From the New Jersey Star-Ledger:

It’s like a jungle, some students say. Barringer High School in Newark is out of control.

Inside the three-story building of about 1,300 students, rats and roaches roam the hallways. So do random trespassers, students complain: about 29 different doors lead inside the school, which anyone can enter. At least a dozen different gangs recruit students. Last month, authorities said a 17-year-old boy sexually assaulted a 15-year-old girl inside a classroom after school.

Students say Barringer is not only dangerous, it’s disorganized. Several weeks into the school year, almost none of them had correct class schedules.

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The American Federation of Government Employees has launched a new ad targeting Republicans, or ‘teabaggers’, depicted in a cheering crowd with the faces of House Minority Leader John Boehner, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, Rep. Michelle Bachmann, Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle, and RNC Chairman Michael Steele- with a sign that reads “Tea Baggers Section.”

According to the website of the union behind the ad:

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Just outside the DC Beltway, in Maryland’s sprawling first congressional district, an electoral battle is underway that exposes unique ideological fault lines beneath America’s political landscape.

The campaign pits freshman “Blue Dog” Democratic congressman Frank Kratovil in a rematch against Republican Dr. Andy Harris. Given the political tilt of the district, coupled with the Tea Party tsunami gathering force this year, one would think that this race should be a slam dunk for Harris.

A tall, affable family man, Harris is an anesthesiologist, Navy veteran, hardcore free-marketer, and constitutional conservative. By contrast, Kratovil, a former attorney, tries to portray himself as an “independent” who distances himself from Nancy Pelosi and the House Democratic majority. However, the Washington Post reports that “Frank Kratovil has voted with a majority of his Democratic colleagues 84.6% of the time during the current Congress.” Among his least popular votes since taking office: support for the “cash for clunkers” program, for the near-trillion-dollar “stimulus” spending orgy, and for the hugely expensive “cap-and-trade” energy bill. Plus, of course, his vote to elevate the widely reviled Pelosi to the Speaker’s position.

Yet, despite all that, a recent poll finds Harris holding only a statistically insignificant three-point lead over Kratovil. This, while other GOP candidates are faring much better even in usually “safe” Democratic districts.

What’s going on here?

One of the most infuriating spectacles this election season is supposedly “Republican,” “conservative,” and “pro-business” individuals and groups supporting entrenched liberal incumbents against free-market, limited-government challengers. For many special-interest “insiders,” even on the right, philosophical convictions are far less important than sharing a “seat at the table” with the politically powerful.

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They will stop at nothing…

Local reporters discovered that a tea party robocall was linked to Democrat candidate Steve Pougnet in California.

My Desert reported:

Democratic congressional candidate Steve Pougnet unleashed an automated phone call to voters Friday that attempts to split the conservative vote by touting a third-party candidate.

The call hit the same day as voters received a Pougnet mailer that says American Independent candidate Bill Lussenheide makes Republican U.S. Rep. Mary Bono Mack “look like a raging liberal.”

The Pougnet effort is aimed at nudging Republicans to consider Lussenheide as the “tea party” alternative to Bono Mack.

According to a recording obtained by The Desert Sun, the automated call is from a registered Republican who says he is voting for Lussenheide because he is the “true conservative, tea party candidate.”

Another slimy democrat.

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One of the reasons Harry Reid is trailing Sharon Angle in his bid for reelection is an inability to listen to Nevada voters. As Senate Majority leader, Reid was instrumental in the Senate passing bills such as TARP, Porkulus and Obamacare, all of them passed over the objections of his Nevada constituents (as well as most Americans).

Nevada voters shouldn’t feel bad about their Senator not paying attention to their desires, because as the video below illustrates, Reid doesn’t pay attention to interviewers either

Senator Barack Obama campaigned for President against the “politics of personal destruction” and a future President who could “bring Democrats and Republicans together.”  As President, Obama has denounced opponents of the Administration and brought partisanship to a new level.  The latest attacks from the President and his allies bring to mind enemies lists of the past.

As a Senator running for President, Barack Obama sounded like a politician who would not use Chicago machine-style politics to demonize opponents and crush dissent.  On December 15, 2007 in Waterloo, Iowa, Senator Obama said the following (as quoted by MSNBC) in response to charges of past drug use and lack of experience coming from Senator Hillary Clinton’s campaign:

There’s a history of politics being all about slash and burn and taking folks down and what I recall the Clintons themselves calling the politics of personal destruction, which they decried. And my suspicion is that that’s just not where the country is at. They are not interested in politics as a blood sport.

Evidently, Senator Obama did not like being the recipient of criticism, yet was perfectly comfortable using it himself to trash opponents later in his campaign and as President.  (more…)

Today, in 1960, Nikita Khrushchev pounds his shoe on a desk at the United Nations. A reminder that the UN has never been a serious place.

About a month ago I had the chance to have lunch in Washington with my Trifecta friends, Steve Green and Scott Ott at BlogCon sponsored by Freedom Works. Scott told the story of his flight to DC, during which the person sitting next to him — a lifelong Democrat — struck up a conversation with Scott about conservatism. By the time the man got off the plane, he turned to Scott and said, “That makes a ton of sense.” Then he smiled and said, “My God, maybe I’m a Republican!”

That story really stayed with me. So here is the first of a new series of FIREWALL videos, called “What We Believe.” In them, I’ll do my very best to explain in as rational and non-antagonistic a method as possible, just what the fundamentals of modern Conservatism — especially Tea Party Conservatism — are all about.

Part one covers the two big items: small government, and free enterprise. In the future we’ll look at elitism, wealth creation, gun ownership, immigration, and more.

I know I don’t speak for everyone on these issues — no one speaks for everyone, not even those in the same camp — but I do hope to capture the core beliefs in a way that people who share these views can use to pass on to those people in their lives who don’t.

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“…to the end it may be a government of laws and not of men.”

John Adams, Samuel Adams and James Bowdoin, Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1780

In a blatantly unconstitutional move, the Feds have let McDonalds off the hook from some of ObamaCare’s requirements. This violation of the Equal Protection clause is just one more reminder, as if we needed it, that D.C. is now completely ignoring the rule of law and deciding issues based on political pressure and pull.

“McDonald’s and 29 other firms have received waivers from a requirement to up the minimum benefit covered by insurance, making it possible for their employees to continue to buy low-cost coverage. But thousands of other workers are not exempted and will not be able to afford the government’s idea of good insurance.

Starting next year, insurers will be required to cover up to $750,000 in costs, ratcheting up over the next few years so that coverage must be unlimited by 2014. The administration calls that a consumer protection, but it only protects you if you can afford it.

Firms that hire low-wage workers, such as McDonald’s, can offer “mini-med” plans that provide lower benefits than a typical comprehensive health plan at a correspondingly lower cost. By far the most popular mini-med plan offered by McDonald’s costs $24.30 a week and covers doctor visits, hospital stays, and some prescription drugs, up to $5,000 each year.

Raising the benefit cap to $750,000 would put insurance out of reach for workers who clearly want coverage. They are buying that insurance with their own money, without the government telling them they have to. Fortunately, they can now keep that coverage, at least for next year.

True, that’s always gone on. But it used to be hidden, and when discovered heads rolled. Or, at least newspaper headlines made the perpetrators uncomfortable. Now, it’s done in the open and without apology. Though Sebelius did offer this quasi-defense: “We can’t waive a regulation that doesn’t exist.”

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A picture’s worth a thousand opinions as Gallup compiles Americans’ view of the federal government thusly:

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It took years, but there is something I finally agree with Barack Obama and Al Franken on. Obama and his propaganda machine in the mainstream media, not to mention his party of corruption, are calling for an investigation of “foreign money” in campaigns.

Finally.

I have been calling for a special prosecutor for years, ever since I exposed the millions Obama received from Muslim nations, Hamas-controlled Gaza and other foreign countries.

Obama warned Thursday that “groups that receive foreign money are spending huge sums to influence American elections, and they won’t tell you where the money for their ads come from.” He also said that “just this week, we learned that one of the largest groups paying for these ads regularly takes in money from foreign corporations.”

Franken then duly hurried to do Obama’s bidding, calling on the Federal Election Commission to investigate the Chamber of Commerce, the group to which Obama was referring.

We move to a theater of the absurd upon hearing Al Franken, who lost his election on election night and began pulling votes out of car trunks to steal that election, calling for an investigation of foreign money.

Nonetheless, the Democrats’ mainstream media shills then took up the cause. On MSNBC, Rachel Maddow confronted Oregon Republican Congressional candidate Art Robinson with accusations about foreign contributions: “If you get elected in part because of this spending and you find out that it’s from criminals, or foreign interests, or communists or something, wouldn’t that bother you?”

Whether or not it should bother Robinson, it should bother Obama. While he is calling for an investigation into the Chamber of Commerce, there should be a full investigation into the foreign millions Obama received for his campaign.

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President Obama’s baseless attack on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce underscores the routine hyper-partisan attacks his administration has become known for. Obama’s allegation was that the Chamber has been using money from foreign members to influence this election.

Karl Rove, another target of the agitator/community-organizer-turned President of the United States, strongly refuted the accusations on Fox News Sunday yesterday.

If the president and the Center for American Progress, which initially leveled the “foreign money” charge, were serious, they’d investigate the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), a brass knuckles, take-no-prisoners pro-Obama union that admitted in 2008 that it had an avenue to accept funds from “foreign nationals,” allowing them to have a voice in the American political process.

During the 2008 campaign, SEIU, the Obama campaign and other left-wing organizations created a “Fight the Smears” website, from which the following was taken:

What about foreign nationals who want to be involved but can’t give to COPE [Committee on Political Education]?

There are a large number of fully lawful immigrant members of SEIU who wish to participate through their union in the critical policy debates going on in the country, yet cannot fund or participate in SEIU COPE because they are foreign nationals.

For those immigrant members, as a lawful alternative to participation in SEIU COPE, SEIU has established a program encouraging its immigrant members to participate in policy advocacy outside of the electoral realm on issues such as immigration reform.

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This past July, in a formal request it filed with the prosecutors of Maryland state and the city of Baltimore, a left-leaning organization known as Velvet Revolution urged prosecutors to press criminal charges against James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles for what it says was a violation of Maryland’s Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance Act. But the letter also went a step further, naming Andrew Breitbart as a conspirator in masterminding the whole operation.

The accusation against Breitbart is of course patently false and baseless. No evidence exists to even suggest such an accusation, because it simply did not happen that way. Then again, this story’s not about Andrew Breitbart. It’s about Velvet Revolution, the source making the claim.

Progressives are also rallying behind Velvet Revolution for another of its most recent campaigns – AmericanCrossRoadsWatch, which, to the delight of familiar folks like Karoli at Crooks and Liars, has offered a $100,000 bounty “for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Karl Rove or any principal of American Crossroads for money laundering, election rigging, or felony campaign finance violations.” It features a WANTED poster:

Interesting, that the words “felony” and “Wanted” would be used. Again, considering the source.

You see, while Velvet Revolution has inspired quite a flurry of excitement from its progressive partners these days, who seem to be frolicking in their apparent muckraking efforts, their glaring omission and utter hypocrisy is absolutely astonishing. With so much dirt digging going on, one would be very hard pressed to believe that none of Velvet Revolution’s cheerleaders had any idea whatsoever that a convicted violent felon is one of its co-founders. In an environment today when the left has repeatedly falsely accused most opposition of being racist, hateful and violent, how convenient that progressives would fail to acknowledge the hypocrisy of their own implicit support of real violence and law-breaking.

The story behind Velvet Revolution begins with musician-activist turned immigrants’ rights defender turned voting rights activist, Brett Kimberlin, who also runs the “Justice Through Music Project (JTMP).” According to journalist Brad Friedman of the Brad Blog, he and Kimberlin co-founded Velvet Revolution together, a detail Friedman has specifically noted in a number of posts such as this one from 5/31/2007.

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When President Obama was inaugurated in 2009, lefty hearts were a-flutter over thoughts of a permanent progressive majority. A Great New Deal Society was dawning and the Republican party would be relegated to an inconsequential minority status forever. My, what a difference two years make.

The above ad, for DEMOCRAT candidate Joe Manchin tells you everything you need to know about today’s political climate. If you were an expat returning to the US after an extended absence, you would probably wager a tidy sum that Manchin were a GOP candidate. Heck, you’d probably wager that he was one of those crazy “Tea Party” candidates that the media keeps insisting is going to destroy the GOP. (The media’s concern for the health of the GOP is touching, even if it is more than a tad disingenuous.)

The Manchin ad crams more conservative touchstones into thirty seconds than a day-long seminar at the Heritage Foundation. Stunning.

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Ten years ago, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA)– currently chair of the Senate Ethics Committee– personally moved legislation that has financially benefited her son, Capitol Confidential has learned.

Boxer, then in her second term as a U.S. Senator, carried legislation restoring federal recognition to a Native American tribe, the Coastal Miwoks.  At the time, the Miwoks claimed to be a “nongaming tribe.”  However, Boxer’s legislation, as signed into law by President Bill Clinton, allowed for a casino to be constructed– a result that would specifically have been blocked under similar legislation introduced by Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA).

Now, with a major relevant condition having been met, local residents are bracing themselves for construction of a new casino, a project that has been pushed by none other than Boxer’s son, Doug Boxer.  Questions are being raised about the younger Boxer’s involvement and his mother’s legislative actions that paved the way for what looks like a financially lucrative deal benefiting him personally.

Less than a year after Boxer’s tribal bill was signed into law, Doug Boxer helped negotiate a casino partnership between the tribe and Station Casinos of Las Vegas.  Doug Boxer’s firm also acquired options on 2,000 acres of land that was later transferred to Station Casinos for an undisclosed price, but which some reports indicate could have been as much as $24 million.

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The following video is a preview of our full report on the recent candidates’ forum in Illinois’ 9th congressional district between Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) and her Republican challenger, Joel Pollak.

After the forum concluded, the candidates mingled in the crowd and fielded questions from the attendees. Adam Sharp of sharpelbows.net took the opportunity to ask the Congresswoman exactly where in the Constitution the Congress is given the authority to force American citizens to purchase health insurance. It is a perfectly reasonable question that everyone who voted for Obamacare ought to be prepared to answer. Representative Schakowsky was not ready.

From Time Magazine:

Barack Obama is being politically crushed in a vise. From above, by elite opinion about his competence. From below, by mass anger and anxiety over unemployment. And it is too late for him to do anything about this predicament until after November’s elections.

With the exception of core Obama Administration loyalists, most politically engaged elites have reached the same conclusions: the White House is in over its head, isolated, insular, arrogant and clueless about how to get along with or persuade members of Congress, the media, the business community or working-class voters. This view is held by Fox News pundits, executives and anchors at the major old-media outlets, reporters who cover the White House, Democratic and Republican congressional leaders and governors, many Democratic business people and lawyers who raised big money for Obama in 2008, and even some members of the Administration just beyond the inner circle.

On Friday, after the release of the latest bleak unemployment data — the last major jobs figures before the midterms — Obama said, “Putting the American people back to work, expanding opportunity, rebuilding the economic security of the middle class is the moral and national challenge of our time.” But elites feel the President has failed to meet that challenge and are convinced he will be unable to do so in the remainder of his term.

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Click to Play

Big brains on the big show this week as Rob Long and Peter Robinson are joined by New York Times columnist David Brooks and National Review Editor-In-Chief Rich Lowry. They think big thoughts about entitlements, the Bush tax cuts, Chris Christie, Mitch Daniels, Bob Gates for president, potential democratic challengers, and whether infidelity is the root of all social evil.

For links or to comment on this podcast, please visit us at Ricochet.com

There is a brief story by Jim Carlton in the weekend edition of The Wall Street Journal entitled “Fiorina Stays Away from Middle Road,” and in the cover story for the latest issue of The Weekly Standard, Fred Barnes describes Carly Fiorina’s campaign against Barbara Boxer as “the most important race of 2010.”

I am not sure that I agree with the extravagant claim advanced by Barnes. But if Fiorina does, in fact, put an end to Boxer’s career, his assertion might well prove to be right – for, as Barnes shows in detail, the title of Carlton’s story is apt.

Carly Fiorina is not a squish. She is anti-abortion, and she makes no bones about the fact that she thinks Roe v. Wade a travesty. She is hostile to Obamacare, and she wants it repealed. She thinks that a tax increase at this time would be counter-productive, and she means to stop it. She thinks the deficit a threat to American prosperity and power, and she intends to see to its reduction. She favors offshore drilling, and she supports Arizona’s attempt to stop illegal immigration. She does not pander; she does not retreat. She makes her case. And if she wins – and she may well win –  in California of all places, it really will be the occasion of a political earthquake. More important, from my perspective, even if she loses, we win.

If our aim were a mere partisan victory, my claim would be ridiculous. A vote in the Senate is, after all, a vote in the Senate. But if there is something more at stake – if a partisan victory predicated on an abandonment of principle is a devastating, demoralizing defeat – then it is far, far better to lose a close race while making a principled argument, as Abraham Lincoln did in his senatorial campaign against Stephen Douglas in Illinois in 1858, than it is to win by way of cowardice, collapse, and compromise.

To grasp what I mean one must look beyond November.

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