The Pigford debacle combines billions of dollars, easy, repeatable methods to commit fraud, and no internal oversight, so it really comes as no surprise that some of the people inside the USDA would try to get their own slice of the Pigford Pie.

Pigford researcher, author, and Hoover Institute fellow Peter Schweizer has spoke to multiple sources who claim that not only has at least one individual inside the USDA been responsible for hundreds of thousands of dollars in fraud, but that person is actually still working at the USDA. This is just one more reason USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack needs to consider a career change. It seems like it’s going to take Congressional hearings to allow the whistleblowers to speak openly.

A video is circulating online that imagines what modifications the infamous California Air Resources Board (CARB) would make to Santa and his traditional reindeer-drawn sleigh if they had the ability to regulate Christmas, with hilarious results:

CARB and the far-fetched ideas they frequently propose are a frequent target of scorn, but they really make it easy.  When it comes to unintentional humor, CARB is the gift that keeps on giving.

Included in CARB’s re-fit of Santa’s sleigh:

•     Changing the sleigh into a bobsled – much more aerodynamic.

•     Ditching the gifts in the back; they’re really cutting into the sleigh’s “miles per hoofbeat.”

•     Red might be Santa’s traditional color, but according to CARB darker colors attract too much heat.  Pale pink is just like red…almost.

•     To reduce horse- (or in this case reindeer-) power, at least four of the Dasher and Prancer crowd would find themselves unemployed come Christmas.

•     Rudolph is allowed to stay on the team, but only if he swaps his glowing red nose for an energy efficient light blub.

•     Santa should really skip the cookies and milk so he can shed a few pounds.

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson is joined by Pejman Yousefzadeh to discus Haley Barbour’s recent comments, the START Treaty 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.

Related Links:

The Boy from Yazoo City
The watermelon thing
The Note: Haley’s Comet: Could Remarks On Civil Rights Damage A Campaign Before It Starts?
Arms treaty with Russia nears Senate approval
Rush: START Treaty is Part of Obama’s Effort to Disarm the United States
Harrison Ford wants Indiana Jones to die in the next movie

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While I run a non-profit, I feel very much like a small business owner.  I’ve got to meet a payroll.  I’ve got to be sure we are delivering the highest quality product.  I’ve got to make sure we’re getting the biggest bang for our health care dollars.

While my organization, Education Action Group, sells ideas and doesn’t make a profit, we are very much a business.

So it’s discouraging and infuriating to hear the National Labor Relations Board tell me that I’ve now got to inform my employees of their right to unionize.

Under a proposed rule, I will now be required to make sure a “rights notice [is] posted alongside other workplace communications, be it in the break room or elsewhere. Any employer who typically uses e-mail to communicate with staff would have to post the information electronically as well,” according to FoxNews.com.

To the NRLB: go to hell.

You can come to my workplace and post the notice, if you’re so hell-bent on doing the bidding of Rich Trumka.  I’ll be glad to meet you at the door.

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Well, my friends, it’s Christmas in America once again. And one way to keep our gratitude levels high (and stress levels low) is to reflect on how Christianity and Freedom go together, both in the words and deeds of the Founders, and even in our secular society today. Many of us are not religious at all these days, but we all benefit from the influence of Christianity on the men that designed and built this amazing Nation of Desire.

Plus, the Sears catalog! And we use the word “mountebank” post-ironically!

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From Reuters:

The U.S. government fell deeper into the red in fiscal 2010 with net liabilities swelling more than $2 trillion as commitments on government debt and federal benefits rose, a U.S. Treasury report showed on Tuesday.

The Financial Report of the United States, which applies corporate-style accrual accounting methods to Washington, showed the government’s liabilities exceeded assets by $13.473 trillion. That compared with a $11.456 trillion gap a year earlier.

Unlike the normal measurement of government intake of receipts against cash outlays, accrual accounting measures costs such as interest on the debt and federal benefits payable when they are incurred, not when funds are actually disbursed.

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Today, in 1944, German troops demanded the surrender of American troops at Bastogne, Belgium. The American commander, General Anthony McAuliffe,  responded, “Nuts.”

The reaction to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) rationing scheme for late-stage cancer drugs has been met with a swift reaction from both sides of the political aisle. Even liberal Democrats who voted to implement ObamaCare have voiced critical objections to the FDA’s denial of Avastin for breast cancer patients. Even the Susan Komen Foundation for a Cure raised concerns.

But one of the more interesting aspects of the FDA’s scheme is the specious claim that Avastin does not work. But on the same day of the ill-advised decision, the FDA’s European counterpart — representing the government-run health care systems in the European Union – issued a statement approving Avastin for metastatic breast cancer concluding that the “benefits continue to outweigh the risks, because the available data have convincingly shown to prolong progression-free survival of breast cancer patients without a negative effect on the overall survival.”

This evidence certainly undercuts the FDA’s claims. Europe’s government-run health care systems openly ration drugs based on cost concerns. The British, for example, have rationed Avastin and admitted the decision was based solely on cost considerations. With a “push-button” rationing system, the fact that the Europeans recognize the benefit of the drug raises further questions about the true reasons for the FDA’s decision to deny patients and doctors access to the drug.

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The Pigford scandal is big enough that there’s no reason to overstate the case or get the facts wrong. Understanding what actually happened should be sufficient to make anyone deeply troubled.

One common misconception is that Pigford is about people who defrauded the government by pretending to be farmers. From the research I’ve done, there’s almost nobody who pretended to be a farmer. The shocking truth is that you didn’t have to fake a farming resume to collect $50,000 — all you had to do was to make a credible enough claim that you “attempted to farm.”

This category of “attempted to farm” was a huge slap in the face to the bona fide black farmers that the Pigford case was supposed to help. Many of these farmers faced real discrimination at the hands of the USDA and it’s clear they had legitimate claims.

In this video clip, you’ll hear what happened right before the consent decree was issued. It’s a class action bait-and-switch. This is Tom Burrell, head of the Black Farmer Agricultural Association, Inc.:

The political insiders and trial lawyers who set up Pigford set the bar for proving that you “attempted to farm” was much lower than it was for proving you actually were a farmer.  This meant that if you wanted a check, the smart route to go was to claim you attempted to farm. (more…)

From the AFP:

The five-member Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved the rules aimed at safeguarding “network neutrality,” the principle that lawful Web traffic should be treated equally, by a 3-2 vote at an open meeting here.

The three Democrats on the panel voted in favor of the rules, which are likely to face legal challenges, while the two Republicans voted against them.

“Our action will advance our goal of having America’s broadband networks be the freest and fastest in the world,” said FCC chairman Julius Genachowski.

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From the Associated Press:

Texas gained four House seats and Florida picked up two, while New York and Ohio each lost two seats in the new census count.

The Census Bureau released highly awaited 2010 census results.

Other winners included Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina, Utah and Washington. They each gained one seat.

States losing one seat each were Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Read the whole thing here. For the first time since the 19th Century, California did not gain a Congressional seat. The GOP will have unprecedented power to redraw congressional lines this year, especially in the states picking up seats. Also noteworthy that the states gaining seats had far lower levels of taxation than those losing seats. Hmmm…

It seems fair to ask, when one uses standard liberal catch-phrasing, volunteers for an organization like the NAACP, becomes party to an eminent domain lawsuit to take property from a small business on behalf of the government and is linked to the solicitation of government stimulus funding, just how conservative is said individual?

Given that the individual in question is Reince Priebus, currently seeking the RNC Chairmanship and talking like a conservative, how is it that he seems to have so walked the walk of a typical liberal over the years?

This was only ten years ago, after all. Certainly, there’s nothing wrong with exposing oneself to different peoples and locations and I’m all for the Republican Party reaching out more to minority communities. But whether we do that as stock-in-trade liberals, or present a genuine conservative alternative to the liberal policies of Democrats makes a big difference. So, when one invokes stock phrases like diversity and aligns himself with the NAACP, just what kind of outreach is it Reince Priebus had in mind by attending the University of Miami? Or, just as he talks the talk of conservatism now, is he more a chameleon who says what he has to say to be popular at the time? That’s hardly the type of principled leadership needed for the RNC, especially at such a pivotal time in American history in which the Right and Left are battling to determine the future course of the nation.

In addition to reputation and placement record, Reince chose Miami because he wanted the opportunity to experience living in a diverse community … He was also a law clerk for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in Los Angeles the summer before his third year.

That would be the same NAACP, by the way, that recently tried to malign the tea party movement as racist. Going from the NAACP to the RNC is quite a leap in ten short years. And the years in between weren’t very conservative, either. As recently as 2003, Reince Priebus was using his legal skills to confiscate land from a small business through the power of eminent domain.

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Richard Vigilante, author of Panic: The Betrayal of Capitalism by Wall Street and Washington to discuss his book and the future of the publishing industry as we know it.

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.

Related Links:

Panic: The Betrayal of Capitalism by Wall Street and Washington
Richard Vigilante Books
The line between book and Internet will disappear

After the break: The New Ledger’s Top Ten Books for 2010!
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Obscured by the daily scramble of news stories about WikiLeaks, its pompous and self-aggrandizing spokesperson, Julian Assange, and the classified information that was revealed, is a phenomenon which profoundly affects the way each of us as individuals conduct our daily lives and protect our privacy and assets from theft.

We all are aware of computer hacking, fraudulent websites and so-called “phishing” expeditions which seek to trap us into revealing bank accounts, social security numbers and credit card records.  We are learning to live with a myriad of passwords and procedures that are designed to keep intruders out of our hard drives just as we lock our doors and windows to keep burglars from access to our homes and private property.  But, just as experienced burglars can pick even so called unpickable locks, we now see writ large that online thieves are able to access our privacy and property despite the passwords we deploy to stop them.  If the U.S. State and Defense Department codes and records can be stolen and downloaded by a simple army private, then our checking accounts should be child’s play for a determined online thief.

The Assange and WikiLeaks matter is quite serious and may be prosecutable although that is not a lead pipe certainty.  Assange is certainly not a traditional journalist and his refuge in the First Amendment guarantee of free speech seems terribly misplaced.  His claim and the claim of his supporters, who despise the military, that he is a whistleblower stretches that term to absurdity.  Whistleblowers expose crimes.  Conversation between diplomats even if it is “disinformation “ is not a crime.  That is, in part, what diplomats are sent abroad to do.  Whether Assange stole information from the government or conspired with Private Bradley Manning to steal information is a matter for the courts.  Whether he is guilty of infractions under the Espionage Act of 1917 is also a legal issue.

There have been few successful prosecutions under that World War I statute which requires that the government must demonstrate that the person disclosing information knew that the information he was disclosing would damage national security.

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Today is the Winter Solstice, the first day of Winter. It was also host to a full lunar eclipse. It has been over 500 years since there was a lunar eclipse on the Solstice. Make of that what you will…its all a bit too Druid for us.

From Lee Stranahan:

Candidate Obama ran on a platform of openness, transparency and accountability in government but when it comes to the Pigford scandal, the USDA and Secretary Tom Vilsack continue a pattern of deception. At issue are accusations of fraud that may amount to hundreds of millions of dollars in a settlement that was supposed to give money to black farmers who suffered years of discrimination from the USDA.

A couple of weeks ago, President Obama signed a multi-billion dollar extension to Pigford amid some criticism from conservatives that there was rampant fraud in Pigford. Vilsack’s USDA office issued a press release in the days before Obama signed the extension claiming that the FBI has only found three cases worth prosecuting and giving the impression that there were only a small handul of fraud cases out of over 15,000 paid claims.

The USDA now knows better — but is still sticking by their claims. (more…)

From the Associated Press:

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski now has the three votes needed for approval, despite firm opposition from the two Republicans on the five-member commission. Genachowski’s two fellow Democrats said Monday they will vote for the rules, even though they consider them too weak.

The outcome caps a nearly-16-month push by Genachowski to pass “network neutrality” rules and marks a key turning point in a policy dispute that began more than five years ago.

“The open Internet is a crucial American marketplace, and I believe that it is appropriate for the FCC to safeguard it by adopting an order that will establish clear rules to protect consumers’ access,” Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, a Democrat, said in a statement.

Yet many supporters of network neutrality are disappointed.

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Why does Vice President Joe Biden hate Christmas? And why is he badgering one of the most beloved, kind-hearted cartoon characters in the world?

Has it really come to this?

Make your own Joe Biden holiday mashup. It’s easy like Sunday morning talk shows.

1 part beloved animated Christmas special
1 part Joe Biden YouTube clips.
2 parts fever dream.
Mix until completely out of context.
Serve.

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