It was just over two and half years ago that the Obama administration entered the White House under promises of transparency and restoring America’s image abroad. Yet now we know that at the same time they were promising these things, Obama was simultaneously setting aside $10,000,000.00 for operation “Gun Runner” (via the stimulus package) and the ATF was looking the other way while 2,500 guns were sold to suspicious characters in Arizona who were supposed to take the weapons to Cartel members in Mexico.

Now we all know that “Gun Runner” was followed by operation “Fast and Furious,” which quickly proved to be an utter disaster. Run from the top down, from the DOJ to the ATF and FBI, “Fast and Furious” turned out to be slow and impotent. Only 1,300 of the 2,500 weapons sold were recovered and what was supposed to be a sweep of the Mexican cartel turned instead into a gift of 1,200 weapons that we failed to find.

In the aftermath of these operations, Acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson has given testimony under oath indicating that Attorney General Eric Holder pressured him not to speak openly with members of Congress about the operations, Obama has denied knowledge of either, and the crime rate in Mexico has jumped exponentially.

Could it get any worse? Maybe so.

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An orchestrated campaign is underway to attack and discredit a prominent free-market organization. The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is the latest target of the left-wing smear machine, no doubt singled out for its effectiveness in advancing free-market principles and limited government at the state level. The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), a far-left organization founded by anti-capitalist activists, is leading the charge with their “ALEC Exposed” project, which insinuates that through ALEC, corporations are given undue influence over the legislative process. Nothing could be further from the truth, and their attacks on ALEC should be considered an attack on all who support free-market capitalism and limited government.

The Nation magazine is prominently featuring the attack on ALEC in its August 1-8 issue, including a cover that describes ALEC as “the right-wing group subverting our democracy.” The left-wing magazine is putting on a full court press, publishing half a dozen separate attacks on ALEC and their efforts. These attacks are not only baseless, they are a dishonest attempt to pass off what amounts to ideological objections from a far-left viewpoint under the guise of concern for democratic legitimacy.

In the interests of full disclosure, I interned at ALEC in the fall of 2009. I am not currently affiliated with the organization in any way, but I know from first-hand experience what ALEC is all about, and it has nothing to do with the nonsense being generated by CMD and disseminated by The Nation and other liberal outlets.

ALEC is a membership organization that brings the public and private sectors together in the common cause of limited government. Both public and private sector members work together to draft state level model legislation tackling common issues with solutions based upon organizational principles of “free markets, limited government, federalism, and individual liberty,” which members can then introduce in their states if they so choose.

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Last year,  the federal government  funded  the National Science Foundation (NSF ) to the tune of $6.9 billion.  Each year, the NSF disburses much of this government funding in the form of grants.  These include graduate research fellowships.  According to the NSF, the grants “fund specific research proposals that have been judged the most promising by a rigorous and objective merit-review system.”

The University of Washington recently received graduate research fellowship funding from the NSF in excess of $14 million.  The Computing Research Association received an additional $14 million from the NSF.  Ostensibly, projects funded by NSF grants further the noble goals set forth by Congress in its establishment of this leading proponent of scientific research.   These goals are “to promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; to secure the national defense…” A new study funded by these grants from these two organizations calls this presumption into question.

“That’s What She Said: Double Entendre Identification” summarizes research dedicated to the double entendre “that’s what she said”.  The researches assigned values for “noun sexiness”, “adjective sexiness”, and “verb sexiness”.  Once inserted into a mathematical equation, these values predict whether use of this double entendre would be appropriate.  According to the authors, “Experiments on web data demonstrate that our approach improves precision by 12% over baseline techniques that use only word-based features.”  Notably, the researches make no mention regarding how this discovery will advance the NSF’s stated goals of scientific progress, more secure national defense, or increased national prosperity.

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I’ll keep this short.

No one understands “what” is going to be cut.  Saying discretionary spending is going to be cut over ten years sounds like a Nigerian email scam.

So please Boehner, for the love of god, listen to your buddy Morgan…. Just cut federal employee pay.

Give Obama three choices:

1. Cut Federal Employee Pay in every department except Military by $30B per year (off baseline) starting 2012:  Ten year savings $300B

2. Cut Federal Employee Pay in every department except Military by $60B per year (off baseline) starting in 2012: Ten year savings $600B+

3. Cut Federal Employee Pay in every department except Military by $90B per year (off baseline) starting in 2012: Ten year savings $1T+.

Make Obama choose.  He can’t win.

Tell him that if he chooses low, when the credit card is maxed out again, he is getting the same deal next time.   Suddenly, ALL  Federal public employees are with our program.

Overnight, the entire Federal workforce will be desperate to help Republicans make real cuts.   Overnight, our “servants” will be finally pushing out the deadwood, over the howls of their union bosses.   Let’s get public employee interests aligned with the public.

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Now that Rep. David Wu has announced that he is resigning at a date as yet undetermined, it’s worth asking: “Where was Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the head of the Democratic National Committee?”

You’d think that a self-appointed crusader for women’s rights would be all over the Wu scandal, especially with news that The Oregonian said the young girl decided not to press charges against Wu because there were no witnesses and it would have been her word against the congressman’s.

For those who haven’t been paying attention, Rep. David Wu, 56-year-old, is facing fire after he had engaged in “aggressive and unwanted sexual behavior” with an eighteen-year-old girl. Wu, for his part, says the act was “consensual,” so consensual he feels the needs a reason to resign.

He said much the same thing when he was accused and then punished for attempted rape at Stanford University where he was a student in the mid-70s. Wu regrets that the whole event happened — something you don’t usually do when you are innocent. He apparently met with a counselor afterward and, surprise, surprise, wasn’t all cured. (Shades of Anthony Weiner’s rehab, here.)

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Today, in 1953, the United States, China and North Korea signed an armistice, halting fighting in the Korean War. No peace treaty has been signed.

I testified before the House Ways & Means Committee this week. As always, my trip inside the belly of the beast was an interesting adventure.

The tax-writing committee was holding a hearing on the value-added tax. I was on a panel with five other witnesses, and all of the other people testifying were sympathetic to a VAT. But since I had truth on my side, that made it a fair fight (though it did cross my mind that it’s not a good sign when a Republican-controlled committee stacks the witnesses in favor of a European-style tax system).

I made two points. First, a VAT is less destructive than the current income tax. As such, if we somehow repealed the 16th Amendment and replaced it with something ironclad that would prevent the income tax from ever again haunting the land, I would gladly make a trade.

But that’s not going to happen, so my second point was to warn that the VAT would be a recipe for bigger government. And even though some of my fellow witnesses said the revenue could be used to reduce deficits, I pointed out that Europe adopted VATs beginning in the 1960s and that hasn’t stopped welfare states such as Greece and Portugal from spending themselves into a fiscal crisis.

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A good friend of mine, David Jeffers of The Aletheia Group, sent out a message last night almost directly after President Obama finished his speech to the American public regarding the debt ceiling. His message was titled “Obamaocchio,” and, in light of what Mr. Obama and his Administration have been telling bankers behind closed doors about this issue, appropriate.

Even as President Obama and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner take to the airwaves (as it were) to trumpet that the economic sky will fall if Congress does not reach a deal to raise the debt ceiling; to give the federal government the ability to amass more foreign debt, both Mr. Obama and Mr. Geithner – and their dispatches – have been reassuring the financial sector that they have no intention of allowing the United States government to “default” on its debt, regardless of whether Congress raises the debt ceiling or not.

A senior banking official admitted to receiving “guidance” from the Obama Administration insisting that “default is off the table.” This should be the catalyst for a great deal of anger; anger emanating from those who receive Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid payments, not to mention anyone whose investments have been held in limbo for all the uncertainty surrounding the debt ceiling issue.

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OBAMA:  Ryan’s the one who’s giving their caucus spine.  And he still won’t budge?

VALERIE JARRETT:  No, sir.  His family . . .  release them?

OBAMA:  Not yet.  Give it another day or two.  Let Mrs. Ryan have formula for the baby, though.

BILL DALEY:  What about Kucinich?  He’ll block the House from doing anything that passes muster with Senate Democrats.

OBAMA:  Get him on the horn.

[Daley dials, hands phone to President]

Hey Dennis, how ya doin’?  Look, if the Boehner plan blows up in the House, we think we can get the Senate to swallow the Reid Plan.  But first we have to get it through your chamber, and as long as you don’t . . . .  Well, yes, I remember our discussion.  [sighs] Yes, I agree to your terms.  [hangs up]

DAVID PLOUFFE:  What did you just promise him, sir?

OBAMA:  On my next overseas trip, we’ll install a booster seat in Air Force One’s co-pilot chair, and he’ll pretend to fly the plane.

JARRETT:  Well, that’s not too bad.

JOE BIDEN: I hate to bring it up, Boss, but I busted my butt with the Gang of Six, and uh, you said . . . . (more…)

With Sen. Harry Reid (D.-Nv.) leading the charge that killed the Cut, Cap and Balance Act (it apparently was the “worst piece of legislation” he’d ever seen),  and a new deal to break the impasse over raising the debt ceiling looming, it’s appropriate to ask why Democrats hate the idea of a balanced budget amendment.

Americans are forced each day to live with a balanced budget – families can only spend more than their income for a short time without ultimately going into default.  Firms in a private market must live with a balanced budget or they’ll quickly exit industry.

So, why do Democrats hate the idea of a balanced budget amendment?  Such an amendment would force Congress to spend within its means.  What’s the problem with forcing expenses and revenue to equal each other?  It seems to make sense in the absence of some mechanism (like profits and losses in the private market) to incentivize a prudent use of resources, that politicians should be bound to spend within their means.

It’s not that Democrats don’t believe in fiscal discretion or think there are no consequences to amassing a massive debt for future generations to pay.  President Obama has repeatedly stated that deficit reduction is a priority, and he favors a “big deal” to both raise the debt limit and reduce spending by billions.  Democrats in Congress have supported these goals of working hard to reduce the deficit over the next decade.  Listening to lawmakers speak about their desire to cut spending, one would expect wide-spread bipartisan support for a balanced budget amendment.

Not so fast.

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Today, delegates to the NAACP’s 102nd annual convention are meeting to consider this year’s resolutions. Last year’s resolution condemning the Tea Party for racism was the subject of intense media coverage.

This year, the Tea Party does not appear in any of the forty-plus resolutions under consideration. The bulk of the resolutions deal with civil rights, criminal justice, and socioeconomic issues, to which the NAACP proposes familiar left-wing solutions.

These include support for the so-called “Employee Free Choice Act” (a.k.a. “card check”) in addressing labor relations.

It is ironic, given the NAACP’s focus on voting rights at this year’s convention, and given the way the NAACP has described voter ID laws as an attack on black civil rights, that the NAACP would back a piece of legislation designed to strip workers of their right to a secret ballot in union elections.

Another NAACP resolution supports for collective bargaining rights for public workers, which it describes as “sacrosanct”–and includes a call to all NAACP members to “join in public protests and rallies in support of public and private employees and their efforts to maintain or preserve their rights to union representation and collective bargaining.”

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Georgia farmer Lucious Abrams knows about Pigford fraud. He’s heard lawyers like Pigford’s mastermind Al Pires tell people that all they had to do was say the USDA threw their applications in the trash can  — a claim impossible to prove or disprove – and they could collect a $50,000 check. And thousands surely did.

Of course, Pires and the lawyers would get THEIR cut, too. And they aren’t the ones at risk of a perjury conviction. The lawyers made $40 million of your tax money, according settlement attorney Othello Cross. The total cost of these fraud filled fake famers settlements is in the billions.

And who had the toughest time collecting? The real farmers who were the victim of the government in the first place; men like Lucious Abrams.

As you can see here, Abrams is ready, willing and able to expose Al Pires. The only question is whether Darrell Issa is ready to listen. After all, Issa voted to keep Pigford funding.

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Below are excerpts from President Obama’s latest address to the nation concerning the debt and deficit talks, followed by “subtitles,” which perhaps provide a more accurate perspective of the points he made:

“For the last decade, we have spent more money than we take in.”

- I won’t mention, of course, that I have added more to the national debt in just my first 19 months in office than all presidents from Washington through Reagan combined.

“In the year 2000, the government had a budget surplus. But instead of using it to pay off our debt, the money was spent on trillions of dollars in new tax cuts, while two wars and an expensive prescription drug program were simply added to our nation’s credit card.”

-Well, no, the nearly trillion dollars in the Stimulus, bailing out the banks, and the auto companies- this was important money spent that could have otherwise been used to pay down the debt if I really wanted to. So, that money doesn’t count…And those Bush tax cuts have been a thorn in my side…I really began to lose my base on that agreement to extend them…And about those wars, I’m referring to the ones in Iraq and Afghanistan that Bush started…not the ones in Libya and Yemen I’ve gotten us involved in… Oops, I probably shouldn’t have dissed that senior prescription drug program because later on in my speech I try to use the seniors as pawns again to get them frightened about how Republicans want to cut their Medicare.

“To make matters worse, the recession meant that there was less money coming in, and it required us to spend even more.”

- That’s this neat Keynesian economics I learned in college. I thought I’d try it out on the country when I became president. We have less money, so we spend more. It really works!

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In Jaunary, I wrote about indictments in a New York State election fraud investigation. In a September 2009 Working Families Party primary in Troy, NY, there were allegations of voter fraud. Two Democratic members of the Troy City Council were indicted on 116 charges related to absentee voter fraud.

Now the (Democratic) City Clerk has resigned and plead guilty to a felony as part of the investigation. He is also singing. The Clerk, William McInerney is a Democratic Committeeman, and the police seem to have the goods on him going back to at least 2007, suggesting that this may be a way of life in Troy, NY.

The plea offer made to McInerney, a Democrat, is based, in part, on information compiled by State Police showing McInerney may have helped forge absentee ballots in previous campaigns dating to at least 2007.
McInerney, 47, is a former state Assembly worker who has been a Democratic committeeman in Troy for years. He was appointed to the clerk’s position by the City Council when Democrats took control of the Troy council in January 2008.

Just to emphasize the point: this guy was appointed by the Democrats to run elections in 2008. The cops have him for election fraud back to 2007. So the Democrats appointed someone who knew how to steal elections to run elections.

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Wisconsin schools, once scrambling for every tax dollar available and relentlessly proposing new ones for taxpayers, are now seeing their cost of doing business drop, thanks to the collective bargaining reform law that has now taken effect.

The new law, which was met with union protests unlike this generation has seen, put more power into the hands of school boards and administrators to set spending policy.  That’s because spending policy was taken off the collective bargaining table, where the Wisconsin Education Association Council could manipulate the process to its own self-serving advantage.  Perhaps most significantly, the new law took employee health insurance off the bargaining table, so WEAC is no longer able to pressure school boards to purchased overpriced coverage from WEA Trust, an insurance carrier established by the union. Read an exposé on that here.

That has all been wiped away and many school boards are about to reap the rewards.

The MacIver Institute recently produced a report showing the potential savings many school districts stand to receive, just from new mandatory employee contributions to health benefit premiums and pension plans.  For example, in the Green Bay district, if employees contribute 12.6% of the health insurance premium and 5.8% to their pensions, it stands to save $11 million.  With similar contributions by employees, Madison would see $15.5 million; MacIver estimates the Racine district would save $19.2 million.

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From The Financial Times:

George Soros, the billionaire hedge fund manager best known for defeating the Bank of England on “Black Wednesday” in 1992, is to close his Quantum fund to outside investors and hand back the remaining outside capital.

Blaming the requirement under new financial regulations to register next year with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the fund will continue to manage around $24.5bn of family money.

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From The Associated Press:

Democratic Rep. David Wu of Oregon announced Tuesday that he will resign amid political fallout from an 18-year-old woman’s allegations she had an unwanted sexual encounter with him.

Within days of the allegation, Democratic leaders requested a House Ethics Committee investigation of his conduct. Wu had said Monday he would not seek re-election, but had come under increasing pressure to step down.

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Judicial Watch took the lead in exposing former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) abuse of military aircraft. The massive amount of press coverage resulting from our investigation not only led to a great deal of embarrassment for Pelosi, but it also prompted current House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) to announce he would fly commercial between his home district and Washington, DC. Unfortunately, however, according to a new batch of documents we recently uncovered from the United States Air Force, the abuse of military resources continued in 2010, not only by Pelosi, but by other members of Congress as well.

The records, which include flight manifests, expense summaries, copies of receipts and Congressional correspondence, detail a number of trips made by Speaker Pelosi and other Members of Congress in 2010, including:

• A May 6-10, 2010, Congressional Delegation to Afghanistan and Germany “to discuss issues of mutual interest in Qatar and Afghanistan, as well as conduct oversight on women’s issues (troops) in Afghanistan and to visit with US troops and meet with government officials in Germany.” The total cost of military travel was $204,135.00. The records indicate then-Speaker Pelosi made a personal request that the “maximum per diem allowance be made available at the enhanced rate of an additional $50.”
• Numerous trips made by Speaker Pelosi between San Francisco and Andrews Air Force Base. Several of these trips included members of Speaker Pelosi’s family, including her husband, daughter, granddaughters and son-in law. For example, one “Staff Summary Sheet” detailing a January 4, 2010, flight from San Francisco to Andrews Air Force Base notes that Pelosi’s daughter, Christina, owes for $99.00 (flight) and $7.82 (meal). The documents suggest the Speaker’s office was billed for the fees but do not indicate whether or not the bills were paid.
• A January 7-11, 2010, Congressional Delegation to Detroit, Michigan for the expressed purpose of reviewing “the impact of congressional appropriations and policy in promoting innovation, technological development and job creation in US auto industry.” The Detroit trip required $24,336.60 in commercial air travel and an additional $10,046.87 in expenses. The Pentagon paid for military escorts for the trip.
• One document notes that the mode of transportation for the trip would be “Comair and Milair,” (commercial air travel and military air travel). However, the only cost related to the military portion of the transportation detailed in the records is a $15,000 advance secured for ground transportation, meals and lodging. Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) drove himself to Detroit and sought $228 in mileage reimbursement. A total of 25 House members (16 Democrats, 8 Republicans), led by then-Speaker Pelosi and then-Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD), were on the list of trip participants.

Overall, according to documents we uncovered in January 2011, Pelosi used the Air Force aircraft for a total of 43 trips, covering 90,155 miles, from January 1 through October 1, 2010. (These documents provide some additional detail regarding the specific trips.) We continue to pursue other records related to Pelosi’s use of Air Force aircraft through the Freedom of Information Act. (Notwithstanding the Speaker’s announcement, we have also initiated a separate investigation into travel since Republicans took control of the House.)

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