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Breitbart’s Keynote Address To The First National Tea Party Convention

by Andrew Marcus

Below is the entirety of Andrew Breitbart’s remarks during his Keynote address to the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville last weekend.

During Breitbart’s 33 minute long address, he threatens to upend the entire media establishment, calling them out on their hypocrisy while demanding they change their ways, or else.

The entire speech is available in this post and is broken down into four parts, but if you would like to view some of the highlights, you can click on any of the eight links below:

Full Address Parts 1-4:

Part 1

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Tags: Andrew Breitbart, Contessa Brewer, Founding Bloggers, James O'Keefe, Key Note Address
Posted Feb 9th 2010 at 7:19 am in ACORN, Culture, Featured Story, Media Criticism, Politics | 725149 Comments2010-02-09+15%3A19%3A21Andrew++Marcus

Drillgate: Internal Emails Shows Obama Team Lying to Public

by Vince Haley

If you’re the President of the United States or one of his political appointees and you’re ideologically opposed to new oil and natural gas development offshore, what do you do when the public registers its overwhelming support for new drilling in public opinion polls?

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You dance, delay, and deceive. You speak melodious words about seeking the wisdom of the public in making these decisions and then ignore evidence of the public will when you get it, or worse, you hide it.

First came the dance. In August 2008, after soaring gas prices and a dramatic shift in public opinion caused President Bush, Florida Governor Charlie Crist, and Republican presidential candidate John McCain to reverse their positions on offshore drilling, then-Senator Obama also changed. The Democratic presidential nominee reversed his own position and that of his party, saying he was open to offshore drilling as part of an overall energy plan. The Democratic Congress followed a month later by quietly dropping the 25-year Congressional ban on offshore drilling.

Then came the delay. In January 2009, President Obama inherited a draft five year offshore drilling plan prepared by the outgoing Bush administration. The plan was already receiving public comment as part of the elaborate rule making process followed by federal agencies. Ken Salazar, Obama’s new Secretary of Interior, determined the decision about new offshore drilling was so important that he ordered a six-month extension to the comment period.

Third comes the dishonesty.

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Tags: American Solutions, Department of Interior, Drillgate, FOIA, Ken Salazar
Posted Feb 9th 2010 at 6:37 am in Congress, Environment, News, Obama, Politics | 7235851 Comments2010-02-09+14%3A37%3A37Vince+Haley

Frances Fox Piven: Thomas Jefferson Would Be ‘Stunned’ at America Today (But Not For the Reason You Think)

by Kyle Olson

Frances Fox Piven, honorary chair of the Democratic Socialists of America, can arguably be considered the mother of ACORN. At least, her ideas and theories set ACORN, and its parent, the National Welfare Rights Organization, onto a path of creating and manipulating crisis situations to further their agenda of a more equal “distribution of wealth” in America. In other words, socialism.

It’s a path, I believe, that runs contrary to our country’s original intent. But Piven doesn’t think so. In her book, “Challenging Authority,” she quoted both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams.

What I found most bizarre was the apparent disconnect in Piven’s mind between individual rights and property rights, particularly the idea of acquiring as much wealth as one wishes without fear of government encroachment. It’s impossible to believe that Jefferson, Adams and the other founders – most of them very successful entrepreneurs – could have envisioned or approved of a massive national government that siphons property and economic rights from private citizens.

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Tags: ACORN, American Revolution, Frances Fox Piven, John Adams, King George III
Posted Feb 9th 2010 at 5:53 am in ACORN, Culture, Featured Story, News, Politics | 7136624 Comments2010-02-09+13%3A53%3A35Kyle+Olson

Political Alchemy, Part I: Turning Spending Increases into Tax Cuts

by Dan Mitchell

Politicians in Washington have come up with something far more impressive than turning lead into gold or water into wine. Using self-serving budget rules, they can increase the burden of government spending and say they are cutting taxes instead.

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This bit of legerdemain is made possible, thanks to the convolutions of the personal income tax, by adopting or expanding refundable tax credits. But in this case, “refundable” does not mean the government is returning money to taxpayers. Instead, it means that money is being redistributed to people who do not earn enough to be subject to the income tax.

This is hardly a trivial issue. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the amount of income redistribution being laundered through the tax code is now so large that the bottom 40 percent of the population has a negative “effective” income tax rate. In simple terms (though perhaps with profound political implications), the income tax is a revenue generator for a big share of the population.

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Tags: 1040, Big Government, EITC, federal spending, Flat Tax
Posted Feb 8th 2010 at 12:57 pm in Congress, Economics, Flat Tax, News, Obama, Politics, Tax Reform, Uncategorized, federal spending | 7025045 Comments2010-02-08+20%3A57%3A34Dan+Mitchell

California’s Costly High-Speed Rail Hoax: Using Borrowed Money to Build a Flawed Train

by Chuck DeVore

California has the worst bond rating in the nation, hovering just above junk bond status. A lower bond rating means higher interest rates when selling bonds – and California already spends $10 billion per year in bond principal and interest repayments.

In this, as in many other things, California leads the nation, for better or for worse (repaying the money borrowed for President Obama’s Stimulus will cost every American $280 a month for life).

Some people place a portion of California’s debt problem at the feet of voters who approve nearly every bond initiative, from $3 billion for an embryonic stem cell research bond to $10 billion in debt to build a high-speed rail system.

It’s hard to blame citizens of the Golden State for voting for debt when the most famous Californian, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, proclaims bonds “a gift from the future.” It’s also hard to blame voters for approving bonds when the bond ballot descriptions and arguments are chock full of shaky claims.

Take November 2008’s much promoted High-Speed Rail Initiative, Proposition 1A. Voters approved it by 52-48 after proponents, such as train manufacturers and unions poured $2.5 million into the effort. As with almost every bond measure, there was no funded opposition. The measure’s proponents, big business and labor unions, claimed that the trains would offer time-saving travel “AT A CHEAPER COST!” than air travel or car. And that, the train would, “give Californians a real alternative to skyrocketing gasoline prices and dependence on foreign oil while reducing greenhouse gases. Building high-speed rail is cheaper than expanding highways and airports to meet California’s population growth.”

Really? Who checks these claims?
(more…)

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Tags: Arnold schwarzenegger, Barack Obama, George Runner, government debt, government interest
Posted Feb 8th 2010 at 8:42 am in Economics, News, Obama, Politics, State Politics, federal spending | 71822188 Comments2010-02-08+16%3A42%3A06Chuck+DeVore

Frances Fox Piven: Glenn Beck Seeks ‘Foreign, Dark-Skinned, Intellectual’ Scapegoats

by Kyle Olson

Throughout much of 2009, Glenn Beck extensively covered the “Cloward-Piven Strategy” that was first brought into the public domain in a May 1966 article in The Nation magazine. In the article, Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, two Columbia professors, developed a strategy by which the welfare system could be overwhelmed with demand, broken, and replaced with a “guaranteed annual income.”

Beck has successfully made the argument that the Cloward-Piven Strategy was a blueprint for success at overwhelming that system. Don’t think it worked? Ask the leaders of New York City. The strategy worked so well, the mass rush for welfare benefits bankrupted the city in the 1970s.

So as Beck has brought new light to this strategy, no one has asked Frances Fox Piven’s opinion. Until now.

Piven dismisses Beck’s opinion as “silly.” But she also went a step farther.

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Tags: ACORN, Columbia University, Fox News, Frances Fox Piven, Glenn Beck
Posted Feb 8th 2010 at 6:58 am in ACORN, Culture, Featured Story, News, Politics | 71314199 Comments2010-02-08+14%3A58%3A16Kyle+Olson

You Betcha!… Palin Campaigns For Rick Perry– Writes “Hi Mom” On Her Hand

by Jim Hoft

RIGHT ON— On Sunday the left went bonkers after they discovered that the TelePrompter-less former Governor Sarah Palin wrote notes on the palm of her left hand for her speech to the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville. The far left absolutely freaked over this non-issue rather than focus on her brilliant speech knocking the Obama Administration’s horrid record on economics and national defense.

Today Sarah fired back…

She wrote “Hi Mom!” on her palm during her campaign stop with Governor Rick Perry of Texas.

Hah!

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Tags: Barack Obama, nashville tea party convention, Rick Perry, Sarah Palin, Tea Party Convention
Posted Feb 7th 2010 at 10:56 pm in Culture, Featured Story, Media Criticism, News, Obama, Politics | 71674348 Comments2010-02-08+06%3A56%3A44Jim+Hoft

Palin’s 6 Words vs. Media’s Ignorance to the Real News

by SusanAnne Hiller

The media and the Left cannot let a Sarah Palin appearance go by without trying to find something–anything–to discredit her. It’s become not only predictable, but downright funny. The latest drive-by assault on Palin–that she wrote 6 words on her hand–is being treated like a national scandal.

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How short their memory is. For that last year we’ve witnessed numerous examples of President Obama’s staged press events and town halls–most recently the Politico reported on Obama’s preselected questions for an Organizing for America forum on February 5, 2010:

The four pre-selected questions Obama took were the exact issues he stressed this week: health care, small businesses, jobs and education, in that order.

Obama is rarely seen without a teleprompter and in the off chance his speech writers can’t put together a masterpiece for him, it’s a disaster.

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Tags: Barack Obama, mainstream media, Sarah Palin, Tea Party Convention, tea party nation
Posted Feb 7th 2010 at 6:17 pm in News, Obama, Politics, Tea Party, Uncategorized | 71398272 Comments2010-02-08+02%3A17%3A12SusanAnne+++Hiller

Founding Bloggers Confirms Huffington Post’s Completely Worthless Observation

by Andrew Marcus

Founding Bloggers can confirm that we too captured an image of the writing on Governor Palin’s hand which was breathlessly reported on Huffington Post. The notes appear to be very innocuous.

On the other hand, the outrage on the left is being completely misunderstood by the right. Democrats don’t mind that she needed a few notes for her speech. They’re upset that Sarah used her hand, proving once again that she is an unsophisticated hick. Everybody knows that whether you are talking in a sixth grade classroom, or talking dirty to the First Lady, using anything other than a presidential-level teleprompter is simply pedestrian.

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Tags: Barack Obama, Huffington Post, Sarah Palin, Tea Party Convention, teleprompter
Posted Feb 7th 2010 at 1:00 pm in Media Criticism, News, Obama, Politics, Tea Party | 71402174 Comments2010-02-07+21%3A00%3A47Andrew++Marcus

Ex-Moderate Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) Embraces Communist Van Jones

by Matthew Vadum

Facing what could become a bruising primary battle, appointed U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) is embracing one of President Obama’s best known communist appointees, former green jobs czar Van Jones.

The Hill reports Gillibrand will share the stage with Jones at a panel discussion sponsored by the Advocacy Project at the Harvard Club in New York. Jones, a self-described “communist,” was pushed out of the Obama administration five months ago following the embarrassing revelation that he was a 9/11 “truther” who had signed a petition accusing the U.S. government of orchestrating the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

gillibrandandclinton

For a time, Jones had been politically radioactive to Democrats but Gillibrand’s decision to work alongside him appears to bring Jones’s political exile to an end.

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Tags: ACORN, Advocacy Project, Barack Obama, Democracy Alliance, Erica Payne
Posted Feb 7th 2010 at 10:24 am in ACORN, Obama, Politics | 7112284 Comments2010-02-07+18%3A24%3A22Matthew+Vadum

Discussing Citizens United, Free Speech, Congressional Corruption, and More With Bill Moyers and Larry Lessig

by Nick Gillespie

On Friday, I appeared on Bill Moyers Journal with Harvard law prof and cyberspace theorist Lawrence Lessig to discuss the whys and wherefores of the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling. From the show’s writeup:

The Supreme Court’s January 2010 decision of the Citizen’s United v. Federal Election Commission on campaign finance regulations has caused a stir around the political spectrum. A poll from Angus Reid Public Opinion found that 65 percent of people surveyed disagreed with the Supreme Court’s decision — 67 percent of Democrats, 63 percent of Republicans, and 72 percent of independents.

Libertarian journalist Nick Gillespie says all that worry is misplaced in a much-watched video “Three Reasons Not to Sweat Citizens United.” “If you want to get bent out of shape about something, direct your ire at a massive and constantly growing government that has its hands in virtually every aspect of economic and social life in America,” Says Gillespie.

Harvard legal scholar Lawrence Lessig disagrees, viewing the ruling as a another step in the takeover of democracy by big money. In an article for THE NATION entitled “How to Get Our Democracy Back: If You Want Change, You Have to Change Congress,” Lessig calls for a constitutional convention to make public financing of campaigns the law of the land, “What both sides must come to see is that the reform of neither is possible until we solve our first problem first — the dependency of the Fundraising Congress.”

As you might guess, we didn’t agree on much, but it was a spirited and civil conversation well worth having. A full transcript is available, along with video of the segment and links to related materials, by clicking on the image below.

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Tags: bill moyers, campaign finance, Citizens United, Lawrence Lessig
Posted Feb 6th 2010 at 2:25 pm in Big Labor, Congress, Justice/Legal, Media Criticism, Politics | 7085435 Comments2010-02-06+22%3A25%3A17Nick+Gillespie

Why Was Ronald Reagan the Greatest President of the 20th Century?

by Burt Folsom

No president of the 20th century had a more positive and enduring influence than Ronald Reagan, who was born 99 years ago today. Other presidents, from Wilson to FDR, exceeded Reagan in their impact, but much of it was negative. Sure, they won wars, but they almost destroyed the American economy as well.

RonaldReagan_BerlinWall

Reagan, by contrast, won the Cold War and also revived the American economy from decades of abuse. He was successful both at home and abroad.

Since President Reagan left the White House in 1989, the U. S. has stumbled, so it is wise to ponder why Reagan did so well. Was it natural intelligence or careful political training? Not really—and that fact both galls and baffles his critics. Reagan was a C student at lowly Eureka College and from there he went into small-town broadcasting, and then to Hollywood. He didn’t try to be governor of California until he was 55 years old.

Reagan had three parts to his genius. First, he was a visionary; he believed that people wanted freedom and would do well when more of it was given to them. Whether he was undermining the Soviets, challenging an unlawful union, or deregulating oil production he tried to move in a consistent direction of greater freedom and less government. According to Dinesh D’Souza, “Reagan’s greatness derives in large part from the fact that he was a visionary—a conceptualizer who was able to see the world differently from the way it was.” Reagan knew where he wanted to go: Jimmy Carter, by contrast, had multiple plans to create energy, to generate revenue, and to cut inflation. Often they were contradictory; all of them failed. Reagan was more consistent because he had vision: He knew where he wanted to go and how he wanted to get there.

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Tags: FDR, History, Obama, Ronald Reagan
Posted Feb 6th 2010 at 6:41 am in Featured Story, History, Politics | 70434147 Comments2010-02-06+14%3A41%3A14Burt+Folsom

The Continuing Deflation of Little Green Footballs

by Pamela Geller

Chuck Johnson is at it again. He must be out on a weekend pass. I was compelled to answer the Little Green Monster after I saw him go after James O’Keefe with that same tired wet noodle of a charge he has leveled at so many, calling him a white nationalist. Johnson claimed in an LGF post that “according to a group called ‘One People’s Project,’ ACORN sting filmmaker James O’Keefe was photographed attending a 2006 white nationalist conference titled ‘Race and Conservatism.’”

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Sounds terrible, right? Sure, until you get the facts that Johnson doesn’t tell you. When it became clear that it wasn’t a “white nationalist conference,” Johnson tried to slither out of responsibility for his words by saying in a new post: “It’s very clear that I attributed the ‘white nationalist conference’ claim to One People’s Project; that’s what the words ‘according to’ mean.”

Busted! As if it weren’t obvious that in his original post, he was approving of and endorsing what One People’s Project said. But this is typical of Johnson’s weaselly hit-and-run smear tactics.

Meanwhile, Larry O’Connor at Big Journalism uncovered the truth about O’Keefe’s supposed participation in this conference:

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Tags: Ann Coulter, Barrett Brown, Big Journalism, Charles Johnson, CPAC
Posted Feb 5th 2010 at 3:51 pm in Media Criticism, News, Politics | 70674127 Comments2010-02-05+23%3A51%3A51Pamela+Geller

Transformational Leadership or Constitutional Statesmanship?

by David J. Bobb

Lots of politicians make promises they can’t keep. Statesmen, by contrast, promise less and deliver more. Knowing their own limitations and those of the people they serve, they act according to principles, not just promises.

As a presidential candidate Barack Obama promised the American people nothing less than a new nation. “. . . We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America,” he said just before he was elected president in November 2008.

Since his victory the president has made very clear his reverence for the idea of transformational leadership. He has identified “transformative moments” that must be seized, lauded “leaders who are able to bring about transformative change,” and heralded his administration’s steps towards “a transformation of how government works.”

The president’s efforts to make his idea of “transformational leadership” real are everywhere. Whether in massive bailouts, sweeping health care reform legislation, an attempt to overhaul the student loan system, or a proposed revamping of financial regulations, the president has sought a transformation of huge swaths of American life with little regard to the constitutionality of these efforts.

Mr. Obama has done all of this while at the same time linking his idea of transformation to the sixteenth American president. Asked in July 2009 who his heroes are, President Obama singled out Abraham Lincoln for the highest praise.

The president’s admiration both of Lincoln and the idea of transformational leadership is perplexing, because for Lincoln the idea of “transformational leadership” was not just foreign, but something he had to fight.

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Tags: Abraham Lincoln, Barack Obama, james macgregor burns, leadership, lincoln douglas debates
Posted Feb 5th 2010 at 1:17 pm in History, Obama, Politics | 70230130 Comments2010-02-05+21%3A17%3A26David+J.+Bobb

Your Neighbor Hearts Socialism

by Bret Jacobson

… at least that’s what the latest Gallup numbers would suggest: “Socialism Viewed Positively by 36% of Americans”

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Tags: Gallup poll, socialism
Posted Feb 5th 2010 at 11:59 am in Politics, Tea Party | 70086298 CommentsYour+Neighbor+Hearts+Socialism2010-02-05+19%3A59%3A45Bret+Jacobson

An Honest IPCC Scientist Warns His Colleagues: Don’t Dismiss ‘ClimateGate’

by James G. Lakely

The 13th Annual Energy & Environment Conference, held in Phoenix Feb. 1-3, isn’t the sort of place where global warming “deniers” are exactly welcome. In fact, by my observations, the skeptical caucus at the event consisted entirely of: James M. Taylor, a senior fellow for environment policy at The Heartland Institute; Keith Lockitch, a fellow of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights; and me. All the other attendees spent their time discussing how the U.S. government — or, even better, a “global government” — needs to compel us all to live “greener” lives through schemes like cap-and-trade. Environmentalists are a bossy and power-hungry lot.

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Lockitch gave a presentation arguing free-market economies are better positioned than socialist societies to deal with any severe weather events caused by climate change — and was called a “denier” and compared to a shill for “Big Tobacco” for his trouble. Taylor got off a little easier, receiving only scoffs and curious-to-annoyed glances for asking inconvenient questions.

But that’s not to say we were the only people to question the assumptions of the attendees who believe the “science is settled” on global warming. Perhaps the greatest challenge came from one of their own — renowned climate scientist William Sprigg — who urged his colleagues to stop treating the ClimateGate scandal as irrelevant noise promoted by “deniers.” In an amazingly telling moment, green energy consultant Andy Van Horn, who introduced Sprigg, admitted he’d never heard of ClimateGate until Sprigg suggested it a few weeks ago as a topic worthy of discussion. (Who are the real “deniers” again?)

Sprigg, adjunct research professor in the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the University of Arizona, believes the planet is on a potentially dangerous warming path and atmospheric carbon dioxide is to blame. He also led the technical review of the first global warming report issued by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1990. Clealry, Sprigg is no “outlier” or “rebel,” but one of the most respected and “mainstream” scientists in the field of climatology. So it came to a bit of shock to the audience when Sprigg expressed concerns about how contrarian scientists are treated with contempt by many of his colleagues.

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Tags: Ayn Rand, cap-and-trade, climate change, climategate, EUEC
Posted Feb 5th 2010 at 10:57 am in Environment, News, Politics | 7044655 Comments2010-02-05+18%3A57%3A31James+G.+Lakely

Liveblogging Tea Party Nation: Smart Girl Politics

by Jim Hoft

Smart Girl Politics led a breakout session this morning on “Conducting a Voter Registration Drive.” One of Smart Girl Politics goals is to focus on educating conservative women. As part of that goal, SGP members members Michelle Moore (r) and Bridget Blanton led the meeting.

Michelle Moore, SGP Director of Technology, and Bridget Blanton, SGP National Voter Registration Coordinator, led the training session at the event focusing on Women in Politics and Voter Registration. Michelle Moore will be tweeting the conference this weekend. The Smart Girls give a voice to smart, strong, well-informed conservative women. The Smart Girls are the women who will take back this country.

Smart Girl Politics is committed to providing a conservative community for women to express their opinions and ideas in an open and welcoming environment. SGP is dedicated to reaching out into the community to engage, educate, and empower conservative women to take a more active role in politics. And finally, we will debate and develop clear positions that encourage conservative activism in order to counter the negative activity of popular culture that is often found in the main stream media.

Michelle opened up the session and was terrific. She made St. Louis proud. Michelle said she found a home in Smart Girl Politics. She says she is inspired and empowered by the strong women of this movement.

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Tags: bridget blanton, get out the vote, GOTV, Massachusetts election, michelle moore
Posted Feb 5th 2010 at 9:50 am in Politics, State Politics, Tea Party | 7046257 Comments2010-02-05+17%3A50%3A59Jim+Hoft

Sex, Drugs and Violence: All in One Illinois Politicians Divorce File

by John Bambenek

In what quickly became the headline story from the results of the Illinois Primary on February 2nd, Scott Lee Cohen was nominated as the Democratic candidate for Lieutenant Governor. This charming gentlemen spent around $2-$3 million of his own money to win the election. Here is where things get weird.

Dem Lt Gov Candidate Scott Lee Cohen

Dem Lt Gov Candidate Scott Lee Cohen

The Chicago Tribune, in writing on his victory, immediately highlighted he was charged with domestic battery. Then news came fast and furious. He was a chronic user of anabolic steroids. He was abusive to his wife and children and even went so far as to try to “force himself” on her. He held a knife to his prostitute girlfriend’s throat. As he was spending millions running for office, he was a dead beat dad falling behind on child support payments he obviously could afford. His divorce file was found and put online. Those documents were not even sealed.

This, of course, presents a huge problem for Illinois Democrats. The Lt. Governor runs independent in the Primary but in the General the Governor and Lt. Governor are paired. Governor Pat Quinn is, understandably, less than pleased. However, by law, there is no way to get rid of the Lt. Governor candidate unless that person drops out. To say the Democrats are in a state of panic is to put it mildly.

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Tags: deadbeat dad, democrat nominee, domestic violence, Gov. Pat Quinn, pawnbroker
Posted Feb 5th 2010 at 8:59 am in Media Criticism, News, Politics, State Politics | 7030660 Comments2010-02-05+16%3A59%3A20John+Bambenek

How to Get Our Democracy Back: If You Want Change, You Have to Change Congress

by Lawrence Lessig

Editors Note: This post is re-printed with permission from The Nation magazine, where it appears as the February 4, 2010 cover story. You can see a video interview with Professor Lessig about the piece here, or take action on issues raised in the piece by visiting FixCongressFirst.org.

We should remember what it felt like one year ago, as the ability to recall it emotionally will pass and it is an emotional memory as much as anything else. It was a moment rare in a democracy’s history. The feeling was palpable–to supporters and opponents alike–that something important had happened. America had elected, the young candidate promised, a transformational president. And wrapped in a campaign that had produced the biggest influx of new voters and small-dollar contributions in a generation, the claim seemed credible, almost intoxicating, and just in time.

Yet a year into the presidency of Barack Obama, it is already clear that this administration is an opportunity missed. Not because it is too conservative. Not because it is too liberal. But because it is too conventional. Obama has given up the rhetoric of his early campaign–a campaign that promised to “challenge the broken system in Washington” and to “fundamentally change the way Washington works.” Indeed, “fundamental change” is no longer even a hint.

Instead, we are now seeing the consequences of a decision made at the most vulnerable point of Obama’s campaign–just when it seemed that he might really have beaten the party’s presumed nominee. For at that moment, Obama handed the architecture of his new administration over to a team that thought what America needed most was another Bill Clinton. A team chosen by the brother of one of DC’s most powerful lobbyists, and a White House headed by the quintessential DC politician. A team that could envision nothing more than the ordinary politics of Washington–the kind of politics Obama had called “small.” A team whose imagination–politically–is tiny.

These tiny minds–brilliant though they may be in the conventional game of DC–have given up what distinguished Obama’s extraordinary campaign. Not the promise of healthcare reform or global warming legislation–Hillary Clinton had embraced both of those ideas, and every other substantive proposal that Obama advanced. Instead, the passion that Obama inspired grew from the recognition that something fundamental had gone wrong in the way our government functions, and his commitment to reform it.

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Tags: Barack Obama, Ben Nelson, Bill Clinton, bush v gore, cap-and-trade
Posted Feb 5th 2010 at 7:04 am in Congress, Culture, Featured Story, Healthcare, History, Justice/Legal, Obama, Politics, Tea Party | 70270130 Comments2010-02-05+15%3A04%3A13Lawrence+Lessig

America’s Decline, And Where Recovery Begins

by The New Ledger

“We have never had, in the history of the world, periods of sustained economic prosperity and growth accompanied by a sustained decline in population. Today, every developed nation in the world is witnessing this decline.”

It’s time for your weekly dose of markets and politics with Coffee and Markets, our podcast from The New Ledger with Francis Cianfrocca, brought to you by BigGovernment.com.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Download Podcast | iTunes | Podcast Feed

You can subscribe to the podcast by following the links above, and if you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

Sanger: Obama’s Permanent Deficits
TNL: Once Was America
TNL: Marriage and Children in Our New America
Hymowitz: Explosion in Single Young American Men
Spengler: America’s Decline

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Tags: Barack Obama, Coffee and Markets, deficits, Economy, podcast
Posted Feb 5th 2010 at 6:17 am in Coffee and Markets, Politics | 700947 Comments2010-02-05+14%3A17%3A54The+New+Ledger

With Scott Brown, America Chose the Pickup Truck Over the Prius

by Jim Hoft

Later today Scott Brown will be sworn in as the 41st Republican in the United States Senate.
He is on his way to Washington DC right now with certificatation in hand.

One of the many players who contributed to Scott Brown’s victory is Ken Pittman from WBSM in Massachusetts. Ken interviewed Democrat Martha Coakley the week before the Massachusetts election. It was during this interview that Martha told Ken that if you object to abortion and are a devout Catholic then…

“You probably shouldn’t work in the emergency room.”

That was the wrong answer.

Ken sent me this article last night that he wrote on this historic Massachusetts election:

America Chose the Pickup Truck Over the Prius

In what has to be the most important non-presidential election race in many decades, Scott Brown won a most unlikely race in the state bluer than Frank Sinatra’s eyes, Massachusetts. So much weighed on the outcome outside of our state that the RNC finally heeded to the desperate cries for help from those of us here who have fought behind the enemy lines, praying for the cavalry for a half century.

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Tags: curt schilling, ken pittman, martha coakley, massachusetts senate election, massachusetts special election
Posted Feb 4th 2010 at 12:41 pm in Congress, News, Politics, State Politics | 70014135 Comments2010-02-04+20%3A41%3A10Jim+Hoft

Rep. Brad Miller and Dr. Anna Chacko: The Politicalization of Government Health Care

by Michael Volpe

Late in the afternoon of December 4th of 2006, laboratory staff of the Veterans Administration Pittsburgh Health Services (VAPHS) based on an order from Dr. Mona Melhem, the associate chief of clinical services, a few minutes earlier – in less than three hours destroying a unique collection of legionella and other isolates that had been collected by two prominent infectious disease researchers over their nearly three decades of research.

So starts a report by the Science Sub Committee chaired by Congressman Brad Miller of the 13th District of North Carolina into a strand of legionella that was destroyed by the Pittsburgh VA and with it thirty years of research by Dr. Victor Yu and his partner Dr. Janet Stout.

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This report and its conclusions began a series of events that climaxed with this news broken on in January by Walter Roche of the Pittsburgh Tribune about the same Pittsburgh VA.

A top Pittsburgh Veterans Affairs physician, who got her job back temporarily after congressional intervention, is about to be terminated from her position as the head of radiology in the Pittsburgh facility.

VA officials have issued a formal notice of termination effective Jan. 25 to Dr. Anna Chacko, who has been on administrative leave from the University Drive facility since October.

What, one might ask, does an investigation into a destroyed strand of legionella have to do with the firing of the chief of radiology at a hospital nearly two years later? In reality, the two probably have little do with each other, except in the mind of Congressman Brad Miller. Because Miller made a connection, the events of one lead directly to the events of the other.

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Tags: Anna Chacko, Base Camp Lejeune, Brad Miller, BU Medical Center, Butte Montana
Posted Feb 4th 2010 at 9:43 am in Healthcare, Justice/Legal, News, Politics | 6065024 Comments2010-02-04+17%3A43%3A51Michael+Volpe

Obama’s Big Tax Hike on Multinationals Means Fewer American Jobs and Reduced U.S. Competitiveness

by Dan Mitchell

The new budget from the White House contains all sorts of land mines for taxpayers, which is not surprising considering the President wants to extract another $1.3 trillion over the next ten years.

One of the worst proposals targets American companies that compete in foreign markets. Under current law, the “foreign-source” income of multinationals is subject to tax by the IRS even though it already is subject to all applicable tax where it is earned (just as the IRS taxes foreign companies on income they earn in America). But at least companies have the ability to sometimes delay when this double taxation occurs, thanks to a policy known as deferral. The White House thinks that this income should be taxed right away, though, claiming that “…deferring U.S. tax on the income from the investment may cause U.S. businesses to shift their investments and jobs overseas, harming our domestic economy.” In reality, deferral protects American companies from being put at a competitive disadvantage when competing with companies from other nations, and therefore protects American jobs. This video has the details.

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Tags: Big Government, Competitiveness, Corporate Income tax, Corporate Taxation, Deferral
Posted Feb 4th 2010 at 8:03 am in Economics, News, Obama, Politics, Tax Reform, Uncategorized | 700223 Comments2010-02-04+16%3A03%3A57Dan+Mitchell

‘Tough’ Decisions on Spending Include $2.5M on Super Bowl Ad

by Greg Knapp

mean-joe

Where to cut the spending? Obama has told us we have to make some tough choices. Yup, it wasn’t easy, but they decided to keep in the $2.5 million for a Census ad during the Super Bowl. That’s just a part of the $132 million we will spend to tell people to fill out and mail in their census forms.

We’d get a better bang for our buck by gambling it in Vegas. No matter what Obama says about the town, at least there we would have a chance to win big.

I understand that our constitution requires a census every ten years, but it does not require we waste our money advertising for it. You don’t turn it in – you’re not counted. Next!

Here are some of the proposed cuts listed on the White House blog as ”tough choices” for 2011:

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Tags: Barack Obama, Big Government, Fox News, Harry Reid
Posted Feb 4th 2010 at 8:01 am in Economics, Obama, Politics, Tax Reform, federal spending | 6949446 Comments2010-02-04+16%3A01%3A00Greg+Knapp

Senator Paul Kirk Must Resign His Seat This Morning

by SusanAnne Hiller

Reporting yesterday on Big Government, I reiterated the fact that interim Senator Paul Kirk should have resigned his Senate seat after the election. However, Kirk certainly has no option but to vacate the MA Senate seat once Brown’s election is certified–all based on Massachusetts state law and Senate rules. In following-up the story it is being reported by The Hill that Senator-elect Brown will be sworn in about 5PM Thursday, February 4th.

Kennedy Successor

In learning this information, I wanted to confirm when Senator Kirk was going to resign his interim Senate seat. Staff at Kirk’s office said that he would step down once Brown was sworn in.

In case Kirk needs a reminder of the changed Massachusetts law that allowed for his appointment by Governor Patrick as the interim senator, here it is:

Chapter 92 of the Acts of 2009
AN ACT RELATIVE TO FILLING A TEMPORARY VACANCY IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:

Section 140 of chapter 54 of the General Laws, as appearing in the 2008 Official Edition, is hereby amended by adding the following subsection:–

(f) Upon failure to choose a senator in congress or upon a vacancy in that office, the governor shall make a temporary appointment to fill the vacancy; provided, however, that the person so appointed shall serve until the election and qualification of the person duly elected to fill the vacancy pursuant to subsection (a) or (c). Approved September 24, 2009. Emphasis mine.

The original MA law can be found here.

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Tags: deval patrick, election certification, election law, paul kirk, scott brown
Posted Feb 4th 2010 at 6:29 am in Congress, Justice/Legal, News, Politics, State Politics | 6969473 Comments2010-02-04+14%3A29%3A15SusanAnne+++Hiller

Reason.tv: 3 Reasons Not to Sweat Citizens United

by Nick Gillespie

No recent Supreme Court ruling have evoked more liberal fury than Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, a campaign-finance case involving government censorship of a political documentary called Hillary: The Movie. The Federal Election Commission prevented the anti-Hillary Clinton film from being shown on television just before the 2008 Democratic primaries, a decision that was upheld by lower courts. Siding with The First Amendment, the Court struck down laws regulating independent political advertising by for-profit and non-profit corporations before an election even as they reaffirmed rules about disclosure and disclosures for ads and against direct corporate giving to candidates.

Critics fear that corporations will now overwhelm the political marketplace with commercials and advertisements that will program citizens to vote for whatever agenda “the corprations” want at a given moment.

MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann railed against the decision, calling it “a Supreme Court-sanctioned murder of what little democracy is left in this democracy” and comparing it to the notorious Dred Scott decision, which ruled that had no rights under the Constitution. His fellow corporate media host at MSNBC, Rachel Maddow, exclaimed, “If you are a regular person who has ever made a campaign donation before, forget about ever having to do that again. What’s the point?”

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Tags: Barack Obama, campaign finance, campaign finance reform, Citizens United, Dred Scott decision
Posted Feb 3rd 2010 at 12:59 pm in Big Labor, Congress, Justice/Legal, Media Criticism, Obama, Politics | 6929867 Comments2010-02-03+20%3A59%3A01Nick+Gillespie

Sen. Kirk Must Step Down; Brown Election To Be Certified Thursday

by SusanAnne Hiller

In a previous post on Big Government, I questioned why Senator Paul Kirk has not stepped down as the Senator from Massachusetts, as he should have on January 19th. Today, the attorney for Senator-elect Scott Brown stated in a letter Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick that Brown wanted the results of the January 19 election certified by 11 a.m. Thursday, so they could be forwarded to U.S. Senate officials for immediate action.

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Governor Patrick’s office also issued this statement via email today:

As the Lieutenant Governor stated earlier today, the Governor will convene the Governor’s Council at 9:30 a.m. tomorrow morning and certify the results. This will ensure that Senator-elect Brown’s request to receive the final paperwork by 11:00 a.m. tomorrow is fulfilled.

This stunning move by Brown and fulfillment by the governor’s office forces Kirk to resign his seat–presenting problems for the Democrats as they move forward with the current Senate schedule, which includes the controversial M. Patricia Smith nomination.

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Tags: Al Franken, election certification, norm coleman, paul kirk, Roland Burris
Posted Feb 3rd 2010 at 12:25 pm in Congress, Justice/Legal, News, Politics | 6827887 Comments2010-02-03+20%3A25%3A18SusanAnne+++Hiller

Obama: ‘I’m a Big Believer in Net Neutrality’

by Capitol Confidential

Just a few weeks ago, the ongoing debate over proposed net neutrality rules under consideration by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) appeared to have taken a turn for the worse. At least as far as net neutrality proponents were concerned. But, with President Obama’s left flank increasingly uneasy with the direction he is taking as the midterm election approaches, observers say he may be aiming to shore up his base by tilting leftwards on the issue, one that flies below the radar of most Americans.

Specifically, as Obama seeks to strike a more centrist tone on items like the deficit, taxes and education, tech and telecoms policy observers say he appears to be going out of his way to curry favor with the online left— which political experts say has been in a state of near-revolt for months now—by reaffirming his strong commitment to net neutrality. One tech policy expert that Big Government consulted described the proposed policy as “one of the top items on the American Left’s wish-list,” and one of those guaranteed to “fire up” the online left like the Iraq War did in years past—with the fringe benefit for Obama that most Americans have no idea what net neutrality means, either in theory or in practice.

In an interview filmed after last week’s the State of the Union address, a clip of which is currently being promoted by hard-left media reform group Free Press, Obama is captured on camera underlining that both he and FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski are major supporters of net neutrality:

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Tags: Arts and Lab, Barack Obama, FCC, Free Media, Free Press
Posted Feb 3rd 2010 at 9:35 am in Obama, Politics, Technology | 69342151 Comments2010-02-03+17%3A35%3A34Capitol++Confidential

Illinois Shows Limitations of Tea Party Movement

by Warner Todd Huston

The Tea Party folks keep getting mad at me for saying that in the end they might prove ineffective in races at levels higher than local because they aren’t organized enough. They puff up their chests proudly proclaiming that they intend to resist being organized and they claim that being organized is precisely what they are fighting against. I understand the feeling, even sympathize quite a lot, but there is a problem with this obstinacy. It means they won’t win on a statewide ballot very often. The Illinois primary just proved me correct, too.

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Let’s take the race for Senate in Illinois as exhibit “A.” Of course the good old boys in the state party went with Mark Kirk, the center left candidate from a northern suburb of Chicago. He was the he-can-win candidate and the establishment choice. Not one Tea Party group, though, wants Kirk and for good reason — and I heartily concur with them, as it happens. So who was the “Tea Party candidate,” the one meant to beat out Kirk, the one backed by the newly found power of the Tea Party movement? There wasn’t one. There were three.

Sadly, the Tea Partiers in Illinois split their vote all up. Some Tea Party Groups went with Don Lowery and some went with Patrick Hughes. A few even went with John Arrington. Hughes, of course, was the only one that had even a remote chance as far as voter polls were concerned. Hughes at least registered in the polls, Lowery and Arrington barely showed up at all.

Now, I like Mr. Lowery to be sure. He is a great fellow and has some fantastic principles. I can see why Tea Party groups are attracted to him. I feel the same way about Mr. Arrington. On the other hand, the same can be said of Hughes (disclosure, I endorsed Hughes). The problem is not that one or the other Tea Party group chose the wrong candidate, it’s that they didn’t choose the same candidate. They petered away their votes by choosing three candidates allowing Mark Kirk to run away with it.

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Tags: adam andrzejewski, Americans for Prosperity, dan proft, Doug Hoffman, Freedomworks
Posted Feb 3rd 2010 at 8:17 am in News, Politics, State Politics, Tax Reform, Tea Party | 69286183 Comments2010-02-03+16%3A17%3A24Warner+Todd++Huston

The People of Massachusetts Are Taking Back Their Seats

by Mike LaChance

The Scott Brown revolution is alive and well in Massachusetts.

Tuesday night, January 26th at 7:00 when most people would like to be home relaxing after work, almost 500 average citizens from Massachusetts packed a convention hall in the Boston suburb of Braintree. They shared some common interests. They’re either running for office or helping someone else run for office. Some of them are running for federal or state offices, some for seats in local towns and cities and some for school boards. The one sentiment they share is clear: They’ve had enough.

The Crowd A capacity crowd!

The event they showed up for was a “candidate school” offered by Boston talk radio host Michael Graham of 96.9 WTKK, a man the Boston Phoenix dubbed “Boston’s maestro of conservative controversies.” In between his tenure at WTKK and a career in stand-up comedy, Graham ran political campaigns. Today, he is sharing his knowledge with the citizens of the Bay State and encouraging them to participate in the system.

Attendees included people like Francis McLaughlin, a retired Boston fire fighter and registered Republican since 1975. McLaughlin is running for the Massachusetts House of Representatives for specific reasons:

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Tags: Boston, Democrats, exclusive, government, Independents
Posted Feb 3rd 2010 at 7:27 am in Exclusives, News, Politics, State Politics, Tea Party | 6825050 Comments2010-02-03+15%3A27%3A27Mike+LaChance