Wikileaks has released a new wave of documents. We admit, we are a bit torn about this.

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It’s a feisty edition of the podcast this week as we’re joined by Red Eye’s Greg Gutfeld and author/columnist David Limbaugh. We cover what the winners will do after election day, a great discussion about the Tea Party and why it is the most significant political movement in a generation, the Frum effect, the pros and cons of a VAT tax, a fashionably late arrival, and yes, some speculation about Peter Robinson’s sleeping attire.

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As “Waiting for ‘Superman’” so eloquently points out, the industrial assembly-line model of America’s public schools, created decades ago, isn’t working.  In fact, it’s setting us further and further behind our global competitors.

Today, it is essential that our children graduate high school and college prepared for the fierce competition they will face in the global marketplace.  Their economic survival will be determined by their ability to compete with countries like China, India, and other emerging economies.

This requires that our public schools be innovative and effective.  Instead, our schools are using a failed, one-size-fits-all approach to education that may actually end up hurting our children.

It’s interesting that our slide began in the 1970s.  Just ten years earlier, collective bargaining, the crowning glory of labor unions, took root in our public schools. Coincidence?

Collective bargaining agreements, which carry the weight of law, enshrine such policies as seniority (last hired, first fired), tenure (lifetime job protection in as little as two years) and due process (an extra-legal process outside the court system).  Oh, and automatic yearly raises– not for performance, but simply for logging another year in the system.  In other words, we give teachers raises simply for not dying over the summer.

This is a beautiful system – if you’re a public school employee.  But if you’re a student in the public school system, well, it’s like being drafted by the Detroit Lions.

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In Bakersfield, CA the local carpenters’ union1506 picketed a construction site of a new office building on Thursday, October 21st for not using union labor. This is typical of any “carpenters’” union to protest when they don’t get their way. The video proves the people that are picketing the business are NOT carpenters or have any future interest in working on any union project.

I captured on video four of the people that were protesting in the past year at two different sites. Two men picketing a church in May, and then another man and a woman protesting a hotel. They are clearing getting paid to protest and hand out flyers which ask them questions. Actions speak louder than words and this video proves it. (more…)

Congratulations to the editors at the Washington Post. Seventeen months after the Eric Holder Justice Department dismissed a slam-dunk case against the New Black Panther Party for voter intimidation, the Post gets around to printing a thorough vetting of the dismissal. The story is slated for Saturday’s print edition. While other media like Breitbart/The Bigs, Fox News, the Washington Times, the Weekly Standard, Pittsburgh Tribune Review, Investors Business Daily, Pajamas Media, and Drudge have had dozens of stories on the corrupt New Black Panther dismissal, the Washington Post at last is in the game.

The story is a shocker too. The shock comes from the middle of the road and factual nature of the story.

There are small problems with the story. For one, the Washington Post is the only outlet that calls King Samir Shabazz by his old “slave name” (Shabazz’s own words) of Maruse Heath. Even Heath doesn’t call himself Heath. Of course this takes some of the sting off Shabazz’s rants against Jews and calls to kill “cracker babies in their crib.”

The Post’s decision to change a man’s name for him is controversial. It has no place.

But overall, the story is very bad news for Eric Holder. It debunks many of the myths spun by the administration. Inside DOJ sources describe deep hostility to protecting whites at Justice. DOJ sources say panther prosecutor Christian Adams never allowed his conservative views to influence his work, contradicting administration spin. And perhaps most damning of all to Holder, sources defending the administration defend the idea that whites aren’t protected by the Civil Rights laws. The latter is the blockbuster news in the Post piece. (more…)

I’m a bit puzzled by Democrat Roy Barnes’ accounting methods here. Funny how an accounting error can lead to his allegedly owning a home for tax break purposes, when he didn’t actually own it. On top of that, he now claims to be due a $30,000 refund over a failed bank in which he had invested. Yet, last week he was only due approximately a $20,000 refund.

It’s unclear to me if making bad investments, seeing personal tax breaks that don’t exist, while seeming to have no real handle on one’s personal finances, is what Georgia voters want in a governor.

ATLANTA — Roy Barnes claimed federal and state income tax breaks in 2008 and 2009 for depreciation on a house he doesn’t own, his campaign acknowledged Thursday.
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Cobb County property records show Barnes’ daughter and son-in-law have owned the house in Marietta since 2007 when Barnes gave it to them. Barnes, the Democratic nominee for governor, owns several properties on the road.

Barnes campaign spokesman Emil Runge called it an accounting error and said, as a result, the former governor had underpaid about $7,500 in taxes for the two years. His accountant is amending the  returns to remove the tax break.

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In today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Francis Cianfrocca to discuss the the latest Wall Street numbers, China’s move on precious metals, Obama’s economy and the role of public sector unions in the November elections.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. Our standalone site is at CoffeeandMarkets.com for easier browsing of our past broadcasts.

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:

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Here’s What President Obama Said At Marissa Mayer’s House Last Night

Developing:

Obama’s visit to Los Angeles today has stirred controversy even before he arrived.

A stage worker setting up the stage was fired for refusing to remove his hat and turn his sweatshirt inside out and the reason? The shirt hat and shirt both had the name “Bush” printed on them but not just any Bush but, that of George H.W. Bush.

The IATSE (Local 33) union fired the worker even after he explained the shirt to his bosses. The shirt didn’t explicitly support George H.W Bush but that of the aircraft carrier named after the former President and the aircraft carrier his son has served on for the past many years and is currently deployed. The union worker was interviewed on KTLA Channel 5 locally in Los Angeles.

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Mississippi native J. Dudley Butler is a notorious plaintiff’s attorney who has filed numerous lawsuits against poultry companies alleging unfair marketing and procurement practices.

Before his nomination by President Obama as Administrator of the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyard Administration (GIPSA) – an agency charged with monitoring the marketing of livestock, poultry, meat and other ag products and ensuring healthy competition — he was an attorney in the Butler Farm and Ranch Law Group in Canton, Mississippi and well-known to the meat and poultry industry.  He was one of the “Johnnie Cochrans” of ag law:  “Got a chicken? Got a case.”

His appointment as GIPSA Administrator was hailed by the populist group R-CALF USA (Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, United Stockgrowers of America), where he was previously a member, and by the Organization for Competitive Markets (OCM), which he helped to found.  While Butler’s legal efforts to bring Packers and Stockyards Act cases against poultry companies failed, his nomination as GIPSA administrator made R-CALF and friends realize they had hit pay-dirt:  The friendly lawyer who donated a saddle to their 2009 Convention fundraising auction now might be able to alter the very rules that had been an obstacle to success in court.

Attorney and fellow OCM Member Dave Domina also saw the potential for sealing legal victories:   “This is a narrow moment in history when a difference can be made.”

Butler saw language in the 2008 Farm Bill that mandated GIPSA rulemaking on “undue preferences” as the train to which he could hitch a giant regulatory caboose.  Instead of restricting himself to what Congress mandated, the proposal he shepherded to the Federal Register in June 2010 included language to reduce the legal obstacles he had encountered in court.  Under such a scenario, the private practice to which we might return could be far more victorious in court – and far more lucrative.

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The Department of Labor today released its latest state-by-state job report, showing state jobs and unemployment data for September 2010. This latest data, when compared with the level of jobs in February 2009, when President Obama signed Democrats’ trillion-dollar stimulus plan into law, reveals that 48 out of 50 States have lost jobs since then.

48_50 chart

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Yesterday, the Yuma Sun reported that two organizations Mi Familia Vota and One Vote Arizona submitted more than 3,000 voter registrations in Yuma County right before the deadline for registering voters. The groups submitted over 20,000 registrations statewide.

Here’s one of their ads (in Spanish):

What the Yuma Sun did not tell you is that over 65% of these last minute registrations were invalid due to the registrant not being a citizen, a wrong/invalid address, or a false signature.

Yuma County is located in Arizona’s 6th District. Currently, far left Arizona boycotter Rep. Raul Grijalva is caught in a tight race with Republican rocket scientist Ruth McClung. A few thousand votes could change the outcome of the race between the popular rocket scientist Ruth McClung and the socialist boycotter Raul Grijalva.

Publius Pundit reported this on the suspected voter fraud.

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This video, from a Rep. Jan Schakowsky ‘get out the vote’ rally in Chicago, got some attention for the interviewers questioning of Schakowsky on the constitutional basis for ObamaCare and the Democratic Socialists. Overlooked was a far more interesting, and very serious, segment of the video.

Monday was the first day of ‘early voting’ in Illinois. Between now and November 2nd, any Illinois voter can cast their ballot in certain designated polling place. The prohibition on electioneering, i.e. campaigning inside a polling place, still apply, even if the voting isn’t on election day.

At about the one minute mark, Schakowsky joins a group of people walking into an early voting precinct. She is asked if she is excited about voting that day:

Actually I’m gonna walk in with these folks but I’m gonna vote on Election Day

You can’t do that.

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Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal:

Two central facts give shape to the historic 2010 election. The first is not understood by Republicans, and the second not admitted by Democrats.

The first: the tea party is not a “threat” to the Republican Party, the tea party saved the Republican Party. In a broad sense, the tea party rescued it from being the fat, unhappy, querulous creature it had become, a party that didn’t remember anymore why it existed, or what its historical purpose was. The tea party, with its energy and earnestness, restored the GOP to itself.

In a practical sense, the tea party saved the Republican Party in this cycle by not going third-party. It could have. The broadly based, locally autonomous movement seems to have made a rolling decision, group by group, to take part in Republican primaries and back Republican hopefuls.

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You know, it hit me not too long ago that pretty much all of the policies of the Left are based upon the idea that wealth is limited. If it is limited, then the rich are indeed thieves, and redistributive taxation and all the rest are genuine antidotes to correct this hoarding. But if they are wrong, all of their policies fall apart.

Well, wealth is ABSOLUTELY NOT limited. We conservatives know that it can be created out of thin air. If you have ten minutes we can take a look at how this is done…

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The Education Action Group believes that the New York City teachers union’s impending lawsuit over the release of teacher ratings exposes its true motivation to protect sub-par teachers and preserve the failing system.

New York education officials’ made the bold move to release rankings of 12,000 fourth through eighth-grade teachers recently to inject more accountability into an education system plagued by huge union-related costs, terrible graduation rates, and thousands of teachers that simply collect checks to do nothing.

The financial and other abuses the teachers unions perpetuate on public schools is a national problem that can only be corrected when citizens have unfettered access to all information available to make informed decisions. Transparency is critically important to ensure that all students receive the best education possible.

The New York City teacher rankings would, like recently released Los Angeles teacher ratings, lay the groundwork for a more transparent, effective public education system.

Unfortunately, the NYC teachers union, the United Federation of Teachers, has vowed to take the issue to the State Supreme Court in Manhattan today because UFT President Michael Mulgrew contends that the system is “unreliable and in a developmental stage,” the New York Times reports.

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At a recent debate between lefty Rep. Melissa Bean and her GOP challenger Joe Walsh, the League of Women Voters didn’t want to begin the proceedings with the Pledge of Allegiance. The audience had a different view of things…(something is brewing, people)

Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, Democrat, blinked into her crystal ball and predicted the Republicans will pick-up only 15 House seats in November. A skeptical Charlie Rose reminded her of what “they” say. But Speaker Pelosi doesn’t seem to know, or appreciate, who “they” are, in this case.

“They,” Madam Speaker are “we the people.” And we will have our say on November 2nd.

CHARLIE ROSE: Why do you believe that when the numbers look — I mean, 95 House races are in play, they say.

NANCY PELOSI: Well, who are “they”?

Not only are the outstanding men and women of the American Military professional enough to overcome any cohesion issues related to gay soldiers, homosexuals have the added bonus of infuriating our current enemy.

Wave of Homophobia Sweeps the Muslim World

Violent Muslim Homophobia – The Jihad against gays

The only thing that would piss off the Jihadis more would be if The US Military formed whole platoons of un-kosher gay Jews. Inglorious Bitches?