Today is Yom Kippur.

As the Super Committee continues to meet (largely in secret), the lasting impact of its decisions on our national security is still unclear.

The Heritage Foundation recently sat down with Frances Fragos Townsend, former Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism and former New Jersey Governor and 9/11 Comission Chairman Thomas Kean at the first ever Concordia Summit on global extremism to discuss the national security threats we face and the concerns they have for our national defense in light of these looming cuts.

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Team Obama is out and about mourning a “double-dip recession,” while Fed head Ben Bernanke is warning of a faltering economy. I have described the current economic environment as the front end of a recession.

But Obama’s populist, class-warfare attack on millionaires and billionaires, his new war on bank profits, his linking arms with the protesters occupying Wall Street, and his big-government stimulus plan will surely not solve this crisis.

The September jobs report underscores the economic alarm. The unemployment rate stayed at 9.1 percent. But the rate of marginally unemployed (U6) jumped from 16.2 percent to 16.5 percent. Nonfarm payrolls rose by 103,000 while private payrolls gained by 137,000, small-enough increases to dodge a recession bullet right now. But nearly half those job gains came from the return of 45,000 striking Verizon workers.

And while the small-business household survey showed an encouraging jump of 398,000, it turns out that an even larger 444,000 are only working part-time. So household employment — excluding the part timers — actually fell by 46,000. That’s a discouraging sign. At the same time, worker earnings are rising less than the inflation rate. That’s a consumer drag on the economy.

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President Obama promised to have the most transparent and ethical administration in our country’s history.  His White House web page on ethics claims they have “the strongest ethics standards in U.S. government history.”  It may be true, but having high standards means nothing if you consistently fail to meet those standards.

Follow along on the latest Solyndra revelations:

Steve Spinner was a major fundraiser for the Obama Campaign in 2008.  He became a loan adviser for the Dept. of Energy after President Obama took office.  He was married to a partner at the law firm of Wilson Sonsini, which was representing Solyndra in its loan application.  He had signed an “ethics agreement” in which he said he would not engage in negotiations about the loan for the company.

There you go.  A fine example of the Obama Administration’s “strongest ethics standards” in action.

So, what did Mr. Spinner do with regard to the Solyndra loan?

Yet throughout Solyndra’s loan process, Spinner worked hard to defend the company from criticisms inside the government, including questions from climate czar Carol Browner’s office. He pushed to get a final decision on approving the loan in August.

“How f***ing hard is this?” Spinner wrote on Aug. 28 an another department official. “What is he waiting for” Will we have it by the end of the day?”

Do those sound like the words of a man who had recused himself from working on the Solyndra loan process?

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I just received an email with a letter from Attorney General Eric Holder attached to it.

The hard copy of the letter was sent to the House Oversight Committee in what appears to be a rather strained attempt to quell the storm surrounding Fast and Furious.

Addressed to Congressmen Darrell Issa (R-CA), Lamar Smith (R-TX), and Elijah Cummings (D-MD), as well as Senators Patrick Leahy (D- VT), Charles Grassley (R-IA), and John Conyers Jr. (D-MI), the letter is basically an overview of everything that’s wrong with Fast and Furious as well a collection of criticisms regarding the way the investigation is being run. Not surprisingly, it’s missing the one component we’d all like most to see – Holder’s admission of guilt.

Although the letter is benign at points, those benign sections are eclipsed via the obvious goal of using the letter to turn public sentiment against the Congressional investigators and thereby undercut the investigation.

Consider one excerpt from the letter:

I simply cannot sit idly by as a Majority Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform suggests, as happened this week, that law enforcement and government employees who devote their lives to protecting our citizens be considered “accessories to murder.” Such irresponsible and inflammatory rhetoric must be repudiated in the strongest possible terms. Those who serve in the ranks of law enforcement are our Nation’s heroes and deserve our Nation’s thanks, not the disrespect that is being heaped on them by those who seek political advantage.

This paragraph merits a few comments.

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President Obama and liberal Democrats are almost orgasmic at the thought they have finally found a movement to counter the Tea Party in the Occupy Wall Street astroturf.

While the President, liberal Democrats, union leaders and some in the media have tried to convince Americans that this is  a grassroots movement that is raging against corporate greed on Wall Street and is being led by disenfranchised Americans, the truth of the matter is that this is the usual bunch of suspects on the far left such as International ANSWER, Code Pink, the Communist Party USA, and the Workers World Party, to name a few — a loose coalition of anarchist groups and angry trust-fund babies looking for their lot in life.

President Obama and liberal Democrats, in praising this bunch, are trying to give them mainstream exposure, but as the American people have come to find out more about this so-called coalition group and their list of demands, which read something like a Communist Redbook, they are coming to realize that this is the same bunch that show up at annual IMF/World Bank Meeting and engage in massive protests which includes general mayhem, destroying private property and battling the police in the streets. With that said, you can hardly call this group grassroots; they are professional protestors whose overall objective is to replace our system of individual freedoms with big government socialism, even if that means using violence to accomplish it. (more…)

Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, of Connecticut’s 3rd District, and her husband may be engaging in more than just marriage.

According to Human Events, federal campaign records show that, during the last four congressional election cycles, Congresswoman DeLauro’s campaign transferred $1.2 million to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), the branch of the House Democrats that deals with fundraising and recruitment. During that same period of time, the DCCC engaged Stanley Greenberg, Ms. DeLauro’s husband, and his firm, for polling and other services pertinent to its political campaigns. Stanley Greenberg’s company was reportedly paid $1.9 million for services rendered to the DCCC. Note the incestuous cycle whereby Ms. DeLauro gives money to the Democratic party, which hires her husband, and, ultimately, gives the money back to Ms. DeLauro’s personal household.

For those who don’t know her, Ms. DeLauro is a powerful, liberal, close friend of Nancy Pelosi, the House Minority Leader. Despite her position, the congresswoman is often difficult to follow when she speaks. In the video below, she responds to a question about why she was vacationing in Italy while her district was under water and without power following Tropical Storm Irene. Good luck.

While something here smells “rotten in Denmark,” stories such as this often evoke cynical responses, such as, “Everybody does it,” or “It’s hard to control who people are married to and what they do for a living,” or “It’s not illegal, it’s just unethical.”

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They might have a notoriously thin grasp on their demand list. They might totally miss the irony of wearing $150 Ray Ban sunglasses while carrying signs denigrating “corporatism” and “consumerism.” Some of their members may, in fact, see the protest as nothing more than a way to exhibit their least attractive qualities, including but not limited to anti-Semitism. Heck, they’re pretty sure even they don’t know what they’re doing (aside from asking America to pretty, pretty PLEASE bail them out of the student loans they racked up in four years studying foreign film at the New School).

But they may have a long-term effect on your pocketbook and the financial stability of the nation if any of the concrete items on their rambling, incoherent list of demands makes it to the level of national governance. Although the protesters themselves might be a loose collection of Communists, socialists, card-carrying ANSWER members, SEIU stooges, English department mainstays and professional grievance-mongers, some of the “big names” pulling the strings behind the scenes and influencing #occupywallstreet with New York Times editorials are suggesting that the “occupiers’” attempt to influence Washington movement on some key issues contained in the jobs bill.

Specifically, the progressive thinkers want their unwashed hippie army pushing D.C. to ram through a provision called “Carried Interest” which they define as “punishing the rich” but which is more closely defined as “destabilizing the American real estate and investment markets.” From the #OccupyWallStreet “Manifesto”:

2. Currently, the 1% takes bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continues to give executives exorbitant bonuses…

Close the “carried interest” and “founders’ stock” loopholes, which allow our wealthiest citizens to pay very low tax rates by pretending that their labor compensation is a capital gain.

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The Occupy Wall Street movement has adopted racist rules for speech at its nightly “General Assembly” meetings, according to which white men cannot speak unless preceded by some other type of person.

State your race, gender & sexual orientation, then maybe we'll let you speak. Later.

According to Occupy Wall Street supporter/observer “Lori“:

Occupy Wall Street’s General Assembly operates under a revolutionary “progressive stack.” A normal “stack” means those who wish to speak get in line. A progressive stack encourages women and traditionally marginalized groups speak before men, especially white men. This is something that has been in place since the beginning, it is necessary, and it is important.

“Step up, step back” was a common phrase of the first week, encouraging white men to acknowledge the privilege they have lived in their entire lives and to step back from continually speaking. This progressive stack has been inspiring and mind-boggling in its effectiveness.

[Hat tip: Matt Sledge at Huffington Post] (more…)

From The Telegraph (UK):

he European Court of Human Rights has ruled against Mr Soros in the latest blow to the investor in his nine-year battle to have the conviction overturned.

Mr Soros was found guilty of trading on insider information in the French bank but argued that trading regulations were ambiguous.

In a statement released following the unsuccessful appeal, the Court said that while the law was not precisely worded, investors had a duty to be prudent.

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“Greedy: Excessively or inordinately desirous of wealth, profit, etc.; avaricious.”
– Dictionary.com

By now, no doubt, you have heard about the “incredible” Occupy Wall Street Movement taking place on and around Wall Street; a movement whose organizers claim is “organic” and spreading across the globe, not unlike the so-called “Arab Spring.” There are a few problems with this claim, however. First, the movement is anything but “organic.” And second, for the most part, the “Arab Spring” has facilitated the rise of radical Islamist factions to the courts of power. Incredible indeed.

The “movement” is incredible for many reasons; incredible in that what we are being asked to believe the impossible or very difficult to believe, via the reporting in the mainstream media and declarations issued from the movement’s organizers. Interviews with a credible sampling of those in attendance prove that many participants don’t even know why they are there but for it being “the place to be” for the terminally and youthfully disgruntled.

But a closer examination of who is in attendance, who is stepping up to the proverbial microphone and what “the movement” is issuing as a set of “demands,” makes the studied eye suspicious that this may, in fact, be the mother of all political “astroturfing” initiatives, just in time to demonize the job creators as “greedy” in the run up to an election where the incumbent – Barack Obama – hasn’t an accomplishment to run on.

Perhaps the biggest “red flag” (no pun intended) came in the form of statements made by left-wing Progressive agitator, self-avowed Communist and former Obama Administration official Van Jones. Jones is currently the lead rabble-rouser of the “American Dream Movement,” a radically left-wing political activist organization run by the Progressive group MoveOn.org Civic Action, in partnership with a number of other Leftist and Liberal groups ranging from the Hip Hop Caucus to Planned Parenthood.

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From the Associated Press:

Federal prosecutors in California are cracking down on some of the state’s medical marijuana dispensaries, signaling an escalation of the ongoing conflict between the U.S. government and the nation’s burgeoning medical marijuana industry.

The four U.S. attorneys in California, the first state to pass a law legalizing marijuana use for patients with doctors’ recommendations, have scheduled a joint news conference Friday where they plan to “outline actions targeting the sale, distribution and cultivation of marijuana.”

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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 latest unemployment numbers, Occupy Wall Street and the passing of Steve Jobs.

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:

Job Creation Posts Jump But Rate Still Steady at 9.1%
September Unemployment Report
Obama Endorses New Tax on Wealthy Earners as Spreading Protests Divide Party
Apple’s Steve Jobs Is Dead
Steve Jobs in his own words
Steve Jobs, One of America’s Brightest Minds, Has Died
Steve Jobs and the American Dream

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There is a word missing from the “solutions” offered by both Democrats and Republicans to the searing economic crisis visited upon America by a combination of craven financial speculators, complacent regulators, feckless politicians and not a little bit of greed amongst many borrowers.

That word is “sell.”

It is only in the selling of surplus manufactures – as Adam Smith taught us – that new income enters the economic system, with the corollary effect of demonstrating, maintaining and advancing the  institutional and operations frameworks for national competitiveness.

So we must ask ourselves, what is America selling to the world? (more…)

Down with banks, student-loan debt, and expensive elections! Up with barter…capitalism…and…Mitt Romney?!?!

On October 4, 2011, Reason.tv visited the Occupy Wall Street protests at Liberty Square in Lower Manhattan, on Day 18 of the ongoing demonstration.

The crowd was relatively small at about 300, and included educated but unemployed workers, college students and recent graduates, homeless drifters, performance artists, 9/11 truthers, and a not-insignificant number of journalists.

The “leaderless” movement is made up of more than a dozen smaller groups, such as the “Information” group with Macbooks hooked up to generators who maintain the “OccupyWallStreet” Twitter feeds and liveblogs, a “People’s Library” consisting mostly of donated leftist literature, and a well-stocked kitchen where organic vegetables are sliced for communal salads.

Student loan debt, campaign finance reform, and general anger with the sluggish economy were the more frequent grievances aired, but the demonstrators are hardly monolithic in their passions or opinions. Among the boilerplate anti-capitalist rhetoric included a lifelong Democrat professing his support for Mitt Romney, an unemployed aviation mechanic declaring his continued support of capitalism and disgust at corporate welfare, and a homeless man expressing skepticism that any of the protestors would remain in the park if just ”one bad wind” rolled through the area.

Also in the crowd was Republican New York City Councilman Daniel J. Halloran, who took all questions from the assembled crowd, and even won them over after forcefully denouncing taxpayer bailouts of corporations and eminent-domain abuse.

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Just because the #OccupyWallSt crowd is drowning in student loans and unable to find jobs in Obama’s economy doesn’t mean they’ve given up on higher education completely. If one worthless degree in gender or culture studies doesn’t cut it in today’s competitive marketplace, why not add two or three more? Well, the #OccupyWallSt crowd is ON TOP OF IT!

On Wednesday they decided that what they really needed was an Anarchist College. (We’re not kidding.) And, they took to the web to solicit instructors (sorry, facilitators):

Liberty Plaza Anarchist College Seeks Teacher/Facilitators

Posted on October 5, 2011 by thehumanchannel

The main goals and values of this college is to teach how important establishing the values of any group is, and that a society or environment of non-dominance and non-hierarchy is the one in which its members thrive. Anarchy literally means without a ruler, so an individual who oppresses any other individual by limiting their autonomy including if it is a member of the establishment’s protection service, (i.e. police) who is not directly involved in oppression, would not be an anarchist since they would be dominating the other without warrant. Unprovoked oppression not for defense of ones own autonomy is not anarchy.

Please refer teachers and materials to OWSEducation@gmail.com. A short intro to the class you’d like to teach will help pair you with other facilitators.

Subjects needed

Consensus Process, facilitator neutrality and values

Horticulture/Permaculture

green anarchy etc

anarchy

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It hasn’t taken long for the socialist-organized “occupation” of Wall Street to jump the shark.

In a surreal news conference at the United Nations, anti-American radical and rogue financier George Soros (net worth: $22 billion) threw in his lot with the thousands of Communists, anarchists, eco-feminists, malingerers, and professional protesters who have been baiting and taunting police in lower Manhattan as part of a mass demonstration that began September 17.

The protests, which have spread to other large cities, are part of what ACORN’s neo-communist founder Wade Rathke calls an “anti-banking jihad.” Not surprisingly, the remnants of the ACORN network are deeply involved in the Occupy Wall Street movement. New York ACORN’s new front group, New York Communities for Change (NYCC), led by veteran ACORN enforcer Jon Kest, is one of the major protest groups leading the effort to turn America into one big socialist armpit.

Kest explained why NYCC is involved by using what has become the standard Marxist boilerplate about the financial collapse. “When the big banks tanked our economy they took away millions of people’s shot at achieving the American Dream,” he blogged. “It’s about time all these people come together and hold Wall Street accountable for what they’ve done to our futures and the future of this country.” Of course Kest didn’t bother to mention the role that ACORN played in creating the mortgage bubble by strong-arming Fannie Mae, pushing the financial affirmative action scheme known as the Community Reinvestment Act, and blackmailing banks that didn’t want to lend money to people who wouldn’t be able to pay it back.

SEIU board member Stephen Lerner has vowed to do his part to drive a stake through the heart of capitalism and drag the populace into economic misery. Lerner says he wants to “bring down the stock market” through a campaign of disruption. Last year George Goehl, executive director of Chicago-based National People’s Action, said that “the banking crisis” was “the next big thing,” and “the way to build a big economic justice movement in this country.”

Soros said he sympathizes with the rabble. “Actually I can understand [the protesters’] sentiment, frankly,” said the preeminent funder of the American activist Left in remarks to reporters.

But anyone who has followed Soros’s life wouldn’t dare to describe him as a working class hero.

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There is something terribly wrong with our Justice Department. Under Barack Obama, it is no longer interested in justice at all but instead has become a base used by far-left ideologues and race baiters to destroy the American idea of the equality of rights of all people before the law.

J. Christian Adams is the heroic former election lawyer who served in the Voting Rights section at the U.S. Department of Justice. He blew the lid off the Black Panther case of voter intimidation that Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder refused to prosecute. Now he is exposing the Obama administration’s secret (or not-so-secret) race war and complete abandonment of individual rights.

In his new book, Injustice: Exposing the Racial Agenda of the Obama Justice Department (Regnery), Adams, who worked inside the DOJ for five years, tells the whole shocking story about how Obama has allowed – or commanded – the Civil Rights division of the Justice Department to be politicized. For his efforts to expose the corruption of the Obama Justice Department, Adams was my co-recipient of the David Horowitz Freedom Center’s Annie Taylor Award for Courage in 2010. And that honor was richly deserved. As Adams shows in this book, if you’re not a member of one of the groups that the Obama administration considers to be its constituency, there’s no justice for you. But if you are a black militant or a member of one of Obama’s other favored groups, it doesn’t matter what you’ve done: you won’t pay any penalty, no matter how serious your crimes. (more…)

Me and my very own SEIU “minder” take a journey onto the streets, up to the banks, and into the minds of the grassroots and populist (I swear. No, really. This is really, really spontaneous stuff) #OccupyWallStreet movement. (Side note: my strategy to go incognito by not wearing any product in my hair was an utter failure.)