The Educated Idiots Award (Vol. 1, No. 1): “Baby, You Can’t Drive My Car”

My late father had a phrase to describe the arrogant intellectuals unacquainted with real life who foist their insane ideas on the “unenlightened” rest of us: The phrase was “educated idiots.”

Sadly, today his words ring ever truer. To witless:

(In what is rarely a good sign) a New York Times blog reports the Harvard-based Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs has determined fuel prices must rise significantly to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.  Thus, in the name of discredited Leftist psuedo-science, your gas prices could reach $7 a gallon.

In this tepid spat of Think Tanks vs. Gas Tanks, we glean two things: these researchers have recession-proof jobs; and they are unconcerned you don’t.

How else to explain these researchers’ cavalier demand that your shrinking family budget must get smaller and your job must become more tenuous all so Goddess Gaia can keep her cool?

In our real world, the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics’ 2009 annual summary reports that unemployment rates rose last year in all regions, divisions, and states.  And nowhere is the pain of this recessed economy deeper than in my Michigan, which had the largest increase in unemployment percentage from last year (5.3%); and has held the nation’s highest unemployment rate since this recession began (at times exceeding 15%).

(more…)

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Tags: belfer center for science and international affairs, Bureau of Labor Statistics, educated idiots, gas taxes, Harvard University
Posted Mar 5th 2010 at 7:01 am in Culture, Education, Environment, News, Politics | 8481090 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/tgmccotter/2010/03/05/the-educated-idiots-award-vol-1-no-1-baby-you-cant-drive-my-car/The+Educated+Idiots+Award+%28Vol.+1%2C+No.+1%29%3A+%22Baby%2C+You+Can%27t+Drive+My+Car%222010-03-05+15%3A01%3A52Rep.+Thaddeus+G.+McCotter+%28R-MI%29

Political Witchhunt: Update-Why Joe Bruno Will Be Exonerated

Those liberals, reformers, good-government types, New York Times editorial writers and Albany Times Union reporters who were toasting the conviction of long time New York Republican Senate Leader Joe Bruno, will soon have the smile wiped from their elitist faces. Joe Bruno has committed no crime and his exoneration will likely come from the U.S. Supreme Court.

I speak from the point of view of an attorney with a passion for the protections of the law.

In 1770, a rowdy mob of Massachusetts colonists accosted and provoked British soldiers until they responded with lethal force and committed the Boston Massacre.   The soldiers were arrested and placed on trial where their convictions seemed imminent out of sheer populace outrage.  One bold lawyer rose in their defense, John Adams, who in his closing argument reminded the jurors that “the law no passion can disturb.  Tis void of desire and fear, lust and anger . . . it is deaf, deaf as an adder to the clamours of the populace.”

Today the populace is clamoring at Joe Bruno.  They protested – protested! – His recent defense fund fundraisers, and blogs, abound with smug joy at the Senator’s conviction.  Meanwhile, the facts and flaws of the case have disappeared into the ruckus.   Nary a soul concerns itself with the serious constitutional misgivings of a law that has floundered through the federal circuit courts because no knows what it means.  Consider the helpless inquisition of Judge Jacobs in the Rybicki case, now Chief Judge of the Second Circuit – the same federal circuit hearing the Bruno case:

How can the public be expected to know what the statute means when the judges and prosecutors themselves do not know, or must make it up as they go along?

Or consider Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia who says that “it is simply not fair to prosecute someone for a crime that has not been defined until the judicial decision that sends him to jail.”

(more…)

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Tags: albany times, Andrew Cuomo, antonin scalia, Joe Bruno, John Adams
Posted Mar 4th 2010 at 11:51 am in Justice/Legal, News, Politics, State Politics | 8433834 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/bschiffman/2010/03/04/political-witchhunt-update-why-joe-bruno-will-be-exonerated/Political+Witchhunt%3A+Update-Why+Joe+Bruno+Will+Be+Exonerated2010-03-04+19%3A51%3A17Barry+Schiffman

Obama’s Continued War on the Market

In a further attack on the housing market, the New York Times recently reported that President Obama may be amending his loan modification program to make it even more difficult for defaulting homeowners to be foreclosed upon.  The Times states:

The Obama administration, under intense pressure to help millions of people in danger of losing their homes, is considering a ban on foreclosures unless they have first been examined for potential modification, according to a set of draft proposals.

That would raise the stakes from the current practice, which strongly encourages lenders to evaluate defaulting borrowers for a modification but does not make it mandatory.

Meg Reilly, a Treasury Department spokeswoman, said Thursday that the proposed foreclosure ban was “one of the many ideas under consideration in the administration’s ongoing housing stabilization efforts.” The proposal was first reported by Bloomberg News.

To be fair, the effects of this program may be minimal, with some interpreting the ban to be more about PR than anything substantive:

Laurie Goodman, a senior managing director at the Amherst Securities Group who has been highly critical of the government’s modification program, said even if the proposal came to pass, it would not be “a major change. We think there is a large public relations element to this.”

…The Mortgage Bankers Association said its members were already doing what the administration was considering.

“Lenders generally go to foreclosure as a measure of last resort, after all other options, including loan modification, are exhausted,” said John Mechem, the trade group’s vice president for public affairs.

Any enhancements the government made to the modification program would be unlikely to stem many foreclosures, said Howard Glaser, a prominent housing consultant.

Regardless of the impact however, this potential loan modification addendum adds insult to the injury of an already wrongheaded and destructive policy, and will only prolong the pain in the housing market.

The reasons for the woes in housing are quite simple.  Banks extended mortgages to borrowers that were poor credit risks, and many borrowers took out mortgages that they shouldn’t have either out of speculation or profligacy.  That the depression is throwing people out of work and keeping many jobless exacerbates the problem, in that unfortunately many who could have reasonably expected to afford their homes now cannot given their lack of sufficient cash flow.  Of course, truly prudent buyers might have saved to purchase their homes outright with cash.

(more…)

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Tags: Barack Obama, CRA, Federal Reserve, Harry Reid, Jeremiah Wright
Posted Mar 2nd 2010 at 8:37 am in Congress, Economics, News, Obama, Uncategorized | 8173476 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/amellon/2010/03/02/obamas-continued-war-on-the-market/Obama%27s+Continued+War+on+the+Market2010-03-02+16%3A37%3A22Andrew+Mellon

The Fox Butterfield Effect and the Laffer Curve

A former reporter for the New York Times, Fox Butterfield, became a bit of a laughingstock in the 1990s for publishing a series of articles addressing the supposed quandary of how crime rates could be falling during periods when prison populations were expanding. A number of critics sarcastically explained that crimes rates were falling because bad guys were behind bars and invented the term “Butterfield Effect” to describe the failure of leftists to put 2 + 2 together.

We now have a version of the Butterfield Effect in tax policy. Recent IRS data show that rich people earned a record amount of income in 2007 and also faced their lowest effective tax rate in almost two decades. Proponents of soak-the-rich tax policy complain about these developments, but they seem oblivious to the Laffer Curve insight that rich people earned more income in part because tax rates were lower. This video explains how the Laffer Curve works.

Liberals don’t understand that if they penalize the rich with higher tax rates, as President Obama is proposing, they will be disappointed to discover that they collect considerably less revenue than predicted for the simple reason that wealthy taxpayers will respond by earning less taxable income. This Bloomberg excerpt is a good example. The leftist quoted in the article assumes that income is a fixed variable and successful taxpayers will passively endure higher taxes.

(more…)

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Tags: Art Laffer, Capital Gains, Corporate Income tax, Dividends, Income tax
Posted Mar 1st 2010 at 10:59 am in Congress, Economics, News, Obama, Politics, Tax Reform, Uncategorized | 8242265 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/dmitchell/2010/03/01/the-fox-butterfield-effect-and-the-laffer-curve/The+Fox+Butterfield+Effect+and+the+Laffer+Curve2010-03-01+18%3A59%3A17Dan+Mitchell

‘Access to Guns,’ Not Jihad, to Blame for Ft. Hood, Says Noted Islamic Scholar

Imam Zaid Shakir came to speak at my school, Claremont McKenna, on December 9^th to respond to the “tragedy of Ft. Hood.” Rather than respond to the massacre of American servicemen, Shakir spent the evening indicting the United States – saying “we were born in genocide.” The reason for the Ft. Hood Massacre, according to Shakir? Not jihad or Islamic fundamentalism, but the “pervasiveness of violence in our society” and because of Americans’ “easy access to guns.”

Zaid Shakir – Final from The Claremont Conservative on Vimeo.

For those wondering who Mr. Shakir is, he’s the go-to expert on Islamic issues for the mainstream media. The New York Times describes him as a “leading intellectual light,” while rap scholar, Cornel West says “he is one of the towering principle [sic] voices not only in contemporary Islam, but in American society,” according to this biography.   Most recently, he was described by John Esposito as one of the “500 Most Influential Muslims.”

After comparing the massacres at Ft. Hood by Major Nidal Hassan to the Columbine killers and Maurice Clemmons, of Mike Huckabee pardon fame, Shakir said that the violence we have seen was not a “Muslim problem,” but a problem for everyone. You never quite know when someone will “snap.” [The following is extracted from a transcript from audio I took of the public lecture at my college.] (more…)

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Tags: Claremont McKenna, Cornel West, Ft. Hood, islam, Mike Huckabee
Posted Feb 8th 2010 at 11:32 am in Culture, Defense, News | 70726224 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/cjohnson/2010/02/08/access-to-guns-not-jihad-to-blame-for-ft-hood-says-noted-islamic-scholar/%27Access+to+Guns%2C%27+Not+Jihad%2C+to+Blame+for+Ft.+Hood%2C+Says+Noted+Islamic+Scholar2010-02-08+19%3A32%3A11Charles+C.+Johnson

NPR’s ‘All Things Considered’ Profiles Andrew Breitbart

From NPR’s “All Things Considered”:

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Conservative Blogger Faces Criticism Over Protege, by DAVID FOLKENFLIK

The conservative online news entrepreneur Andrew Breitbart is, for the moment, doing little to dispel stereotypes about bloggers. During a recent visit to his home on the west side of Los Angeles, Breitbart, 41, is working from his own basement. Barefoot. At the beck and call of his own kids.

But that basement is light and airy, with a decent view of the city. A young assistant works there with Breitbart to help funnel wire service stories to Breitbart.com, his main news aggregation site. And his reach, thanks to a brawling rhetorical style and a protege who taped the undercover ACORN videos last year, is only expanding.

Over the past year, Breitbart has hired editors to run a new network of conservative blogs called BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com and BigJournalism.com. No matter the focus, the media are a prime target throughout. (more…)

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Tags: 'All Things Considered', Andrew Breitbart, Breitbart.com, Clark Hoyt, DAVID FOLKENFLIK
Posted Feb 2nd 2010 at 8:36 pm in ACORN, Media Criticism, News | 6911884 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/publius/2010/02/02/nprs-all-things-considered-profiles-andrew-breitbart/NPR%27s+%27All+Things+Considered%27+Profiles+Andrew+Breitbart2010-02-03+04%3A36%3A39Publius

Understanding Liberal Rage Over Citizens United

On paper the Citizens United case has all the makings of a solid liberal issue.  First Amendment protections, considered sacrosanct by the left when a reporter is leaking classified information, are strengthened for those speaking truth to power.  Both the ACLU and AFL-CIO support the decision.  So why are prominent liberals speaking out so vehemently against it?

It would be easy to chalk up liberal outrage to a general hatred for all things corporate.  But is that enough to overcome what otherwise seems like a tailor-made liberal issue? After all, the ACLU said “[the prohibition on corporate speech] is facially unconstitutional under the First Amendment because it permits the suppression of core political speech.” Moreover, the corporate gains, which liberals might feel benefit the right, are offset by those of the unions and other liberal issue groups that benefit from the ruling just the same.  The net political impact is thus neutral, suggesting that their opposition isn’t political in nature.  Neither is it based on the merits. Rather, it is philosophical.

(more…)

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Tags: ACLU, Barack Obama, campaign finance, Citizens United, Free Speech
Posted Jan 23rd 2010 at 1:07 pm in Culture, Justice/Legal, Politics | 64194224 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/bgarst/2010/01/23/understanding-liberal-rage-over-citizens-united/Understanding+Liberal+Rage+Over+Citizens+United2010-01-23+21%3A07%3A54Brian+Garst

Telegraph: Breitbart #21 Most Influential US Conservative

From the U.K. Telegraph:

2009 was the breakout year for the irrepressible Andrew Breitbart, 40, a conservative firebrand operating deep in enemy territory in Los Angeles, and the sky will be his limit in 2010. A regular presence on Fox News and a Washington Times columnist, Breitbart cut his teeth working for Matt Drudge’s eponymous website and also had a spell with the Left-wing Huffington Post. He took on Hollywood in his group blog site BigHollywood and broke the ACORN scandal when the young unknown filmmakers Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe approached him with undercover footage of employees of the Left-wing community organising group condoning under-age prostitution by illegal immigrants. The mainstream media were slow to pick the story up but eventually they could not ignore it. (more…)

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Tags: ACORN, Andrew Breitbart, BigGovernment, BigHollywood, Breitbart.com
Posted Jan 14th 2010 at 10:17 am in ACORN, News | 5984682 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/publius/2010/01/14/telegraph-breitbart-21-most-influential-us-conservative/Telegraph%3A+Breitbart+%2321+Most+Influential+US+Conservative2010-01-14+18%3A17%3A30Publius

The Filibuster Is Constitutional and Essential for Freedom

Left wingers (including but not limited to the New York Times, Mother Jones, Think Progress, Washington Monthly and Ezra Klein) are trying to eliminate dissent in Congress by engaging in a coordinated attack on the idea of the Senate filibuster.  Clearly, the left hates extended debate and they are advocating that Vice President Joe Biden eliminate the filibuster by decree as President of the United States Senate.  They have no shame.

If you hate big government, you should love the Senate filibuster.  The filibuster serves the good government purposes of slowing legislation.  This allows citizens to understand and participate in the legislative process, provides scrutiny for complicated legislation and slows the process to confirm nominees.  The left absolutely hates the filibuster, because the filibuster prevents liberal Democrats from steamrolling moderate Democrats and Republicans when trying to pass legislation or confirming extremist judges with minimal debate.  A veteran Senate staffer tells Big Government that “the filibuster is a tool to slow down and make people really consider things. For those that believe in freedom and limited government the less the Congress does the better.”  Of course the left’s goal is to exterminate the filibuster from the Senate rules by setting the table for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to argue that a filibuster is unconstitutional, then for Vice President Biden to order that the rule be ignored.  (more…)

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Tags: Congressional Research Service, Constitution, Ezra Klein, filibuster, Harry Reid
Posted Jan 13th 2010 at 5:41 am in Congress, Culture, Featured Story, History, Politics | 5881851 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/bdarling/2010/01/13/the-filibuster-is-constitutional-and-essential-for-freedom/The+Filibuster+Is+Constitutional+and+Essential+for+Freedom2010-01-13+13%3A41%3A15Brian+Darling

Barack Obama and the Exhausted Presidency

In a recent puff piece, The New York Times reports that our President is tired. This is not the first such report. Back in May, when he treated England’s Gordon Brown so shabbily, the excuse given — according to The Daily Telegraph – was that wrestling with the economic crisis had left Barack Obama too exhausted to be able to focus on foreign affairs.

We should perhaps discount what was said in May. For, as I have attempted to document in detail here, here, here, here, here, and here, President Obama is a gentleman, and, as such, he is never unintentionally rude. He is, in fact, a master of the insulting gesture, which he seems to reserve for political opponents, such as Hillary Clinton, John McCain, and Sarah Palin, and for political leaders in countries, such as England, France, Germany, Israel, and Poland, which were closely associated with the United States prior to the Age of Obama.

This time, however, Barack Obama may be genuinely tired, and he may be depressed as well. He certainly has warrant. In public, he may claim that he deserves a B+ for his first year in office, but the polling data suggests that he has earned a failing mark, and he has to know better.

(more…)

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Tags: Al Qaeda, Barack Obama, Beijing, Chinese relations, Christmas Attack
Posted Dec 31st 2009 at 5:41 am in Congress, Defense, Featured Story, Healthcare, Obama, Politics | 53670353 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/prahe/2009/12/31/barack-obama-and-the-exhausted-presidency/Barack+Obama+and+the+Exhausted+Presidency2009-12-31+13%3A41%3A42Paul+A.++Rahe

Exclusive Audio: Was Bomber Ushered on to Flight 253 Without Papers?

Earlier today, while guest hosting on The Dennis Miller Show, Andrew Breitbart interviewed Kurt Haskell from Taylor, Michigan.  Mr. Haskell was a passenger on the now infamous Flight 253 on Christmas day from Amsterdam to Detroit.  We all know now how this flight ended (with the Flying Dutchman careening across multiple seats to stop a would-be-suicide bomber from exploding the plane and hundreds of innocent lives).  But, Mr. Haskell shared his story of what he witnessed before anyone even boarded the plane.

While waiting in the holding area in the Amsterdam airport, in a room designated for only the passengers of Flight 253, Mr. Haskell saw a well-dressed man of apparent Indian descent accompany a young, poorly attired man of African descent to the boarding gate.  What Mr. Haskell saw and heard next is of seemingly great significance:

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(more…)

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Tags: Andrew Breitbart, Big Journalism, Big Media, Christmas terror attack, CNN
Posted Dec 28th 2009 at 1:08 pm in Defense, Exclusives, News | 53014204 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/sright/2009/12/28/exclusive-audio-was-bomber-ushered-on-to-flight-253-without-papers/Exclusive+Audio%3A+Was+Bomber+Ushered+on+to+Flight+253+Without+Papers%3F2009-12-28+21%3A08%3A04Larry++O%26%2339%3BConnor

Earmarks Buy ObamaCare

Do you want a good laugh?  Check out this press release from January 18, 2006:

Democrats from across the country today unveiled their Honest Leadership and Open Government Act. In the Great Hall of the Library of Congress, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, were joined by Senator Barack Obama and Congresswoman Louise Slaughter and their Senate and House colleagues to shine a spotlight on the Republican “pay for play” politics that put special interests first at the expense of the priorities of the American people and signed a pledge to restore honest leadership and open government.

(more…)

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Tags: AP, Barack Obama, Esaminer, Harry Reid, Michelle Malkin
Posted Dec 21st 2009 at 2:28 pm in Congress, Healthcare | 5006689 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/bdarling/2009/12/21/earmarks-buy-obamacare/Earmarks+Buy+ObamaCare2009-12-21+22%3A28%3A38Brian+Darling

ObamaCare’s Do or Die Moment in the Senate

Saturday is a big day in the Senate for ObamaCare.  Congressional Quarterly reported that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) will unveil his manager’s package of changes to the Senate version of ObamaCare on Saturday morning and immediately file cloture to shut off debate on the package.  This package of changes to the bill and special interest projects were crafted by Reid to buy the support of members wavering in his caucus, including Senators Ben Nelson (D-NE), Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Jim Webb (D-VA).

Nobody knows if any acceptable compromise is possible at this point in the debate.  Liberals in the Democrat Caucus are mad because the public option has been scrapped and moderates are concerned that this bill has become so politically unpopular that a vote for any version of ObamaCare is the functional equivalent of political suicide.  If the Reid Amendment passes, then the President will be one step closer to victory.  If ObamaCare goes down in flames, then Monday may prove to be the President and Senator Harry Reid’s health care Waterloo.

(more…)

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Tags: Ben Nelson, Congressional Budget Office, Earmarks, Harry Reid, health care
Posted Dec 19th 2009 at 4:21 am in Congress, Featured Story, Healthcare, Uncategorized | 4939080 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/bdarling/2009/12/19/obamacares-do-or-die-moment-in-the-senate/ObamaCare%27s+Do+or+Die+Moment+in+the+Senate2009-12-19+12%3A21%3A51Brian+Darling

‘Clueless’ Clark Alert: The Top Ten Undernews Stories of the Year, Part I

Because nobody who’s anybody reads the The New York Times these days, except the die-harders and dead-enders along West End Avenue, as well as the editors of Time and Newsweek, you may not know who “Clueless” Clark Hoyt is, but it really doesn’t matter because he doesn’t know who you are, either.  For those scoring at home in their pajamas, Mr. Hoyt is the “public editor” of the Times, i.e. the hapless fellow who has to write those tedious Sunday reports to the readers, in which he explains why whatever the Times did was right and whatever they didn’t do… well, hey, they didn’t know about it!  What do you think they are, a “newspaper of record” or something?

Some editors told me they were not immediately aware of the Acorn videos on Fox, YouTube and a new conservative Web site called BigGovernment.com.  When the Senate voted to cut off all federal funds to Acorn, there was not a word in the newspaper, although a report in the Caucus blog that day covered the action. When the New York City Council froze all its funding for Acorn and the Brooklyn district attorney opened a criminal investigation, there was still nothing.

Well Mr. Hoyt, welcome to the world of the “undernews” – Mickey Kaus’s apt word for the news that everyone in the blogosphere knows about but, apparently, no one who gets his news strictly from the Times, other major newspapers, the newsweeklies, and most of the networks has the slightest inkling of.

(more…)

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Tags: ACORN, ACORN videos, Andy Stern, Buffy Wicks, Clark Hoyt
Posted Dec 18th 2009 at 5:29 am in ACORN, Culture, Featured Story, Media Criticism | 4708633 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/mwalsh/2009/12/18/clueless-clark-alert-the-top-ten-undernews-stories-of-the-year-part-i/%27Clueless%27+Clark+Alert%3A+The+Top+Ten+Undernews+Stories+of+the+Year%2C+Part+I2009-12-18+13%3A29%3A53Michael+Walsh

Unpacking the Job Numbers, Roadblocks for Bernanke, and the Future of Mainstream Media

Tons of news in the market today as we unpack the surprisingly good job numbers, the Senate holds placed on Ben Bernanke’s renomination, and the massive Comcast-NBC deal and what it says about the new realities for mass media. Today’s the 99th edition of Coffee and Markets, a daily podcast from The New Ledger on politics, policy and the marketplace with Francis Cianfrocca, brought to you by BigGovernment.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:

On Bernanke: Vitter, DeMint, Corker, Bunning
FTC on Media Bailout
New Realities for Mass Media
The FTC’s Shallow Dive into Journalism’s Future
The Real Reason Comcast is Buying NBC
Mainstream Media’s Broken Business Model

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Tags: Ben Bernanke, Comcast, Federal Reserve, FTC, GE
Posted Dec 4th 2009 at 8:58 am in Coffee and Markets, Economics, Media Criticism | 4116217 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/newledger/2009/12/04/unpacking-the-job-numbers-roadblocks-for-bernanke-and-the-future-of-mainstream-media/Unpacking+the+Job+Numbers%2C+Roadblocks+for+Bernanke%2C+and+the+Future+of+Mainstream+Media2009-12-04+15%3A58%3A11The+New+Ledger

Sen. Boxer and ClimateGate: The Terror of Tiny Town

As the USS Obama Administration slowly starts to settle into the waves, future historians will be kept busy searching for the source of the iceberg that holed it below the waterline on its maiden voyage to the land of Hope and Change.  Was it the non-stimulating “stimulus”?  The ludicrous Nobel Peace Prize?  The decision to try the Sept. 11^th plotters in lower Manhattan?  The Afghanistan speech at West Point this week, splitting the difference between surging and surrendering as the photo-op cadets nodded off in the background?  It’s a tough call, and the first year’s not even over yet.

But this administration is more than simply its swivel-headed Fearless Leader, ping-ponging between his teleprompters as the law of diminishing returns exerts its iron grip on his poll numbers.  It’s also the executive officers, the governing party’s top senators and congressmen, the palace courtiers who enforce discipline among the spear-carriers as they split up the swag.  In this, the Obama Administration is especially blessed, featuring both the frozen rictus of Anunciata d’Alesandro Pelosi as the speaker of the house and Harry “the Horse” Reid, an innocent Mormon virgin wandering among the fleshpots and real-estate deals of Las Vegas, as the Senate majority leader.  The Right is, indeed, fortunate in its enemies.

Still, the prize for the dumbest Democrat currently extorting a salary from the taxpayer (check out what her staff costs you here) remains where it long has been, in the grip of Barbara “Call Me Senator” Boxer, née Levy, the pride of Brooklyn and, latterly, of Marin County, Calif., and former relation-by-marriage to Hillary Rodham Clinton during the brief marriage between her daughter, Nicole, and Hillary’s sterling brother, Tony.  Tony Rodham, you may recall, is a former prison guard and repo man who managed to get himself into hot water over a hazelnut deal in the republic of Georgia, got caught up in Pardongate, was assaulted in flagranteby a man who claimed Tony was boinking his girlfriend, got caught up in bankruptcy court and battled his ex over child-support payments.

(more…)

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Tags: climate change, climate change emails, climate fraud, daniel ellsburg, Gen. Michael Walsh
Posted Dec 3rd 2009 at 4:51 pm in Congress, Environment, Featured Story, News, Politics | 40686134 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/mwalsh/2009/12/03/sen-boxer-and-climategate-the-terror-of-tiny-town/Sen.+Boxer+and+ClimateGate%3A+The+Terror+of+Tiny+Town2009-12-03+23%3A51%3A09Michael+Walsh

Objective Journalism: Michael Gerson Defends a Profession That No Longer Exists

Yesterday, Washington Post columnist and former Bush II speechwriter Michael Gerson played a long slow violin solo over the death of the mainstream media. There’s nothing new in his piece. Dazed with panic as the circle of financial ruin closes in, we’ve heard this song many times before from our ink-stained dinosaurs. And true to form, Gerson can’t break the mold. It’s all there, the rose-colored glasses, denial, and a heaping helping of rationalization.

Once again, from that familiar MSM perch where one can look down their nose at the great unwashed who just don’t understand the magnificent tradition of journalism they’re about to lose, Gerson blames We the People for no longer wanting  to pay for our news and choosing partisan sources “that reinforce and exaggerate … political predispositions.”

How absurd. (more…)

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Tags: ABC, ACORN, Big Media, CBS, Clarence Thomas
Posted Nov 28th 2009 at 11:29 am in Featured Story, Media Criticism | 38002150 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/jjmnolte/2009/11/28/objective-journalism-michael-gerson-defends-a-profession-that-no-longer-exists/Objective+Journalism%3A+Michael+Gerson+Defends+a+Profession+That+No+Longer+Exists2009-11-28+18%3A29%3A33John+Nolte

Black Friday Expectations and Stimulus Exaggerations

Black Friday predictions run from pessimistic to disastrous, negative interest rates worry the markets, and the New York Times makes ridiculous claims about the success of the stimulus. We discuss all this and more on today’s Coffee and Markets, a daily podcast from The New Ledger on politics, policy and the marketplace with Francis Cianfrocca, brought to you by BigGovernment.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:

NYT: Stimulus was Awesome!
MSNBC: Black Friday Safety
SmartMoney: Wall Street Expects Big Black Friday

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Tags: Black Friday, interest rates, New York Times, podcast, stimulus
Posted Nov 23rd 2009 at 8:06 am in Economics | 354949 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/newledger/2009/11/23/black-friday-expectations-and-stimulus-exaggerations/Black+Friday+Expectations+and+Stimulus+Exaggerations2009-11-23+15%3A06%3A06The+New+Ledger

Los Angeles Robocall Proves ACORN ‘Internal Review’ Is a Scam

Just a few weeks after the first undercover ACORN videos were released, Big Government received a recording of a robocall from ACORN that ran in the Los Angeles area. Around this time, ACORN’s Chief Organizer Bertha Lewis went before the National Press Club to stress that the actions of her employees revealed in the videos “made her sick.” She reiterated that she fired the employees involved and promised a thorough internal review and reform of ACORN.

So, the robocalls were a mea culpa and promise that ACORN would do better in the future? Hardly. Away from the kleig lights of the national press, ACORN continued to deny wrongdoings and deflect attention to “extremists” attacking her. On the calls, ACORN even reiterates the lie that James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles were turned away in Los Angeles.

Listen for yourself (in English and Spanish):

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Transcript and more after the jump.

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Tags: ACORN, ACORN corruption, ACORN internal review, ACORN Los Angeles, ACORN video scandal
Posted Nov 18th 2009 at 6:59 am in ACORN, Featured Story, Media Criticism, News, Politics | 8802112 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/capitolconfidential/2009/11/18/los-angeles-robocall-proves-acorn-internal-review-is-a-scam/Los+Angeles+Robocall+Proves+ACORN+%27Internal+Review%27+Is+a+Scam2009-11-18+13%3A59%3A57Capitol++Confidential