From TPM:

A former staffer for Rev. Jesse Jackson and his non-profit Rainbow PUSH Coalition alleges in a lawsuit that he was discriminated against because he is gay, allegedly instructed to bring women to Jackson’s hotel rooms and sometimes sexually harassed by Jackson himself.

Tommy Bennett, who filed a sexual discrimination complaint with the Illinois Department of Human Rights in 2010, filed a lawsuit alleging “pervasive” sexual harassment during his time as a staffer at Rainbow PUSH, a social outreach group started by Reverend Jesse Jackson, Sr.

Bennett worked for Rainbow PUSH and Jackson from July 2007-December 2009, beginning as National Director of Community Affairs, according to the complaint.

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In a move that some are calling QE3, the Federal Reserve announced yesterday that it will engage in a policy called “the twist” – selling short-term bonds and buying long-term bonds in hopes of artificially reducing long-term interest rates. If successful, this policy (we are told) will incentivize more borrowing and stimulate growth.

I’ve freely admitted before that it is difficult to identify the right monetary policy, but it certainly seems like this policy is – at best – an ineffective gesture. This is why the Fed’s various efforts to goose the economy with easy money have been described as “pushing on a string.”

Here are two related questions that need to be answered.

1. Is the economy’s performance being undermined by high long-term rates?

Considering that interest rates are at very low levels already, it seems rather odd to claim that the economy will suddenly rebound if they get pushed down a bit further. Japan has had very low interest rates (both short-run and long-run) for a couple of decades, yet the economy has remained stagnant.

Perhaps the problem is bad policy in other areas. After all, who wants to borrow money, expand business, create jobs, and boost output if Washington is pursuing a toxic combination of excessive spending and regulation, augmented by the threat of higher taxes.

2. Is the economy hampered by lack of credit?

Low interest rates, some argue, may not help the economy if banks don’t have any money to lend. Yet I’ve already pointed out that banks have more than $1 trillion of excess reserves deposited at the Fed.

Perhaps the problem is that banks don’t want to lend money because they don’t see profitable opportunities. After all, it’s better to sit on money than to lend it to people who won’t pay it back because of an economy weakened by too much government.

The Wall Street Journal makes all the relevant points in its editorial.

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From the Associated Press:

The U.S. Federal Reserve’s tacit acknowledgment that America’s economic slowdown is likely to persist for quite a while sent global stock markets skidding Thursday as investors brushed off the central bank’s efforts to spur growth and focused instead on its gloomy assessment.

Oil tumbled too but the dollar held its own against the euro, which has been weighed down in recent weeks over concerns that Greece might go bankrupt. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng led the retreat lower earlier during the Asian session with a near 5 percent dive.

The losses began Wednesday afternoon in the U.S. after the Fed announced a highly anticipated program to trade in $400 billion worth of short-term bonds for the same amount of longer-term bonds. The goal is to ensure low borrowing rates for a long period, thereby helping to stimulate the housing market and other economic activity.

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I recently wrote on my blog that Libertarians should not support Democrats. Ever.

The post generated a tremendous response and produced an invitation from BIG Government Editor Michael Flynn to expand on my thoughts here. I’m honored to do so.

In an election for city council, congress, president or local dog catcher, I believe a Libertarian’s realistic choices are to vote Republican, Libertarian, Independent, or write-in.

There is nothing Libertarian about the Democratic Party and Obama is a perfect example of my point.

Barack Obama ran against the wars – then expanded them.
Barack Obama ran against federal wiretapping programs – then expanded them.
Barack Obama ran against Bush’s faith based initiatives – then expanded them.
Barack Obama ran against Bush’s debts – then expanded them.

In the Democratic Party of yesteryear, there was a school of political philosophy called Classical Liberalism which offered Libertarians an option to vote for Democrats.

Those days are over.

The Democratic Party is now the party of ACORN, corrupt unions, communists, socialists, anarchists and complicit media allies who have conveniently ignored every violation of American liberty committed by the Obama Administration since the day he was sworn in as president.

Libertarians believe in the maximum amount of freedom for individuals. Libertarians believe in limited government. Libertarians reject ineffective big government policies. Libertarians are fiscal conservatives.

How have Libertarians benefited under Obama?

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From the Associated Press:

he number of people applying for unemployment benefits fell last week, though the decline isn’t enough to signal improvement in the job market.

The Labor Department says weekly applications dropped 9,000 to a seasonally adjusted 423,000. The four-week average, a less volatile figure, rose slightly for the fifth straight week to 421,000.

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About nine years ago, I sat down for my first class in law school: contracts.  I don’t remember the name of the first case that our professor had us read, but I remember what it was about: remedies.  The case was largely noteworthy for its discussion of the proper measure of “damages”—what us lawyers call the amount of money awarded to the victorious plaintiff.  The professor explained how one casebook author used to start his entire first chapter and the first few weeks of class discussing nothing but the proper measure of damages—that is, how much money the plaintiff gets.  Because in the end, that is how you demonstrate the value of the right in question: by providing an appropriate remedy when it is violated.

It is appropriate tonight to remember what happened thirteen years ago in Jasper, Texas.  It may be hard to read it, but the victim deserves your attention and remembrance.  From an article on one of the related trials:

In his closing argument, another prosecutor, Pat Hardy, described [William] King and his co-defendants as “three robed riders coming straight out of hell.” Noting that [James] Byrd’s dismembered body was left by the gate of an old black cemetery, Hardy said the three wanted “to show their defiance to God and Christianity and everything most people in this county stand for.”

Byrd, who was unemployed and living alone in a subsidized apartment, was walking home from a family gathering after midnight when he was picked up and driven to woods outside the city. There, he was beaten, then chained at the ankles and dragged behind a pickup truck for about three miles. In testimony Monday, a pathologist said Byrd was alive until his head and right arm were torn off by the jagged edge of a roadside culvert.

That testimony was crucial for the prosecution. The underlying felony of kidnapping is what made Byrd’s murder a death-penalty offense. For Byrd to have been kidnapped under Texas’s definition of the crime, he had to have been alive while being dragged.

Which is excellent legal thinking on the part of the prosecutors, but it also highlights a grisly fact: Byrd was alive and certainly aware as much of his body was ground like meat.  This was a cruel and torturous way to die.

Last night in Texas, one of those accomplices, Lawrence Russell Brewer was put to death for his role in this horror.  It is often wondered by death penalty opponents how people professing to believe in the sanctity of life can support the death penalty.  But what greater affirmation of the value of James Byrd’s life could there be, than to say that the price of his murder is the death of those killed them?  The value of the right is determined by the remedy for its violation.  This is as true in a simple breach of contract as it is in murder.

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On August 21, 2011, Rep. Maxine Waters, a senior member of the Congressional Black Caucus, at what was supposed to be a “jobs fair”, in Inglewood, California, made the following statement: “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 and I intend to help them get there!”

At a town hall meeting in Miami, Florida, on August 22, 2011 Rep. Andre Carson, also a Congressional Black Caucus member, charged that there are members of congress, who are Tea Party members, that have nefarious intentions towards Americans of African descent. Among his accusations:

•The Tea Party is stopping change in Congress
•“This is the effort that we are seeing of Jim Crow”
•“Some of these folks would love to see us as second class citizens”
•“Some of them in Congress right now of this Tea Party movement would love to see you and me hanging on a tree”

Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-FL), another member of the Congressional Black Caucus, at the same “jobs fair” in Miami, Florida, stated: “Let us all remember who the real enemy is,” she said. “The real enemy is the Tea Party. The Tea Party holds the Congress hostage. They have one goal in mind, and that’s to make President Obama a one-term president.”

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The awful launch week for the over-hyped, expected bestseller The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin, by controversial author Joe McGinniss, just got worse. Much worse.

After a week of universally scathing pans from the reflexively anti-Palin establishment media, McGinniss now faces the fight of his literary life: the accusation that he seems to have knowingly submitted a book to his publisher, Crown/Random House, that was filled with unproved “tawdry gossip” and rumors that lacked “factual evidence.”

In the email below, sent in January of 2011, McGinniss reveals that his manuscript, then under legal review at Crown/Random House, could not prove its most headline-grabbing allegations. And yet, many of these “salacious stories” that lacked “proof” (in McGinniss’s own words) ended up in the book, and on televisions everywhere during the author’s current media tour … without proper sourcing, and without any apparent new evidence to support them.

McGinniss’s panicked state is evidenced by the identity of the recipient to whom he sent his email of distress. Jesse Griffin was the author of an obscure, low-rent, and now-defunct anti-Palin blog that obsessed over Trig Palin’s maternity–claiming, without any evidence, that Sarah Palin was not Trig’s mother.

Was Random House aware that its prized author was making a desperate overtime bid to save face? And if so, why did it allow him to come forth with most of those tawdry accusations without proof or proper sourcing?

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Today, in 1776, patriot Nathan Hale is hanged for spying during the American Revolution.

They say a leopard doesn’t change his spots, well… neither does this President.  Those who though that the NY-9 election and recent polls would cause Obama to temper his one-sided policy regarding the Israeli/Palestinian dispute were very disappointing. It’s not what he said that should be alarming to friends of Israel, its what he didn’t say, namely that Israel needed to be recognized as the Jewish State.  Oh he flirted around it sometimes, but carefully negotiated around stating it, an act of appeasement to those who would destroy Israel. It is that one recognition which keeps this 40 year dispute alive (yes 40 years- before 1967 Judea and Samaria were part of Jordan and Gaza was part of Egypt).

This is what the President actually said about recognition of Israel at the UN Today.

Let us be honest with ourselves: Israel is surrounded by neighbors that have waged repeated wars against it. Israel’s citizens have been killed by rockets fired at their houses and suicide bombs on their buses. Israel’s children come of age knowing that throughout the region, other children are taught to hate them. Israel, a small country of less than eight million people, look out at a world where leaders of much larger nations threaten to wipe it off of the map. The Jewish people carry the burden of centuries of exile and persecution, and fresh memories of knowing that six million people were killed simply because of who they are. Those are facts. They cannot be denied.

The Jewish people have forged a successful state in their historic homeland. Israel deserves recognition. It deserves normal relations with its neighbors.

Some will say “see he talked about the Jewish people, you can assume that’s what he meant.” Sadly in diplomacy as well as “Odd Couple” reruns, when you assume you make an ass of u and me.

The avoidance of calling Israel the Jewish State was no accident. As recently as last month the President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas declared that he would never accept Israel as a Jewish State.

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It is no secret that the White House is using, with alarming frequency, czars, boards, and executive orders to implement policies that have been met by “inconvenient” obstacles- like the American people and their representatives in Congress.

Following in President Obama’s authoritarian footsteps is the ruling Democratic class of the small state of Connecticut, where Obama-clone Governor Dannel Malloy has recruited, from Yale University, nationally known environmental expert, Daniel Esty, to be the state’s commissioner of the newly combined Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP). Of his new recruit, Governor Malloy said, “His experience advising private companies and the president of the United States, coupled with his knowledge of environmental law and policy is second-to-none, and I know this new department will be on the cutting edge of environmental and energy policy with Dan at the helm.”

In 2007 and 2008, Mr. Esty served first as Presidential candidate Barack Obama’s campaign adviser on energy and the environment, and later on as a member of the presidential transition team. So, little wonder Mr. Obama and Commissioner Esty are of the same ilk when it comes to “green” energy and its imposition into the lives of the American people- whether they want it or not.

Mr. Esty sparked considerable controversy recently in the Constitution state through his unprecedented intervention in the matter of Connecticut’s Public Utilities Regulatory Authority’s (PURA) management of a multimillion-dollar application by Connecticut Light & Power Co. (CL&P), which provides electric utility service to most of the state. The application, which involves the rapid installation of 1.2 million “Smart Meters” at residences and businesses over the next four years, was challenged by the state’s Attorney General, George Jepsen, the Office of Consumer Counsel, and an association of industrial energy users. Several weeks ago, Commissioner Esty wrote PURA, upon its draft decision to reject CL&P’s application, asking it to suspend its decision for a few months until his department can “establish the state’s smart meter policy.”

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We have some good news and bad news on jobs.

The good news is that an AFP news story says the unemployment rate has dropped to 3.2 percent.

The bad news (from the U.S. perspective) is that the article was about Hong Kong, which continues to enjoy strong economic growth while America stagnates.

One reason for the divergence is found in the just-released 2011 edition of Economic Freedom of the World, published by Canada’s Fraser Institute in cooperation with groups like the Cato Institute.

Covering data through 2009, the new edition of EFW shows that Hong Kong retains its status as the world’s freest economy. On the other hand, the same report provides damning evidence of the negative impact of the Bush-Obama policies of bigger government and more intervention.

Here’s a relevant passage from the Executive Summary.

The world’s largest economy, the United States, has suffered one of the largest declines in economic freedom over the last 10 years, pushing it into tenth place. Much of this decline is a result of higher government spending and borrowing and lower scores for the legal structure and property rights components. Over the longer term, the summary chain-linked ratings of Venezuela, Zimbabwe, United States, and Malaysia fell by eight-tenths of a point or more between 1990 and 2009, causing their rankings to slip.

This chart (click to enlarge), taken directly from the book, shows how the United States has been of the world’s five-worst performers over the past decade, putting America in a very unfortunate category.

And here’s a chart I created (click to enlarge) showing how the United States has declined relative to other nations. Simply stated, America is on the verge of falling out of the top 10, after being the 3rd-freest economy in the world at the end of the Clinton Administration.

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From the Associated Press:

Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire is going to mediate talks in a teachers strike that has already canceled seven days of school in Tacoma.

Gregoire spokeswoman Karina Shagren says the two sides were unable to reach a deal Wednesday afternoon and are now traveling to Olympia to continue discussions.

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This week, Sol Stern of Encounter Books released a broadside titled “A Century of Palestinian Rejectionism and Jew Hatred.”  In it, Sol details the history of Arab rejection of a Palestinian state.  His point is well summed up in this brilliant video narrated by Bill Whittle:

Sol is very kind when he writes that President Obama’s motives are unclear with regard to his ideological support for Mahmoud Abbas’ odd iteration of the Palestinian state-to-be.  His motives are absolutely clear.  President Obama is not who New York Magazine pretends he is – he is our first ideologically Muslim president.

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Taxpayers across the nation are spending millions of dollars to pay the salaries and benefits of government employees to work exclusively for labor unions, an investigation by the Arizona-based Goldwater Institute has found.

The practice is called “official time” in federal law, or “release” time in local labor agreements reviewed by the Institute. At the federal level, it cost taxpayers more than $129 million in 2009, the last year for which figures are available, according to a report from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Similar provisions have become standard in labor agreements between unions and governments at the state and local level. Finding the total cost would require analyzing every government union contract in every state, county, city and school district in the country, a monumental task that those who have studied the issue say has not been done.

But one example exposed by the Goldwater Institute’s investigation shows the City of Phoenix spent about $3.7 million to pay its employees to do union work last fiscal year, which ended in June. Phoenix has agreements with seven unions that represent city employees, allowing them a total of more than 73,000 city-paid hours annually to do union work.

Other cities in the area have similar provisions in their contracts with labor organizations that represent municipal employees.

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While the rest of America turns away from the big government stimulus spending programs of President Obama, at least one corporate executive is turning toward him to embrace his failed policies. Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt did the media circuit on Sunday to embrace the continuing liberal fantasy that if we spend enough money in Washington, we will fix the economy. To Eric Schmidt and Google, the only problem with the stimulus is we didn’t spend enough.

Schmidt on the Sunday Morning Shows, denounced Washington “bickering” as the reason for what ails the economy. Of course, Schmidt is offering a straw man argument to deflect blame away from Obama’s failed record of big government spending and crony socialism.

The trillion-dollar stimulus did not fail because it was not big enough or because of partisan bickering. As you may remember, the stimulus bill was passed quickly and with little debate out of the Democrat controlled House and Senate at the time. No, the trillion-dollar stimulus failed because the ideas it represented failed. Big government spending does not create jobs or economic growth – it didn’t work for the New Deal and it didn’t work for Obama’s Raw Deal.

It is shocking, however, to see Schmidt take to the airwaves to embrace failure. Of course, this may be a strategic decision. Schmidt and Obama have been thick as thieves since Google raised over $1 million for the president’s campaign. They have been rewarded – no different that Solyndra – with government contracts and policy decision that are designed to help the company. Obama has looked out for Google and now it looks like Schmidt is returning the favor.

But rather than spit in the eye of the Tea Party, conservatives and Americans concerned about our growing debt problems, Schmidt might be better served addressing some of the issues that brought him to Washington in the first place.

Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee will look into a host of decisions by the company that have violated the law, the privacy of the American people and the intellectual property rights of small businesses.

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CBS News recently got their hands on secret recordings of conversations about Fast and Furious that took place between an ATF agent and a gun store owner, both of whom were located in the Phoenix area (and both of whom were thoroughly acquainted with Fast and Furious).

The recordings captured agent Hope McAllister talking with Andre Howard, owner of Lone Wolf Trading Company, at a time when Howard was noticeably worried that Fast and Furious was going to become public knowledge or be put under the microscope of a congressional investigation. Howard especially feared that Senator Charles Grassley might push for an inquiry of some kind. Thus at least four times in the recordings he can be heard mentioning Grassley, and one of those four times it’s to say someone needs to tell Grassley “to sit [his] a—down.”

What’s also interesting about the recordings is that although they were made in mid-March 2011, Attorney General Eric Holder’s name comes up quite a bit. And his name doesn’t come up because they’re afraid he’s going to find out about Fast and Furious but because he was the one they were counting on to deflect attention from it.

In other words, he was well aware of the operation by mid-March 2011, and this is somewhat ironic because in answering questions from Congressman Darrell Issa on May 3 he said he only learned of Fast and Furious “over the last few weeks.” This means he led Issa to believe the earliest he knew anything about the operation was sometime in April. Yet on the recordings (from mid-March), it is clear Holder was the one Howard hoped would stop the investigative momentum by responding to a letter regarding Fast and Furious from the House Oversight Committee:

HOWARD:  “Holder has to respond to this tomorrow.”

McALLISTER:  “Yeah, he’s gonna respond.”

HOWARD:  “I know he is.  And I assure you the media isn’t gonna like his response, because basically it’s gonna mirror what he’s told Grassley.”

McALLISTER:  “Yeah.”

HOWARD:  “He can’t deviate.”  (Italics added.)

As Howard continues to express concern over what Holder will say, Agent MacAllister tries to calm him by saying she believed Holder & Co. would “come out with [something a] little more um b—-y…than they [had] in the past.”

In the next portion of the recording, former U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke’s name is referenced. This is where agent MacAllister admits Burke had been more tenacious in handling Fast and Furious inquiries than Holder would be:

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From the Associated Press:

The Federal Reserve is running out of options to try to boost a slumping economy and lower unemployment. So policymakers are expected to reach 50 years back into their playbook for their next move.

Most economists expect the Fed to announce a plan Wednesday to shift money in its $1.7 trillion portfolio out of short-term securities and into longer-term holdings.

The plan could lower Treasury yields further. Ultimately, it could reduce rates on mortgages and other consumer and business loans, too.

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