My speech "We Will Defeat Barack Obama and Restore the Covenant of Liberty"

Tea party leader urges Birmingham group to defeat Barack Obama

Published: Thursday, July 19, 2012, 10:10 PM  
By Robin DeMonia -- The Birmingham News

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- A man who helped launch the national tea-party movement urged a local chapter to redouble its efforts to defeat Barack Obama, accusing the president of corrupting the Constitution with the help of a "faithless chief justice."


Speaking to the Rainy Day Patriots in Hoover, Michael Patrick Leahy warned that a second term for Obama will lock in a "nightmare government" that tramples individual liberties and pushes the country to financial ruin.


Leahy told 120 people who gathered at Hoover Tactical Firearms that the United States is at risk of a crisis like that being experienced now in Greece and other European countries. He said federal spending is already at historical highs in relation to gross domestic product and predicted it would rise even higher in a second Obama term.


"This is financially reckless extremism," Leahy said. "The founders ... would despise and detest this."

Leahy also had strong words for Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the opinion upholding Obama's signature health care law. Leahy, who has called Roberts a "judicial Benedict Arnold," tonight called the chief justice a "con artist ... (who) redefined the court as an overarching, superlegislative body." 


"Justice Roberts knew he was conjuring up a decision that would make the American people retch," Leahy said. "More importantly, he just told us which team he's playing on. He's with the anticonstitutionalists. His legacy as their champion is secure."


But Leahy predicted the victory would be short-lived, and that Obama would be defeated in November, thanks to tea-party members who insist on preserving constitutional limits on government and protections for citizens.


"We are faithful to that covenant," Leahy said. "Barack Obama and the allies he has are in the middle of corrupting that covenant. It will not happen on our watch. ... We conservatives will defeat Barack Obama."


In response to an audience member, Leahy agreed Republican leaders don't have a solid record of supporting limited government. Still, he defended Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney as someone who will be more responsive to tea-party concerns.


"I would say he's better than the alternatives by a long shot. He's our only alternative," said Leahy, who was elected in Tennessee as a Romney delegate in 2008. 


Leahy helped start the Nationwide Tea Party Coalition in 2009. He also has written a book, "Covenant of Liberty: The Ideological Origins of the Tea Party Movement," which he autographed after tonight's gathering.


The Rainy Day Patriots formed in Birmingham and Shelby County in 2009, in response to concerns about the encroachment of big government going back as far as the prescription drug plan during George W. Bush 
administration. "Then Obama's socialist government takeover finally broke the camel's back," said Zan Green, the group's president and founder.


Green said her chapter now counts 4,000 "hard members" and has had more than 10,000 attend its events and rallies. She expects members to get more active as the election approaches and tonight pushed an effort to get Birmingham area tea-partiers to sway their Florida friends to Romney's side.


Tonight's Rainy Day Patriots meeting was a first for Ben Marcus and his son, Barry Marcus. "It's time to get involved," said Barry Marcus, who lives in Shelby County. "We have strayed so far from the Constitution, it's not funny. It's time to stand up and say we're going in the wrong direction." 


He said his concerns are not limited to either political party. "It's just the entire political climate. It's just gotten so toxic and corroded, I don't trust the Democrats or Republicans to do what they say."

Justice Roberts Turns Obamacare into Origination Clause Shell Game

Chief Justice Roberts’ ruling Thursday in NFIB v. Sebelius is a bitter loss for constitutional conservatives, delivered to us by a judicial Benedict Arnold. Forget the so-called long term victory contained in the commerce clause limitations. There’ s no denying that Roberts’ majority opinion represents a clear judicial defeat for defenders of the Constitution and individual liberty.


Roberts knew he was conjuring up a decision that would make the American people wretch. But judicial activism to limit the power of the individual and extend the powers of the federal government has been going on since the Supreme Court first caved to FDR’ s power grabs in a series of capitulations that culminated in the odious 1942 Wickard v. Filburn decision.

Now comes the equally odious NFIB v. Sebelius decision, in which Roberts rewrote a law from the bench. The Chief Justice wasn’t writing a legal opinion. He offered a political solution. More importantly, he just told us which team he’s playing on. He’s with the anti-constitutionalists. His legacy as their champion is secure.

Roberts’ decision to call the individual mandate a “tax” placed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in violation of the Constitution’s Origination Clause. Article 1, Section 7, Clause 1 states: “All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.”

You can read the rest of this article here at Breitbart.com .

University of Texas Whitewash of Elizabeth Warren Scientific Misconduct Charge Entangles UVA, UC Presidents

When Elizabeth Warren, Teresa A. Sullivan, and Jay Westbrook, co-authors of the 1989 book As We Forgive Our Debtors: Bankruptcy and Consumer Credit in America, were charged by Rutgers Law School Professor Philip Shuchman with scientific misconduct in 1990, they quickly asked for an investigation to clear their names. Sullivan, who resigned earlier this month as President of the University of Virginia, “immediately asked [her] employer, The University of Texas, to investigate the charge,” as she told me in a letter I received by email from her on June 5, 2012.



By 1990, all three co-authors--Sullivan, Warren, and Westbrook--were well established fixtures in University of Texas academic and social circles. Sullivan was the Chairman of the Sociology Department at the University of Texas, and would soon become the Dean of Graduate Studies. Westbrook was a long-tenured member of the faculty at the University of Texas Law School. Warren, who taught at the University of Texas Law School from 1981 to 1987, had by this time moved on to the University of Pennsylvania Law School, a top ten school with great prestige.



Warren’s former colleagues at the University of Texas took pride in her emergence as a rising legal star of the left, a reputation she carefully cultivated. According to some who have followed her career, she was considered a master practitioner of hard-nosed academic political tactics, and her critics in the genteel world of higher education were increasingly wary of her.



It was in that environment that current President of the University of California system Mark Yudof (then Dean of the University of Texas Law School) and current University of Texas Dean of Graduate Studies, ad interim Judith Langlois, wrote the April 1991 report for the investigation that Sullivan requested. It was titled University of Texas Preliminary Inquiry Report: Scientific Misconduct Against Teresa A. Sullivan, Elizabeth Warren, and Jay Westbrook.


You can read the rest of the story here at Breitbart.com.

Did Breitbart Investigation Play Any Role in Sudden Resignation of UVA President?

Sometimes a coincidence is just a coincidence. Sometimes it's more than that.

Based on all available current evidence, it appears that Teresa A. Sullivan's sudden resignation as President of the University of Virginia this past Sunday was most likely unrelated to an ongoing Breitbart News investigation into twenty-two-year-old allegations of scientific misconduct. However, since none of the key players in this drama--neither the sixteen members of the Board of Visitors who asked for her resignation, nor President Sullivan--have been willing to offer much in the way of explanation, rumors and speculation as to the true reasons for her sudden dismissal have been rampant.

Here's a chronology that documents the curious coincidence of timing:

You can read the rest of this story here at Breitbart.com . 

The Academic Scandal Elizabeth Warren and Harvard Don't Want You to Know About

Here's the first article in my four part series running now at Breitbart News on 1990 allegations of "scientific misconduct" against Elizabeth Warren.

In 1990, Rutgers Professor Philip Shuchman charged Elizabeth Warren, along with Teresa A. Sullivan (above), the President of University of Virginia who resigned unexpectedly yesterday, and Jay Westbrook,  her two co-authors of the 1989 book, As We Forgive Our Debtors: Bankruptcy and Consumer Credit in America, with “scientific misconduct.” Within a few months, Warren’s friends and former colleagues at the University of Texas quickly completed an error-filled investigation.

This secret report was accepted by University of Texas President William Cunningham. For two decades, Warren and her co-authors have claimed in academic circles that this report--never before made public--exonerated them.

You can read the rest of the article here at Breitbart.com .

BREAKING at BREITBART: Cherokees Demand Truth from Elizabeth Warren

You can read the full story, breaking now at BREITBART, here:

 Cherokees Demand Truth from Elizabeth Warren 

Covenant of Liberty Book Tour of Western States

I'll be speaking at several events as part of The Covenant of Liberty book tour of the western states next week:

Monday, April 30 -- Santa Monica Tea Party, Santa Monica, CA

Tuesday, May 1 -- East Valley Tea Party , Mesa AZ

Wednesday, May 2 -- Albuquerque, New Mexico

Thursday, May 3 -- Dallas, Texas

Friday, May 4 -- Frisco, Texas (just north of Dallas)

Also, I may be speaking in Santa Barbara CA Sunday April 29 or Monday April 30

If you live in any of these areas and would like to attend, please contact me for specific times and locations.

Mitt Romney Gets a Copy of Covenant of Liberty

Last Monday, I introduced Mitt Romney at a meeting of the Independence Hall Tea Party's Tax Day Tea Party Summit, held at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia.

In my introduction, I said that "the Tea Party reserves the right to encourage the Republican Party nominee to more closely align with the tea party's core values."

After the event, I gave Governor Romney a copy of my new book, Covenant of Liberty: The Ideological Origins of the Tea Party Movement.

The Coming Conservative Landslide

Wishful liberals and Chicken Little conservatives who watch the weekly fluctuations in the presidential polls have concluded that President Obama is a shoo-in for re-election. They point out that Mitt Romney, the likely Republican nominee, can’t connect with women, has a large likability gap and is slightly behind Obama in most national polls as well as in the key swing states of Virginia, North Carolina, Florida and Ohio.


The despair of faint-hearted conservatives deepens when they contemplate President Obama’s disastrous performance in office. His record of fiscally reckless extremism is unparalleled in American history. In three short years, federal spending as a percentage of GDP has climbed from 20% to 24% while the national debt has exploded from $10 trillion to $15.5 trillion. By the end of his term, Obama will have increased the national debt by a staggering 67%.


Add to this record President Obama’s continual disrespect for the Constitution, his unceasing regulatory attacks on free enterprise and small businesses, his rhetoric of class warfare, his deceptive demagoguery and his spendthrift economic policies that have fattened the wallets of his political cronies but created so few jobs that millions of Americans have simply dropped out of the labor force, and many conservatives can offer only one explanation for Obama’s current lead in the polls.


America, they conclude, must have lost its can-do spirit of rugged individualism and replaced it with what Governor Chris Christie recently called an attitude of “paternalistic entitlement” championed by a coalition of political elites, acolytes in the mainstream media, crony capitalists and an ever-growing dependency class.
Conservatives across the nation should be of good cheer, however. The United States remains a center-right nation. This November, voters will choose common sense over fiscally reckless extremism in what will be a landslide conservative victory. Republicans will retain the House, gain the Senate and win back the presidency with a 2-to-1 Electoral College margin.


You can read the rest of the story at The Daily Caller.

Lou Dobbs and I Talk About the Impact of the Tea Party on the 2012 Election

My Appearance on MSNBC's Morning Joe

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Rick Santorum Gets the First Copy of Covenant of Liberty

(Photo courtesy of Samuel E. Burns)

Although my new book, Covenant of Liberty: The Ideological Origins of the Tea Party Movement , won't be released until March 20, my publisher, HarperCollins' new conservative imprint, Broadside Books, overnighted one advanced copy of the book to me on Friday so that I could give it to Rick Santorum on Saturday.

The occasion was the Chattanooga Tea Party's celebration of the Third Anniversary of the launch of the Tea Party movement. Santorum was the featured speaker, and I was one of a few who spoke before he addressed the crowd, which was quite large (I estimate about 2,000.)

After the event, I was able to have a brief conversation with Senator Santorum. I think it helped when I pointed out that both Richard Viguerie and John Bolton had written very nice back jacket blurbs. I thanked Senator Santorum for engaging with the Tea Party movement, and suggested that he consider aligning his policies more closely with our three core values. The Senator was very gracious.

Tea Party Leaders to Florida Voters: Santorum, Gingrich, and Paul Should Continue Past Florida

You can see the full Election Day Tea Party press release here.

What's Next for the Tea Party Movement? Election Day Tea Party 2012

Time for Warren Buffett and his Secretary to Release Their Personal Tax Returns

The political theater of the Obama Administration continues at this evening’s State of the Union Address. Debbie Bosanek, Warren Buffett’s personal secretary–you know the woman who has become the poster-child for President Obama’s attacks on the “unfairness” of the not progressive enough tax code–will be seated in the First Lady’s box this evening. Buffett has repeatedly lectured to us about a tax code in which his secretary pays a higher tax rate than he does.

Ms. Bosanek, who until recently had only been thrust into the public dialogue over “fairness” and redistribution by her publicity seeking and political favor hunting boss (note how his Burlington Railroad company benefits financially from the President’s decision to halt the Keystone Pipeline) has now thrust herself into the national debate.

Fair enough.

Now that she’s voluntarily participating in the public arena, I call on both Ms. Bosanek and Mr. Buffett to release their own personal tax returns for the past four years. Let’s see what their tax rates really are. This is an important political argument that will be a central theme of the Obama campaign for the rest of the year. Having made the claim on behalf of the Obama campaign, it’s time for Mr. Buffett and Ms. Bosanek to demonstrate its veracity.

I suspect we’ll find that Mr. Buffett has benefited significantly from his own lobbying of Congress. And I’m curious to see exactly how much higher Ms. Bosanek’s tax rate is than Mr. Buffett’s.

The analysis of their personal tax returns is likely to be highly educational for the entire country.

More commentary at Broadside Books' Line of Fire here.

Michael Patrick Leahy is the editor of the Voices of the Tea Party e-book series, co-founder of the Nationwide Tea Party Coalition, and co-organizer of Election Day Tea Party 2012. His new book,Covenant of Liberty: The Ideological Origins of the Tea Party Movement, will be published by Broadside Books in spring, 2012. He can be reached on Twitter at @michaelpleahy .

Monday Morning Radio: Obama's New Nationalism More Sukarno Than Teddy Roosevelt

I'll be talking with WWTN Radio's Ralph Bristol tomorrow morning (Monday) at 8 am cst about my American Thinker article "Barack Obama's New Nationalism More Sukarno Than Teddy Roosevelt."


You can listen live and call in from anywhere in the country here.

Newt Gingrich, Champion of Hamiltonian Statism

On the Glenn Beck radio program today, Newt Gingrich once more confirmed his support for Hamiltonian industrial policies. In some instances, such as ethanol, Gingrich argued, the federal government should subsidize some industries over others. In other instances, such as the automobile industry, such subsidies should not be undertaken.

Gingrich failed to offer a convincing argument why subsidies are appropriate for some industries and companies, but not others.

When he cited the history of subsidies to manufacturers and other companies in America, the former professor of history got in to big trouble with those of us who support the three core values of the Tea Party movement: (1) Constitutionally Limited Government (2) Free Markets and (3) Fiscal Responsibility.

Gingrich pointed to two examples of “successful” industrial subsidies in our nation’s first century — Alexander Hamilton’s 1791 Report on Manufactures and the transconstinental railroad built during the 1860s.

He could not have found two better examples that illustrate the corrupting nature of the federal government picking winners and losers. In fact, “Professor” Gingrich seems to have either missed history’s lessons about the adverse affects of crony capitalism, or he’s emulating some big-government villains in American history.

As I point out in my new book, Covenant of Liberty: The Ideological Origins of the Tea Party Movement, Alexander Hamilton was the original champion of crony capitalism. Indeed, before introducing his Report on Manufactures to the Second Congress in December, 1791, Hamilton had organized and raised capital for a private company called The Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures. Though he himself was not an investor, he wrote the prospectus, and persuaded his many financial speculator friends in New York City to invest in the deal. Why wouldn’t they? With the public backing of the Secretary of the Treasury, it was a sure thing. Hamilton persuaded the State Government of New Jersey to invest, as well as numerous Congressmen, a future Supreme Court Justice, and the Governor of New Jersey himself.

In his Report on Manufactures, Hamilton asked Congress to subsidize this very company, without specifically naming it. The Chairman of SEUM, a financial manipulator by the name of William Duer, soon was caught up in the first national Wall Street financial scandal, emptied all the investor funds from the company, and went to debtors prison. Hamilton got his friends at the Bank of New York (where much of the federal government’s funds were invested) to loan $10,000 to the essentially bankrupt enterprise, and it limped along for another five years before it became, at least temporarily, a shell company.

SEUM purchased land in what is now Paterson, New Jersey, and the ruins of its buildings can be seen there today. Why did the enterprise fail ? Because neither Hamilton nor any of the investors in the company (the speculators and politicians) knew anything about manufacturing.

This is a project that Gingrich points to as an example we should emulate today?

It gets worse.

You can read the rest of this article at Broadside Books’ Line of Fire here.

The Price of Civilization?

Many years ago, Columbia economist Jeff Sachs did me a personal favor. We had both just graduated from Harvard, and I was moving from a dorm room in one of the residential houses down by the Charles River to a very sparse apartment in Somerville. The floors in the apartment were covered by some form of linoleum and badly in need of a rug. Another friend offered to give me a rug if I would take it out of his apartment. It was about 8 feet by 10 feet long, and one person alone couldn’t handle the job. The catch was, I had to get it that night.

I couldn’t find anyone to help me, and as I wandered through Harvard Yard that evening, I bumped into Jeff, who even at that young age had quite a reputation as an economics genius. I knew Jeff, but not well, and after chatting a moment, he told me I looked like I was in a hurry. I explained the situation, and he offered to help. I was quite surprised by his generous offer.

So we headed up to one apartment, picked up the rug, and the two of us walked about a mile with it, carrying it over our shoulders as if we were a couple of stevedores–which we obviously weren’t–to my new apartment.

You can read the rest of the post on Broadside Books' Line of Fire here.

Gibson Guitar and the Resurrected Blue Eagle

In April, 1934, a 49 year old Polish immigrant, Jacob Maged, who had been operating a one man tailor and cleaning shop in Jersey City, New Jersey, was jailed for three days and fined $100. His crime? He had refused to comply with the National Recovery Administration’s “code of fair competition,” which dictated that no one in the cleaning business could charge less than 40 cents for pressing a suit.

The codes had been drawn up by the larger drying and cleaning businesses, in cooperation with the bureaucrats operating under the control of Hugh Johnson, the hard drinking profane administrator of the agency authorized by Franklin Roosevelt to implement the National Industrial Recovery Act, one of the cornerstones of the First New Deal. Compliance with the codes was signfied by the placement of a placard with a Blue Eagle–the symbol of the power of the NRA–displayed in the windows of businesses that voluntarily agreed to accept the codes.

For those independent businessmen who refused to voluntarily comply with the code, it was tough luck. The law allowed the Federal Government to imprison and impose stiff fines on “ruthless competitors” like Mr. Maged who wouldn’t play ball. The uncooperative Maged insisted on charging 35 cents –a pricing policy that had kept him in business for 22 years–and Hugh Johnson and his local minions were upset. How dare this independent operator defy the authority of the Federal Government? As a reward for his defiance, Mr. Maged, who was barely making a living to begin with, was jailed for 3 days and fined $100. He only earned his freedom by meekly accepting the government’s pricing rules.

Last week, when agents of the Federal Government raided the Nashville, Tennessee plant of Gibson Guitar, the premier guitar manufacturer in the world, memories of similar tactics of intimidation designed to force independent businesses into compliance came to mind. The circumstances were significantly different, but the tactics were the same.

You can read the rest of this article at Broadside Books' Line of Fire here.