From S.E. Cupp in the New York Daily News:

The sign outside the ballroom was matter-of-fact: “Unsigned $20. Signed $15. No Haggling.”
That matter-of-fact sign was next to a matter-of-fact pile of books, which sat on a matter-of-fact folding table. And sitting behind it was a matter-of-fact man, whom you might walk right past without so much as a glance.

That’s too bad, because he could become the next President of the United States.

The man was Michigan Rep. Thaddeus McCotter, and he was signing copies of his new book, “Seize Freedom! American Truths and Renewal in a Chaotic Age,” outside the Conservative Principles Conference in Des Moines late last month. When he addressed the crowd later in the day, he told them that he drove the 17-hour round trip from Detroit alone because, “If you spent 81/2 hours in a car with me, it would violate the Geneva Convention.”

It’s that uncomfortably understated, almost dour and definitely unique sense of humor that has made him a favorite not of the esteemed Sunday talk shows (although he does those, too), but of a late-night comedy show on Fox News called “Red Eye With Greg Gutfeld.” Gutfeld has written, “In my mind, he’s one of the few pols who seem less interested in impressing celebrities or making cheap points of sentimentality than preserving the freedoms unique to our delightful island nation.” (more…)

As I was transcribing the undercover audio we have of Tom Burrell, President of the Black Farmers Agricultural Association, Inc. speaking to an all-black audience in Monroe Louisiana this past January , something suddenly jumped out at me. I knew that Burrell was using a number of persuasive techniques such as peer pressure and stirring up feelings of racial victimization but his reason for doing so had danced around the edge of my consciousness.

Then I realized what Burrell is doing is absolutely classic confidence game behavior. Last year, I read Eric Garcia’s excellent con game novel Matchstick Men and of course I’ve seen classic 1970s con man movies like The Sting and Paper Moon. One major trick that conmen use is to get their victim – the mark — to become their “partner” in some sort of borderline unethical or illegal activity. “Hey, that guy dropped his wallet – what do you say you and I split the money, pal?” This ensures that once the victim has been fleeced, that they’re very unlikely to tell the authorities or anyone else what happened.

One way to listen to this audio is to think about the taxpayers who are being ripped off by people filing fraudulent claims that earn them a $50,000 check. That’s one of the bad things about Pigford and it obviously has affected taxpayers, both black and white.

But there’s another way to hear the audio, as well — everyone who Burrell is trying to convince and cajole into committing fraud is also a victim of Burrell’s game. His goal is to get as many people to give him $100 a year as he can and when I interviewed him, Burrell told me that the BFAA Inc. has nearly 10,000 members. Do the math and you’ll see that he is playing a very profitable game, indeed.

The first video gives a few examples of con game techniques that Tom Burrell uses on the crowd.

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There’s something fishy going on over there at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). And Judicial Watch is trying to get to the bottom of it.

On April 14, Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against DHS to obtain records detailing its investigation of Carlos Martinelly-Montano. This is the illegal alien who is charged with striking and killing a Virginia Benedictine nun in a drunk driving accident on August 1, 2010.

Judicial Watch obtained an internal DHS report on the Martinelly-Montano investigation in response to a previous lawsuit. But now we want to get our hands on all communications between the DHS and the Obama White House, as well as internal DHS records regarding the investigation and the report.

Specifically, here’s what we’ve asked for pursuant to a February 16, 2011, FOIA request:

• Any and all records of communications, contacts, or correspondence with the White House and/or Executive Office of the President concerning a report/memorandum prepared at the direction of the United States Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, related to Carlos Martinelly-Montano, an unlawfully present alien charged with killing a Benedictine nun and injuring two others in a August 2010 drunk driving incident in Prince William County, Virginia for the period of October 1, 2010 through February 15, 2011.
• Any and all records of communications, contacts, or correspondence within the Department of Homeland Security concerning a report/memorandum prepared at the direction of the Unite States Secretary for Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, related to Carlos Martinelly-Montano for the period of October 1, 2010 through February 15, 2011.

In a letter dated February 24, 2011, DHS indicated that it received Judicial Watch’s request on February 17, 2011. DHS was required to respond by March 17, 2011. However, to date, DHS has failed to produce responsive documents or indicate when a response is forthcoming. In other words, the typical Obama stonewall.

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From National Journal’s Hotline:

A new Gallup/USA Today poll contains a counterintuitive finding: the age group most receptive to House Budget Chair Paul Ryan’s plan to deal with the budget – seniors.

The poll finds 48 percent of seniors (those 65 and over) support Ryan’s plan over President Obama’s plan, while 42 percent back the president.

That’s the highest total among the age groups tested – a 47 percent plurality between the ages of 50 and 64 backed Ryan, and a 45 percent plurality of those between 30-49 backed Ryan. But young voters overwhelmingly sided with Obama by a 23-point margin, 53 to 30 percent.

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Those of the Left rarely like to admit or acknowledge that they are of the Left.

Witness their repeated vacillations on what they call themselves.  It was “progressive” – until people figured out what that meant and loathed it.

So they bastardized the classical definition of “liberal” – until people found out what they meant by that and loathed it.

So they are now back to “progressive” – hoping that no one remembers how much they loathed it the last go ‘round.

So too is it with the Leftist grievance groups.  The assemblages that exist aren’t really to promote their alleged agenda items – but to grow government, and demonize and silence those who stand opposed to their so doing.

To give you but one example of this misdirection, let us consider the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).  The name says it all, right?  They purport to stand for the “Advancement of Colored People.”

But they really do not.

(more…)

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson is joined by Pejman Yousefzadeh and Elizabeth Blackney to debate whether or not Obama should have intervened in Libya, what the real reasons for our involvement are, and who’s to blame when the operation goes awry.

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.

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Remember That Timely Debate About Libya Policy That We Never Had?
Between Sudan and Libya, Critics See U.S. Inconsistency
How the Arab Spring remade Obama’s foreign policy

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NBBP Rally - screen shot from First Coast News report

The New Black Panthers’ much-heralded “National Day of Action and Unity” came to pass this Saturday, April 23^rd, 2011. As the Party’s spokesman Dr. Malik Zulu Shabazz (aka Paris Lewis) said: “We must have justice, or else!” According to their website, these marches and protests were planned for “Over 60 cities in America, Africa and Worldwide…” They elaborated:

April 23^rd, 2011 we are taking vigilantly to the streets, police stations, projects, courthouses, State Capitols, houses of racists, morgues, jails and anywhere our people can be found and the fight can be found for justice!  We will rattle the enemy and those who are asleep to show and prove the world we are wide-awake!

We are grassroots activists, youths, residents, union members, community residents,  spiritual people, revolutionaries and freedom fighters who have decided to take a stand together April 23^rd. The call of Dr. Malik Zulu Shabazz has resonated with the disillusioned all over the earth…

Therefore, our demand is an immediate, non-negotiable demand for Power, Human Rights, Freedom, Justice, Equality and Self Determination for Black Peoples. Our demand is for a Nation and world of our own, with Africaas our Free and Independent motherland. All of the above must be achieved by any means necessary.

This was apparently an incredible event. Speeches by famous black radicals marked the event Nationwide, inspiring chants from the teeming proletariat there to share their outrage.

• Listen to the breathless CBS News report all about it HERE.
• ABC chimed in with a similar heart-stopping exposé HERE.
• Not to be outdone, NBC and its cable sister MSNBC, filed their own report, HERE.
• Finally, the veritable CNN broadcast its own last word on this worldwide event HERE.

Okay maybe not.

(more…)

It seems Gov. Scott Walker’s ideas are catching on, even in Massachusetts. From Boston.com:

House lawmakers voted overwhelmingly last night to strip police officers, teachers, and other municipal employees of most of their rights to bargain over health care, saying the change would save millions of dollars for financially strapped cities and towns.

The 111-to-42 vote followed tougher measures to broadly eliminate collective bargaining rights for public employees in Ohio, Wisconsin, and other states. But unlike those efforts, the push in Massachusetts was led by Democrats who have traditionally stood with labor to oppose any reduction in workers’ rights.

(more…)

From the Associated Press:

birth-certificate-long-form

The White House released the long form of President Barack Obama’s birth certificate Wednesday in response to questions about whether he was really born in the U.S.

The certificate says Obama was born in Hawaii, which makes him eligible to hold the office of president. Obama had earlier released a standard short form, but requested copies of his original birth certificate from Hawaii officials this week in hopes of quieting the controversy.

(more…)

In yet another union-styled outrage, Democrats backed by union thugs in Wisconsin are using the personal information of voters found on recall petitions to harass them because they signed a petition to recall Green Bay Democrat State Senator Dave Hansen.

Over the last few weeks thousands of Wisconsin voters signed a recall petition in Green Bay to recall Hansen and when voters sign such petitions they must give their address and phone numbers so that authorities can verify the voter’s signature in order to approve the petition. Now it seems that the Wisconsin Democrat Party has gotten hold of these petitions and have begun a telephone harassment campaign against the individual voters that signed the petitions.

The Wisconsin GOP has discovered this disgusting campaign and have found that the Democrats are using a fake phone number and a fake caller ID in order to get voters to answer the phone only to be harangued about having signed the recall petition.

The Democratic Party has targeted for harassment people who signed recall petitions against Senator Hansen, making calls on beginning on Monday April 25th using a fake phone number and caller ID that showed up on phones as “Bay Care Aurora,” a well-known Green Bay area medical center. Once recall supporters answered the phone, they were told they were speaking with a Democrat Party of Wisconsin operative, and were questioned about signing a petition to recall Hansen.

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One of the things I’ve always liked about charter schools is they aren’t bound by onerous labor agreements that hamper innovation.  Traditional public schools get boxed in with union contracts that literally stipulate when a teacher arrives in the morning and when he or she must depart.  And that’s just the beginning of union-imposed regulations.

In charter schools, the interest of the students comes first, so adults oftentimes find themselves going above and beyond to ensure that students succeed.  In the documentary “Kids Aren’t Cars,” the story was told of Tindley Accelerated School in Indianapolis.  The principal said his teachers stay late and work Saturdays if necessary because they do not accept failure.

That’s why it is disturbing to watch labor unions organize charter school after charter school, with little being done about it.  Their intent is clear.  Consider what United Federation of Teachers Vice President Leo Casey said at the recent socialist Left Forum, courtesy of EAGtv:

“If we do not figure out how to organize charter schools and if we are not successful in doing that, we will end up in the same place as the auto workers. So there is no more key question before us as a union and a broader labor movement with regard to education than how we approach charter schools and our ability to organize them.”

What he’s saying is that the United Auto Workers unionized Ford, General Motors and Chrysler and ignored foreign competitors.  As foreign market shares grew, the UAW’s membership rolls suffered.  Casey’s envisioning a similar scenario with school employee unions.

He doesn’t care if charter schools benefit students. He just knows that they hurt his union, so they must be changed as soon as possible.

(more…)

According to The Great One, we went to war in Libya because the regime was threatening civilians. Syria has now killed hundreds of civilians. No idea how one squares with the other.

The case of the fake sick notes continues to be shrouded in secrecy.

The doctors who wrote fake sick notes to government workers who were hoping to have their protest-related by absences deemed medically excused may face disciplinary actions from their employer, but the public may never know.

In February, the MacIver News Service broke the story, which soon became national news.

“I asked if they were handing out doctors’ excuses and a guy said yes and asked me if I needed one,” said one woman who wished to remain anonymous. “When I told them I needed one for February 16 and 17th, he wondered if I wanted to come back here for the protests next week.”

What happened next shocked her.

“I said, ‘sure,’ and I received a doctor’s note for the 16th through the 25th of February, without a medical exam.”

Heck, even BigGovernment’s Andrew Breitbart even got a fake sick note while he was in town.

Shortly after the incident, Dean Robert Golden of the UW School of Medicine and Public Health announced he’d empowered a a committee to investigate the matter and determine if work rules and/or professional ethics were violated.

On Tuesday Med School announced it had completed its review regarding University of Wisconsin physicians involved in the scam.

(more…)

While claiming the American flag represents racism and discussing today’s Progressive Movement’s efforts to defeat America both at home and abroad, including on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan to help their international “comrades,” Communist Tony Pecinovsky pulls the mask off today’s Progressive Movement in two new exclusive Big Government videos of a University of Missouri course offering, already much in the news.

Pecinovsky first came to light yesterday in a Washington Times item by Kerry Picket.

Communism 101 at the University

Tony Pecinovsky, a Communist Party USA representative who is serving as the Communications Workers of America Secretary and Treasurer in St. Louis, spoke to students at the University of Missouri in St. Louis. In the video, he speaks about how the Communist Party looks to support candidates saying (5:30 mark in the video):

While discussing “the idea that the American flag is racist,” in the video below, Pecinovsky mentions a 2005 international youth festival in Venezuela sponsored by the World Federation of Democratic Youth(WFDY).

Pecinovsky brags that the WFDY is officially recognized by the United Nations. He also defines Cuba, Venezuela, and others as genuinely ”progressive,” the very same code word today’s entire American Left uses for itself. That would include the Obama administration and today’s Democrat Party, which it has finally managed to take over. In deed, in the second video, Pecinovsky touts their linkage to such so-called mainstream efforts, including trade unions.

The Young Communist League(YCL) sent 700 young Americans to Venezuela for the event. There, claims Pecinovsky, they had to actually engage in internal debate as to whether, or not to display the American flag next to the flags of countries like Cuba and Venezuela. If they did, it would be only so as to reclaim it from representing racism and what he calls the Right Wing. That includes the Bush administration, as Pecinovsky later reveals.

Going on to call America “the belly of the beast,” Pecinovsky notes the surprising growth of the Communist Party in America today, claiming an additional 1,500 – 2,000 new members this year, just through the Internet. That number does not include results from ground-level activism and recruiting, according to Pecinovsky.

(more…)

Who likes the sound of a school bell? Sheldon Richman certainly doesn’t.

“Schools, by their structure, are preparing kids for some sort of authoritarian lifestyle,” he says.

Richman is critical of the school choice movement, saying that even in charter schools, money is still being provided by the state.

He edits The Freeman and TheFreemanOnline.org, publications from the Foundation for Economic Education. Richman also is the author of Separating School and State and is a contributor to The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics.

Topics include: Unschooling; critiquing charter schools; for-profit private schools; and home schooling.

(more…)

President Obama’s birth certificate is both the Hot Button and the Third Rail of politics, and rightfully so. Put aside for the moment your opinion on the specific issue, and look to the broader one: Barack Obama has not only not made available, but has actually legally sealed (at great expense) the document that could resolve this issue, plus all of his academic records, his medical records, and his travel records. People can be forgiven for suspecting that this much smoke is generated by some kind of fire.

There is a great deal of verified, factual information on the man I am calling The Enigma — information published in major newspapers like the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Presidents own writings, and so on — that does not depend on speculation or theory. The birth certificate issue goes to the President’s legitimacy. I decided to string all of this reliably reported information — none of which is in doubt and all of which is sourced on-screen — to attack not his legitimacy, but his character — which is to say, his fitness.

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This afternoon, Big Government will break additional exclusive video clearly demonstrating the anti-American, anti-Capitalist nature of a University of Missouri (UM) course on Labor and Politics. See here and also here for previously released videos.

If you are wondering why some folks are starting to question whether a college education is worth the cost, the video below goes a long way towards explaining it. Recently, the University of Missouri-St. Louis (UMSL) and the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) sponsored two college courses: Introduction to Labor Studies and Labor Politics and Society, to be taught simultaneously through a video conference between to two campuses.

While waiting, one might ponder why hardworking American taxpayers are forced to fund an institution touting a course in how to undermine America, both at home and abroad – including in Iraq and Afghanistan while we’re at war – to the tune of 400 Million dollars.

On page 394 of this pdf file, note the Governor of Missouri is requesting $400 million for UM this budget year. That’s similar to the dollar amount they received in 2010.

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There is an old saying in politics: “What’s old is new.” And with a presidential election around the corner, some of Obama’s sordid connections are now back in the news and being investigated with renewed fervor.

Of course, if you’ve been following the news, you know billionaire businessman and star of the show Celebrity Apprentice, Donald Trump, has been banging the drums the loudest on some of these issues. The press has focused heavily on his criticism of Obama on the subject of his birth certificate, an issue first raised by supporters of Hillary Clinton that continues to dog the president. But there were other comments by Trump last week that caught my attention, specifically Obama’s ties to Antoin “Tony” Rezko and William Ayers.

As Newsmax reported, Trump suggested the unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers wrote Obama’s book “Dreams of My Father.” (Though the terrorist may have been joking, Ayers actually said the same thing in a speech at Montclair State University last month.) Judicial Watch has highlighted Obama’s ties to radicals such as Ayers, race-baiter “Reverend” Jeremiah Wright and convicted felon Rezko. But the Big Media (and too many Republicans) seems uninterested that Obama was a close ally and funder of an unrepentant terrorist or entered into a shady real estate deal with Rezko, who everyone knew at the time to be under criminal investigation. So it is good that Trump highlighted the corruption issue that is so important to Judicial Watch and the hundreds of thousands of Americans who support our cause: “So you got Reverend Wright, you got Bill Ayers, you got Tony Rezko. He drops these guys, and the press leaves him alone,” Trump told Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity.

While Trump may be just now coming to some new revelations regarding Obama’s suspect ties, Judicial Watch has been investigating them for years. In fact, we put boots on the ground in Chicago to get to the truth in the matter. Now that these characters are back in the news, I think it’s a good idea to review some of what we’ve already uncovered:

(more…)

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson is joined by Matt Lewis to discuss Haley Barbour’s decision not to run for President, Ron Paul’s entrance into the field and who might be leading contenders for VP.

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:

Haley Barbour Not Running For President in 2012
Ron Paul Launches Presidential Campaign
Lee Atwater Talks Haley Barbour Away from DC (1980s)
Rubio’s Advice to Donald Trump: Drop The ‘Birther’ Issue
Matt Lewis at the Daily Caller
Listen to the Matt Lewis Show
Advance praise for Matt’s upcoming book ‘The Quotable Rogue: The Ideals of Sarah Palin In Her Own Words’

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