When Peter Schweizer uncovered evidence of insider trading by Republican chairman of the House Financial Services Committee Spencer Bachus (R-AL), and 60 Minutes reported on it, I was the first person to call for Rep. Bachus to resign.

That was November 14, 2011.

Now, with news that the Office of Congressional Ethics has launched an insider trading investigation of Rep. Bachus, among possible others, I once again call on the Alabama Republican to do the right thing and leave Congress for good.

At the historic moment when the American people were looking to their elected leaders to protect them and their families’ portfolios, Rep. Bachus was busy using nonpublic information to enrich his own portfolio. In the summer and fall of 2008, Spencer Bachus’s position as the ranking Republican on the House Financial Services Committee gave him access to high-level private meetings and conversations with the then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and other senior officials. The meetings Bachus was privy to were so secretive that those in attendance were not even allowed to bring cell phones into the meetings so as to prevent sensitive information that could threaten our nation’s financial system from leaking out.

And what did Congressman Bachus do with such trust and responsibility?

From July to November 2008, Bachus executed at least 40 well-timed, highly risky options trades throughout the turbulent period that netted him as much as $50,000 in capital gains. As Americans were losing their life savings, Bachus was padding his. (more…)

Big Government’s Lee Stranahan and Brandon Darby, on the scene at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, DC, report that 300-400 union members and Occupy activists have instigated clashes with police outside the conference venue at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel.

(more…)

Newark, New Jersey–home of superstar Democrat mayor and future presidential contender Cory Booker–has just told Occupy protestors to take a hike.

In a letter sent to Eric Richardson, the Occupy activist who recently told Lee Stranahan about racism within the movement, Kenneth Louis, Deputy City Clerk of Newark, informed protestors that they “will be required to remove all individuals and equipment from Military Park as of 9:00 P.M. [EST] beginning on Thursday, February 9, 2012.”

(more…)

We have just passed through the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) brouhaha.

A bill intended to stop theft – an important goal, and a necessary function of government.  But SOPA was overly broad, and deserved in its most recent iteration to go away – which it did.

Because of a bipartisan oppositional uprising – but the two sides arose for very different reasons.

The Theft-Left is vociferously opposed to private property rights.  SOPA is aimed at protecting private property.  So the Left said No.

The Right is loathe to grow government control of anything – including the Web.  And having just witnessed the recent Big Government Network Neutrality Internet power grab, their antennae were highly sensitized – and they said No.

Now, Washington is talking cyber security.  Where there is, again, a legitimate role for government – but we have, again, a bill that defines said role much too broadly.

(more…)

They’re an odd couple–Father and Son, that is.

Morris Beschloss, a longtime resident of Southern California’s Coachella Valley, is a conservative economic and political expert who at 82 writes a regular column for the Desert Sun newspaper, blogs on the paper’s website, and hosts his own television show, The World Report, on the Time Warner network.

In 1939, at the age of 9, Beschloss, a German Jew, escaped Nazi Germany with his mother and older brother. His grandmother refused to leave, and several years later she became one of the six million Jews murdered at the hands of Hitler and the Nazi regime.

Morrie, as friends call him, spoke to me about his only son, Michael Beschloss. He is the Harvard educated, NBC News Presidential Historian. As the Presidential Historian, the younger Beschloss holds himself out as an unbiased, apolitical analyst of all things Presidential. Long ago, a political wedge was driven between the two, with Michael Beschloss strongly objecting to his father’s conservative politics.

The older Beschloss talked about his son’s accomplishments, which he admires. When it comes to his son’s work with NBC, however, Beschloss didn’t mince words:

“Once you’re in bed with the devil, you begin to spout the devil’s bullshit,” he explained, when referring to what he calls NBC’s overtly liberal bias. He cited Presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin as another example of media driven political taint. “She is nothing but a lackey for the left,” said Beschloss.

Beschloss, who calls the cable division of his son’s employer, MSNBC, “nothing more than the propaganda wing of the Obama White House,” spoke with disdain about the network and many of its on-air personalities. Al Sharpton, who incited the 1991 Crown Heights riots, “is a known anti-Semite,” said Beschloss. He also decried the fact that the network employed, as an anchor, the daughter of alleged “arch-anti-Semite Zbigniew Brzezinski” (Mika Brzezinski).

Afsaneh and Michael Beschloss

We then began to talk about the self-designated, progressive “media watchdog group” Media Matters for America. Michael Beschloss (the son) is married to Iranian born Afsaneh Mashayekhi Beschloss. She has well-documented, strong ties to Democrats and George Soros-backed groups, including Media Matters. Mrs. Beschloss is currently President and CEO of Rock Creek Group, a hedge fund based in Washington, D.C. One of Rock Creek Group’s senior advisors is Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, a former Lt. Governor of Maryland, who is also leading American Bridge–a Democrat fundraising project co-founded with Media Matters for America’s David Brock. (more…)

Media Matters for America (MMfA) sent an email yesterday, likely in error, to the office of Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK)–hardly a regular recipient of MMfA spam–attempting to coordinate Democratic opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline that was recently blocked by the Obama administration.

Photo: National Post (Canada) / Andrew Harrer / Bloomberg

The email apparently targeted staff from the Senate’s Committee on Environment and Public Works, and recipients included staff working for Sen. Inhofe as Ranking Member, apparently in error. (Sen. Inhofe is an ardent supporter of the Keystone pipeline and has objected vehemently to President Barack Obama’s decision to prevent it from moving forward.)

The fact that MMfA’s email was, atypically, sent to Republican staffers might suggest a gesture at bipartisan outreach–except that the email was explicitly addressed to congressional “allies” on an issue where Republicans have shown unusually strong unity, and the opposition, such as it is, has come from Democrats and the White House. (Last year, the House of Representatives passed a bill supporting the Keystone pipeline with Republicans favoring the project 232-3, and Democrats opposing it 144-47.)

The email announces that Media Matters aims to assist fellow opponents of the Keystone XL pipeline (i.e. congressional Democrats) based on the premise that the media has focused on the jobs the project could create, and not on the potential downsides of the pipeline:

From: [redacted]
Sent: Wednesday, January 25, 2012 09:11 PM
To: [redacted]
Subject: Heads up – MMFA study on media coverage of KXL out tomorrow

[Redacted],

I wanted to flag that MMFA will be putting out a major, quantitative report on media coverage of KXL tomorrow morning.

The study will be similar to our EPA counting study (http://mediamatters.org/research/201106070010) — and will drill home the point the media bought right into Big Oil’s desired frame on KXL, focusing largely on the (inflated) number of jobs that could be created, without paying due attention to the many other important issues at stake. (Ranchers’ land, spills, climate change, etc.)

We are hoping for a big media splash,  but – more importantly – we’re hoping that allies will be able to leverage it to gain favorable coverage.

I’ve pasted a very brief summary below – and will be sure to send along the final study as soon as it’s up.  If you have any questions, please let me know.

All the best,

[Redacted] (more…)

Barack Obama is no Lincoln

“[Barack Obama] didn’t get it right,” says Harry V. Jaffa, professor emeritus of Claremont McKenna College, senior fellow at the Claremont Institute, and author of two influential books on Lincoln.

Jaffa was referring to this quotation from President Obama.

“I’m a Democrat. But I believe what Republican Abraham Lincoln believed: That Government should do for people only what they cannot do better by themselves, and no more.”

Professor Jaffa noted that this quotation leaves out a great deal. The 93-year-old Jaffa recited the full statement from Lincoln’s speech, “The Nature and Objects of Government, with Special Reference to Slavery” (July 1, 1854) by memory:

“The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but cannot do at all, or cannot so well do, for themselves in their separate and individual capacities.”

Notice the difference? The emphasis is on the need to have done, not on government doing the action. “That distinction was missing from his quotation,” Jaffa explains. Yet Obama has repeatedly invoked this misleading Lincoln quotation on both the campaign trail and during his presidency.

(more…)

In a State of the Union speech devoid of clarity or specifics, President Barack Obama offered but one shining exception: a direct call for members of Congress to send him a bill to ban congressional insider trading.

“Send me a bill that bans insider trading by members of Congress and I will sign it tomorrow,” President Obama said to applause. “Let’s limit any elected official from owning stock in industries they impact.”

Since the release of “Throw Them All Out,” Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer has been a one-man battalion fighting for members of Congress to abide by the same insider trading laws that apply to all Americans.   President Obama’s speech Tuesday night is evidence that Schweizer’s battle against congressional insider trading and cronyism has scored a critical victory.

(more…)

Americans aren’t the only ones shocked by U.S. Congressman Ron Paul’s assertion that international sanctions against Iran qualify as an “act of war.”

The Texas Congressman has made the assertion several times during the past few years, and reiterated it last night during the Republican debates in Florida when he argued that the U.S. had committed an act of war by “blockading” Iran (which the U.S. is not doing).

“We’re blockading them,” Paul said to a Tampa audience. “Can you imagine what we would do if someone blockaded the Gulf of Mexico? That would be an act of war–so the act of war has already been committed and this is retaliation.”

But Amir Fakhravar, a pro-democracy freedom fighter who was imprisoned and tortured by the Islamic Republic, disagrees.

Fakhravar, who spoke to Big Government today, says: “Sanctions weaken the government so much it will eventually empower the people of Iran to change their own regime without war,” and added that ”Ron Paul’s foreign policy toward the Islamic Republic is wrong. If we don’t have hard sanctions against the regime they will have more money to buy weapons, and then we will definitely have war.”

Fakhravar was imprisoned in 2002 for calling to rescind the powers of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, and the Council of Guardians. During part of his sentence he was taken to a military detention camp where he underwent the first known example of “white torture.” He escaped in 2006 and came to the United States. Fakhravar is now a Research Fellow and Visiting Lecturer at the Center for the Study of Culture and Security at The Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C.

“If the United States lifts sanctions and Iran eventually gets the bomb, that means war,” he added.

(more…)

Tonight, President Barack Obama will deliver his third State of the Union Address–and his sixth address to a joint session of Congress. That’s more than either President Bush or President Clinton had addressed in any single term.

Despite his purported skill as an orator, none of Obama’s addresses to Congress has been particularly successful. They are typically remembered more for the rancor they caused than for any positive effects.

Obama is expected to make inequality the focus of his address. That’s an important campaign theme, as well as a refrain of the Occupy Wall Street movement that Obama supported in the fall of 2011.

Yet it is not a significant departure from the tone of previous addresses, in which Obama bullied opponents and Supreme Court justices; fabricated health insurance horror stories; and called upon “millionaires and billionaires” to pay.

For reference purposes as you watch tonight’s State of the Union, here is a concise summary of Obama’s five previous speeches to Congress, and how they were received:

Obama's first address: February 24, 2009

***

Address to Joint Session of Congress, February 24, 2009

In his first speech as the 44th President, Obama wanted to put his stamp on the presidency and introduce his ambitious policy agenda–one “that begins with jobs,” he said. The highlight of his address was the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act–i.e. the stimulus–which he promised would receive “tough, unprecedented oversight” under Vice President Joe Biden.

Obama also announced a government lending program to ease credit, a new housing plan to prevent foreclosures, and assistance to struggling banks. He asked for “long-term investments” in green energy; for a commitment to health care reform; and for new funding for schools, along with education reforms. And he promised to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term, partly by letting “tax breaks” for the wealthy expire.

In addition, Obama touched on national security, reiterating his promise to close the detention facilities at Guantánamo Bay, hinting that he would press for civilian trials for terrorists, and promising to “defeat al Qaeda and combat extremism.” On foreign policy, Obama declared “a new era of engagement” through negotiations with hostile powers, and announced the appointment of a new envoy to help end the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The reaction to Obama’s speech was somewhat negative: he apparently intended to govern from the left, not from the center (as some had hoped). Stock prices fell sharply the next morning, recovering by the afternoon but ending firmly in the red. In retrospect, though Obama kept his promises on assisting banks and fighting al Qaeda, he broke many other pledges, and saw many of his policies–especially the stimulus–fail badly. (more…)

Nan Terrie, the anti-rape activist at Occupy Wall Street who has also been active in calling for an audit of the group’s finances, has been officially excluded from future “spoke counsel” meetings for alleged violent behavior. This is ironic, since Ms. Terrie has been vocal about exposing violence and sexual assault in the #Occupy movement.

The minutes of the January 20, 2012 Spoke Council meeting details some of the back-and-forth about excluding Ms. Terrie, who has been a vocal whistle-blower about theft, violence, and sexual assault, allegations that have been proven to be true as verified by outside reporting and police arrest records. Terrie has also asked for an accounting of money spent by the #Occupy movement. Further, she has alleged an organized coverup of violence and financial malfeasance by de facto leadership of the supposedly leaderless movement.

Ms. Terrie, an 18-year-old activist originally from Florida, was treated at the hospital for a concussion just two nights ago, after being hit in the head with a chair at a meeting.

(more…)

With members of the mainstream media now hurling charges of using racially coded language against GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, Big Government has uncovered a private memorandum written over three decades ago that offers a unique glimpse into Mr. Gingrich’s longstanding attitudes about race.

The private memo, dated July 1, 1980, was written by Mr. Gingrich on his official House of Representatives stationery and was sent to then-candidate Ronald Reagan’s campaign manager, Bill Casey, who would later become President Reagan’s CIA Director.

In the memo, Mr. Gingrich urges Governor Reagan’s campaign to reconsider its decision not to speak to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Convention.

“This is a great opportunity to prove that a conservative Republican can speak to the hearts and pocketbooks of Black Americans,” Gingrich urged in the memo.

The memorandum goes on to explain that a decision not to speak at the NAACP convention would insult African American voters and be a “tragedy” for the nation:

Many middle class Black Americans who would vote for Reagan will be insulted by his non-attendance.  I urge you to schedule the speech and talk about Kemp’s Inner City Jobs Bill, which Kilpatrick and George Will have both endorsed as acceptably conservative.

Failure to attend the NAACP convention will be a tragedy for Gov. Reagan and the country.  Symbolic events are vital.  Thank you for considering this.

(more…)

Of wireless Internet bandwidth hogs, that is.

We have for months been odiferously awash in word of the Occupy Wall Street (#OWS) “movement.”

Intellectually and ideologically sloven, these gathered gaggles have been commandeering sporadic public spaces (and some private ones) all across the fruited plain.

When asked why they are so doing, you get an inanity cornucopia – think Jay (Leno) Walking or (Jesse) Watters’ World on ignorance steroids.

The only semi-comprehensible – but still factually vacuous – thing to emanate from the whole mess is the 1% – 99% nonsense.

That being the #OWS-ers saying that the upper 1% of Americans control most of the money and power and thusly must be…destroyed?  Certainly taxed and regulated into utter oblivion.

In an always-and-forever failed effort to “spread the wealth around” – misery being the only thing that ever ends up equally distributed.

Work, work ethic and talent never enter the #OWS equation – but then again, why should they?

(more…)

As many Breitbart readers know, my story is one of a former prominent Leftist revolutionary turned believer in the American Constitution.

My blog posts and public talks often detail the experiences I had and my journey towards believing and appreciating our system of governance. My speeches usually focus on the experiences that brought me from being an anti-American revolutionary to a patriotic American who, having felt a profound sense of owing our nation, began working undercover with the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task force.

My writings and speeches usually avoid any discussion or mention of the guilt I often felt in my transition. However, I’d often think of how vocal I had been in critiquing America, our armed forces, and other men and women who protect our rights and our lives. Like most Leftists, I seized any opportunity to knock our heroes and point out any possible failure or shortcoming. I felt shame once my worldview began to mature.

The emotional aspects of the conversion are never as intense as when I think of how I once bought into the dominant left-of-center belief that Israel was to be included in any discussion of why the world was so evil and wrought with war and hatred. My world, though I thought it was full of a variety of information from different perspectives, was quite insular. My historical knowledge of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was, in fact, solely based on the perspectives of the enemies of the Jewish state.

Anti-Israel protestors at Houston Holocaust Museum, Jan. 2009

I had the privilege recently to visit the National Holocaust Museum and Memorial. I was, as most are, horrified to see what had occurred. The museum walks the attendee through the history of antisemitism; the media and propaganda that were used to dehumanize Jews; and through the subsequent actions to which that dehumanization led. The lack of involvement and intervention from other nations is well displayed, as well as the role such abuses played in the creation of modern state of Israel.

(more…)

I had the opportunity today to hear American Enterprise Institute (AEI) president Arthur C. Brooks preview his upcoming book, The Road to Freedom, at an AEI policy meeting in Beverly Hills, CA.

Brooks is concerned with what he calls the new culture war–not over the traditional social issues of “guns, gays, and abortion,” but over the moral virtue of the free market and free enterprise systems over the redistributionist, statist ethic.

Brooks cited Americans’ unprecedented dissatisfaction with government in the wake of the failed stimulus, the numerous bailouts, the government’s role in creating the housing crisis, and other statist failures. Proponents of free enterprise, he says, should be winning the argument. Instead, he points out, most Americans hold beliefs incompatible with a culture of free enterprise–supporting higher taxes, more regulations, and the like.

The reason? “Proponents of free enterprise have nothing but materialistic rejoinders.” Put simply, those who favor individual economic freedom tend to debate using numbers, and technical arguments–while those who favor more government, such as President Barack Obama, are making moral arguments about the unfairness and injustice of the inequality that freedom may enable. They are winning–even though they are wrong. (more…)

David Axelrod, chief political strategist for President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign and former White House political adviser, defended Jeremiah Wright on Tuesday evening in a speech in Thousand Oaks, CA.

Axelrod described the initial news reports in 2008 on Obama’s long-time family pastor and mentor as “ninety seconds of vitriol plucked from thirty years of sermons by some enterprising opposition researcher.”

The claim that Wright’s sermons were selectively edited by Obama’s political opponents contradicts what is known about Wright’s preaching and the radical, racialist creed of the Trinity United Church of Christ, to which Obama belonged for two decades and to which he contributed a large amount of money.

Axelrod’s claim is also contradicted by Obama himself, who has cited Wright’s enthusiasm for radical politics as the main reason he was attracted to the church.

Axelrod brought up the Wright controversy during a lecture recounting his role as the “architect” of Obama’s rise from the Illinois state senate to the presidency. Axelrod praised Obama’s infamous “race speech,” contrasting his media skills to those of GOP vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin.

Photo source: Distinguished Speaker Series

The lecture was part of the Distinguished Speaker Series of Southern California, and was delivered before a largely friendly audience.

(more…)

In an editorial board interview with Breitbart.com, Rick Tyler, a former spokesman for Newt Gingrich and current senior adviser to Mr. Gingrich’s Winning Our Future Super PAC, told Editor-in-Chief Joel Pollak he was unsure whether the Gingrich Super PAC would return and refuse any contributions it has or will receive from employees of Bain Capital, the company Mitt Romney previously ran.

“I’m not prepared to comment on that right now,” said Mr. Tyler. “I hadn’t even contemplated that idea… I don’t know. I don’t know that there are any Bain employees giving money. I don’t really have an answer for you. I don’t have an adequate answer for you.”

Pollak raised the question as Gingrich and his Super PAC have targeted Romney’s tenure as CEO of Bain Capital, casting Bain as a firm of corporate raiders whose business model was allegedly to “loot” American companies and ship jobs overseas. Logically, Pollak implied, if Bain is evil, then Winning the Future should return and refuse contributions connected to Bain.

It is unknown whether Gingrich’s Super PAC, “Winning the Future,” has in fact received donations from Bain employees or investors, since it is not due to report its contributions to the Federal Election Commission until January 31.

On Wednesday, Winning Our Future is set to release a movie titled When Mitt Romney Came to Town in advance of the Republican South Carolina primary. The Washington Post says the film, which was made by a former Romney advertising adviser, “savages” Mr. Romney’s record as head of Bain Capital. The film’s website describes Mr. Romney as a “predatory corporate raider” who “looked for businesses he could pick apart.”

(more…)