Last year, when Larry Scanlon, the Director of Political Operations for one of the nation’s largest government unions, the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), stated “the more members coming in, the more dues coming in, the more money we have for politics,” it was symbolic of a system corrupted by union bosses who enrich themselves at the expense of America’s taxpayers.

While AFSCME and other government unions are settling contracts that require members to pay more for their health insurance and retirement, as well as furlough days, to rein in out-of-control budget, with the exception of a few states like Arizona, New Jersey, Ohio and Wisconsin, the government-union power structure is being left almost wholly intact.

In fact, in states like California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Washington government union bosses have been left largely unrestrained to continue expanding their power at the expense of the taxpayers in those states. (more…)

Can the police detain you for taking pictures of a routine traffic stop? Police in Washington D.C. say they can.

In 2010, photographer and student Jerome Vorus was detained and questioned by police after he photographed a traffic stop in Georgetown. The ACLU says he was illegally detained and has filed a lawsuit on his behalf. Vorus recently sat down with Reason.tv’s Nick Gillespie to discuss what happened that day and where his case currently stands.

With cameras and other recording devices becoming more affordable, cases like Vorus’ have become all too common. For more information on this disturbing trend, read Reason magazine’s January 2011 cover story “The War on Cameras” with the companion piece “How to Record the Cops” and watch Reason.tv’s documentary “The Government’s War on Cameras!”

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In March 3, 2011, Politico.com ran a story alleging that Congressman Wu was trying to assure Democrat leaders that he was in good shape, politically and personally to run for Congress again after a number of his campaign staffers resigned in February.

Here’s what Politico quotes Wu as saying,

“I’ve indicated to her [that] at her convenience, we’ll chat,” Wu said. He also said he plans to have similar sit-downs with Minority Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland, Assistant Democratic Leader Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Steve Israel of New York and Reps. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and George Miller (D-Calif.), who are co-chairs of the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee.

“I intend to go to them out of respect for them and the offices,” he said. “I’ve been advised that there is no sense of urgency.”

“No sense of urgency”? Was it too “inconvenient” for Pelosi to talk with Wu? Apparently so. Months after it was disclosed that Wu sexually assaulted a girl, Nancy Pelosi still won’t call for Wu to resign. She wants a limp-wristed ethics probe to deliver the slap she won’t. It’s not as if congressional censuring is all that bad a punishment, anyways.

Take, for instance, the example of Rep. Charlie Rangel, the disgraced corrupt Democratic congressman, who became the first congressmen in twenty-five years to be censured after some of Rangel’s corruption was made known. Wu had said this about him.

“I can say that if the charges prove out … I would probably vote for a very serious sanction, if not removal,” said Rep. David Wu (D-Ore.) to Politico in November 16, 2010. That, by the way, was eight days before Wu, age 56, allegedly raped the 18-year-old daughter of a long-time friend.

One wonders how Democrats — the supposed “party of women” — will vote if the probe moves through. One wonders how Charlie Rangel will vote.

Charles C. Johnson is a contributor to Big Government. You may reach him at chuckwalla1022@gmail.com.

In this, the third Age of Bailout, the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)’s $50 billion General Motors (GM) bailout (upped from $20 billion by President Barack Obama) is yet another unmitigated disaster.

But a few of the many failures:

• GM had to file for bankruptcy anyway.

• President Obama originally claimed we’d make money on our $50 billion.  Seven months later, the Administration admitted we’d lose more than $16 billion – and dishonestly claimed the loss they had said would be a profit was “less than the(y) originally expected.”

• GM last year claimed in a television ad campaign to have “repaid (their) government loan in full, with interest, five years ahead of the original schedule.”  Which was another total lie.  They had in fact paid back only a tiny fraction thereof – and had done so so with other government TARP money.

• So fraudulent was GM’s media-buy proclamation that there has been a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) complaint filed against them.

• As of November 16, 2010 – more than half a year after the “paid in full with interest” ad – GM had only paid back $361 million.

• GM and Chrysler has been dominating the Forbes Worst Cars of the Year list.

• With the exception of the 2011 Mercedes-Benz S-Class, the 2011 Smart For Two and the 2011 Nissan Titan, the cars on the list are all American-made. Worse than that, they all come from two manufacturers: General Motors and Chrysler. Ford managed to avoid the list completely…. (GM) offerings from Chevrolet and Cadillac crowded the picture…

• GM has some work to do before it can regain a good reputation fleet-wide. Four GM-made vehicles–the Cadillac Escalade, Chevy Tahoe Hybrid, Chevrolet Colorado, and Chevrolet Aveo/Aveo 5–are ranked as among the worst on the market today. All but the Tahoe Hybrid qualified for the Worst Cars list last year as well.

• Probably also due at least in part to these distractions, GM has had to recall their cars – again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and….

As horrendous as all of this is, it can at least perhaps be written-off as the utterly predictable, yet unintentional, ruinous outcome of government involvement in the private sector.

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The House GOP and the Senate Democrats are crafting a plan on the debt ceiling. The White House is AWOL. So much for leadership.

Tonight, President Barack Obama made good on his threat to Eric Cantor to take his case “to the American people.”

The people he’s counting on most, however, are not the general public, but the small core of left-wing activists planning nationwide protests at congressional offices tomorrow.

Former “green jobs” czar Van Jones let the proverbial cat out of the bag today in a column at the Huffington Post entitled: “Tuesday: Rallies Everywhere to Save the American Dream“:

Enough is enough.

Speaker Boehner’s decision last week to walk out in the middle of negotiations with President Obama was the last straw.

The time has come — at long last — for America’s super-majority to stand up against the extreme, hostage-taking tactics of the Tea Party minority in Congress.

Tea Party Republicans would rather shred America’s safety net and also risk tanking America’s economy than raise taxes one penny on their super-wealthy donors and corporate backers.

This Tuesday at noon, everyday Americans will finally have the chance to be heard, across America, at the local offices of every member of Congress. The American Dream movement — which includes dozens of organizations and thousands of individuals who are standing up for the middle class and working class families — is calling for emergency mobilizations across the country tomorrow.

Our only chance to move the Republicans is to make sure that the dire consequences of their actions are laid directly at their feet. So with other leaders of the American Dream movement, we’re putting out an urgent call for every patriotic American to show up outside Republican congressional offices on Tuesday at noon to deliver a crucial message: “Don’t destroy the American Dream.”

From The Associated Press:

Decrying a “partisan three-ring circus” in the nation’s capital, President Barack Obama criticized a newly minted Republican plan to avert an unprecedented government default Monday night and said congressional leaders must produce a compromise that can reach his desk before the Aug. 2 deadline.

“The American people may have voted for divided government, but they didn’t vote for a dysfunctional government,” the president said in a hastily arranged prime-time speech. He appealed to the public to contact lawmakers and demand “a balanced approach” to reducing federal deficits.

Obama stepped to the microphones a few hours after first Republicans, then Democrats drafted rival fallback legislation Monday to avert a potentially devastating government default in little more than a week.

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We don’t recall when wordsmithing was used so liberally (by both parties) to confuse or mislead the public.  George Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” pales next to the complete abandon with which President Obama eloquently manipulates language and information to influence public opinion.

Bush’s“ Mission Accomplished” was just dumb wrong and “Bring ‘Em On” was just plain, well, never mind.  Bush, at least, meant what he said regardless of how wrong he may have been.

Obama, on the other hand, often, really doesn’t mean what he says.  Instead he frequently uses carefully crafted language to convey a message that distorts reality, but which he, or his speechwriters, believes will appeal to voters.  We look at this as a larceny of language. Let us hasten to add that many politicians on the right do the same thing.  Obama isn’t the Socialist those on the right often claim him to be.  We don’t believe President Obama wants the government to own American business, and he certainly doesn’t want to manage American business. We think he knows he would be a lousy manager.  He does, however, want to set the economic agenda and control, through regulation, how American business operates.  Growing government, at the expense of taxpaying businesses and individuals may be disastrous policy, but it isn’t Socialism.  It is, simply, a tried and true path to economic failure.

Saying he wants millionaires and billionaires and private jet owners to pay their “fair share” of taxes isn’t really what his tax agenda is about.  Not by a long shot. He really wants to ensnare the nearly four million taxpayers who earn at the $200,000 level and above ($250,000 for families) by vilifying the less-than-ten-percent of tax filers earning over $200,000 who actually report over a million dollars a year in income.

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A few minutes ago, NAACP officials asked me to leave the NAACP’s seminar on “civic engagement.” The seminar was listed in the official program, among several concurrent workshops.

However, I was soon informed that it was “not open to media.” I complied by leaving, though not before collecting my belongings, including the NAACP’s manual for voter registration, canvassing, and get-out-the vote efforts in 2012.

The few seconds of video below are all that I managed to obtain before being asked to leave.

Shortly before I left, I witnessed the session’s moderator, Derrick Johnson of the NAACP board of directors, telling the assembled audience that while the NAACP was officially a non-partisan organization, “one party upholds our values more,” which is why it was important to be “civically active” in elections.

It was clear to all present that Jackson was referring to the Democratic Party and urging his members to support it.

Jackson also told the seminar that the “teabaggers” are the second coming of the Redeemers, the Southern whites who reversed many of the rights that freed slaves had gained in the aftermath of the Civil War.

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Regardless of where you stand on the budget debate the most fascinating result has been the undeniable realization that President Obama has been marginalized and is now fighting for a seat at the table. I believe it is a first in my lifetime that a sitting President has been removed from any political debate not to mention one as serious as our budget. It was made clear when Boehner left the White House over the weekend and said he would work with the Congress to fashion a solution. There can be no question that Boehner’s political skills and Obama’s lack of them created this vacuum. The son of a bar tender has outperformed the Professor; it renews my confidence in our system of Government.

Cowboys know a lot about life. For instance they know that as soon as you think you know everything about horses and you can control them, you get hurt. The same is true of power and President Obama has been intoxicated with ego and power from the time he entered the White House, dictating his demands to a Democratic Party that was stunned into subservience by a victory that could not be explained. Most important is that the President believed in his own invulnerability. Only recently have the facts emerged. David Border writing for the Post in an August 9, 2010 article entitled “Senate as Civil as Ever, We’re Told” that Senate Minority Leader Mitch Mc Connell was first invited for a one on one with the President one year and seven months after Obama took office.

In recent weeks Time Magazine stated that the White House didn’t have Boehner’s phone number which was later confirmed by Stephanopoulos on ABC News that a top aid to the President didn’t know Boehner the Minority Leader of the House of Representatives. These are truly amazing revelations when you think back on the relationships that Presidents have had with members of their opposing parties. Reagan with Tip O’ Neil and Rostenkowski. Clinton with Newt Gingrich. While these Presidents fought with leaders of the opposite party, sometimes publically, they respected and knew one another well.

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In his keynote address this morning to his organization’s annual convention in Los Angeles, NAACP President Ben Jealous called upon congressional leaders to let the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts expire to address the nation’s debt.

The lower rates on upper- and middle-income earners, originally enacted during the Bush presidency, were extended by President Barack Obama and a Democrat-controlled Congress in December 2010.

Jealous also warned of a resurgence of racism in the United States, which he claimed had arisen in reaction to the election of Obama as America’s first black president. He cited that alleged racism as the motivation for the passage of new voter ID laws in several dozen states, as well as laws making it more difficult for former felons to vote, which he equated with the Jim Crow laws of the segregationist past. Jealous threatened to approach the United Nations to complain about these laws if they were not rejected.

On the Tea Party, Jealous condemned what he called its “worst” elements, while stating he was not condemning everyone in it. Jealous also lamented that Tea Party favorite Nikki Haley, whom he referred to as “the first governor of color of the state of South Carolina,” would “permit the Confederate flag to fly in front of her state capitol every day.”

“What would Gandhi do?” Jealous asked, referring to Haley’s Indian heritage.

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The Obama Administration, Congressional Progressives and Democrats, and the mainstream media have done a fantastic job of controlling the narrative in the debt ceiling/budget debate. They have hammered home, in an almost Goebbels-esque manner, the false notion that Republicans have not “compromised on their partisan ideals”; that the GOP is, to use their talking point, “intransigent.” This is nothing short of exactly the opposite from the truth.

The fact of the matter is that House Speaker John Boehner, and a majority of the House and Senate Republican contingents, have compromised, and have done so on a major issue: raising the debt ceiling.

Looking back on the 2010 Mid-Term Election, those concerned about the fiscal irresponsibility executed by our elected class stated loud and clear, in the only poll that matters – the poll at the ballot box, that we wanted the federal government to employ fiscal restraint. In many cases, those whose names were on the ballot, indicated that they finally – finally – got the message. Even Harry Reid (D-NV), ran on a platform that included support for a balanced budget amendment. They said time and time again, at rallies and fundraisers that they understood that the American people were demanding dramatically reduced spending, an honest effort to reduce debt and an abdication of status quo partisan politics, at least until the country’s fiscal health was on the mend.

Fast-Forward to today.

The elected class on the Left side of the aisle, but for a very few, have once again exhibited the status quo Janus face of political skullduggery.

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From Jennifer Rubin in The Washington Post:

A Republican aide e-mails me: “The Speaker, Sen. Reid and Sen. McConnell all agreed on the general framework of a two-part plan. A short-term increase (with cuts greater than the increase), combined with a committee to find long-term savings before the rest of the increase would be considered. Sen. Reid took the bipartisan plan to the White House and the President said no.”

If this is accurate the president is playing with fire.

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That seems like a joke question, but it’s an apparently serious belief of Bruce Bartlett, a former supply-sider and Bush Administration official who has flipped sides and joined the left.

I’ve known Bruce for decades and he’s a fun guy to hang out with, but he’s gone hard to the left in recent years, pimping for a VAT and urging GOPers to sell out on health care.

But now he is officially crazy, because he wants us to believe that Obama is a conservative, or at least a moderate conservative.

Bruce cites five reasons in his article for this bizarre hypothesis.

1. “His stimulus bill was half the size that his advisers thought necessary”

This is a rather strange assertion. Obama flushed $800 billion down the federal toilet on a fake stimulus, but we’re supposed to believe he’s a “moderate conservative” because he didn’t waste even more of our money.

2. “He continued Bush’s war and national security policies without change and even retained Bush’s defense secretary”

Okay, maybe this is true. I’m not competent to make any sweeping judgments on foreign policy.

3. “He put forward a health plan almost identical to those that had been supported by Republicans such as Mitt Romney in the recent past, pointedly rejecting the single-payer option favored by liberals”

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Here’s some straight talk from a Democratic Congressman that pops the Washington drama balloon about the Debt Limit – Pete Stark (D-CA) told an audience Saturday morning that the Debt Limit debate is a ‘’political charade’. Not exactly anything that President Obama wants the American people to hear while he’s trying to convince them of the utter, complete and immediate need to raise the limit.

Here’s the video of Stark speaking on Saturday, July 23.

“You’ve heard a lot about the Debt Limit.  And I guess that’s – I don’t know how many of you are worried about it or concerned about it.  The fact is I think it’s a political charade.

“I’m afraid that the Democrats have done that in the past, threatened to shut down the government.  I don’t think there’s a chance that it will happen. I think the last time somebody did, they lost enough seats in the House of Representatives to convince them it was a dumbest thing they ever did.  [It] doesn’t get us anywhere, it doesn’t help anybody, and to extend the Debt Limit is nothing more – than people have described it – than that the government’s credit card doesn’t run out of resources.

“And we all know we have more debt than we should be carrying and there’s a fight going on: Should we raise your taxes to lower that debt?  Should we quit government spending?  The question is if we quit government spending, what do we quit spending?  Do we quit spending on Social Security and WIC and children’s daycare?  Or do we quit spending for corporate jet deductions, and those sorts of things?  And those are the political fights.

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Signs of debt crisis strain are everywhere these days.  Despite over $14 trillion in US debt, the Left is calling Republicans extreme for wanting major cuts.  On the other hand, Obama has no written plan but is acting like a born-again deficit hawk going after corporate jets.  Even better, some are touting the bonuses of hedge fund managers as a tax gold mine.  The latter sentiment is yet more proof that politicians on the Left just don’t get economics – at all – and also highlights one of America’s worst problems.

For those that have been following, it turns out that certain bonus income of money managers is taxed at a 15% rate (like dividends) instead of potentially 35% (like ordinary income).  The tax laws allow for that lower rate if they hold onto the bonuses for a certain period of time.  Non-Real World politicians and economists are crying foul – asserting it is unfair they get that break – and claiming that as much as $20.7 billion could be collected if that loophole is done away with.

Such is the state of “good enough for government” thinking.

You see, Non-Real World politicians and economists see the world like a calculator: change a tax rate and collections rise.  In the Real World, human behavior adjusts to laws that change – sometimes dramatically so when it involves taxes. Just ask American Founder and Supreme Court Justice John Marshall who stated that “the power to tax involves the power to destroy.”

Take the 1920’s for instance.  The Democrats had increased the top marginal tax rate to over 70%. That increase greatly diminished or nearly “destroyed” incentives for individuals.  Indeed, Secretary of the Treasury Andrew W. Mellon noticed that rather than taking risks with their capital, capitalists were parking their money in tax-free government bonds.

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This is the first in a series of articles about David Wu, the embattled congressman from Oregon who allegedly sexually assaulted the teenage daughter of a Wu donor.

In 2004 the actress Jeri Ryan and Illinois Senate Candidate Jack Ryan had their divorce and custody records unsealed by a Los Angeles judge. Both Ryans had agreed to have their divorce records unsealed, but drew the line at their custody records, which neither wanted disclosed for the sake of their son, Alex. But as Slate wrote at the time, “[i]n keeping with prior rulings nationwide, the court concluded that the public’s right of access outweighed whatever emotional distress the unsealing might cause” and released them. Jack Ryan, embarrassed by some of the untoward acts he had allegedly committed with his wife, withdrew from the race and a little known state senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, went on to win the U.S. Senate seat against Alan Keyes. (It’s something of an open secret in Illinois politics that Obama’s own David Axelrod was behind it, just as he was behind another divorce record unsealing.) According to Ryan, the race would mark the first time in American politics that custody records were unsealed by a newspaper during a campaign.

Flash forward to April 2011.

Embattled Congressman David Wu is getting divorced from his estranged wife, Michelle Wu. Even though divorce documents indicate the congressman’s rather enthusiastic use of alcohol and prescription pills, the records are sealed by a judge.

The Oregonian, a newspaper in Oregon, filed to have those records unsealed, but Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Tom Ryan rebuffs their efforts, citing “the best interest of the [Wu's] children.”

Why was David Wu given a pass?

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Francis Cianfrocca to discuss the latest debt ceiling negotiation developments from this weekend, and how the markets will react if no deal is reached in time.

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:

It’s Time to End the War on Salt
Debt-limit compromise elusive as separate strategies take shape in House, Senate
In Other Words, House Republicans Should Hold the Line on Cut, Cap, and Balance
Stocks Slump as Debt Talk Worries Continue

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Sometimes you just know you’re right – like when you find yourself on the opposite side of a debate with an admitted domestic terrorist.

In the July-August 2011 edition of “Monthly Review,” Bill Ayers, along with his brother Rick, wrote the introduction to a series of articles on public education.

“Education at the beginning of the twenty-first century is in crisis and contestation. The economic instability of capitalism…has had the effect of further compromising a capitalist educational system already beset with problems.

“The hijacking of school reform by neoliberal corporate planners, private foundations, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, U.S. government strategists, and conservative-oriented education elites has led to an intensified attack on teachers, teachers’ unions, teacher education, schools, and the kids themselves.”

How dare taxpayers who lack the brain power of a domestic terrorist have the audacity to propose improvements to public education!  Instead, let’s leave it up to the unions that have dominated education policy for five disastrous decades to solve the problems. Pure genius!

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