Young people hate big government policies. This may come as a shock, given that Obama won 66% of the 18-29 voting demographic, but as we will examine, recent polling supports my belief.

When Obama was campaigning in the general election, he talked as if he were a centrist. He promised to end political polarity, he promised tax cuts, he promised to clean up corruption, and he promised to be fiscally responsible. These were all desirable attributes in a candidate, and the power of those ideas paired with his “cool” factor helped him win the election.

Unfortunately, the President broke his campaign promises. His policies have been detrimental to all Americans, but none have been more adversely affected than my generation.

At a time when the Democrats have already added $4.71 trillion dollars to ‘stimulate the economy’, how is it that unemployment for young adults is hovering at 20%? Weren’t we supposed to be the benefactors of the Democratic agenda? Weren’t they supposed to be looking out for our generation’s best interests? Of course that’s what they said, but as the old adage goes, “judge me not on what I say, but on what I do.”

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Talking heads, pundits and bloggers have been buzzing for months now at the prospect of Republicans in Congress releasing a new version of the Contract with America, the set of legislative proposals Newt Gingrich and other Republican leaders cobbled together in the lead up to the 1994 election. While that election saw Republicans sweep into control of the House for the first time in 40 years, and take the Senate, 2010 is not 1994. Nationalizing that election made sense, nationalizing this one reeks of opportunism and a desperation for the Washington establishment to claim relevance.

In 1994, everyone knew Republicans were going to do well, but they didn’t know how well. The battle with President Clinton and liberals over Hillarycare, Congressional corruption and other issues soured a large portion of the nation on Democrats. It was a harmonic convergence of events that set the ball on a tee for Republicans. No one can say whether or not the Contract was the straw that broke the camel’s back, but it is given so much credit that logic dictates that at least some of it is undeserved.

While the ideas in the original Contract were put on paper by people from inside Washington, they had been outsiders their whole careers. None in the House had ever served in a Republican majority. Those drafting the new “Contract” have, and lost it by becoming what they ran opposing. It hasn’t been released yet, but the rumors are circulating about its content and release date, possibly as soon as this Thursday. Regardless of what it says, the message it will send, and the trouble for campaigns, campaigns doing quite well without it, is that it this election is about Washington. It could be the unforced fumble as the clock is running out of the 2010 campaign.

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While Americans across the country have entered the political game to save our country, moving that proverbial ball of freedom towards the end zone, we’ve been sacked. Blindsided. We’ve been so focused on legislative elections (and rightly so) that most Americans don’t even know they’ve been hit – and hit hard.

But not by some big, burly monster like voter fraud or corruption. No, we’ve been knocked flat by the ignorance of the conservative electorate and cute little puppies licking our stunned, what-the-heck-just-happened faces.

Well, I’ll tell you what just happened.

It’s called the Humane Society of the United States cowardly hiding behind animal cruelty, lying to our citizens and taking our constitutional rights away – one state at a time.

This radical animal rights organization (HSUS), who spends less than 0.5% of its $100M + budget on actually helping animals, is using the referendum process to slowly, systematically eliminate food production in the United States.

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Modern leftists have long used the power of government to excerpt control and silence dissent. The erosion of free speech in America has come in a number of ways, not all of which are the result of new laws. Such is the case today.

I recently learned that the White House has launched an attack against a privately owned American company, Koch Industries. This attack may include the unlawful use of Internal Revenue Service documents.

As a Member of the House Committee on Ways and Means, which has jurisdiction over the IRS, I am highly concerned that the White House may be prying into the tax returns of its political enemies. For this reason, I have called on my Chairman, Rep. Sanders Levin, to immediately conduct oversight inquires into the actions of the Obama White House. Should Chairman Levin fail to do so, I am hopeful that November will bring into power a majority willing to uncover the truth.

The White House attack against Koch is politically motivated. The White House wants to end the company’s lawful financial support for conservative and libertarian causes – effectively silencing its opponents.

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New information about the violent criminal history of the Philadelphia Black Panthers once again calls into question the Department of Justice handling of this racist hate group.

Records obtained from the Philadelphia Courts document arrests for assault, robbery, domestic violence, and drug dealing by King Samir and Jerry Jackson.

According to one of his victims, King Samir does more than intimidate voters with his baton.  He beat the man in the head with the same type weapon he was seen brandishing outside of a Philadelphia polling place in 2008.

The beating, in 1995, was so severe the man was hospitalized and appeared in court with staples still in his head.

From the court transcript:

Q: Tell the court what if anything the defendant did

A: He hit me with a cane.

Q: What did it have on it?

A: Two D batteries

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Today, in 1776, soldier and spy Nathan Hale was executed by the British. His purported last words were, “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.”

From The Hill:

President Ronald Reagan, a Republican icon, might not be welcome in today’s GOP, Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C.) suggested Tuesday.

Inglis, a Palmetto State Republican who was defeated earlier this year in a conservative primary challenge, said that “optimistic” conservatives might have been threatened by the conservative Tea Party movement.

“Well, not so much moderates. Surely, maybe they’re unwelcome, but also conservatives of the optimistic sort,” Inglis said during an appearance on CNN in response to a question about whether centrists were being forced out of the GOP.

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Correction Below

The NAACP-led ‘One Nation Working Together’ rally coming up in Washington, D.C. on October 2nd to counter the Tea Party movement’s success is being sponsored by pro-terrorist and communist groups. Many of their logos are proudly and prominently displayed on the rally’s promotional website.  One sponsor’s leader was fired this summer by the U.S. Civil Rights Commission for his ties to Hamas.

The rally’s sponsor list demonstrates how the Democrat party’s liberal establishment has mainstreamed treason and anti-semitism.

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On September 30, Reason.tv brings a terrifying new dimension to our award-winning video productions!

Just in time for the Halloween season comes our Fiscal House of Horror videos in thrilling, chilling, drink-spilling 3D!

Our special videos on out-of-control federal spending, debt, and public-sector compensation will reach out from beyond the screen and warn you to fix your government before it’s too late!

These videos are being released in conjunction with a special 3D edition of Reason magazine that comes complete with Reason.tv 3D glasses. Current subscribers will automatically receive the special 3D issue and glasses.

If you’re not a subscriber, order a subscription online now and you’ll be able to enjoy the print magazine of Reason and Reason.tv’s 3D videos!

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Thanks to the Obamacare legislation, we already know there will be a new 3.8 percent payroll tax on all investment income earned by so-called rich taxpayers beginning in 2013. And the capital gains tax rate will jump to 20 percent next year if the President gets his way. This sounds bad (and it is), but the news is even worse than you think. Here’s a new video from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity that exposes the atrociously unfair practice of imposing this levy on inflationary gains.

The mini-documentary uses a simple but powerful example of what happens to an investor who bought an asset 10 years ago for $5,000 and sold it this year for $6,000. The IRS will want 15 percent of the $1,000 gain (Obama wants the tax burden on capital gains to climb to 23.9 percent, but that’s a separate issue). Some people may think that a 15 percent tax is reasonable, but how many of those people understand that inflation during the past 10 years was more than 27 percent, and $6,000 today is actually worth only about $4,700 after adjusting for the falling value of the dollar?

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In the lead-up to the 1972 elections, then-Vice President Spiro Agnew headed up something called “Operation Switch” at President Nixon’s request. His mission was to help get Southern Democratic elected officials more comfortable with Republican conservative values than their own party to switch and urge their supporters to follow.

Most Southern elected officials at the time were Democrats, and the Republican parties in the region tended to be small, elitist groups that couldn’t win elections that were often referred to by cynics as “Post Office Parties.” They were comfortable little groups of elitists eligible for patronage jobs when Republican presidents occupied the White House. Most Southern GOP leaders were quite comfortable as big fish in very small ponds and felt personally threatened at the prospect of admitting new members to their small and exclusive club.

I served as Agnew’s chief political assistant back then, and shortly after Operation Switch launched, then-Rep. Lou Frey of Florida came to see me. He was furious. “We don’t want these people in our party,” he (literally) yelled, “because if we let ’em in, the next thing you know, they’ll be primarying us and taking over.”

That White House scene has often come to mind as newly energized voters with new concerns have, in the process of moving to the GOP, threatened the comfort level of the establishment in charge.

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Progressives – and socialists – will do anything to discredit the Tea Party movement.  Just ask Frances Fox Piven, who, along with her husband Richard Cloward, designed the theory of “collapsing the system” to force socialist principles – primarily redistribution of wealth – onto America.

In a recent interview published on CommonDreams.org, Piven said this of the Tea Party movement:

“It is a media concoction, an expression of white nationalism, a cry of resentment, and so on. But it also reflects a well-funded campaign by the Right that singles out groups like ACORN, the SEIU (Service Employees International Union), the teachers’ unions, and environmental projects, to disable not only the Left, which after all is not at this point strong enough to be much of a threat, but the Democratic Party.”

Remember Kenneth Gladney, the black Tea Party member who was holding “Don’t Tread on Me” flags and viciously beaten in St. Louis by SEIU thugs?  Yep, he was just expressing his inner white nationalism.

As Gladney laid on the ground, getting kicked and enduring racial slurs by union goons—well, that was just a media concoction.

Regardless of the facts, Piven sees a racist around every right corner.  Earlier this year, she said this of Glenn Beck:

“So, it’s an old technique of right-wing ideologues – finding a scapegoat … and attributing things that go wrong in American society to somebody who’s foreign or dark skinned or an intellectual.”

According to Piven, if you oppose the Left’s agenda, you’re obviously a racist.  Isn’t it about time we get past that, Fran?

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From the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

Organized labor is hatching a plan to use prominent Democratic officials and TV ads to pummel Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker over the O’Donnell Park garage accident to try to keep him from being elected governor.

So says a local union official with loose lips who was secretly recorded yakking away outside an east side bar earlier this month. `

Here’s what he said everyone can expect in the next six weeks:

TV spots will hit Walker for neglecting county facilities; supervisors will continue to call for an independent investigation of O’Donnell Park; Walker’s opponent, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, will push legislation on the subject; and Gov. Jim Doyle’s administration may let state engineers come in to inspect the county facility.

“I’m kind of at the center of a maelstrom right now in terms of kicking Scott Walker’s (expletive),” said John-david Morgan, a lobbyist and spokesman for the Service Employees International Local 1, on Sept. 10 outside the Y-Not II tavern on E. Lyon St. “I’ve been kicking Scott Walker’s (expletive) for two months now. We’ve been on TV; we’ve done all kinds of stuff.”

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From the New York Times:

It was billed as “Investing in America,” a live televised conversation on the state of the economy between President Obama and American workers, students, business people and retirees, a kind of Wall Street to Main Street reality check.

But it sounded like a therapy session for disillusioned Obama supporters.

In question after question during a one-hour session, which took place on Monday at the Newseum here and was televised on CNBC, Mr. Obama was confronted by people who sounded frustrated and anxious — even as some said they supported his agenda and proclaimed themselves honored to be in his presence.

People from Main Street wanted to know if the American dream still lived for them. People on Wall Street complained that he was treating them like a piñata, “whacking us with a stick,” in the words of Anthony Scaramucci, a former law school classmate of Mr. Obama’s who now runs a hedge fund and was one of the president’s questioners.

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Should military hospitals be used to save lives or to kill unborn babies? The U.S. Senate may soon take action to overturn long-standing policy by sanctioning the performance of abortions in domestic and overseas military facilities–effectively turning military hospitals and other facilities into abortion clinics. This would be the largest expansion of abortion availability since the original Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision in 1973. Overnight, your tax dollars will create 423 new abortion clinics. While much of the media attention on this bill has focused on the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” debate and now amnesty for illegal aliens, many Americans should be deeply concerned that this bill turns our military healthcare system into domestic and international abortion providers.

This past May, when the Senate Armed Services Committee considered the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011, Senator Roland Burris (D-IL) offered an amendment to end the current prohibition on performing abortions in military hospitals. If enacted, this amendment would overturn a law that has been in place since 1996, signed into law by President Clinton.

Military healthcare centers — which are dedicated to healing and caring for life — should not facilitate the taking of an innocent human life: an unborn child. Allowing abortions in military facilities will continue to strain already burdened medical personnel who are working to save the lives of our men and women in service. At a time when our nation is at war, are we really going to divert scarce personnel and resources for elective abortions?

This change in policy will also likely hurt recruitment and retention of military medical professionals—possibly driving many health care providers out of the military if they have conscience objections to performing abortion. When President Clinton allowed abortions in military facilities from 1993 to 1996, many military physicians (as well as nurses and support staff) refused to perform or assist in elective abortions. In response, the Administration hired civilians to do abortions. If the Burris amendment were enacted, not only would taxpayer funded facilities be used to support abortion on demand, but tax dollars could also be used to search, hire, and transport new personnel just so abortions could be performed.

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There’s a new Wall Street Sheriff in town. Her name is Elizabeth Warren and she’s President Obama’s pick to help set up (control) a brand new Big Government agency called the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection. (Just so you know, this new agency was the brainchild of the corrupt Fannie and Freddie twins, Barney Frank and Chris Dodd. The laughably named Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act effectively gives the federal government control of our nation’s financial sector. (Think of it as Obamacare for Wall Street, the stock market, and credit cards.)

Obama and his allies have been big promoters of Warren, who is the left-wing patron saint of so-called consumer protection.

There’s only one problem. In the dubious tradition of Obama czars, Warren is a leftist radical with a “penchant for provocative statements” and has very little chance of being confirmed by even a Democratic Senate. How anti-business? Well, in a blog she crafted for TPMCafe.com in 2005, Warren said: “…big corporate interests, led by the consumer finance industry, are devouring families and spitting out the bones.”

And that’s just one example.

Even Democrat Senator Chris Dodd, Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, sees the writing on the wall on a Warren appointment. Dodd has publicly stated that he doubts Warren could muster the votes for confirmation. Many others in Congress agree, even if they won’t say it publicly.

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Democrat Harry Reid’s Senate race enjoys little hope of victory without Republican “Club” members.  His poll ratings are down; he is held in contempt by most of the country; there is little that is attractive about him; he does not speak well; and he comes across as a not very bright, acrimonious man with a big chip on his shoulder. While Harry may have the equivalent of a political insiders’ flush, he will need a full house that includes Las Vegas Republicans to win this election.

The long and sordid histories of Las Vegas, Harry Reid and the political machine that made him have inseparably intertwined.  And, you would have to look back to the political machines of the early 20^th Century to find similar mediocre politicians of average intelligence with no great personal achievements, reaching the levels Reid has reached.

Nevada is a state of “deals”.  The story is that the Nevada political machine evolved out of deal between the mob and God-fearing Mormons who wanted the economic opportunities the mob was making possible.  While the State has since gone straight and goes to great lengths to be clean, it is the evolution of the “deal” that remains in control of Nevada politics.

Recently Sig Rogich, a longtime Republican operative publicly endorsed Reid, the first indication that the backroom-inside political machine is still alive and well.  Sharron Angle, with the support of the tea party won the primary on the platform that she is an outsider.  A strong independent who has suffered years of personal attacks (recently the most vicious coming from Reid, his surrogates and Union allies) she has been cautious, keeping insiders out of the game.  In fact, many Republican leaders say it is easier to get a phone call returned from Reid than Angle.  The battle against the insider worked well for the primary but now, with the candidates neck and neck in the polls, it is an insider game played by families around the dinner table that could determine the outsider’s outcome.

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Statistically, Harvey Mansfield should be a raging liberal.  He’s been at Harvard since 1949.  In 2008, 93% of Harvard faculty political contributions were to Democrats.  At Yale in the same year it was 94%.  While it is no secret that America’s colleges and universities are bastions of liberalism, Harvey Mansfield in our latest episode discusses how that happened and the effect that it has on our society.

The short answer to why faculty at impressive academic institutions are so left leaning is: they can’t help it.  As Mansfield says, they are so insular – always in their own world – the prime example of an echo chamber.

One of the first casualties of the liberal stranglehold on the academy is a healthy emphasis on Western Civilization.  As liberals rose in prominence in American universities, starting in the late 1960s, Western Civilization classes came under fire.  Great books classes, Mansfield argues, introduce students to timeless problems and questions.  Thinking through concepts like “what is the Good Life?” or “is it a good thing to be ambitious?” or “what is the relationship between philosophy and theology?” is essential to developing one’s ability to identify truth and virtue.  With liberals in charge, these classes were labeled as “narrow minded” and were replaced by anti-Western courses that sought to apologize for the power and prominence of Western Civilization.

For more on that and other topics, like rampant grade inflation and the soft despotism of sensitivity, watch the full episode below:

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Private saving and investment are the heart and soul of the dynamic market process. Together they provide and allocate the resources used to augment the economy’s productive capacity, generate sustained long-run economic growth, and thereby make possible a rising level of living. Economic crises interrupt this process by discouraging investors and causing them to consume their resources or to employ them in relatively safe, low-yielding ways. Absent entrepreneurs willing to take the great risks that characterize investments in great technological and organizational innovations, the growth process fades into economic stagnation or even decline.

The present recession starkly displays this characteristic crisis-related abatement of the economy’s investment process. Indeed, the decline of private investment during recent years has been much greater than most observers realize. Consider the following data, taken or derived from the most recently revised National Economic Accounts prepared by the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis (Tables 1.1.5, 1.1.6, and 5.2.6).

In 2006, gross private domestic investment reached its most recent peak, at $2.33 trillion (in constant 2005 dollars), or 17.4 percent of GDP. After remaining almost at this level in 2007, this measure of investment fell substantially during each of the next two years, reaching $1.59 trillion, or 11.3 percent of GDP, in 2009. This decline is severe enough, but it does not give us all the information we need to gauge the extent of the investment bust.

The greater part of gross investment consists of what the statisticians call the capital consumption allowance, an estimate of the amount of money that must be spent simply to offset wear and tear and obsolescence of the existing capital stock. In a country such as the United States, with an enormous fixed capital stock built up over the centuries, a great amount of funds must be allocated simply to maintain that stock. In recent years, the private capital consumption allowance has ranged from $1.29 trillion in 2005 to $1.46 trillion (in constant 2005 dollars) in 2009. Thus, even in the boom year 2006, about 60 percent of gross private domestic investment was required merely to maintain the economy’s productive capacity, leaving just 40 percent, or $889 billion in net private domestic investment, to augment that capacity.

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