We’re been posting clips for months but this is the first ‘rough cut’ look at a real sequence from the documentary tentatively titled “Pigford Blues”. I’ll say it again; it’s a rough cut.

But this glimpse does answer some questions about Dr. John Boyd.

In 2009, attorney Rose Sanders – who represented Shirley Sherrod – said this about “Dr.” John Boyd,…

Less than two years ago, I attended meetings by John Boyd where he and his attorneys were soliciting contracts from hundreds of eligible and ineligible claimants before the Pigford II legislation was passed in Congress. These contracts obligated citizens to pay 1/3 of their recovery to John Boyd’s attorneys plus expenses. Expenses had to be paid even if the claimant was unsuccessful. I objected to these outrageous contracts. Boyd’s claim that his April 28th protest is inspired by his concern for Black Farmers must be questioned.

That’s a serious charge Ms. Sanders is making and shows a clear example of black people being taken advantage of by Boyd and the lawyers he was working with.

(more…)

Could it really only be 100 days?

Indeed, it has been just over three months since Republican Scott Walker took the oath of office as the Governor of Wisconsin. Now known across the country as the maverick who had the nerve to take on the powerful government employee unions in only his first month in office (or by opponents as the union busting supply sider), the mild-manner preacher’s son was off to a fast start in the weeks before he proposed sweeping changes to the collective bargaining power of public employees.

Before he even took office, Walker surprised many when he turned down $800 million in federal transportation funding for a high speed rail project he had said during the campaign that the state did not need and could not afford to maintain.

Immediately upon taking the oath of office, he called the legislature into special session; getting both houses (now brimming with newly-minted GOP majorities) straight to work on economic development proposals.  Several of his bills passed with bipartisan support. and became law by the middle of February.  These included passing long standing GOP initiatives like tort reform and HSA incentives to new proposals like revamping the state’s Commerce department into a public-private economic development agency.

And then, he proposed curbing the powers of public employee unions….

(more…)

Today, in 2006, Gov. Mitt Romney signed into law RomneyCare, his health care ‘reform’ plan. It provided the foundation for ObamaCare. Romney drew from the guidance of the ‘conservative’ Heritage Foundation to  enact an individual mandate, backed by the power of the state,  to purchase health insurance. Romney wants now to be President and the Heritage Foundation (who also supported TARP) wants to lead the conservative movement. Color us unimpressed.

“Who is John Galt?”

On the week Atlas Shrugged Part 1 hits the theaters, Reason.tv goes behind the scenes to speak with the people both on and off the silver screen to explore the mysterious question that haunts the world of Ayn Rand’s epic, Atlas Shrugged.

(more…)

We received an email invitation to the “We Are One” labor union solidarity protest from Alex Armour, Political Director, for Illinois 9th District Congress Woman, Democrat Jan Schakowsky and decided to attend. Alex was on hand and “one” with the protesters, as you can see from our footage.

We have noticed an alarming message, prevalent at every single left wing protest we have attended this year in Chicago and the Midwest. While each protest has an official message of a seemingly less alarming cause, such as; Anti-War, Anti-Deportation or “We Are One” with “Union Solidarity”, there is also an extremely disturbing trend of blatant and obvious promotion of a revolutionary transformation of America into a new socialist or communist type of economic system.

While Tea Parties have received massive amounts of ridicule for being so called “Astro-Turf” (corporate funded) from the institutional left and mainstream media, left wing protesters claim the moral high ground of being a “true” grassroots movement. However once again, our footage reveals an extremely elaborate and costly production put on by these so called “true” grassroots activists. This particular protest had at least hundreds of protesters bussed in on at least 12 school busses we counted taking up two city blocks in downtown Chicago, and an audio/video system that could outdo many local rock concerts at Chicago’s infamous summer street fairs. It seems unlikely that there is no “Astro-Turf” funding for these nationwide protests that occurred this past Saturday.

(more…)

Google’s growing influence with government is beginning to pay dividends for the company while leaving consumers and taxpayers on the short end of the stick.

Since donating over $1 million to the president’s campaign and building its online presence and fundraising base, the company has reaped continued returns on their investment, so much so, that Google’s former CEO is rumored to be on the shortlist to be the nation’s new Secretary of Commerce.

In order to pad its bottom line, Google made a conscious effort to grow its influence in Washington by hiring insiders and placing Google executives in the Administration. In a short period of time, Google has been rewarded with over 25 contracts with government agencies including the NASA, the Pentagon and the National Security Agency.

(more…)

No wonder Chicago Public Schools have a dropout rate near 50%: now the government school system is telling kids what to eat.

Fearing that mother’s lunches will be inferior to bureaucrats’, Chicago schools are now banning lunches brought from home.  And kids ain’t happy about it.  The Chicago Tribune reports:

Fernando Dominguez cut the figure of a young revolutionary leader during a recent lunch period at his elementary school.

“Who thinks the lunch is not good enough?” the seventh-grader shouted to his lunch mates in Spanish and English.

Dozens of hands flew in the air and fellow students shouted along: “We should bring our own lunch! We should bring our own lunch! We should bring our own lunch!”

Fernando waved his hand over the crowd and asked a visiting reporter: “Do you see the situation?”

The last thing failing schools should be worrying about is what kids are eating for lunch.  With miserable track records at educating children, how can we expect them to get nutritional needs right?

Government schools do not run our lives.  Some things should still be sacred including, yes, a home-packed lunch.

(more…)

In Nevada last week, one ACORN employee told authorities that the organization paid “lazy crack heads” and convicted felons to register voters in the 2008 elections. In fact, owing to this corrupt and criminal process, nearly the entire Dallas Cowboys football team registered to vote in Nevada that year. (A warrant to search ACORN’s facilities tells the full story.)

And what is the price ACORN will be forced to pay for violating our nation’s election laws so egregiously? Not more than $5,000. And no jail time for any ACORN leaders.

Our Corruption Chronicles blogger Irene Garcia reported:

The criminal enterprise that Obama’s Justice Department refuses to investigate despite extensive evidence of fraud and corruption is guilty of a felony in yet another state.

It marks the latest of many legal defeats for the Chicago-based community group known as ACORN, famous for illegal voter registration drives, embezzling federal funds and a tight knit relationship with the president. In fact, Obama once worked at ACORN and the group’s massive campaign drives helped him get elected in 2008.

Facing more than a dozen felony charges in Nevada, ACORN pleaded guilty to one count this week for illegally paying canvassers to register voters during the 2008 presidential campaign. The deal means that ACORN will avoid going to trial, which was scheduled for later this month in Las Vegas. A judge will determine the sentence on August 10, according to a spokeswoman for the Nevada Attorney General’s office, the prosecuting agency.

Since ACORN is a corporation, it will only be fined and there will be no prison term, the Attorney General’s spokeswoman told Judicial Watch. The fine is expected to be a maximum of $5,000. In November the ACORN supervisor overseeing the illicit Nevada voter registration scheme pleaded no contest to two counts of conspiracy.

ACORN has a long, sordid history of election fraud and questionable hiring and training practices. The group has been busted for forging voter registration applications in key battleground states and submitting falsified forms in more than half a dozen others. In 2007 ACORN settled the largest case of voter fraud in the history of Washington State after seven workers were caught submitting about 2,000 fake registration forms.

ACORN’s sordid record prompted California Representative Darrell Issa to label the group a “criminal enterprise.” (Rep. Issa is now Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.)

(more…)

The other day it was announced that a well known, mega-company discovered a new way to destroy antibiotic resistant bacteria, such as MRSA.  Using nanoparticle technology – which is 50,000 times smaller than a hair’s width – the company’s researchers were able to target an electrical charge on the bacteria’s surface, bursting the membrane open to bring about its demise.

According to the Wall Street Journal, “if successful, [the discovery] would offer a fresh strategy against a worrisome public-health problem of possibly deadly bacteria evolving to become impervious to antibiotics.”   Nearly 19,000 people in the U.S. each year die from drug-resistant MRSA.  Needless to say, this could be a big breakthrough.

Was it Pfizer, Bayer, Merck / Schering-Plough or one of the other great pharmaceutical companies that made the huge discovery?

No.

It was Big Blue – IBM – one of the world’s largest IT firms.

So what, you might say.

Well, we talk a lot about innovation and discovery like it’s just simple math.  And when we see the results, we say, “Oh, yeah, I see.  It’s obvious how ‘x’ could be.”   Yet, when it gets down to it, a lot of discovery is art, accidental, and non-linear.

IBM makes mainframes, software, and provides IT services to individuals and companies across the globe. Though the company has been working on nanotechnology for years, who could have predicted they’d be combating MRSA?  It’s not a drug company.  But, today, it looks like it is (or certainly could be).

This non-linear, man-bites-dog discoverer – IBM as pharma company – holds an important lesson for regulators of technology.

(more…)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Download Podcast | iTunes | Podcast Feed

On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Francis Cianfrocca to discuss the Tim Pawlenty’s hiring of Nick Ayers and the budget compromise that was reached on Friday night.

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:

Tim Pawlenty lands a presidential campaign manager
Erick Erickson: The Compromise
It’s as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced.”
Democrats will yield on everything but abortion
Obama Puts Taxes on Table
(more…)

Canadians will go to the polls on May 2nd to elect a Prime Minister.  The election has gained almost no attention in the U.S. but one candidate suddenly has a very American problem.

As reported in the Toronto Sun, Michael Ignatieff, the Liberal Party candidate for Prime Minister stated in a 2004 interview with a U.K. journalist:

“I am an American Democrat. I will vote for Kerry in November.”

Ignatieff, a professor at Harvard University, was living in Cambridge, MA at the time.  He had been away from Canada for over 30 years, having arrived at Harvard as a graduate student in 1969. In the 70s he moved to the UK, but eventually found his way back to Cambridge and settled in as an academic.  He became so settled that it was a shock to many in Canada when returned in 2005 and announced his intention to run for Parliament.  Many questioned if he was a U.S. citizen.  Feeling the pressure, Ignatieff told the Toronto Star, ”

“I’ve never been a citizen of any other country.  Nor was I a green card holder in the United States.”

If that is true, then voting in the U.S. was illegal. And a professor at the Kennedy School of Government would have known that.

A conviction for illegal voting in Massachusetts carries a penalty of up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.  For each time that he voted.

(more…)

I’m not a big fan of the Girl Scouts of America, because I think the organization — at least on the national level — has skewed far to the left since the days, decades ago, when my older sisters wore the uniforms with green sashes. Still, I felt obligated to share the story below which, in my view, constitutes an assault on individual freedom.

Each February and March for the past six years, Caitlin Mills, 16, and Abigail Mills, 14, have put a card table in front of their home in Hazelwood, Mo., and sold Girl Scout cookies to drivers passing by. This year, however, city officials in the St. Louis suburb notified their mother, Carolyn Mills, that the girls’ cookie stand violated city ordinances and must be shut down.

According to a recent news release from Freedom Center of Missouri, the Mills family — but not the Girl Scouts of America as they are not involved in the case — filed suit in state court to ensure that children in Hazelwood and all over the state will be free to set up similar stands in their own front yards.

“It is a time-honored tradition for American children to set up a stand in the front yard and sell lemonade or baked goods to people passing by,” said Dave Roland, Freedom Center of Missouri director of litigation. “These stands are not only a fun way to pass a summer afternoon, they are frequently children’s first encounter with the basics of entrepreneurship, customer service, and money management.”

Notice of the city’s move to shut down the cookie-selling stand came as a surprise to Mrs. Mills.

(more…)

I’m not a big fan of the IRS, but usually I blame politicians for America’s corrupt, unfair, and punitive tax system. Sometimes, though, the tax bureaucrats run amok and earn their reputation as America’s most despised bureaucracy.

Here’s an example. Earlier this year, the Internal Revenue Service proposed a regulation that would force American banks to become deputy tax collectors for foreign governments. Specifically, they would be required to report any interest they pay to accounts held by nonresident aliens (a term used for foreigners who live abroad).

The IRS issued this proposal, even though Congress repeatedly has voted not to tax this income because of an understandable desire to attract job-creating capital to the U.S. economy. In other words, the IRS is acting like a rogue bureaucracy, seeking to overturn laws enacted through the democratic process.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The IRS’s interest-reporting regulation also threatens the stability of the American banking system, makes America less attractive for foreign investors, and weakens the human rights of people who live under corrupt and tyrannical governments.

This Center for Freedom and Prosperity video outlines five specific reason why the IRS regulation is bad news and should be withdrawn.

I’m not sure what upsets me most. As a believer in honest and lawful government, it is outrageous that the IRS is abusing the regulatory process to pursue an ideological agenda that is contrary to 90 years of congressional law.

(more…)

The public has a right to know who or what is influencing its government.  Open Records and Freedom of Information laws are critical to ensuring a transparent and accountable government.  Taxpayers deserve to know how their hard-earned money is being spent.  And we ought to know who is massaging legislation or prodding elected officials’ actions.

That’s why Education Action Group, a Michigan-based national education reform organization, submitted an Open Records request to Dane County (Wisconsin) District Attorney Ismael Ozanne to obtain any and all communications he had surrounding litigation to block Gov. Scott Walker’s budget repair bill.

A district attorney traditionally focuses on crime at the local level.  EAG saw it as highly unusual that a DA would seek to block – and effectively void – an action by a state legislature.  Who or what pushed him to do this?

Is he the Mr. Washington of Wisconsin?  Or did Big Labor urge him and work with him to block the necessary reform?

It’s EAG’s intention to find out and we’re serious about it.  That’s why we hired Paul Bucher, a Wisconsin lawyer who himself was a district attorney for 27 years.  In addition to Ozanne, EAG is also seeking communications of Dane County Executive Kathleen M. Falk, who also filed suit to block the law from taking effect.

(more…)

This week, President Barack Obama will take a break from his golf game to address the nation on his plans to trim the budget deficit. Fiscal conservatism is the new black, it seems. We’re guessing his cuts won’t be as ambitious as those unveiled last week by Rep. Paul Ryan.