If conservatives intend to translate Tea Party enthusiasm into actual power they are certainly going to have begin to put like-minded folks into office and not just at the federal level. Every office from dogcatcher, to city offices, to county and state offices needs to be filled with Tea Party advocates. Conservatives cannot expect an enduring governing capability by focusing solely on federal elections.

To that end, this week American Majority (AmericanMajority.org/) unveiled a new initiative to help train Tea Party groups to groom local candidates in order to build a more enduring conservative governing majority across the country. The project is called the New Leaders Project.

AM hopes to help local Tea Party groups to identify 10 new leaders in their local community to run for state or local office. “The program will help community leaders identify quality candidates while fostering a new era of accountability between voters and elected officials,” said representatives for the group.

“This was an historic election, but the systemic change our nation needs to thrive and prosper will require much more time and effort. The next election starts now,” stated Ned Ryun, President of American Majority. “There is a real need for new leadership at all levels of government that believes in, and will advocate for, fiscal responsibility, free enterprise and limited government. We believe this project will not only impact state and local levels, but also create a significant ‘farm team’ for higher office for years to come.”

As important as it is, there is no doubt that the Tea Party movement is still somewhat amateurish when it comes to governing. Its wonderful excitement and enthusiasm is incredibly important, to be sure, but a coherent message, a slate of candidates, and a membership pulling together and on the same page is imperative for the continued influence of the thousands of disparate Tea Party groups out there.

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Will someone please get West Virginia Democrat Senator Jay Rockefeller and Texas Democrat Congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee some Zicam?

The afflicted Senator Rockefeller was chairing yesterday’s television retransmission hearings when his self-described “little bug” caused him to swerve off on a censorship tangent:

Senator Rockefeller:  I hunger for quality news.  I’m tired of the right and the left.  There’s a little bug inside of me which wants to get the FCC (Federal Communications Committee) to say to Fox and to MSNBC “Out.  Off.  End.  Goodbye.” Would be a big favor to political discourse, our ability to do our work here in Congress and to the American people to be able to talk with each other and have some faith in their government and more importantly in their future.  We need slimmed down channel packages that better respect what we really want to watch.

So the Chairman of the relevant (Commerce, Science, and Transportation) Senate Committee has a “little bug” which causes him to wish to grant the FCC sweeping new powers – because they do not currently regulate cable television – that would then allow it to throw Fox News, MSNBC and whomever else the likes of Senator Censorship wishes off the air.

Clearly the Senator’s condition causes him to forget or forego the First Amendment.

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Click to Play

With Rob and James cruising the Bahamas this week, we draft Pat Sajak to guest host with Peter. He reminisces about Bill Buckley and Merv Griffin, and let’s us in on what’s it’s like to be a celebrity conservative. Then, Claire Berlinski joins to discuss our junk and the TSA, royal weddings, and the the inside story behind her cross town move. Finally, Ricochet contributor Steve Manacek stops by to talk about the Deficit Commission and why we should be afraid. Very afraid.

For links mentioned in this podcast, or to comment directly, please join us at Ricochet.

An Ohio woman traveling with a baby was sexually assaulted by a TSA agent. She described her horrible experience with airport security agents on FOX News earlier today.

Sorry, Claire, this was no “love pat.”

Warning: Graphic Language

Ohio Woman Describes Sexual Assault:

“She patted down my arms, my back, my lower back. Then she proceeded to go around my waste band with her fingers inside my waste band. She did tell me she was going to do that. After that she gave me no instruction during the pat-down. She then proceeded to touch my buttocks on both sides with the palm of her hand. She then moved around to the front. Touched the tops of my breasts and underneath my breasts. Again, she gave no instruction that she was going to do that. Then she moved to the bottom of my legs moving all the way up my inner thighs touching my private areas and again she did not tell me that she was going to touch me in any of those places.”

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The Illinois Education Association is reeling from a very bad 2009-2010 fiscal year, caused in no small part by the union’s exorbitant expenditures on parties, meetings and salaries, Education Action Group recently found.

The US is still in the midst of a two-year long economic downturn, unemployment and underemployment are at levels not seen for seven decades and at the same time U.S. median household income dropped 3%  to $50,221 between 2008 and 2009, the second annual  decline, according to the Census Dept.

There is a group that saw its wealth increase during that same period, Members of Congress.The Center for Responsive Politics analyzed the financial disclosure forms of the members of Congress and found that the collective personal wealth of congressional members increased by more than 16 percent between 2008 and 2009. The study also reported that half of all members had a personal wealth of over a million and around 20% over $10 Million.To put that in perspective only one percent of all Americans are millionaires.

In 2008 median wealth for a member of Congress was $785,515 it grew by 16% in 2009  to $911,510 (vs -3% of US HH income).

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This would be funny if it weren’t true. (Still, it is pretty funny.) Alas.

Via an op-ed in the New York Times, Congressional Quarterly staff writer, Brian Friel, offers the incoming GOP-controlled House Oversight and Government Reform Committee some suggestions as to what they perhaps should and should not consider investigating next year.

What’s unclear is how Friel determined that two registered lobbyists who lobby the Oversight committee and an unpaid White House adviser should, without full disclosure, be portrayed as 3 of “14 good-government watchdogs — veterans of the oversight process, former public officials, and academics” for purposes of his presumably objective op-ed.

Brian Friel is a staff writer at Congressional Quarterly. The oversight experts consulted were: Joel Aberbach, Steven Aftergood, Ryan Alexander, Danielle Brian, Dan Donovan, Linda L. Fowler, Philip G. Joyce, Donald F. Kettl, David Marin, Conrad Martin, Patricia G. Mcginnis, David Osborne, Andrew Rudalevige, Gerry Sikorski.

David Marin and Gerry Sikorski, are registered lobbyists who actually lobby the Oversight Committee on behalf of their clients. Marin works at the lobbying firm the Podesta Group, which lobbies the Oversight Committee on behalf of General Motors. Sikorski works for the lobbying firm Holland & Knight, which has also lobbied the Oversight Committee. Their clients include the American Arbitration Association and Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Tennessee and Minnesota.

Interestingly enough, neither the bailout of the automotive industry, nor the implementation of ObamaCare made the list of oversight priorities assembled by these “14 good-government watchdogs.” Given that lobbyists are already seen as a big enough problem in Washington, it’s unclear to me as to why they should now perhaps seem to be lobbying from the editorial pages of the New York Times, especially while being portrayed as good government watchdogs, not the lobbyists they appear to be.

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This summer armed government agents raided Rawesome Foods, a Venice, California health food co-op. What were the agents after? Unpasteurized milk, it turns out.

Raw milk raids are happening all over the United States. The Food and Drug Administration warns that raw milk consumption can cause health problems, but a growing community of raw foods enthusiasts are ignoring government recommendations and claiming that they are getting tastier, more nutritious food by going raw.

Reason.tv visited Rawesome to examine the circumstances of the raid and discovered that this particular raw foods case stretches across county lines and involves at least five separate government agencies, despite the fact that not a single member of Rawesome has complained or been harmed by the raw foods. In fact, members have to sign a contract stating that they understand and accept the risks of consuming raw foods before they are allowed to step inside.

If members of a private club sign a waiver stating that they want to drink a certain type of milk, why is the government getting involved? As Jarel Winterhawk, a manager at Rawesome, puts it, “This is America. How are you going to tell me what I can and cannot eat?”

Though no charges have yet resulted from the raid, Rawesome is threated with shutdown due to the involvement of yet another government agency, Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety, and the club’s raw goat milk supplier, Healthy Family Farms, has had its dairy license suspended.

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Obama Medicare Head Bringing UK Rationing Board to US?

Medicare Head Donald Berwick will testify in front of the Senate Finance Committee Wednesday for the first time since President Obama used a recess appointment to put him into place. He’ll be facing down a host of Republicans who objected to his nomination on the grounds that he’s in love with wealth redistribution and Britains National Health Service.

Sens. Pat Roberts (Kan.), Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and John Barrasso (Wyo.) joined forces on the Senate floor shortly after the last vote of the day and urged members to review Berwick’s record before voting on his confirmation. They accused Berwick of promoting health care rationing, especially for older people, and particularly criticized his endorsement of Great Britain’s National Healthcare System (NHS). “Dr. Berwick is a huge fan of … the NHS, a system that relies on rationing health care to hold down costs,” Roberts said. “Dr. Berwick has said, ‘I am a romantic about the NHS; I love it,’ and ‘the NHS is not just a national treasure, it is a global treasure.’”

In case Americans are unaware, the NHS has a terrifyingly active healthcare rationing panel. Originally put in place to reduce healthcare costs, root out bad doctors and useless treatments and ensure that healthcare practices were at their absolute best. Over time, NICE has taken to “reducing costs”by limiting the kinds of treatments British patients are allowed to receive through government healthcare. The Wall Street Journal warned Americans last July about NICE and cost-cutting panels. They cited NICE’s rulings against providing lifesaving breast and stomach cancer drugs, blocking or restricting access to drugs to treat macular degeneration, kidney disease, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis and myloma, and NICE’s restrictions on fertility treatments, certain surgical procedures and cervical cancer screenings, all in the name of saving money.

One of the questions Berwick will face will likely be on the subject of IPAB – the Independent Payment Advisory Board – a panel made up of fifteen unelected bureaucrats who will be charged with making drastic cuts to medicare on a yearly basis, likely limiting patient choice for Medicare recipients. The panel’s decisions are unappealable and can only be overturned by a supermajority vote in Congress. Berwick will have to explain how IPAB – termed by Sen. Tom Coburn as a “a government command-and-control bureaucracy that will dictate payment decisions and interfere with the best judgment of physicians and families” – is necessary and beneficial to Medicare patients.

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From the Associated Press:

House Democrats elected Nancy Pelosi to remain as their leader Wednesday despite massive party losses in this month’s congressional elections that prompted some lawmakers to call for new leadership.

Pelosi, the nation’s first female House speaker, will become minority leader when Republicans assume the majority in the new Congress in January.

She defeated moderate Democratic Rep. Heath Shuler of North Carolina, 150-43, in secret balloting in a lengthy closed-door gathering of House Democrats in the Capitol.

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As Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) and his team prepare for the next Congress, they are wrestling with a number of leadership and committee leadership contests that create a minefield for all involved.

Any House Speaker hopes his committee chairmen and leadership team will be made up exclusively of hardworking, competent colleagues who share one additional attribute that trumps all others: loyalty. They rarely manage to put together such a team, however, for a variety of reasons. Politicians being what they are, allies are prone to putting their own interests first when the chips are down. In leadership elections, winners are chosen not because they are the Speaker’s favorites but because of personal popularity, competing interests within the party caucus, or because of pressure from outside interests.

Boehner’s challenges are complicated. The Republican majority he leads was elected by voters who really do want change in Washington and tend not to trust “establishment” Republicans, nor anyone with whom they are less than familiar.

In addition, Mr. Boehner famously said after the election that he and his team heard what the voters were saying and would act on the message being sent. That means House Republicans have to try to “repeal and replace” ObamaCare and really try to tackle the out-of-control spending that scared so many Americans into their first political activism. Granting an earmark lover and big spender like California’s Rep. Jerry Lewis a waiver so he can chair the Appropriations Committee would be seen by many as selling out the principal message of the election — regardless of how loyal to Boehner he might prove to be.

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Back during the presidential campaign, Barack Obama proposed several tax increases. Some of those tax hikes, such as the proposed higher income tax rates on investors, entrepreneurs, small business owners, and other “rich” taxpayers, have received a lot of public attention.

But it’s also important to guard against stealth tax hikes, and Obama’s proposal to increase Social Security’s “taxable wage base” is a dangerous example. The video below explains the details of this scheme to subject more income to the Social Security payroll tax – and thus substantially increase marginal tax rates and penalize economic growth.

This issue has not received much attention in the past two years, and Obama hasn’t bothered to include anything specific in his budgets, but this may be about to change. The Chairmen of the President’s Fiscal Commission just put out a report endorsing a big increase in the scope of the payroll tax. And this was followed just today by a similar proposal for a steep tax hike from the Domenici-Rivlin Debt Reduction Task Force (as if copying Greek fiscal policy will lead to less red ink, but that’s another blog post).

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Pejman Yousefzadeh discuss the surprising fundraising figures from this year’s election, a run away TSA bent on humiliation, not security, and more.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

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Dr. Donald Berwick, a leading proponent of rationing of medical care in the United States and a supporter of the British health care system, is prepared to testify before Congress for the first time since he recess appointment to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicare Services.

Republicans have a constitutional obligation to get Berwick’s views on the record and appear ready to do so.  Politico reports that Republicans will focus their questioning on five areas including his professed “love” of the British government-run health care system.  Berwick has called the National Health Service – with its rationing of treatment and care – as “one of the greatest health care institutions in human history” and “a global treasure,” once saying that it set an “example” for the United States to follow.

Berwick’s support for rationing lead President Obama to bypass the Senate confirmation process to appoint Berwick to his post.

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Union members are used to paying dues, but many may not know exactly where their hard-earned money goes.

Unions are big businesses; they can rake in hundreds of millions of dollars a year. They do it by taking dues directly from their members’ paychecks. In 28 states, workers cannot even say no.

Union financial filings reported to the Department of Labor show that many union officials have salaries well into the six figures. The NEA has over 400 employees making over $100,000 a year; the Laborer’s union has 16 employees making over $250,000.

Most of the top labor organizations in the country spend more on politics and administration than they do on representation.  The NEA’s D.C. headquarters is worth over $110 million and the AFL-CIO’s building is valued at over $90 million.

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China funded the largest economic stimulus programs in world history from July of 2009 through June of 2010.  As a percentage comparison to the U.S. stimulus plan; the Chinese spent twice the amount of money in half the time.  China focused their stimulus on encouraging production, whereas America’s stimulus went to consumption.  It now appears that the Chinese produced a huge portion of the consumer goods Americans bought with their stimulus dollars.  Consequently, China’s unemployment rate fell to 4.2%, whereas the U.S. unemployment rate rose to 9.6%.  Unfortunately for China, their stimulus success has also sown the seeds of their economic demise.  A vicious combination of inflation and a strengthening currency is about to end the Chinese economic miracle.

China’s economy is only a third as large as the U.S. economy, but the total amount of goods and services traded are similar.  China exports $2 trillion and imports $1.5 trillion; the U.S. exports $1.5 trillion and imports $2 trillion.  But as shown below, in the Great Recession, China achieved high growth and employment; but the cost of success is high interest rates and raging inflation.

Int. Rate   Growth Rate   Jobless Rate  Inflation Rate  Food % GDP  Food Inflation

China  5.56%          9.60%              4.20%               4.40%               34.0%             10.8%

US        0.25%          2.00%              9.60%              1.10%                 12.4%               1.4%

To understand the Chinese “miracle” it is important to be aware of China’s history.  President Nixon may have opened China to the outside world in 1970, but it was the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1980s that forced China to abandon communism and flirt with capitalism.  From 1981 to 1993 China devalued its currency six times, from 2.8 Yuan to 5.3 Yuan to the dollar.  Facing economic crisis and famine in 1994, China embraced capitalism as “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics”.  The exchange rate was devalued to 8.7 Yuan per dollar and tax rates were set at a 40% discount to the U.S. and Japan.

The combination of a 68% devaluation of the currency and dramatically lower tax rate fueled China’s economic boom.

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Today, in 1989, the Velvet Revolution began in the Czechoslovakia. It succeeded by the end of the year.

Melissa Bean called and congratulated Joe Walsh a short time ago.  Walsh, who is in Washington, DC for orientation, officially wins the election by 291 votes.