Chicago Gun Case: Enforce the Constitution–All of It

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear McDonald v. Chicago, in which the Court will decide whether the City of Chicago can disarm its citizens by forbidding them from owning handguns, or whether gun ownership is a “privilege” of citizenship protected by the U.S. Constitution.  In doing so, it will reconsider whether courts should play a more robust role in the protection of the basic liberties of the people.

Such a statement may seem counterintuitive.  Of course courts protect rights; it’s their job to interpret the Constitution to do just that.

But the practice of constitutional law has unfortunately long since been about more than the simple application of the plain text.  That’s because the Constitution—the point of which is to limit government power—is a rather inconvenient roadblock when government wants to do something without restraints.  Courts, in many cases, have abandoned their responsibility to apply the clear commands of the Constitution and have become extremely deferential to legislatures, especially with regard to progressive policy goals the judges themselves often share.  It seems crazy that we would let legislatures determine when laws they themselves create violate the Constitution.  But that is exactly what has happened.  We’ve let the fox guard the henhouse.

Some call this judicial “restraint,” but increasingly, a more accurate term would be judicial abdication.  And judicial abdication is every bit as dangerous as judicial activism, and arguably even more so because it allows politicians to disregard whatever constitutional limits they find inconvenient, which leads to unchecked expansion of government power.

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Tags: 13th amendment, 14th amendment, constitutional law, gun rights, jim crow laws
Posted Mar 2nd 2010 at 5:32 am in Culture, Featured Story, History, Justice/Legal, News | 82598190 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/jadkins/2010/03/02/chicago-gun-case-enforce-the-constitution-all-of-it/Chicago+Gun+Case%3A+Enforce+the+Constitution--All+of+It2010-03-02+13%3A32%3A57Jason+Adkins

What Happened to That ACORN Investigation Jerry Brown Promised?

California Attorney General Jerry Brown seems to be getting a lot of reminders from his gubernatorial challengers Steve Poizner and Meg Whitman about his failed governorship of the state from 1975-1983 when Californian’s endured high unemployment, home foreclosures, large scale labor strikes and fuel shortages at the gas station. Recognizing the failed policies of then Governor Brown, California voters revolted and passed Proposition 13 which is a landmark initiative that limited politician’s ability to arbitrarily raise taxes on California residents.

Over a week ago, Attorney General Jerry Brown got yet another reminder, this time coming from the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The report “Follow the Money: ACORN, SEIU and their Political Allies” focuses public attention on AG Brown’s failed investigation of ACORN. While some of Brown’s gubernatorial challengers talk of the need for a California Governor to have a spine of steel, AG Brown has instead crumpled like an aluminum can cowardly hiding behind state bureaucrats and a wall of state agencies.

On October 1, 2009, Jerry Brown publicly announced that an investigation had been opened concerning undercover videos that were obtained by citizen journalists James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles who videotaped ACORN employees at two California offices. ACORN employees were filmed providing advice regarding tax evasion, prostitution and human smuggling of underage girls. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was informed by AG Brown in a letter that he had “opened an investigation of both ACORN and the circumstances under which ACORN employees were videotaped.” Since that announcement, AG Brown has found himself at the center of a controversy surrounding the mismanagement of the investigation as well as a potential scandal due to a double standard involving one of his own state employees secretly recording conversations with reporters.

Shortly after ACORN had been alerted to the immanent investigation as a result of AG Brown’s public announcement, ACORN employees at the San Diego, CA office were caught engaging in a massive document dump on October 9, 2009. Those records were retrieved from an unsecured shared public dumpster where they had been thrown revealing sensitive personal, financial and banking information for both clients and employees in addition to revelations about the political inner workings of ACORN’s relationship with major U.S. banks and labor unions.

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Tags: ACORN, ACORN document dump, ACORN San Diego, acorn scandal, ACORN videos
Posted Mar 1st 2010 at 5:27 am in ACORN, Big Labor, Featured Story, Justice/Legal, News, Politics, State Politics | 8130688 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/droach/2010/03/01/what-happened-to-that-acorn-investigation-jerry-brown-promised/What+Happened+to+That+ACORN+Investigation+Jerry+Brown+Promised%3F+2010-03-01+13%3A27%3A41Derrick+Roach

The British Aren’t So Special to Obama

Barack Obama, it was claimed, would “repair” our reputation both with our enemies and our friends. So how has he done? Let’s take Britain for example. Has he “fixed” our special relationship with the British Isles? Well, if by fixed you mean he has fastened that relationship to a negative track, well then “fixed” it is.

Let’s review some of the slights that Barack Obama delivered to our closest allies, the British.

In February, immediately after he entered office, President Obama summarily rejected the most famous bust of Winston Churchill in England loaned to the U.S. for display in the Oval Office by the people of England. The bust was sent to us by the people of the U.K. as a gesture of solidarity and friendship in the aftermath of 9/11. Despite their generosity, Obama returned the generously loaned statuette without alerting the Brits that he intended to do so, blindsiding Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s government.

Then in March Obama slighted the British once again by refusing to meet PM Brown at the airport in the previously arranged welcome-to-America press conference when the Brown’s came for a state visit.

During that same visit Obama callously gave Brown, a man who is nearly blind, a set of American DVD movies as an official gift from the U.S.A., movies that won’t even play on English DVD machines (America is “Region 1” while England is “Region 2” in DVD formats). To add insult to injury Mrs. Obama gave the Brown’s boys a few cheap toy helicopters from a Washington gift shop — likely made in China. On the other hand PM Brown gave some significant and thoughtful gifts to the Obama’s and our nation.

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Tags: Akihito, Barack Obama, D-Day Anniversary, Emperor of Japan, Gordon Brown
Posted Feb 28th 2010 at 6:01 am in Culture, Defense, Featured Story, Obama, Politics | 81454160 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/wthuston/2010/02/28/the-british-arent-so-special-to-obama/The+British+Aren%27t+So+Special+to+Obama2010-02-28+14%3A01%3A27Warner+Todd++Huston

Did Andrew Breitbart ‘Breakdown’ At CPAC?

Several videos of Andrew Breitbart attending CPAC 2010 are making the rounds on the interwebs. Salon.com has posted an article entitled “Breitbart’s breakdown: A video tour”, based on four of the clips floating around.

In these videos, a visibly angry Breitbart tears into Progressive writers Max Blumenthal, Mike Madden, and others, in response to their baseless charges and innuendos of racism surrounding Breitbart, Hannah Giles, and James O’Keefe.

Apparently, Salon.com doesn’t think that anger and outrage are normal reactions for a human being to have in response to being falsely smeared and branded a racist.

Salon.com sees the videos of an angry Andrew Breitbart as not much more than an opportunity to ridicule someone with whom they disagree.

By using these videos in this particular way,  Salon reveals that it considers the righteous indignation of a man falsely accused to be funny.  A real knee-slapper.

That’s very revealing because the videos that the folks at Salon.com are promoting clearly demonstrate why Breitbart is so furious. He explains it to their cameras repeatedly. Perhaps the editors at Salon.com are too politically tone deaf to hear the message.

Just in case, we’ve produced a little video to help illustrate what we’re talking about.

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Tags: Andrew Breitbart, CPAC, Hannah Giles, James O'Keefe, Max Blumenthal
Posted Feb 26th 2010 at 5:31 am in Culture, Exclusives, Featured Story | 80814307 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/amarcus/2010/02/26/exclusive-video-did-andrew-breitbart-breakdown-at-cpac/Did+Andrew+Breitbart+%27Breakdown%27+At+CPAC%3F2010-02-26+13%3A31%3A52Andrew++Marcus

ObamaCare Strategy Sabotages Bipartisan Summit

President Barack Obama’s highly anticipated Blair House Summit was sold as a bipartisan negotiation on ObamaCare between House and Senate leaders of both parties.  The White House claims that this day long meeting is an opportunity for the American people to witness a negotiation between Republicans and Democrats.  If you tune into this event, you will not see any negotiation.  You will witness a desparate President trying sell a warmed over version of ObamaCare.  Even for a President well known for his exceptional ability to communicate, the Administration’s attempts to sell a plan that is offensive to a substantial majority of Americans has proven to be an epic failure.

The fact of the matters is that in anticipation of this so called negotiation, the Democrats are crafting a reconciliation strategy.  Reconciliation is a fast track partisan strategy for the Democrats to change the rules of the game so they can avoid a filibuster in the Senate.  I call this new strategy to pass Obamacare the Health Care Nuclear Option because it will blow up what remains of bipartisanship in the Capitol and put the United States on a pathway to European style government run health care.

Furthermore, the American people explicitly reject ObamaCare and don’t want it.  So much for consent of the governed.  This Summit is going to be a day long press conference for President Obama and the ObamaCare Cheerleading Squad to try one last time to sell the President’s health care plan that includes unpopular mandates, higher taxes and cuts to health care providers. (more…)

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Tags: Health Care Nuclear Option, ObamaCare, president barack obama, reconciliation, Summit
Posted Feb 25th 2010 at 5:33 am in Congress, Culture, Featured Story, Healthcare, Obama, Politics | 79558175 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/bdarling/2010/02/25/obamacare-strategy-sabotages-bipartisan-summit/ObamaCare+Strategy+Sabotages+Bipartisan+Summit2010-02-25+13%3A33%3A54Brian+Darling

Max Blumenthal, You’re Being Booger-Boarded

Max Blumenthal has an amazing thesis:  All conservatives and Republicans are beneath contempt.  He also has an amazing line of work.  He is underwritten by various media organs to prove his thesis.

In a previous era, Blumenthal and said media organs (Salon, Independent Film Channel, Huffington Post, etc.) were able to get away with this pathetic arrangement.   But now, we are on to Max, the spawn of Sid “Vicious” Blumenthal – he who attempted to ruin Monica Lewinsky’s life by falsely portraying her as Bill Clinton’s “stalker.”

The Blumenthal operation is now under the extremely close scrutiny of a camelid named “Retracto.”

The movement formerly known as the “Tea-Baggers” (with their flip cameras and new media skills) and various conservatives who have had enough with the excessive Alinsky tactics used most egregiously by Max and Sid but representative of main stream media’s odious guilt-by-association, repeat-the-same-lie-until-it-sticks, smear-any-conservative-as-racist-sexist-homophobic skill set, are now fighting back.

If the last two weeks have not humiliated him enough — and this Huffington Post rage-fest from yesterday with its title “Feeling the Hate at CPAC 2010 With Andrew Breitbart, Hannah Giles and the Crazy Mob” suggests they have not – then perhaps this coup de booger will tell him that we say what we mean and we mean what we say.

Max gallivanted around CPAC looking for prey.  He was treated with respect as he sought to make good and decent people look foolish on camera.  He decided he would go after a 20-year-old girl, one Hannah Giles.  And perhaps due to sexism or ageism he underestimated her ability.  Max should have called Bertha Lewis before he went after this young heroine.  Instead, he went to a gunfight with a knife – and a dirty nose.

Ladies and gentlemen, the much awaited, “Max Blumenthal Picks a Booger Out of His Nose at CPAC” video:

Max Blumenthal, this is what you do for a living. I can do it too (**wink **wink** Independent Film Channel).

Salon has already corrected his initial attempt to paint James O’Keefe as a White Nationalist.  They corrected his baseless assertion that O’Keefe planned the “Race and Conservatism” forum held at Georgetown Law Center, but he continues to hold that James O’Keefe is a racist, and that he was in some way involved with the “execution” of the forum.  His source for this claim?  Daryle Jenkins, whose credibility was recently eviscerated by Kevin Martin from Project 21.

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Tags: "gotcha journalism", Andrew Breitbart, Bertha Lewis, Booger-Boarding, CPAC
Posted Feb 24th 2010 at 6:45 pm in ACORN, Featured Story, News, Politics | 80026248 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/abreitbart/2010/02/24/max-blumenthal-youre-being-booger-boarded/Max+Blumenthal%2C+You%27re+Being+Booger-Boarded2010-02-25+02%3A45%3A04Andrew+Breitbart

ACORN Official: Gangster Group Will Be Bankrupt Soon But Fake Spinoff Groups Will Carry On The Corruption

The ACORN crime syndicate is not going away anytime soon, but it’s going to look different.

ACORN will probably run out of money and fold by year’s end but a dozen ACORN state chapters reincorporated to seem like new, independent organizations will spring up in the next week to carry on ACORN’s business, a leaked email from ACORN’s online director suggests.

“The truth is that it is hard for us to forsee [sic] any scenario where ACORN continues beyond the end of 2010 and some of us think it might not last that long,” writes Nathan Henderson-James, director of ACORN’s online campaigns, in an apparently authentic Feb. 22 email.

“Last one to leave turn out the lights and wipe the server,” he writes at the end of the message.

In the email Henderson-James explains the subterfuge ACORN will use to lead Americans to believe ACORN is breaking apart.

“It is definitely true that over the next week or so we should see a dozen or more organizations launched on the state level by staff who used to work for ACORN and leaders who developed their skills as ACORN members. These are not just simple name changes, but reimaginings of how best to organize low and moderate income constitiuencies [sic] without any of the legal problems and funding issues dogging ACORN, not to mention the brand damage.”

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Tags: ACORN, Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, Fox News Channel, James O'Keefe, Marcel Reid
Posted Feb 24th 2010 at 5:37 am in ACORN, Featured Story | 79438137 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/mvadum/2010/02/24/acorn-official-gangster-group-will-be-bankrupt-soon-but-fake-spinoff-groups-will-carry-on-the-corruption/ACORN+Official%3A+Gangster+Group+Will+Be+Bankrupt+Soon+But+Fake+Spinoff+Groups+Will+Carry+On+The+Corruption2010-02-24+13%3A37%3A14Matthew+Vadum

Andrew Breitbart’s Address To CPAC 2010

Below is the full length speech Andrew Breitbart delivered to CPAC 2010. We have also taken the liberty of breaking out some of the best soundbites from the speech.

1. Mr. Podesta, we are watching you!
2. What I learned from Kurt Cobain
3. E Pluribis Unum
4. The Frankfort School roots of multiculturalism and political correctness
5. Big Education
6. MSM – You are not on the American team!
7. CPAC cuts Breitbart short

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Tags: Big Education, Columbia University, CPAC 2010, David Shuster, Frankfort School
Posted Feb 22nd 2010 at 5:41 pm in Culture, Featured Story, History, Media Criticism, News, Politics, Tea Party | 78850104 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/amarcus/2010/02/22/andrew-breitbarts-address-to-cpac-2010/Andrew+Breitbart%27s+Address+To+CPAC+20102010-02-23+01%3A41%3A32Andrew++Marcus

The Case for Hillary’s Run for Prez in ’12 and Pelosi Retiring

The 2010 midterm elections are shaping up to be a Democrats nightmare.  But the problems for the Democrats and Obama won’t end there.  Indeed, the fallout from the 2010 elections will likely carry over into 2012 which may well feature Hillary running against Obama and Nancy Pelosi’s retirement.  Here’s why:

1. Republican’s Political Carpe Diem.  It appears more everyday that Congressional Republicans are coming to grips with the tide sweeping the Country – Tea Party and otherwise.  If Republicans rekindle their successful strategy of 1994, by setting a clear, practical and limited fall election agenda, then they can successfully frame the election debate,  and . . .

2.  The Democrats Should Lose the House in 2010. As I have chronicled elsewhere, the average loss for the President’s Party in the House, when his approval rating is below 50%, is 41 seats – enough for the Republicans to regain the House in 2010 if that average holds up  – and it should.  The Democrats are continuing to fight amongst themselves – an acceptable exercise in an off year but not in an election year (as in 1968 for the Democrats).  Obama is talking about election year tax increases and using executive powers and a legislative cram down of health care.  None of those dynamics bode well for Democrats, will fuel even more voter anger  and should actually drive Obama’s ratings down further – keeping the modern string going of no President improving his approval ratings in a midterm election year.

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Tags: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, midterm elections, Nancy Pelosi
Posted Feb 22nd 2010 at 5:49 am in Congress, Featured Story, News, Obama, Politics, Uncategorized | 78126177 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/tdelbeccaro/2010/02/22/the-case-for-hillarys-run-for-prez-in-12-and-pelosi-retiring/The+Case+for+Hillary%E2%80%99s+Run+for+Prez++in+%E2%80%9912+and+Pelosi+Retiring2010-02-22+13%3A49%3A22Thomas+Del+Beccaro

Health Care Freedom Act Featured at CPAC

The Conservative Political Action Conference isn’t all fiery speeches and political red meat.  Following the rousing speech by Rep. Mike Pence on Friday, a much more subdued presentation by Dr. Eric Novack described the efforts of states to pass a version of the Health Care Freedom Act, which I previously discussed here.  Much has happened since I last talked about the efforts of states to protect individual health care rights.

The number of states advancing legislation to protect individual choice from federal mandates has increased since December from 24 states to 35.  But merely introducing legislation isn’t enough; we need victories.

Virginia delivered a first step toward just that, as its state House recently passed a version of the Health Care Freedom Act. Elsewhere, the Tennessee Senate passed the bill 26-1, while other states, such as Idaho, have successfully advanced the bill out of committee.

These bills offer to protect citizens in two crucial ways. First, they would guarantee the right to purchase care directly, so that bureaucrats cannot be forced between patients and doctors against their will. Second, it would assure that citizens are protected from unconstitutional mandates to purchase insurance by allowing them to opt-out from any such federal program.

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Tags: Health Care Freedom Act, health care mandates, individual mandate, state initiative, states' rights
Posted Feb 21st 2010 at 5:59 am in Congress, Featured Story, Healthcare, News, Obama, Politics, State Politics | 77450169 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/bgarst/2010/02/21/health-care-freedom-act-featured-at-cpac/Health+Care+Freedom+Act+Featured+at+CPAC2010-02-21+13%3A59%3A58Brian+Garst

Freedom to Censor

It always happens. When the mainstream media thinks they are on the heavy side of popular opinion they take a poll and run with it. In a recent poll by ABC and the Washington Post, they determined that 80% of America was opposed to the recent Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. FEC.  I would have like to seen something much more relevant, like how many people know that the case before the Supreme Court was even called “Citizens United v. FEC?”

Because I’m fairly certain that that few people know anything about the decision. The 80% figure reflects more than public opinion, it reflects how well the mainstream media has been obfuscating the reality of the case.

Not that it’s relevant anyway. Despite popular opinion, America was never intended to be a Democracy. In the immortal words of James Madison: “…democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.” (Federalist #10)

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Tags: Barack Obama, campaign caps, campaign finance, Citizens United, FEC
Posted Feb 20th 2010 at 10:03 am in Congress, Culture, Featured Story, Justice/Legal, Media Criticism, News, Politics | 77662176 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/tslagle/2010/02/20/freedom-to-censor/Freedom+to+Censor2010-02-20+18%3A03%3A11Tim+Slagle

Project Vote In Ohio: It Ain’t The Voting, It’s The Counting

“Congress should address the need for both national standards and a more robust enforcing authority.  If not, more decision making will fall to the states,” said Miles Rapoport, President of Dēmos, an umbrella corporation for the myriad of progressive groups attacking our state electoral processes.  Progressives, realizing the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) left much of the implementation to states, began their National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA) assault in 2006.

The first battle over compliance with the NVRA occurred in Ohio in 2006.  Coincidentally, the Secretary of State Project (SoSP) focused much of its efforts on seizing the open-seat for Ohio Secretary of State that same year.  Seeing an opportunity to de-legitimize Ohio’s electoral process and to create an atmosphere favorable to a progressive candidate, ACORN filed a suit a little over a month before the 2006 elections.  Sound familiar?  It was the strategy in Michigan in 2004.  But Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell (R) was not going to leave office without a resolute fight in defense of Ohio.

At issue was NVRA § 7: Voter Registration Agencies.  Any state agency providing public assistance received designation as a voter registration agency.  Public assistance agencies were supposed to follow a set of procedures providing mail voter registration, assisting applicants in completion of those forms, and accepting completed voter registration forms.  Each state designates a “chief state election official” to coordinate state responsibilities for compliance with the NVRA.

The procedures for compliance are rather straight-forward, so Project Vote had an easier job alleging non-compliance.  Catch any agency on a day after it has run out of forms.  Seek assistance from any personnel unfamiliar with NVRA requirements.  Find any individual receiving public assistance that has moved, and was formerly registered to vote.  Compare the number of individuals registered in the first year under NVRA to the number of individuals registered now (because every year should see the same amount of people receiving public assistance, the same amount of people unregistered, and they will always be new or moved people, right?)  Send a letter to the chief state election official alleging non-compliance through “scientific” studies.  Demand a plan to remedy violations.  Offer “help” to the state.  Then sue to “protect” the voters (and more importantly, recoup expenses).  Brilliant!

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Tags: ACORN, DEMO's, kenneth blackwell, ohio jennifer brunner, Project Vote
Posted Feb 19th 2010 at 5:50 am in ACORN, Featured Story, Justice/Legal | 7476688 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/jwales/2010/02/19/project-vote-in-ohio-it-aint-the-voting-its-the-counting/Project+Vote+In+Ohio%3A+It+Ain%27t+The+Voting%2C+It%27s+The+Counting2010-02-19+13%3A50%3A57Josie+Wales

Obama, The Director

Several weeks after the Senate rejected Barack Obama’s plan to create a bipartisan congressional panel charged with decreasing the deficit, the president will use his executive authority to create the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.

The less-powerful bipartisan commission, chaired by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, will be tasked with formulating a plan to decrease the federal budget deficit to 3% of GDP by 2015.

Yawn.

With the signing of this executive order, Obama will add fiscal responsibility to his growing library of political theater. Thus far, his other featured films have starred earmarks, lobbyists, Sonia Sotomayor, bipartisanship, etc. Unsurprisingly, they all share a common theme: disingenuousness. You’re welcome to grab some popcorn and take a seat, but as you watch the production of fiscal responsibility featuring Obama the deficit hawk, keep in mind you’re only being entertained.

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Tags: Deficit Commission, deficit hawk, Earmarks, Fannie Mae, fiscal responsibility
Posted Feb 18th 2010 at 5:56 am in Earmarks, Economics, Featured Story, Obama, Politics, federal spending | 76810241 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/jarenas/2010/02/18/obama-the-director/Obama%2C+The+Director2010-02-18+13%3A56%3A30J.C.+Arenas

Toyota and the Union-Backed, Government-Led Witch Hunt

Toyota, which employs over 35,000 workers in the United States with factories in eight states, is the target of a government-led and union-supported attack due to recent recalls.

In the U.S., it is estimated that 15,000 Lexus HS250h and 133,000 Prius models will be recalled due to gas pedal issues, with another 500,000 Prius and other gasoline-electric hybrids needing anti-brake software modification. As unfortunate and inconvenient as recalls can be, this not the first, or last time an automobile will need to be brought back to the shop for a quick fix.

One might think this is the first auto recall in decades from the way government officials and Congressional Committees have pounced on Toyota. However, as recent as last month, Honda announced a recall of 646,000 Fit models (or Jazz in some markets) due to a faulty master switch that could allow water to enter the electrical components resulting in fires. Ford, less than one year ago, was forced to recall more than 4 million cars based on 550 vehicle fires. The recall concerned cruise-control deactivation switches that were installed in 16 million Fords. Part of the recall included nearly 1.1 million 1995-2003 Ford Windstar family van models.

There was no government outcry and no demand for Congressional hearings over these recent recalls. So why has Toyota suddenly become the target of a government-led witch hunt?

Toyota’s U.S. operations are extremely successful, not saturated by inefficient union monopolies, and are in direct competition with the now government-owned General Motors.

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Tags: forced union contracts, ford recall, GM government ownership, honda recall, lexus
Posted Feb 17th 2010 at 5:51 am in Big Labor, Economics, Featured Story, News, Obama, Politics | 76546388 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/brjohnson/2010/02/17/toyota-and-the-union-backed-government-led-witch-hunt/Toyota+and+the+Union-Backed%2C+Government-Led+Witch+Hunt2010-02-17+13%3A51%3A43Brian++Johnson

Why Obama Will Be Clinton Without The Comeback

The retirement of Evan Bayh is the latest heralding of difficult 2010 election year for the Democrats.  It is also a symptom of Obama’s mid 40s approval rating.  Smart Democrats know that the average midterm election year losses for the President’s party, when his approval rating is below 50%, is 41 seats in the House.  Three Presidents in the modern era suffered such a fate – Johnson, Ford and Bill Clinton.  Of those three, only Clinton went on to win a second term.  While it is likely Obama will suffer huge mid-term losses, it is more than unlikely that he will enjoy Clinton’s revival.

Clinton suffered the loss of 54 House seats in his first midterm election, despite a growing economy, because he broke his middle class tax cut promise – and the Republicans were smart enough to unanimously oppose that and run on the Contract With America.  Despite the loss of the House for the first time in 40 years, Clinton won reelection.

Clinton was able to win reelection in part because Bob Dole was not an effective candidate for the Republicans on the tax issue.  Clinton also famously triangulated in 1995 and 1996 with the help of longtime strategist Dick Morris.  Dropping ideology for practicality, in 1995 and 1996, Clinton pushed a national campaign to prevent teen pregnancy, issued an order clarifying the rights of religious expression in schools,  supported uniforms for public schools, banned human cloning, signed Megan’s law and welfare reform to name a few less than ideological triangulations.  Even before that, Clinton incurred the wrath of unions by pushing the ratification of NAFTA.

Of course, as the Governor of a swing state, Bill Clinton leaned an early lesson in pragmatism after he was defeated in his bid for a second term.  After apologizing for the policies that led to his reelection defeat, he regained the governorship and went on to enact mandatory competency testing for teachers and granted tax breaks to businesses – again with triangulating guru Dick Morris by his side.

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Tags: Bill Clinton, bob dole, cap-and-trade, civilian terror trials, Contract with America
Posted Feb 16th 2010 at 5:45 am in Congress, Featured Story, History, News, Obama, Politics | 75802204 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/tdelbeccaro/2010/02/16/why-obama-will-be-clinton-without-the-comeback/Why+Obama+Will+Be+Clinton+Without+The+Comeback2010-02-16+13%3A45%3A56Thomas+Del+Beccaro

Our Time for Choosing

You and I have a rendezvous with destiny.  We’ll preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we’ll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.

Ronald Reagan spoke these words some forty-six years ago in his famous “A Time for Choosing” speech.  Tragically, today in America it appears the time for choosing is fast passing. As each day goes by our debt grows more untenable; our security more imperiled; our economy more shackled; our government more tyrannical.

These are symptoms of an America that has chosen the wrong path.  We lost our way on the road to civilization, veering onto the road to serfdom. Our plight is the result of a hundred-plus year campaign by the socialist sophists to slowly but surely undermine the bedrock principles on which we had built our strength.

While the ends of a nation are peace, prosperity and culture, from our founding there was a dichotomy of opinion as to how best to achieve these ends.  It was not merely a matter of state versus federal or small versus big government.  Rather, at its core the split rested and continues to rest upon embracing liberty or embracing tyranny.

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Tags: Cold War, Constitution, founding fathers, Frédéric Bastiat, Islamism
Posted Feb 15th 2010 at 5:51 am in Congress, Culture, Featured Story, History, Justice/Legal, Politics, Tea Party, federal spending | 74866151 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/amellon/2010/02/15/our-time-for-choosing/Our+Time+for+Choosing2010-02-15+13%3A51%3A50Andrew+Mellon

Obama’s Financial Hope and Change: Free Money for Wall Street

A recent Pew survey revealed the nation’s big banks are drawing the most ire from the American public, and now that the Federal Reserve is poised to hand them another victory, it’s easy to see why Main Street’s anger burns deep.

Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke released a statement to the House Committee on Financial Services which detailed the accommodative policy the Fed implemented as a result of the Great Recession and outlined its exit strategy from that policy.

The objective of the Fed’s intervention was to alleviate the pressure on the balance sheets of the banks, which would provide them with the financial flexibility necessary to begin lending to consumers and businesses once again. To meet such an end, the Fed increased the size of its balance sheet through purchases of securities and real-estate loans from the banks, and decreased the interest-rate for interbank lending to nearly zero percent.

The banks’ first ‘Win’ came as a result of those sales to the Fed which produced billions of dollars in revenue. Afterwards, many of us were wondering why the banks weren’t lending again, despite raking in record profits, but the answer was simple. They quickly realized they had found themselves with a can’t lose proposition, as they could make guaranteed money instead of taking on more risk from lending to consumers and businesses during a period of economic uncertainty.

How could they do that?

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Tags: bank bailout, bank lending, Ben Bernanke, carry trade, Federal Reserve
Posted Feb 14th 2010 at 5:59 am in Economics, Exclusives, Featured Story, federal spending | 7469491 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/jarenas/2010/02/14/obamas-financial-hope-and-change-the-undefeated-banks/Obama%27s+Financial+Hope+and+Change%3A+Free+Money+for+Wall+Street2010-02-14+13%3A59%3A42J.C.+Arenas

Remembering Lincoln: What is ‘The New Birth of Freedom’?

As he prepared “Notes on Government” for publication in 1791, Congressman James Madison wrote a note to himself. “In proportion as slavery prevails in a State, the Government, however democratic in name, must be aristocratic in fact. The power lies in a part [of the people] instead of the whole, in the hands of property, not of numbers.” He drew a telling conclusion: “The Southern States of America,” very much including his native Virginia, “are on the same principle aristocracies.”

As an architect of the new Constitution, Madison knew that Article IV, Section 4 says, “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government.” He knew, therefore, that the American regime contained a self-contradiction. With most Americans of his generation, he hoped that the eventual removal of slavery would remove this potentially fatal flaw. In fact many states did abolish slavery in that first, founding generation. But his “Southern States” did not. It took civil war and Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation to continue the liberation that the founders had begun.

Lincoln came to the battlefield cemetery at Gettysburg to say in public what Madison in prudence could not say some seventy years before. In declaring their independence, their self-government, in 1776, “our fathers,” the founders, “brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” Conceived, brought forth: this is the language of fertility, of childbirth. It is a paradoxical conception and childbirth—the work of fathers not of mothers. Somehow the signers of the Declaration of Independence were fathers and mothers, men who conceived and gave birth.

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Tags: Abraham Lincoln, declaration of independence, founding fathers, George III, Gettysburg Address
Posted Feb 13th 2010 at 6:12 am in Featured Story, History, News, Politics | 74602145 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/wemorrisey/2010/02/13/remembering-lincoln-what-is-the-new-birth-of-freedom/Remembering+Lincoln%3A+What+is+%27The+New+Birth+of+Freedom%27%3F2010-02-13+14%3A12%3A41William+E.+Morrisey

The Official Unraveling of the Obama Presidency

It can be no secret by now that President Obama did not have a signature achievement his first year in office. Of all his major initiatives, health care, cap and trade, civilian trials for terrorists and the “stimulus” bill – only the so-called stimulus bill was enacted. Hardly a success, as more Americans than not know what Paul Krugman and E.J. Dionne do not – that it was a bad idea. Worse for the Democrats — none of those efforts have produced a greater consensus or momentum for them or Obama. To the contrary, the Democrats lost key races in 2009, a Democrat House Member defected to the Republicans, the nation is more divided than ever and the Democrat Party is in disarray — as in the Obama presidency.

Not to be out-done by 2009, in 2010, the Obama presidency has endured:

(1) the loss of the Kennedy seat (which is how the Democrats view that race) even though Obama stumped for the Democrats’ candidate;

(2) Obama’s deficit commission was shot down;

(3) The unions are warning the Democrats that they are “going to have a hard time getting members out to vote”;

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Tags: 94 republican revolution, Barack Obama, Big Labor, bush tax cuts, cap-and-trade
Posted Feb 12th 2010 at 5:21 am in Congress, Featured Story, News, Obama, Politics | 74026481 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/tdelbeccaro/2010/02/12/the-official-unraveling-of-the-obama-presidency/The+Official+Unraveling+of+the+Obama+Presidency2010-02-12+13%3A21%3A52Thomas+Del+Beccaro