By now, you’ve all seen it.  Gawker has reported on it, as has Huffington Post and Jake Tapper, among others.

It was tweeted this afternoon from the official Secret Service Twitter account and subsequently deleted by its author.  But Twitter has no mercy…delete can only delete if no eyes ever saw it in the first place.  Unfortunately for one Secret Service employee, eyes saw it.

I called the Secret Service Office of Public Affairs to ask for a comment.  I asked the question and almost immediately after identifying myself, was transferred to the voice mail of spokesman Robert Novy.  Luckily, Jake Tapper had already reached the office and received an official statement:

“An employee with access to the Secret Service’s Twitter account, who mistakenly believed they were on their personal account, posted an unapproved and inappropriate tweet,” Special Agent in Charge Edwin M. Donovan said in a statement to ABC News. “The tweet did not reflect the views of the U.S. Secret Service and it was immediately removed. We apologize for this mistake, and the user no longer has access to our official account. “

My first question was, ‘why is the Secret Service monitoring FOX News in the first place’?  But then I realized that such agencies monitor news outlets all the time – if they didn’t, they wouldn’t know which person in Congress just said something stupid that might prompt a foreign entity, or perhaps terrorists, to get really pissed at us.  And for other generally harmless reasons, too, of course.  It’s their public affairs staff doing the monitoring.  And besides, it’s Twitter.  We all know, Twitter is a public sandbox – you get in and play, and anyone can see you, and play with you.

I will admit however, I was slightly irked when I saw this in Jake Tapper’s report:

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Pennsylvania and Texas are finally investigating abortion clinics that allegedly have violations and that’s a healthy sign, but what is Louisiana waiting for? I’ve been told that Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is a good man and there’s even been some talk that he should be persuaded to run for president, which is why he just released his birth certificate. On the other hand there has been some criticism that he delegates a lot of issues that deserve his personal attention. I don’t know if that’s true or not but when I learned about what’s happening in Louisiana’s abortion clinics and a possible cover up by the Delta Health department, I wondered why Gov. Jindal hasn’t ordered them shut down.

In February, Sen. David Vitter sent a letter to Gov. Bobby Jindal and the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals Secretary Bruce Greenstein urging an investigation and immediate action against the abortion facility with connections with Kermit Gosnell.

Gosnell was arrested in Philadelphia and charged with one count of murder in the death of a woman in a botched abortion and seven counts of infanticide-seven infants born alive had their spinal cords snipped with scissors. His facility had a history of numerous health and safety violations which were ignored by authorities.

The Delta Clinic in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, has a close connection with Gosnell. Its owner Leroy T. Brinkley hired Gosnell to work one day a week at his clinic. Brinkley also sent patients to Gosnell after starting the abortion procedure in Delaware then driving them to Philadelphia to complete the procedure. Brinkley also had one of his clinic workers, Eileen White O’Neil, work for Gosnell in Philadelphia. She has also been charged with Gosnell for criminal violations that include deception for pretending to be a licensed physician, and for racketeering.

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The free market needs a moral defense.

Today, free market capitalism is under attack more than any other time in our nation’s history, whether the target is Wall Street, oil companies, or as Annie Leonard would have it, our whole system of wealth creation in general.

Many Americans are still confused about what went wrong on Wall Street during the 08′ financial crisis, and the distinction between free market capitalism and its ugly half sibling, crony capitalism, can be difficult for many to discern.

Enter the Atlas Network’s 2011 Morality of Free Enterprise Initiative, and its latest video explaining this important and often overlooked distinction.

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It’s not often that the outcome of a protest could be a life or death decision, but that is the position that thousands of women with breast cancer find themselves thanks to a proposal by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to limit access to the drug Avastin only to those who can afford to pay for it out of their own pocket.

Not many can.

There are thousands of women who rely on the drug for their survival. Without it, they will die. That fact has prompted a small businessman from Michigan to put his life on hold to fight “the man.” In this case, “the man” is the bureaucrats at the FDA who are on a mission to cut health care costs. If their proposal to “de-label” Avastin becomes reality, Medicare and private insurance companies will no longer have to cover the cost of the drug. In the eyes of ObamaCare proponents – society wins.

But families lose. In fact, the impact on families will be devastating – a death sentence says Terry Kalley, the husband of a breast cancer patient who relies on Avastin to live.

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The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee is the latest school doing everything they can to shut down and silence any conservative voice on campus. I am an alumnus of this school who luckily had great teachers while acquiring a major in film studies (of all things). Unfortunately, there was nothing but horror stories from my friends taking courses in communication (some of which I took) and sociology. Even worse was trying to find anyone who would refer to anything conservative as something other than “controversial.” This is a university that prides itself on bringing Martin Luther King to campus decades ago when he was a “controversial” speaker. Today, controversy is anything Right of the leftist mafia on campus.

It took me a while to realize how radical the campus was because my film professors (even the far-Left ones) were willing to have civil discussions about politics, which were always pleasant and welcomed. In fact, most of them would avoid politics altogether because it wasn’t a pivotal part of the coursework in the majority of classes. What opened my eyes was the first time I saw how conservative guest-speakers were treated on campus by the students. I’ve long heard about issues of indoctrination in humanities courses, that’s not what I saw here. Instead, what I witnessed at UWM was bigger than a single academic department.

As with any conservative speaker at most universities there is always an attempt from the Left’s foot soldiers to shout down the guest in an attempt to silence their voice. When I was still a student at UWM, I attended a speech by conservative activist David Horowitz which endured consistent and disrespectful disruptions (not to mention that he was subject to an anti-Semitic cartoon being distributed around campus prior to the event). The atmosphere was even worse when former PLO terrorist Walid Shoebat was invited to speak about the threats of radical Islam. Neither of these speakers are “Right-wingers” by any means, but their voice was not tolerated. Because of threats, both events required security which should not have been necessary.

On April 25th the UWM College Republicans invited Karl Rove to speak at their campus. Able to predict how the Left would try to disrupt the event, the College Republicans found a way to thwart leftist attempts to shout down an invited speaker to campus. They were able to distribute tickets themselves and through local conservative radio host Vicki McKenna. This helped fill the front rows with donors or supporters and also helped for security purposes. The reaction from the democrats and allies in the Student Association (SA) on campus was to attack the College Republicans, fighting to cut their funding.

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President Obama bypassed Congressional approval when, on July 19, 2010, he signed Executive Order 13547 – Stewardship of the Ocean, Our Coasts, and the Great Lakes .

On June 12, 2009 he established the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force and charged them with “developing recommendations to enhance our ability to maintain healthy, resilient, and sustainable ocean, coasts, and Great Lakes resources for the benefit of present and future generations.” This task force was comprised of 24 senior-level officials from executive departments, agencies, and offices across the Federal government and was led by the Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ).

The task force finalized its report to the President on July 19, 2010. Executive Order 13547 adopted the recommendations of the task force and directed executive agencies to form the National Ocean Council, which will be comprised of the Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) (Nancy Sutley) and the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (Dr. John P. Holdren), as co-chairs of this Council. The Council also includes the Secretaries of State, Defense, the Interior, Agriculture, Health and Human Services, Commerce, Labor, Transportation, Energy, and Homeland Security, the Attorney General, the Administrator of the EPA, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, the Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere (Administrator of NOAA), the Administrator of NASA, the Director of National Intelligence, the Director of the National Science Foundation, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the National Security Advisor and the Assistants to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, Domestic Policy, Energy and Climate Change, and Economic Policy; and basically anyone else the Co-Chairs of the Council may choose to designate.

In an article by Henry Lamb posted on World News Daily on July 31, 2010 entitled Obama’s Latest Assault on Liberty he states “President Obama’s Executive Order 13547, issued July 19, further extends federal power, embraces global governance, diminishes the rights and privileges of individuals and brings the United States into compliance with Agenda 21, Chapter 17.6, which says:

Each coastal State should consider establishing, or where necessary strengthening, appropriate coordinating mechanisms (such as a high-level policy planning body) for integrated management and sustainable development of coastal and marine areas. …”

This executive order also intends to pursue the United States’ accession to the Law of the Sea Convention, or Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST).

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The Recall Dave Hansen Committee went to court Monday seeking an injunction against the state Democratic Party. People who had signed the petition said they were receiving harassing phone calls from the party. The judge sided with the Democratic Party because the committee did not properly serve the request.

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson is joined by Pejman Yousefzadeh and Elizabeth Blackney to discuss how the Fed’s monetary policy has created a two tier economy and the impact that has had on the jobs market and the average American family.

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:

Pej: My Kingdom For a Coherent Monetary Policy (Paul Ryan Edition)
Pej: Let Me See If I Have This Straight
Coffee & Markets: Investors and Economists Slap Bernanke Over QE2
Coffee & Markets: David Malpass on the Government as a “Silent Partner”

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Republican Presidential contenders are melting like tourists on the Vegas Strip, without sunscreen, on a 117 degree day in July. Doesn’t anyone in the GOP actually want to run against the worst President in modern American history?

It can’t be Obama’s record that’s scaring Republicans. Obama is overseeing the worst economy since 1929…contributed heavily to the worst sovereign debt crisis in history…presiding over the worst collapse in real estate ever…helping to ensure the highest gas prices in history by refusing to allow oil drilling until recently…the list goes on and on. You’d think the Republican contenders would be licking their lips at running against that record? Instead they are falling by the wayside.

Let’s examine the carnage. This analyst and political pundit predicted Donald Trump’s political career was over three weeks ago when “The Donald” played casino pit boss and F-bombed his way through a Vegas speech. Have you ever heard of multiple F-bombs in a major political speech in by a Presidential contender? Unimaginable.

Forget the birth certificate controversy. Trump was still sitting high in the polls even after Obama released his birth certificate. But there was no escaping using multiple F-bombs on the biggest political stage. Not in a GOP filled with evangelical Christian voters, and parents who wash their children’s mouth out with soap for using that same word. Donald “F-bomb” Trump’s political career ended that day in Vegas.

What about Huckabee? A Presidential frontrunner, this former man of God couldn’t turn down fame and money. Huckabee proves even the Presidency isn’t as lucrative as a TV show on Fox News.

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The Wall Street Journal has a long piece about the prospect of using the state to move part of the U.S. transportation fleet from oil-derived fuels to natural gas. It gives prominent voice to the massive public affairs campaign of T. Boone Pickens, undertaken in the apparent quest for a legacy, locking in subsidized billions for his natural gas fortune as a swansong to a prosperous career.

This campaign takes the form of a bill embraced by ostensible fiscal hawks, causing an uproar and enabling the media to describe the Republicans ‘circular firing squad’, of a base taking umbrage at Members abandoning their pledges of fiscal sobriety at the drop of a billionaire’s phone call. Well played, gentlemen.

The vehicle was not Pickens’ first choice. His first choice was a windmill mandate, transparently pushed by a handful of gas interests, including Chesapeake Energy’s Aubrey McClendon, to put a green hat on their efforts to use the state to displace coal’s market (one of McClendon’s group’s first television ads stated up front, “more wind means more gas”: windmills don’t work that often, so they need ‘backup’ to run wastefully all the time, cycling up and down, and for various reasons inevitably this means gas-fired electricity).

Coal was difficult to budge, what with centuries of it domestically, so some gas folks have been helping the greens’ war against coal for about two decades. This is their latest foray.

And, astroturfers, please hold the mail. I happened to be in the room in 1997 with the American Gas Association, BP, and Enron as they worked with green pressure groups, as radical as the Union of Concerned Scientists as well as more mainstream, anti-coal activists like NRDC, to get a global warming treaty and a domestic cap-and-trade scheme. I couldn’t believe my ears and said so, which in a matter of weeks led to us parting ways.

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Politics makes strange bedfellows.  Witness the latest liaison, with Cellular South’s CEO, Hu Meena, and his new partnership with the NoTakeOver Project – a coalition of professional misanthropes that wants to stop the AT&T / T-Mobile merger at any cost.

Meena’s company is the nation’s largest privately-owned wireless carrier.  Meena testified with other NoTakeOver members at a Senate hearing last week, strenuously urging that the merger be killed by the FCC and DoJ.  Getting there, he had to paint a dire picture – that consumers would suffer, jobs would diminish, Internet innovation would end, and the wireless industry would tank – if the merger gets the official OK from regulators.

His relationship with NoTakeOver is particularly odd in that his new friends – especially those at New America Foundation, Public Knowledge and Media Access Project – want to crush companies like his with “light touch” Net Neutrality regulations recently imposed by the FCC.

From the moment those Internet regulations got announced last December, New America Foundation, Public Knowledge and Media Access Project started grumbling like petulant children who didn’t get exactly what they asked for on their birthday.  “Sure,” they huffed, “the rules are better than nothing.  But we demand more.  FCC, you’ve come up short!”

In their view, the only way to ensure that the Internet remains “open” is through 19^th Century rules that check the sure-to-be “evilness” of network providers…like Cellular South.

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From the Associated Press:

GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich and his wife Callista were hit with glittery confetti by a protester Tuesday during the couple’s appearance at a book-signing.

The man approached the Gingriches during the signing at a downtown Minneapolis hotel, dumped a cracker box full of colorful confetti on the pair and said, “Feel the rainbow, Newt! Stop the hate! Stop anti-gay politics!”

There are many conservative teachers sounding the alarm about the hijacking of their profession and the radicalization of school curriculums by left-wing union leaders.  Exhibit A: Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis saying they’re not teachers but “education workers.”

Dean Kalahar is a Sarasota, Florida high school economics teacher. On his blog, he says his guiding principles include private property rights, free market entrepreneurial capitalism and the U.S. Constitution.

Kalahar recently brought attention to the new Florida high school senior exit exam, which he says will “indoctrinate children into a progressive and revisionist model critical of America.”

One question on the Florida exit exam

See the exit exam questions for yourself on the state Department of Education website.

Kalahar wrote:

“The new Florida exit exam standards are a shocking move toward what one can only equate to soviet style propaganda to create a monolithic citizenry. In the case of high school American history, a look into the specifics of the exit exam is all that is needed as proof to an agenda directed in a planned process by groups that have no problem using whatever means necessary to acquire power and promote a twisted vision of America. Florida exit exams in the social sciences need to be stopped immediately and there needs to be a serious reconsideration of the entire process before moving ahead.”

Among the questions Kalahar exposes are:

• Analyze the major factors that drove United States imperialism.
• Examine the controversy surrounding the proliferation of nuclear technology in the United States.
• Assess key figures and organizations in shaping the Black Power Movement.
• Analyze significant Supreme Court decisions relating to reproductive rights.
• Describe efforts by the United States and other world powers to avoid future wars.
• Examine the failure of the United States to support the League of Nations.

Kalahar says teachers will be legally bound to teach these perspectives.

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Today, in 1860, Abraham Lincoln won the GOP nomination for President.

A recurring theme at the California Democrat Convention in Sacramento two weeks ago was the idea that the full weight of the state’s organized labor apparatus must come together to battle “Union Busting Wisconsin” tactics in the small Orange County City of Costa Mesa.   You see, the Costa Mesa City Council has put labor on notice it intends to outsource city functions in an effort to dig out of their $221 million CalPERS pension deficit and avoid insolvency due to historic bloated pensions & benefits.  Bloomberg News has even called Costa Mesa “Ground Zero on Costs of Pensions.”

Berardino”GATE” -  Enter Nick Berardino, the AFL-CIO’s General Manager of the Orange County Employees Union; the stereotypical “thug” that speaks of his Italian heritage and jokes about showing up at Orange County Republican Party Chairman Scott Baugh’s home’s when upset with him, “and I don’t want to go there to deliver cannoli and a little bit of wine.” Mr. Berardino it seems, not only likes to joke about these physical taunts but apparently likes to “intercept” other people’s email in an effort to know all the covert moves of his opponents.  Also on the video below Art Pulaski, an Officer with the California Labor Federation, says “I have seen the memos from the leaders of Costa Mesa to the leaders of Orange County and beyond.”  It appears Nick the thug and Art keep in communication.

Behold Berardino”GATE” at the California Democratic Convention .…

Costa Mesa like many municipalities in America are going through difficult fiscal times and hard decisions by elected officials must be made to prevent insolvency.  What the citizens of Costa Mesa don’t need, and I dare say, the city workers of Costa Mesa don’t need, is Nick Berardino and Art Pulaski doing things that would make Nixon blush.

When asked about the “intercepted” emails comment made on video, Costa Mesa City Councilman Jim Righeimer said, “Someone gave me a copy of the video and I immediately gave it to the Orange County District Attorney’s office for investigation.  People have a right to privacy that we need to ensure is not being violated here.”

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Carrying a gun protects people from criminals, but carrying an audio recorder can also pretty important. The Phildelphia Daily News yesterday showed just how valuable a tape recorder can be. Some police in Philadelphia apparently didn’t know what Pennsylvania and Philadelphia laws are on law-abiding citizens carrying handguns. Given that there are about 800,000 concealed handgun permit holders in Pennsylvania, there could be a lot of misunderstandings.

Police are extremely important in stopping crime, but even they can make mistakes. Hopefully because this incident was taped there will be a few less mistakes in how Philadelphia police treat permit holders in the future.

On a mild February afternoon, Fiorino, 25, decided to walk to an AutoZone on Frankford Avenue in Northeast Philly with the .40-caliber Glock he legally owns holstered in plain view on his left hip. His stroll ended when someone called out from behind: “Yo, Junior, what are you doing?”
Fiorino wheeled and saw Sgt. Michael Dougherty aiming a handgun at him.
What happened next would be hard to believe, except that Fiorino audio-recorded all of it: a tense, profanity-laced, 40-minute encounter with cops who told him that what he was doing – openly carrying a gun on the city’s streets – was against the law.
“Do you know you can’t openly carry here in Philadelphia?” Dougherty asked, according to the YouTube clip.
“Yes, you can, if you have a license to carry firearms,” Fiorino said. “It’s Directive 137. It’s your own internal directive.”

Unfortunately, referencing the actual law correctly didn’t have the desired effect on the police.

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It’s worse than we thought. The trustees for Social Security and Medicare have filed their annual report, and the news is that the two entitlements will expire earlier than reported last year. Medicare, in particular, is expected to run out of funds in 2024- five years earlier than was anticipated in prior years. Of course the Obama administration, with its spin-to-win “new math,” is reporting- now try to follow this one- that even though Medicare is running out of funds five years earlier than expected, this is actually eight years longer than it would have without the passage of Obamacare, and that the reason for this is cuts to Medicare Advantage made in the health reform law- the same cuts that President Obama and the Democrats have been denying were in there. Got that?

Congressional Republican leaders have been encouraging an “adult conversation” about government entitlement programs, and Medicare, in particular. And, while some of them have backed away from this conversation for political reasons, i.e., let’s wait until after the 2012 election, Congressman Paul Ryan has demonstrated that he possesses the political courage to get the ball rolling. The crux of the “adult conversation” is the following: that the now anticipated demise of Medicare, as we have known it since its initiation in 1965, is primarily the result of several factors which pertain to both principles of government, as well as finances:

a) Enough previous generations of American taxpayers allowed Congress to save their money for them in government accounts;

b) Program funds, i.e., revenues obtained, as taxes, through automatic deduction from payrolls, have been used, over the years, by Congress without the express permission of American citizens, to pay for other projects;

c) Liberal politicians have been successful at convincing unthinking Americans that the government can make their lives easier and better through continued government programs, like Social Security, Medicare, and Obamacare.

d) Medicare is going broke; health care costs are increasing; and some physicians are choosing to not be Medicare providers, due to cuts in reimbursements, leading to limited access to care.

Many liberal Democrats and, yes, some conservative Americans, have demonized Mr. Ryan for “taking away their Medicare.” Of course, the Democrats hope to gain from convincing senior citizens that Republicans want them to “die,” even though President Obama’s solution to lower Medicare costs is to bring on board the panel of government bureaucrats who will ration care.

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We’re getting a clearer picture of the costs associated with the month-long protests at and concurrent occupation of the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison.

The price tag is staggering.

Meanwhile, left wing interest groups continue to fight the current security measures now in place at the State Capitol. Those onerous restrictions?

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The news media in this country are in a stupor. Either out of ignorance, or complete leftist bias and fraud to protect their socialist hero Barack Obama, the mainstream media has turned a blind eye toward the enormous disaster facing our economy. The greatest Ponzi scheme in world history is coming to an end, leaving America on the precipice of economic Armageddon. Here are the facts the mainstream media does not want you to see- hiding in plain site just like Osama bin Laden was.

Bill Gross is the world’s biggest bond trader. He runs the PIMCO bond fund with over $250 billion under management. He recently disclosed through financial filings that PIMCO has sold every single U.S. bond in its portfolio. Local, state, federal bonds- all sold off. Gross knows bonds are about to default in record numbers. And most importantly, he knows that the last resort of the Federal Reserve buying our own government’s bonds at auction is a certain sign of Armageddon. When no one is left to buy your own debt but you, you have reached the end of a Ponzi Scheme.

Then there is legendary Wall Street investor Stanley Druckenmiller. He, too, is calling the Fed’s bond purchases a fraud and a Ponzi scheme. Druckenmiller says, “There is a phony buyer of $19 billion per week of Treasury Bonds.” The phony buyer he refers to is the U.S. government. Druckenmiller knows that when a country resorts to buying its own debt, we are seeing the last days of the Roman Empire.

Another Wall Street legend, Jim Rogers, spoke out at a business conference last week. He said he plans to short sell (bet against) U.S. bonds with both hands. Rogers added, “If any of you have bonds, I would urge you to go home and sell them. If any of you are bond portfolio managers, I would get another job…if I were you, I would think about becoming a farmer.”

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