REP. CHARLES RANGEL:  Hiya boys and girls.  It’s me again, your Uncle Chollie in Washington.  I help your Uncle Sam take care of you and your mom, and your dad, too, if he hasn’t run off yet.

I’m here to introduce someone special, a person who can calm the raging Maxine Waters with a look, sell solar panels below cost and still make a profit, and cause the stock market to plummet with a single word.

C’mon, kids, give it up for the President of the United States, Baraaccck Obama!

FADE TO:

A Command and Control bunker deep beneath the White House.  Wearing a headset, the President is sitting at a console facing three large-screen HD monitors showing complementary views of a tactical assault in progress.   He is issuing orders.

At a break in the action, the CIC swivels to face the camera, covers his mike, and whispers:

Hey kids.  Good to see you again.   Hold on a sec; I’m just finishing up a mission here.

He turns back to direct the closing moments of the operation:

Zulu 1: secure perimeter.  Henderson: white SUV fleeing site.  Task Predator to take it out.  Bravo 1: Standoff See-Through Infrared shows targets at top of stairwell. Body signatures confirmed.  Authorization granted. [pause] Roger that.  Well done.  Bring me back some ears. (more…)

Judicial Watch client Sergeant Joslyn Johnson, the widow of a fellow police officer gunned down by an illegal alien criminal, may finally get her day in court thanks to a landmark court victory!

On September 9, 2011, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled in favor of Sergeant Johnson. The three-judge panel reversed a decision by the district court. Sgt. Johnson’s lawsuit against the city of Houston’s illegal sanctuary policy will now continue.

As noted by the appellate court, under the Houston Police Department’s (HPD) illegal alien sanctuary policy, “HPD officers are forbidden from notifying federal authorities that they have encountered a known illegal alien unless they arrest that person on a ‘separate criminal charge (other than a class C misdemeanor).’”

Moreover, Houston’s sanctuary policy also prevents police officers from obtaining immigration information from a number of federal government databases. (The policy only allows police officers to check the “wanted” status of an illegal alien from a single federal database that tracks illegal aliens who have been convicted and deported for “drug trafficking, firearms trafficking, or serious violent crimes.”)

As we argued in our September 21, 2009, lawsuit on behalf of Sergeant Johnson, Houston’s restrictive illegal alien sanctuary policies harm her ability to communicate with federal immigration officials:

Officer Johnson does not seek to detain or arrest persons in order to inquire about their immigration status…Rather plaintiff [Johnson] seeks to use her professional judgment to determine when it is appropriate to contact ICE [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] to inquire or provide information about a person’s immigration status if, in the course of carrying out her duties and responsibilities as a law enforcement officer, she has reason to believe a crime may have been committed.

To this point, Sergeant Johnson has not even been able to make this case in a court of law.

(more…)

If the American Left has a Joan of Arc, her name would be Elizabeth Warren.  The Harvard professor was the designer and creator of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the independent regulatory agency that was given the power to regulate every financial transaction in America without proper checks and balances from Congress.

The plan was for Warren to head the Bureau and conduct a reign of regulatory terror on the economy.  But even President Obama got cold feet.  Warren was too radical to be confirmed by the Democrat-controlled Senate.  So Warren picked her replacement, Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray, packed her bags back to Massachusetts and declared a run for the US Senate.

The arrogance of power and the ignorance of history may be the best way to describe Warren and the government agency she concocted.  The philosophy behind the Bureau is simple – the learned and intelligencia must control the marketplace in order to protect the simple-minded.

We were given a little insight into her philipsophy by a person who videotaped a recent campaign appearance.  In Warren’s worldview, your success is dictated not by your efforts to work hard or your ingenuity, but by the state.

Warren addressed the issue of class-warfare in a manner appropriate for the Harvard faculty lounge.

“I hear all this, you know, ‘Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever.’ No. There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own —nobody. You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police-forces and fire-forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory — and hire someone to protect against this — because of the work the rest of us did.

This arrogance extends beyond a philosophical debate.

(more…)

Politicians who exaggerate the effects of climate change are as much in “denial” of science as those who reject the phenomenon come what may–more so, in fact, since they exhort the public to “believe” in something they themselves can rarely explain.

Case in point: President Barack Obama, taking Texas governor Rick Perry to task for “denying” climate change even though his “state is on fire.”

Fire twister from a 2009 Texas fire (Associated Press)

Let’s put aside, for a moment, the president’s appalling use of an ongoing disaster for political purposes, and focus on the scientific claim he is making: that Texas wildfires are the result of climate change (which in turn is the result of human use of fossil fuels–which, when burned, release gases into the atmosphere that trap heat and warm the earth’s surface).

What is the scientific basis for that claim? None, according to the government’s own leading climate change scientist.  (more…)

To many conservatives, it may seem surprising that Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) would echo antitrust concerns in his aggressive questioning of Google Chairman Eric Schmidt during this week’s hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights. Isn’t that more of a lefty thing? Well, yes and no. The left indeed tends to be altogether too, er, liberal in its use of anti-trust laws to control big business. But conservatives also need to guard America against bad policies and domineering, unfair businesses practices that distort markets and ultimately punish consumers.

I believe this is where Sen. Lee was coming from in his line of argument against Schmidt.

Antitrust aside, Google has danced very close to the line in terms of profiting from other companies’ property rights, for example. In the eyes of many experts, Google also has violated consumer privacy. It has heavily influenced public policy to protect and enhance its bottom line at the expense of other companies. Surely it’s worth asking if Google’s business, lobbying and legal strategies pose threats free enterprise.

As Lee put it, “Whether or not Google formally qualifies as a monopoly under our antitrust laws, one thing is clear. Given its significant ability to steer e-commerce and the flow of online information, Google is in a position to help determine who will succeed and who will fail on the Internet.” American’s have a right to be concerned about the implications of Lee’s observation.

I do not begrudge Google its success. It is an amazing company with a superior search offering and a clever business model. At the same time, Google has built its market dominance and cash position, at least in part, by appropriating, some might say misappropriating, the copyrighted content of others. For instance, Google “scrapes” content from other websites and sells advertising based on that scraped content. Google has also become dominant on mobile phones with its Android operating system, which arguably uses patented technology owned by other companies. Google has also played fast and loose with trademark protection—selling ads around other companies’ trademarks.

Most notoriously, Google generated significant revenue from illegal pharmaceutical advertising—a practice to which it admitted and forfeited $500 million to avoid prosecution.

(more…)

From Crain’s Chicago Business:

President Barack Obama’s Chicago-based re-election campaign has a hometown problem: the donors and volunteers who have lost interest after launching his run for the White House four years ago.

The glow of the epochal election of the nation’s first African-American president has faded amid a dramatic fall in the president’s popularity, a persistently lousy economy and an administration that has been less transformative than promised.

And among Jewish contributors, a bulwark of his local donor base, some have been turned off by Mr. Obama’s call for Israel to give up part of its territory.

(more…)

From the Associated Press:

Sales of new homes fell to a six-month low in August. The fourth straight monthly decline during the peak buying season suggests the housing market is years away from a recovery.

The Commerce Department said Monday that new-home sales fell 2.3 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 295,000. That’s less than half the roughly 700,000 that economists say must be sold to sustain a healthy housing market.

New-homes sales are on pace for the worst year since the government began keeping records a half century ago.

(more…)

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Francis Cianfrocca to discuss Nobel-winning economist Robert Lucas, the continued financial mess in Europe and the potential end of the Euro, plus it’s launch day for Boeing’s 787.

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:

Obama gaffe: President says billionaires should pay ‘Jew’ tax rate
Chicago Economics on Trial
The great euro swindle
Europe: Repeating the Mistakes Of the 1930s?
Boeing 787 Delivered To All Nippon Airways, First Flight On Monday

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Americans are catching on to the absurdity of the far Left’s “greening” of our economy. In some cases, like the Solyndra scandal, it amounts to the Taxpayer cash being flushed away on economically unsound alternative technologies that we *hope* will someday compete fairly with oil and natural gas. In the case of D.C. this weekend, we received a this picture from a PR event … where a pro-solar sign was literally powered by a gas generator.* How’s that for a metaphor?

* For this story, we have relied on a trusted source. Our tipper says there were several such signs, each powered by gas generator such as the black and yellow box partially obscured by the fence above.

(more…)

The theme becoming familiar with all who are interested in the economy (judging by the latest labor statistics, I suspect there are many) is whether a president can actually create jobs. The answer to that question is obviously no; he can’t, at least not in a free enterprise system. However, a president can certainly pollute the environment and kill jobs as a consequence.

To whet your appetites and pique your interest, here is a list of job destroying regulations. Then consider Obama’s own recent retreat on EPA regulations and you see the proof.

1. NLRB’s Boeing Complaint

2. MACT and CSAPR Utility Standards

3. Boiler MACT Rules

4. Cement MACT Requirements

5. ‘Coal Ash’ Regulations

6. Grandfathered Health Plans

7. EPA Ozone Rule

8. EPA Farm-Dust Regulations

9. EPA Greenhouse-Gas Requirements

10.  NLRB ‘Ambush’ Elections Rule

Now Obama and his sycophants are saying his presidency is just as much a victim to the economic circumstances as the American worker and businesses. That’s saying something considering 14 million people unemployed and more than 25 million unable to find full-time work. In fact, President Obama and his government-first Democrat cohorts have actually made the economy worse and prolonged the recession.

(more…)

Last week, the public comment period closed on the Obama Labor Department’s proposed regulatory change to alter a 1959 law that would make employers and their service providers (attorneys and various consultants) file financial disclosure statements and make personal information public, all in order to give union bosses hit lists of individuals and companies to target. Prior to the closing of the public comment period, there were nearly 6,000 comments—4,000 of which came within the last ten days or so as more people became aware of  the union-backed proposed rule.

So far, it has been remarkable that almost no attention has been given to this issue on Capitol Hill. However, it may be that very few have actually understood the DOL proposal’s unprecedented overreach and broad ramifications until these last few weeks. Yet, since so many of the law firms who donate to high-ranking Democrats (as well as to Republicans) will likely be deemed ‘persuaders’ and be required to report their incomes under the DOL’s proposal, there may yet be some interest raised in Congress over the issue.

Nevertheless, in addition to many of the comments from individuals urging the union appointees within the Department of Labor to drop this unbelievably broad proposal, several larger groups expressed their harsh criticism through their comments.

Among those comments, Over 1500 came from persons affiliated with the Society of Human Resource Management. Outside of attorneys, with 250,000 human resource professionals, SHRM members are probably the single largest grouping of individual service providers who will be affected by the DOL’s proposed change.

What follows below are some excerpts [with emphasis added] of a few of the comments received by the Department of Labor: (more…)

Obama told the Congressional Black Caucus to stop complaining and get to work for him. If any other President had spoken to them that way, we might be reading words like “boss” and “plantation” in the news today. That doesn’t mean there weren’t charges of racism thrown about during the broader event. Those were directed at the usual Tea Party suspects.

Obama also slipped up and said something broadly being interpreted as about a “Jew” tax. He also seemed to address the CBC in what might be called a sorry ya’ll, but I’m slummin’ it vernacular. I’m thinking he didn’t rely on it quite as much when he later addressed a $35,800 a couple fund raiser in a wealthy Washington state suburb. What do you think?

On his West Coast fundraising swing, Obama test-drove a new, more combative tone. Highlights include accusing GOP debate audiences of “cheering at the prospect of somebody dying because they don’t have health care” and booing a gay service member and calling Rick Perry “a governor whose state is on fire, denying climate change.”

Obama was off to L.A.next. Hopefully he’ll meet up with the talent agent, Stephen Hanks, who felt compelled to tell Bristol Palin her Mother was a “whore.” Sounds like he and Obama may have more in common than one might have thought before Obama shifted to campaign mode. So much for civility in politics and any so called new tone.

Coming off the Bush era, during which the media held his foreign policy responsible for everything, it’s interesting how quick some are to infer Obama’s foreign policy is responsible for nothing overseas.

Speaking of Bush, a majority of adults now rate Obama as “same as” or “worse” than President Bush. 34% say Obama is ‘worse than’ Bush, while 22% rate him as “about the same.” Keep in mind, the poll is by Gallup and it is of ‘adults,’ which generally skew more favorable to Democrats. Among likely voters, Obama’s numbers are probably far worse.

(more…)

With 300 million Americans about to be unwillingly herded into a healthcare system run largely by an inept federal government, is it an unreasonable request to demand, before they start playing doctor, that the feds figure out how to tell the difference between who’s dead and who’s alive?

Three years into Barack Obama’s historic presidency and a few months after the suppository called Obamacare took up residence in the nation’s orifice, we come to find out that over the better part of the last five years, half a billion dollars have been doled out to dead people.

Seems that dead people in the US are “in a better place” to receive a hefty check from the US Treasury. That’s right, if you’re short on cash, the easiest way to earn a few bucks is to die.

Apparently, $600 million in benefit payments meant for retired or disabled federal workers have been “doled out” to room temperature individuals who won’t be stimulating the economy with federally-endowed monies anytime soon.

It’s hard to believe, but “In one case, the son of a beneficiary continued receiving payments for 37 years after his father’s death in 1971. The payments — totaling more than $515,000 — were only discovered when the son died in 2008.”

Shouldn’t a prerequisite to reassuring Americans that the government is more than capable of overseeing national health care be to establish a system that accurately differentiates between the living and the dead?

(more…)

Barack Obama’s latest rhetorical and policy prescription assaults on Americans who make money are his alleged “jobs” and “deficit reduction” plans.

In which the President calls for nearly half a trillion dollars in new taxes – under the oh-so-tired guise of making the “rich” “pay their fair share.”

(Someone needs to introduce these people to Reality.  Here in Reality, life isn’t fair.  The sooner they realize this – and stop trying to use government to make it so – the better off we all will be.)

The American people are overwhelmingly underwhelmed by the President’s latest bit of Leftism.  (Not to mention many Congressional Democrats.) I wonder why?

Perhaps it’s the fact that the federal government has increased its per annum spending by 29% in just the last four years – from $2.73 trillion to $3.82 trillion.

During the depths of the Great Recession – when the private sector was least equipped to shoulder the gigantic new burden.

And that a return to 2007 spending levels would negate most of our deficit problem, and begin to work dramatically on our debt problem – without raising taxes a cent.

Perhaps it’s the fact that the federal government wastes gobs and gobs and gobs of money.

(more…)

Stocks collapsed roughly 700 points over two days after the Federal Reserve launched its “Operation Twist.” The market correctly perceives that the central bank’s plan to swap $400 billion of short-term notes for long-term bonds adds no new reserves to the financial system. So it wasn’t QE3, that’s for sure. No stimulus. In fact, with the Treasury yield curve flattening, the Fed’s sterilized asset swap actually tightened financial markets.

The Fed should have listened to the GOP congressional leadership, which in a letter advocated no more stimulus and no more market-subverting interference.

But the real issue is the new FOMC forecast: “There are significant downside risks to the economic outlook, including strains in global financial markets.” That was the killer statement.

So let me repeat: We are on the front end of a recession. The profits picture is very much in doubt. More Obamanomics tax hikes are in the air. Europe is unsolved. U.S. finances are a mess. All this is being discounted by slumping stocks.

Corporate credit risk spreads have been widening, which is a negative for the profits picture, as economist Michael Darda has pointed out. Profits are the mother’s milk of stocks. And the European funding markets have tightened substantially, as their much-wider financial-stress spreads all indicate.

(more…)

Now, the IMF has signaled that it may need a bailout…to deal with its bailouts of reckless countries. Eventually, this will be resolved, we’re just negotiating over which generation resolves it.

On his West Coast fundraising swing, Obama test-drove a new, more combative tone.  Highlights include accusing GOP debate audiences of “cheering at the prospect of somebody dying because they don’t have health care” and booing a gay service member and calling Rick Perry “a governor whose state is on fire, denying climate change.”

—

ATHERTON, Calif. (AP) – President Barack Obama charged Sunday that the GOP vision of government would “fundamentally cripple America,” as he tried out his newly combative message on the liberal West Coast.

Aiming to renew the ardor of Democratic loyalists who have grown increasingly disenchanted with him, the president mixed frontal attacks on Republicans with words of encouragement intended to buck up the faithful as the 2012 campaign revs up.

“From the moment I took office what we’ve seen is a constant ideological pushback against any kind of sensible reforms that would make our economy work better and give people more opportunity,” the president said at an intimate brunch fundraiser at the Medina, Wash., home of former Microsoft executive Jon Shirley, where about 65 guests were paying $35,800 per couple to listen to Obama. (more…)

MRCTV visited the 41st Annual Legislative Conference of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation and found that some of those we met up with believe the Tea Party and/or its members are racist, and some even hurled racial slurs at Republican Presidential candidate Herman Cain and Rep. Allen West. Curiously the mainstream media was absent while we were there, not asking questions of the CBC attendees like the ones they vigorously asked of Tea Party members at their rallies.

(more…)