Kyle Wingfield in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

See if you can follow me here:

1. CBS’s “60 Minutes” caused a stir with its report Sunday, based on a forthcoming book by Peter Schweizer, about members of Congress who may have traded stocks based on insider information to which they were privy because of their elected offices.

2. Many members of Congress are desperate to raise new revenues any way possible, in the name of stopping our borrowing binge.

3. Some of our politicians, and even more European leaders, are partial to the so-called Tobin Tax on financial transactions.

4. In light of the revolving door in Washington — in which politicians and their appointees leave public service and then cash in by lobbying or otherwise working for the companies they used to regulate — the law professor and proprietor of the Instapundit blog, Glenn Reynolds, hasproposed “a 50 percent surtax on any earnings by political appointees in excess of their prior government salaries for the first five years after they leave office.”

Voila! How about a 50 percent tax on financial transactions by members of Congress and their staffs while they are with the government, and for five years thereafter?

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It’s already happening – the liberal dream of a perpetual social welfare state where deadbeat liberal constituencies feed off of the work of productive conservative citizens in perpetuity is dying.  There’s no doubt about that; the only question left is how long and hard the process will be as the hideous leviathan the utopian liberal establishment has created convulses and dies.

It’s going to die hard.  And ugly.

The collapse is well-underway in Europe – Greece has gone from the cradle of democracy to a cesspool of union-fueled mobs – but America faces the same trauma.  As the contradictions inherent in the vision of a societal plan based on the notion that an ever-expanding pool of Democratic-voting serfs sucking the wealth away from the mostly Republican-oriented producers who labored to create it become more apparent, the reactions and rear-guard efforts of the terminal liberal elite will grow more extreme.

We are already seeing the liberal elite lash out in anger and frustration at what is a perfect storm of failure.  Glenn Reynolds, the legendary Instapundit, chronicles the daily disintegration, while the brilliant Mark Steyn’s cheery new book, After America: Get Ready for Armageddon, drops on August 8, 2011 – I’ll race you to Amazon to get a copy.

As the three components of the liberal establishment – the media, the unions and politicians – rage at the dying of the liberal light, the insanity meter will swing far into the red.  It’s already begun.  The Tea Party has dared to speak the truth, and the uncomfortable realities it has pointed out have destroyed the bogus consensus that has allowed the debt Titanic to sail giddily on toward the iceberg.  That’s why the establishment response is to demonize the popular movement.  We’re “terrorists” or “lunatics” or, bizarrely, “hobbits.”  Our crime is telling the truth.

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If you know anything about my background at all, you know I’m a liberal. I’ve been posting stories about the  Pigford scandal here on BigGov and my usual haunt, the Huffington Post. I’ve worked for MoveOn.org and Brave New Films. I voted for Obama although like many progressives, I’m not thrilled with him.

So, since I’m the stranger in a strange land here on the Bigs, maybe you nice conservatives can explain something to me — why hasn’t the right wing blogosphere picked up on Pigford?

Don’t get me wrong. The mainstream media hasn’t picked up on it either and I’m willing to grant that most of the MSM leans left. The left wing blogosphere has totally ignored the Pigford reporting I and others here have done. But I UNDERSTAND that. This story isn’t good for Democrats.

But where are your guys?

I mean, we have a congressman, Sanford Bishop — a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, for goshsake — admitting he knew about fraud. Admitting it to newspapers. Where’s Rush or Fox News or Malkin or Red State or Coulter or Beck, or…anyone? Instapundit has covered it. Derbyshire did a piece on Pigford a few weeks back but didn’t mention the stuff on this site. And that’s about it.

Again. Democratic Congress. Fraud. Scandal. Billions. And — crickets on the right.

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As cited by Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit,  Hans A. von Spakovsky of Heritage, writing at Pajamas Media, points out just some of what a grassroots group of concerned citizens has turned up regarding potential voter registration issues in Houston, Texas.

True the Vote reports that at least four noncitizens have been registered to vote in Harris County. The group provided Justice with the actual voter registration forms where applicants marked “NO” to the question: “Are you a U.S. Citizen?” The group also provided the voter registration numbers of these confessed noncitizens. Yes, astonishingly, Harris County registered them to vote anyway. They are now on the rolls and able to participate in the upcoming midterm elections.

There are multiple aspects to this developing story, which may drive some discussion on addressing voting irregularities across the country after November, if not to some extent before the 2nd. Melissa Clouthier of Liberty Pundits has been blogging on the group and on October 22nd posted on an instance where Sheila Jackson Lee appears to have been in violation of election laws.

Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Houston) violated election laws when, on Tuesday, October 19 [corrected: date was wrongly noted as the 18th], she entered into Acres Home Multiservice Community Center, walked to where the voting booths were looking for the poll watchers, greeted voters there, and then found and confronted the poll watchers before being directed to, and then asked by, the presiding judge Bernard Gurski to leave the area.

Additionally, the video tape below purports to show Lee electioneering directly outside a Palm Center polling location. The video is believed to have been made at approximately 4 PM on October 22nd, allegedly placing Lee well inside of a 100 foot limit allowed by law as early voting was going on.

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From Reuters:

In its final estimate on the first quarter on Friday, the Commerce Department said gross domestic product expanded at a 2.7 percent annual rate instead of the 3 percent pace it reported last month.

Although the growth pace was below market expectations for a 3 percent rate, it still marked three straight quarters of expansion as the economy digs out of its most brutal downturn since the 1930s.

However, recent data have suggested the recovery lost some momentum in the second quarter, with persistently high unemployment restraining consumer spending, and home building and purchases faltering.

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A few days ago, Texas Rep. Joe Barton, ranking member on the House Energy and Commerce Commitee “apologized” to BP for the pressure the Obama Administration put on the company to fund an escrow account to compensate victims of the Gulf Oil leak (which is still spewing oil, btw). Certain parts of the blogosphere are calling for his resignation. And, national Democrats have launched a new TV ad on the controversy.

Personally, we kinda think Barton’s calls for federal government oversight of college football is a more worthy contender to spark cries for his resignation. On this issue though, he think Glenn Reynolds summed it up best in this statement from The Hill:

The story of BP vs. the White House is a story of crooks being shaken down by thugs, with a liberal dose of incompetence on both sides. Barton was only pointing out the shakedown aspect, but he was certainly dead-on with regard to that.

Founding Bloggers is proud to present our latest short video, “Talking Tea,”  produced while on location in Nashville at the National Tea Party Convention. (WARNING: NSFW)

The convention attracted Tea Party organizers, activists, and supporters from around the country, as well as some of the more prolific bloggers on the subject of the Tea Party movement.

Founding Bloggers invited some of these top Tea Party bloggers to sit down with us to talk tea. They graciously agreed to spend some time with us, and “Talking Tea” is the 9 minute result.

Below is the full length clip; however, we have also broken out a couple shorter segments for your viewing convenience:

1) Breitbart On The Republican Establishment – (WARNING: NSFW)
2) Breitbart On Destroying CNN and NYT

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Glenn Reynolds in Saturday’s WSJ:

There were promises of transparency and of a new kind of collaborative politics where establishment figures listened to ordinary Americans. We were going to see net spending cuts, tax cuts for nearly all Americans, an end to earmarks, legislation posted online for the public to review before it is signed into law, and a line-by-line review of the federal budget to remove wasteful programs.

These weren’t the tea-party platforms I heard discussed in Nashville last weekend. They were the campaign promises of Barack Obama in 2008.

Mr. Obama made those promises because the ideas they represented were popular with average Americans. So popular, it turns out, that average Americans are organizing themselves in pursuit of the kind of good government Mr. Obama promised, but has not delivered. And that, in a nutshell, was the feel of the National Tea Party Convention. The political elites have failed, and citizens are stepping in to pick up the slack.

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In the ongoing fight over proposed rules that would institute net neutrality, a major proponent of the policy is taking fresh heat from critics.  Google, arguably the world’s biggest name in tech, a major source of campaign donations to President Barack Obama, and one of the most prominent advocates of an “open internet,” is taking heat for alleged hypocrisy and rent seeking.

The criticism comes as the company continues to advocate for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to impose net neutrality rules that would target internet service providers (ISPs) while opposing so-called “search neutrality” that would impact both the company and its revenues in a manner that observers of the debate say could be particularly adverse to Google.

Last week, in a post on the official Google blog, the company’s senior vice president for product management, Jonathan Rosenberg, wrote that while Google’s “goal is to keep the Internet open,” it opposes the concept of “openness” where it would apply to its own search and ad products.

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QunicyNews.org reports:

Steve McQueen is acting a bit like an expectant father right now.

That’s because he and the other organizers of “Lincoln’s Legacy: Patriots on the Prairie” are putting the some of the finishing touches on the Quincy Tea Part event, set for Saturday at 1 p.m. in Quincy’s Washington Park.

But with the final Blues in the District concert tonight, an event honoring police and firefighters on the anniversary of 9/11, work to set up the park, including the stage, cannot begin until late tonight or first thing Saturday morning.

With FOX News carrying portions of the event live, the network asked McQueen yesterday to find scaffolding for them to park their cameras. McQueen said he expected there to be several last-minute details to be finalized.

Quincy Mayor John Spring has accepted an invitation from Quincy Tea Party organizers to welcome those expected to attend the event from around the Midwest.

A few thousand people are expected to attend from all over the Midwest. (more…)