These are dangerous times.

With one-in-seven Americans living in poverty, with unemployment at record levels, with an unprecedented national deficit, with foreclosures up and businesses down, you’d think the Obama Administration and Democratic National Committee (DNC) would be focusing on the economy.  You’d be wrong.

Instead, the Community Organizer in Chief and the radical left is focusing its energy on stalking and harassing top conservatives and tea party patriots.

On Saturday, September 18th, Glenn Beck and Andrew Breitbart headlined an event entitled “Right Nation 2010,” held just outside of Chicago, Illinois. When Andrew Breitbart arrived at the Sears Centre west of Chicago, he was met by an angry mob of radical protesters who were “praying” for an “end to hate” while also hurling insults and homophobic slurs toward the targets of their enmity. One of the prayer leaders at the event and the lead organizer, C.J. Hawking, is also a noted socialist from the Chicago area. (more…)

Every day, we see an expansion in the midterm battlefield as the number of vulnerable Democrats increases. This video goes a long way to explain this. Done for Ben Lange, in Iowa’s 1st District, this seat is on no one’s list for a possible take-over. But, this video captures the public zeitgeist.

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From Robert Samuelson:

Confidence is crucial to stimulating consumer spending and business investment, and Obama constantly subverts confidence. In the past year, he’s undone some of the good of his first months. He loves to pick fights with Wall Street bankers, oil companies, multinational firms, health insurers and others. He thinks that he can separate policies that claim to promote recovery from those that appeal to his liberal “base,” even when the partisan policies raise business costs, stymie job creation or augment uncertainty — and, thereby, undermine recovery. His health care “reform” makes hiring more expensive to employers by mandating insurance coverage. The moratorium on deep-water oil drilling kills jobs; the administration’s estimate of employment loss is up to 12,000.

Obama’s proposal to increase taxes on personal incomes exceeding $250,000 ($200,000 for singles) is the latest example of his delusional approach. It satisfies the liberal itch to “get the rich.” Well, the rich and most other taxpayers will ultimately have to pay higher taxes to help close budget deficits. But not now.

Raising taxes in a weak economy doesn’t make sense.

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In Washington, DC, if you want to release news so it doesn’t get much coverage, do it Friday afternoon. If you want to really stick it to the American people, do it after Election Day. Apparently, the Food and Drug Administration is following the playbook.

Late Friday, the FDA announced it had postponed for 90 days — and until after the Election — a decision whether to ration the later stage cancer drug Avastin based on cost. With poll numbers that 60 Plus rolled out earlier in the week this is not a shock.

For the first time, an FDA sub-panel used cost as a factor in consideration of drug approval — opening the door to rationing for Avastin and other cutting edge drugs. The American people reject rationing. They do not want doctor’s choices limited by cost — undermining the basic premise of ObamaCare and when drugs are rejected because of their price tag, that is rationing. (more…)

Remember at the outset of the financial crisis when the government told us only “healthy banks” were going to receive bailout funds? Well apparently that requirement does not apply to banks with friends in high places.

Judicial Watch received new documents from the U.S. Department of Treasury about the controversial $12 million bailout grant provided to Boston-based OneUnited Bank.

We got the documents through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit we filed against Treasury. Included are internal Treasury emails describing the substandard condition of OneUnited prior to the taxpayer funded bailout, which allegedly occurred at the behest of Reps. Maxine Waters and Barney Frank.

Here’s what we found out in a nutshell: OneUnited Bank was in deep trouble due to incompetence and mismanagement. Government officials knew all about it. And yet, they bent the rules for Waters and Frank and “invested” taxpayer funds in the floundering enterprise.

Consider this September 15, 2008, email from former Treasury Senior Advisor Michael Scott to Director of the Office of Financial Institutions Mario Ugoletti. It includes a Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) evaluation administered by the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) noting serious issues with OneUnited’s lending practices:

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On Saturday, September 18th, Glenn Beck and Andrew Breitbart headlined an event entitled “Right Nation 2010,” held just outside of Chicago, Illinois.

As you will see in our video report from the scene, when Andrew Breitbart arrived at the Sears Centre, he was met with an angry mob of protesters who were calling for an ‘end to hate’ while also hurling expletives and homophobic slurs toward the targets of their enmity.

In the following dramatic video, Breitbart brings the protest to a complete halt by cleverly asking sign holders to do the impossible:  explain the placards they were carrying. In the end, the frustrated organizers abruptly end their protest and leave.

Warning: Some content possibly NSFW:

So, who organized and bussed in these protesters? Here is what we know.

As the woman at the end of the video above confirms, President Obama’s Organizing for America (A Project of the National Democratic Committee) helped coordinate the protest with at least an email blast to its local members.

In the short clip below we discover that the organizers are extremely reluctant to talk about their protest, but at the very end we at least learn the name of the lead organizer, C.J. Hawking.

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Taking into consideration the entire width and breadth of incumbent Democrat Congressman Phil “I Don’t Worry About the Constitution” Hare’s poorly-managed re-election campaign to date, I can’t help but think of the advice so many unskilled politicians have received over the years: “Once you’ve dug yourself into a hole that’s too deep, stop digging.” When it comes to Hare, however, I say, “Keep on digging!”

About three weeks ago, I reported that Democrat Party operatives working on behalf of the rotund Hare had filed a complaint against members of the group, Veterans for the Constitution, for campaigning against the two-term Congressman seeking re-election in Illinois’ 17th Congressional District. Today, I learned that the complaint has not only helped the veterans group’s cause, according to a V4C activist, but it has forced Hare into making unsubstantiated allegations against those who oppose his re-election.

First, I received a copy of a letter today from Marine Corps veteran and V4C supporter Wayne C. Hill Sr. of Moline, Ill. In it, he thanked Hare for his complaint as follows:

The Veterans for the Constitution (V4C) have had their political differences with Mr. Hare. However, we would like to take this opportunity to publically say thank you Mr. Hare for helping with our fund raising efforts. As a result of the complaint filed at your behest by Democrat lawyer, and Sangamon County Democrat Party Chairman, James Moody, and the subsequent national coverage the complaint received, our PAC has received donations from all over the country.

Men and women, active duty military and non-military, union members and non-union members, have given the V4C enough money to not only erect a new billboard at IL-5 and Ave. of the Cities. Additionally, we also now have enough funds to continue our mission for the duration of the campaign.

It’s not every day that a person running for a public office will assist those in opposition to his politics with their fund raising efforts. This gesture is very generous on your part and greatly appreciated by V4C.

Mr. Hare, please continue what you are doing. You have no idea of how much your actions are helping with our fund raising.

Wayne C. Hill, Sr.
Veterans For The Constitution
Moline,
USMC, Semper Fi

“Keep on digging!”

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Et tu, Karl?

Only Miles Monroe, Woody Allen’s character in Sleeper, could have missed the firestorm Karl Rove touched off during his appearance on Fox News’ Hannity show on Tuesday night. But for the benefit of Mr. Monroe and other hypnophiles out there, here it is:

It’s unusual to witness the typically even-tempered Rove go ballistic like this, but it’s downright discouraging to see the so-called “Architect” of so many successful Republican campaigns hell-bent to sabotage one of his own party. With architects like this, who needs building inspectors?

To make matters worse, with subsequent unrepentant appearances on Neil Cavuto’s Your World program and The O’Reilly Factor, the proudly obdurate Mr. Rove has become for the Democrats (and particularly for Delaware Senate hopeful Chris Coons) the proverbial gift that keeps giving. Rove only ever-so-slightly mollified his O’Donnell caveats on those appearances, more out of self-preservation than a spirit of selflessness. I guess we should be grateful that at least unlike Bill Ayers—the unrepentant Pentagon bomber and Weather Underground terrorist—Rove didn’t say he wished he’d done more to damage O’Donnell.

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From the UK’s Telegraph (where we often go to find stories not covered by our lame media):

First they were ignored. Then they were derided as the tools of Big Money. Then they were branded as racists, the unhinged, the unwashed, the paranoid, the subversive and the ignorant – or some combination thereof.

Now, they stand accused of aiding and abetting the enemy by splitting the Republican party and giving Democrats hope for the November mid-terms. It has been a rough ride for members of the Tea Party in the 19 months since their movement sprung up.

But each insult and attempt to marginalise them seems only to have stiffened their resolve and swelled their numbers. Polling indicates that they are now more popular than either Republicans or Democrats. Despite all the claims they are extremists, around half of the electorate now identifies with the Tea Party and up to a quarter view themselves as members.

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The bigger the corporation the easier it is to hide in a cubicle doing absolutely nothing. There are working people, whose entire job requires little more than taking a slip of paper out of one slot and sticking it into the next.  That’s why short quick recessions are good for the economy; when profit margins get narrower than a liberals mind, companies start looking  for useless jobs to cut. Several rounds of lay-offs later, the two slots are merged, and the sheet of paper goes directly from one slot into the next. The most successful companies today have eliminated unnecessary corporate luxuries like the slot guy.

This never happens in the Federal Government, because recessions never mean cutbacks in Federal Land. Since the Government trend is constantly on the growth side, people have been shuffling papers through the slots for years. In fact long chains of cubicles have grown all over Washington DC where dozens of people pass a single sheet of paper from cubicle to cubicle, before it moves into the next office where it goes through another cluster of cubicles.

The best example of this government inefficiency was discovered after the recent egg recall. A salmonella outbreak caused at least 1500 Americans to become sick before half a billion eggs were removed from store shelves. Americans screamed for more Federal oversight of the food industry.

In a surprising September 10^th Wall Stret journal article, we learned there was already plenty Federal oversight; it’s just that Federal oversight is remarkably incompetent. There were USDA workers watching the egg plant seven days a week.

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While chaos theory has had a place in science since mathematician and physicist Jules Henri Poincare first coined the term in the 1880s, it made its way into pop culture with the introduction of the so-called butterfly effect by fiction writers Ray Bradbury (“A Sound of Thunder,” 1952) and fictional chaotician-in-chief Ian Malcolm with his widely popular “Jurassic Park” in 1993. The idea, of course, is that activity that impacts one part of a system can have wide-ranging, unforeseen (and in the case of government interfering in a free-market economy) unintended and undesirable consequences elsewhere in that system.  While we have had no scarcity over the years of political butterflies in both parties incessantly flapping their wings to, generally, no good purpose, we are currently witnessing a truly historic exercise in chaos theory, Washington style.

As we argued in an earlier column this month, the $2.0 trillion in cash (and growing) that has been accumulating throughout the year in corporate bank accounts is more than enough to jump start the economy out of the doldrums in which it has been languishing for the better part of three years.  All of this capital is locked in irons, as our sea-faring friends like to say, chiefly because a muscle-flexing, game-changing government is piling uncertainty on top of uncertainty with largely unwanted new taxes, new programs, new mandates (mostly unfunded), new regulations and new agencies to enforce them.  What’s a well-intentioned businessman to do?

Rather than stepping aside and giving the marketplace a chance to regain its footing after the financial debacle (also largely the result of government malfeasance) that defined the transition of government nearly two years ago, the Administration, Congress and the Fed have elbowed their way, at great cost, into the commerce of the country with dubious to negative results thus far and, for many, with absolutely devastating impact.

Interest rates have been maintained at ridiculously low rates quarter after quarter and, now, year after year.  The Fed has accomplished its goal and made this a heyday for borrowers. Companies and others who don’t even need the money are borrowing to avoid missing this debtors’ bonanza although in many sectors (notably real estate), banks won’t lend because of marketplace uncertainties.

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Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Halvorson just can’t get her story straight.

When news of her campaign’s connections with a rally that featured posters depicting Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck and Halvorson’s GOP challenger Adam Kinzinger with Adolph Hitler moustaches surfaced on Thurs. Sept. 16th, her campaign went into immediate denial mode.

Campaign spokesman Anthony DeAngelo told the Southland Star that the Halvorson campaign did not stage any protest outside an Americans For Prosperity event in Joliet, IL on the night in question.  ”Obviously, the congresswoman would never condone anyone comparing Kinzinger or any candidate to Hitler” DeAngelo said.  Perhaps, but does that go for the congresswoman’s campaign workers?  More on that later.

When Big Government showed video evidence that several members of the protest returned to Halvorson Campaign Headquarters as soon as the protest disbanded, it was time for another denial.  This time it was a bit more creative:  ”Some of the protesters stopped by the Illinois Victory office after the protest to say hello and get some water,” reported the Illinois political blog CapitolFaxBlog.

So, the story from the Halvorson campaign is that they did not stage any protest, would never condone Hitler posters and the folks who stopped by their campaign office after the rally were protesters getting water and saying “hi”.  At least, that was their story right up until Sunday afternoon when a new version of events appeared at Media Matters.

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Remarks of President Obama at Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s Dinner, as prepared by the White House:

Hello CBC! It is wonderful to be back with all of you. I know you’ve spent a good deal of time talking about what the future holds for the African American community, and the United States of America as a whole. I’ve been spending time thinking about that, too. And at this time of great challenge, one source of inspiration is the founding of the Congressional Black Caucus.

I want us all to take a moment and remember what was happening forty years ago when 13 black members of Congress decided to come together and form this caucus. It was 1969. More than a decade had passed since the Supreme Court decided Brown vs. Board of Education. It had been several years since Selma and Montgomery, since Dr. Martin Luther King told America of his dream, all culminating in the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.

The founders of this caucus could look back and feel proud of the progress that had been made. They could feel confident that America was moving in the right direction. But they…. (more…)

That sound you hear is total panic in the Democrat party. Expect lots of silliness between now and November. It won’t save the Democrat party, but it may get messy.

Andrew Breitbart addressed the Right Nation Conference in Chicago on Saturday.  Here’s his speech:

Breitbart chastises the mainstream media, praises citizen journalists, and has way too much fun at the expense of the “anti-hate” protesters who spat on him and called him a homosexual.

Outside Right Nation 2010–

A leftist “religious” mob assembled outside the Sears Center at the Right Nation event featuring Glenn Beck and Andrew Breitbart. Protesters spit on Right Nation attendees and called them homophobic slurs. The “religious leaders” also lashed out at Glenn Beck.

It was quite a religious experience.

Dana Loesch caught video of the spitting.

Andrew Breitbart is harassed by the crowd- called a homo.

Obama’s Organizing for America (OFA) members were bussed into the parking lot before the Right Nation 2010 Conference in Chicago. The leftist protesters harassed Andrew Breitbart and called him a homo. This is while one of the members was leading the group in prayer.

After their religious service they turned in their flags and stacked up their signs.

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From Michael Barone:

Here at The Washington Examiner we have read with interest editorials written by our friends at the Washington Post denouncing the greed of the Montgomery County teachers’ unions. Unfortunately, their editorials (and ours) don’t seem to have cut much ice with the county’s gentry liberals, who either stayed home (turnout was a record low) or did the bidding of the unions.

But the most stark demonstration of the public employee unions’ power came in the District of Columbia, where Mayor Adrian Fenty was defeated in the Democratic primary by Council Chairman Vincent Gray. There’s no Republican candidate, and Gray is as good as elected.

Four years ago, Fenty carried every precinct in the city. In office he has drawn national attention for his appointment of Michelle Rhee as school chancellor. Rhee’s reforms have produced higher test scores, stable rather than declining enrollment, a teacher evaluations system that has resulted in dismissals of dozens of incompetents, and a union contract giving administrators greater flexibility in assignments.

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This past week I gave a speech to a group of investors. The organizer of the event e-mailed me the night before, asking that I please try to be optimistic. Well, that’s my usual habitat. But optimism has been hard for me this year. Our muddle-through economy and lackluster stock market, challenged by so many taxing, spending, and regulating problems coming out of Washington, are the reasons why.

In fact, until recently, I’ve been advising people to take profits in the stock market, rather than buy-and-hold. You should keep your money before the Obama IRS takes it from you.

But following the tea-party primary victories in Delaware, New York, and New Hampshire this week, I’m once again getting energized.

Free-market capitalism is on the comeback trail. That’s one of the key tea-party messages. And make no mistake about it: The free-market power of the tea-party political revolt is totally bullish for stocks and the economy.

In short, this is a revolution.

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