John Stossel did a special on Freeloaders that included a six minute segment on the Pigford case that I’ve been working on the past few months. It’s worth watching and sharing with people who don’t understand Pigford.

I think there was one major omission, however — the plight of the real black farmers who did suffer discrimination and who were totally abused by this settlement.

Obviously, the fraud of people getting $50,000 checks is a central part of the story. Because of the nature of this settlement, most of them happened to be black although there were some white people who found ways to cash in, too. The part about people getting $50,000 checks they don’t deserve is juicy, easy to understand and Stossel’s piece did a good job of summing it up.

The bigger fraud, however, has been perpetrated on the legitimate black farmers whose cases and stories were hijacked; people like Arkansas farmer Jimmy Dismuke, who was shown in the story. The ‘$50,000 check’ fraud was done on the back of hard working farmers who actually did suffer discrimination at the hands of a huge government organization with no real accountability. In fact, part of the reason the USDA has played along with writing those $50,000 checks to people is to keep the status quo at the USDA.

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Apparently Gov. Scott Walker knew exactly what he was doing.

Before he signed the bill limiting collective bargaining privileges, teachers unions throughout the state were slow to respond to calls for salary and benefit concessions.

They believed their members should be held harmless during a period of necessary cost-cutting. They didn’t seem to care that Wisconsin schools were operating with multi-million dollar deficits that were forcing the layoffs of younger teachers and the cancellation of student programs.

Their only answer was to raise taxes at a time when few people could afford it. They didn’t want to sacrifice anything, despite the fact that schools spend about 80 percent of their budgets on labor costs.

But now, with Walker’s legislation set to become law once it clears legal hurdles, the unions are suddenly coming to their senses. They are jumping at the chance to extend their collective bargaining agreements, in exchange for meaningful concessions that will help schools survive the financial crisis.

In Madison, the teachers union has suddenly agreed to a wage freeze and increases in health insurance and pension contributions. The concessions will save the district an estimated $15 million next year, which would almost make up for the expected cuts in state aid.

In Oshkosh, the union has agreed to a wage freeze, increased contributions toward benefits and a change in the employee insurance carrier, which will save the district more than $5 million per year.

In the Slinger district, the union has agreed to commit 5.8 percent of teacher pay to pension costs and increase contributions toward health care costs. The concessions will save the district about $1.3 million per year.

What are the unions gaining by accepting concessions at the last possible minute? Plenty.

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I posted yesterday at International Liberty about the stunning political incompetence of Republican Senators, who reportedly are willing to give Obama an increase in the debt limit in exchange for a vote (yes, just a vote) on a balanced budget amendment.

As I explained, there is no way they can get the necessary two-thirds support to approve an amendment, so why trade a meaningless and symbolic vote on a BBA for meaningful and real approval of more borrowing authority for Obama? My analogy yesterday was that this was like trading a all-star baseball player for a utility infielder in the minor leagues.

I did acknowledge that forcing a vote on a BBA was a worthwhile endeavor, but said that the GOP has that power anyhow, so why trade away something valuable to get something you already can get for free?

Little did I realize that Republicans already did force a vote on the balanced budget amendment. Less than one month ago, on March 2, Senator Lee of Utah got a vote on a “Sense of the Senate” resolution in favor of a balanced budget amendment. Senator Lee’s resolution was approved by a 58-40 margin, which is nice, but an actual amendment would need a two-thirds supermajority, so this test vote demonstrated that there is no way to approve an amendment this year.

I’m glad Senator Lee proposed his resolution. I’m glad Senators were forced to go on the record.

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John Stossel to Al Pires, lead attorney in the Pigford settlement: “How do you know they’re farmers?”
Answer: [long pause] “They fill out the forms… We HOPE they tell the truth.”

More at Stossel’s blog:

Want to get a check from the government for $50,000? If you’re black and willing to say you once “attempted to farm,” the money could be yours.

Why? In the 80’s and 90’s, some Black farmers were allegedly discriminated against by the Agriculture Department. Department loan officers supposedly did the opposite of what Shirley Sherrod was accused of:   they granted government-subsidized farm loans to whites but not to blacks.

Government shouldn’t be giving out government subsidized loans to anyone.  But that’s another story for another time.

When some black farmers sued, claiming discrimination, the USDA agreed to pay $50,000 to every black person who was discriminated against.

According to the census, there were 18,000 black farmers in the country when the lawsuit was filed. But 97,000 black “farmers” have applied for the money. (more…)

It sounds like a mythic tale of heroic salvation: A former Republican congressman with a fierce reputation as a cost-cutter comes out of retirement, runs for governor of one of the largest states in the country, and is swept into office by an anti-incumbent, anti-spending wave. Frustrated voters also give the new governor’s party control of both houses in the state’s legislature.

He promises to tackle a historic deficit by slashing spending in his first budget and then…tries to jack up spending by 11 percent during his first two years in office?

If the state of Ohio – “the Heart of it All” according to the state’s license plates – is a political weathervane, then Gov. John Kasich’s first proposed budget represents an ill wind for fiscal responsibility.

Kasich won a narrow victory in November by promising to create a business climate that would grow the state’s shrinking private sector, which has bled nearly 600,000 jobs since 2000. He inherited a historic $8 billion deficit, a consequence of out-of-control spending that spiked outlays by 41 percent in inflation-adjusted dolars since 1990. (That huge bump, incidentally, happened mostly under Republican legislators.)

To call Kasich’s opening budget a massive disappointment to the small-government proponents and Tea Party types who put him in office is an understatement.

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One of the big unspoken fights in Wisconsin over these past few weeks has been Scott Walker’s proposal for the state to stop collecting union dues for the unions. The other has been to make paying union dues voluntary, as opposed to requiring payment as a condition of employment. To unions, that is like cutting their oxygen off. Unions cannot survive without the millions they pull in from workers and, if they had their druthers, union bosses would rather see workers fired than have them refuse to pay union dues.

Generally speaking, there are three ways for unions to collect union dues. The first is that union bosses can chase their members down on payday with their hands out; the second is that members can send the union its dues (or pay it in person); and, the third is that unions can convince employers to withhold the union dues from the members’ paychecks (employers then send the money to the unions). In this last case, which known as “dues check off,” employers becomes the unions’ dues collection agency. It is very common and, of course, union bosses love not having to spend the resources going to collect their own dues.

Well, earlier today, the Florida State House voted to stop the state from being unions’ dues collection agency. (more…)

Just how radical have some Wisconsin Democrats become? Just how far into the morass of leftist rhetoric have they plunged?

They’ve managed to impress of one of the leaders of the Communist Party USA.

The heated rhetoric and aggressive attitude of some Democratic lawmakers in Wisconsin has surprised many, even revolutionaries, says a leader of the Communist Party USA. CPUSA Vice Chairman Scott Marshall says he’s never seen such radicalization of legislators. In a recent online town hall meeting, Marshall indicated it is imperative that the Communist Party USA seize upon the unrest fomented by the newly radicalized lawmakers.

A week ago President Obama, without Congressional approval, committed our armed forces to an international conflict in the nation of Libya.  Today Congressman Amash (R-Mich) and I are introducing the RECLAIM Act to reclaim Congressional authority to declare war that is so clearly proscribed in Article One, Section Eight of the Constitution; we urge all members to join our effort.  Under the guise of the War Powers Resolution of 1973, President Obama claimed the United States must intervene to “prevent a humanitarian catastrophe and address the threat posed to international peace and security by the crisis in Libya.” While those aims are laudable, we cannot intervene everywhere we find injustice.  Constitutionally, it is indisputable that Congress must be consulted prior to an act of war unless there is an imminent threat against this country. The President has not done so.  Approval from the Arab League, the EU, and United Nations does not mean the American people approve.

The RECLAIM Act does two simple things:  ceases the use of force in, or directed at, the country of Libya by our Armed forces and halts all use of funds used in the force against the country of Libya.  This bill DOES NOT allow an open-ended conflict.  It DOES NOT leave us vulnerable to a “Tonkin Gulf”, “Nueces Strip” or a “Black Hawk Down” situation, meaning, it does not leave the United States armed forces in a vulnerable situation to be attacked, thus forcing our hand to retaliate.  We’ve already come too close, with one plane having crash-landed—what if those pilots had died or ended up in enemy hands?

Not only are these actions unconstitutional, they are unfathomable when we are facing a $14 trillion debt.  The first night of this attack, we fired 112 Tomahawk missiles. Each of these missiles can cost up to $1.5 million. That’s $168 million for one night’s assault. Libya is more than four times the size of Iraq; we spent $2.1 billion a year enforcing a no fly zone there.  Estimates to maintain the no-fly zone can cost $100 million to $300 million per week.  We cannot afford another open ended conflict overseas.

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On March 23rd we went to the Atlas Shrugged movie premiere at the Heritage Foundation in Washington DC. Afterward we were able to catch up with producer Harmon Kaslow and several people who attended the premiere. Here is what they had to say about the movie.

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When President George W. Bush announced the beginnings of the Iraq War on March 19, 2003, he said: “American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.” He then oversaw a military campaign in which the United States fought along side nearly 36 other countries – coalition forces – in a bid to oust the late Saddam Hussein.

Before making this announcement, Bush received congressional approval for the use of force in Iraq. (Which is when an upstart Senator from Illinois named Barack Obama “criticized…Bush for not asking Congress for a formal declaration of war.”)

Because Bush was successful in Iraq, as he had been Afghanistan, liberals feared that he might move against Iran. And they knew that success in Iran would mark a trifecta for Bush wherein the use of force would prove not just a viable option, but the best option for dealing with tyrants and terrorists throughout the world. (Pragmatically, Democrats also knew that the 2008 elections might not go their way if the Republicans had another successful military campaign of which to boast.)

So Democrats threw every obstacle they could find in Bush’s way. In November 2007, Senator Obama introduced S.J.Res.23, requiring that “any offensive military action taken by the United States against Iran must be explicitly authorized by Congress.” Then, in December 2007, he said: “[the] president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.”

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From The Hill:

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) this week released a report that said taxing people based on how many miles they drive is a possible option for raising new revenues and that these taxes could be used to offset the costs of highway maintenance at a time when federal funds are short.

The report discussed the proposal in great detail, including the development of technology that would allow total vehicle miles traveled (VMT) to be tracked, reported and taxed, as well as the pros and cons of mandating the installation of this technology in all vehicles.

“In the past, the efficiency costs of implementing a system of VMT charges — particularly the costs of users’ time for slowing and queuing at tollbooths — would clearly have outweighed the potential benefits from more efficient use of highway capacity,” CBO wrote. “Now, electronic metering and billing are making per-mile charges a practical option.”

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President Obama’s hometown of Chicago is nearly 1,000 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. But like many other communities across the country, it is suffering the consequences of his Administration’s anti-drilling agenda.

Illinois accounted for $376.2 million in shallow-water drilling expenditures over the past three years, according to an analysis by 14 oil and gas companies that spend money on vendors and subcontractors. The bulk of that money—$242.2 million—was spent in the Chicago district represented by Representative Danny Davis (D–IL).

It’s fresh evidence that Obama’s anti-drilling agenda is having a ripple effect across America since last year’s oil spill, claiming jobs not just in Louisiana and Texas but also in communities far removed from the shipyards in the Gulf of Mexico.

The study from the Shallow Water Energy Security Coalition paints a picture of the nationwide economic ramifications. Obama can’t even be blamed for playing politics. Five of the states that benefit most from shallow-water drilling backed him as a candidate in 2008. And Democrats represent many of the congressional districts that stand to lose millions.

The cost in jobs is startling. A new analysis by Louisiana State University professor Joseph Mason projects national job losses at 19,000 from the drilling moratorium, with wage losses at $1.1 billion. About one-third of those jobs are located outside the Gulf region.

Nearly a year after imposing his anti-drilling agenda, it’s quite clear that Obama is carrying out misguided policies causing widespread harm.

And job losses aren’t the only consequence. The Obama Administration’s deliberate delay in issuing permits for both deepwater and shallow-water drilling has led to a sharp decline in oil production for the Gulf of Mexico this year. The U.S. Energy Information Administration puts the figure at 240,000 fewer barrels every day.

With gas prices hovering around $3.56 per gallon nationwide, now is not the time to lower production. The only way to reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil is to produce more of it here at home.

The recent approval of new drilling permits for the Gulf of Mexico is a welcome and long overdue move by the Administration, but it’s nothing to celebrate. The pace of permitting is far below the historical average, and there’s no indication that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) has any desire to return production to a pre-spill level.

Until that happens, expect more grim news like the unfortunate circumstances facing Seahawk Drilling, which was forced to declare Chapter 11 bankruptcy, a direct result of the bureaucratic delays at BOEMRE. Seahawk’s president and chief executive Randy Stilley, writing in The Washington Post, painted a dire picture:

The government’s drastic slowdown in the issuance of permits for shallow-water drilling operations—in which companies work in familiar geological formations, typically in less than 500 feet of water, mostly seeking to produce natural gas—has all but crippled the industry. The survivors (for now) like Hercules are staying afloat largely thanks to revenue from operations outside U.S. waters. Put another way, a once-proud industry born in the gulf during the Truman administration can no longer survive on operations in its own back yard.

Unless things change soon, Seahawk Drilling won’t be alone. Businesses located in Illinois, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, California, and New York—top recipients of shallow-water drilling spending—will all face economic consequences as well.

It’s time for lawmakers to take notice. Representative John Sullivan (R–OK), who represents a district with $87.2 million in shallow-water expenditures over the past three years, recognizes the impact. He told us: “Continuing to keep American sources of energy under lock and key by failing to issue drilling permits only serves to place American jobs at risk, drives up costs at the pump and deepens our dependence on foreign oil.”

Things don’t have to be this way. The House of Representatives must continue to conduct rigorous oversight of the Obama Administration, challenging the Administration’s excuses and applying pressure when necessary. America’s energy future depends on it.

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Francis Cianfrocca are joined by Dan Mitchell to discuss the Federal reserve, free banking, monetary policy 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:

Time to End the Fed? The Origin of Central Banking and Possible Alternatives
End the Fed: More than Just a Bumper Sticker Slogan?
Dan Mitchell and the CATO Institute
Dan’s Blog: International Liberty

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Van Jones (Photo East Bay Express via zTruth)

When Obama administration Green jobs czar Anthony “Van” K. Jones resigned late Saturday night, September 5, 2009 over the long Labor Day weekend, a storm of breaking news about his radical anti-American history was being reported by conservative bloggers. One such storm was about the racist, hate-America rally Van Jones held the day after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on the United States where speakers cheered the attacks and Jones himself said America deserved it.

World Net Daily was first to report on the rally, on August 28, 2009.

However, it was Powerline’s post the evening of September 3rd (and expanded on at Free Republic), hours before Jones’ resignation was announced, that included the first mention of what Jones said at the rally. The Powerline article was based on a leftwing report made at the time of the rally.

A YouTube video of the rally reported on by BizzyBlog on September 8th captures some of Jones’ remarks at the rally. (The quote from Jones is similar in nature to that quoted in the leftwing article. However, no context is given so Jones could have said both lines, or been accurately characterized but misquoted.)

Jones is featured twice at the end of the five minute video. BizzyBlog transcribed his comments:

(4:38) “It’s the bombs that the government has been dropping around the world that are now blowing up inside the U.S. borders.”

And:

“We’ve got something stronger than bombs, we have solidarity. That dream of revolutionary change is stronger than bombs.”

One unidentified speaker on the video praised the 9-11 attackers as heroes (transcribed by Kristinn Taylor).

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From Reboot Congress:

MORE (Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment) and other leftists held meetings in 2010 to plan their strategy for squatting on properties in the St. Louis area. The video above introduces some of their leaders. A future video will outline MORE’s longterm strategy to acquire residential property through extralegal means like squatting.

Who or what is MORE, you may be wondering. When ACORN was put out of business, the local chapters re-branded themselves. St. Louis’s ACORN chapter became MORE. Even after the re-branding MORE still has ties to communist organizations.

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The $7.2 billion broadband portion of the federal government’s nearly $1 trillion “stimulus” law has been counterproductive and destructive from the moment President Barack Obama signed it.  There are myriad examples of these mountains of money being spent terribly.

Well, behold perhaps the worst – Lake County in northern Minnesota.

Lake County wanted to get in on the government broadband gravy train.  So they hired to put together their proposal the highly problematic Tim Nulty. His company, National Public Broadband, had already blown up a similar untenable government Internet project in Burlington, Vermont.

Why do I say the Lake County plan is untenable?  Because the numbers simply don’t add up.

Lake County’s total population is only 11,058 – which means at most about 7,000 homes to which to potentially sell broadband. To up that tally, Lake County added to the plan parts of neighboring Saint Louis County.  Thereby placing Lake residents on the hook for the nearly $60 million in federal loans – much of which would be spent not on them, but in Saint Louis.

This dubious move brought the total number of homes to-be-potentially-served to about 15,000.

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When Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) announced Tuesday that he will hold a hearing next week in the Senate Judiciary Committee on the civil rights of American Muslims, everyone thought it was a joke. No other group gets the extraordinary, unconstitutional special status that Muslims enjoy. The Muslim Brotherhood, an organization whose stated goal is to destroy and eliminate America from within, has accessed and secured extraordinary power at senior levels of the Executive branch, the Department of Justice, Department of Defense, State Department, Homeland Security, etc.

One can point to Alger Hiss or Benedict Arnold for like historical antecedents. The difference between then and now is that we didn’t know that Hiss et al were seditionists whose objective was to overthrow the government. We know who and what the Brotherhood is, but the political elites, the chattering classes and the media elites have taken up their considerable weapons against those who are exposing this century’s Nazis.

Dick Durbin’s hearing – with the Orwellian title “Protecting the Civil Rights of American Muslims” – is intended to serve as a counterpunch to the much more sensible and logical (although still toothless, as I explained here and here) House Homeland Security Committee hearing led by Chairman Peter King (R-NY) two weeks ago on the radicalization of Muslims in the U.S. Senator Durbin’s press release announcing the hearing said that it was being triggered by a non-existent “spike in anti-Muslim bigotry in the last year.” Apparently, the numerous acts of terrorism committed by American Muslims, and the warnings that have even come from the Obama Administration about the homegrown radicalization of Islamic jihadists, are to be deliberately ignored in deference to Islamic demands and supremacism.

In my previous oped piece on the Durbin debacle, I thought that a hearing on “Muslim rights” would be a good idea if it addressed the increasing surrender of secular law to Islamic law, and the assertion of Islamic supremacism over the rights of all others. We need hearings on the Florida circuit court judge who just ruled that a case be decided according to Sharia law. We need hearings on the special rights being afforded Muslims at the expense of everyone else. We need hearings on the Obama Justice Department’s suing a school district for not allowing a Muslim woman to take nearly three weeks off during the school year to go on a pilgrimage to Mecca.

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The Obama Administration has proclaimed TARP and the subsequent bailout for General Motors a great success. US Treasury Deputy Timothy Massad recently said, “Where we are today shows that the program, by any reasonably objective measure, was a success.” But is GM, now much derided as “Government Motors” the success that Obama says it is? Facts don’t argue in Obama’s favor.

First of all, we must dispense with the whole idea that a benevolent Obama played sugar daddy to “save” GM and did so without too much meddling with the company. Despite the claims that it is “back” and back in private hands, We The People still own 33% of GM. But government ownership is deeper than the a mere calculated percentage. You see, GM’s Board and its CEO were all placed in their positions by Obama, his czars and advisers. Worse, none of them have any experience at all in the auto industry.

Obama’s GM CEO, Dan Akerson, is not a “car guy” — as he himself admitted. Akerson’s experience is as a Wall Street hedge fund operator not an auto industry exec. He was also a player at the politically connected Carlyle Group and was the firm’s Managing Director.

Being a hedge fund guy, Akerson is much more familiar with short term, high risk investing practices as opposed to the long term thinking needed to run a car company.

Worse, Akerson has a history of running failing companies. Akerson was CEO of at least two companies that went into bankruptcy.

[Akerson] was until May of 2008 Chairman of the Board of Hawaiian Telecom – the company declared bankruptcy just seven months after his departure. He was also the CEO of XO Communications when it went bankrupt in December 2002.

Akerson isn’t the only non-car guy placed inside GM at Obama’s behest. By 2010, the federal government had replaced 10 of GM’s 11 board members with government appointees. Once again, none have any automotive industry experience.

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