I still find it strange when those who claim they believe in free enterprise, limited government, reducing government intervention in the marketplace and fiscal responsibility, suddenly take an “Everywhere but in my house” approach. I am referring to the more than 80 House Republicans, many of whom claim to be conservatives, who are co-sponsoring H.R. 1380, otherwise known as the Pickens Plan after Texas energy tycoon, T. Boone Pickens.

The bill revolves around several main arguments, the first of which is that America must become energy independent. I fully agree with those sentiments: America only produces 5 million barrels of oil a day, yet consumes 20 million, meaning 75% of our oil comes from other producers, some of whom have no love for this country. The second argument builds off the first: we must tap into American energy sources to gain more independence. Again, I completely agree with that argument. The third argument is that natural gas is one of the best American energy resources, therefore we must tap into it, as we have more than 100 years of natural gas that we can produce domestically. There is of course nothing wrong with any of the above arguments.

But where the Pickens Plan starts to go awry is when you look at the nuts and bolts of how the Plan would work. First, as many know, American cars and big rigs don’t currently run on natural gas, so there would have to be a massive overhaul of vehicles.

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Francis Cianfrocca and Jim Pethokoukis to discuss his recent trip to see China’s booming economy up close and Tim Pawlenty’s plan to get our economy back on track.

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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China to US: Forget debt ceiling, cut spending
Obama’s Worst Week, Pawlenty’s Best
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Pawlenty’s 5 percent solution
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Judicial Watch uncovered hundreds of documents from the City of Dayton, Ohio, showing that Department of Justice (DOJ) officials pressured the Dayton Police and Fire Departments to lower testing standards because not enough African-American candidates passed the written exam. On May 25, Judicial Watch also filed a lawsuit against the DOJ to obtain additional records related to the Dayton program after the DOJ failed to respond to a Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 11-971)).

Here’s how messed up the situation has gotten at the Obama DOJ when it comes to racial discrimination.  As you may recall, the DOJ abandoned its own lawsuit against members of the radical New Black Panther Party who threatened and intimidated white voters on Election Day 2008.  (The leftist NAACP appears to have helped call the shots on the case dismissal.)

And now these new documents detail a scheme by DOJ officials to bully the City of Dayton, Ohio, into lowering testing standards for firefighter and police recruits because minority candidates did not perform well enough on the written exam.  (One of the most shocking claims by the DOJ is that it’s not all that important for firefighters to be able to read and write!)

This “racial quota” scheme, while clearly shameless in its intent, also seems to violate laws against discrimination and Supreme Court precedent.

On June 29, 2009, the Supreme Court ruled that city officials in New Haven, Connecticut, violated the rights of white firefighters when they discarded the results of a promotions test because minority firefighters performed poorly on the test.  “The city rejected the test results solely because the higher scoring candidates were white,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority.  (Ricci et al. v. DeStefano et al. (No. 07–1428)).

But that didn’t stop the Obama DOJ.

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By now, everyone has heard about the controversy Rep. Weiner is embroiled in known as ‘Weinergate‘. Given Weinergate has taken the media by storm and outcries of ‘resign’ are being made even from Democrats (Pelosi has even called for an ethics investigation) we at MRC TV went out to see what people on the street thought Weiner should do: Resign or stay in office.

Here are their reactions….

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The National Labor Relations Board continues to prove that the NLRB was established for Big Labor and Big Business while leaving employees out of the process. In complete arrogance, the NLRB has told South Carolina employees and their families that NLRB’s General Counsel Lafe Solomon’s plan to shut down Boeing’s South Carolina factory and eliminate jobs is none of their business.

As the National Right To Work Legal Defense Foundation press release put it: “Obama NLRB to South Carolina Boeing Employees: ‘You Have No Stake in Your Jobs’”

Furthermore, the NLRB ruled that it was no one else’s business because it has chosen not to allow any amicus curiae briefs to be filed.

The Machinists union also scornfully rejected the employees’ concerns. Both Solomon and the Machinists argued that the case that Solomon has brought against Boeing is “. . . already complicated” and listening to employees’ concerns would only “ . . .complicate an already complicated proceeding.”

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While gang mobs are now a daily concern in Chicago, it is time for the everyday citizen to take control of what is occurring in our city. We have reported on the Memorial Day beach closing and gang mob activity over the past week and half, and the problem has since grown, causing the mainstream media to finally start paying attention to the episodes of violence and gangs attempting to dominate our streets.

Mayor Emanuel’s first response to the beach closings was to conceal and dismiss this issue. The issue is now at the forefront in a battle over our right to live in a society with as little crime as possible. The mainstream media’s decision to finally press the mayor, is not achieving any results. The mayor and the acting superintendent of the Chicago Police Garry McCarthy have stated they will get everyone of these looters, robbers, and attackers. But they have also stated, that the city is broke and can not afford to add adequate police to a force already depleted by at least 2000 officers. The attacks are now occurring on a daily basis, multiple times a day in a number of areas in or near downtown Chicago, and the lakefront. This is a great threat to our citizens and our guests.

It is time for the citizens to take on the responsibility of keeping our streets safe. We must make due with the tools at our disposal. And while we could all start carrying firearms, which would get us fined and arrested if caught, and our expensive personal protection devices (guns) confiscated from us, we are not without less costly options. If the police sincerely want to catch all of these violent criminals, we can help them. Twitter provides us all a way to stay in touch and on top of the issue at hand.

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The debate about healthcare coming from the Democrats is steeped in purposeful misdirection on one hand and a complete lack of any real knowledge about what Obamacare will even do on the other. It is also a major overreach on a federalism level which is why it is hard to understand why more people aren’t talking about the Healthcare Compact plan (healthcarecompact.org).14 states have already signed onto it and has even been signed into law in two of them, Georgia and Oklahoma.

Of course, the problem is that we are expected to believe that Obamacare — which is essentially a nationalized healthcare policy — will work just fine on a national level. Despite that history has proven over and over again that centralized planning simply does not work, most especially with something as unwieldy and complicated as healthcare.

It doesn’t help that we are not being told the truth by those pushing Obama’s plan, either. Many times the president has claimed that with Obamacare you can “keep your health care plan” if you like it, you can keep your doctor if you like him. This, however, has been generously called a “questionable” promise. And that isn’t the only untruth coming from Obamacare supporters.

Just this week it was revealed that as much as 30% of the businesses in America that offer their employees healthcare plans will stop that practice once Obamacare kicks in. This number is likely low, too, as once bigger businesses start to jettison their healthcare plans it will start a snowball rolling down hill that will gather up nearly every other business with it.

Even the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is compromised at this on in the debate. The CBO has just hired an Obamacare pusher straight from the White House to become the CBO’s deputy assistant director in its Health and Human Resources (HHR) Office. This woman, Melinda Beeuwkes, has been an advocate of Obamacare, worked to push Obamacare in Obama’s administration, and has been a large donor to Democrats and Obama both.

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For months the public employee unions have been orchestrating daily events in Madison to keep the media attention on their battle with Wisconsin Governror Scott Walker (check out #wiunion on twitter). You’ve seen the Entitledtown tent city, you know about the marches, the sing-a-longs and the other stunts. Well, on Wednesday the stunt of the day was supposed to be having students dress up like zombies and hold a ‘die in’ at the Capitol. Before that happened however, these pro-union protesters picketed and disrupted the Governor’s appearance at a Special Olympics ceremony.

Words escape me.

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I was seeing red this morning when I read this first-person account of 3^rd grade socialist indoctrination in Millwaukee Public Schools.

It came from Dale Weiss, an MPS teacher and devoted radical.

“The process of addressing budget cuts with my students taught me an incredible amount,” Weiss recently wrote. “I learned that laying a social justice foundation for young students is a complex process. I learned when issues are addressed, they need to be revisited many, many times.”

“Social justice foundation?”  Oh wait, dear readers, the giddy and proud Ms. Weiss explains how she set the 8- and 9-year olds up for a fall:

“Several weeks later, right as the bell was about to ring at the end of the school day, I casually mentioned to my students that I wanted to learn more about doing art with children since Ms. Sue [the art teacher] would not be with us next year. The students clearly were taken off guard:

“But I thought if we wrote letters to the school board there would be more money for MPS and we could keep Ms. Sue.

“Michael and Dakota read their letters at that meeting, and they asked for more money for our school. I really thought we would get more money. But now I don’t think it happened.

“Looking at the disappointment on their faces, I realized I had unintentionally led my students to conclude that if we believed something to be unfair and took action, the unfair situation would turn into a fair one. I remembered saying over and over: ‘There is always something you can do to try to turn the unfair situation into a fair one.’

Yet my students heard something quite different. In their hope and optimism as 8- and 9-year-old children, they knew that their actions would bring about a miracle. My heart sank; I felt I had let my students down.”

To Ms. Weiss and other unionists, the students are little more than political pawns in their game.  They’re setting them up to do their dirty lobbying work.

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Today, in 1967, the Six Day War ended. It seems America is now looking to undo the results of that war.

The California Gold Rush moved people west in hopes of becoming rich off gold-mining operations. The state of Arizona is recognized by the mining industry for its vast amount of uranium and copper, and a rich supply of coal is still in demand in West Virginia where it has been mined since the 1700s.

America could easily sustain itself with its vast wealth of minerals, energy sources and other materials—all that is required is a little digging.

Instead, leaders of this country would rather import these valuable resources.  It’s ironic that at a time when our economy is suffering and nationwide unemployment rates continue to rise, the federal government would choose to import rather than extract those very resources itself.

Dr. Madan Singh, director of the Department of Mines and Mineral Resources (DMMR) in Arizona, says that 56 percent of the total land area in the U.S. is not open to mining. Why?

“Permits take a long time to get and the environmentalists are constantly fighting against them,” says Luke Popovich, spokesperson for the National Mining Association (NMA).

Popovich says it can take five to seven years to open a new mine, depending on the area of the mine and how many agencies are involved and how many lawsuits you have to face from green groups.

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It seems hypocritical that MIT faculty member and recent Nobel Laureate, Peter Diamond, would lash out in a New York Times Op Ed titled: “When a Nobel Prize Isn’t Enough”, for not being confirmed by the U.S. Senate to the Board of Governors of the U.S. Federal Reserve. It was only after twice failing to receive Senate support that the good professor miraculously received his Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in October of 2010.

Nobel Prizes were once considered to be prestigious honors awarded by panels of impartial experts in recognition of lifetimes of cultural and scientific achievement in the fields of Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace. But with Peter Diamond in 2010 joining Barak Obama in 2009, Paul Krugman in 2008, and Al Gore in 2007; the Nobel has been reduced to just another example of a left wing political action committee bestowing faux credibility on fellow travellers to influence American political policy.

President Obama on April 29, 2010 nominated Janet Yellen, Sarah Bloom Raskin, and Peter Diamond to fill vacancies on the Federal Reserve Board. Ms. Yellen, a liberal, and Ms. Rasking, a moderate, were quickly confirmed based on their sterling intellectual credentials and known discipline in maintaining the type of confidential information necessary to lead America’s central bank. But the nomination of labor economist Diamond came as a stunning surprise to the financial community. Dr. Diamond had absolutely zero professional experience with Fed’s day to day regulation of banking, implementation of monetary policy, or setting of interest rates. The only relevant credentials Dr. Diamond could muster was his ardent “policy preferences” in favor President Obama’s $800 billion spending stimulus, big bank bail-out package, QE1 stimulus, QE2 stimulus, Obamacare, and demand for higher taxes.

Dr. Diamond was never shy about trumpeting his intention to use the clout he would gain as an unelected member of government to advance his Keynesian dreams of mandating that the banking system implement social policy initiatives.

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House Republicans have spent the last few months trying to put an end to a sneaky union move that might mean American workers lose their say in whether their shop forms a union. House Republicans have managed to head off the National Mediation Board by inserting a provision vetoing their efforts in a bill that would extend funding for the FAA. Now that this mission has come to a critical juncture, and the cooperation of House Republicans is absolutely critical to preserving workers choice (and, additionally, keeping government spending in check).

The National Mediation Board, an Obama crony-filled body connected tenuously to the AFL-CIO recently overturned decades of precedent when it determined that workers who chose not to participate – or could not participate – in an election to form a union did not receive a voice in the election’s outcome. Previously, a majority of all workers in a shop were required to form a union; if a worker was absent for a vote to form a union, that worker was counted as a “no” vote, thus imperiling union creation. Not content with results of recent elections, the NMB decided that unions could be formed with merely a majority of present workers, making forming a union much, much easier.

Back in April, the House GOP passed an FAA reauthorizatin bill that would have killed the NMB decision, restored workers choice, reduced wasteful government spending, cut back on restrictive airline industry regulations, and provided the FAA with the resources necessary to improve flight control and air traffic technology, all without levvying any new taxes or fees on American taxpayers. Of course, as with many bills that do what Americans want, Democrats vociferously opposed the measure in the Senate and passed their own bill with none of the benefits of the House bill.

Now, that bill is headed to a joint session, and suddenly the GOP has an unprecedented, rare opportunity.

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June 2 marked the end of the courtroom portion of Doug Terranova’s legal battle against the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. Now, the Dallas-based animal trainer must wait — perhaps as long as a year or more — for briefs to be filed by both parties to the case and for Administrative Law Judge Janice Bullard to issue her ruling. Though remaining “cautiously optimistic,” Terranova has, for good reason, been unable to shake the feeling that he’s been targeted for enforcement by animal rights agenda-driven agents.

Though Terranova has already spent more than $100,000 on legal fees, he said he stands to lose a lot more if APHIS defeats him in court. Included in that “lot” is up to $10,000 per violation with the possibility of being found guilty on 28 or more citations and the loss of the exhibitor license he has held for 24 years. But what about that feeling of being targeted?

Copies of USDA Settlement Agreements from four other cases involving people who train and/or keep animals (a.k.a., “exhibitors) help answer that question. All four cases — none of which went to trial — involved charges at least as serious as Terranova’s but were prosecuted much differently. Details of each appear below:

The Oregon Zoo in Portland, Ore., did not lose its license after it was assessed a $4,000 fine following the death of a rhinoceros in October 2008 after it was kept in a transport crate for 43 hours while being transported by trucks from Kansas City to Portland.

Black Pine Animal Park, in Albion, Ind., did not lose its license after it was assessed a $250 fine for three violations (all dated Dec. 9, 2008), one of which involved the escape of a tiger from the park;

Northwest Trek Wildlife Park in Eatonville, Wash., did not lose its license after it was assessed a $6,000 fine for four incidents that took place between June 4 and June 10 and culminated in the death of a lynx after it had been stuck in a tree for 18 days without rescue; and

Hands On Wildlife Safari in Kissimmee, Fla., did not lose its license after it was assessed a $4,000 fine for three alleged violations, including one June 9, 2009, that involved the escape of a pregnant cougar into a residential area.

Note: Not included in the above list are countless other incidents involving escapes of animals from zoos and deadly attacks on people by animals at zoos. Those zoos, however, remain open with their licenses not revoked. Dallas and San Francisco stand as recent examples.

The courtroom testimony of two USDA employees also supports Terranova’s feeling of being targeted.

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Lead by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), Republicans have set high marks trying to steer the country back down the road of fiscal responsibility. This next week will test the Republican Leadership’s resolve.

That’s because lobbyist for big banks and financial services companies are pressing the Leadership to fast track Patent Reform legislation. Tucked inside the bill is an insidious provision that undermines the very reason we have a patent system at all.

Section 18, authored by Sen. Chuck Schumer, would allow big banks – the recipients of billions in bailout money – to retroactively attack patents held by small businesses and inventors. It’s another bankster giveaway that must be yanked from the bill before it is considered for action.

But just as critically, the legislation moves the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) out of the world of discretionary spending and into the world of mandatory government spending. Budget Committee Chairman Ryan and his counterpart on the Appropriations Committee, Hal Rogers, are strongly fighting the move.

In a letter to the House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith – a champion of the legislation – Ryan and Rogers are calling the legislation fiscally irresponsible.

“We Strongly oppose this proposed shift of billions in discretionary funding and fee collections to mandatory spending. Putting PTO funding on auto-pilot is a move in exactly the wrong direction, given the new Republican majority’s commitment to restraining spending, improving accountability and transparency, and reducing the nation’s unparalleled deficits and debt.

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In November 2008 a majority of voters chose to put Barack Obama in the White House, ostensibly to be president: which entails doing what a president should do, speaking as a president should speak, etc. The expectations for Obama were high because of his own rhetoric about “remaking America,” about “hope and change,” and whatever else it was that caused Louis Farrakhan to say that when Obama speaks “the Messiah is absolutely speaking.”

But a funny thing happened on the way to the golf course White House: the magic wore off. The dream maker proved to be a nightmare for this country and the job of being president actually seemed to be secondary to a whole host of other things he’d rather be doing: things like playing golf, taking vacations, bowing before foreign rulers, etc.

His apparent obsession with these other things was never clearer than on Memorial Day 2011, when he took time out in the morning to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns then headed to the golf course to play the 70^th round he’s played since becoming president. (And this was the second Memorial Day on which he’d played golf: he also did it in 2009.)

Don’t you think his Memorial Day would have been better spent memorializing those who have given their lives in service to this country?

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There are many peculiar aspects of the Anthony Weiner uproar. Take for instance Anthony’s hairless pectoral picture with the family photos in the background; Weiner holding up a “Me” sign in front of himself in another picture where a framed picture of an adorable Lhasa Apso can be seen off to one side; and, of course, the crotch shot heard round the world that could eventually land Anthony a cameo on a Fruit of the Loom® commercial where he could dress up as the fruit of his choice.

But by far the strangest aspect of this whole controversy is Slick Willy Clinton’s personal contribution to the fiasco, launching this lurid set of circumstances into new realms of irony.

Requesting that Bill Clinton participate in a marriage ceremony or provide guidance about how to handle a sex scandal is on par with asking Ted Bundy to be a grief counselor for parents of murdered women.  Yet, Anthony Weiner and Huma Abedin, purportedly both intelligent individuals, apparently lack good judgment when seeking role models to pattern themselves after as examples of matrimonial bliss.

The saga started when the Clintons, neither of whom had much discernment when it came to choosing a mate for themselves, “encouraged the match between the Muslim beauty who grew up in Saudi Arabia and the Jewish Democrat from New York City.”  Hopeless romantic Bill claims that for Weiner it was “love at first sight,” a match made in paradise because the couple represented what Weiner wanted “the future of the world to be.”

That world is like the one matchmakers Bill and Hillary inhabit – populated with longsuffering wives who, for political purposes, endure marital betrayal. Not to mention the latent potential in Anthony’s treatment of Huma to affect unstable Muslim/Israeli tensions.

If Weiner is really serious about saving his marriage he should spend some time reflecting.

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We have recently heard very much about the Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)-induced flood of released documents.

They show that the anti-free market group Free Press worked quite closely with Federal Communications Commission (FCC) uber-Democrat Commissioner Michael Copps in advance of the December 21 FCC Internet power grab, executed so that the Commission could then impose the ridiculous Network Neutrality.

This knowledge certainly helps explain why the technologically inept Free Press was cited fifty-three times in the FCC’s absurd write-up of their absurd December Internet folly.

Which makes Free Press’s outrage at said order – for allegedly not going far enough – more than a mite bizarre.

It makes one wonder if this outrage is also perhaps in part a perpetually predetermined inevitability.

Sure, Free Press wants the whole Huge Government hog on all things, and they’re disappointed when they don’t get it.  But they are, like all Leftists, patient incrementalists.

They’ll push for as much as they can get, “begrudgingly” take it – and come back soon thereafter for even more.

The federal government didn’t get to spending 25% of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) overnight.  It took little additional incremental nibbles for decades – until one day we woke up to find a federal Leviathan consuming one-fourth of all we produce.

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No two people are more responsible for creating the genre of Citizen Journalism than of course Andrew Breitbart and James O’Keefe.

As is well known by now Andrew took center stage at the dramatic press conference in New York recently where Rep. Anthony Weiner admitted to sending lewd photo’s via twitter after spending days claiming Breitbart had hacked his account.

Prior to that press conference I spoke with Andrew for the behind the scenes story of how it is he broke Weinergate.

Our conversation ranged from where he was and what he was doing when he first learned of the now infamous tweet; to how he says left-of- center news sites such as Salon, The Daily Kos and Talking Points Memo “have been in a lie escapade of epic proportion.”

Andrew says it all began around 7:30pm on a Saturday evening when he and his wife were just about to open a bottle of wine and enjoy the weekend.  Here’s the interview with the behind the scenes story:

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