Ever since the NAACP began stepping up its attacks on the limited government movement through charges of racism against the Tea Parties, it’s become rather apparent that there was a concerted effort behind this rhetoric.

After reading the words of Mary Frances Berry, one of the more prominent leaders in the far-left black political scene, one need no longer merely surmise this. In an astonishingly frank email to Politico, Berry declares that the tea-partiers-as-racists meme is “an effective strategy for Democrats” despite the fact that she believes “there is no evidence that tea party adherents are any more racist than other Republicans, and indeed many other Americans.”

Here’s the full quote:

“Tainting the tea party movement with the charge of racism is proving to be an effective strategy for Democrats. There is no evidence that tea party adherents are any more racist than other Republicans, and indeed many other Americans. But getting them to spend their time purging their ranks and having candidates distance themselves should help Democrats win in November. Having one’s opponent rebut charges of racism is far better than discussing joblessness.”

Aside from the morality of knowingly advancing a blatantly false line of thinking, Berry and her cohort’s embrace of race-baiting has real implications for race relations as R. Dozier Gray, a member of the conservative black group Project 21 put it in a statement about Berry’s remarks:

“This willful and purposeful use of the race card for nothing more than political gain is toxic to race relations, and Mary Frances Berry must know that.  But she evidently does not care.  Based on her comment, political posturing takes primacy over whatever real issues regarding race that she might pretend are her calling cards.  I have seen this all before.  I find it shameful.”

All too true. It’s shameful also that the NAACP and other black groups with honorable achievements in days past would willingly shill for partisan politics.

Andrew Breitbart please call your office.

Surprise! Corruption is still a major problem in organized labor:

After years of fighting criminal charges, the former head of the union that represents carpenters in New York City pleaded guilty on Wednesday to taking part in a racketeering scheme stretching back over a decade, the authorities said.

The former leader, Michael J. Forde, was accused along with nine other union officials and contractors of stealing millions of dollars from the union and its benefit funds.

The men were named last year in a 29-count indictment that charged that in exchange for bribes, Mr. Forde and the others allowed contractors to pay union members cash wages below union scale with no benefits, to hire illegal and nonunion workers, and to skip benefit contributions.

Forde is facing up to 40 years in prison on the charges. One would think that the prevalence of corruption would make Democrats think twice about exempting unions from campaign finance laws or calling for the card check legislation, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi did today. But as long as unions keep writing big campaign checks to Democrats, I don’t think that’s going to happen.

Thanks, Gavin. I like your hair, too.    (ap photo)

Certain feminist elements of the Internet -- and also those for whom the hairier aspects of politics seem a continual surprise -- are presently bunched up over Tuesday's Public Policy Poll that asks Californians whether Barbara Boxer or Carly Fiorina has the better hair. Cueing outrage:

Not the hair! So sexist! Can't we move beyond judging women for their looks?!

We can and do. The poll also asks about job performance, voter preference and Barack Obama (but not his hair). When concerns like hair and wardrobe cease to be stealth issues for voters (and yes, the news media), then candidates and consultants will quit polling on them.

See: Hillary Clinton's pantsuit, an enduring sartorial icon of the 2008 campaign. It was a dowdy symbol of the "everywoman," now jettisoned by the secretary of state for a much more sophisticated, expensive, subtle wardrobe that would not have worked at all for a presidential candidate.

This stuff matters -- signals, cultural cues, symbolism. We do believe Gavin Newsom needs to rethink his hair care products.

And look at you right now! Itching to know whether Boxer's tousled, highlighted big hair trumps Fiorina's severe, sleek/chic pixie cut! Nineteen percent had a higher opinion of Boxer's hair, to 14 percent who prefer Fiorina. And bless the 67 percent who were not sure.

The PPP pollster Tom Jensen told TPMDC that yeah, the hair thing was a silly question, but it had become an issue in the campaign when Fiorina was caught on an open mic insulting Boxer's hair. Per TPMDC:

Jensen also pointed out that in January 2008 they asked South Carolina voters who was the sexiest presidential candidate, and also asked New Jersey voters last October whether then-Gov. Jon Corzine (D) was making an issue of his (eventually victorious) Republican opponent Chris Christie's weight, and whether Christie's weight was a legitimate issue.

And, historical note: In the 1980s, a wealthy supporter of Tom DeLay commissioned a poll that showed Republicans with facial hair were not electable. It was the only thing that persuaded DeLay to lose the cheesy moustache. It was also demonstrably true.

I just got an email sent under the name of Vice Presidet Joe Biden, asking me for money to battle the "special interests."

When our administration and this movement decided to take on the special interests, we knew we were making a choice. And the consequences are clear. These groups have fought us at every turn in our struggle for change, and now they're trying to drown out our voices -- and our accomplishments -- with their campaign cash this fall.

Please donate $5 today and help us take back this election from the corporate interests.

So Biden must be gearing up to battle the party that has received the majority of money from each of 15 highest-spending industries this year, including a 30 percent advantage in money from Wall Street, right?

The VP must be rallying the little guy to go head to head with the party whose Senators are being boosted by a $150 million ad campaign funded by a the largest single-industry lobby -- the drug lobby -- which is grateful for a health-care bill loaded with subsidies and other special favors.

The party Biden has in his crosshairs must be the one that last year brought in $2 million from lobbyist-bundlers, 50 percent more than the other party.

Oh no -- the party I'm describing is the Democrats. Biden's party.

I'm not saying Republicans aren't too beholden to special interests. They are. But the White House pretending to be squaring off against the special interests is simply not credible.

Rep. Charles Rangel, D-NY, the scandal-tainted former chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, has apparently cut a deal with the House Ethics Committee not to air his dirty laundry in public because it could further damage the Democratic Party during a tough mid-term election.

The House trial of Rangel on formal charges of tax evasion, improper use of rent-controlled apartments in New York, and violations of House rules on corporate-funded travel and fundraising was supposed to start at 1 p.m., but CNN reports that Rangel has apparently cut a deal and won’t be attending today’s hearing.

New York station WCBS also reports that Rangel’s attorneys may have offered some admission of guilt to avoid a public trial. Rangel resigned from his chairmanship in March after being reprimanded by the bipartisan ethics panel.

“I am pleased that, at long last, sunshine will pierce the cloud of serious allegations that have been raised against me in the media,” Rangel said in a statement released July 22.

But now it looks like the cloud has rolled back and the public will not be allowed to watch the 40-year Capitol Hill veteran account for his actions after all. With public trust in Congress at record lows, a cover-up will not reassure Americans that Democrats were telling the truth when they promised to “drain the swamp.”

The Hill, July 20:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign has turned to DVDs to help retire its debt from the 2008 presidential race.

Her campaign circulated a fundraising e-mail on Tuesday saying that donors who contribute $35 or more to retire the “last bit” of the debt will receive a DVD of the former first lady’s “historic” speech at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

“If you missed the first opportunity to buy a DVD of her speech, you are in luck. We have a few of our special edition 2008 National Democratic Convention DVDs left, and we wanted to share them with you,” the letter says.

The New York Daily News, July 27:

Chelsea Clinton is set to marry her investment-banker boyfriend Marc Mezvinsky at a posh private estate 90 miles north of Manhattan.

The hotly anticipated, highly secretive affair has been called the Wedding of the Decade and of the Century.

Extravagant and notable events like that don’t come cheap.

Experts in all things nuptial ballpark the cost of Bill and Hillary Clinton’s little girl’s big day at anywhere from $3 million to $5 million.

Of course, the Clintons made everyone who came near the wedding sign a confidentiality agreement and the Clintons stayed at the home of George Soros’ daughter for the event — so who knows who really paid for the wedding?

Jon Stewart spent the first segment of his show highlighting ethical lapses of Democratic politicians John Kerry, Charlie Rangel, and Rod Blagojevich.

During the segment, Stewart showed a clip of Rangel lecturing an MSNBC reporter after he asked the congressman if he was worried about losing his job:

"What are you talking about? Are you trying to make copy for yourself?" said Rangel, "What network are you from? Well you're young I guess you need to make a name fore yourself, but basically you know its a dumb question and I'm not going to respond."

Watch below:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c Corruptdate www.thedailyshow.com Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

The AP reports that former Agriculture Department employee Shirley Sherrod plans to sue Andrew Breitbart who posted an edited video of her making racially tinged remarks last week.
From the report:

The edited video posted by Andrew Breitbart led Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to ask Sherrod to resign, a decision he reconsidered after seeing the entire video of her March speech to a local NAACP group. In the full speech, Sherrod spoke of racial reconciliation and lessons she learned after initially hesitating to help a white farmer save his home.

She said she doesn’t want an apology from Breitbart for posting the video that took her comments out of context, but told a crowd at the National Association of Black Journalists annual convention that she would “definitely sue.”

As expected, the questions from the hosts during President Obama’s appearance on “The View” aren’t super substantial. One topic of potential interest for political junkies: the president admitted that he was not invited to the upcoming wedding of Chelsea Clinton, daughter of his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former President Bill Clinton.

Asked by co-host Barbara Walters whether he was invited to attend the festivities, the president said that he was not:

“You know, I was not invited because Hillary and Bill, properly, want to keep this as a thing for Chelsea and her soon-to-be husband. And I am going to have the exact–I’m letting you guys know now that y’all probably will not be invited to [Obama daughters] Malia’s wedding or Sasha’s wedding.”

Regulatory Robbery is one of my favorite beats -- when big business uses regulation and taxes to hurt competitors, pinch customers, squeeze suppliers, or otherwise profit at the expense of the politically less-connected.

A travel blog, View from the Wing, reports on a current case of possible Regulatory Robbery. In brief, New York State is considering a tax on hotel bookings through the likes of Orbitz and Expedia -- one that wouldn't apply to direct booking through the hotel. In more detail:

The New York Times reports that the current version of the pending New York State budget

includes a 20 percent increase in hotel occupancy taxes for travel intermediaries (meaning travel agencies, tour operators and online travel companies).

Get that? A tax on travel agencies and online booking services. That’s distinct nad separate from the hotel occupancy tax.

.... It’s actually the “major hotel chain revenue channel integrity act.” It’s the Marriotts, Starwoods, Hiltons, and Hyatts versus Expedia, Orbitz, and Travelocity. This tax applies to rooms booked via third party sites, not rooms booked with a hotel or chain directly.

It will be interesting to dig into the lobbying behind this.

A few weeks ago we saw a University of Illinois professor who was fired after a student complained that he was teaching Catholic doctrine on homosexuality in a course titled, appropriately enough, “Introduction to Catholicism and Modern Catholic Thought.”

Now a court has upheld the expulsion of a Christian student at a public university in Michigan over her personal beliefs on homosexuality:

A federal judge has ruled in favor of a public university that removed a Christian student from its graduate program in school counseling over her belief that homosexuality is morally wrong. Monday’s ruling, according to Julea Ward’s attorneys, could result in Christian students across the country being expelled from public university for similar views.

“It’s a very dangerous precedent,” Jeremy Tedesco, legal counsel for the conservative Alliance Defense Fund, told FOX News Radio. “The ruling doesn’t say that explicitly, but that’s what is going to happen.”

U.S. District Judge George Caram Steeh dismissed Ward’s lawsuit against Eastern Michigan University. She was removed from the school’s counseling program last year because she refused to counsel homosexual clients.

Whether your straight or gay, the idea that the the powers that be — especially the federal government — can tell you what you can and can’t do based on your private religious beliefs ought to be alarming.

Chai Feldblum, a Georgetown University law professor and gay activist, has ominously said that when religious liberty conflicts with gay rights, “I’m having a hard time coming up with any case in which religious liberty should win.”

In California, Proposition 19 will appear on the ballot in November, allowing voters to vote on the legalization of marijuana.

The problem is that recent polling on the issue show different results. A recent PPP poll showed a 16 point lead as well as a Survey USA poll that showed a 10 point lead. Other polls such as a Field Poll that showed a 4 point disadvantage and a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed a 2 point support deficit.

Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com writes that polls that use an automated system return with more support for pot legalization while polls conducted by humans tend to get less support. He suggests that in automated polls, support from minority groups is noticeably higher, possibly due to a higher comfort level with automated polling.

“It’s possible that we’re seeing some sort of Bradley effect in reverse, which I’ve reluctantly dubbed the “Broadus Effect” after the given name of the rapper Snoop Dogg, himself a frequent consumer of cannabinoid-rich products.” Silver concludes. “The original Bradley Effect, named for former Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley, occurs when respondents in surveys are asked about socially desirable behaviors, such as being free from racial prejudice. Although the racial version of Bradley effect itself is probably a thing of the past, social desirability bias may manifest itself in other ways. ”

Read his full analysis here:

Paul Rahe, who teaches at Hillsdale College, is a scholar knowledgeable in many things. In his books on political theory he uses his own translations of Plato and Aristotle.

He is also a close student of Mario Puzo, as is apparent from his latest contribution to Andrew Breitbart’s biggovernment.com website. Give yourself a treat and read the whole thing.

Update: Also it now appears that Obama wasn't invited to Chelsea Clinton's wedding.

In the real world, President Obama lectures Americans on wasting too much time playing video games.

But win the Super Bowl in the new Madden NFL 11 video game and a digital President Obama will heartily congratulate you for your hard earned victory.

Watch Below:

For a while now, we’ve been reporting on the city of Bell, California — a blue-collar Los Angeles suburb where the city manager was making nearly $800,000 annually and has a taxpayer funded pension that will top a million dollars a year. (See yesterday’s editorial on Bell.)

Well, after the Los Angeles Times reported on the corruption in the town, town residents stormed the city council meeting. ReasonTV was there:

I’m guessing that most of the residents of the poor Hispanic community are Democrats — but it sure looks a lot like a Tea Party, doesn’t it?

Liberal blogger Matt Yglesias consistently unearths the negative effects of bad zoning. He’s done it again today with a post on how zoning can help drive real estate bubbles. Yglesias’s conclusion: “most land-use restrictions don’t prevent development, they just force it to be inefficiently low-intensity. Such laws are bad for the environment, chewing up space and wasting energy, as well as economically harmful.”

Left and Right can agree that more stability in real estate markets would be a good thing. We can also find overlap in opposing zoning laws that make the world less walkable and force us to drive more.

Republicans and conservatives have expressed confidence that they’ll be able to capture the U.S. House from Democrats in November. Democrats, as you would expect, are not buying that logic. A memo currently circulating on Capitol Hill obtained by liberal Washington Post blogger Greg Sargent lists several reasons why they think this:

• There are not enough open Democratic seats that can actually be captured by Republicans: “If Republicans have a great election night, they would still only win 50 percent of the Democratic open seats.”
• Democrats are poised to win at least a few GOP seats which means that Republicans will need to win at least 43 seats, a difficult task since Democrats enjoy significant fund-raising advantages in the at-risk seats
• The third point concerns the Tea Party. Instead of insisting that the public perceives the center-right movement as a group of extremists (something only liberal Democrats believe), the memo focuses on the policies which are being advocated by Tea Party-aligned Republican candidates which are definitely not as popular nationally–abolishing various federal departments, repealing the Seventeenth Amendment allowing for the direct election of senators, etc.–and argues that these policies will be a drag on candidates that insist upon talking about them.

Of these talking points, I would say the last is the most significant. The second point about campaign warchest sizes, as  pointed out numerous times by free speech advocates like the Center for Competitive Politics, is not nearly as significant as candidate quality and issue climate. Just ask former New Jersey governor Jon Corzine or former South Dakota senator Tom Daschle.

The first point about open seats being key to house turnovers is true from a historical perspective, however, past is no determiner of the future, something that Republicans learned during the presidency of Bill Clinton following his impeachment when they, as the party out of the White House, lost seats in an off-year election.

The last point is one that conservatives and libertarians should notice. Talking about new issues that have not been widely advocated before is uncharted territory for politicians. Regardless of whether or not one’s position on, say, the flat tax is “accurate” or not, the fact is that few people know much about it. Ditto with the Seventeenth Amendment or discussions about the individual rights implications of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It’s something that some people feel very strongly about but it’s not something that has wide understanding or interest.

Tea Party-aligned candidates are doing the GOP a favor by helping it break free of the traditional center-left political discussion (it’s center-left because the media are dominated by liberals and are mostly ignorant of conservative or libertarian ideas) but in starting this discussion up, conservative candidates need to be very deliberate in how they do it, always harkening back to larger themes that voters can understand and avoiding attempts to resuscitate discussions that aren’t worth it.

From 'fancy pants' to fancy fundraisers! Who will think of the children? (fox news photo)

Republicans are having a gleeful moment over President Obama's plans to attend a fundraiser tonight at the Manhattan home of Vogue editor Anna Wintour. The price to attend is $30,400 a person -- egads! This is the Democrats? For a minute we thought we were back in the Bush days.

"The President Wears Prada"! thundered a Republican National Committee press release:

Glitzy Fundraisers, Posh Vacations, And Celebrity Concerts Show Obama’s Elitist Disconnect From The American People

Hmm. Well, at any rate, White House deputy press secretary Bill Burton dealt with this, the proper pronounciation of "Wintour," and other pressing issues of the day aboard Air Force One en route to NYC and The Jerz.

Q: We’ve got these two events today that are kind of night and day. You’ve got the sub shop, and then we’ve already got so many “Devil Wears Prada” jokes about the fundraiser at Anna Wintour’s house. Is that how you say it?  Wintar?

MR. BURTON: Wintour, I think.

Q: How do you reconcile the objects of going to these lavish fundraisers when the economy is what it is?

MR. BURTON: Well, as you know, the President is doing everything he can to get this economy moving in the right direction.  If you take a look at where we started and where we are now, we’ve obviously been able to make a lot of progress.  The President isn’t satisfied....

So obviously we’ve focused on the economy today. This evening, the President is doing what the President traditionally does, which is helping to raise money for the campaign season as things approach. I think that, in the same sense, the President has a wide variety of things that he has on his schedule every single day. Today is one of those days and he’s wearing a couple different hats.

Fancy hats? Burton also was asked about the oil spill, now in its 100th day: "a lot of progress" and whether Obama has any good jokes ready to go for his big taping of "The View" today.

"Wouldn’t that be weird if I was previewing the jokes?" Burton asked (No! -- JM).  "Then you’ve got Elizabeth Hasselbeck not laughing because she already knows the punch line. I’m not doing that."

Most of the campaign cash Charlie Rangel has raised this election cycle has gone to legal fees, according to his campaign finance reports. I go into more detail on the law firms — and who would give to his campaign, knowing this fact — in my column today, but I wanted to address in more depth the question of why he can do this.

The House Ethics Committee explains:

Payment of Certain Legal Expenses. The Standards Committee has determined that it is generally permissible under House Rules for a Member to use campaign funds to defend legal actions arising out of his or her campaign, election, or the performance of official duties.  The basis of this determination is that the protection of a Member’s presumption of innocence in such actions is a valid political purpose.  Use of campaign funds to pay the legal expenses incurred in other kinds of legal actions may also be permissible.  However, campaign funds may not be used when the action is primarily personal in nature, such as a matrimonial action, or could result in a direct personal benefit for the Member.

So, you see, basically any legal defense — even if it’s for a charge or suit completely unrelated to your official duties or your role as a candidate — can be billed to your campaign, because any defense counts as “protection of a Member’s presumption of innocence,” which is “a valid political purpose.”

That’s why the Daily News wrote last week that Rangel’s personal financial well-being — if he were to face criminal or civil charges — depends on his staying in office.

Bad news for Republicans eager to do to Harry Reid (D-Nevada) what they did to his Democratic Senate predecessor Tom Daschle: The latest Rasmussen poll shows that the race is now trending toward Reid keeping his seat in his race with Republican Sharron Angle:

New polling from Nevada shifts that state’s Senate race from Toss-Up to Leans Democratic.

While Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is barely ahead of challenger Sharron Angle, the fact that he has the advantages of incumbency and that Barack Obama won the state by 12 percentage points helps tip the balance towards the incumbent.

With three months to go, Rasmussen Reports polling shows that Republicans are poised to pick up Democratic-held Senate seats in three states— Arkansas, Indiana and North Dakota. Two others are leaning that way–Delaware and Pennsylvania. Arkansas’ Blanche Lincoln is the only incumbent senator currently projected to lose a seat. The others are open-seat races following retirements by Democratic incumbents.

Blogger DrewM at the Ace of Spades blog argues that conservatives need to realize that not all Tea Party candidates are good ones:

There’s no need to indict the whole tea party movement as ‘too extreme’ or on balance bad for Republicans but like any mass movement, it’s going to come with some baggage and what appeals to the base isn’t going to appeal to everyone. Also, let’s not kid ourselves, Sue Lowden didn’t turn out to be the greatest candidate ever either. Still, she was the safer choice and probably wouldn’t suffer from 58% of Nevadans saying she was too extreme.

Before we start killing Republican primary voters, let’s remember that the professionals in Washington are the folks that were touting the likes of Arlen Specter and Charlie Crist right up until the moment they bailed on the party.

Still, there is no denying that Reid is/was in a desperately weak position and the Republican’s choice of candidates may cost them not only a pick up in a purple state but a nice trophy scalp as well.