Dave Weigel of Slate reports that Crown/Random House, publisher of The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin, has released the following statement on allegations that Joe McGinniss’s book is a literary hoax:

Joe McGinniss’s book The Rogue is based on the author’s extensive on-the-ground reporting in Alaska, as well as in-depth interviews he conducted with approximately 200 people who have known Governor Palin at different stages of her life and career. After a thorough and careful examination of the book, including probing discussions with the author about his sources, we are confident that the reporting it contains is solid, reliable, and well-substantiated.

Yet McGinniss revealed in an e-mail in January 2011 that Random House lawyers had informed him–after all of that “extensive-on-the-ground reporting in Alaska, as well as in-depth interviews”–that his manuscript contained nothing beyond “tawdry gossip,” and that his most “salacious stories” lacked “factual evidence.”

Yesterday, McGinniss told Mediaite: “My reporting continued beyond the date of the email.” In an attempt to prove that claim, he has released e-mails to Weigel showing his correspondence with prostitute Shailey Tripp, as he attempted to substantiate his claim that “Todd had sex with a hooker.”

But the new emails only highlight McGinniss’s decision not to include allegations about a “hooker” in the published book. They do not show why McGinniss chose to include almost every other allegation in The Rogue about which he had admitted in January that there was no “factual evidence.” McGinniss omits any emails relating to those claims. (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 the collapse of the European markets over the past six weeks, the Fed’s “Operation Twist” and the crazy philosophies of Elizabeth Warren.

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.

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After hearing legitimate complaints that his tax and spend Jobs plan was nothing more than class warfare, the President responded that it wasn’t about class warfare it was about math.  In the end both sides are right, the President’s plan is about class warfare, and on top of that his math would get him an “F” in a 9th grade algebra class. The “F”  would probably be accompanied by a note that says:

Let’s start with his everyone paying their fair share shtick.  First of all there is not enough rich person income income to solve our massive debt problem over the short or long term. The top 3 percent of earners, those making $250,000 or more, have about $2.3 trillion in total annual income. So even if we took all their money it would only pay our bills for a bit over six months. it would only fund the government this year for just over six months. If you wanted to limit it a bit and only confiscate all the income of the 400 wealthiest Americans that would net only about $1.4 trillion, a pittance in the Obama budget. It would pay the federal government’s bills for about Four and a half months, which means neither the government nor those wealthy 400 would have anything left to buy guacamole dip for their Super Bowl Party (nor pay the electric so they can watch the game on TV).

The President also makes the argument that the rich pay a lower percentage of their income in taxes. Maybe he never looked at the numbers. According to an AP report, this year, households making more than $1 million will pay an average of 29.1 percent of their income in federal taxes, including income taxes and payroll taxes, according to the Tax Policy Center, a Washington think tank.

Households making between $50,000 and $75,000 will pay 15 percent of their income in federal taxes.

Lower-income households will pay less. For example, households making between $40,000 and $50,000 will pay an average of 12.5 percent of their income in federal taxes. Households making between $20,000 and $30,000 will pay 5.7 percent.

(more…)

Reactions from the Breitbart world to last night’s GOP debate in Florida:

Mike Flynn: Last night, two men debated over the presidency while 7 others debated over cabinet positions. The people jockeying for the cabinet won. The best answers of the night came from Cain, Gingrich and, shock, Huntsman. But then, it is easy to out-perform when you face zero expectations or pressure.

I’m hungover from the debates. No, not in the obvious, literal sense. More that my euphoria over Obama’s plummeting poll numbers is giving way to a nagging sense that none of these candidates is up to the task at hand. Romney gives the most polished, “general election” performance, but I can’t trust him. He’s a handsome Bob Dole, who would equivocate or hedge on every challenge we face. Rick Perry seems to understand these challenges, but appears not quite equipped to deal with them. His heart is in the right place but, so far, it isn’t quite enough. He has, perhaps, one more shot to get it right or…we are going into November with the handsome Bob Dole.

John Nolte, EIC Big Hollywood: The race for the GOP nomination has essentially become a two-person race: Perry vs, Romney –and while Perry is probably closer to the hearts of the base when it comes to issues, his increasingly worse showings in these debates (he had a number of memorably bad moments tonight) will likely add to his weakening poll numbers. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if Romney regained the national lead before they meet again.

How many debates does Perry have left before he’s mortally wounded? One? Three?

Regardless, Perry’s floundering has left a huge gap in the GOP field — and that gap is shaped exactly like a fearless two-fisted scrapper who’s right on all the issues and hails from Wasilla, Alaska.

P.S. I love Herman Cain. What a man. What a story. And the sound of his voice when he speaks of his love for this country makes me glad to be alive.

(more…)

Last weekend at Fighting Bob Fest, a left-wing get together in Madison, Mike McCabe of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign spoke to the progressive crowd about the perils of money in politics, lambasting corporate dollars and the Koch brothers. McCabe even alleged the onset of fascism in Wisconsin because of the “criminal enterprise” that is our political system. McCabe told the crowd:

You can’t tackle the jobs problem, the budget problem, the tax problem without tackling the first problem. Money in politics. It is corrupt. It is institutionally corrupt.

But just two days after decrying evil that is money in politics, McCabe and his organization the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign released their spending figures from this summer’s recall campaigns.

And what did they find?

A review of total spending by the outside groups, candidates, state parties, recall committees and two legislative leadership committees found Democrats outspent Republicans $23.4 million to $20.5 million.

That’s right, Republicans and conservative groups were outspent by Democrats and liberal groups by $3 million. Of those outside groups “hijacking” our elections that spent more than $1 million dollars, three of the six were left-wing groups. And the biggest spender in the recall elections? None other than the big-labor conglomeration We Are Wisconsin, which spent a whopping $10.7 million to win two state senate seats.

So where is the outrage?

(more…)

Nine (!) candidates sparred last night in Orlando, in the FoxNews/Google (!) debate. Reactions here, here, here, and here. There are just a few months before the Iowa caucuses, so this is pretty much the field we’re faced with. We’re a tad pessimistic, but your mileage may vary.

Florida attorney, political consultant and blogger, Sarah Rumpf,  was in attendance at last night’s  debate. She debunks a booing myth from it that’s beginning to circulate.

I want to put this on the record now about an incident that happened at tonight’s Republican debate. It’s important that the truth is shared, because I have already seen liberal bloggers and some people on Twitter completely distorting what happened.

The House and Senate are at odds over how to keep the government running. Unsurprisingly, few think they do a very good job of running it in the first place.

British PM David Cameron warns that the world in on the brink  of a new economic crisis.

Obama touted his jobs bill at a bridge that wouldn’t qualify for assistance. Obama’s never been one to allow facts to get in the way of imagery. His administration looks like a portait of a political con artist as a young man.

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The Barack Obama “Re-elect me because I offered a jobs bill that even my own party hates” tour continued today with a trip to the Brent Spence Bridge. No the POTUS wasn’t threatening to jump because the public doesn’t like his class warfare-inspired tax provisions, nor was he threatening to jump because voters trust the GOP more than Democrats regarding the economy. He wasn’t even threatening to kill himself rather than be subjected to Nancy Grace in a low-cut dress on Dancing With The Stars ever again. Thank Goodness he wasn’t even threatening to kill himself at all (although the Nancy Grace thing was pretty compelling).

This President visited the bridge because he was trying to make a point, partially to the voters but mostly to  the Republican leadership.  The Trent Spence Bridge rises above the Ohio River and spans John Boehner’s home state of  Ohio and Mitch McConnel’s home state of Kentucky. Obama was trying to tell these Republicans that he could go over their heads and directly to their constituents at any time and through the power of the Presidential “Bully Pulpit” he can make their lives very difficult.

What Obama doesn’t understand is that he has used the “Bully Pulpit” so many times that, just like the Trent Spence Bridge,  it is functionally obsolete. In the two states, his trip was seen as just another staged re-election event and a bit of a parody of itself.

The 50-year-old, 830-foot bridge is well past its prime and Obama supposedly used it as a way to showcase why Congress should back his “tax and spend” $450 billion dollar job plan which includes infrastructure spending.

(more…)

NLRB Chairman’s Former Law Partner Defends Union Violence

A little over a month ago, in a case that drew national attention, a man was targeted at his home, shot and injured, all because he dared to run union free business. Now, in Buffalo, New York, a case involving outrageous allegations of labor-racketeering and union violence aimed at non-union construction workers and company owners is proceeding through the judicial process. Its outcome, however, may have wide-ranging ramifications on a national level.

Forget for a moment that a man was stabbed in the throat, hot coffee thrown on non-union workers, sand put into gas tanks and a woman threatened with sexual assault. Forget the fact that the judge presiding over the federal racketeering case against Operating Engineers, Local 22, in Buffalo, NY ultimately rejected the AFL-CIO’s attempt to file a amicus brief, the sheer fact that the national AFL-CIO even attempted to intervene speaks volumes:

“We’re not condoning the allegations or arguing that union officials are completely immune from prosecution,” said Jonathan D. Newman, a lawyer for the AFL-CIO. “Instead, we simply want to make sure that the [federal law] is not interpreted in a way that could have a chilling effect on legitimate union activity.” (more…)

Cross-Posted: TobyToons.com (Conservative Political Cartoons)

Tonight, 9 candidates for the GOP nomination debate in Orlando, FL. The debate is sponsored by FoxNews and Google(!). The debate starts at 9pm EDT. We’ll have comments and thoughts from the Breitbart editors throughout the night.

Peter Schiff, the president of EuroPacific Capital and sometimes-pundit/author/political-candidate, testified before the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Government Reform and Stimulus Oversight on September 13^th. The video of his testimony has become a minor YouTube hit and was featured prominently this week by Breitbart TV.

Schiff’s rat-a-tat-tat criticisms of government intervention and promotion of common sense economics, right out of the Austrian School, is music to the ears of conservative-libertarian types. He was a one-man laissez faire quote machine, with lines like:

“One of the riskiest things you can do in America is hire someone.”

“Demand doesn’t come from things that aren’t produced.”

“Regulations substantially increase the cost of employing people.”

“Infrastructure spending drains the economy of resources.”

“You can always see . . . the jobs government creates. What you can’t see are the jobs they destroy.”

“All the government can do is rearrange the resources, it doesn’t create any wealth.”

“An economy has to be based in savings, investing, and production.”

Schiff centered his testimony around explaining, through one statistic and common sense pronouncement after another, why fiscal and monetary policy — specifically government stimulus and low interest rates — are dragging down the overall economy, destroying jobs, devaluing the currency, causing businesses to flee the country, and resulting in all sorts of unintended consequences.

(more…)

One year ago, Ground Zero Mosque leader Daisy Khan, the wife of stealth Islamic supremacist Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf, said that they would be breaking ground on September 11, 2011 for the 15-story monster mosque going up in a building that was destroyed in the Islamic attack on America on 9/11. It was redundant. They had broken ground on September 11, 2001.

Well, nonetheless, the jihadist radical Rauf and his third wife (one more, papa, and you are maxed out) have been kicked off the Ground Zero mosque project and the developer grifter Sharif El-Gamal has lopped off ten stories from his triumphal mosque. In other words, we have successfully halted the project, for now.

But the media and Islamic supremacists create their own fantasy, and they started claiming Monday that the mosque had actually opened — because the grifter El-Gamal hung some photos of kids on the main floor of the building. Pathetic. In fact, the mosque in the former Burlington Coat Factory building has been open and they have been praying there for several years now. It took the leftwing media monster a year to fine-tune its manipulative rhetoric and rather disgusting propaganda campaign to advance the building of the Ground Zero mosque, despite the overwhelming grief and pain and it has caused the majority of Americans.

The incredibly corrupt and intellectually bankrupt New York Times, long bereft of any integrity or objective journalism, devoted an entire section to a Ground Zero Mosque photo exhibit to raise funds for the mosquestrosity. In a stupid and obvious attempt at manipulation (using children, no less), this photo exhibit gets incredible New York Times coverage for a Mr. Danny Goldfield (work that last name), who “had to teach himself how to take photographs as he started the project.”

A photography exhibit by a man who isn’t even a photographer, but who gets a full spread in the New York Times? Only because it advances this cultural obscenity. These people play so dirty. No morality at all. Still, the story went worldwide, with all the mainstream media lemmings jumping on. There’s a ton of media on this fictitious story. WNYC, the Boston Globe, even the New Zealand Herald. Why? How many people attended this charade outside of media and mosqueteers? How many more patriots attended our 9/11 Freedom Rally that got zero coverage? America, you are being so played.

(more…)

During the Tea Party debate, Wolf Blitzer presented to Ron Paul, a hypothetical situation in which an able man chooses to not buy health insurance and then gets very ill. Paul said “that’s what freedom is all about, taking your own risks…” Blitzer replied, “Congressman, are you saying that society should just let him die?” Paul responded, “No,” and then described how when he was a doctor in the early 60’s before Medicaid, the churches took care of people and that the hospital he worked at never turned anybody away. The full response can be viewed:

To me, that means that if you go uninsured and take those chances, then you’re on charity, and it’s going to be basic – it’s going to get you breathing again, get the bullet out of you, get you stitched up, remove the malignant tumor, whatever. However, forget about cradle-to-grave, premium healthcare. Forget about living in hospitals for days and weeks. Forget about emergency room visits for sniffles and aches. You don’t get that, it’s not a right. To those who question the compassion here, Paul fielded some questions the following day, making the point that while no system can achieve perfection, a free market system is most compassionate system there is. History sustains him.

The status quo, on the other hand, is acting like health care is somewhat of a right and the uninsured get similar coverage and treatment as the insured. You can’t turn anybody away for a sniffle. You can’t send them home without a mountain of paperwork. You have to cover your butt or get sued by somebody that does not even have insurance and ought to be begging instead of demanding.

Now, with these things in mind, consider that we have Obama pushing to limit charitable contributions to non-profit organizations.

Some of these non-profits are feeding or providing health care assistance to those in need. Now, let’s try to make sense of this.

(more…)

The American Jobs Act exposes states to frivolous lawsuits while providing a boon to trial lawyers seeking government settlement money.  The President made no mention of this boon to the trial bar in his national jobs speech.  Nor does the glossy overview of the American Jobs Act (Act) on the Whitehouse website mention this gift.  Instead, one must delve deep within the bill to perceive this threat to state governments— 376 sections into it to be exact.

Section 376 of the Act guts the Eleventh Amendment of the Constitution by requiring states to forfeit their sovereign immunity rights guaranteed by this Amendment upon receipt of certain government funds.   This opens the door for expensive litigation against states.  Such litigation is a boon for trial lawyers but serves as a millstone around the neck of drowning taxpayers.

The Eleventh Amendment of the United States Constitution states:

The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.

The Supreme Court held in 1890 that this amendment prohibits suits brought against a state by its own citizens as well as from citizens of other states.  (Hans v. Louisiana,134 U.S. 1 (1890)).   Without this doctrine of sovereign immunity, lawsuits brought by private individuals could result in states being forced to pay monetary damages for alleged violations.  People with valid claims against the State would not be the only ones collecting monetary damages.  As those experienced in trial law will attest, settlements are often paid out to those launching lawsuits even when the merits of the case are questionable.  Settling a case in many situations is simply less expensive than paying exorbitant legal defense costs.

This doctrine of sovereign immunity does NOT eliminate recourse by citizens for constitutional rights violations committed by a state government.  Lawsuits may still be brought in an effort to prevent the States from continuing conduct which violates such rights.  Courts can then order the state to alter its actions.  Those who ratified Amendment XI recognized that courts should be in the business providing constitutional guidance rather than transferring public funds to individual litigants.  After all, those public funds are derived ultimately from individual citizens.

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Try as he might and promise though he does, Obama’s attempts to lower unemployment in the U.S. have proven politically impotent. On the one hand he spends recklessly, $800 billion-plus in stimulus funds during his first months in office alone, and on the other hand he expands the role of government (which also expands its size) via Obamacare and myriad other things.

Throughout all this, unemployment has only increased.

Thus, to remedy the mess he’s made, Obama recently pulled together an audience of public-sector employees on the White House lawn  and delivered a speech about how spending another $450 billion (via the American Jobs Act) is finally going to swing open the doors to employment for millions.

But it just isn’t working.

And the problem is, while Obama’s been pushing for more spending and government growth, he has also been pushing for new regulations that are GUARANTEED to cause Americans to lose, rather than gain, more jobs in the months and years to come.

House Republicans have seized on this push for regulations, and are highlighting Obama’s jobs-killing approach via the moniker “Regulation Nation.”

See the GOP’s graphic below and just think of how detrimental the implementation of these regulations would be to our economy and our future:

(more…)

On September 21, 2011, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) spoke to a crowd gathered in Washington, D.C., outside of the Capitol and said, “We need some of you probably getting arrested for doing things you shouldn’t be doing” to save Medicaid.

Also, Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vermont), who is a self-avowed socialist, told MRCTV’s Joe Schoffstall he was at the rally to ’save’ Medicaid and that Republicans care more about representing the ‘wealthiest people in the country’, large campaign contributors and ‘hedge fund people’ than working and low-income families.

(more…)

Now this is the sort of corruption we are used to seeing in Illinois, eh? This week the Chicago Tribune and WGN TV have found up to 23 retired union operatives that are collecting millions in taxpayer dollars because they had pals in government tweak the state’s pensions laws to favor them.

These former government workers that were government union members got pliant politicians to alter the pensions laws to say that their pension remuneration would be calculated not on the lower pay they received when they retired from government, but from the much higher salary they received when they worked as union operatives. These folks worked as union bosses at the same time as working on the clock for government.

The “luck” of former union boss and Dept. of Streets and Sanitation worker Thomas Villanova is a typical example. Villanova last worked full-time for the city in 1989 and made $40,000-a-year. But he was also a union big wig making $198,000 annually upon his retirement in 2008 at age 56. His city pension, it appears, was calculated on the union salary of $198,000 instead of his real salary of $40,000 — itself obviously a no-show job in the first place.

Villanova stands to make millions off the taxpayers.

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Continuing a fiat governance style that is right out of the Obama playbook, Democratic and Working Families Party Governor Dannel Malloy issued two executive orders yesterday that will force daycare providers and home healthcare workers in Connecticut to join unions.

The orders, his ninth and tenth since taking office in January, will force the state’s 4,000 daycare providers to add over $1 million in dues to union coffers, and remove the right to secret ballot election for these workers by instituting a card check process.

The governor said:

“I have said repeatedly that I believe in the rights of workers to organize and collectively bargain, and personal care attendants and family child care providers are often-times the hardest-working, and lowest-paid workers in our job force,” said Governor Malloy.  “These executive orders will enable them to begin informal conversations with DSS and the Workforce Council immediately on quality-of-life issues, with an eye toward establishing formal collective bargaining rights in the future.  It is important that those who care for both our youngest and oldest citizens receive equitable pay and workforce security.”

According to Zachary Janowski, Mr. Malloy came through for the unions where the Connecticut legislature failed. A bill that would have converted “family child care providers” into state employees, for the purpose of collective bargaining, had been introduced in the state Senate, but never made it to a vote.

(more…)

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech discuss the murky definition of “affordable” healthcare plans in Obamacare, how it may impact the average American family and the massive increase in cost to taxpayers.

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:

Obamacare Bombshell: Did the Government Underestimate the Costs of PPACA’s Exchanges by Hundreds of Billions?
The Importance of the Meaning and Measurement of “Affordable” in the Affordable Care Act
Researchers: Obamacare cost estimates hide up to $50 billion per year

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