 years ago, John McCain would be our president today.

Clearly, demographic realities present real challenges to the Republican Party and the values that it is supposed to be championing – limited government and free markets.

Most recent polling from Gallup shows Hispanics generically favoring Democrats over Republicans by 2 to 1.

Republicans have got to make headway with this population.

(more…)

The Atlas Economic Research Foundation – a libertarian leaning organization – recently released a video featuring Foundation Vice-President Tom G. Palmer. Titled “Free Trade: The Great Prosperity Machine,” the video aims to make a compelling case for why free trade is good for everyone, not just foreign competitors, and makes reference to the classic libertarian economist Frederic Bastiat. Interested viewers can look here:

However, there are some problems with the video. For one thing, I’m not sure precisely who Palmer thinks his audience is, or who he wants it to be. Is he trying to persuade people on the Left? If so, then I don’t know how effective it is to talk about the benefits of exchange, since most Leftists view the exchanges that go on in trade relationships as fundamentally exploitative.

Moreover, Palmer’s argument that trade generates peace, while it could persuade some people to switch their position, probably won’t make a dent in the hardcore isolationist Left, which views trade as just another element of the military industrial complex and of the globalized order that underlies it. Maybe Palmer intends his video to speak to the more moderate technocratic Left, insofar as he uses scientific metaphors, but this seems like preaching to the choir. The moderate technocratic Left, as personified by Bill Clinton, has often been an ally of the internationally-oriented Right and the libertarian movement when it comes to trade, and I have yet to see any indicators that this attitude is changing.

What about the protectionist Right? Here things aren’t particularly encouraging either.

(more…)

Well here we are in the middle of the worst economy in almost a century, wars on two fronts, and a monster oil spill turning our southern coast into asphalt. And what is Congress busy on? Solving gender discrimination in restrooms.

Last month, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee held hearings on the Restroom Gender Parity in Federal Buildings Act (H.R. 4869). If ever there has been an argument against a full time legislature, this was it; apparently our Legislature has  far too much time to kill.

It comes as no surprise to anyone who has ever seen the line outside the women’s room at a sporting event, or waited in a movie lobby with the other guys: women take longer in the restroom than men.

Rep. Elijah Cummings claimed that women are treated as second-class citizens. In the facilities I’ve seen, that is clearly it is not the case. Women’s facilities are always better. (Do women think we have sports bars in there?) Sometimes we don’t even have “toilets” just a wall with a drain at the bottom.

To hear some of America’s brightest minds discuss the situation you would think it’s a patriarchal plot to hold women down, by refusing to install adequate facilities in Federal buildings. That way when important bills are being voted on, women legislators would be waiting in line at the restrooms.

(more…)

We are $13 trillion in debt. We will be $19.6 trillion in debt come 2015. Yet, the President wants to send $400 million for “humanitarian aid” to the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, an area controlled by the terrorist organization Hamas. As well intentioned this offer may be how can we be sure our money will not be used to fund terrorist activities? Well, we can’t.

If the money given to the late PLO chief Yasser Arafat is any indication, our dollars will be used to fund more terrorist activities and line the pockets of those in charge. Moreover, people have been sentenced to prison for funneling money to Hamas under the guise of “humanitarian aid,” so it’s a bit peculiar that our government would send money under the same conditions.

(more…)

Congress has suddenly realized something. Animals could be dangerous! Gosh. One wonders what magick faierie dust was sprinkled on these stalwart protectors of the public weal that made them realize that animals are dangerous? Whatever fantastic episode befell Congress they have acted and hence these high mukety-mucks last year introduced an ominous sounding bill called the Nonnative Wildlife Invasion Prevention Act (H.R. 669).

According to the summary this bill is supposed to, “prevent the introduction and establishment of nonnative wildlife species that negatively impact the economy, environment, or other animal species’ or human health, and for other purposes.” But like most federal laws it has an element of overreach to it.

That overreach is a stipulation that would require all dealers in pets to “prove” that their animals are “safe” and “noninvasive” and to present scientific proof to that end. As specified, the act would require, “sufficient scientific and commercial information to allow the Secretary to evaluate whether the proposed nonnative wildlife species is likely to cause economic or environmental harm or harm to other animal species’ or human health.”

In other words, pet sellers would have to engage scientists, economists, medical experts and the like to assemble a report that shows the government that the pet they are selling is safe for humans and the environment. And even at that rate the final decision is in the hands of the government and any capricious decision could be returned even after all that expense is incurred by pet sellers.

As I said, the idea almost sounds reasonable.

(more…)

President Barack Obama made news on The Today Show when he talked about kicking some ass over the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

If he is interested in punishing those responsible for what is shaping up as one of the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history, he should think about giving himself a boot.

While BP is ultimately responsible for the spill (and for cleaning it up), the federal government is a major player in the problem for at least three reasons:

1. It owns the property on which the oil well is located.

2. It regulates offshore drilling. And

3. In order to protect small players in the drilling industry, it capped economic damages from this sort of spill at just $75 million, a way-too-low cap that encourages risky behavior.

(more…)

Florida Congressman Alan Grayson represents everything wrong with politics today. Even fellow Democratic Party/Progressive Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) says that Grayson has issues. Back in October, Weiner commented:

“Is this news to you that this guy’s [Grayson] one fry short of a Happy Meal?”

The Obama Administration announced that it will urge government agencies to trim five percent from their budgets by reining in wasteful and duplicative programs – and redirect how that money is spent.  Less than 20 minutes later, the Administration’s Budget Chief Peter Orszag admitted that the initiative was as much about spending as it is deficit reduction.  To be clear, the Administration did not commit to use those cuts to pay down the deficits.

Look, trimming these budgets is a good thing – as Republicans have said repeatedly.  But is giving the heads of these agencies the ability to redirect money really an indication that Washington is prepared to bring our deficits under control before the European debt crisis migrates across the Atlantic?  Or is it simply posturing?

The good news is that the administration, at least on the surface, is finally getting the message that the American people are fed up with the reckless culture of spending prevailing over Washington.  America has soured on an agenda that sets out to double the debt in five years and triple it in 10.  That is why we launched YouCut, an effort to begin to transform the culture in Washington from one focused entirely on spending to one that forces measures to cut waste and save money.

Now, after more than 700,000 YouCut votes have been cast to remove specific wasteful spending items in the budget, and three House votes later (that would have saved $85 billion had enough Democrats supported them), the President is beginning to talk about finding ways to save taxpayer money.

(more…)

Before Tuesday’s elections, I wrote about a nasty union battle in the heart of conservative Orange County, Calif.

The good news: The unions might have a nearly endless source of cash in the form of employee dues, but they don’t win every battle. On Tuesday, in an election that holds nationwide lessons, a pension-reforming candidate for OC supervisor withstood a million-dollar-plus union onslaught and lived to tell about it. A county Republican Party chairman, put to the test over his “manifesto” to fellow GOP officials, is now taking his lessons to other counties.

In January, Chairman Scott Baugh berated Republicans who side with union benefit-enhancement deals and declared that no GOP candidate for office would receive party support if the candidate did not eschew union support. OC GOP support is a big deal in that still-overwhelmingly Republican county.

The showdown came this week in a contest to replace a supervisor, Chris Norby, who went on to the state Assembly. Fullerton Councilman Shawn Nelson took party chairman Scott Baugh’s pledge to refuse union funds seriously as he sought election to the powerful county board. Nelson was named the county GOP Elected Official of the Year after he blew the whistle on a retroactive pension deal in his city. He displayed the courage Baugh said he is seeking in Republican elected officials.

Nelson’s top opponent, Anaheim Councilman Harry Sidhu comes from the go-along, get-along wing of the party. He signed the “no union support” deal, but then he sat back and said nothing as the county’s major public employee unions dropped upwards of a million dollars on his behalf – including for vile smear ads against Nelson, depicting him as a friend of child molesters because his law firm does criminal defense work. Sidhu also promised that, as supervisor, he would drop a county lawsuit challenging the retroactive portion of a past pension increase.  It was almost unbelievable the number of mailers and TV and radio ads the unions paid for – something bordering on overkill for this type of county race.

(more…)

Today, in 1963, racist Governor George Wallace tried to block two African-American students from attending college. (Yes, read that again.) Wow. Surely there is a special corner in Hell for Gov. Wallace.

Congresswoman Michele Bachmann is a rising star in the Republican Party, a true representative of the tea party spirit. She’s plainspoken, brilliant, and incisive. She’s running for re-election to the House in Minnesota. And today, I had the chance to pre-record an interview with Congresswoman Bachmann for my radio show, “The Ben Shapiro Show,” broadcast Sundays 1-4 PM EST on 810 AM in Orlando, FL. You can also listen live at big810am.com.

In the interview, Congresswoman Bachmann characterizes President Obama’s response to the BP spill as “infantile,” says he’s the worst president in American history, says he’s siding with the Islamic world against Israel. How’s that for guts! Take a listen:

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

Transcript highlights after the jump: (more…)

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently hit a major stumbling block in its effort to impose net neutrality via the “reclassification” of broadband services.  Following months of civil rights groups, artists, and a major union voicing their opposition to net neutrality as a policy and a federal appeals court ruling that the FCC’s regulatory power was more limited than the agency had believed, 248 members of the U.S. House of Representatives went on the record to oppose the FCC’s plans.

But that hasn’t stopped the FCC from continuing to pursue reclassification.  Last week, Commissioner Mignon Clyburn unveiled herself as a supporter of designating broadband a telephone service under Title II of the Communications Act.

In a speech to the Media Institute, Clyburn rejected the notion that reclassification constituted a power grab saying that “The chairman is proposing that we reestablish the authority that the commission and most observers thought we had.”

But opponents say that the FCC’s proposed action is exactly that—a naked power grab, aimed not at reestablishing something “stripped” of the FCC, but rather extending the agency’s reach to impose heavy regulation on Internet services, in possible usurpation of Congress’ authority.

(more…)

LIVE at 2:00 PM ET – Right here at Big Government, will have a one-on-one interview with the man assaulted at a tea party protest over the weekend in Greensboro, NC.

The video of the assault has been up at BIG GOVERNMENT since yesterday afternoon and is going viral at a rapid pace.

In the midst of a peaceful tea party protest, a left-wing activists walks up in the middle of the crowd and begins to shout them down… eventually he punches one of the protesters in the face…. it was all caught on video and was released first here at BIG GOVERNMENT.

(more…)

Timing couldn’t be worse on this one, and frankly, we are broke.  Via the NYT:

President Obama promised a $400 million aid package for the West Bank and Gaza on Wednesday, as the United States scrambled to come up with a way out of the stalemate in the Middle East exacerbated by the Gaza flotilla incident last week.

Mr. Obama, meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas at the White House, said that the money would go to housing and schools. White House officials said that the money also would help increase access to drinking water and to help address health and infrastructure needs.

“While we work with our partners in the Palestinian Authority, Israel, Egypt, and the international community to put such a strategy in place, these projects represent a down payment on the United States’ commitment to Palestinians in Gaza, who deserve a better life and expanded opportunities, and the chance to take part in building a viable, independent state of Palestine, together with those who live in the West Bank.”

Is this Obama’s way of saying he agrees with Helen Thomas–by offering the Palestinians a huge payout of American tax dollars.  Nothing says ‘Sorry, I’m with you,’ like $400 million in US aid.

(more…)