In today’s podcast, Lori and I interview Lee Stranahan. Lee is a filmmaker, a Huffington Post contributor, a twitterer, and a known associate of Tommy Christopher. You should feel free to hold that against him.

We discuss the details of the complex Pigford story which Lee has been investigating both independently and in conjunction with Andrew Breitbart and the Big sites. We have some fascinating revelations in the first half of the show. In the second half, we revert to our usual juvenile, semi-vulgar selves as Stranahan dares plunge into our world famous FOUR QUESTIONS crucible and Lori (contain your shock) talks about Snooki.

The Needle: We’re like the ninjas of being lazy loudmouth bloggers. So not that much like ninjas, really.

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The Needle is a podcast featuring Lori Ziganto and Caleb Howe, produced by Eric Morris for PunditLeague.us. You can also listen and chat live with Caleb and Lori, Thursdays at 9pm ET on FTRRadio.com

On Tuesday, a union filed a petition [5-RC-16629] with the National Labor Relations Board office in Baltimore, Maryland. The purpose of the petition was to have the NLRB conduct a secret-ballot election. The employer in this case happens to be the United Food & Commercial Workers, Local 400, based in Landover, Maryland. The petitioning union is the Federation of Agents and International Representatives. [Yes, sometimes union representatives actually have unions represent them against their exploitive employers—the unions.]

So, you might be asking, what’s the point?

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On this date in the year 1848, in the conquered and occupied Federal District of Mexico, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed by representatives of US President James Polk and interim Mexican President Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, ending the war between the two countries.

By every possible measure, the war ended as a decisive victory for the United States and a humiliating defeat for Mexico. As a result of the treaty, Mexico ceded all rights to territory north of the Rio Grande and the Gila River, including all of California, Nevada, Utah, and Texas, parts of Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, and Oklahoma, as well as the parts of Arizona and New Mexico not later bought in the Gadsden Purchase. From Mexico’s perspective, a perspective that recognized neither the revolutions in Texas and California nor the Annexation of Texas, the country lost over half of its prewar territory.

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Tonight from 6pm to 8pm ET, I’ll be interviewing Herman Cain about his potential Presidential run.

You can listen live at http://wsbradio.com and you too can call in and ask Herman questions. The call in number is 1-800-WSB-TALK.

Thomas Sowell has an article out today about the latest incidence of mission creep from the EPA.  To summarize: the EPA has wide discretion when it comes to oil spills.  Milk contains oil.  Therefore, the EPA has wide discretion over milk spills, too - which includes requiring ‘emergency plans’ and ‘first responders’ and ‘extra storage tanks’ from dairy farmers in order to handle such life- and civilization-threatening events as milk getting spilled*.  And, no, this is not an exaggeration: Cato reported on this back in June.  This is happening.

Now, Hot Air and Ace of Spades both waxed wroth on this, in their individual ways - but I asked myself, Self?  How can I make this work for us? And lo! - the answer was easy.

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After spending hundreds of millions to ensure they owned the party, Lefties and union members have got to be feeling just a little betrayed after the Democratic National Committee’s convention planners chose Charlotte, North Carolina—the least unionized state in the nation—as the site to hold the 2012 convention. While progressive activists’ heads are still spinning, you can bet that, if union bosses in Washington did not agree with the move, and with other “union” cities in the running (including such illustrious hotspots as Cleveland, Minneapolis, and St. Louis), Charlotte would not be having the convention. So, what’s the real reason Charlotte—a city without a single unionized hotel, as well as a union-free convention center—was chosen?

Well, it could be a purely political play like DNC Chairman Tim Kaine tried (rather unsuccessfully) to spin it to MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell. However, given the fact that Ohio may be a bigger swing state than North Carolina in 2012, why not go to Cleveland? [That city could certainly use the boost.] Unless, of course, the real reason has to do with union politics and Charlotte has been chosen precisely because it is union-free.

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In a classic example of “something that would’ve been more useful yesterday,” Senate Democrats today held a hearing in the Judiciary Committee on the constitutionality of the individual mandate. One of the guests was Charles Fried, a prominent Harvard Law professor. When Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) asked a question of Fried today about the so-called “broccoli mandate” hypothetical — which gets to the question of whether the government can regulate all forms of inactivity, and if so, what if anything is off-limits? — Fried shared an answer that was refreshingly blunt, as relayed by Avik Roy: (emphasis mine)

Sen. Durbin: The point raised by Senator Lee – the “buy your vegetables, eat your vegetables” point? I’d like you ask to comment on that because that is the one I’m hearing most often. By people who are saying “Well, if the government can require me to buy health insurance, can it require me to have a membership in a gym, or eat vegetables?” We’ve heard from Professor Dellinger on that point, would you like to comment?

Prof. Fried: Yes. We hear that quite a lot. It was put by Judge Vinson, and I think it was put by Professor Barnett in terms of eating your vegetables, and for reasons I set out in my testimony, that would be a violation of the 5th and the 14th Amendment, to force you to eat something. But to force you to pay for something? I don’t see why not. It may not be a good idea, but I don’t see why it’s unconstitutional.

Well, then that’s good to know. Obesity crisis, your days are numbered!

For a bit of context, Fried was generally considered a conservative legal thinker in the past, but in 2008 he openly supported Barack Obama over John McCain, citing Sarah Palin as the primary reason for his choice. So that gives you some perspective on where he’s coming from.

Download audio here

Download Podcast | iTunes | Podcast Feed

In Texas, where Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison is retiring, we’re likely to see the biggest, most expensive Senate primary of the 2012 season. Today on Coffee and Markets we’re talking with Michael Williams, a candidate for the job, about what his priorities will be for the race, what he would bring to the Senate, and what role he thinks the Tea Party will play in the election.

We’re brought to you as always by Stephen Clouse and Associates. You can find our iTunes feed at CoffeeandMarkets.com. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

Michael Williams for Texas
Texas Tribune: A Conversation With Michael Williams
The Hill: Candidate Hopes Early Start Nets Him KBH Seat
Politics Daily: Cruz, Williams Battle for Conservatives
TNL: Cruz on His Race for the Senate in Texas
Michael Williams on Twitter

This Sunday will be the 100th birthday of Ronald Reagan.  When I was an undergraduate at the University of Massachusetts, Reagan was a beacon of hope.  I felt like I was behind a red curtain of crazy liberals and far leftists at UMass-Amherst.  Reagan inspired me to be a conservative. 

The Heritage Foundation blog, The Foundry, has a more lengthy post on the subject written by Brandon Stewart.  Consider this an open thread on your memories of Ronald Reagan.

Barack Obama’s failure in Egypt has nothing to do with Egypt itself descending to chaos. No American administration has been willing to call Hosni Mubarak a dictator, which he is. And no administration has sought to strong arm Mubarak into a succession plan devoid of kleptocratic relatives.

We cannot blame Barack Obama for Egypt collapsing in on itself.

We can however blame Barack Obama for failing to mitigate and control the impact of the collapse.

Like when a demolition team sets about bringing down a crumbling building — and we now know Obama collaborated to help bring down Egypt — the demolition team must make sure the building, as it implodes, does not throw debris and carnage all over the place. If that happens, the demolition team is liable.

Barack Obama is liable, given this:

The Obama administration said for the first time that it supports a role for groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, a banned Islamist organization, in a reformed Egyptian government.

The organization must reject violence and recognize democratic goals if the U.S. is to be comfortable with it taking part in the government, the White House said.

Note that by saying the Muslim Brotherhood “must reject violence and recognize democratic goals”, the White House is presupposing that the Muslim Brotherhood accepts violence and does not recognize democratic goals.

Notwithstanding that, the White House is perfectly happy to give them a seat at the table.

It’s 1979 all over again. I hope the Embassy has been fully evacuated.

Congressman Issa will not get the documents he is requesting from the Department of Homeland Security.

The Daily Caller has the story.

Congressman Issa, now in charge of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, sent the DHS a demand for documents. Those documents have never arrived.

More troubling, according to Issa

top DHS officials actually instructed career employees not to search for the documents he is requesting.

“I was disappointed to learn that on or about Jan. 20, 2011, DHS’s Office of General Counsel instructed career staff in the Privacy Office not to search for documents responsive to my request,” Issa says in the Feb. 1 letter.

More troubling, DHS officials have told career bureaucrats to send all the documents to Barack Obama’s political team to review for sending the documents on. We’ve known for a while that everything the Obama Administration does is political, but this is a telling example that even compliance with Congress has descended into a political fight.

From Department of Justice inquiries to Freedom of Information Act requests, future Republican White Houses will now have some great precedent set by the Obama Administration.

Of course the question is — what are they hiding?

“I am sorry that I’m the guy that has to be here at the time when the party’s over.”  That’s a quote from Governor Chris Christie in response to a state employed police officer who was angry at potentially losing future raises as well as being asked to contribute more to his health benefits in order to close huge budget deficits in New Jersey.  The truth is, liking the budget cuts is irrelevant to the reality of its necessity, or as Gov. Christie likes to say, “Math is math.”  More than ever, that math is spelling huge trouble, and the source of it is increasingly found in the entitlement mentality of government employees like the one that vented to Christie.

But this is far from a problem that New Jersey alone is dealing with.

Newly inaugurated Governor Rick Snyder (R) of Michigan released a report this week on the state’s fiscal crisis.  In it, he clearly shows where the “party” has been and where all the good jobs have gone: State & Local government employees as well as teachers who have seen annual compensation increased by 19 percent over the last decade outpacing the private sector they serve by over 6 percentage points.  But even those numbers fail to capture the extent of the imbalance.

In Michigan, the 2009 average compensation of a state employee was $85 thousand.  Compensation for teachers was a close second at $75 thousand with local government employees bringing in an average of $57 thousand.

And what of the private sector you may ask?  Well they came in last at a mere $40 thousand in annual compensation.

And how has Michigan been paying for these incredible salaries?  Why, on the back of the tax payer of course!  But even that isn’t enough.  Luckily for the big spenders, the last decade was a free-for-all in deficit spending resulting in only three of the last ten years having more tax revenue than expenditures.  The result is a staggering $1.5 billion deficit and a mind blowing $70 billion debt without even counting the $55 billion in additional unfunded liabilities for state pension and healthcare benefits.

Michigan’s problems only begin there.  For a true understanding of just how bad it is, take a look at the charts included in the report.

And Michigan & New Jersey are just the tip of the iceberg.  Behold the projected state budget shortfalls for 2012 totaling $124.7 billion.

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