When Dwayne Whitney started his trucking business decades ago he had only one truck. Today he has eighteen and 20 employees. But that’s about to change.

“The State of California says my trucks are killing people,” says Whitney. “What do you say to that?”

In a few years, new air quality regulations approved by the California Air Resources Board will render Whitney’s entire fleet illegal.

“New CARB rules are putting me out of business,” he says.

CARB claims that diesel particulates, a type of pollution emitted from buses and trucks, contributes to 2,000 premature deaths in California each year. But UCLA epidemiologist Dr. James Enstrom says the number should be closer to zero.

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Try to remember how you felt on the days after the horrible events of September 11, 2001. I remember our country experiencing something close to Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s famous stages of grief. Except instead of “acceptance” being the final stage,  our nation swelled with an enormous sense of patriotism and resolve best represented by the bi-partisan members of Congress singing “God Bless America” on the steps of the Capitol, President George W. Bush’s rallying rescue workers on a pile of rubble, and flags being flown on almost every porch in America. Do you remember those days and those feelings? Now, ask yourself:  What kind of person would instead take the occasion of the day after the attack to lead a rally condemning America and holding the terrorist murderers up as martyred heroes?

Van Jones is that kind of person.

In a recently discovered video, the former White House appointee and current hero of the liberal elite and de-facto Huffington Post/AOL editorial director is seen telling the adoring crowd,  “It’s the bombs that the government has been dropping around the world that are now blowing up inside the U.S. borders.”  He said this after a whole host of speakers from the radical fringe fringe denounced our country and her policies and hijacked the tragedy to justify unloading a laundry list of cliched, left-wing reasons to blame America for the acts perpetrated by radical Islamist totalitarian terrorists.

Remember, this rally was taking place while the bodies of 3,000 Americans were still smoldering in the rubble of the World Trade Center and American heroes were putting their lives at risk at ground zero in a massive humanitarian effort.  What kind of monsters would use this occasion to turn Americans against one another?

It’s no wonder that this man is embraced and honored by groups like the once-relevant, now-radical NAACP and was given the high honor of holding a Presidential appointment in the first year of the Obama Presidency.  He speaks the revolutionary “blame America first” rhetoric of Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright and Malik Zulu Shabazz.

What is curious and confounding is that a major corporation like AOL is allowing a person with this kind of record to influence the content of their influential website through the intimidation tactics of Color Of Change, the anti-free speech organization he founded.

In light of this latest video revelation, Mr. Jones needs to finally explain, fully, his position on 9/11. Was it American bombs that caused the World Trade Center to fall as he suggested at this rally? Was the American government behind the attack as he once signed a petition purporting? Does he agree with his co-speaker that evening that the terrorist murderers were “heroes” or does he condemn that hateful rhetoric?

And finally, what is the AOL/HuffPo’s position on Mr. Jones’ contribution to their site?  Does his hateful attack on America rise to their new editorial standard used against me?

Take a moment and sign our petition demanding that the Huffington Post not buckle under to the intimidation tactics of this man and the anti-free speech organization he founded. Make your voice heard. Speak truth to power.

Addendum:  The video discussed in this post was originally posted by BizzyBlog in September, 2009.  It was reported on at the time by PowerLine.

Americans are living longer than ever due in large part to advancements in science, but you wouldn’t know it from listening to the wailing and gnashing of teeth by environmental extremists. It seems that every day brings news of some substance that will maim, injure or bring about Armageddon. The latest target of these extremists is the antibacterial agent Triclosan, a substance used safely and effectively for decades by millions of Americans.

Triclosan is found in soap, toothpaste, trash bags, toys, and hundreds of other products used daily by consumers. Although there is little-to-no data to back them up, an alliance of junk science organizations is petitioning the EPA to ban the use of Triclosan. Of course, when has the absence of facts ever stopped the left?

[On a side note, a quick trip around the web shows that the groups involved in this petition are serial petitioners and instigators of baseless lawsuits. And they are rewarded quite handsomely for their efforts, oftentimes by the very same corporations they claim to abhor.]

Here’s what we do know about Triclosan:

• The FDA has found it to be safe for use by humans.
• It has been used successfully to treat outbreaks of the superbug MRSA.
• It is used to effectively treat gingivitis and other oral diseases.
• It is used safely in nursing homes and hospitals to prevent the spread of bacteria.
• It’s been used safely for decades and there has never been any scientific data showing it to be harmful.

It is important that this issue be framed correctly. This is not a debate about the effectiveness of antibacterial products, but it is a debate about choice.

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Why did the state of Wisconsin bother to have an election last November?

To look at the results, you would think the voters had spoken clearly. They elected a Republican governor and legislature, based on the promise that they would take strong action to balance the state budget and give schools and municipalities more control over their local budgets.

Within a few weeks of taking office, the Republicans followed through on their promise.

Public sector unions that had stubbornly refused to make concessions to help struggling schools and municipalities save money were called out. Labor costs comprise about 80 percent of any school or municipal budget, but the unions wouldn’t let local officials cut labor costs.

The unions abused their collective bargaining privileges, so the state moved to take most of those privileges away. We elect state officials to make those kinds of decisions. If voters decide later that those decisions were wrong, they elect different people next time.

But it’s beginning to seem like the will of the people, as reflected in the election results, is completely irrelevant. The Democrats and their special interest sponsors in the labor movement are using any means at their disposal to block the efforts of the officials who won the election.

Our Founding Fathers warned against “the tyranny of the minority.” This must have been the type of situation they had in mind.

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Senator Reid is calling Tea Partiers “radicals.”

The feminine pitch of Senator Reid’s voice not withstanding, in the context of the heavily documented death threats and vandalism recently committed by Progressive Democrat radicals in Wisconsin, calling Tea Partiers radical betrays his apparently giant set of testicles.

Now that Senator Reid has foolishly raised this issue, let’s compare radicals, shall we?

On one hand, Progressive radicals specialize in rioting, destroying property, and frequently engaging in violent behavior.

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Yesterday, I noted that AARP’s main ‘business’ is renting its name to insurance companies selling policies to senior citizens. It’s a robust business that has grown rapidly over the last few years. In 2002, AARP collected around $240 million renting its name. By 2009, that figure had almost tripled to $657 million a year. (Nice work if you can get it.)

At least, AARP, Inc., who sells the naming rights could use this windfall to further their important charitable work, right?

Um, not so much.

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We just received this shocking email from the Wisconsin Department of Justice Spokesperson Bill Cosh.

The DCI to which he refers is the Department of Justice’s Department of Criminal Investigation.

Beginning on February 21, 2011  DCI was asked to investigate multiple threats to various members of the Wisconsin Legislature due to the volume, our ability to fully analyze the many communications and our experience. I believe it’s also fair to say authorities believed we would be prompt in our efforts to investigate and take appropriate action given the nature of the threats and the climate at the time.

DCI immediately reviewed and analyzed what was sent. Every referral was investigated. In the judgment of investigators, some presented a need for more intense investigation; some did not. One case in particular, which was started upon the receipt of threats on March 9, 2011, the subject of whom is a Dane County resident, was thoroughly investigated.

Investigators concluded it did not present an imminent threat but presented sufficient probable cause that criminal behavior had occurred and on Friday, March 18, 2011 this matter was referred to the Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne who has sole jurisdiction and charging authority for a charging decision.

On Monday, March 23, 2011 the Department of Justice learned through press reports that the Dane County District Attorney had returned the referral to the Department citing clerical and administrative issues related to the reports transfer.  Importantly the investigative reports themselves were not returned. It is important to note that this Department routinely refers investigative reports to District Attorneys, including the Dane County District Attorney, for their review and charging decisions.

This is where this matter currently sits.

We are concerned about the lack of action regarding this referral.

Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne isn’t twiddling this thumbs, however. In fact he has been quite busy lately.

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The far left has attempted to portray their elderly hero, Frances Fox Piven, as a lonely shut-in who spends her time knitting mittens and eating Werther’s Originals in her New York apartment.

But the truth is that age has not dampened Piven’s appetite for radical socialist political activities.

Piven, an academic who is still on the board of ACORN-partner Project Vote, has announced that she will be co-hosting a 1960s-style “teach-in” April 5th, and she’s bringing in some heavy hitters.

The national event, which will be simulcast, will also feature fellow socialist professor Cornel West and AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka.  SEIU is also participating.

At the recent Left Forum, where Piven greeted attendees as “comrades,” she explained “a few practical steps” protesters could take in order to fight back against capitalism.

They include demonstrations or sit-ins at banks, “fights over the public sector,” (whatever that means), and protests against home foreclosures. She explained that all of these tactics are part of the fight against the “corporate campaign to take down America.”

For the teach-ins, several “content themes” are suggested.

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson is joined by Rory Cooper to discus a possible deal in the House to avoid a government shutdown. Then Pejman Yousefzadeh talks about what a shutdown could mean politically.

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:
Budget Negotiators Reach Tentative Deal To Avert Government Shutdown
Heritage: Freshman Lawmakers Make the Case for Government Spending Cuts
Understanding the numbers in budget talks
Lots of Talk, But Shutdown Still Looming
Howard Dean: Democrats Should Be ‘Quietly Rooting’ for Shutdown

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The New Black Panther fix came in just as we suspected.  Yesterday the Department of Justice completed its 19 month internal investigation into whether Steve Rosenbaum and Loretta King, the political appointee attorneys who ordered the dismissal of the voter intimidation case, acted unethically.  No surprise, DOJ found that DOJ acted ethically.  Otherwise, you wouldn’t have heard about the conclusion.  The Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) report was the narrower of the two DOJ investigations of the matter, and Congress will be sure to conduct a far broader, and more competent, inquiry.

Of course the American people will be the judge of the black panther dismissal, not the DOJ OPR.  Anyone with eyes can see what happened.  Americans have a right to vote without armed racist jackbooted thugs lurking at the entrance to their polling place with a weapon.  That offends nearly every American, but not the lawyers at Eric Holder’s Justice Department.

The fix was in early in the DOJ investigation.  Holder appointed Robin Ashton, the head of OPR, last Christmas Eve.  She worked for Senator Patrick Leahy and was known for rifling through coworker’s desks according to a well sourced National Review article. A week after she was appointed, Attorney General Holder told the New York Times that there was “no there, there” and the black panther scandal was “made up.”  Even former Attorney General Michael Mukasey was shocked at the comments of his successor.  So was the conclusion of the OPR report newsworthy?

Apparently to the New York Times, Washington Post, NPR and Associated Press it was.  For the first time ever, all four outlets had stories about the black panther scandal on the same day.  Naturally the fact the report defended Eric Holder caused the sudden synchronicity of interest in the long ignored story.

It is no accident that Loretta King, one of the central figures in the black panther dismissal, is also behind other nutty DOJ policies, including forcing the Dayton, Ohio police to hire cops that failed the test as well as signing a complaint to sue a school district for refusing to give 19 days of leave to go to Mecca.  King emerges as the engineer who regularly sends Holder’s Civil Rights Division off the rails.

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If you’ve been following the Wisconsin fracas over these past few weeks, you’ve probably noticed that the Left’s enemy du jour has become the American businessmen Charles and David Koch of Koch Industries. As an American company, Koch Industries employs over 50,000 Americans.  In total, the number of American jobs that indirectly supported Koch Industries is over 200,000. In Wisconsin, Koch Industries provides nearly 3,000 jobs directly and 11,000 jobs indirectly. More importantly, many of those jobs are good-paying union jobs. So, why all the hate?

The Koch brothers have recently come under fire from the institutional Left due, primarily, to a more than 40-year commitment to economic freedom. In part, the Koch brothers’ advocacy for freedom may stem from their father, Fred C. Koch, who developed a hatred of Communism when he saw the effects of it first-hand, working in Russia during the 1930s.

“Virtually every engineer he worked with [there] was purged,” Charles Koch once explained of his father.

Given the desire of many on the Left, many of whom were protesting in Madison these last few weeks, to ‘fundamentally transform‘ America’s economy, the Koch brothers’ opposition to a nation bankrupting itself (as well as their support of Scott Walkers’ efforts to rein in union power in Wisconsin) represents a direct threat to the Left’s agenda. As a result, some of the more extremist groups on the Left are pushing a boycott of Koch Industries and its companies’ products.

Due to the sheer number of jobs that directly or indirectly benefit from Koch Industries, the Left’s undertaking to topple the Koch brothers and their companies may have the negative consequence of actually hurting those the Left purports to want to help—namely union workers. This has a top official with the United Steelworkers concerned.

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You may have seen news that Wisconsin’s AFSCME public-sector union is threatening businesses with possible boycott if they refuse to voice support for the union position. Obviously, it’s pretty galling — and potentially illegal.

The Journal-Sentinel reported that AFSCME Council 24 has informed local business that they must put a sign in their window showing their public support for the union’s position or “Failure to do so will leave us no choice but (to) do a public boycott of your business. And sorry, neutral means ‘no’ to those who work for the largest employer in the area and are union members.”

Translation: That’s a nice business you got there. It would be a shame if something happened to it.

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Compared to President Obama’s other initiatives, the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program barely registers on the government’s balance sheet. Yet the $7,500 scholarships for poor children are apparently still too costly for a White House beholden to Big Labor.

The Obama administration has officially declared its opposition to the SOAR Act, legislation approved Wednesday by the House of Representatives that would restore funding to the program for low-income families in the District of Columbia. Obama and congressional Democrats put the program on life support before Republicans seized control of the House.

“While the President’s FY 2012 Budget requests funding to improve D.C. public schools and expand high-quality public charter schools, the Administration opposes targeting resources to help a small number of individuals attend private schools rather than creating access to great public schools for every child,” the Obama administration declared in its policy statement.

The administration’s justification: Scholarships have not yielded improved student achievement. Unfortunately for Obama, that statement runs counter to what the administration’s own Department of Education reported in a federal evaluation last year.

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Today, in 1945, Anne Frank was exterminated by the Nazis. The war would be over in just a couple months.

How do you know which parts of Obama’s energy speech were either lies or misrepresentations?  The parts where his mouth was moving. This morning President Obama outline his energy policy which is comprised of trying to pull the energy policy wool over America’s eyes.

Once again he wants to present “incentives” for the energy industry to drill on existing leases.  You see, his feeling about the oil executives is the same as his feeling about the American people, they are complete and total idiots,paying for leases but not bothering to take the product out of the ground so they can make money.  All of those stupid executives (according to the POTUS) run their companies by paying fees instead of collecting revenue.  getting the product out of the ground so they can make money.  This is nothing but Presidential subterfuge.

What the President is not telling you is that these oil leases purchased by oil companies is for  exploration and drilling, not just drilling. Oil is not equally distributed across the each potential drilling location, there are unlucky oil companies that get stuck with a lease for a parcel that doesn’t hold any oil. What make those companies really unlucky is that the parcel right next to them might be the new Saudi Arabia.

Even if the leased location is a bonanza of black gold, that oil  company still might not be drilling. This may be surprising (not), but there is a lot of red tape to get through once you find oil on a site before you start drilling.  This red tape has gotten even more complicated during the Obama administration. Even if everything runs smoothly, it can take years for companies who own a lease to complete their exploration activities, and more years to move from exploration to drilling.

The Institute of Energy Resources explains it clearly with this chart

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In advance of President Barack Obama’s energy speech at Georgetown University, a top oil and natural gas industry leader called on the Obama Administration to abandon its policies “to defer, delay and deny access to domestic resources of oil and natural gas.”

In a statement to reporters during a media conference call this morning, American Petroleum Institute Upstream Director Erik Milito refuted a report by the Interior Department that U.S. oil and natural gas companies are sitting on oil leases granted by the government, refusing to turn them into producing leases.

“The report completely whitewashes the fact that in many cases, the reason these leases have no exploration plans is that BOEMRE is sitting on those plans,” Milito said. “This is like leasing an apartment from the government for $20 million dollars and the government refuses to give you the keys to the apartment – then the government proceeds to complain because you are not occupying the premises.”

Below, I share an excerpt from the full text of Milito’s statement as prepared for delivery by API:

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Georgia has some of the worst civil forfeiture laws and practices in the country.  This morning, five Atlanta citizens teamed up with the Institute for Justice to change that.

Civil forfeiture threatens the property rights of all Americans.  These laws allow government officials to seize your home, car, cash or other property upon the mere suspicion that it has been used or involved in criminal activity.

In an attempt to ensure civil forfeiture is subject to public scrutiny, Georgia law requires local law enforcement agencies to annually itemize and report all property obtained through forfeiture, and how it is used, to local governing authorities.

But many—perhaps most—local Georgia law enforcement agencies fail to issue these forfeiture reports.  Today, the Institute for Justice issued a report of its own: Forfeiting Accountability: Georgia’s Hidden Civil Forfeiture Funds. It finds that among a random sample of 20 law enforcement agencies, only two were reporting as required.  Of 15 major agencies in Georgia population centers, only one produced the required report.  Yet federal data show Georgia agencies taking in millions through forfeiture.

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It’s taken a long time, but Huffington Post/AOL founder Arianna Huffington and Huffington Post/AOL editor Roy Sekoff have finally acknowledged that I am not a racist–despite the popular left wing website’s campaign to frame me as one.

From a letter crafted by Huffington Post editor Roy Sekoff to the Daily Caller:

…I want to make it as clear as possible that neither I nor Arianna believe that Andrew Breitbart is a racist. If we did believe that, we never would have allowed him to blog on HuffPost — let alone featured him on our front page.

I am grateful for Huffington and Sekoff’s true courage to go against many of their partisan bloggers and ideological editors, many of whom threatened to quit if I wasn’t ousted from its “progressive” waters.

For the last six months the Huffington Post, recently purchased by AOL for $315 million, has been running a vengeful propaganda campaign led by a far left wing anti-free speech organization called “Color of Change,” created by former Obama White House “green czar” Van Jones – whose resignation was sealed, to a great degree, by facts revealed in reporting at one of my websites. (more…)

We are less than a week away from Tuesday’s crucial winner-take-all April 5 State Supreme Court election in Wisconsin, an election that will likely set the legislative course of that state for a generation. The stakes are for all the marbles and boil down to a simple choice. Either sitting State Supreme Court Justice David Prosser will be re-elected and the voters, though their elected officials, will be allowed to govern, or Big National Labor, Big Spoiled Public Employees, and the White House Re-election Machine will prevail in electing Joanne Kloppenburg — a hardcore Leftist with zero judicial experience. The result of that catastrophic possibility is almost assuredly an end-run around democracy as four Robed Masters take over the running of the state through judicial fiat. Prosser is presently the tie-breaking 4-to-3 vote in favor of judicial restraint on the court. Should Kloppenburg prevail, however, it’s no secret the court will legislate from the bench and strike down all reforms passed by Gov. Scott Walker and the state legislature.

Big Labor most certainly understands the stakes on April 5 and undoubtedly did from the beginning. Pro-union supporters have launched an unprecedented campaign of violence and intimidation in the state all with an eye on the prize of stopping Walker with a firewall built around the State Supreme Court and an ongoing recall petition drive.

In addition, just when you think the thuggery — which has been all but ignored by local and national media — can’t get any worse, we learn that a union campaign of outright extortion only the mafia could be proud of has just been launched against Wisconsin small business owners:

Members of Wisconsin State Employees Union, AFSCME Council 24, have begun circulating letters to businesses in southeast Wisconsin, asking them to support workers’ rights by putting up a sign in their windows.

If businesses fail to comply, the letter says, “Failure to do so will leave us no choice but (to) do a public boycott of your business. And sorry, neutral means ‘no’ to those who work for the largest employer in the area and are union members.”

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