Syndicated

Many of you may know Chad Barth, Deputy Strategy Director for the Republican National Committee.

When he’s not working tirelessly for the Republican Party, Chad takes to concert promoting, for charity.

Chad started raising money three years ago in conjunction with the, then first annual, National Walk for Epilepsy.  The Chad Barth Concert for Epilepsy was inspired in honor of his 21-year old sister Christina Ann Sauer of Rochester, MN, and his 5 year old cousin Ryan Blaess of rural Decorah, Iowa, as well as countless friends he has met along the way that have shared their stories about friends & family members with epilepsy.

Both Christina and Ryan have suffered from various, severe, intractable seizure disorders for all of their lives.  Christina who has undergone three neurosurgeries, countless medication trials and combinations – all of which have unfortunately not really helped out to the extent that we have ever hoped.  Ryan who has been diagnosed with Dravet Syndrome and has accumulated more Life Flight miles, than Chad has frequent flier miles.

This year’s concert is this Friday, March 20th. For those of you unable to make the trip to DC, we urge you to purchase a ticket for a Walter Reed Veteran. That’s right, if you’re unable to attend but would like to contribute, your ticket will be donated to a veteran at Walter Reed Hospital.

In his first year, Chad raised $2000 for the National Walk for Epilepsy. Last year he raised $15,000.  What can we do to help him break more than $15,000?

Donate or buy tickets here. And check out this corny promo video by my buddy Jim Conroy:

I love this. According to the WaPo, SEIU is getting rid of union organizers, who are filing a complaint with the NLRB over the issue:

The Service Employees International Union, considered the most influential union in the nation, has notified the union that represents about 220 of its national field staff and organizers that 75 of them are being laid off. In return, the workers’ union, which goes by the somewhat postmodern name of the Union of Union Representatives, has filed unfair labor practices charges against SEIU with the National Labor Relations Board. The staff union’s leaders say that SEIU is engaging in the same kind of practices that some businesses use — laying off workers without proper notice, contracting out work to temp firms, banning union activities and reclassifying workers to reduce union numbers.

This reminds me of ACORN’s 1995 lawsuit to exempt them from paying minimum wage, while working on a ballot initiative to raise the minimum wage. EPI has the story, wtih the full report after the jump:

In 1995, ACORN sued the state of California, claiming that it should be exempted from the state minimum wage. The group realized the simple economic fact facing all employers: being forced to pay higher wages means that you must employ fewer workers. A legal brief filed by ACORN during the appeal of its lawsuit admits:

As acknowledged both by the trial court and California, the more that ACORN must pay each individual outreach worker—either because of minimum or overtime requirements—the fewer outreach workers it will be able to hire.

This argument is particularly ironic. In 1996, when New Orleans business targets of Rathke’s minimum wage increase campaign acknowledged the economic reality that increasing the cost of labor would lead them to reduce employment or cut hours, Wade Rathke snapped, “If their business is that marginal, they probably shouldn’t be in business.”

(Crossposted from The Next Right)

Rotten ACORN – America’s Bad Seed – By The Employment Policies Institute – Free Legal Forms

I love this. According to the WaPo, SEIU is getting rid of union organizers, who are filing a complaint with the NLRB over the issue:

The Service Employees International Union, considered the most influential union in the nation, has notified the union that represents about 220 of its national field staff and organizers that 75 of them are being laid off. In return, the workers’ union, which goes by the somewhat postmodern name of the Union of Union Representatives, has filed unfair labor practices charges against SEIU with the National Labor Relations Board. The staff union’s leaders say that SEIU is engaging in the same kind of practices that some businesses use — laying off workers without proper notice, contracting out work to temp firms, banning union activities and reclassifying workers to reduce union numbers.

This reminds me of ACORN’s 1995 lawsuit to exempt them from paying minimum wage, while working on a ballot initiative to raise the minimum wage. EPI has the story, wtih the full report after the jump:

In 1995, ACORN sued the state of California, claiming that it should be exempted from the state minimum wage. The group realized the simple economic fact facing all employers: being forced to pay higher wages means that you must employ fewer workers. A legal brief filed by ACORN during the appeal of its lawsuit admits:

As acknowledged both by the trial court and California, the more that ACORN must pay each individual outreach worker—either because of minimum or overtime requirements—the fewer outreach workers it will be able to hire.

This argument is particularly ironic. In 1996, when New Orleans business targets of Rathke’s minimum wage increase campaign acknowledged the economic reality that increasing the cost of labor would lead them to reduce employment or cut hours, Wade Rathke snapped, “If their business is that marginal, they probably shouldn’t be in business.”

Rotten ACORN – America’s Bad Seed – By The Employment Policies Institute – Free Legal Forms

Two weeks ago, a friend from Austin noted that he drives to work listening to his favorite Dallas radio station growing up. He listens to it over internet radio over his iPhone, which is them plugged into the auxillary jack on his car radio.

Yet the left is pushing a media localism agenda. Weird. I mean, I am not sure that I have particular problems with this particular bill. But there seems something kind of retro about it.

Rasmussen finds (or whatever they call their somewhat sketchy polling) that the GOP is now ahead on the generic Congressional ballot.

Support for the Democratic Congressional candidates fell to a new low over the past week, allowing the GOP to move slightly head for the first time in recent years in the Generic Congressional Ballot.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 41% said they would vote for their district’s Republican candidate while 39% would choose the Democrat.

It is well known that Jon Corzine’s numbers are collapsing in New Jersey. But that’s not the only state.

For example, look Governor Deval Patrick in Massachussets, as tested by SurveyUSA. He has 28% approve and 68% disapprove. This is flat across region. Even Dems net out at -11, with 42%-53%.

Now look at this poll out of Michigan, H/T Race42008’s Kavon Nikrad. Any credible Republican beats the sitting Lt. Gov.

I haven’t surveyed all the states, but it feels like someting is happening.

A leading figure of the Philadelphia Democratic machine fell today.  Former State Senator Vince Fumo was convicted on 137 counts:

A federal jury in Philadelphia has convicted once-powerful former Pennsylvania state senator Vincent Fumo of every one of the 137 counts against him, including the serious charges of conspiring to defraud the Pennsylvania Senate, a nonprofit organization he founded, and the Independence Seaport Museum of millions of dollars. The Senate conspiracy count was the first of the counts being returned Monday against Fumo.

The 65-year-old Philadelphia Democrat was charged with defrauding the senate, the nonprofit, and the museum of more than $3.5 million, and destroying e-mail evidence.

Fumo ran the South Philadelphia Italian Democratic machine for years. There have been stories about menus of votes (give Fumo so much money and get so many votse) floating around Philly politics for a generation.

There are several real stories in this for Pennsylvania politics.

First, the Pennsylvania Democratic Party has been weakened. Its ability to turn out votes out of South Philly has been significantly reduced. This is both a body and a money operation. Both have been diminished. And a smaller Democratic margin out of Philadelphia means less of a need for a higher Republican margin in the small counties.

Second, this is a big coup for Pat Meehan, the former US Attorney who first convicted Fumo on two counts back in 2007. Putting a leading Democrat in jail will help solidify his base in Southeast Pennsylvania, which is a powerful floor to work from in a Pennsylvania primary.

Third, and especially if Meehan wins his primary, this will polarize the debate in a Pennsylvania general election. With Tom Corbett at AG and a recent high-profileDemocratic conviction, Republicans are bound to hit the differences hard.

A leading figure of the Philadelphia Democratic machine fell today.  Former State Senator Vince Fumo was convicted on 137 counts:

A federal jury in Philadelphia has convicted once-powerful former Pennsylvania state senator Vincent Fumo of every one of the 137 counts against him, including the serious charges of conspiring to defraud the Pennsylvania Senate, a nonprofit organization he founded, and the Independence Seaport Museum of millions of dollars. The Senate conspiracy count was the first of the counts being returned Monday against Fumo.

The 65-year-old Philadelphia Democrat was charged with defrauding the senate, the nonprofit, and the museum of more than $3.5 million, and destroying e-mail evidence.

Fumo ran the South Philadelphia Italian Democratic machine for years. There have been stories about menus of votes (give Fumo so much money and get so many votse) floating around Philly politics for a generation.

There are several real stories in this for Pennsylvania politics.

First, the Pennsylvania Democratic Party has been weakened. Its ability to turn out votes out of South Philly has been significantly reduced. This is both a body and a money operation. Both have been diminished. And a smaller Democratic margin out of Philadelphia means less of a need for a higher Republican margin in the small counties.

Second, this is a big coup for Pat Meehan, the former US Attorney who first convicted Fumo on two counts back in 2007. Putting a leading Democrat in jail will help solidify his base in Southeast Pennsylvania, which is a powerful floor to work from in a Pennsylvania primary.

Third, and especially if Meehan wins his primary, this will polarize the debate in a Pennsylvania general election. With Tom Corbett at AG and a recent high-profileDemocratic conviction, Republicans are bound to hit the differences hard.

For much of the 20th century, the entrepreneur has been a core Republican constituency. Arguments based on small business have been central to our messaging. And interest groups like the NFIB have been among our most loyal activists, while the Chamber of Commerce has kissed up to anyone in charge.

However, The Economist’s Adrian Wooldridge notes that this is no longer the case in a special report on entreprenuerialism:

This special report will argue that the entrepreneurial idea has gone mainstream, supported by political leaders on the left as well as on the right, championed by powerful pressure groups, reinforced by a growing infrastructure of universities and venture capitalists and embodied by wildly popular business heroes such as Oprah Winfrey, Richard Branson and India’s software kings. The report will also contend that entrepreneurialism needs to be rethought: in almost all instances it involves not creative destruction but creative creation.

It is absolutely true that in many important ways, the left embraces the rhetoric of entrepreneurialism. And many significant figures of modern business are on the left. I think that it is fair to say that the left has reacted in many ways to the fall of the Soviet Union by reorienting thier ideology.

In Europe, they speak of "unreconstructed parties of the right" like the French Socialist party and reconstructed ones, like the British Labour Party under Tony Blair. (and to a certain extent Gordon Brown, although his manifest failures and those of timing will never give us a clear glimpse into his thinking)

It seems to me that only recently has there been a counter-manuever on the right that responds politically, rhetorically, and strategically to the adjustment on the left. We see these in the quite serious Canadian Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, somewhat less serious British ToryDavid Cameron, and, somewhat differently, the Swedish Moderat (New Modertna, as their campaign literature called them) Fredrik Reinfeldt.

In many ways, we have not made that adjustment on the right in the United States. In our seemingly never-ending attempt to return to Reagan, we have forgotten that the left has done something, and it requires a response on our part. This is not necessarily a move to the right or to the center, but a reframing of the debate. The left has done this by making, at least rhetorically, entrepreneurialism compatible with certain kinds of redistribution.

What do we need to do on the right that both stops this movement on the builds our next coalition?

No, I am not referring to the snubbing of the Brazilian President. That’s just amateur hour, something we have come to expect. This is truly a problem.

I am referring to Barack Obama’s bungling of Latin American countries expelling US diplomats and officials.

First, in Ecuador:

The Ecuadorian government today expelled Max Sullivan, first secretary of the U.S. embassy in Quito, for interfering in the country’s internal affairs, PL reported.

Second, in Bolivia:

Evo Morales, Bolivia’s president, has ordered a senior US diplomat to leave the country, accusing him of siding with opposition groups in a ”conspiracy” against the government in La Paz.

Francisco Martinez, the second secretary of the US embassy in La Paz, is the second US diplomat to be expelled from the country in six months.

Note that earlier, a bunch of anti-drug officials were expelled.

What was Obama’s response? Well, sources tell me that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had signed off on the typical response, the State Department expelling diplomats from the US. But an Obama loyalist interfered, killing it.

This is no way to run a foreign policy. They can’t get either the carrot or the stick right.