Gwen Ifill of PBS had a “panel of cultural and academic luminaries” at Martha’s Vineyard Performing Arts Center last Wednesday. Their purpose was to have an “effective racial dialogue” with one another.

As is typically the case when there is a “racial dialogue,” the panel was filled with like-minded liberals endlessly agreeing with each other and solving nothing. The participants included, among others, Gwen Ifill, New York Times columnists Charles Blow, and Anita Hill–who is apparently a “legal commentator.” Absent was a single conservative. Maybe an insightful conversation could have occurred if there were actually diverse thoughts present.

Instead they had Tim Wise, a supposed “anti-racist” author and speaker. Wise is popular among college leftists for his style and bold remarks. Some of those remarks, however, are possibly the most angry, hateful remarks any public figure has recently uttered. For example, Wise recently attacked not only Andrew Breitbart, but his family as well:

“[Andrew Breitbart]…I want that bastard destroyed. Now. [...] when I say I want him destroyed I am not kidding. I want to see him penniless, homeless, begging on the street for money to buy food [...] he can die on the street so far as I’m concerned [...] let you and your rich ass Brentwood family suffer”

Wise also falsely and embarrassingly accused Breitbart of approving of a cross burning, which was in reality directed at Breitbart and his friend. Wise then reiterated:

“this Tulane grad [Tim Wise] is committed to [Andrew Breitbart's] utter destruction …I mean, the kind of destruction that involves the complete evisceration of his entire career. I want him destroyed. Penniless. Starving. I have never detested anyone this much…but for him, I will make an exception.”

Yes, penniless, starving, the evisceration of Breitbart’s career, we get it. Good luck with that, Tim. His recent racial slur of Herman Cain would, in a just world, disqualify him from being a prominent “anti-racist” and being invited to these events. But it doesn’t; instead, he has two new books coming out which will probably become required reading in college campuses across the country, like his previous books.

The question is, will Gwen Ifill, PBS, and CNN give this man a platform like they have in the past to spread his ideas on “effective racial dialogue” and “reconciliation?”

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In an embarrassing defeat for the Obama administration, a federal court ruled on Wednesday that Secret Service White House visitor logs are agency records that are subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act! U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell issued the decision in Judicial Watch v. Secret Service, (No. 09-2312).

Here’s the bottom line: The Obama administration will now have to release all records of all visitors to the White House – or explain why White House visits should be kept secret under law.

In our lawsuit we asked the court to order the release of Secret Service logs of White House visitors from January 20, 2009, to August 10, 2009. The Obama administration’s principal argument had been that the logs were not “agency” records subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). And just in case that argument didn’t hold water, Obama administration lawyers took a kitchen sink approach in attempting to stop our lawsuit, asserting a number of other arguments regarding why these records should not be released. The court struck them all down, one by one.

Please click here to read Judge Howell’s complete ruling for all of the details, but here’s a quick summary of the court’s conclusions:

• The Obama administration argued the visitor logs are not “agency” records subject to FOIA. The court applied a standard “two-part” test, and ultimately concluded, “…the Secret Service argues that it is unable to dispose of the records freely because they are ultimately White House records and not agency records. This argument is circular. The claimed restrictions on disposal stem from the defendant’s assumption that the documents are under Presidential control—the exact point that the defendant seeks to prove to establish that the documents are not subject to FOIA.”Judicial Watch noted in its complaint filed on December 7, 2009, the Obama administration’s claim “has been litigated and rejected repeatedly.” The court noted precedent in its ruling: “This Court agrees with the conclusions of the other judges in this District that have considered this question and finds that the records are subject to FOIA.”
• The Obama administration argued that Judicial Watch’s request is too massive and broad and cannot be processed. Judge Howell was unconvinced. “While the Court is sensitive to the burdens raised by the plaintiff’s broad brush request for ‘all’ records of a certain type over a nine-month period, including the need to review such records for applicable exemptions, the Court is not persuaded that the plaintiff’s request requires a blanket rejection.”
• The Obama administration argued that Judicial Watch’s request would raise Constitutional, “separation of power” issues. Judge Howell ruled, “…The Court is skeptical of the underlying premise that the inclusion of [visitor logs] under FOIA raises any serious Constitutional problems….since the statutory language is unambiguous in relation to this issue, and the FOIA has built-in exemptions that mitigate the risk of the precise separation of powers concerns the defendant raises, the Court rejects defendant’s interpretive argument.”
• The Obama administration argued that Judicial Watch’s request raises national security concerns. The court noted, “At no point does the Secret Service assert, however, that there are not at least some records implicated by plaintiff’s FOIA request that could be easily searched for, separated out, and disclosed without raising national security concerns.”

Ultimately, Judge Howell concluded that “the proper course of action by the Secret Service is duly to process [Judicial Watch’s] FOIA request, disclose all segregable, nonexempt records, and then assert specific FOIA exemptions for all records it seeks to withhold.”

In other words, release or explain.

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Francis Cianfrocca to discuss how the upheaval in Libya and the Euro Bond debate will effect the markets. Then we’ll ask Francis when the next recession will hit, and oh yeah, Brad and his wife had a baby boy last week.

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:

US Diplomat: Gadhafi’s whereabouts not yet known
Euro Bond: Wrong Answer or Critical for Europe?
Merkel Says She’ll Resist Pressure for Euro Bond
Economist Jeffrey Sachs Hits Obama: “There’s Never Been A Plan”
Obama faces worst-case 2012 scenario

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In July of 2010, Barack Obama signed the Dodd-Frank bill into law. Forcing this unpopular piece of legislation upon the American people was akin to tossing a hand grenade of regulation into the banking industry and ducking to avoid the inevitable splatter. The problem is that instead of only damaging the profits of the people that Barney Frank claimed were responsible for the 2008 fiscal meltdown, the shrapnel went into the general populace. Those Americans who enjoyed the benefits of their banks debit rewards programs will find that particular perk is becoming extinct.

So what does this mean to the average American? Fall starts the season where consumer spending ticks up dramatically. We are spending money to send our kids back to school. Halloween has also become a bigger ticket holiday for many of us and of course there is the spendgasm of Thanksgiving and Christmas. Millions of people would accumulate points and use those during this time to subsidize the cost of school supplies and the slew of fast approaching holidays. For those people the end of these rewards programs takes literally hundreds of dollars out of their pockets.

The culprit in the Dodd-Frank bill that resulted in many banks pulling back their debit rewards programs is the Durbin amendment. In a nutshell, each time your debit card is swiped at a store or restaurant, that merchant pays a transaction fee. The benefit to the merchant in paying this fee is that they get to accept your card. That is why the door of most establishments displays the Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and other logos from financial service companies. The more methods of payments they accept the deeper their pool of potential customers.

There is no doubt that a business would do itself great damage by not accepting credit or debit cards with the Visa or MasterCard logo on it. On the minus side, they must pay for this privilege. The purpose of the Durbin amendment was to put a cap on this transaction fee, and limit the profits that the banks could make from merchants.

According to the Durbin Amendment, a hard cap of 12¢ per transaction will be put into place. This replaces the previous method of calculating transaction fees based upon the cost of the item. Before the Dodd-Frank bill, banks would charge a transaction fee of approximately 1% of the total cost of the goods or services that had been purchased. The 12¢ rule is now in play whether you are buying a Cadillac with your card, a computer or a can of Mr. Pibb.

According to J.P. Morgan, this cap will cost them over a billion dollars in lost revenue. In fact many banks claim that 12¢ is too low, and that it costs them more than that to process each transaction. In short, the Durbin amendment removes the incentive for banks to encourage their customers to use debit cards as a method of payment. So as a result, the debit rewards program that many of us have come to rely on are going away.

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From Politico:

America’s trial lawyers are getting ready to make the case against one of their biggest targets in years: Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

Among litigators, there is no presidential candidate who inspires the same level of hatred – and fear – as Perry, an avowed opponent of the plaintiffs’ bar who has presided over several rounds of tort reform as governor.

And if Perry ends up as the Republican nominee for president, deep-pocketed trial lawyers intend to play a central role in the campaign to defeat him.

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The transformation of General Motors (GM) to Government Motors (GM) has cost a lot of Americans a lot of money.

Many, many of them under questionable and in fact illegal circumstances.

Let us begin with the $50 billion ‘We the People’ were forced to “invest” in General Motors – including a $30 billion Barack Obama bump so as to give his Administration greater sway in how things would subsequently go down.

We were originally told – by Obama himself – that we would make money on the bailout.  Now we’re told we’ll lose somewhere between $11 and $14 billion (and given the stock price’s long, slow slide, maybe even more).

And about which we were lied to by the Administration.  Which said this titanic loss of coin is less than they were expecting – just seven months after Obama his own self said we’d turn a profit.

Then there was the 2009 GM bankruptcy filing (which we were told our $50 billion would forestall – oops).

Through which the Obama Administration’s new toy car company eviscerated existing law to benefit their union, campaign-funding cronies at the illegal expense of GM bond holders – who should have by law received preferred treatment.

The ripped off didn’t take too kindly to being the Administration’s latest dupes:

We believe the offer to be a blatant disregard of fairness for the bondholders who have funded this company and amounts to using taxpayer money to show political favoritism of one creditor over another….

No kidding.

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Gov. Rick Perry’s entrance into the presidential race has changed the complexion of the coming election season for the better in many ways. For one, his juggernaut-like ascent to the lead in the polls has all but guaranteed that moderates like Jon McHuntsman are wasting their time. Secondly, by so quickly drawing criticism from Obama he reminded us that the president is not only vulnerable, but very vulnerable. And lastly, but doing all these things long after others have already gotten into the race he reminded us that it’s still not too late for Gov. Sarah Palin to throw her name into the mix.

And as a matter of fact, even though Palin hasn’t officially entered the race she’s already running third in primary polls in Florida. (Wow – running third although she isn’t even a candidate yet.)

So what happens if she gets in and gets the nomination? What if the race ends up being Palin v. Obama?

If it does, Obama may find out how Walter Mondale felt after running against Reagan in 1984. But he will surely find out how Jimmy Carter felt when he faced Reagan in 1980.

Skeptics notwithstanding, this is so because Palin v. Obama will pit faith in the American people against faith in government. In so doing, it will allow Palin to tell us again and again of how this country is great because of salt-of-the-earth Americans who love their families, their God, and their country, while Obama stands on the other side of a teleprompter telling us everything will be fine if we just pass another stimulus bill, raise taxes, and allow government to reach even further into the private sector via increased regulation and oversight.

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Last week, Andrew Breitbart sat down exclusively with EAGtv to discuss the state of American education, school choice and a new movie that will show the battle for a better education.

He said the “status quo is deplorable.”

Today, in 1996, President Clinton signed landmark welfare reform into law. Millions of Americans were freed from the chains of government dependency. Yeah, about that time again.

Last week, Google announced its plans to acquire Motorola Mobility, effecting a vertical integration from the Android operating system into hardware.  Investors responded by shaving roughly 13% off Google’s value—roughly twice as much as the NASDAQ lost and three times as much as the Dow.

A few days later, HP announced its plans to shed its PC division and acquire a software company.  The combined effect will be a shift from hardware—long HP’s mainstay—towards software.  Investors responded by knocking close to 20% from its value in a single day.

So what, one may wonder, do tech investors want?  Apparently neither integration nor refocusing can please them.  While it is certainly true that few companies posted big wins in the equity markets this week, it remains striking that Google underperformed Oracle, IBM, Apple, Microsoft, and Yahoo! (all of whom posted losses much closer to those of NASDAQ) and HP did even worse.  Is there an underlying message in their declines?  And if so, what is it?

Perhaps the message has to do with a judgment about the state of the tech sector.  Technology industries tend to evolve in a Darwinian fashion.  A new foundational technology—such as the PC, the Internet, or cell phones—crosses a certain level of usefulness, and a race ensues.  A handful of platform providers launch competitive tweaks designed to make the foundational technology broadly functional, and many aftermarket players arise in their wake.

Eventually, the platform competitors winnow themselves down to a small number of winners, each of whom shifts its focus from the direct platform competition to the organization of the aftermarket ecosystem spawned in its wake.  Competition within those ecosystems then accelerates, as each one begins to claim unique advantages.  A generation or two down the road, few advantages remain unique; the remaining platforms begin to converge.  Until, suddenly, a new technology arises to restart the system

We have seen this pattern repeat itself several times.

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From The LA Times:

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) came out swinging against Republicans in Congress on Saturday as she addressed the unemployed during a forum in Inglewood.

The event occurred a day after new statistics were released showing that California’s jobless rate last month went up to 12%, from 11.8%. California now has the second-highest rate of unemployment in the nation, trailing only Nevada at 12.9%, and its jobless rate is well above the U.S. average of 9.1%.

Waters vowed to push Congress to focus on creating more jobs. “I’m not afraid of anybody,” said Waters. “This is a tough game. You can’t be intimidated. You can’t be frightened. And as far as I’m concerned, the ‘tea party’ can go straight to hell.”

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Missouri state representative Chris Molendorp filed a bill last session to set up a health insurance exchange.  HB 609 was passed unanimously by the House and by the Senate committee it was assigned to.  It was never brought to the floor of the Senate.  Why?  Sen. Jane Cunningham said it was because she actually read the bill and was shocked at what it contained.

In 2010, Sen. Cunningham sponsored the Health Care Freedom Act, a referendum that sought to protect Missourians from the now infamous ‘individual mandate.’ The Act was placed on the ballot in August 2010 as Proposition C; the first time any Americans got to vote on the measure and they passed it with 71% of the vote. (Full disclosure: I managed the campaign to pass Prop C.)

Cunningham read HB 609 to basically gut everything passed by the voters of Missouri in Prop C.  Specifically, it yielded authority to the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, DC 46 different times.  Beverly Gossage provides a substantive case against insurance exchanges in The Missouri Record, and in it she draws attention to a statement by Micheal Cannon of the CATO Institute:

I am continually surprised by how many people around the country mistakenly believe the new law requires states to create an Exchange. The authors of the law knew full well that such a requirement would be unconstitutional. Instead, the law asks states to do the heavy lifting of creating these bureaucracies, offers them considerable sums of money, and as a fallback position allows the federal government to create an Exchange if a state declines to do so.

Appearing before the Senate Interim Committee on Health Insurance Exchanges, Director of the Missouri Department of Insurance, John Huff, testified several times that problems with the federal exchanges could be fixed if Missouri took the initiative (and the federal grant money) and just designed its own exchange.  Otherwise, he feared, Washington would just force us into a one-size-fits-all exchange.

Or not.

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If the Republican Presidential race were a poker game, you could say that Palin, the underdog has remained in late position long enough to see the full ring, to expose the live ones.  She’s learned their tells, and she’s seen some bust, but now it’s time for her to go all in with what looks to be a royal flush.

If you’re not a poker player, you may need a poker dictionary to decipher my analogy.  And “they” think she doesn’t know how the game of politics is played.  The good old boys just never realized that she wasn’t playing by their rules.

If, or rather when, Sarah Palin announces her candidacy for President; Republican polls will likely shift in her favor.  There are droves of Republicans and Independents who like Sarah Palin and what she stands for.  But if there is one common thread you will hear as a negative, it is “but I don’t think she can win.”  Yet she continues to pack in larger crowds than declared presidential candidates.  The media loves to hate her, and to her credit, she’s probably the most highly-vetted potential candidate the country has ever seen.

It’s looking more and more these days as if Sarah Palin will announce her run for the White House in short order.  If you keep up with Palin’s history, you may come to the conclusion that there is no accident in her decision to go to Iowa September 3^rd for what many believe will be her big announcement.  September 3, 2011 is three years, to the day, that Sarah Palin accepted the nomination for Vice President and gave her famously rousing speech during the Republican National Convention.  In the last few days, even those in the media have noted that it appears that Sarah Palin will announce in the early weeks of September.

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Case in point: College students take a pass on GPA redistribution.

Oliver Darcy, a recent college graduate, proposes that students with good grades contribute their GPA to their academically sluggish friends. He argues that this is how the federal government takes wealth from the country’s high wage earners and distributes it to the low income earners.

“They all earn their GPA,” said Darcy in an interview with “Fox and Friends.” “So we asked them if they’d be interested in redistributing the GPA points that they earned to students who may be having trouble getting a high GPA.”

Darcy, who films his encounters with teachers and fellow students, doesn’t have much luck selling this theory.

He said many students on college campuses support high taxes on the rich, but when put into relative terms, cringed at the thought of spreading around their academic wealth (Fox News).

This reminded me of my own experiment I once conducted with similar results. It was during a weekend and those of us working at my office were working nights. The office decided to order pizza. As we were getting our orders, I let it be known that I did not have any cash on me. However, I did not mention that I had brought leftovers and wasn’t interested in the first place. At any rate, we were fresh off a big office debate on healthcare and taxes. I thought this little learning lesson was too good to pass up. Once the pizza arrived I made my way over to the boxes and began stacking my plate. I even made critical comments of some of the selections. I purposely honed in on the orders made by the office socialists. Out of a group of, say, 12, there were only three of them. As you can imagine, they were none too pleased over me rummaging through their pizza.

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Today, in 1968, Warsaw Pact troops invaded Czechoslovakia, ending the “Prague Spring” movement for greater freedom.

Byron York in today’s The Washington Examiner:

Former Bush advisor Karl Rove says he believes former Alaska governor Sarah Palin will enter the Republican presidential race sometime around Labor Day. Appearing on Fox News Saturday morning, Rove said Palin “has a schedule next week that looks like that of a candidate, not a celebrity.” Rove also cited a new campaign-style video Palin has released on her recent visit to the Iowa State Fair as evidence Palin is gearing up for a run.

Palin will be the keynote speaker at the Tea Party of America’s “Restoring America” event in Iowa September 3. The event location was recently moved from Waukee, Iowa, to Indianola, Iowa to accommodate a larger crowd.

“This is her last chance,” Rove said. “She either gets in or gets out [after the Iowa visit]. I think she gets in.”

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Some people don’t realize that just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. Obama’s Martha’s Vineyard vacation falls into the can-but-shouldn’t category. Yes, yes, presidents deserve a vacation, but sometimes low-key commiseration with the misfortune of others goes a whole lot further than a Martha’s Vineyard jaunt wearing a dorky-looking bicycle helmet.

The issue at hand is the Obama family going on vacation while America is on life support, and transporting themselves to that vacation spot on not one but two taxpayer-funded aircraft.

Presently, most Americans are  crawling around in a desert of misery, begging for a drop of water. Unfortunately, the parched will have to endure until Barack Obama finishes relaxing, reading and recreating for 10 days, holed up in a $50,000-per-week tony Chilmark rental.

Besides being tactless and insensitive, the Obamas’ blatant in-your-face vacation is a perfect example of a “tone-deaf” president disregarding the despair of others and justifying a right to luxuries that few Americans presently have the finances to enjoy.

Granted, the President of the United States and his wife are entitled to eat, but eating shouldn’t include the moral equivalent of enjoying an elaborate buffet in famine-ravaged Kenya while starving refugees nearby consume bowls of cold cornmeal and sip warm muddy water.

If the Obamas insist on spending two weeks in an enclave noted for the rich and famous, especially while the nation’s unemployment rate hovers at just over 9%, then the least they could do is exhibit a modicum of restraint, and try to be as modest and discreet as possible.   Instead, Michelle Obama, renowned for her impatience when it comes to reaching her desired destination, put thousands of additional dollars on the taxpayers’ tab, “so she could have just a bit of extra vacation” – all of four hours’ worth.

Unwilling to wait for Barry to gather his Speedo, snorkeling gear and golfing shoes, professional vacationer Mrs. Obama, accompanied by daughters Sasha and Malia, boarded a US government jet just four hours ahead of the President, who flew into a local airport later that evening accompanied by Bo the family dog.

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After two weeks of striking, it appears that the red shirts at the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) are heading back to work without a contract in hand.

According to the CWA’s website:

Members of CWA and IBEW at Verizon Communications will return to work on Tuesday, Aug. 23, at which time the contract will be back in force for an indefinite period.

We have reached agreement with Verizon on how bargaining will proceed and how it will be restructured. The major issues remain to be discussed, but overall, issues now are focused and narrowed.

We appreciate the unity of our members and the support of so many in the greater community. Now we will focus on bargaining fairly and moving forward.

CWA and IBEW represent 45,000 workers at Verizon covered by this contract from Virginia to New England.

This back to work agreement comes just before the CWA would begin paying up to $300 per week in strike benefits to its striking members, saving the union up to $10 million per week out of its union treasury. (more…)