In the months of stories we’ve done on the Pigford settlement, people often leave comments that say “Hey, I have a houseplant — can I get $50,000, too?!?”

Since you asked — yes, you can. You don’t even need the plant.

Just visit FarmerClaims.gov and go to the bottom of the home page. You’ll find a link to a Summary of the Claims Process that brings up a PDF.  At the top of page 2, it explains what you need to provide for proof if you’re claiming that you made a ‘bona-fide’ attempt to apply but were actively discouraged.

This short video I made lets people know how easy it is to collect.

What does this mean practically?

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With little more than a year before the 2012 elections, the press has started to sharpen its focus on the candidates. Judicial Watch, meanwhile, is deeply concerned about the integrity of the electoral process — especially given the rampant voter registration fraud caused by the “community organization” ACORN and its partner in crime Project Vote in the last several election cycles. (Do not believe the rumors that ACORN is defunct. As I’ve said before, the organization has splintered into organizations across the country and they are prepared to wreak havoc in 2012. Project Vote is going strong, and hasn’t changed its stripes.)

Last Tuesday, I moderated a Judicial Watch educational panel entitled “The Voter Fraud Threat to Free and Fair Elections” at Judicial Watch’s headquarters here in Washington, DC.

My guests were: John Fund, a senior editor of The American Spectator and author of Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy and the upcoming The Threat of Voter Fraud to Free and Fair Elections; Christian Adams, former Department of Justice Attorney in the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division; and Catherine Engelbrecht, Founder of both King Street Patriots and True the Vote.

It was about as good a panel as we’ve ever hosted, and viewing it will educate, worry and motivate you. You can click here to watch a video of the panel, which was also streamed live over the Internet. We will have a written transcript on our website very soon.

Following our educational panel, on Thursday we released documents obtained from the Colorado Department of State showing that ACORN and its affiliate, Project Vote, successfully pressured Colorado officials into implementing new policies for increasing the registration of public assistance recipients during the 2008 and 2010 election seasons. And, as you might expect, following the policy changes the percentage of invalid voter registration forms from Colorado public assistance agencies was four times the national average!

See what I mean by chaos and havoc?

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National and state liberal groups, led primarily by public employee labor unions, have pumped well in excess of $14,000,000 into the Wisconsin state senate recall elections, six of which will take place tomorrow.

-Click to Enlarge-

MacIver News’ staff complied this graphic of this unprecedented spending using official reports on file with the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board(Totals are accurate as of 8/8/11).

These figures include direct contributions from political action committee to candidates, coordinated independent expenditure campaigns, and individual third party expenditures.

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President Obama just spoke about the downgrade and his remarks were very disappointing. He uttered some empty platitudes, offered no plan, (amazingly) called for more government spending, and continued his advocacy of class-warfare taxation.

So what does this mean? Other than expecting volatility, I have no idea what will happen in financial markets over the next few days. But I can opine about the downgrade, Obama’s unserious response, and what it means in terms of public policy over the next few years and into the future.

Notwithstanding the President’s cavalier attitude, America is in trouble. But while the crisis is severe, we have some breathing room.

Our fiscal crisis is akin to a very dangerous, but slow-developing cancer. It is not a car wreck with immediate life-threatening injuries.

And there are solutions, as explained in this good news-bad news-bad news-bad news-good news-good news analysis.

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The tremendous 7% crash in stock market prices over the last five trading days serves as over-whelming evidence that the President of the United States or someone in his inner circle leaked “material non-public information” to Wall Street traders that the AAA credit rating of the United States of America would be downgraded.. Leaking of such information is criminal activity for both the trader who profits and the leaker. Depending on the level of the leak in his Administration; the President may be forced to resign of face severe sanctions.

Standard & Poors (S&P) has been providing credit rating services since 1860. The firm is extremely sensitive to the effect of rating changes have on the value of the securities they review and has an extraordinary capability to track the communications and actions of their employees to avoid any impropriety associated with the securities markets. In the case of a downgrade of the United States, every member of the firm would have known that exposure of such a leak by an S&P staff member would create a scandal that would destroy the 151 year-old firm and the offenders sentenced to long prison terms. Consequently, there is only a remote possibility that an employee of the S&P would have leaked the downgrade to Wall Street.

Reuters News Service reported from a source familiar with the talks on Friday: “Obama was briefed earlier in the day regarding S&P’s intentions, but discussions only took place with Treasury officials and did not include the White House.” This statement suggests the worst type of political spin possible. Either the President is completely incompetent in financial matters or he is disengaged from the plight of the nation!

It is preposterous to believe that the Administration would not have maintained intimate contact with the rating agencies over the last six months as the Sovereign Debt Crisis ravaged much of Europe. As the former CEO of two New York Stock Exchange listed companies and Treasurer of Orange County, California; I am personally familiar with policies and the procedures of each of the credit ratings firms. Ratings agencies meet regularly with every organization they rate. When S&P is about to issue a change in credit rating, they send a preliminary rating and a justification for the rating to the organization. The organization is given the opportunity to formally respond in writing to the proposed ratings change. The formal response is then forwarded to the Standard & Poors Credit Committee for final review. In the momentous event of the issuance of a preliminary downgrade of the United States; the most senior credit analysts at S&P would have personally met with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and senior Treasury staff. President Obama himself or another White House official would have attended the meeting to provide the Administration’s input.

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I get tired constantly repeating myself to my fine friends who are on the Left side of the political spectrum when it comes to economic, fiscal, and business realities.  It’s not their fault.  I used to be the same way.  However, following up on a good article about economics for dummies, I thought I’d add some basic concepts that everyone should understand — regardless of political beliefs.

This stuff isn’t that hard to understand.  My old high school math teacher would just drill me over and over on something until I got it.

Risk, Reward, and Investment

A rich person makes all his income, more than $250,000 each year, from investment income only.

Investment involves taking a risk.  In exchange for that risk, an investor is rewarded.  The greater the risk, the greater the reward.

Imagine two cups.  Under one is a dollar.  You bet one dollar and choose one cup.   The odds of picking the right cup are 1-1.  If you are right, you win one dollar.

Imagine ten cups.  Under one cup is ten dollars.  You bet one dollar but choose only one cup.  The risk of choosing the right cup has gone up to 9-1 against you.   Don’t you think you deserve a higher reward for choosing that one right cup?

If you don’t think so, I have a bridge I’d like to sell you.

Investment works the same way.

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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 fallout from the S&P downgrade of our credit rating, the false “Tea Party Downgrade” spin from Democrats and the Verizon’s union strike.

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:

The credibility and integrity of S&P’s ratings action
S&P Seen Surrendering to Tea Party Costing U.S. Taxpayer
“Tea Party Downgrade”? They Can’t Possibly Sell That
Second Recession in U.S. Could Be Worse Than First
45,000 Verizon Workers Go On Strike Over Contract

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Follow Francis on Twitter

From today’s New York Post:

The White House narrative on how the country lost its triple-A rating and began a descent toward Third World status goes something like this:

Standard & Poors woke up Friday morning and out of the blue decided to downgrade Uncle Sam’s debt despite the administration’s best efforts to show the wrong-headedness of the S&P analysis.

Don’t buy it.

Yes, last Friday saw lots of meetings in Washington with Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner & Co. haranguing S&P executives with phony evidence that they’re getting a handle on the nation’s $14 trillion and rising debt, and the rotten economy that has squeezed tax revenues. But the fact remains, federal debt is set to grow for the foreseeable future, even with the spending cuts imposed in the recent debt-ceiling deal.

More important, the downgrade should hardly have been a surprise for the administration — it was among the most telegraphed in the history of downgrades.

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Michele Bachmann’s decision to vote against raising the debt ceiling, and to campaign on that stance, may turn out to be a decisive event in the race for the GOP nomination–and the presidency.

Whether that was the right policy for the economy is still an open question–especially since the U.S. credit rating was downgraded anyway. But it was the right decision for American politics, because it assures voters a real choice in 2012.

2012 is about the future. (Bachmann campaign)

The turning point in the 2008 contest was the financial crisis of mid-September–and the decision by John McCain to support the massive taxpayer bailout of Wall Street. That may or may not have been the right economic decision; economists are still debating that, and plenty of conservatives supported the bailouts. But it robbed American voters of the chance to choose an alternative to Barack Obama’s big government philosophy.

By the time McCain arrived at the first presidential debate on September 26, 2008, there was little apparent difference between the two candidates on the substantive question of the role and size of government. Only Sarah Palin managed to articulate an unabashed defense of the free market–one that held Wall Street accountable but also emphasized personal responsibility rather than the need for government intervention in the economy.

As House Majority Leader Eric Cantor notes in a must-read interview in the Wall Street Journal, the 2012 election will offer voters the debate over the role of government that voters deserved–and which the GOP was too timid to offer–in 2008. Any Republican candidate, including those now positioning themselves as moderates, would be better than Obama on that question–but who would best articulate the Republican position? (more…)

Yes, we understand that politics is a blood sport and that name-calling has become the common coin of the political realm.  But this past week, following the passage of the bill to raise the debt ceiling, and before the nation’s credit rating was downgraded, the Left’s barkers unleashed a well-harmonized and profane ad hominem campaign that established a new low in American politics.

The Standard and Poor’s downgrade, which punctuated a week of very bad news, cannot entirely be laid at the feet of the Obama Administration nor the 112^th Congress, because a succession of Administrations and Congresses nurtured the entitlement sacred cow that more, much more, than anything else put the nation on the road to Europe, and now, a credit rating to match.  This is, however, the Administration and the Congress that could have stopped it.  Frankly, we think the House-passed Ryan budget would have been an excellent start, but the common-sense proposal was slapped down by the White House as too radical.  We also believe, and have stated in past essays, that the President’s own Simpson-Bowles Debt and Deficit Commission recommendations would have been a strong start down the road to fiscal sanity, but that too was slapped down by the President.

It is tempting to dismiss the terrorism tirade as simply childish, but that’s a temptation on which we’ll pass.  “Terrorist” has become, perhaps, the most pejorative term in our common vocabulary.  It is, after all, instantly and correctly associated with the murder of thousands of Americans, as well as innocent citizens of other civilized countries, and such grotesqueries as the beheading of captives, hostages and other non-combatants.  To be labeled a “terrorist” is instantly to be consigned to (in the words of Nancy Pelosi) “the dark side”.

As is by now common knowledge, Rep. Michael Doyle of Pennsylvania was the first Democrat to use the terrorist analogy when referring, behind closed doors, to the Republican negotiators during the debt ceiling dust up. According to Politico, Vice President Biden who was present, then responded, “they have acted like terrorists.” And then, fast as one can say “chronic hoof and mouth disease,” word spread.  Biden quickly denied he ever said such a thing and the White House immediately walked back (Washington lingo for reversing course) the Biden snafu with the admonishment that such talk was inappropriate.

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It was a strange experience to read the comments and emails generated by yesterday’s post on the “Obama downgrade.”

Democrats and liberals were upset that I blamed Obama for the downgrade, as you might expect. Republicans and conservatives, however, were agitated that my first sentence pointed out that Bush bore significant responsibility for the spending binge that created the fiscal crisis.

This got me thinking about the underlying causes of America’s long-term fiscal problems and whether it might be possible to come up with some sort of reasonable estimate on which Presidents are most responsible for fiscal crisis.

So I decided to look at the most recent long-run forecast from the Congressional Budget Office. As you might suspect, entitlement programs are THE reason why the United States is in deep trouble.

What does this allow us to say about various presidents? Well, it turns out that Social Security is a relatively minor part of the problem, so even though President Roosevelt’s policies exacerbated and extended the Great Depression, the program he created is only responsible for a small share of the fiscal crisis. To give the illusion of scientific exactitude, let’s assign FDR 13.2 percent of the blame.

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It’s already happening – the liberal dream of a perpetual social welfare state where deadbeat liberal constituencies feed off of the work of productive conservative citizens in perpetuity is dying.  There’s no doubt about that; the only question left is how long and hard the process will be as the hideous leviathan the utopian liberal establishment has created convulses and dies.

It’s going to die hard.  And ugly.

The collapse is well-underway in Europe – Greece has gone from the cradle of democracy to a cesspool of union-fueled mobs – but America faces the same trauma.  As the contradictions inherent in the vision of a societal plan based on the notion that an ever-expanding pool of Democratic-voting serfs sucking the wealth away from the mostly Republican-oriented producers who labored to create it become more apparent, the reactions and rear-guard efforts of the terminal liberal elite will grow more extreme.

We are already seeing the liberal elite lash out in anger and frustration at what is a perfect storm of failure.  Glenn Reynolds, the legendary Instapundit, chronicles the daily disintegration, while the brilliant Mark Steyn’s cheery new book, After America: Get Ready for Armageddon, drops on August 8, 2011 – I’ll race you to Amazon to get a copy.

As the three components of the liberal establishment – the media, the unions and politicians – rage at the dying of the liberal light, the insanity meter will swing far into the red.  It’s already begun.  The Tea Party has dared to speak the truth, and the uncomfortable realities it has pointed out have destroyed the bogus consensus that has allowed the debt Titanic to sail giddily on toward the iceberg.  That’s why the establishment response is to demonize the popular movement.  We’re “terrorists” or “lunatics” or, bizarrely, “hobbits.”  Our crime is telling the truth.

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Today, world markets will react to the downgrade of US debt. Asian markets opened down. All eyes are on Wall Street.

Can you even imagine blaming a rape victim for being raped, or a terrorist victim for being murdered by terrorists? Of course not. In a sane world, it is the rapist and terrorist that is blamed for the crime, not the victim. But amazingly, this is exactly what Obama and his socialist cabal are now doing in the midst of the debt ceiling crisis- blaming the victims.

These out of control D.C. spending addicts are exactly like drug addicts who have abandoned their spouse, kids, and job to snort crack cocaine 24 hours a day. Even though they’ve stolen from us, we do all we can to help, doing our best to get them into rehab. But since they don’t want to stop snorting their drugs, what we get in return is hate, anger and blame. They accuse us of being horrible people for not willingly handing over more money to feed their spending addiction. They absurdly assert it’s all our fault and that we’ve forced them to rob us at gunpoint. And they scream that we are “extreme” while they keep snorting.

Only seriously delusional enablers can close their eyes to the fact that Obama and his fellow addicts have spent us to the edge of economic Armageddon, and blindly refuse to see that it is the addicts on Capital Hill who are irresponsible, dangerous, self-destructive, and suicidal. They can’t stop…they want more money…they deny they have a problem…and they think the answer to their addiction is more money, to buy more drugs.

Like all addicts they don’t blame themselves for their addiction, it has to be someone else’s fault. In this case they blame the taxpayers and the Tea Party. It’s our fault because we won’t willing give them more money, to buy more drugs. Just like the crack addict, in their mind the answer to their drug problem is holding up the taxpayers at gunpoint for more money. The addicts are sick. Insane. Delusional. And headed for death.

The only difference between a crack addict and the addicts in D.C., is that the crack addict is suicidal, hurting only himself. Unfortunately, the addiction of Obama and Congress is destroying the American economy and enslaving our children and grandchildren to unimaginable debt for decades to come. This is a murder-suicide.

In the midst of this crisis, madness and economic disaster, the Tea Party has come to the rescue. The Tea Party is trying to save America and put the government in rehab by cutting off the money that feeds the addiction. Like all addicts, Obama’s response, supported by his enablers- the progressive left and the biased leftist media- is to attack and blame the Tea Party.

Mr. Obama, after spending the trillions of dollars we’ve given you in our hard earned taxes and then spending trillions more you didn’t have on things we don’t want, you’re actually blaming us? Seriously? You want taxpayers to pay more of our hard-earned money to feed your addiction? If the victims feeding your addiction finally say “enough” you define us as “extreme?”

Taxes aren’t the problem. Heavy federal, state, local, sales, property, and corporate taxes are already choking the entire U.S. economy. The addiction to spending is the problem. Raising taxes hasn’t helped Europe. The PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain) are all insolvent and bankrupt despite much higher taxes than America. More money has never helped a single addict in world history. Only tough love, discipline and rehab solves the problem. And only hitting rock bottom starts the healing process and saves their lives.

Obama is the mother of all spending addicts. He has an illness. Obama needs to stand up in front of America and say, “My name is Barack Obama and I am an addict. I apologize to the taxpayers, all of whom I have wronged. I apologize for spending our economy into insolvency and bankruptcy. I apologize for the historic levels of unsustainable debt. I apologize for trying to blame the victims (taxpayers) for my illness.”

It all starts with admitting you have a problem. You have to hit rock bottom. Obama and the Congress are addicts. They are ill. They need help. Taxpayers must refuse to pay more for their illness. We must not accept one dollar in new taxes.

Obama and Congress must learn to live with the money they’ve got. No more blaming the victim. The Tea Party and the taxpayers are the heroes here. We are the only sane ones in the room. We understand a spending addiction can’t be solved with more spending. It’s time to force the addicts to get help, or let them crash. It’s time to stop blaming the victim.

History repeats itself again and again. Obama and his spending-addicted socialist cabal is casting the Tea Party as radicals, going so far as to accuse them of treason for refusing to raise taxes or the debt ceiling. I’d like to remind Mr. Obama that is exactly what King George and his House of Lords called the original American Tea Party patriots. That didn’t work out so well for the king the first time.

Burrowed amongst extensive X-Games construction and L.A. Live weekend traffic, the historic South Central L.A. Tea Party held their first rally on July 24, 2011 outside the 102nd NAACP National Convention in Downtown Los Angeles to challenge the racist allegations against the Tea Party movement. During this busy Sunday afternoon, Tea Party advocates from all over Southern California came together on the lawn of the L.A. Convention Center in support of their newest members. In addition to signs that read “Give Me Liberty, Don’t Give Me Debt” and “Spread My Work Ethic, Not My Wealth,” there were signs that called the NAACP “Morally Bankrupt” and “Pro-Union, Anti-Black Citizens” which had some NAACP proponents booing and honking for the protestors to go home.

While the crowd robustly chanted “Tea Party No Retreat” and “Obama Stop Lying,” more heated NAACP supporters stood on the outer edge of the rally, contentiously spewing opposing views and yelling “the Tea Party is racist!” Still other adversaries coming from the convention peacefully gathered around to listen to the speakers and interact with the multi-racial crowd. When Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, organizer of the South Central L.A. Tea Party, took to the mic and proclaimed, “It’s not about being black, it’s not about being white, it’s about protecting America,” the 200 plus Tea Party members cheered.

Amid the array of enthusiasts was political activist Ted Hayes, Jr. who elaborated on the purpose of the South Central L.A. Tea Party gathering, “It will cause Black people to think. It gives us an option…hopefully, Jesse Peterson’s controversial step will cause Black people, even though to disagree with him, to at least consider what wrong with him, what he’s thinking about, and maybe they will find their way.” Having just come from the NAACP convention himself, The Tygrrrr Express conservative columnist, Eric Golub, said in defense of the NAACP, “It’s not a bunch of raving leftist preaching death to Republicans, it’s about medical and health issues, and the Army and Marines are in there.” A collected man promoting the decency of the NAACP added that an award ceremony for Black students who did well in school was taking place at that very moment.

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Despite a small glimmer of hope from last Friday’s unemployment rate drop to 9.1%, business leaders know nearly all other economic figures continue to point to an anemic recovery or worse, a double-dip recession.

In reaction to the jobs numbers, Home Depot co-founder, Bernie Marcus had this to say on Politico:

While some may be relieved at today’s jobs numbers, the reality is that our economy is struggling to recover. And a big reason for that is the federal government. The impediments that the government imposes are impossible to deal with. Every day you see rules and regulations from a group of Washington bureaucrats who know nothing about running a business. And I mean every day. It’s become stifling.

And this is a theme that business leaders continue to make: over-burdensome regulations from Washington are stifling the economy and preventing serious job growth while the Obama administration only continues to make the problem worse.

Lets take a look at the cold hard numbers. In the past few weeks, major American companies had to announce more layoffs:

- Borders – 400 stores will close, costing almost 11,000 jobs.

- Boston Scientific – Announced restructuring that will cost up to 1,400 jobs.

- Goldman Sachs – Will let go 1,000 employees, or nearly 3 percent of their workforce.

- Merck – Will layoff 13,000 workers to cut costs.

- State Street – Announced it will cut 850 jobs, in a second round of layoffs within a year.

With all of this going on, President Barack Obama is promising (yet another) renewed focus on job creation. But what is his administration doing? Contrary to Obama’s promised regulatory reform from earlier this year, the administration continues to say one thing and do another.

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The Obama administration has been touting new Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards to be imposed on America’s automobile manufacturers saying that it will save all Americans money at the pumps. Unfortunately, there are all sorts of hidden costs of which the administration isn’t noting, costs that will drive up the price of driving in multiple ways for all of us.

The new standards are supposed to raise the miles per gallon requirements from the 2016 mandate of 35.5 mpg to 56 mpg by the year 2025. The administration claims that this would be a big savings and would serve to help get Americans off a reliance on foreign oil.

Curiously, as Obama touts his new CAFE standards as a way to get us off foreign oil, there is no talk at all of increasing domestic oil production which would help do the same thing. But I digress.

Still, even if raising the mpg standards is a good idea, at this time automotive technology can’t reach that goal. Because of that, the car companies will have to spend billions in research and development to reach the new requirements. This will cause an added cost that isn’t being considered.

This new wave of R&D and the subsequent finished products based on that research is estimated to add up to $6,000 to the cost of every new car by 2025. Sadly, this would price low-end car buyers right out of the new car market.

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