independentsforkerry.org

A New York Times expose published Sunday details the improper ties between Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and influential rightwing funder and activist Harlan Crow.1

Crow is a major contributor to conservative causes and a stalwart supporter of Clarence Thomas. In past years he reportedly gave Thomas’ wife, Ginni Thomas, 0,000 to exploit the Citizens United decision and start a shadowy, Tea Party-related group called Liberty Central. He gave Thomas a Bible (estimated value ,000) that once belonged to Frederick Douglass, and allegedly provided the Supreme Court Justice with access to his yacht and private jet.

As if that wasn’t enough, the New York Times has revealed that Thomas may have improperly solicited a multi-million dollar donation from Crow to benefit one of his own pet projects near his birth place in a remote coastal community outside Savannah, Georgia.

Enough is enough. It’s time for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to resign. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

Shockingly, the Supreme Court is not legally bound by the code of conduct for federal judges, though Justices Breyer and Anthony M. Kennedy have testified to Congress that members of the Supreme Court voluntarily follow the code which explicitly prohibits justices from directly soliciting charitable donations. If Thomas can’t legally be removed from office because adherence to ethics rules for the Supreme Court are voluntary, then we must simply demand his resignation.

Crow is far from a disinterested philanthropist. He has donated nearly million to Republican campaigns and rightwing groups, including a six digit donation to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth which so effectively attacked Sen. John Kerry during the 2004 presidential election. He’s on the board of the ultra conservative American Enterprise Institute which brought a case to the Supreme Court challenging federal voting rights laws, a case that found only one sympathetic vote on the court — that of Clarence Thomas.

Recusal is not enough. It’s time for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to resign. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

Crow is not the sole source of questionable ethical behavior on the part of Clarence Thomas. His highly questionable relationship to an ethically challenged Supreme Court justice is simply the latest to be exposed.

Clarence Thomas participated in a secret political fund raising event put on by the Koch brothers to fund Tea Party infrastructure groups.2

And for years, Thomas disregarded rules requiring him to report his wife’s income on financial disclosure forms. His household received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the conservative Heritage Foundation during a period when he was voting on landmark cases in which the rightwing think tank had a clear ideological stake.3

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas must resign.  
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas must resign. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

This type of behavior wouldn’t be tolerated for any other federal court judge. Common Cause Attorney Arn Pearson says in the Times, “The code of conduct is quite clear that judges are not supposed to be soliciting money for their pet projects or charities, period. If any other federal judge was doing it, he could face disciplinary action.”

Even absent a legally binding code of conduct for Supreme Court Justices, a Justice resigning for ethics violations is not without precedent. Justice Abe Fortas resigned in disgrace in 1969 after it was revealed that he had received gifts from interested benefactors similar to those received by Clarence Thomas.4

Fortas, prior to resigning, actually recused himself from voting in cases related to his benefactor. Thomas, however, has refused to recuse himself from cases before the court in which organizations related to Harlan Crow continue to file briefs.

Enough is enough. It’s time for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to resign. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

Clarence Thomas’ behavior has long been beyond the pale. In response to these latest revelations by the New York Times it’s long since time to demand Clarence Thomas’ resignation.

Becky Bond, Political Director

The Democratic Republican

Fourteen members of the Libertarian National Committee (LNC) on July 28 submitted their response to the appeal filed by the Wes Wagner group claiming to lead the Libertarian Party of Oregon (LPO). 

The June 19 appeal by the Wagner group claims that the LNC Executive Committee’s recognition of the Reeves group on June 18 was a constructive disaffiliation and should have required a three-quarters vote of the entire LNC. 

The nearly 70-page set of documents (Document 1 of Response by LNC) (Document 2 of Response by LNC) (Appendix Assembly of Response by LNC) submitted by Chairman Mark Hinkle – and signed by a broad cross section exceeding three-fourths of the eighteen-member governing board – denies that Wes Wagner could be a party to an appeal because Wagner has not been the chair of the LPO since May 21 and states that no disaffiliation took place. 

The LNC response describes its actions as necessary to protect the autonomy of its Oregon affiliate from a “rogue board of directors.”

The comprehensive submission provides a timeline of events, along with a number of arguments and documentation in support of its conclusions that

• There exists a distinction between disaffiliation and recognizing legitimate officers
• There are numerous reasons as to why the LNC needs to ascertain the identity of officers of affiliates to remain in compliance with its bylaws
• Acknowledging legitimate officers elected by LPO members in accordance with their bylaws is not a violation of affiliate autonomy
• Wagner’s own public statements reveal he believes his board does not have the authority to amend the bylaws
• There exists a clear rationale for why LPO’s bylaws must lead one to conclude that the group of officers led by Tim Reeves are the legitimate officers of the LPO
• Wagner’s position is at odds with the very state law he claims as justification
• Not recognizing the officers led by Tim Reeves would have been equivalent to disaffiliating the long-standing LPO – without the required ¾ vote – and affiliating with a newly created organization, with a different set of bylaws and different set of members

Independent Political Report

The U.S. House late today narrowly passed a debt-ceiling bill without a single Democratic vote, only to see the Senate quickly turn around and reject the Republican plan.

Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo.

Colorado’s House delegation split along party lines, with the four Republicans voting in favor of the modified House Speaker John Boehner plan and all three Democrats rejecting it. The House vote was 218-210. The Senate rejected the bill 59-41.

Colorado’s senior congresswoman, Democrat Diana DeGette, issued the following statement on the Republican’s plan, which included a balanced budget amendment to the constitution in order to appease conservative GOP members, 22 of whom still voted against the bill:

“As we stand four days away from the first default in our nation’s history, the Republican bill passed today may raise the debt ceiling for the near future, but it is an imbalanced approach to deficit reduction that disproportionately punishes the most vulnerable Americans, and, with its untenable balanced budget amendment timeline, sets the stage for likely default in six months. That timetable systematically continues the blanket of uncertainty this debate has placed over our economy, virtually ensuring a downgrade to the U.S. credit rating and an economic crisis for our nation.

“With the markets already reacting to the gridlock in Washington, it is time to pay our bills, avoid a default crisis that would send interest rates skyrocketing, and then focus on getting our fiscal house in order. We must reduce our deficit, pay down our debt, and ensure the long-term solvency of Social Security and Medicare. These issues deserve balanced and thoughtful solutions; not to be held hostage to preserving the full faith and credit of the U.S.”

Colorado’s senior Republic congressman, Doug Lamborn, issued this statement after his yes vote:

“This is not a perfect plan, but it is a sincere, honest effort to fundamentally change the way Washington does business. It ensures that the federal government will meet all its financial obligations in the short term. Under this plan, every government payment would go out on time. But, down the road, it calls for additional spending cuts and a balanced budget amendment before Congress will raise the debt ceiling a second time.

“I would prefer deeper spending cuts. But I am glad for the possibility of putting more fiscal discipline for Congress into the Constitution. This is the only way we can control spending and make sure that the American dream survives for our children and grandchildren.

“This is the second time in 10 days that House Republicans have sent to the Senate a common-sense plan for restoring our nation’s fiscal strength. I urge our Senators to work with us in a bipartisan effort to solve our overspending problem.”

The Colorado Independent

 The Constitution Condones Slavery?

In a recent series called “The State Against Blacks,” John Stossel interviewed Rep. Charles Rangel and made the case that big government has failed the black American family. Congressman Rangel, an unabashed proponent of big government, asked Stossel, “What do you want? No government?” Stossel held up a copy of the Constitution and answered, “No. I want it this size again. The Constitution and the Declaration — great government right here.” To which Rangel responded, “No, that government will throw me back into slavery. You don’t want that government. Come on, now. I mean, they weren’t thinking about me when they wrote that book. I wasn’t even three-fifths of a guy. So let’s pass that book and say that it was a good beginning and it’s there to improve order and that’s what we’ve done.”

Rep. Rangel ought to be asked to explain how limiting the size and scope of the federal government to constitutional standards would throw him back into slavery. The idea is preposterous, but it’s clearly one that liberals like. Liberals are terrified at the rise of serious talk in America about going back to the principles of the Constitution, and I believe we will see Rangel’s invidious argument trotted out again and again. But the “Constitution was an instrument of slavery” argument will be effective for the liberals only if we are ignorant of the truth.

It should be understood that if the Founders had failed to organize the states into a union, slavery would have continued unabated — certainly in the South, and perhaps in the North as well. Once the conventional representatives decided to satisfy both the Northern and the Southern states with two houses of Congress, the question then became which “inhabitants” of each state would be counted for purposes of representation in the House of Representatives. The Northern states insisted that only free citizens of each state be counted for purposes of apportionment in the House. The Southern states, wanting to garner as much power and influence in the new government as possible, argued that all people within their borders, whether free or not, be counted for purposes of apportionment.

This was a deadly serious impasse. It must be said, however, that many of those representatives at the convention who owned slaves recognized that slavery would be a blot on the new nation and that it had to end. But it was also certain that if they tried to abolish slavery immediately with the Constitution, it would be rejected by the southern states, and the union would fail.

Two compromises were made.  First, the Southern states agreed to count only three-fifths of slaves.  In turn, the Northern states agreed to a clause prohibiting Congress from abolishing slavery for twenty years, until the year 1808.

Charles Rangel and many others argue that under the Constitution, a black man’s worth was only three-fifths of a white man.  But the Constitution says no such thing.  Article I, Section 2 reads (in part), “Representatives … shall be apportioned among the several states … according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons … three fifths of all other persons.”  “All other persons” referred to slaves.  In other words, only 60% of slaves could be counted for purposes of a state’s representation in the House.  That’s a far cry from arguing that the Constitution valued black men at three-fifths of a white man.  And what would Rangel and others have preferred — that all slaves be counted, thus increasing the power and influence of the slave states when the time came to vote to abolish slavery?  What if the Founders had allowed all slaves to be counted for purposes of representation in the House, thus eliminating the three-fifths compromise that so offends Rep. Rangel?  And then what if, because of increased slave state representation, the legislation to abolish slavery had failed in 1808?  Is that what Rangel would have preferred?

The result of these compromises was that a major obstacle to a union of the states and the establishment of the nation of America was overcome, and slavery as it was known in early America was eventually abolished.  It should also be pointed out that America, its flaws and imperfections notwithstanding, has become a beacon of individual liberty to the whole world.

We modern Americans allow ourselves a certain self-congratulatory pride because we think we are morally superior to the Americans of the eighteenth century. But let’s consider what it is we so smugly condemn them for. What is slavery? Is not slavery the idea that the fruit of a man’s labor is deemed not to be his own by the system of laws under which he is held in servitude, and that it is taken from him by those who have power and authority over him? When one adds up all the taxes and fees — local, state, and federal — that Charles Rangel and many other like-minded persons of power and authority have gradually imposed on us, we have certainly become a nation of slaves.

I don’t mean to suggest that there is equivalency between eighteenth-century slavery and slavery today. The slavery of two hundred fifty years ago was a hard slavery, while today’s slavery is much more subtle. Yet there it is: a large portion of the fruit of our labor today is taken from us by people like Charles Rangel, who then use those fruits to purchase the votes they need to keep themselves in power to rule and reign over us.

Liberals’ defense of today’s soft slavery is essentially the same as what the slave masters of the eighteenth century said: this is our system, and the economy depends upon it. But in truth, their own personal wealth and influence also depend on it.  In addition to legally confiscating large portions of the fruit of our labor, they control our compulsory education system.  They tell us how much water we can use to flush a toilet and what kind of light bulbs we must use. They have shut down vast reserves of our nation’s natural resources which we require for our energy needs, intentionally driving up the cost of energy.  They intend to disarm us.  They intend to tell us what doctors we can see and when. They insult and demean us in our airports. They seek to divide and inflame us by race and by economic status. They intervene in every aspect of our personal and business lives. They are destroying the value of our currency.

These are the soft, but ever-hardening, slave masters of the twenty-first century.  And sadly, most Americans seem to support this system.  We are a generation who self-righteously condemns the eighteenth-century American for the moat we see in his eye, all the while largely blinded to the beam in our own.

The Constitution is a framework for a government intended to protect the individual liberty of each citizen — his life, his liberty, and his property — from the encroachments of his neighbor. But the Constitution is an impediment to the slave masters, and they have no regard nor use for it. Remember that the next time you hear Charles Rangel, or anyone else, dismissing the Constitution as the antidote to our national decline.

As for this American, you can count me among the twenty-first-century abolitionists.

Written by John C. Greene.

Democratic Party News – The News of the Democratic Party.

I was thinking about writing this article about the tea party and how they went to Washington and kept true to their stated positions and didn’t sell out the people who voted for them but why bother that would be greek to democrats and republicans who bend when the wind blows.     Instead I will try to figure out what party label to attach to Obama.    Thus the question:

Is Obama a Great or the Greatest Moderate Republican President Ever?

Thanks to Stephen Colbert for the question and I’ll put you down as Great because I see you have some concern with the question.    I know you’ve heard it said about the GOP that they are not your grandfathers republican party and thats right they are not.   President Obama and his team are your grandfathers republican party.    We are no longer a two party system, we are now a four party system.    The Tea Party, The Right Wing Republican Party and The Moderate Republican Party (formerly a part of the Democratic party) and lastly standing alone the Progressive Democratic Party.

The three variants of the Republican party vote together and the only opposing voice comes from the Progressive Democrats.   The last Democratic President, Bill Clinton, has extended himself in an attempt to help Obama find the Democratic part of himself but so far only the letter D following his name is evidence of any Democratic leaning or life.    The Tea Party will probably demand that the letter D be removed from the alphabet and Obama will trip all over himself to get the alphabet reduced to 25 letters.    

I wish the Tea party would take a position on ending the three wars now eating up  all the money China loans us.     Obama would be willing to hand strangle grandma to keep the wars going one more day.     He just keeps on extending US involvement in a losing effort that is already lost to corruption and poppies.     Is it possible to bring the troops home?

Thus the question becomes is it better to have a weak spineless  Moderate Republican like Obama in the Presidency than a Tea Party Republican.     Under either option the Tea party pulls the strings and Obama dances.    This is a tough question but with the use of a powerful microscope we see that Obama wins by a hair and what the heck, Who else do You have to vote for?    If Obama had accomplished anything or come out ahead in any negotiations we could spin a great record of accomplishment for him.   Over two years into his term and still there are no jobs, unemployeement is pegged at 9.2% with a real value of 14%.   The Democrats have not passed a budget in almost 2 years and the Bush Tax cuts for the rich have been extended by Obama and are a trillion dollars of the debt crisis we now face.   This is a pure record of failure.     Obama is quite proud of what he has been able to do.

Now bore me with your claims about the Obama health care package that is still undefined and changes everyday and lives mainly on the court dockets and makes only small marks in real life.    It is ok to be a partisan.   It is ok to support a political party.   It is dangerous to be a fool.

Look closely at his positions and Obama is a moderate Republican of the early 1990s.  The principles of his health care law, his cap-and-trade carbon credits, and his pairing of tax hikes with spending cuts were all Republican proposals before the GOP abandoned many of its best ideas in its effort to oppose Obama.

Obama embraces Republican policy ideas.    Unfortunately, that means he loses and looks like a fool.   Today’s Republicans have shown they’re ok with destroying the climate,  blocking efforts to get health care to uninsured people, and generally ruining the economy — as long as they destroy Obama.    Obama seems to have no self preservation instinct and to be completely dumb to the game.    After playing the game for 2 and a half years Obama is not one bit smarter than he was at the beginning.   His learning curve seems to go downhill.

I’ll put my money on Obama backing down, surrendering, giving in, folding every time and I’ll win every time.      I voted for Obama last time and I’ll vote for him next time.     He’ll pretend to be a Democrat and we can all pretend he cares about Democratic principles.    BUT No more pretending that he’s not the most medicore president ever elected and no more fighting for a man who lays down and won’t fight for himself.      Would I trust this man to watch my back?      Please!!!

Amherst County Virginia Democratic News

After failing to fight to end the Bush Tax Cuts in 2010, and promising that he’ll fight to end them the next time around, Obama has, predictably, folded on ending the Bush Tax Cuts for the wealthiest Americans, tax cuts that have exploded the deficit.

President Obama is not pushing for the end of the Bush tax rates for the wealthy in negotiations on raising the .3 trillion debt ceiling.

Obama says he still wants to end those tax rates, but with time running out on the debt-ceiling talks, the White House made it clear that it has changed targets in the current negotiations.   Obama only has one demand now.    Give me a deal that gets thru 2012, past the election.      If the Republicans say NO he’ll fold on this too.

Same Old, Same Old as Obama Folds Again.    Is there anything, anything, anything that this President will fight for?    Now somebody please explain to me why Progressives should support Obama’s reelection?    And please save the But The GOP Will Win If We Don’t, because all we are getting is conservative policies and victories with Obama in office, and he hasn’t done anything to fix the economy other than a few half-measures 2+ years ago.  

The Conservatives could not get more if they controlled the entire show.

Happy Birthday Mr. President.      On August 4th when you close your eyes and make a wish before blowing out the candles on the cake,  Wish For A SPINE.      A 50 year old man needs one.

Vote Democrat, Protect Your Benefits.

Amherst County Virginia Democratic News

Kaitlyn Foti reports at Chestnut Hill Patch:
Chestnut Hill resident Brian Rudnick is hitting the street, trying in a short amount of time to get the signatures he needs to get on the ballot this November.
Rudnick decided late in July that he wanted to switch from a write-in campaign as the Green Party candidate for [...]
Green Party Watch

Whatever the outcome of Thursday’s projected House vote on Speaker Boehner’s debt plan, this process has already ended the political life of one prominent member of the Washington establishment: John Maynard Keynes.

True, Keynes died in 1946. But his ghost hovered over America’s economic debate until pretty much Monday night. In their ostensibly dueling speeches, both President Obama and House Speaker Boehner embraced the language of “austerity” and performed an unwitting exorcism.

In brief, Keynes is the man whose ideas led to 2009′s stimulus policy. Looking at the problems of the 1930s, he helped develop FDR’s “New Deal” concept that you spend your way out of a recession. [see: Pres. Obama Pushes "Serious Cuts" In His Weekly Address]

Anti-Keynesians have argued that these policies don’t create real growth, but only the illusion of growth, and lead to future bubbles. Some recent anti-Keynesians have argued that his policies were all well and good in the relatively non-litigious 1930s, but that modern society means virtually nothing is “shovel-ready.” Consequently, they argue, the cost of matching the impact of – say – FDR’s programs would now be ruinously expensive. That, they say, is why the when you see signs advertising the good works of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (the stimulus’ official name) it is not at the site of a new Hoover Dam, but on fairly trivial things like extra paintwork for Amtrak stations.

Whatever the validity of their arguments, for now the anti-Keynesians have prevailed. Part of the reason is optics: at a time when citizens are cutting back, it looks good to engage in a bit of sympathy rhetoric about Washington “tightening its belt.” On Monday night even House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi – for so long demonized by the right as the smiling face of big government – released a pro-austerity statement. That’s a clear sign which way the wind is blowing.

Talking Points Memo on Facebook

If you look closely at Pelosi’s austerity-lauding you’ll see the types of pressures being brought to bear. Her full phrase was: “It is clear we must enter an age of austerity; to reduce the deficit through shared sacrifice.” The last two words are important: “shared sacrifice.” They were echoed in President Obama’s Monday night address when he suggested raising taxes on the rich, asking “millionaires and billionaires… to share in the sacrifice everyone else has to make.” In other words, embracing an austerity-laden tone did not mean they were also embracing the tax-cutting agenda that has lately been associated with it. They were trying to create a “we’re all in this together” attitude, that could pave the way for increased revenues from the “corporate jet owners” the President has consistently called out in recent speeches.

However, this tax-the-rich suggestion has gone nowhere in the subsequent debate. Indeed, of the bills lined up in the House and Senate right now, neither of them goes anywhere near a tax increase. The language of austerity has so far benefited the Republican position, which is all cuts and no taxes.

As the language has shifted right, so has the overall tenor of the situation. When President Obama used to meet with British Prime Minister David Cameron, for all their apparent bonhomie, a dark cloud hung over their relationship. It was the cloud of economic policy: Cameron had embraced the opposite approach from the US, and had heralded “austerity” in Britain. This has not so far had a significantly positive impact on the country’s GDP or employment ratings, but it has propped up its AAA credit ratings, which were under threat before the moves. As the debt debate has dragged on, President Obama has increasingly found himself facing a comparable circumstance with regards to the credit agencies, and seems set to make similar choices. A second stimulus package now seems as remote as funding for a mission to mars.

Democratic Blog – News

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Controversial pastor and rock musician Bradlee Dean filed suit Wednesday in federal court alleging he was defamed by reporting from the Minnesota Independent, the Colorado Independent’s sister site, as well as MSNBC star Rachel Maddow and her show.

Dean, of the ministry You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International (YCR), claims that reporting on his May 15, 2010, radio show “maliciously set out to and did harm not only the Plaintiffs but by extension also the presidential campaign of Congresswoman Michele Bachmann.”

In the article, Minnesota Independent ran a video with the audio of Dean’s statements, as well as a transcription.

“Muslims are calling for the executions of homosexuals in America,” Dean said on YCR’s May 15 radio show on AM 1280 The Patriot. “This just shows you they themselves are upholding the laws that are even in the Bible of the Judeo-Christian God, but they seem to be more moral than even the American Christians do, because these people are livid about enforcing their laws. They know homosexuality is an abomination.”

“If America won’t enforce the laws, God will raise up a foreign enemy to do just that,” Dean continued. “That is what you are seeing in America.

“The bottom line is this … they [homosexuals] play the victim when they are, in fact, the predator,” Dean said, before going on to make a claim that has no basis in fact: “On average, they molest 117 people before they’re found out. How many kids have been destroyed, how many adults have been destroyed because of crimes against nature?”

On June 4, 2010, the Minnesota Independent published a follow-up article to the one referenced above, in which Dean said he does not support executing homosexuals. Dean specified that he may not have been clear, then continued:

For example, we have specifically rejected, as all Christians do, the Islamic doctrine, and actual practice, of executing homosexuals. But some have claimed, in effect, that by merely mentioning the execution of homosexuals (as a criminal practice of Islam), on our radio broadcast, we have suggested it for consideration. Obviously this is absurd. The whole point was to contrast the Islamic position with the Christian position. This may not have been as clear as we would have otherwise planned it to be. Live radio is not scripted. But everyone who knows us knows that this is our position because we have stated it consistently for years – long before we ever discussed the topic on the radio. There are board members, and other supporters who can vouch for this. We have never and will never call for the execution of homosexuals. This is a complete misinterpretation by design.

The lawsuit further contends that Rachel Maddow, MSNBC and NBC “disparaged” Dean in Maddow’s segment on the reporting from the Minnesota Independent, alleging that Maddow, too, had an agenda in covering Dean.

The American Independent News Network released the following statement in regards to the Dean press conference in New York City Wednesday morning:

The allegations by Bradlee Dean and You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International (YCR) are completely without merit. The American Independent News Network stands firmly behind our news site, The Minnesota Independent; our reporter, Andy Birkey; as well as their reporting on Dean and his ministry. The complaint describes Birkey as taking “a ‘special interest’ in Plaintiffs Dean and YCR because he is a secularist and/or atheist and gay activist with a politically left ideology who despises people of faith.” However, in giving Birkey and The Minnesota Independent first prize for Best Continuing Coverage of their reporting on YCR, the 2010 judges for the Minnesota Professional Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalist’s Page One Awards stated, “the reporter [Birkey] takes a deep-dive with an even-handed approach into a weighty subject sure to provoke controversy from various standpoints. Leads readers to think about serious public policy and constitutional issues.”

We are confident that the courts will agree that this lawsuit is completely frivolous and is a blatant attempt to chill freedom of the press.

MSNBC’s statement regarding the lawsuit:

This suit is baseless and we stand by our reporting.

The Colorado Independent

The false narrative is that the Tea Party is a bunch of stubborn nuts, if not outright racists. In truth, the Tea Party has been right about everything, while almost everyone else has been nuts, especially the “experts.”

Minimum wage. One of the first things Democrats did after taking back Congress in 2007 was raise the federal minimum wage 41% from 2007 to 2009. Result? The unemployment rate went from 4.4% in May 2007 to 10.1% in 2009. It is 9.2% even today — four years later.

As for teens, the unemployment rate went from 14.9% to 27.1%, the highest ever recorded, meaning since 1948. Today it is still a high 24.5%. And for blacks: from a low of 7.9% in 2007 to 16.5% in 2010. It is still a high 16.2%.

The Democrat Congress also decided to apply the same minimum wages to American Samoa. Results? Near-decimation of its economy, one that had been based largely on low-cost tuna canning and textile work.

… employment fell 19 percent from 2008 to 2009 … tuna canning employment fell 55 percent from 2009 to 2010… Average inflation-adjusted earnings fell by 5 percent from 2008 to 2009 and by 11 percent from 2006 to 2009.

Of course, some of the increase in unemployment was a result of the Great Recession. But the Employment Policies Institute did a study to separate the effects for the most vulnerable group: males aged 16-24 without high school diploma. EPI’s answer: the minimum wage increase killed over 100,000 jobs (31% of the lost jobs) for that demographic.

TARP. Unless you were a politician or executive of a large bank, you were likely against the Troubled Asset Relief Program.  I would guess that most anyone now calling herself a member of the Tea Party was against TARP in 2008. But Senator Barack Obama voted for it, along with most of his Democrat colleagues. Also the top brains of the Stupid Party pushed it: Henry Paulson, George W. Bush, and John McCain.

On October 3, 2008, Congress authorized Treasury Secretary Paulson to use up to 0 billion under TARP to do what was needed to stave off financial disaster. By December, after using 7B, Paulson said he was done, crisis averted. (Of course his successor, Tim Geithner, was not done.)

Here’s the funny thing: while Paulson was lending out less than .3 trillion, the Federal Reserve was lending out over T to do about the same thing!  By my calculations, Paulson’s TARP slush fund was less than 2% the size of the Federal Reserve’s.

Do you think that 2% was critical to staving off financial apocalypse? (FYI, over 3T of the Fed’s emergency loans were to subsidiaries of foreign-owned banks.)

When the dust cleared, the federal government owned two bankrupt car companies and the god-awful home mortgage portfolios of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — entities that had nothing to do with the original purpose of TARP.

Global markets were so enamored with TARP that there was an immediate sell-off of about 20% in global stock markets the moment it went into effect.  I also credit TARP, and McCain’s reaction to it, for McCain’s loss to Obama. Ever since, all budget discussions have involved units of trillions instead of mere billions. The world has not been the same since TARP.

Stimulus. Opposition to Obama’s stimulus was the origin of the Tea Party. Now we know the story.

How the stimulus was sold: It would create three million jobs or more. It would keep the unemployment rate under 8%, instead of 9% without a stimulus. It would cost 7B. The jobs were shovel-ready.

What really happened: There are 1.2 million fewer jobs now than when the stimulus was passed. Unemployment went over 10% (vs. prediction of 8%) and is still over 9% (vs. prediction of about 6.8% at this time). It cost 4B or more. Maybe 6% of it went to infrastructure projects. Obama’s reaction? A little joke: “Shovel ready was not as shovel ready as we expected.”

Of course, Obama and his minions simply blame this on their underestimating the size of the mess they inherited from Bush. But that has been studied by economists at the University of Western Ontario and Ohio State University. The verdict: the stimulus itself cost about one million private-sector jobs; the net job loss was about 595,000. We’d have been better off without any “stimulus” at all, just as the Tea Party said.

ObamaCare. ObamaCare was sold as a way to bend the health “cost curve” down.  As it turned out, it is bending the cost curve up — health care will be more costly than it would have been without ObamaCare. It’s so great that in its first year about 1,500 companies, states, and unions were granted waivers.

ObamaCare strangled the recovery in the crib. The private sector has been generating only 6,400 jobs per month since it was passed, compared to 67,600 before. We would never return to pre-recession unemployment levels at the current pace.  ObamaCare is costing us over 60,000 jobs per month.

Drilling moratorium. According to a new study by IHS Global Insight, merely picking up the pace in granting oil drilling permits would go a long way in producing jobs throughout the US, adding to GDP and reducing dependency on foreign oil sources.  In 2012 alone it could mean 230,000 new jobs, B more in GDP, 150 million more barrels of oil, and B less in imported oil.

Budgets. Now we find ourselves in another budget fight, with the Tea Party getting the blame from much of the media and liberal punditry. The truth is that Democrats have not even written, much less passed, a budget of any kind in over two years; they simply kill everyone else’s.

• The Republican-led House passed a budget on schedule in April.  Senate Democrats voted it down.
• Obama proposed a budget in February. The Congressional Budget Office scored it as having a 10-year cumulative deficit of .5 trillion. The Democrat-led Senate voted that down too, 97-0.

• The House proposed the only written plan for addressing the debt ceiling — the Cut, Cap and Balance plan.  Senate Democrats voted that down, too.

It shouldn’t take a keen insight to see that Senate Democrats are the “Party of No” and the obstacle to resolving budget and debt issues.

Uncertainty and arbitrariness. Just last December Obama said keeping Bush’s tax rates was critical to keeping the recovery going.  He and the Democrat Congress at the time extended them for another two years, plus added over 0 B in additional tax cuts and credits. Now, just seven months later, Obama insists that any deal to raise the debt ceiling must include tax increases.

Like ObamaCare, the Dodd-Frank bill to regulate all finance in the country is a thousand-page-plus piece of legislation.  As the New York Times understated it just after its passage, “[a] number of the details have been left for regulators to work out.” Got it? Those thousand-plus pages did not include the details.

The EPA now has power to regulate every use of fossil fuels in this country, as well as every breath we take, if they so deem.  What will it do with that power? You get to guess. If you think it wouldn’t do anything too stupid, know that the FDA just outlawed common inhalers for asthma sufferers. Their reason was, get this, those inhalers are blamed for contributing to upper-atmosphere ozone loss.

Even if you think CFCs contribute to ozone loss, how much do you think the CFCs released by asthma inhalers have to do with it?  And how much is the indirect and ambiguous loss of ozone worth compared to the direct and known suffering of asthma patients? Such is the wisdom of government regulators.

The list is endless. If you were thinking of starting a business or making an investment that might not pay off for five or ten years, would you feel like you know the rules and could depend on them? No, you’d hunker down, which is exactly what everyone with any money left is doing right now.

This jobless recovery is not some mystery. It is very clearly the result of decisions — decisions made by Obama and the Democrats.  At every opportunity they grew government, shrank the private sector, and viewed budding enterprises as little more than beasts of burden — something to whip while healthy and carve up and eat when not.

As Robert Mugabe viewed white-owned farms, Obama views corporations not yet in Chapter 11.

Nothing Democrats did helped; everything they did hurt. Everything. Min wage. TARP. Stimulus. ObamaCare. The Gulf oil spill. Every budget they ever proposed, written or not. Every little czar they put in place to spend other people’s money and to bully the only productive people still toiling away at the thankless tasks of making stuff and providing jobs.

At every point, the Tea Party and its sympathizers tried to stop these idiocies, only to be called ignorant racists. You might want to ask yourself why so many people talk of the “Tea Party,” whatever that is, the way Lenin and Stalin talked of kulaks and saboteurs, whoever they were.

Do “taxed enough already,” “stop spending,” and “obey the Constitution” sound that crazy to you? If so, you might want to think about why you think so.

Written by Randall Hoven.

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