I doubt President Obama was considering this quote from the father of the Nobel Prize when he approved “Hope & Change” as his campaign slogan. No one can contest much has changed in Washington since Obama took office but the polls suggest it was not the “change” the American people were expecting. This reality prompted democratic strategist to examine which issues to front run in the midterm elections and which issues to hide. Ironically, what should be their greatest accomplishment, healthcare reform, finds itself buried six feet under.

A Reuters’ consumer confidence poll found 5 percent more Americans were worried about their ability to pay for health services in July than they were last December. They have good reason to be concerned. Estimates for employer based health plans are expected to rise almost 10% in 2010, with employees paying for a larger portion of their insurance. For those buying insurance on the open market, they can expect a 20% increase.

“The healthcare debate raised people’s expectation, and there is now disappointment as a result that the problem isn’t solved” David Kendall, health expert for ThirdWay, a centrist think tank, told Reuters. One of the biggest criticisms of the Healthcare Reform Bill was it didn’t address the raising costs of health care and insurance, focusing instead on adding the estimated 30 million uninsured to the ranks.

The public’s growing concern about healthcare reform wasn’t lost on Democratic strategists who recently conducted focus groups in Las Vegas. They also conducted two separate polls with about 3000 potential voters. They wanted to measure the publics feeling about Obamacare and help the Democrats make an effective case for the bill they passed last March. It’s fair to say they didn’t much like what they learned.

What they discovered was voters weren’t buying the democratic case that health care reform will insure more than 30 million uninsured people and save money at the same time.  And when they think about their own health care, people worry that reform will mean less, not more, availability of health care, and at a higher cost.

Faced with these realities, strategist had to come up with recommendations for Democratic candidates. They concluded that candidates should avoid talking about policy and stick to “personal stories” of those who will benefit from Obamacare. They should also “keep claims small and credible” and promise to “improve” the law. But above all, “don’t say the law will reduce costs and the deficit.”

But wait….wasn’t that the main reason for passing the bill in the first place? “This legislation will lower costs for families and business and for the federal government, reducing our deficit by over $1 trillion in the next two decades” President Obama said when he signed the bill into law on March 23. It now appears the Democrats are throwing that argument out the hospital window.

“This is the first time we’ve seen from Democrats that they clearly understand they have a serious problem in terms of selling this legislation” says republican pollster David Winston. It’s no mystery why the Democrats want to bury health care. An average of recent polls shows 52% of Americans oppose the law while only 39% support it. And according to Rasmussen, overall support for repeal of the law ranges from 52% to 61%.

Looking at the political landscape, it hard to find something the Democrats can talk about. With almost 10% unemployment, they shouldn’t talk about the economy or the $800 billion stimulus package. It’s hard to spin the upcoming tax increases in a positive light. There’s not much good to say about either immigration or Afghanistan. I would avoid “Hope & Change” as well. So what’s left?

Well…there’s always Bush bashing.  I’d hate to be a Democratic strategist these days!

This is John Galt Speaking!

Ethics is defined as the study of moral standards and how they affect conduct. I state this because I believe our current administration may have forgotten the true definition. Despite promises of openness and transparency, the Obama Administration (and current Democratic Congress) has failed to fulfill these campaign commitments. That trend continued last week when Obama appointed “ethics czar” Norm Eisen as Ambassador to the Czech Republic and abolished the position in his White House dedicated to transparency.

Some of Eisen’s responsibilities will be handed to Domestic Policy Council member Steve Croley. However, the bulk of the job will be handed off to Bob Bauer, White House Council and former lobbyist while employed at Perkins Coie. Ironic because during his presidential campaign, Obama declared that, "lobbyists won't find a job in my White House." Even more disturbing are comments Bauer has made which shows a disdain for openness and a distrust of those trying to check the power of government.

“Disclosure is a mostly unquestioned virtue deserving to be questioned” blogged Bauer in August of 2006. This is the man the White House has put in charge of making this the most open White House ever?

Perhaps no other campaign promise by Obama resonated with voters than his pledge to improve transparency in Government. However, it was a little more than a week after taking his oath when he broke his first promise regarding openness. Failing to allow for five days for public comments on the White House website, Obama signed into law ‘The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009’ on January 29.

It was the first but certainly not the last of unfulfilled pledges and promises regarding transparency. According to the website Politifact.com, there are at least eight promises on transparency which Obama made during his campaign that have either been broken or are currently unfulfilled. Some of these include an end to no-bid contracts over $25,000, establishing transparency standards for military contractors and making White House communications public, to name a few.

Another pledge that Politifact should have deemed broken was the establishment of an independent watchdog agency to investigate congressional ethics violations. Obama chose instead to focus on the executive branch due to the boundaries of separation of power. As a result, the foxes are still guarding the hen house in Congress. It remains to be seen if Nancy Pelosi’s pledge to “drain the swamp” will result in the ousting of Representatives Charles Rangle and Maxine Waters, both of whom have ethics violation charges against them.

It’s also hard to explain how recess appointments can fall under the auspices of a transparent administration. Two such appointments, Donald Berwick and Craig Becker, have come under criticism for conflicts of interest. Berwick, a recess appointment selected to head up Medicare and Medicaid, may have failed to disclose funding sources which should have been listed on his standard ethics agreement that officials use to root out potential conflicts. Becker, a recess appointment to the National Labor Relations Board, has failed to recuse himself in multiple cases involving his former employer, most notably, SEIU and the AFL-CIO.

There is no doubt that both Republicans and Democrats have been guilty of ethics violations in the past. But few Presidential candidates have painted themselves above the fray than Barack Obama did during his campaign.  I guess expecting a Chicago politician to champion a “rebirth” of ethics in government was too much to expect. With the abolishment of the “Ethics Czar” it’s unlikely any light will shine through on unethical activities in Washington. In fact….it appears the windows at the White House have been permanently tinted.

This is John Galt Speaking!

Examples of arrogance in Government are everywhere be it Federal, State or local. With unemployment pushing 10% and many struggling to pay their mortgage, First Lady Michelle Obama just returned from a lavish vacation to Spain that cost the taxpayers $375,000 for Secret Service security and Air Force Two expenses alone. The New York Post has dubbed her a contemporary Marie Antoinette.  Her husband has played over 56 rounds of golf since taking office. He surpassed President Bush’s total of 24 rounds of golf only 10 months after taking the oath of office. Last month, the Obama’s vacationed as a family in Maine while oil from the BP spill fouled the gulf coast.

Arrogance seems to run rampant throughout Washington DC. Earlier this week, USA Today ran an article which reported that Federal workers earn twice their private market counterparts. Federal worker compensation grew almost 37% since 2000 after adjusting for inflation, compared with 8.8% for private workers. Obama has approved a 1.4% pay hike for about 2 million federal workers in 2011. Republicans want to cancel the increase which would save about $2.2 Billion.

Arrogance seems to flourish in the House of Representatives where two members, Charles Rangel (D-NY) and Maxine Waters (D-CA) have been brought up on ethics violations. Rangle, charged with 13 ethics violations including failure to report income and pay his taxes on rental income, displayed his arrogance when he said he’d made some mistakes, apologized and should be forgiven. Maxine Waters’ charges focus on whether she broke the rules in requesting TARP funds for a bank where her husband owned stock and had served on the board of directors.

Of course, state governments have proven to be just as arrogant. California, New York and Illinois all have serious budget issues, thanks to the swelling ranks of their public employee unions and growing pension obligations. In California, more than 15,000 public retirees receive pensions that exceed $100,000 a year. A 2008 state commission pegged California's unfunded pension liability at a whopping $63.5 billion!

Of course, who can forget Bell California’s exorbitant salary levels for their City Manager, Police Chief and council members? Bell, who’s 38,000 residents have a per capita income of about $25,000, was paying their City Manager almost $800,000 a year while their police chief earned $457,000. Their “part time” council members made around $100,000. Public uproar forced most of these arrogant officials to resign. The controversy has made cities all over the country review their salary levels.

The “arrogance of officialdom” and abuse of power by our elected officials is fueling a new political revolution in this country. It’s a distinctly conservative movement whose principles are based upon the ideals of our founding fathers and the constitution. It’s based on a belief in individual liberty, limited government, and above all, political accountability from the ruling elite. The future of our country depends on winning this revolution. If not…..we’ll likely face the same fate as Rome.

This is John Galt Speaking!

I guess Governor Bob wouldn’t be surprised at the results of Senator John McCain and Senator Tom Coburn’s report entitled “Summertime Blues: 100 stimulus projects that give taxpayers the blues.” The report highlights some of the ridiculous projects from the $862 billion Stimulus Bill which promised to rescue the American economy back in February, 2009.

The bill, entitled “The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act” was promised to stimulate the economy and hold unemployment to 8.5%. Now, 17 months later and a 9.5% unemployment rate, America is getting a glimpse of exactly how Obama intended to “stimulate” the economy. Here are just a few morsels from the report:

1. $750,000 to design a computerized dance choreography program.

2. $2 Million to study and photograph exotic ants.

3. Almost $90,000 to rebuild a sidewalk which terminates in a ditch.

4. $1.2 Million to renovate a graffiti-riddled train station into a museum.  And my favorite…..

5. $678,000 to study how primates responded to “distributional inequality” and “unfairness”. Another $73,000 went to study how monkeys react under cocaine.

It baffles me why they used primates for this study when they had millions of American taxpayers who were already suffering from “distributional inequality”. And why study monkeys on cocaine when Lindsay Lohan was available to observe while in lock up? In any event, the report highlighted 100 wasteful programs and demonstrated how “misdirected government spending” has actually hurt some small business by pulling them away from more productive activities.

Problems with the “Stimulus Bill” surfaced back in October 2009 when the “Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board” (sounds like something out of “Atlas Shrugged”) released their error ridden report on how many jobs were created or “saved” as a result of the stimulus money. The report, which claimed over 640,000 jobs were created or “saved” was later found to be full off false data and duplicate entries. Some recipients claimed the funds saved thousands of jobs when actually they went to fund pay raises and hire part time students.

So what exactly did we get for $862 billion? While I’m sure that some jobs were saved, it’s impossible to determine how many. The claim that the stimulus package would hold unemployment at 8.5% has turned out to be nothing more than an empty political promise intended to get the votes necessary to pass the bill. Many say it was nothing but a slush fund, used to line the pockets of unions and other special interest. The only obvious result seem to be a 23% increase to our national debt which now stands at $13.2 trillion….a new record.

To be fair, George Bush’s attempt at stimulus failed as well but at least he put cash into the hands of the taxpayer allowing them to decide how to spend it. What most did with the cash should serve as an economics lesson for this financially challenged administration. They either put the money in the bank…or paid down their debt.  In fact, consumers and business have taken the correct steps during this recession. They have both become more efficient, paid down debt and saved as much money as possible. The personal savings rate went from around 2% in 2007 to over 6% currently. American companies are showing nearly $2 trillion in cash on their balance sheets while they wait for a more business friendly environment.

If we learned anything from this tragic, expensive mistake is that Government does not create jobs….the private sector does. But Newt Gingrich did point out that Obama has created at least three new jobs, Bob McDonnell, Chris Christy and Scott Brown. I’m sure his record will improve come this November.

This is John Galt Speaking!

While many regard the recent ruling by US District Judge Susan Bolton to block several key elements of the Arizona Immigration law SB1070 as a victory for the Obama Administration, very few people see the irony in it. With less than 100 days until the mid-term elections, exactly how does a prolonged legal battle and debate on illegal immigration and states rights help the democrats? Once again, Obama finds himself on the wrong side of public opinion, handing the Tea Party and his critics more fodder as we approach November.

The temporary injunction, handed down yesterday, basically rendered most of the law impotent. Bolton, appointed by President Bill Clinton, blocked the section of the law that required local and state law enforcement officials to check the immigration status of those they suspected were illegal immigrants. The judge said the state measure was preempted by federal law because such checks would swamp federal immigration officials who are pursuing different priorities. “The number of requests that will emanate from Arizona as a result of determining the status of every arrestee is likely to impermissibly burden federal resources and redirect federal agencies away from the priorities they have established,” Bolton wrote. Basically ruling….it’s too much work for the federal government to enforce the immigration laws.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer called the decision by Judge Bolton "a bump in the road" and vowed to appeal. Paul Senseman, a spokesman for Ms. Brewer, said Arizona would ask the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to lift Bolton's preliminary injunction and to expedite its consideration of the state's appeal.

Republicans quickly denounced both the ruling and the Justice Department for challenging the law in the first place. Some said the ruling would further energize voters who are angry about what they see as federal overreach on health care and other issues. Over fifty five percent of Americans favor the Arizona immigration law.

Rep. John Boozman, the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate in Arkansas, said he expected the judge's ruling to further rile voters and motivate them to reject Democratic incumbents. "It's a defining issue," Mr. Boozman said.

William Gheen, president of the anti-illegal immigrant “Americans for Legal Immigration”, called for all congressional incumbents to be ousted in November. "There's a wave of anger sweeping across this nation today as people of all races and political affiliations feel that we the people have been betrayed by this president and this judge," he said.

Democrats, divided on the issue and running against stiff political headwinds, were unsure how the ruling would play out. Some called it an unhelpful distraction from the campaigns they have been building around jobs, economic themes and border enforcement. Pat Waak, chairwoman of the Colorado Democratic Party, said candidates can't win in the fall if they aren't talking about jobs and the economy.

Arizona is just one state to enact laws to address the growing problem of illegal immigration. Five states have introduced legislation similar to Arizona’s law, and 20 others are reportedly considering it. Some lawmakers pushing the legislation said they would not be daunted by the ruling and plan to push ahead in response to what they believe is a scourge that needs to be tackled.

So, Obama’s obsession with securing Hispanic votes has collided with political reality. This ruling could not have come at a worse time for democrats up for reelection. Many are now scrambling to distance themselves from Obama and his unpopular policies. Well…as Alanis Morissette sang: “It’s a black fly in your chardonnay. It’s a death row pardon two minutes too late. Isn’t it ironic….don’t you think?”

This is John Galt Speaking!

I came across this passage while looking for a quote on divisiveness in politics. Known as the “Ten Cannot’s”, it was part of a pamphlet written by William Boetcker, an American religious leader and public speaker. It’s as appropriate today as it was in 1916, when another progressive president resided in the White House, Woodrow Wilson. The passage was erroneously attributed to Abraham Lincoln in another political pamphlet in 1942 which targeted the progressive policies of FDR.

On all accounts, Obama has broken every one of the “Ten Cannot’s”. As a result, the nation has been divided into a myriad of classifications. Right v. Left, Rich v. Poor, Wall Street v. Main Street, and most unfortunately, White v. Black. The extent of the divisiveness became apparent last week when the NAACP launched an attack on the Tea Party, passing a resolution to condemn extremist elements within the Tea Party ranks. This was followed up by a deceptively edited video on the Big Government website which highlighted Dept. of Agriculture Shirley Sherrod telling an NAACP group that she failed to fully help a white farmer save his farm. In a knee jerk reaction, the DOA, failing to fully investigate the video and pressured by the White House, forced her to resign. Later, it was discovered that her comments were taken out of context and she has since been offered a new position within the Dept. of Agriculture.

Clearly, there are no winners in this pitiful exchange of racial tit-for-tats. The media once again proved that true journalism is dead and the White House showed how easily they can be duped by a sensationalist website. What is even more disturbing was the story that appeared this week in The Daily Caller, a website started by Tucker Carlson. According to records obtained by The Daily Caller, during the 2008 presidential campaign a group of liberal journalists took radical steps to protect their favored candidate, Barack Obama. In one instance, Spencer Ackerman of the Washington Independent told his colleagues to deflect attention away from Obama’s relationship with Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Pick one of Obama’s critics, Ackerman wrote, “Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares — and call them racists.”

So, did anyone actually benefit from the NAACP and Sharon Sherrod fiasco? If it accomplished anything, it temporarily diverted attention away from the real issues facing this country. A languishing economy with 9.7% unemployment, record budget deficits with out of control federal spending, a housing market in ruins and the lowest approval ratings yet for the Obama Administration. I can think of no dirtier tactic than stoking racial hatred in an attempt to cover up the failed policies of our current administration.

While I have little confidence in journalistic integrity, I do have faith in the voters to see through these despicable tactics and cast their ballots based on the current issues facing them. Recent polls indicate that the people are fed up with dirty politics and the never ending partisanship in Washington. The “Ten Cannot’s” should serve as a lesson that we cannot progress as a nation if we continue with these divisive political tactics.

This is John Galt Speaking!

You hear the phrase everyday from the talking heads on CNBC or Fox Business. “Uncertainty” is holding back the Nations economy. Despite sitting on cash hoards estimated at $1.6 trillion dollars, Corporate America remains fearful of the policies of the Obama Administration.  So much so….CEO’s who once supported Obama, are now calling his administration “anti-business”. “It is without question, the most hostile administration to business and to the role of business that we’ve had in decades,” said Mort Zuckerman, owner of the New York Daily News during an MSNBC interview. Tuesday, The Washington Post reported a 65% decline in donations to the Democratic Party from Wall Street, no doubt the result of the financial regulation bill nearing passage in Congress. 

The claim of “uncertainty” is only partially true. Corporate America is certain they will experience higher taxes in 2011. They’re certain healthcare costs will be increasing. They will no doubt see an increase in regulatory compliance costs as well as energy costs. No….Corporate America is CERTAIN they will be paying more in 2011. The uncertainty is “how much” and when will the bills come due? Until Obama provides some clarity to these questions, Corporate America will hold their ground and sit on their huge cash pile. Small business, which requires a free flowing capital market, is paralyzed as lending has dried up while banks wait to see the impact of financial reform.

One only needs to study the Great Depression to understand what is going on in today’s business world.  Amity Shlaes, author of The Forgotten Man and a Bloomberg columnist, recalled parallels with Franklin Delano Roosevelt when banks held a “capital strike”.  

“In the 1930s, the capital strike was followed by the depression of 1937-38 within the Depression. Today too, capital ponders going on strike. And without big policy changes the economy will face similar consequences” wrote Shlaes in a December editorial. “The results of the 1930s capital strike were wicked. The DOW erased two years worth of gains, heading to Hoover-era levels. Unemployment, in the lower teens, leapt to almost 20 percent” Shlaes added.

Recently, Obama is reaching out to business leaders as the “anti-business” rhetoric finds more ink in newspapers across America. On Wednesday, Obama met with Warren Buffett at the White House. He also conferred separately with Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan and Honeywell Chairman David Cote. On the same day, one of the most ardent Obama critics, the US Chamber of Commerce, held their own Job Summit. They urged the president to curb regulations and continue the Bush tax cuts to avert a double-dip recession.

I doubt any of these business leaders quoted Ayn Rand during their meeting with the President. Perhaps he should consider this quote from Atlas Shrugged:

“Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns – or dollars. Take your choice – there is no other – and your time is running out."

This is John Galt Speaking!

It appears that the Department of Justice “misdiagnosed” the Arizona immigration enforcement law. After months of calling the law “discriminatory” with claims of racial profiling, the DOJ surrendered that position when they filed suit earlier this week against Arizona law SB1070. Instead, the DOJ has chosen perhaps the weakest legal argument, preemption, claiming Arizona's new immigration law illegally intrudes on the constitution’s “supremacy clause” that says federal law trumps state statutes.

But wait….Arizona’s law does not set up the state as an adjudicator of complaints and it will not prosecute any immigration cases. The law simply requires police to check status and refer suspects to ICE when appropriate. The state is not claiming they have a higher jurisdiction…or any jurisdiction at all. Does this mean it’s unconstitutional for local police to respond to a bank robbery in progress because robbing an FDIC-insured bank is a federal crime? Should they ignore a counterfeiter who was caught passing bogus currency? What about federal drug laws? Terrorism? Wire Fraud?

If the DOJ is serious about taking this position, they will need to explain why they sponsored a program to train state and local crime fighters on immigration law and enforcement. The program, called “Basic Immigration Enforcement Training” was a program intending to train 500 officers in order to have a working knowledge of immigration law and policy. It seems rather clear that the DOJ intended to get state and local law enforcement involved in immigration efforts.

Of course, this lawsuit is not about federal jurisdiction or even upholding the rule of law. Like many of the Obama Administration policies, this is about one thing….politics. Or more specifically, votes. Obama’s approval rating among Hispanics has dropped 20% since January according to a recent Gallop poll. Obama is out of step with the public on immigration. The latest Fox News Opinion poll shows 2-1 support nationwide for Arizona’s law. Volunteers even contributed $500,000 to help defend the law.

No doubt, immigration is a political “hot potato” on both sides of the aisle. There have been more “flip flops” on immigration then perhaps any other political issue. Recently, Senator Lindsey Graham(R-SC) criticized the Obama lawsuit, claiming the suit will be “counter productive”. Previously, Graham called Arizona’s law “unconstitutional” in an April hearing with Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. Well Senator….which is it? Others who have changed their position over immigration are Arizona’s own John McCain as well as California candidate for Governor, Meg Whitman.

Perhaps the greatest sticking point on immigration is the call for a secure border verse comprehensive immigration reform. According to Arizona Senator John Kyl, the President told him privately “The problem is...if we secure the border, then you all won’t have any reason to support comprehensive immigration reform”. In other words, they’re holding it hostage. They don’t want to secure the border unless and until it is combined with comprehensive immigration reform. The White House denied the President made the comment.

However, in a post 911 era, a secure border is exactly what the American people are calling for.  Remembering the debacle of previous Amnesty programs, the public recognizes the need for a secure border before any discussion of a path to citizenry for the estimated 18-20 million illegals currently in this country.

As Tom Tancredo pointed out, Democrats see immigrants as a vast pool of potential voters. Many believe Republican’s see immigrants as a cheap source of labor. While the left and right duke it out over the wrong political remedy….who’s paying attention to the terrorist sneaking in with a ticking suitcase?

This is John Galt Speaking!

Otis McDonald did indeed have a gun. However he was not in “control” of it. He was forced to store his handgun outside the city limits of Chicago after the city passed gun registration rules essentially banning all handguns. This all changed when the Supreme Court overturned Chicago’s handgun ban and ruled that the Second Amendment is incorporated by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and applies equally to the states. The decision cleared up some uncertainty over state gun laws that remained after the Supreme Court lifted a similar handgun ban (D.C vs. Heller) in the District of Columbia.

Needless to say, the handgun ban didn’t sit well with old McDonald so he and three other Chicago residents filed a suit contesting the citywide ban. After a trial court ruled in favor of the city, the case was combined with another similar case (NRA v. Chicago) and heard by the 7^th Circuit Court of Appeals which affirmed the Trial Courts decision that Chicago gun regulations pass constitutional muster. The Second Amendment Foundation appealed to the US Supreme Court on behalf of the plaintiffs and on March 2, heard oral arguments. On June 28, the high court overturned the lower courts decisions on a 5-4 vote, subjecting state gun regulations to the requirements of the second amendment.

How ironic the two cities which had gun bans overturned, Chicago and Washington DC, are among the most violent in our nation. The week before the Supreme Court handed down their decision, 26 people were shot in Chicago, three fatally. The previous weekend, 50 people were gunned down with eight fatalities. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley seems completely oblivious to the fact that his gun ban has done nothing to curb the escalating crime and street violence his city has experienced over the last few years. Otis McDonald had experienced the crime first hand. His Southside home had been broken into three times and he had death threats after calling the police to his home. Another plaintiff in the Chicago case, Colleen and David Lawson, had also been a victim of crime. While Colleen was home alone with the flu, three men tried to jimmy open her back door. They fled when they saw Colleen through a Window.

The Second Amendment has long been contested by those who feel they know more than our founding fathers. The Chicago City Council thought they could bypass the constitution through restrictive registration laws. They allowed registrations of rifles…but not handguns. They mandated that guns be re-registered every year and if the registration lapsed, the gun was ineligible for registration. Of course, the court saw through these ridiculous restrictions and found the Chicago regulations unconstitutional. Still licking his wounds three days following the high court decision, Mayor Daley has now launched a new set of gun regulations for Chicago. Ignoring the verdict of the high court, Daley’s new restrictions include a ban on gun retailers in Chicago. Additionally, gun owners will only be allowed one “operational” handgun and many will need to store these in a lock box or with a trigger guard. If the city council passes these new gun measures, you can be assured they will be immediately challenged in court.

While gun owners can bask in the afterglow of this court victory, the future of gun ownership is still very much in question. The NRA is opposing Elena Kagan's nomination to the Supreme Court and warning senators that it will take their votes into account when considering endorsing their re-election. Top NRA officials say Kagan has "repeatedly demonstrated a clear hostility" to gun rights in her career in government and academia.

The Second Amendment is perhaps one of the clearest written sections of the Bill of Rights. How much uncertainty is there in the words “…the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed”? Of course, the current administration (and numerous City and State governments) is not concerned with operating within the boundaries of the Constitution. We should be very grateful there are courageous citizens like Otis McDonald who will stand up to the abusive power of Government and carry the fight to the highest court in the land. As a result, Old McDonald is now in complete control of his gun, as it should be. At least for now….

This is John Galt Speaking!

Representative Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) has been busy contriving a way around the Citizen United Supreme Court Decision handed down earlier this year. His solution: Disregard the Supreme Court ruling and draft a new piece of legislation called the Disclosure Act. A desperate partisan ploy by the majority to stifle free speech in the upcoming election, Hollen realizes the Disclosure Act will later be struck down by the courts…..months after the November elections.

This disregard for the “rule of law” has become a cultural thumb print of the Obama Administration and the current Congress. With the “ends justifying the means” Hollens has constructed a bill that tramples the 1^st Amendment while thumbing its nose at the Judicial Branch.

The legislation alters disclosure rules for campaigns by requiring major backers to appear at the end of commercials for their candidate and announce they sponsored the ad. However, Hollens has provided exceptions for democratic allies such as Unions. For those requiring disclosure, a 30-second ad would utilize 13-26 seconds to comply with the law.

In a letter to the House of Representatives, the Center for Individual Freedom wrote: 

The DISCLOSE Act is constitutionally dubious based on its forced disclosure of the identities of members of an organization. The Supreme Court refused to uphold this type of comprehensive disclosure in NAACP v. Alabama, recognizing that compelled disclosure can be used to intimidate speech.

This bill runs afoul of this precedent in two ways: by forcing the top donors of a group, who are not necessarily the specific donors to an ad, to appear in a political communication and by forcing groups to disclose members of their organization who are not necessarily funding communications. This shifts the regulatory paradigm away from those who are actually funding advertisements and targets, for the first time, individual membership in a group. This inclusive treatment of organizational funding reveals that the intent of this legislation is not true disclosure – it is the intimidation of speech. Moreover, in its recent ruling in Citizens United, the Supreme Court held that the identity of the speaker cannot provide justification for the inhibition of its speech. By allowing union speech while punishing the speech of similar associations, H.R. 5175 does exactly this.

Clearly, groups such as the Tea Party Movement are in the crosshairs of this law. As a grassroots movement, the Tea Party depends heavily on the power of the internet and political blogs to spread their messages. The Disclosure Act limits speech on certain political blogs and other internet communications by subjecting them to new “coordinated communications” restrictions while omitting more traditional media such as newspapers and magazines.

In order to get the legislation passed in time to restrict political speech in the upcoming November election, Congress is fast tracking this bill and bypassing the Federal Election Commission. Enacting a vague law without waiting for the FEC to issue instructions and rules that people can follow intentionally targets some political groups with both civil and criminal penalties.

Of course, the Disclosure Act is just another example of the Obama Administration disdain for the “rule of law”. Want some more examples? How about the immigration laws he refuses to enforce? And then there is the trampling of the rights of both GM and Chrysler bond holders. Don’t forget the appointment of activist judges such as Sonia Sotomayor. Most recently, federal judge Martin Feldman overturned Obama’s punitive prohibition on deep water drilling, calling it a “blanket moratorium without parameters”.  

As a graduate of Harvard Law School, Obama clearly understands the law; he just fails to uphold it. But can you name another tyrant in history who actually cared about following the law?

This is John Galt Speaking!

I guess George Gilder made this statement long before Barrack Obama kicked started the job creation machine known as the Census 2010. Last month, the Census job machine created 411,000 temporary Census jobs while the private sector generated only 41,000 jobs. The operative word here is “created”. According to reports in the New York Post, many of the supposed jobs included in the Census numbers are phantom jobs generated by firing and then rehiring the same worker over and over again.

Last month, one of the workers hired by Census 2010 to parade around the country counting Americans blew the whistle on some statistical tricks.  The worker, Naomi Cohn, told The New York Post that she was hired and fired a number of times by Census. Each time she was hired back, the Census was able to report the creation of a new job to the Labor Department. Once this article ran, the Post began receiving e-mails from other Census workers who were hired, fired and then re-hired again.

"I am on my fourth rehire with the 2010 Census” wrote John from Manhattan. "I have been hired, trained for a week, given a few hours of work, then laid off. So my unemployed self now counts for four new jobs. I have been paid more to train all four times than I have been paid to actually produce results” John added.

So how exactly does the Census count their employees? Each month Census gives the Department of Labor a figure on the number of workers it hired. That figure goes into the monthly employment report Labor provides. The Labor Department doesn't check the Census hiring figure or whether the jobs are actually new or recycled. It considers a new job to have been created if someone is hired to work at least one hour a month. That’s right…it’s not a typo! One hour a month! So, if a worker is terminated after only one hour and another is hired in their place, then a second new job can be reported to the Labor Dept. 

The questionable math does not stop at counting their employees. Instructions provided to Census workers counting the homeless appear to intentionally double count those without a permanent address. The Census Bureau gave these workers instructions that seemed very unusual. When counting the homeless, the worker did not need to take the persons name or date of birth, and if a homeless person insisted they had already been counted, the workers were instructed to count that person anyway.

“Unique to this operation, enumerators were allowed to create an individual Census record based on their direct observation of the race, gender and ethnicity of the respondent,” an Inspector General report on Census operations confirmed.  It seems that Obama’s Department of Commerce, which oversees the Census, has legitimized the double or triple counting of the homeless in order to justify additional welfare funding for the inner cities as well as gerrymandering predominately democratic districts.

Of course, Obama is no stranger to expanding the voter rolls. As head of “Project Vote” he worked with ACORN to expand the voter rolls of African Americans in Chicago. He said he wanted to empower disenfranchised citizens. Well…who’s more disenfranchised than the homeless? After losing an election for Congress to Bobby Rush in 2000, then state senator Obama enlisted the help of Democratic Consultant John Corrigan in order to “redraw” the states political map to serve his political goals. This type of Gerrymandering has produced a popular cliché: Formerly, voters choose their politicians; now, politicians choose their voters.

Of course, this is more than an example of the Chicago style politics I wrote about last week. This is institutionalized fraud on a national level and it’s intended to distort the bleak job outlook in this country while expanding the progressive agenda of welfare dependency in our inner cities. But as Raul Emanuel likes to say: You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.

This is John Galt Speaking!

If you were to believe White House counsel Bob Bauer, the Obama administration must be full of “pure” men. It took no time at all for Bauer to release a memo last Friday on the Joe Sustak controversy declaring the allegations of political tampering by the White House in the Pennsylvania Senate race “lacked a basis in law.” A reasonable man may find that hard to believe, considering this administrations track record of actually reading the law. I guess Bauer hasn’t read the Hatch Act or 18 USC 595.

Of course, you would also have to believe that the White House would send former President Bill Clinton to offer an obscure, unpaid position to Representative Joe Sestak in return for dropping out of the Senate primary race against Arlen Specter. They really should have got their cover story straight. It turns out that Sustak would not have qualified to serve on a Presidential Advisory Board while serving as a US representative. A little reading of the rules would have informed Bob Bauer and Raul Emanuel of this before they released this obvious cover story.

And Sustak was not the first senate candidate they tried to influence. Perhaps they recruited President Clinton because earlier attempts by Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina failed to lure Colorado Senate candidate Andrew Romanoff to an administration position. Messina, known as one of Obama’s best “fixers”, spoke with Romanoff on Sept. 11, 2009 and “dangled” three potential positions at the U.S Agency for International Development if he dropped out of the Senate race. He even sent job descriptions to Romanoff for his perusal. The White House maintains that no formal job offer was ever extended to Romanoff.

Despite previous claims by Obama that he would improve transparency in government, it appears that the “Chicago Way” is firmly entrenched in Washington.

"Clearly, Joe Sestak and Andrew Romanoff aren't isolated incidents and are indicative of a culture that embraces the politics-as-usual mentality that the American people are sick and tired of. Whatever the Obama brand use to stand for has been irrevocably shattered by the activities going on inside Barack Obama's White House," said Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who has unsuccessfully sought a Justice Department investigation into the Sestak matter.

The “Chicago Way” goes beyond just manipulating elections. We saw the “Chicago Way” in full force when customs, rules, ethics and traditions were buried to get Obama Care passed in the House and Senate. Or killing off disclosure rules for Unions so they can hide how they spend their member’s dues. How bout rigging the Federal Election Committee by appointed SEIU in-house lawyer, John Sullivan, to serve on the six member panel. Don’t forget skewing the upcoming employment figures by firing and then hiring back census workers as reported by the New York Post. These are but a few of the Chicago style tactics employed by Obama in order to game the system and concentrate his power.

I wouldn’t hold your breath waiting for a Justice Department investigation as Eric Holder is simply Obama’s hand puppet. Holder recently announced a criminal and civil investigation of the BP oil spill, opining his obligation in enforcing the law and seeking justice for the victim along the gulf coast. What about enforcing the Immigration laws? Rather than upset the Latina democratic voting bloc, Holder instead launched a civil rights investigation into Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio for racial profiling and abuse-of-power.

Clearly, the guilty party in abuse-of-power is the Obama Administration. As Michael Barone wrote in the Washington Examiner; “The problem with Obama’s Chicago Way is that Chicago isn’t America. The Chicago Way works locally because there is an America out there that ultimately pays for it. But who will pay for an America run the Chicago Way?" I'm afraid we all will.

This is John Galt Speaking!

The tug of war between left and right was in full swing last week in Texas. Conservatives on the State Board of Education (SBOE) succeeded in changing the social study curriculum in Texas text books to “level the playing field” of years of liberal influence on history, science and social studies. But did the SBOE improve the quality of education or simply shift the political influence to the right?

In all, administrators considered over 213 amendments for K-12 materials but it was the changes to history and government that grabbed all the headlines. Most noteworthy, Texas students will now be taught that the phrase “separation of church and state” are not in the constitution. In addition, 8^th graders will also compare and contrast Abraham Lincoln’s ideas about liberty, equality, union and government with those of Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

Exactly how these subjects will be covered in the text books (or in the classroom) are yet to be known. Can they be covered in an objective and rational fashion that furthers knowledge without endorsing a particular religious or political position? While it’s true the phrase “separation of church and state” is not found in the constitution, does that mean the concept is not covered in the first amendment? The word privacy is not in the constitution but does that negate the implied right to privacy in the fourth amendment? Is it by mistake that the word “god” is no where to be found in the constitution? Will the students read additional writings of Madison and Jefferson in order to understand the meaning of a “wall of separation”? We’ll likely have to wait until the 2011 school year begins to get answers to these questions but there is one more question we should ask. Are government school boards playing politics with our children’s education?

For years the separation of church and state has been attacked by the religious right. They have cried that our secular culture has banished god from the halls of both government and schools. For years, they have fought for school prayer and failed in every attempt. The First Amendment, the religious right maintains, guarantees only freedom “of” religion…not freedom “from” religion. However, you need only read the following quote from Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association to realize the intention was to keep religion out of government as well as government out of religion:

"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State."

Jefferson was joined in his call for separation with other founding fathers such as James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine and Ethan Allen. Madison summed up his position very concisely:

"Religion and government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together."

Does Texas believe they can shape the political conscience of young students by teaching “separation of church and state” is not constitutionally valid? Is this any different than teaching them the created “science” of global warming? Unfortunately, we are not likely to limit such politically motivated curriculum until we limit government involvement in our children’s education. We can certainly alter the current educational structure through both privatization as well as expanding the school voucher system, thereby instilling competition and providing more choice for parents. Until then, the political tug of war with our children’s minds will continue.

This is John Galt Speaking!

It’s really nothing new. It’s been growing steadily ever since FDR. It’s been called the fourth branch of our government however….you won’t find it anywhere in the Constitution. Obama did not start it but he has certainly taken it to new heights. Congress does not oversee it and often uses it as a shield from blame. James Madison, and other founding fathers, would deem it “the very essence of tyranny.”  What is this fourth branch of Government? It’s called “The Administrative State” and its sheer size is as unimaginable as it is unconstitutional.

Thomas Jefferson identified its abuse in the Declaration of Independence: “the King has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.” Sound familiar? The “long train of abuses and usurpations” as described in the Declaration of Independence continue today but most people simply call it bureaucracy. However, these unelected bureaucrats exercise power that were once reserved to Congress, the states or the people themselves and the puppet master pulling the strings is the President himself…..King Obama.

The nation got its first glimpse of Obama’s Administrative machine when he began appointing unprecedented numbers of “czars”. These “czars” were intended to roll out massive regulatory reform such as intervening in bank lending practices, enacting a national service program or imposing stricter environmental constraints on industry…to name just a few. While Obama may try to go through Congress (i.e. healthcare reform) to get new initiatives passed, he can always fall back on the “fourth branch of Government” to get the job done.

The most recent example of this was his use of the National Mediation Board to change the union voting procedure of the Railway Labor Act, unraveling 75 years of labor law affecting airline and railroad workers. Two unelected bureaucrats, both democrats, voted to change the rules so now a minority of workers can impose union representation on the majority. Lacking support for the Employee Free Choice Act (commonly known as “card check”), Obama simply pulled his presidential puppet strings to appease the Unions.

A similar move was made last December when the Environmental Protection Agency issued an “endangerment finding” on greenhouse gas emissions. The EPA’s finding classifies Carbon Dioxide – a gas emitted with every breath we take – as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act, and will impose mandatory reductions on millions of businesses and entities across the country. One could argue that the federal government now controls our bodies, unless you can get by without breathing.  Once again, failing to get necessary support for his “Cap & Trade” legislation has forced Obama to use the power of “The Administrative State.”

It’s not just legislation that Obama can now get around…but also court rulings. When the US Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Comcast on April 6, it struck a blow against the administrations plan for “net neutrality”. The Court concluded that the FCC lacks authority to require providers to treat Internet content even-handedly. However, recent overtures by the FCC indicate an “end run” around the court and the congress by reclassifying broadband to fall under telecommunications.

While the founding fathers intended the legislative branch to be the dominate branch of the federal government, the rise of the administrative state has clearly shifted the power to the executive branch. The abuse of power by the executive branch threatens both liberty and the rule of law. Those who believe this will be fixed simply by electing a republican president in November, 2012 will be sadly disappointed. Unless we are able to return both Congress and the Presidency to their constitutional roles, this country will look more like a monarchy than a republic.

This is John Galt Speaking!

 It didn’t take long after Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed their new immigration law (SB1070) for the lies and deceptions to circulate throughout the mainstream media. Editorials in the New York Times and Washington Post painted the law as an act of police state repression while ignoring provisions in the law that specifically require a “lawful contact” before any immigration status could be verified.

At the least, mainstream media coverage of the new law has violated journalistic integrity (if such a thing still exists). At the worst….its down right lying and race baiting. “The statue requires police officers to stop and question anyone who looks like an illegal alien” wrote one New York Times editorial. Another blatantly false comment was made in the Washington Post: “This law creates a suspect class, based in part on ethnicity, considered guilty until they prove themselves innocent” wrote Michael Gerson. Even President Obama joined the cacophony of absurd statements when he said “You can imagine, if you are a Hispanic American in Arizona…suddenly, if you don’t have your papers and you took your kid out to get ice cream, your going to be harassed.” Obama later made fun of Arizona at the White House Correspondent Dinner which prompted this rebuttal video from Governor Brewer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLgZ1LWLlko&feature=player_embedded

Ironically, it’s the failure of the federal government to secure our borders that prompted Arizona to draft the law in the first place. In 2009, Arizona experienced 316 kidnappings (mostly illegal immigrants involved in the drug trade) that prompted the New York Times to label them the “kidnapping capital of the United States.” Arizona has also seen a 202% rise in narcotics prosecutions over the last 16 months. In one Arizona County, there were over 64 police pursuits in one month: not one was an American citizen. However, it was the murder of a peaceful rancher named Robert Krentz in late March that really galvanized the state to finalize this law. Krentz was gunned downed on his land by a suspected illegal immigrant, perhaps a drug runner or coyote.

The fact that Arizona and other boarder states are under siege seems lost in the media coverage. Few would argue that September 11 was a game changer and raised the scrutiny of our porous borders to a new level. Efforts to shore up our southern border began in 2006 when the Bush Administration rolled out SBInet. In addition to doubling the size of the Border Patrol to 20,000, SBInet first phase included construction of both 700 miles of physical fence as well as a virtual fence. The physical fence, which ended up streaching 643 miles from San Diego to near Tucson, has succeeded in forcing illegals to brave the hot and rugged desert of Eastern Arizona to sneak into this country. Unfortunately, Obama’s new budget has cut the SBInet border program by 30%, scraping the virtual fence and leaving over 1300 miles open and accessible. Embarrassed by the “underwear bomber”, Obama has chosen to divert money into aviation security and freeze activities on our southern border.

As a resident of Southern California, I have seen firsthand the dramatic impact of inadequate border security and a failed immigration policy. Over the last 40 years, advancements in agriculture have allowed us to grow more food on less land. What was once thriving farmland are now industrial parks filled with computer and biotech companies. A failing education system barely graduates 70% of students with many US cities falling below 50%. These changes, along with the obvious threat of terrorism, should dictate a shift in immigration policy toward a secure border and a focus on more high skilled workers to help keep America competitive.

But like previous administrations before him, Obama has chosen to play politics with our borders. He has neither the political will nor the support in Congress to roll out immigration reform prior to the mid-term election. So instead, he belittles the efforts of Arizona by painting the residents and police officers as racist while trying to placate the Latino base he has abandoned. The result is a less secure border and an increase in racial tension. A truly "no win" position. The only thing that has changed is the paths that coyotes use to lead thousands of illegals into the United States.

This is John Galt Speaking!