Sen. Daniel Akaka is probably the quietest person in the U.S. Senate. He is known as a kindly man who votes faithfully but is not a vocal or activist member of the “upper body.” But this week, when asked if there is a constitutional basis for the Democratic health care bill, he candidly said, “I’m not aware of that, let me put it that way.”

Good way to put it, Senator, because your lack of awareness indicates that at least you know your Constitution well enough to recognize that it contains no basis for this latest exercise in federal elbow-throwing.

Sen. Akaka’s colleague Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) could learn from him. Sen. Reed was asked by a reporter “where in the Constitution does Congress get its authority to mandate that individuals purchase health insurance?”

Reed responded, “I would have to check the specific sections, so I’ll have to get back to you on the specific section. But it is not unusual that the Congress has required individuals to do things, like sign up for the draft and do many other things too, which I don’t think are explicitly contained (in the Constitution).”

Sen. Reed is an undoubted patriot, a former Marine who served honorably in Vietnam. So it is disappointing that someone of his political stature would equate the draft with an individual federal mandate of citizens for non-military purposes. To what “many other things” is Reed referring?

In the 1918 Arver v. United States case, the Supreme Court ruled that the draft is constitutional because it is essence an implementation of the Constitution’s provision for the federal government to create a standing army (Article I, Section 8). Men (and women) are needed to defend the nation, and during times of national crisis conscription might be needed.

The Democratic health plan (H.R. 3962), passed last weekend in the House, goes well beyond any authority conferred on the federal government, through our written Constitution, by “We, the People.” In fact, the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) wrote to the House Ways and Means Committee that “failure to comply with the terms of the law that the Democrats passed last weekend could put people in jail. The JCT told the committee that anyone who decides not to maintain “acceptable health insurance coverage” or, absent that, pay the individual health insurance mandate tax of about 2.5 percent of income, would be liable to large fines or prison sentences” (The Washington Times, “Tax Penalties and Prison,” by Donald Lambro, November 12, 2009).

The JCT went on to write that “H.R. 3962 provides that an individual (or a husband and wife in the case of a joint return) who does not, at anytime during the taxable year, maintain acceptable health insurance coverage for himself or herself and each of his or her qualifying children is subject to an additional tax.”

This mandate is unconstitutional in its own right and also poses a serious threat to the fundamental liberty of ordinary Americans: When the federal government requires specific economic activity (in this case, the purchase or acceptance of a health insurance plan) and threatens to impose “fines or prison sentences” for non-compliance, our essential freedom as citizens is eroded and our path into coerced political subjection all the more obvious – and dangerous.

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FRC’s new ad, “Inheritance of Debt”:

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Be sure to tune in tonight at 8:30 p.m. EST for the live video webcast of “Government Takeover of Health Care: Counting the Cost.” We’ve invited Members of Congress, financial analysts, and FRC policy experts to join us live at our Washington, D.C. headquarters to help us assess this bill as Congress prepares to vote this week.

Participants include:

• Host: Tony Perkins, President, FRC Action
• Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.)
• Congressman Charles Boustany, M.D. (R-La.)
• Congressman Mike Pence (R-Ind.)
• Douglas Johnson, Legislative Director, National Right to Life
• Karen Steward, Research Analyst, The Polling Company
• Tim Wildmon, President, American Family Association
• Bryan Fischer, Director of Issue Analysis, American Family Association
• Richard Scott, Chairman, Conservatives for Patients’ Rights, Conservatives for Patients Rights
• Phil Kerpen, Policy Director, Americans for Prosperity
• Tom McClusky, Senior Vice President, FRC Action
• David Christensen, Senior Director of Congressional Affairs, Family Research Council
• Dr. David Prentice, Senior Fellow for Life Sciences, Center for Human Life and Bioethics, Family Research Council
• Cathy Ruse, Senior Fellow, Legal Studies, Family Research Council

An archive of the webcast will be available following the event.

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Jeffrey Kuhner is one of the best conservative writers going these days.  His column appears on Sunday’s in the Washington Times.  He has a way of getting to the heart of a topic, and two Sundays ago he addressed President Obama’s jihad against Fox News Channel (see “Who’s Partisan Now,” 10/18/09, p. B1):

For decades, the Washington press corps has presented itself as the guardian of political order and institutional stability. They are the real “news experts” whose experience and rational judgment are necessary to preserve “fairness” and “objectivity.” The rise of Fox News and the New Media – Internet news sites, such as the Drudge Report, World Net Daily and Newsmax, along with talk radio – has ripped away that shallow, smug and self-satisfied journalistic veneer.

The emergence of Fox News is a sign many Americans no longer trust the political and media class. It is part of a larger populist revolt that is slowly reshaping our society. The American people crave government accountability and political transparency. Moreover, many in the heartland rightly sense that something has gone terribly wrong. They are slowly losing their country to globalist progressives who no longer share any attachment to traditional America.  (my emphasis)

Right, and we recently got an Exhibit A of things gone terribly wrong.

Here’s a headline from a Financial Times story: “[Securities and Exchange Commission] hires Goldman [Sachs] alumnus to head enforcement division.”  Fox, hen house.  Say no more.  But there is more.  First paragraph of updated story: “The Securities and Exchange Commission has hired a 29-year-old Goldman Sachs alumnus as managing executive of its enforcement division.”  Is this a joke?  I guess no high school students were available.  Well, he has an MBA from New York University.  I am so glad the SEC is serious about enforcement.

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FRC’s new ad on Health Care:

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I’ve been on travel the past week, visiting with college administrators, staff, and students. I’m often asked by concerned young people: “Has it ever been this bad before?”

Oh, my yes. When I was your age, I tell them, 300 American cities went up in flames after Dr. King was assassinated, riots in the streets turned huge areas of America’s cities into no-go zones. Bob Kennedy was assassinated en route to a likely presidential nomination. Three hundred young Americans were dying in Vietnam every week, with no strategy for victory and no end in sight. Inflation was rampant and few Americans could see our country healing after such terrible divisions.

But heal she did. Last week, I witnessed American troops coming home from Iraq in two of our major airports. Welcoming committees cheered them wildly. What a great improvement on the sullen indifference that greeted too many of our returning Vietnam vets. One of my pool pals–guys I swim with every morning–was one of those Vietnam vets who came home to no welcome. Today, he joins the welcomers in applauding our magnificent troops. God bless you, Bob Hogan!

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Today, the Washington Times published a very good editorial on Friday’s unemployment data.

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Last weekend, I had the opportunity to attend the Americans for Prosperity Defending the American Dream Summit.  While at this event, I had the opportunity to meet with Leslie Carbone, who used to serve as the Director of Tax Policy at FRC.  Leslie just published a book, Slaying Leviathan:  The Moral Case For Tax Reform, and it is a great examination of tax policy from a moral perspective.   Below is the interview:

KW:  Could you tell me why you decided to write Slaying Leviathan?

LC:

I wrote my book to help people understand why progressive taxation, and the wealth redistribution that it supports, are morally, as well as economically, hazardous.

KW: What do you think is the number one problem with the current tax code?

LC:

There are so many problems with the tax code, and they all feed on each other so much, that I find it impossible to pinpoint one primary problem, one single bullet. I think that what’s wrong with progressive income taxation can be summed up in three, overlapping, problems: It’s unwise, unjust, and immoral. It’s unwise because it actually diminishes prosperity, rather than enhancing it. It’s unjust because it perverts the function of the government it supports; as our Declaration of Independence asserts, civil government is established to secure our rights, but progressive taxation, and redistributionary spending, actually violate our rights. Finally, it’s immoral: It’s immoral because it discourages the virtuous behavior that creates wealth while it sanctions vices like resentment, because it diminishes economic–and thus moral–freedom, because it fosters immoral social behavior (such as cohabitation and divorce) and their attendant social pathologies, and because it inserts the government into the family’s or the individual’s moral decision-making process, giving the government a moral power it shouldn’t have.

KW: In the book, you mentioned that there is a moral reason for tax reform. Since there seems to be zero transparency at the government level about where our taxes directly go, do you think that this lays out the case for full transparency by the government?

LC:

I’m all in favor of government transparency, and part of the problem with our leviathan state is that it’s so big, and spends so much money, that nobody can keep track of it all. So I’d say that restoring the federal government to its proper, limited functions, as enumerated in Article I, Section 8, of our Constitution (that ingenious document) and reducing taxes to what’s necessary to pay for those functions would go a long way toward making it easier for us to fulfill our duty as citizens of a republic to watch what our government is doing.

KW: Would you favor a flat tax or the fair tax?

LC:

Either would be an enormous improvement over the byzantine mess we have now, and I’m looking forward to the day when we have a robust public debate about which kind of fundamental tax reform we want. My book lays out and analyzes the various options for tax reform, but it doesn’t take a firm position in favor of any particular plan. I did that on purpose. My book is intended to help make the case for fundamental tax reform, and to inform a coming debate over what that reform should look like. We’ve seen recently, with the bank bail-out and the “stimulus” package (to pick just a couple of examples) what happens when we rush a “solution” through without adequate public debate. So rather than say, “Here’s the problem, and here’s the solution,” I’m trying in my book to say, “Here’s the problem; let’s talk about and make sure we fully understand it, and next let’s talk about how we want to come together as Americans to solve it.”

KW: Do you feel the tax code punishes families and if so, could you elaborate on the ways our current government can fix this?

LC:

Sure, there are the specifics, like the marriage penalty, which actually punish some people for getting and staying married. But, to pick just a couple of examples, our current tax code hurts families by suppressing prosperity, making it harder to support a family, and by steering families into government-sanctioned choices (e.g. home ownership through borrowing, via the mortgage deduction) rather than leaving them properly free to decide on their own financial priorities. We really need fundamental tax reform to address these problems; piecemeal fixes just don’t work.

KW: I read another tax reform book two months ago by two experts at Cato Institute entitled, Global Tax Revolution, and the authors recommended abolishing the corporate and income taxes. Do you think that this will keep more businesses in the United States?

LC:

Absolutely, taxes discourage whatever is taxed; that includes maintaining a business.

KW: Lastly, there seems to be more corruption in Congress, and recently, Congress has voted for pay increases, giving the Architect of the Capitol a pay raise, and providing more money to fix the House buildings. Do you feel that there needs to be more reform within our government to help make them more accountable to the taxpayer?

LC:

Our Founders understood the corrupting tendency of power, and we as citizens of the republic they created must try to understand it too. I fear that it’s a little naive to expect government to reform itself. We are responsible for our government; we’re they’re boss, and we need to hold them accountable to us. “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”

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Today’s economic news was not good. This from Reuters via Yahoo! Finance:

U.S. employers cut a deeper-than-expected 263,000 jobs in September, lifting the unemployment rate to 9.8 percent, according to a government report on Friday that fueled fears the weak labor market could undermine economic recovery.

The consensus was for a loss of 180,000 jobs. Furthermore, highly respected banking analyst, Meredith Whitney, wrote in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal that credit available for small business, the job creator in the American economy is non-existent:

Anyone counting on a meaningful economic recovery will be greatly disappointed. How do I know? I follow credit, and credit is contracting. Access to credit is being denied at an accelerating pace. Large, well-capitalized companies have no problem finding credit. Small businesses, on the other hand, have never had a harder time getting a loan.

This is not a good sign for getting people back to work. This credit contraction in conjunction with the make-believe economy of zero percent interest rates, money printing, and too-big-too fail has to undermine one’s confidence in any data about current economic relationships. That, in turn, will make a recovery far more difficult due to the increased level of risk and uncertainty. It’s going to take a long time for things to work themselves out I am afraid.

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“A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children.”  That bit of insight is from the wisest man who ever lived – Solomon, the author if the Book of Proverbs.

Notice that Solomon is not calling for us to just hold back of little of our savings to leave something for your kids, but rather that it is prudent foresight that leads to investment in future generations.

Such advice would be considered radical in America today, especially in Washington where the nation’s debt is currently $11.5 trillion, with another trillion projected to be added this year.  In fact, for every dollar that the federal government is currently spending, 47 cents is borrowed.    When federal, state and local government debt is combined the average family’s burden of that debt is almost one million dollars.

As a nation, we’ve not only lost the biblical ideal that one generation should pave the way for the next by investing in its future, but we have decided by our fiscal irresponsibility to live on “Easy Street” and let our grand kids and great-grand kids pay the mortgage.

That’s not right, and it’s got to change.  To learn more about how federal tax policy affects your family, click here.

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As the health care debate heats up it is hard to get straightforward, understandable information on the nuts and bolts of how Obamacare will operate.  Big picture, no trees, no weeds. That’s what we need.  Well, there was an extremely powerful eight minute interview on Mark Levin’s radio show last Friday (July 17, 2009) that you must listen to.  (We make it easy to do so below.)

Mark Levin interviewed Betsy McCaughey, adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute and the chairman and founder of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths, about the Obama Administration’s health care plan.  She clearly and frighteningly describes provisions of the current House bill that will reduce care for the elderly and compel all programs to provide regimented, HMO-style care for the rest of us.  (FYI, McCaughey served also as the Lt. Governor of New York from Jan. 1995 to Dec. 1998.)

If you would like to listen we are going to provide two ways to do so. First, you can click here and listen or listen below to the eight minute interview using the Family Research Council website:

We want to heartily thank “The Mark Levin Show” for most graciously giving FRC permission to play the audio from our website.

You can listen or download the entire Friday, July 17, 2009 program from Mark Levin’s website – this is his “Audio” webpage.  Once on the Audio page, do the following: 1) click on “07/17 The Mark Levin Show;” and, 2) start the player at 8 minutes, 45 seconds.

I believe this audio will sharpen your focus on the key features of the health bill.

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For weeks the FRC Blog has been commenting on the growing prominence of CNBC as a national news outlet.  We have also commented on the liberal counter-reaction against the network.  Our point has been that even though the Left dominates the mainstream media (MSM), in a time of financial and economic crisis the MSM news organs are structurally ill-equipped to deal with stories of such complexity.  CNBC has on-air staff with the smarts and the career training to discuss these matters at a sophisticated level.  The MSM does not have people like this on their programs with a few exceptions (e.g., Lou Dobbs at CNN (who is not MSM)).   Consequently, there has been a tremendous power shift toward CNBC. 

CNBC is more conservative than the MSM, but it might be fairer to say CNBC is more libertarian and market-oriented.  That being said there has always been a good mixture of liberals and conservatives on CNBC, and many Wall Street players were Obama supporters. 

Well, the Left noticed the increasing prominence of CNBC and a campaign of mau mauing began quickly once Barack Obama became president.  First, Rick Santelli was attacked; this effort was assisted by NBC’s Today Show.  Jim Cramer was next, and his assault by Jon Stewart soon followed.  However, it appears that a larger effort to compromise CNBC is underway, and it may be working.  There is now an entire Leftist-”progressive” website devoted to serving up ideological attacks on CNBC: it is called “Fix CNBC.”  (Go to the website and look at the long list of liberal big-wigs who have signed on.  Amazing.  This is quite an effort.  I wonder who is paying for it?)  Interestingly, Media Matters also  presents an online petition at “Change CNBC,” and the language looks pretty similar to Fix CNBC’s petition.

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            You can’t say the FRC blog isn’t timely.  Over the past two weeks my colleague Michael Fragoso and I have written on this blog about the emerging position of CNBC as a major, national news source and the adverse impact of that development on the Obama administration.   

            This state of affairs escalated enormously over the weekend after CNBC’s Jim Cramer was slapped silly on Jon Stewart’s Comedy Central program last Thursday.  Stewart is part of the Democrat-Left-Borg collective that hurtles through space attempting to bludgeon those who oppose their agenda into abject submission.  (For an excellent analysis of Stewart’s completely dishonest attack on CNBC’s Rick Santelli read this post by Dan Gifford on the Big Hollywood blog.)

            Stewart has been on television for years, but I don’t recall that he ever attacked the integrity of CNBC before.  Of course, CNBC never before pointed out that the Obama economic program was failing miserably.  Therein lies the difference.  When was the last time Stewart viciously sandbagged a Lefty guest while declaring his righteous outrage?  Answer: [Hear crickets chirping] Never happened.

            In short, we have entered an unparalleled time in which the Hollywood-media-”news”-industrial-complex makes little or no attempt to pretend that it is not advancing the socialist, anti-family, anti-church agenda of the Left.  Where will Barack Obama be tonight?  On the Jay Leno show, I believe.  The alliance begun during the presidential campaign appears to grow stronger daily.

            In the last couple weeks The Politico (www.politico.com) has published a series of extraordinary stories describing planned attacks originating from the White House and Leftist activist groups targeting political enemies. Read this piece as an example.  As such, it was not surprising that Tony Blankley observed here in today’s Washington Times that the atmosphere in Washington has become incredibly poisonous and ugly.

            Well, folks, about two months down and forty-six to go.  It’s going to get interesting.

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A U.S. Senator talks of honorable suicide for well-heeled executives who have received company bonuses and then benefited from bailout money from the taxpayers. Armed guards are posted outside the insurance giant AIG to protect its employees from an angry public. The President declares himself outraged at corporate excess. Larry Summers, the Obama Administration’s top economic adviser, says the same. Thus our national economy is fast transforming into a giant kabuki play, or more precisely a sewa-mono, a domestic drama in which theft and suicide are classic themes.

What is becoming of this nation if it is not the puppeteering of what should be an economy of risk and reward where, with reasonable regulation for health, consumer disclosure, and mitigation of monopolies, the government steps back and allows customers and investors to act on opportunity and react to failure? The greed of some private sector actors is real enough, but the umbrage of many political actors rings hollow. Can we recover the bonuses paid to executives who could not keep their businesses profitable? Why, government has made unprofitability the test of whether certain businesses, like certain mortgagees, get aid.

Here is a simpler idea: anyone who receives government bailout aid, direct or indirect, or benefits from a no-bid government contract of any kind, forfeits their right as individuals to donate to federal political campaigns for a period of five years. That would have some genuine impact on this Kabuki cycle

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Watching Chris Wallace interviewing President Obama’s economics advisor, Austan Goolsbee, yesterday, I was struck by a curious phrase Goolsbee used: “the commanding heights of our economy.” Gosh, that phrase sounded familiar. Goolsbee was responding to Wallace’s question about the President’s 2010 budget message. That document is grandly titled: “An Era of Responsibility.” Actually, “an era” is too modest for this President. His budget proposals will impose crushing debts not simply on the living, but on millions yet unborn, on generations yet to come, if they come. We should be thinking at least in terms of epoch, even perhaps an Obaman Age.

Wallace quoted from the President’s budget message. “While middle class families have been playing by the rules…those at the commanding heights have not…” Goolsbee defended the use of that term: “The President is saying those at the commanding heights have not played by the rules.” Clear enough. Rep. Barney Frank was next up. “I would go back to your conversation with Mr. Goolsbee,” the chairman of the Financial Services Committee replied as Wallace pressed him for specifics. “This is an example of people at the commanding heights of the economy misbehaving, abusing the system,” Frank said.

There it was again. I knew I’d heard that phrase before. Fortunately, we have Google so I didn’t have to go rummaging through my cluttered basement–talk about torture–among my old Russian history books.

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Jim Cramer went on The Daily Show last night to be grilled by Jon Stewart. Liberals everywhere are singing the praises of Stewart, who went in loaded for bear. (See video here-Stewart’s language is saucy: you’ve been warned.) Stewart deftly illustrated the multitudes contained within Cramer-both a loudmouth performer, and a cool, savvy Wall Street operator-and excoriated CNBC, Cramer, and market capitalism in his characteristically self-righteous and crypto-Marxist way (“When are we going to realize in this country that our wealth is work? That we’re workers…”). Apparently finance is serious business and Cramer’s goofy “Mad Money” persona makes Stewart mad. Mad enough that he felt the need to embarrass Cramer for 3 segments in front of his audience of clapping New York sycophants.

And yet, Cramer has been at this for years (I recall watching Mad Money with my friends in college because Cramer’s histrionics and questionable stock advice could be quite entertaining). Why did Jon Stewart decide to take Cramer to the woodshed on March 12, 2009? Why not a month ago-or six months ago, or a year ago, or four years ago? It turns out that Cramer and Stewart have been feuding ever since Stewart began taking shots at Rick Santelli for his “Chicago Tea Party” outburst. This feud, like Stewart’s previous one with Tucker Carlson, is predicated on his infuriating bait-and-switch routine: 1.) Sanctimoniously deliver a sucker punch about a serious political or cultural matter in which there is substantive disagreement; 2.) Respond to counter attack by saying “I’m just a comedian, don’t hold me to high standards! I make jokes! I’m no expert!” 3.) Behave like a smug expert and deliver more substantive criticism. 4.) Respond to next counter attack by saying “I’m just a clown! Watch me make funny faces!” 5.) Repeat until plaudits pour in from Gawker, Huffington Post, and other snark-mongers.

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The New York Times jumped into the fray on Monday to help rescue President Obama’s economic policy-making reputation.  This was done in the guise of an analysis piece on the cable business channel, CNBC, that also served as a shot across the bow.  The story by Brian Stelter and Tim Arango entitled, “CNBC Thrives as Hosts Deliver News with Attitude,” lets the cat out of the bag when it intones: “CNBC is now a place for politics…. making the line between reporter and commentator almost indistinguishable at times.”

            What follows is a grab-bag of faux concern for CNBC’s brand and its reputation for journalistic integrity.  Some anonymous back-biting by three CNBC employees is added for good measure.  Blah, blah, blah.  But the rub comes down to this:  “In recent weeks some have perceived the network to be leading the campaign against President Obama’s economic agenda.”  BINGO.

            Well, the folks in the mainstream media (MSM) are clearly irritated because CNBC is now the most important news organization driving the political-economic debate.  The MSM is beginning to realize that it cannot control a news network populated by the brightest reporters on TV and accomplished guests who focus on the hard logic of the markets, interest rates, stock prices, currencies, etc.

            After Rick Santelli, a CNBC reporter from Chicago’s mercantile exchange, blasted the Obama Administration’s mortgage rescue plan he was attacked by NBC’s Matt Lauer on the Today Show.  Similarly, Jim Cramer was dragged to the Today Show for a hazing by Lauer who had to be assisted by CNBC’s Erin Burnett.  Even she couldn’t make it a fair fight.  Cramer just brushed them off.

            Unfortunately for the MSM the news broadcasts on CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS, CNN, and MSNBC are populated with reporters who know relatively little about economics and finance compared to their counter-parts at CNBC, Bloomberg, and Fox Business Channel.  So, when someone like Lauer tries to slime Santelli or Cramer he is totally mismatched.

            This means that serious interviews on the economy now have to be conducted on CNBC.  Yesterday’s interview of Warren Buffet by CNBC’s Becky Quick is a case in point.  Aside from the two-hour length, that interview would not have been possible on the MSM networks.  There are no broadcast TV analogs to Ms. Quick, Joe Kernen, and Carl Quintanilla who are all very, very bright and industry savvy.

            This is not to say that CNBC is perfect.  It has its flaws.  Big Deal.  However, between the network’s excellent morning (“Squawk Box”) and evening shows (“The Kudlow Report” hosted by Larry Kudlow) one becomes engaged in an ongoing conversation about our nation’s political-economic-financial situation.  The point isn’t that CNBC hosts and guests don’t make mistakes or erroneous predictions.  Who hasn’t in this market?

            The point is that CNBC presents its viewers with a window into an ongoing high-level conversation between many of the best minds on “Wall Street” as they try to diagnose and solve the enormous problems we face.  It has been fascinating to watch many themes developed and analyzed over an extended period of time on CNBC.

            This is all to say, that the MSM is incapable of presenting the public with this type of sophisticated, repetitive “longitudinal” analysis that makes it possible to think through the various problems the markets face.  And, with all due respect to the snooty journalism professors who love the Times, this is great journalism.

            Finally, regarding the charges of being political, as Larry Kudlow said Tuesday night to Charlie Gasparino (another CNBC reporter under attack) – (paraphrasing) “I learned a long time ago that if the liberal pundits are coming after you, you must be doing something right.”  Amen, Brother Larry.  Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.

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Dear Larry:

The Politico reported yesterday “it’s rumored that [Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT)] could face a challenge [in his 2010 Senate re-election race] from CNBC host Larry Kudlow, an opponent who would focus the coming election squarely on the economy.”

Say it ain’t so, Kudlow.

For those not familiar with you, Larry, I provide two links with some fair and balanced info: CNBC, Wikipedia. In short, you are a supply-side economist who served in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Reagan Administration’s Treasury Department, and various Wall Street firms with distinction. You are a happy guy; an optimist. You are a conservative, and, as I have observed over the years, a much-needed media friend of the pro-life cause – something we at FRC appreciate greatly. And, since the financial meltdown you have been hosting a M-F 7:00 p.m. hour-long market analysis program on CNBC – now called The Kudlow Report.

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How do you know that you know way too much about Washington bureaucracies and how they “work”? Here’s how. When you hear CNBC’s Rick Santelli calling for a Chicago Tea Party tax protest this summer, you immediately start to wonder whether he’ll need to get permits from some government entity like the Environmental Protection Agency. And then you wonder whether Illinois permits will be needed also. Well, I plead guilty to having had such thoughts last Thursday.

Fortunately, I am not alone and not nearly as bad off as Scott Ott of the D.C. Examiner appears to be. Ott has written a brilliant, hilarious piece entitled, “EPA Arrests Rick Santelli, ‘Chicago Tea Party’ Cancelled.” (See Feb. 24, 2009 ed., p. 14.) The satirical article contains the following slam from President Obama’s press secretary, Robert Gibbs, commenting on Santelli’s arrest for threatening to pollute Lake Michigan: “I don’t know where Mr. Santelli lives, but apparently, like most conservative critics, he has a callous disregard for the lives of the waterfowl, sturgeon and fresh-water mollusks that inhabit the Lake Michigan watershed.”

That’s funny, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Santelli really could be arrested for dumping tea or “derivative securities” (paper) into the Great Lakes. Well done, Mr. Ott.

Andie Coller of The Politico observed today that Gibbs “dismissed [Santelli] as a know-nothing derivatives trader out of touch with Main Street.” Coller then noted that “[a] Rasmussen poll released Monday found that 55 percent of those surveyed thought federal mortgage subsidies to those most at risk of losing their homes would be ‘rewarding bad behavior.’” If I were the White House I would be very careful about trying to roll out a campaign of intimidation and bullying against journalists, in general, and a journalist, in particular, who is very much attuned to public sentiment, is an expert in the numerous cross-cutting markets traded in Chicago, and is the most popular figure on America’s #1 financial news network.

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“Some governors might reject funds,” blared the headline in USAToday. The story detailed the fact that about $144 billion of the huge $787 billion “stimulus” package President Obama signed this week will go to the states.

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick (D) was not one of those governors, most of them Republicans, who were leery of the gift horse Washington was promising their states.

Still, Gov. Patrick said the $9 billion slated for the Bay State would “not be a panacea.”

Not a panacea, but maybe a Pandora’s Box. South Carolina’s Gov. Mark Sanford is head of the Republican Governors Association. He warns about the impact of programs funded by this sudden windfall from Washington. “You get this huge slug of money. It funds programs for a couple of years, and then what? You get it started, you get a constituency established, and then we’re supposed to yank the rug out from under people when the federal money runs out?” Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) echoed Sanford’s concerns: “It’s not fair to Alaskans,” she said, “to create programs that won’t be sustainable.”

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