Are you aware that the U.S. Census Bureau counts illegal aliens when determining how many seats in Congress a state should receive? That means states with large illegal alien populations are now receiving a disproportionate amount of seats in Congress and therefore more power in establishing national policy.

Judicial Watch is now involved in a high-stakes legal campaign to put a stop to this unconstitutional policy.

Recently, we filed an amicus curiae brief with the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of the State of Louisiana challenging the current federal policy in which “unlawfully present aliens” were counted in the 2010 Census (Louisiana v. Bryson).

The government used these census numbers to reapportion seats in the House of Representatives and, as a result, the State of Louisiana lost a House seat to which it was entitled. Louisiana is asking that the Supreme Court order the federal government to recalculate the 2010 apportionment of House seats based upon legal residents as the U.S. Constitution requires.

Judicial Watch, in partnership with the Allied Educational Foundation (AEF), filed the brief on January 13, 2012, in a lawsuit filed by the State of Louisiana against John Bryson, U.S. Secretary of Commerce; Robert Groves, Director of the U.S. Census Bureau; and Karen Lehman Hass, Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Here’s a brief excerpt from our amicus:

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During a trip to India a few years ago and after observing the New Delhi traffic, I devised a great idea for Tata, the Indian car maker: manufacture the cars so that once the car is started the horn turns on and stays on until the car is turned off.  I was sure the drivers in New Delhi would appreciate such a feature, seeing that they drive with the horn on most of the time anyway.

Kind of like the way that politicians of Indian descent are making their presence known in the American political scene, except maybe not as noisy.  While there are others, two prominent Indian-American politicians stand out: Louisiana Governor Piyush “Bobby” Jindal and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley.

Following two terms in Congress representing Louisiana’s 1st congressional district in the House, and having been the Congress’ second Indian-American, Republican Bobby Jindal was first elected governor of Lousiana in 2007 and re-elected earlier this year in a landslide.  Throughout his term as governor he has become known as a fiscal conservative who refused to raise taxes.  After the BP Oil Spill of April-July, 2010, Jindal loudly criticized Obama administration’s response and eventually persuaded the administration into lifting a permit moratorium on oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

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By refusing to set up a health care insurance exchange system that could be used to advance ObamaCare regulations, Gov. Bobby Jindal has cut a path that other state officials should follow, argue analysts with the Cato Institute.

However, other leading figures within Gov. Jindal’s own Republican Party remain divided on this question. Governors Rick Scott (R-Fla.), Scott Parnell (R-Alaska), Susana Martinez (R-N.M.) and Rick Perry (R-Texas) have all expressed opposition to an exchange system in their states. But Gov. CL “Butch” Otter of Idaho, Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), and other GOP officials, disagree.

They view the exchange system as a viable tool for advancing patient-centered, market-friendly health care reforms that can lower costs and expand consumer choice. Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released a set of proposed rules that “set minimum standards” for the exchanges.

But the suggested guidelines are so incomplete and uncertain that states cannot make an informed decision on whether they should participate, said Bruce Greenstein, Louisiana’s secretary for the Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH).

Greenstein supports Gov. Jindal in his decision to remain outside of the exchange system. “This is very good policy on the part of Gov. Jindal for today, and tomorrow it will be seen by the rest of the market as very forward thinking, and very savvy in terms of the way we move forward and protect the market of health insurance in Louisiana; we need to be able to access high quality insurance products at a good cost,” Greenstein said. “We continue to be very prudent in our approach.”

However, Cassidy, who is a medical doctor and a vocal opponent of the federal health care law, said in an interview that it may be advantageous for states to put their own “imprimatur” on a health care exchange before federal officials advance new regulations.  He cited the Utah system, which is already up and running, as a model for what might work in Louisiana and other states.

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Looking to the 2012 elections, top operatives with organized labor say they are going to concentrate their efforts at the state level and will withhold their support for federal candidates. In the 2008 election cycle, unions spent almost $80 million on independent broadcast advertising, mail, and advocacy to either elect or defeat candidates for federal office, according to OpenSecrets.org. Federal records also show that labor union political action committees (PACs) contributed over $66 million to federal candidates in 2008, with 92 percent of this total going to Democrats.

But, this investment did not secure enough votes to pass the “card check” legislation and other policy measures weighted against the business community. So, a change in strategy is in order. Harold Schaitberger, president of the International Association of Firefighters, told FOX News, his organization is eyeing the political terrain at the local level. But there is no reason for states, especially Right to Work states, to play defense.

Instead, they should follow the example set by Danny Martiny, a Republican state senator in Louisiana, who has introduced a bill to safeguard competitive bidding practices in the construction industry. In a pre-emptive move aimed against contracts negotiated between employers and unions before workers are hired, Martiny has introduced Senate Bill 76. This legislation prevents state government officials from mandating Project Labor Agreements (PLAs) on publicly funded construction projects.

PLAs call for construction contractors, including those non-unionized, to require their employees to be represented by a union on government-funded construction projects. In practice, they lock out non-union construction shops from the bidding process, officials with the Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC), a private industry group, have argued.

Although the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 generally prohibits pre-hire agreements, an exception in the law was created for the construction industry.

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In Michigan, police were caught on tape stealing private property:

What do you want to take in the basement?  Do you want to take the drums and all that (expletive), or no?

The police took three pages worth of property that included a 52” flat-screen TV, a DVD player, two computers, a camera and several DVDs.

Why does this kind of abuse happen?  The answer is civil forfeiture.

In the United States, if the government suspects that you committed a crime, officials can arrest you and put you on trial.  The government must then prove you are guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

But if the government suspects that your property was involved in a crime, under civil forfeiture laws officials can take and sell your property.  In most instances, they get to pocket the proceeds.  Importantly, they don’t have to prove you did anything wrong.  This sounds bizarre, but with civil forfeiture, your property is guilty until you prove it innocent.

As civil forfeiture expert Scott Bullock explains in the above video:

You cannot give the very people who are out there enforcing the laws a direct incentive to try to take homes, cars, currency, and other property from citizens.  Under the law in over 40 states, police and prosecutors are allowed to keep all or most of the property that they seize.  So this gives them a very direct incentive to go out and take as much property from citizens as possible.

This explains why one of the police officers caught on tape says, “If Luke comes down here, he’s gonna wanna take everything . . . he’s gonna give us a chance to frickin’ take all this stuff.”

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Dale Smith has been cutting hair for over 50 years.  The Oregon barber is well-known in his hometown for walk-in appointments and $8 cuts — at least, until he got shut down by bureaucrats from Oregon’s Board of Cosmetology.

Dale’s crime?  He forgot to renew the barber license he earned 54 years ago.

The bureaucrats are saying that in order for Dale to return to work, he has to pass a 75-question examination, similar to the one he passed in 1957.  Further, he has to demonstrate to their satisfaction that he still knows how to cut hair:

Dale had to post a sign in his window saying that he was closed until further notice.  He doesn’t want to cut through all the red tape and isn’t sure what he’ll do next.

As Institute for Justice Senior Attorney Clark Neily explains in the video above:

Americans have a constitutional right to earn a living in the occupation of their choice, free from unreasonable government interference.  What happened to this man is the very definition of unreasonable.  A properly engaged judiciary is one that takes rights seriously, including the right to earn a living.  And it says to government officials, you have to treat people reasonably.  You have to respect their constitutional right to earn a living.

Of course, Dale is not alone.  In November, IJ economic liberty expert Paul Sherman spoke about armed government agents raiding barbershops and handcuffing barbers in front of their clients.  Big Government readers know that occupational licensing abuse is rampant in America.

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Political operatives connected with renamed ACORN affiliates are in position to help swing close, competitive races for left-leaning candidates in the 2012 elections, according to former insiders and policy analysts who are familiar with the network’s operations.

An ambitious rebranding scheme that began earlier this year has now accelerated to include affiliates in at least 12 states. The bankruptcy filing the organization slyly submitted on Election Day is properly viewed as “a head fake” and a “public relations gimmick” arranged to distract attention away from the partisan political activities of renamed affiliates, sources say.

It is worth recalling that the organization known in full as the Association of Community Activists for Reform Now had initially denied reports that it would be dropping its tarnished name in press statements released in the summer of 2009.  Wade Rathke, who founded ACORN in 1970, had announced on his blog that ACORN International, one of many affiliate organizations, had officially changed its name to “Community Organizations International.” Former board members who came together under the banner of ACORN 8 in response to an embezzlement scandal saw the move as a possible opener to a larger rebranding effort.

Scott Levenson, a spokesman for organization’s national leadership, issued a statement claiming that the name has not been dropped and that Rathke is no longer connected with ACORN.

“ACORN is not changing its name,” he declared. “ACORN International, is a five-year old organization from which ACORN withdrew a year ago as part of an overall restructuring process and requested that they stop using the ACORN name, which they have now done. Wade Rathke was fired as Chief Organizer of ACORN in June 2008.”

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Abbot Justin Brown and his fellow monks are being threatened with crippling fines and even jail time.  Their crime?  Selling caskets.

Today, they are fighting back in a big way.

In 1889, a group of monks from Indiana fulfilled their dream of establishing a monastery in the Gulf South.  The monastic lifestyle they embody is simple and contemplative.  Their creation, the Saint Joseph Abbey, has had a powerful and positive impact in Louisiana.

For several centuries, monks have supported themselves financially by excelling at common trades such as farming and brewing beer.  The monks at Saint Joseph Abbey have been able to preserve and maintain their quiet lifestyle through farming and harvesting timber.

The monks make simple wooden caskets in which to bury themselves. In the early 1990s, Bishops began requesting the caskets, which led to inquiries from other interested people.  The demand continued to build:   People were eager to share in the monks’ view of the simplicity and unity of life and death through burial in a simple monastic casket.

As Abbot Justin Brown puts it:

The monks of Saint Joseph Abbey have been making caskets for over a hundred years.  People who ask for them want to share in that noble simplicity that our coffins express. We’re not a wealthy monastery and we need the income that Saint Joseph Woodworks could generate for the health care and the education of our own monks.

On November 1, 2007, the monks opened their Saint Joseph Woodworks.  But before they could sell even one casket, they were threatened with crippling fines, jail time and even a lawsuit.

Why?

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Julie Murphy is only seven years old, but she embodies the classic American zeal for entrepreneurship.

She learned about lemonade stands after seeing one in a cartoon.  She got excited and wanted to open one of her own.  And so Julie’s mother worked with her to get everything together and set up shop at a fair in Northeast Portland, Oregon.

20 minutes after opening, a government official approached and asked for their $120 occupational license.  Of course, they had no license.

And so 7-year-old Julie, the budding entrepreneur, was told to shut down her lemonade stand or face $500 in fines.

Julie and her mother were encouraged by others to keep the stand open and ask for donations instead.  Business picked up, and the regulators returned.  This time they made Julie cry.  They also got their wish:  Julie’s mom shut down the lemonade stand.

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated case of licensing gone wild.  Rather it is a classic example of a national problem that affects countless people in America every day.  Institute for Justice President Chip Mellor wrote this week in the Washington Times:

Mired in a nationwide jobless recovery, state and local governments have the power to create jobs and transform communities if they do one simple thing: Get out of the way of aspiring entrepreneurs.

Unfortunately for small businesses, however, laws restricting economic liberty are becoming more commonplace in America. Consider that since the 1950s, the percentage of occupations in the United States that require people to obtain permission from the government in the form of a license before they can pursue their chosen occupation has grown from a mere 5 percent to more than 30 percent.

Consider a few recent IJ cases:

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You’ve probably heard about eminent domain abuse.  That’s where the government takes your land and hands it over to another private party….one that is more politically connected.

But you may not have heard about civil forfeiture.  And yet, today, it could very well be the most egregious abuse of private property rights in America.

We all know that one of the many beautiful things about the United States is that citizens are innocent until proven guilty.  But civil forfeiture turns that fundamental principle on its head.

This sounds bizarre, but with civil forfeiture, your property is guilty until you prove it innocent.

Consider the case of Margaret Davis.

As a 77-year-old woman living alone with multiple medical problems, Margaret left her Pennsylvania home unlocked so her neighbors could regularly check on her.  One day while the police were chasing alleged drug dealers through her neighborhood, they all ran through Margaret’s house.  The dealers dropped some of their stash on Margaret’s floor, in plain sight.

Instead of apologizing to Margaret for the traumatic experience, the government seized her house.

Under civil forfeiture laws, Margaret’s property—her house—was guilty until she could prove it innocent to get it back.  And that’s not all.  As it turns out, most state and federal laws allow the government to keep the property they take through civil forfeiture.  So authorities have a big incentive to pursue property over justice.

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Today the Institute for Justice filed opening briefs in our fourth case to appear before the U.S. Supreme Court.

IJ’s first trip to the high court came in 2002 and resulted in a landmark victory for school choice.  We also won our second U.S. Supreme Court case, defending the American ideals of economic liberty and unfettered interstate commerce by striking down a ban on the direct shipment of wine.

Our third case changed America forever.  A local government in Connecticut decided to bulldoze an entire neighborhood and hand the land over to a politically connected private developer.  The law was stacked against the property owners in favor of the powerful special interests.  IJ, defending the property owners, lost in a controversial 5-4 ruling.

This was the infamous Kelo case, and it resulted in an explosion of outrage and grassroots activism all across the country.  Ed Morrissey recently wrote at Hot Air that it arguably set “the stage for the all-out eruption of Tea Party activism a few years later.” This epic battle to protect private property rights, ultimately vindicated by grassroots activists just like you, is one that will never be forgotten:

And now, as children nationwide get ready to begin a new school year, the Institute for Justice is defending Arizona’s innovative scholarship tax-credit program before the highest court in the land.

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On Wednesday, I posted a piece, drawing attention to what is now obvious even to Maureen Dowd: that, as an executive, Barack Obama is woefully incompetent. In that piece, I noted the propensity of the American people for electing to the Presidency men with ample executive experience – as generals, governors, cabinet secretaries, and the like. I remarked as well on the poor performance of the four Presidents they elected who did not have prior executive experience; and I suggested that it is time for the Republicans to ask who, in their number, has demonstrated a willingness and an ability to take charge and assume what the authors of The Federalist called responsibility.

In the course of the next few days, I propose to say a word or two about three of these Republicans. I will not discuss Sarah Palin, who displayed the requisite vigor and dispatch in her brief stint as Governor of Alaska, and I will not discuss Tim Pawlenty, who, over the last seven years, has shown genuine capacity as Governor of Minnesota. That worthy task I will leave to others – who know more than I do. Today, I will look at Bobby Jindal, Governor of  Louisiana.

Jindal is a remarkable young man. Born in 1971 to parents who migrated to Baton Rouge from India, he entered the freshman class at Brown University when he was twenty, was admitted to Harvard Medical School and Yale Law School when he was twenty-three, and that same year was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to study at New College, Oxford – where he took an M. Litt. in political science and wrote a dissertation entitled “A Needs-Based Approach to Health Policy.”

Instead of studying medicine or law, Jindal returned from Oxford to Louisiana, became Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals when he was 25 and President of the University of Louisiana system when he was 28, then shifted to Washington, DC where he became Assistant Secretary of  Health and Human Services for Planning and Evaluation at the age of thirty.

Two years later, he was back in Louisiana – where, in 2003, he ran for Governor in the state’s open primary, led in the first round, and lost in the runoff; where, in 2004, he was elected to Congress with 78% of the vote; where in 2006, was re-elected with 88% of the vote; and where, in 2007, he was chosen Governor, the first non-white man to have been elected to the governorship in that state and the first non-incumbent ever to have made it to the top without a runoff.

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In politics, temperament matters – it matters a great deal, as Barack Obama has unwittingly shown us time and again.

Some women and men love to posture, talk, debate, and negotiate. Temperamentally, they are suited for a legislative role. It is said – only partly in jest– that, in Washington, DC, the most dangerous space to occupy is that which lies between a United States Senator and a microphone.

Other women and men – think of Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher, Indira Ghandi, Golda Meir, and Ronald Reagan – were born to take charge. When Harry Truman put a sign on his desk, reading, “The buck stops here,” he knew what he was talking about. As Alexander Hamilton observed in The Federalist, it is vital that we have in our Constitution a unitary executive because, in human affairs, emergencies are commonplace; secrecy, vigor, and dispatch are often requisite; and, in such circumstances, there has to be someone in high office able, willing, and even eager to take responsibility for the conduct of affairs.

Americans have an instinctive understanding of what is at stake. Ordinarily, they choose as Presidents men with executive experience – men with a track record in directing affairs that can be judged. George Washington, Andrew Jackson, William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Ulysses S. Grant, and Dwight D. Eisenhower had been prominent generals before they were elected Presidents, and Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, and Theodore Roosevelt had also demonstrated an aptitude for leadership in war.

John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Martin Van Buren, the younger Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Lyndon Baines Johnson, Richard Nixon, and George H. W. Bush had held the vice-presidency. Jefferson and Van Buren had also been Secretary of State, and the same can be said for James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, and James Buchanan. Monroe had also been Secretary of War, and this was true was well for William Howard Taft. Herbert Hoover had managed relief efforts in Europe early in and after World War I; he had served as Food Administrator within the United States after we entered that war; and, from 1921 to 1928, he served as Secretary of Commerce.

Many of the others elected to the presidency had previously held gubernatorial office.

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In this week’s edition of of Coffee and Markets, featuring The New Ledger’s Francis Cianfrocca, we’re talking about Europe’s effect on the markets, the controversy over what the White House offered Sestak, and the fallout from Obama’s failure to react to the BP spill. We’re brought to you as always by Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com and LibertyPundits.com.

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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:

TNL: Obama’s Katrina
HotAir: The Silence of Sestak
Politico: Obama Punts on Birnbaum Exit
Noonan: He Was Supposed to be Competent
TNL: Europe’s Naked Call Option on Prosperity

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana has filed a court document admitting that James O’Keefe did not intend to tamper with the phones at Mary Landrieu’s office, or commit any other felony.

Oh — and the good folks at the Department of Justice don’t particularly want you to know that. This post reveals that, at O’Keefe’s hearing, the Assistant U.S. Attorney tried not to read that part of the document in court. What’s more, the U.S. Attorney pointedly omitted this critical information from their press release.

The news of the Government’s admission broke yesterday, when Big Journalism’s Larry O’Connor reported that a court document filed in James O’Keefe’s criminal case bearing the title “Final Factual Basis” contains the following language:

In this case, further investigation did not uncover evidence that the defendants intended to commit any felony after the entry by false pretenses despite their initial statements to the staff of Senatorial office and GSA requesting access to the central phone system. Instead, the Government’s evidence would show that the defendants misrepresented themselves and their purpose for gaining access to the central phone system to orchestrate a conversation about phone calls to the Senator’s staff and capture the conversation on video, not to actually tamper with the phone system, or to commit any other felony.

This news, which O’Connor relayed at the end of a post about Media Matters’ dishonesty, is a significant piece of news that deserves its own post. It is especially noteworthy because this paragraph comes from a version of the facts that the Government has agreed to by way of stipulation. The document contains the following language showing the Government’s agreement: (more…)

At this point, we’re guessing that the Administration doesn’t really want to plug the oil leak in the Gulf. It would help them argue against any future deep sea drilling and allow their allies in the environmental community to fundraise for decades. Cynical? Yes. But, how else to explain the situation?

The BP oil rig explosion will be President Obama’s ‘Katrina’ — in fact, it will potentially be much worse in terms of long term effect. While President Bush took a matter of a few days to mobilize federal assistance to flooded New Orleans, Obama has demonstrated near-complete incompetence and inaction over a month and counting. Still, there is no leadership or clear-cut solution to answer one of the worst environmental disasters in modern time. Eleven people are dead, fisheries and scores of fragile ecosystems dying day-by-day. President Obama finds himself deservedly being attacked from the left and the right.

Environmental activist Robert Redford is demanding action from the administration. When Barack Obama starts losing the Robert Redfords of the world — something is terribly wrong. Redford has even taken to the airwaves with the Natural Resources Defense Council, a liberal special interest group, to call the President out on the lackluster response to the spill and feet-dragging on energy legislation. Robert Redford has every right to be angry, along with boaters, fishermen, Governors, Mayors and the millions who live, vacation and work on the Gulf. I suspect there will be more than a few NRA members who will dearly miss duck hunting along Lousiana’s once-pristine marshlands.

The White House answer to the disaster in the Gulf: ‘let BP handle it.’ Put the oil company in charge of the epic disaster they created. Every day, the tendrils of the slick reach further into currents that will carry the sludge to new shores, killing everything in its path. To disperse the oil, BP is dumping hundreds of thousands of gallons of chemicals into the Gulf — to the alarm of the EPA. Increasingly, independent scientific estimates place the amount of oil at 14 times the amount stated by BP. So, what is President Obama’s position on all this? He doesn’t have one. What is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) official assessment of the magnitude of this mess? There isn’t one. And that’s the problem.

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NEW ORLEANS – Joseph Basel, age 24, Stan Dai, age 24, Robert Flanagan, age 24, and James O’Keefe, age 25, were charged in a one-count bill of information with entering real property of the United States under false pretenses, a misdemeanor, announced the U. S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana.

According to the Bill of Information, between January 20, 2010, and January 25, 2010, Flanagan, Basel, O’Keefe, and Dai met on several occasions. During their meetings, they discussed, among other things, possible scenarios in which they would talk with members of the staff of Senator Mary Landrieu inside of her New Orleans, Louisiana office, in the Hale Boggs Federal Building, and record the interaction using audio and visual equipment. As a result of this planning, on January 25, 2010, Basel and Flanagan entered the Senator’s office dressed as telephone repairmen, said they were following up on reports of problems with the telephone system, engaged in conversation with the staff members, and pretended to test the phone system. O’Keefe, who had also entered the office, recorded the interaction between Basel, Flanagan, and the staff members. (more…)

Tonight on “Hannity,” James O’Keefe gave his first public interview since his arrest in New Orleans:

“The People’s Office”

Louisiana State Senator A.G. Crowe (R, Slidell) is introducing a bill for the 2010 legislative session in Baton Rouge that would make Obamacare illegal if it violates state laws, effectively making Obamacare null and void in the Pelican State.

Senator Crowe states that his bill “provides that no law or rule shall compel, directly or indirectly, any person, employer or health care provider to participate in any health care system or health insurance.”

Crowe’s proposed Senate Bill (download .pdf file) begins as follows:

HEALTH CARE. Prohibits state or local governmental coercion of any Louisiana employer, health care provider, or individual to compel participation in any health care system or health insurance plan.

Crowe insists that Obamacare violates Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution and “is therefore unconstitutional.” He also feels that the president’s plans violates the 10th Amendment among others.

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