As 2010 Census operations wind down, the Census Bureau has been forced to get rid of many of its temporary employees. However, the few employees who are still employed at the Detroit Regional Census Center’s “partnership” office have one thing in common: They are closely connected to the Detroit political machine and/or the Democratic Party. And the one current employee who doesn’t fit the above description is Twoine Murphy, who was indicted by the State of Michigan for his involvement in a Ponzi scheme.

To give you some background on the word “Partnership” in 2010 Census terms, the Census Bureau created an outreach program for the 2010 Census intended to boost involvement by linguistic, racial, and sexual minorities. The stimulus package gave this program a mega boost when it awarded upwards of $500 million in additional cash to the Census Bureau for outreach efforts, many of which are coordinated by “Partnership Specialists” and “Partnership Coordinators.”

(Some of these partnership employees have been paid upwards of $85,000 per year at the GS-14 and GS-15 levels of pay for federal employees.)

Let’s look at the cast of characters in the Detroit Regional Census Center who were NOT let go from the Census Bureau — even though “partnership” activities are long finished and the vast majority of employees in this office were let go in early June. The survivors are as follows:

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Suddenly the American public is shocked.  Perhaps there is no economic recovery.  Perhaps the One really does favor Islam.

Democrats and Republicans shake their heads and wonder, how could our President pursue such divisive and unpopular policies?  What is the rationale for his decisions?  Is he incompetent?  Is he naive?

The answer is none of the above.

I have said before and I will say again, Barack Obama does not share the values of Americans.  His vision is completely anathema to an America based on individualism, private property rights and Judeo-Christian morality.

When one argues that Barack Obama is merely mistaken in his economic program, they completely discount the notion that he knows exactly what he is doing and that he has been 100% successful in achieving his policies and their intended ends, means and ends that any objective viewer would realize were insane.  After all, an economy is nothing more than the collection of mutually beneficial voluntary exchanges of labor and the fruits of labor.  Anything that impedes one’s labor, or the trading of its fruits is necessarily bad for the economy.  Hence, almost everything a government does to try to stimulate an economy, impeding the natural spontaneous harmony of such a system necessarily postpones any recovery.

We were in major trouble with unsustainable public and private debt prior to this President, coupled with a completely insolvent financial system, a destined to fail monetary system and numerous stagnant businesses sucking up economic resources.  A real financial restructuring would have taken significant time, and even the most “fiscally conservative” President and Congress would not have been able to move enough roadblocks out of the way to make this recovery painless or quick.  I question whether or not anything could change the direction of the economy in the long run, save for a collapse that would force us to let the free market work and liquidate the welfare state.  But this President ensures that there will not even be a chance for recovery for many many years, regardless of who the next President is.

And it is all by design.

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Today, in 1814, Washington DC was sacked by the British during the War of 1812. The White House was burned during the rampage.

Big primaries today in Alaska, Arizona and Florida. In just a couple weeks, the final match-ups for the Fall elections will be set.

Yesterday’s  E&E News PM had an item, “LOBBYING: UAW joins labor-enviro alliance”, reading in pertinent part:

The United Auto Workers has announced that it will join the BlueGreen Alliance, a partnership of labor and environment groups pushing for policies that create green jobs….

The BlueGreen Alliance was formed in 2006 by the Sierra Club and the United Steelworkers. The group also includes the Communications Workers of America, Natural Resources Defense Council, Service Employees International Union, Laborers’ International Union of North America, Utility Workers Union of America, American Federation of Teachers, Amalgamated Transit Union and Sheet Metal Workers’ International Association.

Yes. Events in the early days of the Obama administration indicated it was only a matter of time before the UAW would join this enterprise seeking massive further expansion of the state. As I detail in Chapter 7 of Power Grab: How Obama’s Green Policies Will Steal Your Freedom and Bankrupt America, “Obama’s “Baptists and Bootleggers”: Unions and Greens Selling Out America”, “Team Obama is teaming with big business, unions, and green pressure groups in an unholy alliance to advance an agenda relieving you of your wealth and freedoms, to their enrichment, in a collaboration designed to move decisions from individual producers and consumers to the Federal government. As part of this perverse game, the Left pulls for ‘green’ energy production and then blocks that very same production on environmental grounds or until it can use such projects to enrich favored unions and companies.”

Oddly, these groups are pushing for cap-and-trade, in addition to other mandates designed to make the price of energy “necessarily skyrocket”, as Obama so delicately put it.

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It’s last call at Club Network Neutrality.  The crowd supporting this government Internet land grab is rapidly thinning.  The latest two to head for the exits each deal a huge blow to the media “reform” cause – for different reasons.

The first is Big Search mogul Google.  By its sheer size, power and sphere of influence it is a major player in the Net Neutrality (NN) debate – and they have been pro-NN.  But Google’s recent deal with Verizon – which deviates slightly from puritanical NN tenets – was a bridge too far for the pro-NN crowd.

So Google became the latest to receive the sad, tired “You Are Evil” treatment the Left reflexively delivers against their political opponents.  Google probably wasn’t all the way out the door on their own – but they may be now, shoved through by the subtle, soft-spoken pro-NN forces.

If so, we say welcome to the Great Outside – let’s do lunch.

The second was the conservative group Gun Owners of America (GoA).  Though not the monster entity Google is, their departure is important because it weakens substantially the pro-NN case that the partisan push to over-regulate the Internet isn’t partisan.

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From the Associated Press:

Shirley Sherrod, the Agriculture Department official ousted during a racial firestorm last month, declined Tuesday to return to the agency, though she said it was tempting.

Sherrod and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said that she may work with the agency in a consulting capacity in the future to help it improve its outreach to minorities. She told reporters she did not think she could say yes to a job “at this point, with all that has happened.”

“I look forward to some type of relationship with the department in the future,” she said. “We do need to work on the issues of discrimination and race in this country.”

Vilsack, who apologized to Sherrod for pushing her out, had offered her a new position in the Office of Advocacy and Outreach, which is works on civil rights issues.

“I think I can be helpful to him and the department if I just take a little break and look at how I can be more helpful in the future,” Sherrod said.

Vilsack said that “Shirley has unique opportunities here.” (more…)

“The denial of the possibility that there is an endpoint [to the welfare state] is crucial to the liberal enterprise,” says Dr. William Voegeli, author of the new book, Never Enough: America’s Limitless Welfare State and a visiting scholar at Claremont McKenna College’s Henry Salvatori Center for the Study of Individual Freedom in the Modern World.

In this Reason.tv interview, Voegeli traces recent federal government expansions to President Franklin Roosevelt’s introduction of a “second Bill of Rights” that included the right to housing, education, and medical care.

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From the International Committee of the Fourth International (World Socialist Web Site):

In line with the Democrats’ midterm election strategy, Obama again sought to blame the Republicans for the jobs crisis, claiming that their opposition to the small business bill was blocking progress on the employment front, while touting the supposed success of his economic policy. In a series of media events this week, interspersed with private fundraisers in some cases costing tens of thousands of dollars to attend, Obama declared, “We are moving in the right direction. We’re on the right track. The economy is getting stronger.”

After his White House remarks Thursday, Obama left for a 10-day vacation at a private estate, which rents for tens of thousands of dollars a week, on the exclusive resort island of Martha’s Vineyard off the Massachusetts coast.

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On June 5, Andrew Coulson posted a disturbing graph at Big Government:

He showed that public education costs are skyrocketing while student achievement remains flat.  In another graph in the same post, he showed that the public school bureaucracy is growing TEN times as fast as the student body.

The bottom line:  The growth and cost of the education establishment is out of control, while the quality of public education is in desperate need of improvement.

Regarding the latter, just how bad can things be?  Check out this brief video clip:

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From the very beginning I argued that the public should reserve judgment about Rod Blagojevich.  The Chicago Tribune had the openness to run two of my op-eds recommending suspension of judgment—“Fitzgerald comments crossed ethical line” (Jan. 15, 2009) and “Reign of everyday hypocrisy”  (April 10, 2009).

U. S. Atty Patrick Fitzgerald’s inflammatory comments at his Dec. 9, 2008, news conference—where he stated that Blagojevich’s conduct was “appalling” and that he had gone on a “political crime spree”—were entirely out of bounds.  Finding Blagojevich guilty on only one of 24 counts is some “crime spree.”  Maybe Fitzgerald confused Mr. and Mrs. Blagojevich with Bonnie and Clyde.

Worse, Fitzgerald poisoned the well of public opinion, leading to a zeitgeist of public frenzy—what the 19^th Century Scottish essayists called “schwarmerei,” a swarming herd conformity throughout the country and an animating spirit that precludes reserving judgment.

At the time, I received the following letter on Jan. 22, 2009, from Edward Genson, who had been Blagojevich’s initial counsel:

“I would like to commend you for your opinion piece in the Chicago Tribune on January 15^th and thank you for highlighting Patrick Fitzgerald’s ethical misstep.  Even in the face of this schwarmerei against Blagojevich, Fitzgerald still has to produce enough evidence to indict—imagine the schwarmerei against Fitzgerald if he fails!”

Fitzgerald had gotten away with it with Scooter Libby, whom he knew committed no crime but who perjured himself in subsequent testimony.  And the Conrad Black case does not reflect well on Fitzgerald.

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President Obama has been criticized across the political spectrum for the amount of golf he has played during the economic downturn. Maybe the criticism is getting to the White House as Obama recently made a speech at a golf course. We’re not certain that really addresses what people were complaining about. (Personally, we wouldn’t mind if Obama did nothing except play golf until 2012.)

In a further blow to those pressing for the institution of controversial net neutrality rules, it emerged on Monday that the Gun Owners of America (GOA) has exited the Save the Internet coalition backed by pro-regulation liberal groups such as Free Press.

GOA’s departure came after sustaining heavy criticism from conservative blog RedState for its support for net neutrality, and the organization’s willingness to associate itself politically with prominent liberal groups in the context of backing the proposal.  Organizations such as SEIU and MoveOn.org are members of Save the Internet along with Free Press, which itself serves as Coalition Coordinator.

GOA spokesman Erich Pratt said in a statement to The Hill that “Back in 2006 we supported net neutrality, as we had been concerned that AOL and others might continue to block pro-second amendment issues.”  But, he added, “The issue has now become one of government control of the Internet, and we are 100 percent opposed to that.”

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On Aug. 1, I reported here and on BigGovernment.com the fact that Bobby Schilling, the Republican challenger to Democrat incumbent U.S. Rep. Phil Hare in Illinois’ 17th Congressional District, had received the endorsement of Army Sgt. John F. Baker Jr., a Medal of Honor recipient from Illinois. Now, it appears, at least one female supporter of the stumbling, bumbling Hare thinks Baker’s endorsement means little.

In a letter to the editor of the Quad Cities Online® web site, Janet Casillas Ortiz wrote that she was not impressed by Baker’s endorsement of Schilling, because Baker no longer lives in Illinois. In addition, she inferred that Baker’s endorsement is no more meaningful than the endorsement of any other veteran — her husband, daughter and brother, included. Finally, she wondered in writing if “a puppeteer named ‘Bill’ was pulling Mr. Baker’s strings.”

While I appreciate the fact that members of the Ortiz family have served in the military, I must take issue with Mrs. Ortiz — who, it appears, did not serve her country in uniform — and her willingness to discount the value of the service of Baker, a retired Army sergeant and Vietnam veteran who earned his nation’s highest honor for service above and beyond the call of duty on Nov. 5, 1966.

Perhaps, Mrs. Ortiz should read the award citation that President Lyndon B. Johnson read in the East Room of the White House when he paid honor to Baker.

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Are you a blogger in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania? Do you have Google Adsense or some other sort of low-return ads on your blog? If so expect a letter soon from your friendly city treasurer demanding that you pay a $300 tax on your “money making business.”

For most people that maintain an active blog it is just a hobby. Some people blog daily but most only do so a few times a month. Many bloggers also participate in Google’s advertising program called Adsense but few make much more than $20 or $30 a year from the effort.

But according to the City of Philadelphia, you have a lucrative business one that you need to register with the city and either pay $50 a year tax or a “lifetime” fee of $300 to be allowed to operate.

Naturally the Philly bloggers that have gotten this letter are flabbergasted. None of them were even aware they have a taxable business with their blog. Ah, but the city disagrees.

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Hare-brained Rep. Phil Hare (D-IL) told constituents this past weekend at an event in Springfield, Illinois that questions about the US Constitution were, “Silly stuff.”

Hare was also asked why the American socialists consider him a member in their ranks. He wouldn’t answer.

This was just one more example of the complete arrogance we see coming from our elitist radical representatives in Washington.

The last time we heard from Phil Hare he told us, “I don’t care about the Constitution.”

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There is an old saying that politics make strange bedfellows. A great example of this is seen in the union of a George Soros, Jewish born billionaire who collaborated with the Nazis and was convicted of insider trading, funding the organization of Jim Wallis Christian writer and political activist, founder and editor of Sojourners magazine, leader of the Progressive evangelical movement, Obama adviser and advocate for “social justice.”

The original charge was made Marvin Olasky in the Christian Magazine,  The World. Olasky reported that Soros had been giving money to Sojourners since 2004.

[Soros] bankrolled Sojourners with a $200,000 grant in 2004. A year later, here’s how Jim rebutted a criticism of “religious progressives” for being allied with Soros and MoveOn.org: “I know of no connections to those liberal funds and groups that are as direct as the Religious Right’s ties to right-wing funders.”

Since then Sojourners has received at least two more grants from Soros organizations. Sojourners revenues have more than tripled—from $1,601,171 in 2001-2002 to 5,283,650 in 2008-2009—as secular leftists have learned to use the religious left to elect Obama and others.

Maybe he was surprised by the charges, because the “man of God,” Walis lied about the Soros funding claiming that Olasky was trying to imitate Glenn Beck:

It’s not hyperbole or overstatement to say that Glenn Beck lies for a living. I’m sad to see Marvin Olasky doing the same thing. No, we don’t receive money from Soros. Given the financial crisis of nonprofits, maybe Marvin should call Soros and ask him to send us money.

So, no, we don’t receive money from George Soros. Our books are totally open, always have been. Our money comes from Christians who support us and who read Sojourners. That’s where it comes from. In fact, we’ve had funding blocked, this year and last, by liberal foundations who didn’t like our stance on abortion. Other liberal groups were happy to point out to them that our stance wasn’t kosher on abortion, so our funding was blocked.

So tell Marvin he should check his facts, and not imitate Glenn Beck.

Wallis got one part correct, Olasky did imitate Beck, both the TV commentator and the Christian writer both use facts and evidence to build their cases.

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August 28 marks the 47^th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream speech.”

On that steamy summer day in 1963, hundreds of thousands of Americans, black and white, converged on the mall in Washington and heard this black pastor deliver what was essentially a sermon for freedom.

Compared to the unrest then on university campuses, violent outbreaks in urban areas, and the protests of the civil rights movement, today’s turmoil seems relatively sedate.

Nevertheless, we do live today in a deeply troubled nation and it’s instructive to think about what has changed since the sixties and what hasn’t.

One constant is the turmoil. It’s tempting to think that normal is times when things smoothly buzz along – but this is an illusion. The beauty of freedom is openness for dissent and discussion of life’s endless problems and ambiguities.

What changes is what we argue about and how we define our problems.  And one notable contrast between today and the sixties is our sense of religion and its relationship to the freedom we so cherish.

To appreciate this, we need look no further than Dr. King’s famous speech.

Today we commonly view freedom as exclusively in the arena of politics, separate and apart from – for some the antithesis of – religion.

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Today, in 1989, on the 50th Anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, a human chain of patriots stretched across the Baltic States to demand independence from the Soviet Union. The human chain stretched almost 400 miles.