The hours of interviews I’ve done with the key people involved in the Pigford settlement are a treasure trove of information about what really happened in this multi-billion dollar debacle. Because of the holidays and then the tragic shooting in Tuscon, I wanted to hold off on releasing details about some of the major news that we’re been able to uncover — but at the risk of creating PiggieFatigue, here’s part one of a serious allegation that a U.S. Congressman knowingly was complicit in covering up fraud.

In this bombshell video clip, Georgia farmer Eddie Slaughter alleges that he told his congressman, Congressional Black Caucus member Sanford Bishop, about fraud in Pigford on multiple occasions and that Bishop responded that Slaughter should be quiet because “they’ll shut this thing down.”

This isn’t an isolated incident with Congressman Bishop.

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There are a lot of similarities between the nine-month-long shove of ObamaCare across the legislative finish line and the four-plus year Media Marxist push to the December 21^st 3-2 Democrat Party-line Federal Communications Commission (FCC) vote to impose Network Neutrality.

But in some of the most important ways, the Net Neutrality power grab was and is worse.

On ObamaCare, every Congressional Republican save one voted Nay.  Most voiced strong and pronounced opposition throughout the long legislative slog.  It garnered the GOP the moniker of the “Party of No” – which was meant by the forces of Big Government to be derogatory.

But the American people – in agreement with the Republicans on the policies to which they were saying “No” – rewarded their negativity with historic November electoral victories.

As unpopular as ObamaCare was – and is still – at least those who foisted it upon us did so via the legislative process in the People’s Congress.  Officials elected by you and me decided – against our expressed wishes – to pass it.  And we had the subsequent opportunity to throw them out – which, again, we did in record numbers.

The same cannot be said about the route travelled to the imposition of Net Neutrality.

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Last May, a frightened teenager was trapped inside his home when a mob of SEIU astro-turfing thugs (estimated at 500 strong) trespassed on his front lawn to protest to intimidate his father, the deputy general counsel of the Bank of America. While the protesters caught the family by surprise (allegedly aided and abetted by the police), unbeknownst to them, Fortune’s Nina Easton was a neighbor to the victim and exposed the injustice for what it was.

Now, though, another gang of astro-turfing thugs has targeted (yes, targeted) the private home of a real estate developer for the audacity of building a WalMart that will employ up to 1200 DC-area residents.

With unemployment in Washington, DC at 10.2%, it is hard to imagine anyone not wanting to see jobs added. That is, unless that someone is a union that doesn’t like the fact that WalMart operates its U.S. stores union-free.

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Today, in 1807, future Confederate General/Traitor Robert E. Lee was born. Also today, in 1809 Edgar Allen Poe was born. We leave it to you to discuss the similarities.

Senator Charles Schumer let loose a very reckless and bombastic tirade against China – his way of diplomatically receiving China’s unelected President Hu.

The message to Hu is “we are fed up with your government’s intransigence on currency manipulation. If you refuse to play by the same rules, we will force you to do so,” Schumer said in a conference call with reporters. [via Instapundit, Points and Figures]

If politicians are so damned fed up, why don’t they stop taking China’s loans?! Schumer, stop borrowing from them if you are so true to your words.

We wonder how this must look to the rest of the world, especially to those that might buy our debt in the future – when China has finally had enough of us.

Put another way, if America loaned trillions of dollars to Russia, and then Russia began lecturing us about monetary manners (just months after having expanded liabilities to proven unsustainable heights), we would openly mock them on our late night shows for being a banana republic.

Put yet another way, could you imagine talking to your credit card company this way? Sure, their rates and their fees are borderline abusive, but if you don’t want the credit card company to revoke your line of credit, you keep it civil. That, or you put your spending habits where your mouth is and you cut up your credit cards.

It’s like our entitlement society has created an entitlement government which is living under the delusion that we are entitled to continued financing by our investors, no matter how we treat them.

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Former New York City Mayor Ed Koch:

Why do I defend Palin in this case? I don’t agree with her political philosophy: She is an arch conservative. I am a liberal with sanity. I know that I am setting myself up for attack when I ask, why did Emile Zola defend Dreyfus? Palin is no Dreyfus and I am certainly no Zola. But all of us have an obligation, particularly those in politics and public office, to denounce, when we can, the perpetrators of horrendous libels and stand up for those falsely charged. We should denounce unfair, false and wicked charges not only when they are made against ourselves, our friends or our political party but against those with whom we disagree. If we are to truly change the poisonous political atmosphere that we all complain of, including those who create it, we should speak up for fairness when we can.

In the 2008 presidential race when Sarah Palin’s name was first offered to the public by John McCain as his running mate, I said at the time that she “scared the hell out of me.” My reference was to the content of her remarks, not to her power to persuade voters.

It was McCain who lost the presidential election, not Palin. Since that time she has established that she has enormous power to persuade people. A self-made woman who rose from PTA mother to Governor of Alaska, she is one of the few speakers in public life who can fill a stadium. Her books are enormous successes. Her television program about Alaska has been a critical and economic success. When Sarah Palin addresses audiences, they rise to their feet in support and applause. She is without question a major leader of the far right faction in the Republican Party and its ally the Tea Party.

I repeat my earlier comment that she “scares the hell out of me.”

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The Washington Post has just reported that Mullah Omar suffered a heart attack on January 7^th and was rushed to the hospital by Pakistan’s spy network, the Inter-services Intelligence Agency.

And how is it that the ISI was right there to provide Omar with complimentary ambulance service?  Because, as we exclusively broke in May of last year, Omar has been in Pakistani custody since March 2010.

America is being played.

Remind me how much aid money we are pumping into Pakistan and what it is purchasing us?

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson is joined by U.S. Senate candidate Jamie Radtke to discuss the Tea Party movement, budget cuts needed in Washington and much 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:

Jamie Radtke for US Senate
Restore the Founders’ Vision
Radtke Responds to Inquiries Regarding Allen’s Potential Candidacy
Don’t count Jamie Radtke out
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In 1999, James Earl Ray was found innocent of killing Martin Luther King Jr. in the same way O.J. Simpson was found guilty of killing his wife Nicole and Ron Goldman – in a civil trial. In fact, King’s family was as convinced of Ray’s innocence as the families of Nicole and Ron were convinced of Simpson’s guilt. In King vs. Loyd Jowers and conspirators unknown, there were 70 witnesses called; twelve jurors found in favor of the King family, which held a press conference after the verdict.

One of King’s sons – Dexter – had expressed his adamant belief that Ray was not his father’s assassin. In 1997, King told Ray personally that both he and his family believed him. What would it have taken for the Goldmans and the Browns to have believed Orenthal’s story that he was innocent? Anyone who remembers the looks on their faces, their resolve and their anger would have to concede that it would have required nothing short of cold hard facts.

The verdict in King vs. Jowers found a government conspiracy involving city, state, and federal agents complicit in the murder. Dexter King went so far as to name Memphis Police Department Officer, Lt. Earl Clark as his father’s assassin.

One week prior to King’s assassination on April 4, 1968 he had gone to Memphis to show support for local sanitation workers. Riots erupted in Memphis; one person was killed and sixty were injured. The incident was incredibly damaging to the cause of King and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). A consequence of King’s alleged involvement in those riots was that it caught the attention of some powerful politicians. A Democratic Senator from West Virginia delivered an extremely incendiary speech on the Senate Floor that was directed specifically at President Lyndon Johnson, also a Democrat. (more…)

…I did not see symptoms of dementia or anything like that while he was in office… I wasn’t thinking, “Gee, I’m seeing signs of Alzheimer’s here.”

In the liberal commentator’s new book, he says it’s fact that the his father had Alheizmer’s while still in office and vividly describes seeing signs of “something beyond mellowing” affecting President Reagan as early as three years into his first term. An excerpt from his description of Reagan’s first debate with 1984 Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale: “My heart sank as he floundered his way through his responses. He looked tired and bewildered.”

Given this passage from his new book, it’s safe to say Ron Reagan was being somewhat dishonest in this interview.

I’m not a big fan of the Internal Revenue Service, but I try not to demonize the bureaucrats because politicians actually deserve most of the blame for America’s complex, unfair, and corrupt tax system. The IRS generally is in the unenviable position of simply trying to enforce very bad laws.

But sometimes the IRS runs amok and the agency deserves to be held in contempt by the American people

Let’s look at a grotesque example of IRS misbehavior. It deals with a seemingly arcane issue, but it has big implications for the US economy, the rule of law, and human rights.

On January 7, the tax-collection bureaucracy proposed a regulation that, if implemented, would force American financial institutions to put foreign tax law above US tax law. Banks would be required to report to the IRS any interest they pay to foreigners, but not so the US government can collect tax, but in order to let foreign governments tax this US-source income.

This isn’t the first time the IRS has tried to pull this stunt. At the very end of the Clinton years, the agency proposed a rule to do the same thing. But the bureaucrats were thwarted because of overwhelming opposition from Capitol Hill, the financial services industry, and public policy experts. There was near-unanimous agreement that it would be crazy to drive job-creating capital out of the US economy and there was also near-unanimous agreement that the IRS had no authority to impose a regulation that was completely inconsistent with the laws enacted by Congress.

But like a zombie, this IRS regulation has risen from the grave.

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Fireworks start at the 4:00 mark:

I think that she has got to slow down and be more careful and think through what she’s saying and how she’s saying it. There is no question that she has become more controversial, but she is still a phenomenon. I don’t know anybody else in American politics who can put something on Twitter or put something on Facebook and automatically have it become a national story,” Gingrich said about his possible 2012 rival. “So she remains, I think, a formidable person in her own right.

I think it was Thomas Jefferson who first said ‘Laws are great, in theory, but…’

As his other project, the University of Virginia, gets further backed into a corner on the ‘Hockey Stick’ records it is spending upwards of a half a million dollars to keep from the public (even though the public paid for and has every right to them), we now see what Charlottesville radio host Joe Thomas of WCHV likes to note in this context as “UVA getting its Nixon on”. This time with a little help from its friends outraged that laws would be applied to the academic class:

Delegate David Toscano
211 East High Street
Charlottesville, VA 22902
434.220.1660 PHONE
434.220-1677 FAX
www.davidtoscano.com

******MEDIA ADVISORY******

Press Conference

Richmond –Senator A. Donald McEachin (D-Henrico), Senator J. Chapman Petersen (D-Fairfax) and Delegate David Toscano (D-Charlottesville) will hold a press conference on Tuesday, January 18, 2011, in Senate Room 1 at the Capitol at 10:45 am to discuss their proposed legislation that repeals and limits the authority of the Attorney General to issue civil investigative demands.

Who: Senators McEachin, Petersen and Delegate Toscano

What: Press Conference on CID authority

Where: Senate Room 1

When: 10:45 am

Why: Limit the Attorney General’s authority to issue CIDs

At this press conference someone in the press might ask (hey, stop laughing) why the legislators in unanimously passing this law in both chambers forgot to exempt the academic class when passing the law. Or, did they just think it would be applied to people doing things they didn’t approve of?

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One of the issues that many conservatives have focused on is our out of control court system and the constant judicial overreach that occurs therein. Here we have yet another case of a court insinuating itself into an area in which it previously never had purview and if this decision stands it will open our courts to a flood of court shopping that will turn our legal system further down the wrong road.

At least since the forced bussing case of 1971 and the Roe v Wade abortion case, conservatives have been complaining about judges taking undue powers unto themselves. For decades these power mad judges have been expanding their reach to control our lives until even our state and federal legislatures have seemed to give up their rightful role as lawmakers. Once again we have a judge that has reached beyond his proper role.

The case in question is Marshall v. Marshall and, yes, once again Anna Nicole Smith is going before the U.S. Supreme Court — and from beyond the grave at that. The reason a Smith matter is again before the SCOTUS four years after her death is because one of her cases was decided by a federal bankruptcy court in California on reasons that had nothing at all to do with technical bankruptcy rules. The case before the SCOTUS would determine if the bankruptcy court acted properly.

If you’ll recall, Anna Nicole Smith took her wealthy, departed husband’s estate to court claiming that he’d made a verbal promise to give her millions of dollars and part of his estate upon his passing. But Marshall’s extensive, detailed estate plan did not mention her at all so when she initially brought her case before a Texas Probate court, she lost. Not surprisingly when Smith realized she would not be satisfied with the outcome in Texas she and her legal team began shopping for courts that would give a favorable decision. She found that in a federal bankruptcy court in California.

Despite that the Marshall estate plan made no mention of Smith and despite that the plan was letter perfect to the law, California bankruptcy Judge Samuel L. Bufford had sympathy for Anna Nicole Smith and ruled in her favor. Essentially this bankruptcy judge based his decision on personal injury to Smith as opposed to using technical bankruptcy laws to make his decision.

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The 112^th Congress of The United States should have one mission above all others as it begins its walk through the pages of history…to protect the full faith and credit of The United States of America.  These are perilous times in which we are feeling our way and, make no mistake about it, we are feeling our way. And as we devalue our currency as we currently are doing by printing more and more of it in order to pay for more and more of what we can’t afford, we are simultaneously devaluing the very essence of the most important guarantee ever devised by man…that we will meet all obligations that are backed by “the full faith and credit of the United States” no matter what.

Just how are we going to do that?  For most of our history through the first third of the 20^th century we maintained a pretty firm relationship between the money we printed and gold with which it could be redeemed on demand.  We only deviated from that standard during crises such as wars or economic extremis such as the great depression.  For the most part, the full faith and credit of the United States was good as gold. Not any more.  Now it is as good as people think it is.  That is, its value is as good as the confidence people have in the fiscal management of the country.

The demand for our debt is a pretty good indicator of that confidence and right now that is hard to measure because the Federal Reserve is a major player at every auction for buying our debt. The Fed is, in effect, creating demand that keeps interest rates lower than they would ordinarily be.  That’s making people who are living on the fixed income from a lifetime of savings downright poor or forcing them to invest their savings in riskier investments than they would ordinarily consider.  And for the time being, given the basket case that is so much of Europe, US debt is still considered safer than the debt of most any other nation.

But there have been warning signs that it would be foolhardy to assume that the mere words, full faith and credit of the United States instill, as if by magic, some assurance of high confidence in the credit worthiness of the nation. Within the past year, bond investors were willing to settle for 3.5 basis points less to own Berkshire Hathaway’s debt as compared to U.S. treasuries of similar maturity.  In fact, investors in the bonds of Proctor and Gamble and Johnson & Johnson were also willing to settle for lower yields than U.S. treasuries.  This, according to Jack Malvey, who was the chief fixed-income strategist as Lehman Brothers was an “exceedingly rare event in the history of the bond market.”

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The Congressional Black Caucus played completely one-sided partisan politics against the black farmers of America and shot down a Republican proposal that would have aided the real farmers. Listen to farmers Eddie Slaughter and Willie Head explain the betrayal of the CBC.

A Presidential bow to our creditors.

Listening to the local news on the radio recently, I heard a report about how newly elected Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz plans to save $8 million by, among other things, merging the “Office of Sustainability” with the Department of Environmental Protection and Resource Management.

Office of Sustainability? In the county?

According to the story, “The new agency will be renamed the Department of Environmental Protection and Sustainability….”

The Department of Environmental Protection and Sustainability?

A county government has its own EPA? You must be kidding.

No, unfortunately not.

Baltimore County’s Office of Planning defines “sustainability” as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of current and future generations to meet their own needs.”

I checked some of the other county websites. Carroll County’s Sustainability Plan defines sustainability as: “…meeting the requirements of social, environmental, and economic circumstances without compromising the ability for future generations to meet the same need.”

Montgomery County’s says: “To live sustainably, one strives to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (my emphasis). People living sustainably recognize the fundamental and inextricable interdependence between the economy, the environment, and social equity, and work to promote each to the benefit of all.”

Oh wonderful!

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A series of videos have been racking up viewings on YouTube, thanks in part to public school teachers and university professors making them a part of curriculum, and indoctrinating our children with left-wing anti-capitalist propaganda.

Annie Leonard, an activist with Greenpeace, created “The Story of Stuff,” a web video disparaging America’s consumer society and attacking capitalism (or, as she calls it, “the current economic model.”)  It was funded by the mysterious Tides Foundation – the group that also funded ACORN before it became a liability to the left and rotted away.

There has been a successful effort to debunk Leonard’s indoctrination effort, which can be found at Glenn Beck’s site.

But Leonard’s own words show that this Story of Stuff project is simply a means to an end.  The end, of course, is to transform America’s economy away from capitalism and towards something that can only be described as socialism.

“I go around the country and I show the ‘Story of Stuff’ film and for those of you that have seen it you know it lays out a pretty broad, pretty systemic critique of the economy – of the current economic model,” Leonard said in a May 2010 speech in South Carolina. (emphasis added)

The problem is, Leonard, and many like her, don’t have the courage to simply say they want to ditch capitalism.  Instead, they use poll-tested phrases like “an economy that works for everyone.” Or, she objects to “trashing each other on the equity front,” and apparently believes “stuff” is distributed unevenly among human beings.  “We’re not sharing the stuff we use well enough,” she says.

What Annie Leonard – and many other with socialist beliefs – lack is the cajones to say what they would do about it.  Clearly their remedy is more government intervention in our lives.  More regulation, more taxes, more nudges to get us to act as they would see fit.

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