In an exclusive interview with the Heritage Foundation, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) had strong words for President Obama:

Next week, Senate Republicans will vote to elect a new Conference Vice Chairman, a position that is considered to be the Number 5 GOP leadership post. As was the case at the start of the new Congress, when committee chairmanships often pitted establishment Republicans against the more conservative among them, the choice will be between one senator with strong tea party support, and another who has been a Washington “insider” for 15 years.

Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) and Roy Blunt (R-Missouri) were both elected to the Senate in 2010. Sen. Johnson was elected with the strong backing of the tea party and conservative Senate recruiter, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S. Carolina). Sen. Blunt spent 14 years in the House of Representatives prior to his election to the Senate.

Now, both Senators have dismissed the idea that their contest is about the old guard GOP versus true conservatives. Sen. Johnson, in particular, notes that he believes his years of business experience, prior to his election to the Senate, are what cause him to stand out as a candidate for the vice chairman’s position. “I also bring the perspective of somebody from the outside — somebody totally foreign to Washington, and that’s a very valuable perspective,” he said.

The Heritage Action for America (HAFA) scorecard, which provides a rating that measures legislators on conservative policies and values, gives Sen. Johnson a 91% rating, and Sen. Blunt a 64% score.

Nevertheless, it is the way in which the contest between the two senators came about that has perhaps created a bit more tension. According to RedState, up until this week, Sen. Johnson was the only candidate for the vice chairman’s position, and the election was scheduled for January. However, Sen. Blunt announced his candidacy on Tuesday of this week, an action which was followed by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Kentucky) decisions to move up the election to next week, rather than January, and to begin a supportive campaign for Sen. Blunt.

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An article in a recent issue of The Economist (“Sweet Land of Subsidy,” December 3rd to 9th, 2011, p. 42) tells the story of Iuka, Mississippi, a small community (2000 pop. 3,059) in Tishomingo County, where the local economic development foundation “invested” an unreported sum of the taxpayers’ money in the mid-1990s to build a 90,000 square foot facility so as to lure a job-creating private employer to the area. Although several call-centers have since “taken a look”, the building never has had a rent-paying tenant and remains vacant nearly two decades on.

The director of the development foundation there blames the county’s failure to attract businesses on the lack of local access to broadband internet connections.

Not to worry, though. In early November, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced that it would redirect $4.5 billion from a program established to guarantee universal access to landline telephone service to a new “Connect America Fund” (CAF), intended to provide “reliable” broadband internet connections to Americans living in rural areas and, as is obligatory in a period of state-created recession, claiming with a straight face to add 500,000 new jobs and $50 billion to GDP over the next six years.

According to the FCC, 18 million U.S. souls do not now have broadband service, and it claims that 7 million of them can be reached with the new subsidy. The subvention thus amounts to more than $640 per person, assuming that none of the unconnected people live in the same household. (The marginal cost per household is estimated to be $775, although, owing to duplication, the incremental cost of previous subsidies has run as high as $350,000 per house.)

More recently, according to the same article, $7.2 billion in federal stimulus money was spent on rural broadband access. CAF raises the ante by 62.5 percent.

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Warning: This Post Uses a Few Words of the Mamaloshen (slang for Yiddish, means the mother tongue) So Zei Gezunt (be healthy) and continue reading.

On Yom Kippur, the rabbi stops in the middle of the service, prostrates himself beside the bema, (the platform from which services are conducted) and cries out, “Oh, God. I am not worthy!” Saul Rosenberg, president of the synagogue is so moved by this demonstration of piety that he immediately throws himself to the floor beside the rabbi and cries, “Oh, God! “I am not worthy” Then Chaim Pitkin, a tailor, jumps from his seat, prostrates himself in the aisle and cries, “Oh God! I am not worthy!” Rosenberg nudges the rabbi and whispers, “So look who thinks he’s not worthy.”

I’m not sure if this is just an American phenom or not, but here in the US Jewish Community everyone thinks they are a “macher” (big shot), not necessarily for the weight they have in the secular world but for the weight they think they have in the Jewish Community. In most cases the people who think they are “machers” are really “pisks” (nobodies). Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chairman of the DNC is that kind of “pisk.”

Yesterday almost all the GOP candidates addressed the Republican Jewish Coalition in a candidates forum. The lone exception was Ron Paul who was not invited for his own health. The RJC was worried that the aged Paul would suffer undue stress being in a room with so many Jews (that is my theory, not the RJC’s rationale).

One by one the candidates spoke, each telling the truth about Obama’s anti-Israel policies, and his weak responses to the Iranian nuke program. Although Israel is an issue important to all Americans,  it is especially important to the ones of the Jewish faith.

Every candidate promising they would treat Israel like the valuable ally she is (based on their track records probably true). Many of them even promising to move the US embassy to Jerusalem (don’t hold your breath on that one, George W Bush failed to come through on that promise  and he was probably the most Pro-Israel president in my lifetime).

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The Obama Administration has initiated a major “Affirmative Action” policy reversal, that could create major new social divisions in the run up to the 2012 election.

According to the Communist Party USA’s People’s World

Affirmative action, the policy designed to assist historically under-represented minority groups and women with access to university admissions, has received an important boost from the Obama administration.

On Friday, the Department of Education jointly with the Department of Justice issued a new Guidance on the Voluntary use of Race to Achieve Diversity in Post-secondary Education.

The new guidelines reverse anti-affirmative action policies adopted by the Bush administration that forbad any use of “quotas” emphasizing instead so called “race neutral solutions.”

“Post-secondary institutions can voluntarily consider race to further the compelling interest of achieving diversity,” says the guidelines.

Bush’s rule stressed limitations on the use of affirmative action. By way of contrast the Obama policy opens the door of possibility again to achieving diversity by considering race and ethnicity as one of several considerations in admissions. In this regard the New York Times writes, “The guidelines focus on the wiggle room in the court decisions.”

In place of the Bush measures, which resulted in a steep drop in minority admissions in top universities, with the new framework “the Obama administration has aligned itself strongly with the right of colleges to consider race and ethnicity in admissions decisions,” writes Inside Higher Education.

The new policy will have major implications for educational and judicial policy across the nation, all in perfect time for the 2012 election.

In 2003, the Supreme Court in rulings involving the University of Michigan, rolled back the use of race and ethnicity.

Now, the Department of Education and the Justice Department say that universities seeking diversity may include consideration of high schools attended, including cases in which the class population is mostly minority, mentoring programs aimed at minority students, and high schools who partner with historically black colleges, among other factors.

While acknowledging the use of some race neutral admissions programs, the new policy says schools need not be bound by them. “Institutions are not required to implement race-neutral approaches if, in their judgment, the approaches would be unworkable,” the guidelines argue. The document continues, “In some cases, race-neutral approaches will be unworkable because they will be ineffective to achieve the diversity the institution seeks. Institutions may also reject approaches that would require them to sacrifice a component of their educational mission or priorities (e.g., academic selectivity).”

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As Attorney General Eric Holder testified before Congress yesterday, two things were reinforced. One: Holder has a problem telling the truth. Two: Congressmen Darrell Issa (R-CA), Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI), and Ted Poe (R-TX), have a problem with people who have a problem telling the truth. And they have a point. As a matter of fact, as I watched the hearings unfold I continually thought to myself: “If Bill Clinton had obstructed justice to this degree, even Senator Trent Lott would have manned up and removed him from office.”

Said Poe:

To believe you weren’t aware of Fast and Furious requires, to coin a phrase, a willing suspension of disbelief. It is hard for me to believe you were unaware of this operation. [So] my question is very simple, who is the person in the U.S. government that made the decision in Operation Fast and Furious to send guns to Mexico?

Although such a straightforward question seems simple enough, Holder’s answer was “we don’t know yet.”

How can the A.G. not know who started an operation that resulted in the sale of 2,500 weapons to straw purchasers—some of which were paid for with U.S. taxpayer money, the passing of those weapons to criminals, the smuggling of those weapons across the border, the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry with at least two of those weapons, and the death of hundreds of Mexican citizens? (I bet Holder could tell you who authorized the raid on the Gibson Guitar factory with no problem.)

Anyway, Issa was relentless all day long. And during the late afternoon, he pressed Holder to release all the documents which had subpoenaed but not released. Holder gave a sloppy answer to this question: a combination of “yes” and “we’ll see.” In response to such non-clarity, Issa compared Holder to John Mitchell, Nixon’s Watergate A.G.

Holder replied by asking, “Have you no shame?” And Issa countered with, “Have YOU no shame?”

This is a teachable moment folks: Holder has grown so accustomed to the success of his own hypocrisy that he took offense to being called out on the carpet. He took offense to being compared to Mitchell when the truth is, Mitchell’s family should be offended that one of their own was compared to Holder.

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Today, in 1981, Philadelphia Police Office Daniel Faulkner was murdered by [We're not going to give his name].  This week, [the murderer's] death sentence was commuted to life without parole. Score something to the unserious left. God speed Officer Faulkner. Your murderer’s name will never appear on this site.

Connecticut’s union-bought governor, Daniel Malloy, is apparently scheming with the SEIU to unionize his state’s daycare providers and personal care attendants through a secret plan using the flawed method of card-check unionization.

By stripping individuals of their right to vote on whether or not to unionize, Malloy is virtually guaranteeing money (paid by taxpayers) will go into his SEIU cronies’ pockets.

According to Raising Hale’s Zach Janowski, Malloy has  created “working groups” through executive order that will “guide the unionization” over the next year.

The two working groups will meet Friday morning. The Personal Care Attendant Working Group will meet at 10 a.m. and the Family Child Care Working Group will meet at 11 a.m., both in Room 410 of the Capitol.

Malloy created the working groups with executive orders nine and 10. Adding daycare providers alone to the union roles could increase dues revenue by $1 million.

The executive orders also include a card check provision that takes away the ability of daycare owners and PCAs to vote by secret ballot. (more…)

President Barack Obama’s recent speech in Osawatomie, Kansas is being hailed by the left and the mainstream media for its renewed focus on inequality–and for its crafty use of Republican president Theodore Roosevelt to push socialist themes.

Even some conservative observers are hailing the speech–not for its divisive substance, but for the fact that Obama is no longer attempting to hide his radical views in moderate rhetoric.

Indeed, the choice of Osawatomie may be more significant than the Roosevelt conceit or Obama’s maternal family roots.

Osawatomie was the site of a historic battle between abolitionist John Brown and pro-slavery forces (who were backed by the Democrats of the age). Though Brown’s men were defeated, his audacious tactics earned him the nickname “Osawatomie.” Obama may have chosen deliberately to cast his struggle against “the rich” in the same emotive terms.

Obama alluded to Osawatomie in his autobiography, Dreams from My Father, in discussing his Kansas ancestors (p. 12):

…Kansas had entered the Union free only after a violent precursor to the Civil War, the battle in which John Brown’s sword tasted first blood…

Obama also cited John Brown as one of his historical inspirations in his second autobiography, The Audacity of Hope. In a passage that almost anticipates the radical themes of this week’s speech, he writes (p. 97):

The best I can do in the face of our history is remind myself that it has not always been the pragmatist, the voice of reason, or the force of compromise, that has created the conditions for liberty… It was the wild-eyed prophecies of John Brown, his willingness to spill blood and not just words on behalf of his visions, that helped force the issue of a nation half slave and half free.

Obama conspicuously neglected to mention Osawatomie’s history in his speech on Tuesday, but the town is clearly important to Obama’s personal identity, as well as to the way he understands his political destiny.

Given that Kansas is not a swing state, the choice of setting likely had more to do with the symbolism of Osawatomie Brown than electoral votes. In Obama’s revision of history, the Republicans are the slave-owners, the villains in “the defining issue of our time.”

Also interesting is the fact that the official organ of the Weather Underground Organization in the 1970s was called Osawatomie, in an attempt to cloak the group’s radical struggle in the mantle of John Brown’s fight against slavery. (more…)

Cross-Posted: TobyToons (Conservative Political Cartoons)

The legal counsel of Governor Dannel Malloy (D-CT) has reported that “many” Connecticut state employees may be involved in food stamp fraud, and is urging heads of state departments to cooperate with investigators and prosecutors on both the state and federal levels.

During a rather abruptly organized press conference last Sunday, Gov. Malloy revealed that 800 of the 23,000 people who obtained federal disaster aid, following Tropical Storm Irene, were state employees, some of whom may actually qualify for the assistance. Thus far, 24 state employees appear to have fraudulently qualified for the disaster aid.

Andrew McDonald, the governor’s chief counsel, said, “We have credible information to suspect that many state employees who received the benefits did so by materially misrepresenting important information included in their applications” for food stamp benefits.”

Those who applied for the disaster funds, known as D-SNAP, received debit cards for as much as $1200, to replace food that had reportedly spoiled due to lack of electrical power during the period following the storm.

As was reported here on September 29, 2011, thousands of people waited in lines for days in the wake of Tropical Storm Irene, in front of Connecticut’s DSS buildings, some of them obtaining emergency funds even though they lived in areas, such as the capital city of Hartford, which had not lost power as a result of the storm. The state administered the $12.4 million in disaster aid funded by the federal government.

The ease with which many were able to obtain D-SNAP funds was discussed anecdotally on local radio talk shows. The chaotic hordes of people lining up to receive D-SNAP funds led conservative Republican state Sen. Joseph Markley to approach the state auditors and ask them to look into the situation. On a talk radio program, Sen. Markley said, “I think, during the course of their investigation, they started turning over some rocks, and it became obvious that there was wrongdoing involved, and some embarrassment. And I believe that’s what led the governor to get out ahead of the story, holding this extraordinary press conference on a Sunday afternoon.”

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To be blunt, I’m not a big fan of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. But my animosity isn’t because OECD bureaucrats threatened to have me arrested and thrown in a Mexican jail.

Instead, I don’t like the Paris-based bureaucracy because it pushes a statist agenda of bigger government. This Center for Freedom and Prosperity study has all the gory details, revealing that OECD bureaucrats endorsed Obamacare, supported the failed stimulus, and are big advocates of a value-added tax for America.

And I am very upset that the OECD gets a giant $100 million-plus subsidy every year from American taxpayers. For all intents and purposes, we’re paying for a bunch of left-wing bureaucrats so they can recommend that the United States adopt that policies that have caused so much misery in Europe. And to add insult to injury, these socialist pencil pushers receive tax-free salaries.

And now, just when you thought things couldn’t get worse, the OECD has opened a new front in its battle against America. The bureaucrats from Paris have climbed into bed with the hard left at the AFL-CIO and are pushing a class-warfare agenda. Next Wednesday, the two organizations will be at the union’s headquarters for a panel on “Divided We Stand – Tackling Growing Inequality Now.”

Co-sponsoring a panel at the AFL-CIO’s offices, it should be noted, doesn’t necessarily make an organization guilty of left-wing activism and mis-use of American tax dollars. But when you look at other information on the OECD’s website, it quickly becomes apparent that the Paris-based bureaucracy has launched a new project to promote class-warfare.

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From The Economist:

FOR elected officials life in Washington, DC, holds many advantages. One is having a network of friends and associates who keep you well informed. But allegations have surfaced that politicians sometimes make use of this privileged access for personal profit.

Last month CBS television aired an episode of “60 Minutes” that accused several members of Congress of financial opportunism usually associated more with Wall Street than Washington. The reason they can get away with it is that insider trading is perfectly legal for members of Congress, at least according to Peter Schweizer, the author of the book “Throw Them All Out”, on which the CBS episode drew.

This has set off a fuss on Capitol Hill, as congressmen try to decide what the law actually allows. Some authorities doubt that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) could successfully charge a member of Congress with insider trading, because it is unclear to whom congressmen owe a “fiduciary duty” and what qualifies as “material, non-public information” in a political context. These elements are clearer at companies, where insider-trading cases usually occur.

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We have come to appreciate the Occupiers for their fundamental misunderstanding of economics.  We’ve also come to look forward to the latest arrest statistics or video of delusional protesters weeping for their Lost Tent City.

I shudder to think what America would look like if they truly had any decision-making power.

Consider the latest zany idea from one “MrMiller” of Sandy, Utah:

“Here is my proposal for opening up cheaper education to people in our country. It is my opinion that we don’t need to pay professors quite so much money if we go about providing for them in a different way. What if we were to IMMEDIATELY find ways to provide for teachers to live life for free and paid their housing, (or collectively built them new houses, free of charge), gave them free food and also healthcare? If we collectively found a way to eliminate THEIR overhead, then we wouldn’t all have to pay so much for them and this would thus drive down costs for all? I have been thinking about this for a LONG time and have decided that that would be the single greatest step towards reducing the costs of education period if we all worked together to do it. It’s not even a hard thing to imagine. Anyone disagree?”

Um…me?

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Congress is finally feeling the pressure over insider trading, the practice of trading financial securities based on non-public information available to a select few in government.

After a series of investigative reports, including several here at Big Government, the American people are beginning to realize that what is wrong with this country can be diagrammed on a map, with a straight line connecting Wall Street and Washington, D.C.

Now exposed to the light of day, the political establishment is determined to show the American people it is “doing something” to clean up its act.

This week, the House Financial Services Committee held a hearing on the matter, taking what many observers saw as great pains to minimize perceptions of a systemic and bipartisan problem. But I remain skeptical, as do many Americans, that Congress will actually pass a bill with teeth that requires them to live by the same rules as the rest of us.

The fact is, things will never change as long as the same Washington insiders remain in control. Washington is broken and needs a complete overhaul, but establishment politicians only want to tinker at the margins. This is why we can’t ask a Washington insider to fix Washington, because it takes an outsider to overhaul a corrupt culture.

My plan to overhaul Washington starts by creating a part-time Congress. We should cut their pay in half, cut their staffs in half, and cut the time they spend in Washington in half. A part-time, citizen Congress will not only get rid of the permanent political class – it will restore the vision of our founders and force members to live under the laws they pass with the people they represent.

Second, my plan makes passing the STOCK Act a priority. Any member of Congress who trades on insider information should go to jail, plain and simple.

And third, I will permanently ban all corporate bailouts. We shouldn’t be awarding taxpayer-funded bonuses to Wall Street executives who defrauded those very same taxpayers, we should be locking them up.

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When it came time for Attorney General Eric Holder to make his opening comments, Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA) requested that the A.G. be sworn under oath. Issa had already noted that Congress had been lied to and that in previous hearings, Holder & Co. displayed the “unheard of” habit of redacting their letters and testimony to the Congress. Congressman Lamar Smith (R-TX) said that it wasn’t necessary for Holder to be sworn under oath because it was understood that he was already under oath by virtue of the purpose for which he was appearing. Issa then asked Smith if he was sure that Holder was bound as being under oath, and Smith verified that he was.

So it was settled, and Issa had made his point – Holder should choose his words carefully.

Cameras then turned to Holder who said he was happy to describe the “decisive action” his department has taken “to ensure the flawed tactics actions used in operations Fast and Furious and in earlier operations under prior administration are never repeated.” (Notice the jab at Bush.) He then took time to brag on how the 117,000 employees of the DOJ throughout world have basically saved American from apocalypse. (He did this by describing what he called the DOJ’s historic progress in protecting the American people “from global terrorism and violent crime, financial fraud, human trafficking, and more.”)

He finally turned his attention to the Southwest border, i.e., the one the DOJ/ATF allowed 2,500 weapons to walk across. Here, DOJ’s “battle against gun violence” took center stage:

In recent years, the department has devoted specific resources to this fight and specifically, to addressing the unacceptable rate of illegal firearms trafficking from the United States to Mexico. Unfortunately, in the pursuit of that laudable goal, unacceptable tactics were adopted as part of Operation Fast and Furious. As I have repeatedly stated, allowing guns to walk, whether in this administration or the prior one, is wholly unacceptable. The use of this misguided tactic is inexcusable. It must never happen again. Soon after learning about the allegations raised by agents involved in Fast and Furious I took action designed to ensure accountability. In February I asked the department’s acting Inspector General to investigate the matter. And in early March I ordered that a directive be sent to law enforcement agents and prosecutors prohibiting such tactics.

I have a question: How did Holder address the “allegations” associated with gun walking in Fast and Furious in February if he didn’t know about Fast and Furious until mid-April? Remember, when he first gave testimony to Congress on May 3, he told Issa he had only known about Fast and Furious for a few weeks:

On May 3rd Issa asked: “When did you first know about the program…called ‘Fast and Furious?”

Holder responded: “I’m not sure of the exact date, but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks”

This exchange notwithstanding, Holder is now telling Congress about the actions he took in light of allegations about Fast and Furious in February and March. In fact, he specifically said he issued a directive in March against “such tactics” (i.e., gun walking) after the allegations of such tactics were made by ATF agents.

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INDIANAPOLIS – Indiana state lawmakers reviewing the issue of superintendent compensation can learn a lot from the recent Wayne Township lawsuit filed against former superintendent Terry Thompson.

The district alleges Thompson and his attorneys schemed to defraud the district through a series of complicated contract changes that were never discussed in detail with board members.

Those changes allegedly boosted his income from $218,000 in 2003 to $2.2 million in 2010, according to the IndyChannel.com, which broke the news of Thompson’s $1 million severance that ultimately led to the lawsuit.

The issue centers on payments to employees for unused sick days, an issue we’ve pointed to repeatedly as an example of unnecessary school spending.

The lawsuit alleges that Thompson changed his payments for unused sick days from the standard $57 per day rate the district pays other administrators to 50 percent of his per diem pay, which was $413 in 2005 and increased each year.

He also allegedly removed a cap on the number of unused days he could accumulate, the IndyChannel.com reports.

We’re unsure about the specific circumstances in Thompson’s case, but several superintendent contracts we’ve reviewed in the past allow administrators to convert unused personal or vacation days to unused sick days, as well.

The lawsuit alleges that Thompson told board members the changes to his contract were minor, and assured his attorneys that some changes were approved by the board, the IndyChannel.com reports.

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Francis Cianfrocca to discuss Jon Corzine’s testimony before Congress on MF Global, the proposed Robin Hood Tax and how it would hurt the little guy not big banks as intended.

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:

Jon Corzine to tell House panel he doesn’t know where customers’ money went
Tax on Financial Trades Gains Advocates
The Robin Hood Tax Won’t Work

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WASHINGTON (AP) – Senate Republicans have blocked President Barack Obama’s choice to head the consumer protection agency that was created after the 2008 financial meltdown.

His nominee, former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray, ran into near-solid opposition from Republicans.

As a result, Democrats couldn’t muster the 60 votes needed to move ahead on the nomination. Only one Republican joined Democrats in voting Cordray.

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