These charges are very serious and very false.  Rather than try to address these CBC charges myself, I have decided to ask someone much more talented in the language arts to answer the Congressional Black Caucus.  I’ve channeled the Bard himself, William Shakespeare to answer the CBC’s  reprehensible, divisive rhetoric. This morning I went to a medium-rare and spoke to the spirit of the Bard of Avon, below is what he told me to write:

To call me names if it will feed nothing else,
it will feed my resolve. The CBC hath disgraced me, and
hindered me with their mistruths; laughed at my losses,
mocked at my policy, scorned my constitution, thwarted my
honest dialogue, cooled my supporters, heated mine
enemies; and what’s his reason? I am a tea party patriot.

Hath not a patriot eyes? hath not a patriot hands, organs,
dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with
the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject
to the same diseases, healed by the same means,
warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as
a CBC Democrat is?

If you prick us, do we not bleed?
if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison
us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not
expose you for what you are? If we are like you in the rest,
we will resemble you in that.

If a tea party patriot wrong a Democrat,
what is his humility? Lies.
If a Democrat
wrong a tea party patriot,
what should his sufferance be by
the Democratic example?
Why, TRUTH. The villainy you teach us,
we will execute the opposite, and will expose you
for what you are,  frauds
who bully American voters like us lest we remind the public
you have no entitlement to your position
Nay we hold the power and you sit at our whim and will

Remember November, the Second of November remember:

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Solyndra, a San Francisco based solar panel company that received a $535 million loan guarantee from the federal government has declared bankruptcy. Last year President Obama touted the company as “leading the way” in the green jobs future he envisions.

Just a few months ago, ABC News revealed that one of the major financial backers for Solyndra is also a major donor to the Obama campaign.

The donor, Steve Westley, has subsequently been named to the President’s Energy Advisory Board. Solyndra was supposed to have produced 4,000 jobs with the loan guarantee. Now all of the company’s employees have been laid-off. Mr. Westley is still on the advisory board.

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It looks like the National Education Association is not putting its money where its mouth is.

In its mission statement, the nation’s largest teachers union asserts that “we will focus the energy and resources of our 3.2 million members on improving the quality of teaching, increasing student achievement and making schools safer, better places to learn.”

But a secret union document reveals that the NEA’s commitment to “improv(ing) teaching and learning” works out to a paltry $7.44 per member every year. This is according to a document obtained from an internal source of the Indiana State Teachers Association, one of the NEA’s state affiliates. All dollar amounts refer to the NEA’s 2010-11 budget, and are the most recent numbers available.

While the majority of a teacher’s dues dollars stay with the state union, $166 is sent to the NEA every year, which is the parent union. As already stated, the NEA only spent $7.44 of that amount on efforts to improve teaching and learning.

To put that into perspective, the NEA spent four times as much ($31.05 of the $166) on “legislative and ballot initiatives” and “partnerships and public relations.” The union spent $68.69 of the $166 on administrative support, governance, legal support, and leadership development and constituency support.

That explains why the NEA could afford to pay its top three leaders more than $1 million in salary in 2009, the most recent year those figures were available.

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News broke yesterday that punishment had been meted out for “Fast and Furious.” Acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson had been re-assigned and U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke had resigned. There was no mention of pending criminal prosecution or jail time. Rather, we were politely informed that Melson would be moved to a new position at the DOJ in Washington DC while Burke would “return to private life.”

Hmmm. Let’s think about this: Over 150 Mexican law enforcement officials have been killed as a result of Fast and Furious. As have nearly 1,000 Mexican civilians, at least one U.S. Border Agent (God bless the family of Brian Terry), and who knows how many other humans on both sides of the border who have yet to be accounted for. And there are still over 1,000 weapons on the loose, although we are starting to find them more and more at crime scenes in America.

And all that happens in response to this is that an Acting Director gets re-assigned and a U.S. Attorney returns to private life?

Think about it: “Straw purchasers” went into gun stores to buy weapons they had pre-determined to pass on to criminals, and now those criminals have used the weapons against Mexicans and Americans alike. It has put us all at risk, and especially those living near the border in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.

No wonder Congressman Paul Gosar of the House Oversight Committee contends that “we (Americans) were the known collateral damage” in this whole plan.

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In his first on-camera interview since his August announcement that he would not run for President, Paul Ryan sits down discusses what went into his decision making process and what his political future may hold.

Congressman Paul Ryan sat down in his Janesville, Wisconsin district office with MacIver News Service’s Bill Osmulski for this exclusive one-on-one interview.

• What went into his recent decision to not run for President in 2012?

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Someday we’ll all look back at this and laugh. Or cry. These are the dark days for small business and would-be entrepreneurs, who need only to open the newspaper, click on their iPad, or flick on the TV to see another attack on anyone who would have the temerity to start a business and produce something with their own ingenuity, drive, and hard work.

As America’s big-government “leaders” take us down the tubes, here’s what the future will record for the last couple days:

• A bill in the California legislature would force parents to pay state-level minimum wage to babysitters, as well as provide a substitute caregiver every two hours to cover rest and meal breaks, in addition to workers’ compensation coverage, overtime pay, and a meticulously calculated timecard/paycheck
• President Obama’s National Labor Relations Board has issued two more rulings that will carpet-bomb employers with “micro-union” organizing drives and repeal one of the last protections employees had if they wanted to choose a union by secret ballot election

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Politicians and the media constantly ask “What’s the matter with the economy?” The answer was on glorious display this past weekend. Ironically, it is the politicians and media who are ruining it. “The storm of the century” turned out to be “the most hyped storm of the century,” along with one of the most hysterical, exaggerated, manipulated media events of all time. Irene was a…rainstorm. A big one, a bad one…but nonetheless, a rainstorm. But a large dangerous rainstorm didn’t fit the agenda of the power-hungry politicians, or their partners in the business of hysteria, the “if it bleeds, it leads” national media doom machine.

Media and politicians need big catastrophes and emergencies to burnish their images and make them seem important. They need to brandish words like “the worst ever” “the biggest ever” “the most deadly ever.” The media loves these bigger-than-life headlines because they are highly profitable. The bigger, the better- it’s all good for business. The more hysterical they can make the public, the higher the ratings. Catastrophes SELL!

Politicians also need catastrophes and emergencies- to show they are in charge, looking out for us helpless little people. Politicians desperately need high profile platforms to showcase their leadership skills, to shout “Get out now, or you’ll die. I’m saving your life. I’m the only thing that stands between you and annilihation.” Emergencies allow politicians to bully, intimidate and threaten citizens, and to prove how obviously more important and brilliant they are than the lowly citizens. And, of course, if the politician is right, and the worst happens, they’ve got a platform to shout about how much we need them and how indebted we should be to them

.But what if they’re wrong? Shouldn’t they be held accountable for pulling a false alarm? Shouldn’t they be called out for needlessly scaring citizens, shutting down entire cities, entire states, the entire Eastern Seaboard for…a big rainstorm? Shouldn’t they pay the consequences for threatening and intimidating their own citizens to abandon their homes and businesses…for a big rainstorm?

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From the Associated Press:

Justice Department officials say they’ve filed suit to block AT&T’s $39 billion deal to buy T-Mobile USA.

The government contends that the acquisition of the No. 4 wireless carrier in the country by No. 2 AT&T would reduce competition and raise prices.

At a news conference Wednesday, Deputy Attorney General James Cole said the combination would result in tens of millions of consumers facing higher prices, fewer choices and lower quality products.

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Pejman Yousefzadeh and Kevin Holtsberry are joined by Professor David Bernstein to discuss the his new book, Rehabilitating Lochner, and how the curbing of economic liberty helps lead to the curbing of a host of other rights as well.

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:

Rehabilitating Lochner on Amazon.com
Lochner v. New York
Professor David Bernstein at George Mason University
David Bernstein’s writings at Volokh Conspiracy

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The hosts and guests of Coffee and Markets speak only for ourselves, not any clients or employers.

A recent AP-GfK poll shows some rather shocking news for President Obama: women are not too enthralled with him. This polling data may come as a surprise for many (and, indeed, possibly Obama himself), but not to conservative women. These woman have been witnessing what they see as the systematic destruction of the country’s economy, health care system, and energy policy by an administration hell bent on increasing government influence while eroding personal freedoms.

These past three years have given rise to some pretty spectacular political phenomena, be it the rise of the tea party movement, the “year of the conservative woman”, or the increasing dominance of citizen journalism. Whatever you call it, women, particularly those of the conservative variety, have taken to the front lines in the fight to save America and beat back an over-encroaching government that threatens their families’ futures.

Smart Girl Politics Action, founded in 2008, is a non-profit organization for “girls” of all ages who are interested in taking part in today’s political dialogue. Members of SGPAction can be found organizing tea parties, running for office, and generally challenging the ruling class in DC. SGPAction regularly surveys its members on the issues important to them, and their responses from the most recent survey – conducted earlier this month — may shed some light on why many women are just not that into Obama.

Debt

It’s simple kitchen table economics – don’t spend more money than you take in. Policy wonks may disagree about the best way to reduce debt and conquer the federal deficit, but American women tend to be practical in their approach: Cut spending. And, while you’re at it, reform entitlement programs. Some comments from the SGPAction survery:

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Israeli security forces use a system of profiling passengers in order to protect air travel. They don’t conduct these silly random searches we see almost daily in America. The Israeli security guards know the type of person who is most likely to carry out a terrorist attack; they don’t need to pat down 95-year-old grandmothers.

Likewise, when the protests turned ugly outside of the Milwaukee Catholic school where Gov. Scott Walker was appearing last Friday, I instinctively knew that the worst offenders would be  teacher union leaders.

Why? Because a nasty, belligerent attitude has become a requirement for a leadership post in most teachers unions. Sure, union leaders publicly talk about the need for civility and open-mindedness, but in their unscripted moments they spew vitriol, intimidation and hatred.

And the unionist thug is...

In yesterday’s article, I wrote about a video that was taken of the Walker protestors who lined the sidewalk outside the school. The video captures one of the thugs verbally intimidating a female school employee, telling her, “We don’t want you in our neighborhood.  Go back to there you came from.”

Former teachers union and SEIU organizer Brian Rothgery. Source: Flickr

I ended that article by asking for tips to identify that individual who should have a civil rights complaint filed against him. I received several tips, and the offender has been identified as Brian Rothgery. Not only is Rothgery a former co-president of American Federation of Teachers Local 2169 (the Milwaukee Graduate Assistants Association), but prior to that he was a – wait for it…wait for it – an SEIU organizer!

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On Tuesday*, a mere four business days after the union extremists at President Obama’s National Labor Relations Board issued an edict forcing all NLRA-covered private-sector businesses to notify their employees about their rights to unionize their workplace, the government’s primary union pushers issued a series of decisions that undermine both employee’s rights and employers ability to remain or become union free.

* The decisions were made before former Teamster attorney and NLRB Chairman Wilma Liebman’s term ended Saturday night, but were issued on Tuesday afternoon.

In the first case released, Lamons Gasket, Inc., the union-backed Democrats on the NLRB removed employees’ rights to petition to decertify (via secret-ballot election) a union where the employer had recognized the union based on the flawed process known as card-check.  The ruling in this case reverses the precedent established in 2007 (under the Bush NLRB) that gave employees who were unionized via an employer’s voluntary recognition of a union through card check 45 days to challenge the union’s status by getting 30% of the employees’ signatures to hold an election.

This decision is a companion case to last year’s decision by the Obama NLRB that legitimizes “sweetheart unions”—unions that trade away employees’ interests in exchange for unionizing them through card-check and voluntary recognition. While the NLRB legitimized sweetheart unions last year, until Tuesday, employees could petition to decertify the union within 45 days. Now, thanks to the union extremists at the NLRB and their union handlers, employees have lost that right. (more…)

Their departures weren’t exactly fast and furious, but two DOJ officials have now fallen on their swords in the much in the news gun-trafficking investigation out of Arizona.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced the resignation of the United States attorney in Phoenix, Dennis K. Burke, and the reassignment of the acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Kenneth E. Melson.

The backstory behind Sarah Palin heading to New Hampshire after her upcoming Iowa event may be almost as interesting as her speech. Romney cancelled a Tea Party  event to hook-up with the Tea Party Express. Palin stepped-up and is now going to New Hampshire after Iowa as part of her weekend. Given her appearance before a state group versus the Express may lend an air of authenticity. Meanwhile, Christine O’Donnell is back on the agenda in Iowa. Also, Rick Perry has announced an upcoming event with Virginia Bob McDonnell.

A dispute over wearing a hijab on park rides led to something of a riot at a New York amusement park. Approximately 15 of 30 – 40 Muslims were arrested. Evidently they weren’t amused with park rules.

“Our headgear policy is designed to protect the safety of patrons and safety is our first concern,” said Deputy Parks Commissioner Peter Tartaglia. “This policy was repeatedly articulated to the tour operator, but unfortunately the message did not reach some of the members of his group.”

The altercation began when park officials offered refunds and members of the Muslim group got in a scuffle, Tartaglia told The Journal News. Two park rangers were injured when they jumped in to break it up, he said, and were taken to local hospitals.

Some might think this an appropriate expenditure of designated non-profit funds, others don’t. DC is trying to recover the money.

D.C. Attorney General Irvin B. Nathan filed a false-claims complaint Tuesday against the nonprofit group Miracle Hands and its director, reformed gangster Cornell Jones, charging them with misappropriating more than $300,000 from the city’s HIV/AIDS program for renovations on a proposed job training center that instead was used to open a strip club.

A GOP tax expert has been designated top staff aide with the so-called Supercommittee.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, have selected Mark Prater, a tax lawyer with the Senate Finance Committee, as the supercommittee’s staff director. They said in a joint statement that Prater’s two decades of experience as a top GOP aide on the panel bring the know-how and experience required to help the supercommittee succeed.

Mitt Romney campaign not panicking over Rick Perry yet. Still, the Texan’s candidacy has upset Romney’s campaign strategy. His plan was essentially to be the last viable candidate standing. That isn’t likely to work now.

If Romney isn’t panicking, the GOP establishment almost certainly is.  Expect a virulent attack on Perry after Labor Day.

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It wasn’t that long ago that news outlets everywhere were running headlines about how dull the 2012 GOP field was shaping up to be. The mainstream media had anointed McRomney as the candidate to beat, and the ebb of excitement was so low that people actually watched Jon McHuntsman give a speech announcing his entrance into the race.

But everything changed once Gov. Rick Perry threw his hat into the ring. He galloped in like the cowboy the left loves to hate, and he’s yet to apologize for it. In fact, as you watch his gestures and listen to his accent he’s as undeniably Texas as Dallas itself, and because of that, he’s not one to lie down and let the Republican establishment walk on him.

Heck, Perry might even have spurs that “jingle jangle jingle.”

I’m serious folks: Perry is Texas personified. He is bigger than life, and that’s why he’s shellacking his Republican competition in the polls.

Just think about it – there are videos circulating (via the Houston Chronicle’s Kathleen McKinley) that show Gov. Perry teaching her and other bloggers and reporters how to shoot a handgun. And I don’t mean the video shows him standing at a podium, talking them through it. Rather, it shows him standing beside them as they shoot, chambering a bullet in the gun for them, and telling them what to expect as far as recoil goes, etc. (You can see the video here.)

Folks, Gov. Perry has a handgun named in honor of him.

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Co-authored with Trey Kovacs

Until recently, union bosses—not elected representatives—have been in control of the government employee compensation process. Using taxpayer dollars they obtain through mandatory dues, they elect the management they later negotiate with. However, across the country in states such as Wisconsin, Ohio, and Michigan, taxpayers are fighting back and the tide of Big Labor control is starting to change.

Now there is a new online tool to give taxpayers and policy makers critical information on which states favor Big Labor. The Competitive Enterprise Institute and Crossroads GPS recently launched a “Big Labor versus Taxpayer Index” that analyzes 1,150 labor laws and regulations throughout the country and exposes states that make coddling Big Labor a top priority.

For the first time ever, government union members outnumbered those in the private sector in 2009. These unions are at the forefront of the movement for more expansive and expensive government. They use collected forced dues to lobby for greater pay, lavish benefits and more members. They also have a legal monopoly over public services and, if they strike, can deprive citizens of essential services such as education and safety.

The result is a vicious circle. Politicians cater to government unions, and these unions in turn support these politicians’ election campaigns. Once these pro-Big Labor candidates are elected, they can provide the increased pay and benefits to government employees that is demanded by their unions. The unions then collect dues from their members, which enables them to give more political support to friendly politicians, and the cycle goes on.

Politicians can put the interest of government unions ahead of taxpayers in a multitude of ways. Below are a few examples rated by the index on how Big Labor can be put head of citizens.

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Today, in 1803, Lewis and Clark launched their expedition to the West.

Outgoing NLRB Chair Wilma Liebman and the of the Obama Appointed NLRB Board members, Craig Becker & Mark Pearce, voted to eliminate secret ballot election protections.  Now, when employers make secrets deals with a union bosses agreeing to recognize a union without allowing his employees a secret ballot vote;  employees no longer have the right to force an NLRB secret ballot election and allow workers to decide if they want the union or not.

Unable to pass EFCA, Card Check Forced Unionism,  through a Democrat-controlled congress, Obama is paying off Big Labor through his handpicked NLRB Board.  He is doing all this at the expense of worker freedoms and worker paychecks. And, the NLRB Decision is applied retroactively to bar even elections that have already been held but not counted.

Employees can now be forced to pay for an undisclosed arrangement between employers and labor union bosses without having the right to put it to a secret ballot election.

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Editor’s Note: Paul R. Hollrah is a senior fellow at the Lincoln Heritage Institute and a contributing editor for Family Security Matters and a number of online publications, including mine, BobMcCarty.com.  Today, I published a piece by Paul that deserves widespread attention.  For that reason, I share it below.

In early February 1997, I received a telephone call from a longtime friend in Washington. He was calling to say that we were being recruited for a very important assignment, an assignment related to national security.

He explained that, in 1996, the Clinton administration agreed to give the People’s Republic of China a complete set of magnetic tapes from the U.S. Patent and Trademarks Office computers, containing every iota of American technology registered with the patent office in the previous 160 years. With the information from those tapes on their computers, the Chinese would know exactly how to make everything we make. But more importantly, by tracking the long-term development of every conceivable kind of technology and extrapolating the path of development into the future, the Chinese could “leap-frog” our own technological development.

No American president could possibly think it was a good idea to do such a thing – unless, of course, he owed a debt of gratitude to the Chinese and he was more concerned about that than he was about the future prosperity of the American people. The American people would never have known how many factories were being built in remote provinces of China, employing workers who were happy to work for two or three dollars a day. When the proposed technology transfer was inadvertently reported in a Commerce Department newsletter, the offer was withdrawn.

But what was potentially more damaging to the United States was contained in a Memorandum of Understanding with the Japanese government, signed by Commerce Secretary Ron Brown… an agreement to introduce legislation in the U.S, Congress that would destroy the U.S. patent system, as we know it. The vehicles for that treachery, already introduced in Congress, were H.400 and S.507, the House and Senate versions of the Omnibus Patent Reform Act of 1997.

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Astronauts are stranded on the space station. America’s once-mighty Space Shuttle fleet has been disassembled and mothballed with nothing to replace it. The Russians, once the inferior player in the space race, is the only hope left to rescue the stranded astronauts. No, this isn’t the treatment to a B-list summer movie — it is playing out before our eyes.

It never had to be this way. When historians look back on the American space program over the past 5 years, they are bound to scratch their heads and wonder, “what on Earth happened?” Where were our bold strokes of genius that propelled us to the Moon, created a fleet of shuttles that were the workhorses of space — where was the leadership that ensured America’s technological dominance in the world? Why did we throw in the towel?

With President Obama allowing the Space Shuttle program to die and laying off thousands who worked lifetimes solidifying its success, we had to turn to our old rivals – the Russians. This week, the Russians launched a Soyuz rocket filled with supplies bound for the space station. The rocket exploded scattering smoldering debris for miles. The Soyuz is the world’s last chance to travel into space. Yes, a rocket designed in 1966 is our last modern operating manned space vehicle. Pathetic.

It was President George W. Bush that realized the shuttles had run their course, and he set a date to replace the program. Instead of the low-orbiting shuttle, America would build the world’s largest and most powerful rocket to return to the Moon, build a base there to launch more ambitious missions — go to Mars, where the presence of ice indicates the ingredients of alien life. But, when Atlantis rolled to a stop at Kennedy Space Center, we had no way forward. Obama cancelled the Bush plan, and no one was quite sure where we were headed. The only certainty is that we would layoff over 4,000 unique and highly trained American space experts – in both the public and private sector.  America’s space program is a metaphor for much of what ails the nation, the President left us listless and adrift with no plan to move forward.

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