Because I have spent the last two posts going after Newt Gingrich to an extent, in fairness I am providing a link to Gingrich's website, where he answers recent charges made against him. I report, you decide (hmmm. Where have I heard that phrase before ? Sounds familiar).
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Larry Elder Treats Chris Matthews Like Chris Matthews And Every Other MSNBC Host Treats Conservative Guests…And Matthews Doesn't Like It One Bit:

Payback is a you-know-what, Mr. Matthews.
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House Rejects Balanced Budget Amendment (link):

The U.S. House of Representatives rejected a proposal Friday to amend the Constitution to require a balanced budget, seen by many as the only way to force lawmakers to hold the fiscal line and reverse the flow of federal red ink.

The 261-165 vote, though a clear majority, was 23 votes short of the two-thirds required to advance a constitutional amendment. Democrats voted overwhelmingly against it, apparently swayed by the arguments of their leaders that a balanced budget requirement would force Congress to make devastating cuts to social programs.

Four Republicans joined the Democrats in opposing the measure: House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier (R-Calif.), Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) and and Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas.).

$15 trillion in national debt, annual trillion dollar deficits, and Congress doesn't have the votes for a balanced budget amendment. Yet another sign of our destruction.

I expect Democrats to vote against fiscal sanity, but….did I see that right ? Rep. Ryan voted AGAINST the balanced budget amendment ? What's up with that ? Here's Ryan's explanation:

Ryan said he was worried the version of the amendment could pave the way for more taxes, instead of reducing spending, to balance the budget, The Hill reported.

“Spending is the problem, yet this version of the BBA makes it more likely taxes will be raised, government will grow, and economic freedom will be diminished,” Ryan said. “Without a limit on government spending, I cannot support this amendment.”

Can't say I agree with Ryan's logic there. Tax increases may be bad, but this out-of-control debt bomb is far worse.

This is the first balanced budget amendment vote in 16 years. In 1995, a balanced budget amendment passed the House, when Republicans and 72 Democrats voted for it. That effort failed to pass the Senate by one vote, thanks to Democrat obstruction. Think of how much better off this country would be today if we had passed that amendment in 1995, and had not accumulated $10 trillion in new debt since. Thanks for nothing, Dumb-o-crats. This time around, only 25 Democrats in the House voted for a balanced budget amendment. I guess the Democratic party prefers national bankruptcy. In fact, I think that should be Obama's 2012 campaign slogan. DEBT FOREVER ! VOTE OBAMA.
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White House Shooter Made Videos:
I've been wondering why Oscar Ortega-Hernandez, the man suspected of shooting at the White House in an assassination attempt (his bullet was stopped by bulletproof glass), hated Obama so much. Ortega-Hernandez has referred to himself as a modern day Jesus, and called Obama the anti-Christ. As it turns out, Ortega-Hernandez made a video in hopes of being on Oprah's show:

VIDEO: Alleged White House Shooter Oscar Ortega-Hernandez: MyFoxDC.com

I wonder where our modern day Jesus/assassin got that "war for oil" stuff ??? Any liberals out there wish to hazard a guess ? I know how concerned y'all are about political rhetoric leading to violence.

In related news, the Occupy San Diego dumbsh*ts held a moment of silence to express "solidarity" with the shooter, because authorities thought Ortega-Hernandez may have been hanging out with the Occupy D.C. crowd (which seems now not to be the case).

Real brainiacs, those Occupiers. The Occupier arrest count now tops 3,600.
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My, How That Hope Did Change:

Here's candidate Obama in 2008, castigating Bush (justifiably) for Bush's debt accumulation:

"The problem is that the way Bush has done it over the last eight years is to take out a credit card from the Bank of China in the name of our children, driving up our national debt from $5 trillion for the first 42 presidents, [and] number 43 added $4 trillion dollars by his lonesome, so that we now have over $9 trillion of debt."

Obama called Bush's spending and debt runup "unpatriotic" then, but now he calls Republicans unpatriotic because they won't spend and runup even more debt. Go figure. Obama has added $4.5 trillion to the debt in less than three years. It took Bush nearly eight years to do the same. If the debt trajectory continues and Obama is elected to a second term, he will add more to the national debt than every other President in U.S. history COMBINED. That is called epic fail, my friends.

Not-So-Super Committee: The congressional Super Committee is tasked with cutting $1.2 trillion from future deficits over the next decade. They can accomplish this by cutting spending or raising taxes. They have 9 days left to complete their mission before automatic cuts to defense and entitlements go into effect. Thus far, the Super Committee has been unable to reach an agreement.

If anything illustrates the ineffectiveness of Congress (and a failure of leadership by the President), this it it. Think about it. Over the last ten years, the federal government has spent about $28 trillion. Over the next ten years, federal spending is projected to be $45-50 trillion. All the Super Committee has to do is cut $1.2 trillion out of the next $45-50 trillion in spending, a miniscule percentage. The Super Committee's job isn't even about cutting spending. They are only talking about cutting the rate of future spending INCREASE. I could cut that much out of the budget in a day, if it took me that long. In fact, I'll do it right now, in about ten seconds. We could cut $1.2 trillion out of the military budget over ten years. That would come to $120 billion per year, out of a defense budget that is already larger than the defense budgets of all the other countries in the world COMBINED, a defense budget that costs almost $1 trillion per year when all associated costs are tallied. There. We're done. That wasn't so hard, was it ?

If the Super Committee can't even agree on these small cuts ($120 billion per year out of future $4-5 trillion budgets), what hope is there that Congress can close our annual trillion dollar deficits ? There is no hope, not with our current Congress, and not with our current President. Ron Paul sounds better all the time.

CBS Sucks: Speaking of Ron Paul, CBS held a 90-minute GOP presidential debate on foreign policy. CBS aired 60 minutes of that debate, and candidate Paul got a grand total of 89 seconds to speak on air. Paul advocates a non-interventionist foreign policy (see – defense spending cuts). Apparently, CBS didn't want to hear it. Paul wasn't the only GOP contender complaining, and CBS's excuse was that they gave the most air time to the candidates highest in the polls. It is not the job of CBS to decide which candidates are legitimate and which are not. That's the job of the voters, and the voters can't make a sound choice if certain candidates are cut out of the debate process. It's the job of CBS to give each candidate an equal chance, and CBS failed miserably.

Cain-wreck: I thought Rick Perry forgetting which government deparments he wanted to eliminate was about as bad as it gets for political flubs. I was wrong. Watch Herman Cain trying to answer a question about whether he agreed with Obama's policy in Libya:

Ouch. That was actually painful to watch. 'Let's see…Libya…that's a country, isn't it ? Golly, there are so many countries that it's hard to keep track [even though we've been at war in Libya for months and it was all over the news]. Libya's trying to develop nuclear weapons, right ? No, that's China…or is it Iran ? Wait, no, Libya is where Qaddafi was at, correct ? Whatever it is, I'm disagreeing with Obama's policy on it, because…I have to…even if I have no idea what I'm talking about'.

Give me a break already. Cain sounded like a college student who didn't study for the entire semester and then stayed up all night cramming for the final. So much information "twirling around" inside his head. Thanks for playing Presidential Jeopardy, Mr. Cain, and please accept this wonderful parting gift, dinner for two at Olive Garden. But please spare us any more of your "views" on foreign policy. Cain would have been better off if he just said, 'hell if I know. I'm a businessman. I don't even know where Libya is'.

Given Cain and Perry's recent responses, I'm starting to think maybe I could run for President. There don't seem to be any qualifications for the job.

Supreme Test For ObamaCare: The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the lawsuit challenging ObamaCare. This is huge. We should find out next year whether we have a constitutional government or a totalitarian government. If the ObamaCare insurance mandate is upheld by the Supremes, the government would be granted almost unlimited power over the citizenry. The government could then tell us what products we have to buy from private companies, what we have to eat and drink, what we have to wear, you name it. There would be no limits to governmental authority. The ObamaCare mandate to purchase health insurance or be fined is an assault on our basic rights and freedom, and possibly the most unconstitutional law passed since the 1930's, when several unconstitutional FDR laws were struck down by the courts.

There have been calls for Justices Thomas and Kagan to recuse themselves from the proceedings. Justice Thomas' wife has been involved in campaigns to repeal ObamaCare, and Justice Kagan worked for Obama and is on record cheering the passage of ObamaCare. It doesn't really matter if they recuse themselves, unless only one of them does, which would swing the balance of the court. We pretty much already know the entire liberal wing of the court will vote for a totalitarian government and approve the unconstitutional ObamaCare mandate. The conservative wing of the court will vote to uphold the Constitution and liberty, and that leaves…Justice Kennedy, the swing vote who will decide the future of freedom in this country. The eventual ruling is almost certainly going to be 5-4 one way or the other. My view is that any Justice who votes to uphold the ObamaCare mandate should be immediately kicked off the Supreme Court for violating his/her oath of office.

The Lord Of The Flies movement takes baby steps…

All Animals Are Equal, But Some Are More Equal Than Others: “We need to limit the amount of food we’re putting out to curb the influx of derelicts.” – OWS kitchen volunteer Rafael Moreno

All Animals Are Equal, But Some Are More Equal Than Others, Part II: "If you’re going to come here and get our food, bedding and clothing, have books and medical supplies for no charge, they need to give back. There’s a lot of takers here and they feel entitled. – OWS protestor Lauren Digiola (link)

Yes, we certainly can't have any entitlement-seekers infecting the Occupy movement of…um…entitlement-seekers. Gotta keep those losers out. The stuff the Occupiers have is THEIRS, dammit !!! They can't be expected to redistribute THEIR wealth to the less fortunate !!! We Are The 99%…except for those homeless derelicts !!!
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Robbing Peter To Pay Paul: "With nine days to go before the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) faces default, a Senate committee on Wednesday is expected to vote on a new plan to address the crisis. … The legislation would … provide USPS billions in cash from taxpayers. Specifically, it would hand over some $7 billion in supposedly 'surplus' contributions the government has made to the Federal Employees Retirement System. Such temporary surpluses, however, are common and are typically erased by normal financial swings or amortization over time. Transfer of the entire pot to USPS leaves taxpayers vulnerable if USPS later falls behind (which, given its condition, is not unlikely) while allowing needed structural reforms to be delayed. … USPS, and mail delivery itself, faces an uncertain future. Comprehensive change is needed to prevent massive losses and virtual bankruptcy. The reforms being considered by the Senate, however, fall short — while putting taxpayers even more at risk for the consequences of failure." –The Heritage Foundation's James Gattuso

I call this the Social Security financial oversight model. When the government sees a pile of money, it can't keep it's grubby mitts off of it. Btw, there is about $17.5 trillion sitting in the retirement funds of Americans if you add all of them together. How much do you think the government money-grubbers would love to gain control of that pile of cash ??? You'd have to subtract the $2.5 trillion sitting in the Social Security Trust Fund from the $17.5 trillion amount, because those SS funds don't really exist (the government already "borrowed" that money), but still, that leaves $15 trillion in our retirement funds, which is almost the exact amount of the national debt. When the cash-strapped government is already thinking about "borrowing" money from the pensions of federal employees, how long will it be until your IRA's and 401K's are taken over ? Lest you think I'm engaging in some fanciful paranoid delusion…the Obama administration already has plans to takeover your 401K's, which it could then "borrow" from. Beware.
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National Debate Loser: And what can we say about Rick Perry ? Trying to list the federal departments he would eliminate, Perry had an epic debate brain fart instead…

"Commerce, Education and the, uh, what's the third one there? Let's see…The third agency of government I would — I would do away with, Education, uh, the, uh, Commerce and, let's see,…I can't. The third one, I can't. Sorry. Oops."

Doh !!!! I think the third government department Perry was going for there is Lingerie, or maybe Junior Miss. Commodore Perry's presidential battleship may have just sunk.
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When Life Gets Tough, Make Things Up: "From a policy standpoint I think it's really important to know that President Obama was a job creator from day one. Now, was the ditch that we were in so deep that when you're talking to people and they still don't have a job, that's any consolation to them? No. But I'll tell you this: If President Obama and the House congressional Democrats had not acted, we would be at 15 percent unemployment." –House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)

For the record, under Obama, the alleged "job creator from day one", we have lost about 2.4 million jobs, and nobody outside Pelosi's vivid imagination believes unemployment would have been at 15 percent without Obama's failed stimulus package. Pelosi is a perpetual brain fart.
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Top 1% Denier: Here's an exchange between left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore and a CBS reporter…

Reporter: How are you helping these [Occupy protesters]?
Moore: Because I do well, I want taxes raised on people who do well, including mine.
Reporter: How are you helping these people with your $50 million?
Moore: I don't have $50 million.
Reporter: That's what it's rumored you are worth.
Moore: Well, really. Is that what you do is sell rumors?
Reporter: We're asking you for the truth.
Moore: You're just punk media is all you are. You lie. You lie to people. Stop lying to people. Stop lying.
Reporter: Are you not part of the 1 percent?
Moore: Just don't lie, okay?

I'm still waiting for the FIRST left-wing multi-millionaire like Moore to give their own personal riches away for the "cause". When they start doing that, I'll start taking them more seriously, and not a moment before. Before the wealth redistributors start spending other people's money, how about they spend their own ???
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Unitary Executive Back In Style: "If the Republican Congress won't join us, we're going to continue to act on our own to make the changes that we can to bring relief to middle-class families and those aspiring to get in the middle class". – VP Joe Biden

Whatever you say, Joe, but what about those 15 jobs-producing bills the Republican House has already passed that are sitting in the Senate waiting for the Democrats to bring them up ? In addition, why does every Democrat "jobs package" have to end up costing the taxpayers between $450 billion and $1 trillion ? Do Democrats simply not know our national debt is about to pass $15 trillion any day now ? Maybe their entire party has had a brain fart. The Democrats idea of stimulus is to take a bucket of water out of one end of the pool and pour it into the other end. They seem to believe they can fill up the pool this way. It won't ever work, because it CAN'T work. The real answer is to take money out of the government's hands and put it back into the hands of the private sector where it can do some good. The private sector is where growth comes from, not the government.
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And To Think, THIS Is the Guy They Call The Father Of The Democratic Party: "We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt." – Thomas Jefferson

While I'm quoting Jefferson, who in today's society believes these words ?…

"Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition". – Thomas Jefferson

Not the political left, I can tell you that for sure.

You can always tell the statesman from the politician. The politician is the one who manipulates, deceives, and spins. The politician is the person with his finger in the wind, constantly trying to gauge public opinion so he knows what to say or do, in order to win the next election. The politician is the person who depends on you not remembering what he said or did yesterday, when he contradicts his own words and actions today. We have lots of politicians in Washington D.C.

Barack Obama is a very good politician.

These days, Obama has been attempting to portray himself as the grownup in the room, the guy who wants a comprehensive deficit reduction plan, if only those darned Republican obstructionists weren't standing in his way. This comes on the heels of Obama running up deficits and debt faster than any President in American history. Columnist Charles Krauthammers points out the fallacy of Obama's words today in a column titled "Call His Bluff" (Obama warned Rep. Eric Cantor (R-NY) not to call his bluff). Krauthammer does remember yesterday:

President Obama is demanding a big long-term budget deal. He won’t sign anything less, he warns, asking, “If not now, when?”

How about last December, when he ignored his own debt commission’s recommendations? How about February, when he presented a budget that increases debt by $10 trillion over the next decade? How about April, when he sought a debt-ceiling increase with zero debt reduction attached?

All of a sudden he’s a born-again budget balancer prepared to bravely take on his own party by making deep cuts in entitlements. Really? Name one. He’s been saying forever that he’s prepared to discuss, engage, converse about entitlement cuts. But never once has he publicly proposed a single structural change to any entitlement.

Hasn’t the White House leaked that he’s prepared to raise the Medicare age or change the cost-of-living calculation?

Anonymous talk is cheap. Leaks are designed to manipulate. Offers are floated and disappear. Say it, Mr. President. Give us one single structural change in entitlements. In public.

I'm reminded of what I heard House Majority leader John Boehner (R-OH) say yesterday, that negotiating with Obama is like dealing with Jello. The President doesn't propose anything solid, except for tax increases. When it comes to spending cuts, the President will discuss, engage, and converse, but he never makes an actual proposal. Have any of you ever heard him make one ?

Another question we need to ask is why Obama opposes a shorter-term deal. That would be better than no deal. It would be far better to extend the negotiating period than to exceed the debt limit, would it not ? Krauthammer supplies the answer again:

As part of the pose as the forward-looking grown-up rising above all the others who play politics, Obama insists upon a long-term deal. And what is Obama’s definition of long-term? Surprise: An agreement that gets him past Nov. 6, 2012.

Nothing could be more political. It’s like his Afghan surge wind-down date. September 2012 has no relation to any military reality on the ground. It is designed solely to position Obama favorably going into the last weeks of his reelection campaign.

Barack Obama is a very good politician. That's why he manipulates the public by preying on fears of Social Security checks not going out in August, when our President knows darn well that they will go out.

That's also why the President talks about superfluous things, such as tax loopholes for corporate jets. Obama the politician is counting on your knee jerk reaction against tax breaks for the wealthy. What he doesn't tell you is where those corporate jet tax loopholes came from. But Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) told us this last night on the Greta Van Susteren show:

'[The corporate jet tax loophole] was in the stimulus package. None of us voted for the stimulus package. This was called accelerated depreciation. It's a tax policy that the president put into his stimulus package and passed. Now he's saying that it's a corporate jet loophole. It applies to lots of things, airplanes included. What I find interesting about this one particular issue was it never came up in our debt negotiations, it never came up in discussions. The first time I heard about a corporate jet loophole, which was in the stimulus package, was when he mentioned it six times in a press conference. "

The Democrats put in the corporate jet tax loophole, Obama signed it into law, no Republicans voted for the stimulus package…but now Obama uses his own tax loophole against the Republicans in deficit reduction negotiations. He says Republicans are protecting the corporate jet tax loophole that Obama signed into law. How does he get away with this stuff ?

And btw, the Republican budget, the Ryan budget, did away with those types of loopholes. The Democrats would not hear of it. They already rejected the House Budget in the Democrat-controlled Senate. Here's Ryan again:

Look, I understand it plays for good politics and class warfare and makes it look like all we care about is that corporate – who cares about that corporate jet loophole? It's – we want to get rid of all those loopholes in tax reform. And what people don't tell you is our Republican budget? That's exactly what we proposed doing! We're saying clear out the brush of loopholes and lower everyone's tax rates so we can create jobs in the economy. That way the government doesn't lose any money but we clean up the tax code and we're not picking winners and losers in the tax code. General Electric paid no taxes but made a lot of money. UPS, another big company, paid about a 34% tax rate and their competitor, DHL, paid 24%. So there's something wrong with the fact that we're taxing a lot of our employers more".

Yes, the class warfare card does play well to an uninformed public. That's why Obama and the Democrats do it. It works for them, even when it's a bunch of hooey.

Barack Obama is a very good politician. He's just not much of a man.

The Democrats keep angling for tax increases as part of the debt limit deal. They don't bother to tell you that taxes are already going to increase by $1.5 trillion in 2013 when the ObamaCare taxes kick in. They also don't tell you the Bush tax cuts expire again at the end of 2012, right after the next elections. No, they don't tell you these things as they propose $2 trillion more in tax increases as part of the debt limit deal. The reason they don't tell you is, the Democrats are jockeying to pass the most massive tax hikes in American history in exchange for vague promises of future spending cuts that the Democrats hope to avoid ever making. That's their game. The Dems have pulled this bait and switch routine before (Bush I, Reagan). That's why the Democrats all jumped to approve Sen. Mitch McConnell's (R-KY) Plan B proposal, the one that allowed OBAMA to make future spending cuts in exchange for a debt limit increase. The Democrats hope to wriggle out of those cuts, or turn them into bogus cuts. The Dems could propose increasing spending by another $3 trillion, then do a "bogus cut" for $2 trillion, and say 'look, we cut the $2 trillion like we promised. Aren't we wonderful ?' Then the media would pretend not to notice that the only thing that happened was another trillion dollars in spending was approved. This phony tactic has been used a lot. It seems the only thing our government ever really "cuts" is the rate of it's own growth, which isn't a cut at all. It's a spending increase. Obama the politician talks about cutting the deficit in half, leaving out the part about how that still leaves us with an $800 billion deficit, larger than any in American history prior to Obama arriving in the White House. The Dems are angling for a tax increase bomb the likes of which this country has never seen, because the last thing the Dems want is to have to stop spending your money. That would loosen their grip on you, and they like having their hands around your throat. They like it a lot.

Yes, Obama's a very good politician. And that's no compliment.

When dealing with a political Jello-fish like the President, the only thing to do IS call his bluff. Here's what Krauthammer recommends:

The Republican House should immediately pass a short-term debt-ceiling hike of $500  billion containing $500  billion in budget cuts. That would give us about five months to work on something larger.

I agree with this strategy. The debt limit talks are going nowhere. They fell apart again yesterday. If the Republicans wait until D-Day on August 2nd, they will lose this political battle, and we won't get any spending cuts. The Democrats don't look at this as a debt limit deal or a budget negotiation. They look at it as a political contest to gain the upper hand. So should the Republicans. If they force congressional Democrats to vote on a smaller proposal that passed the House, it would put the Democrats on record and shift the onus to them. And if it passed the House and Senate, Obama's hand would be forced. Imagine the political fallout against Obama if he vetoed that bill. Yes, let's call his bluff. It's better than nothing America, and nothing is what we have now.

It would also be nice if we sent The Politician packing in 2012 and replaced him with a statesman (or stateswoman)…but I don't want to get ahead of myself.

I shamelessly stole the above headline from commenter 2012, because it's too perfect not to use. No way could I come up with a better one. Thanks, 2012 !

The State Of The Nation: Unemployment just rose to 9.1%. Economic growth is anemic. Half the feeble number of jobs created last month came from McDonald's fast food restaurants (I wonder how Oz-bama is going to take credit for that ?). We're in debt up to our eyeballs. Housing prices are continuing downward. Gasoline is expensive. Health care costs are exploding. Commodity prices are rising. Congressional Democrats haven't produced a budget in over two years. We're involved in three wars in the Middle East. We're on an unsustainable fiscal path…..so many big problems in this country…

So let's talk about Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY), since that's all our media seems interested in. Okay, I'm not being fair to our illustrious media. They are also interested in the sex scandals of John Edwards and Arnold Schwarzenegger, not to mention their ongoing obsession with bashing Sarah Palin all day every day (FYI – Palin was right about Paul Revere, you media dolts. Read a history book).

As for Weinergate, it turns out the weiner WAS Weiner's, and Weiner is a lying, twittering weiner who likes to sext up women on the internet. Is anyone shocked by this stuff anymore ? It seems almost routine by now. Weiner pulled a series of collosal boners in the aftermath of Weinergate, acting all cock-y and abrasive with reporters, but the New York Congressman says he will not go limp and resign. He still has a hard-on for power, and hopes to win future erections, er, I mean, elections. What a d*ck. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) says she will conduct an ethics investigation, to see if Weiner indeed has any ethics. All the evidence says no, and there's only a snowball's chance that liberal spinmeisters can still blame this all on Andrew Breitbart, as they tried to do when they ejaculated prematurely in his direction prior to Weiner blowing his load on televsion yesterday in the face of so much evidence against him and his penis. Now, of course, Weiner is truly sorry…sorry he got caught.

About the only thing that stands out about Weinergate, other than Weiner's shorts, is how bad his cover story was. It was obvious he was lying from the beginning. Very disappointing. I expect much better lies from our elected officials, and Weiner didn't live up to established congressional lying standards. Thus, how can he have a future on Capitol Hill ? I don't see it. Weiner could try to transform himself into one of those rare politicians who say what they really think, like Ron Paul (R-TX) or Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), but there's no surer way to be ostracized from the Congressional Country Club than that. Your own party will treat you like a loveable crank if you deviate from the party line, and the media will treat you like a joke. A media whore like Weiner wouldn't enjoy being laughed at, though at this point I don't see how the laughing could possibly get any louder.

For the benefit of Mr. Weiner, I offer the following video clip as instruction in the art of lying your butt off with sincerity. I present the Gold Standard, the Master Prevaricator, the most sincere liar I know, former presidential and vice-presidential candidate John Edwards:

That's how it's done, Mr. Weiner.

You can view some of Weiner's pathetic, combative, double-talking lies here. What an amateur, and I say that with "certitude".

Finally, let's not forget how the left-wing pseudo-news organization known as MSNBC tried it's best to discredit Breitbart to draw the attention away from their liberal man Weiner, a frequent MSNBC guest. This is must see video. It is truly sad, and truly representative of the way MSNBC conducts itself.

It's been more than 60 days since the onset of American military involvement in Libya. Here's The Hill to tell us why that is important:

U.S. operations in Libya hit the 60-day mark Friday, but Congress has grown largely silent on the administration’s unilateral intervention into the war-torn North African nation.

The 1973 War Powers Act (WPA) — the statute President Obama invoked when he launched forces in March — requires presidents to secure congressional approval for military operations within 60 days, or withdraw forces within the next 30.

Congress did not authorize the mission — which includes a no-fly zone, bombing raids, a sea blockade and civilian-protection operations…

A few (not enough) members of Congress noticed the President was about to break the law:

On Thursday, six Senate Republicans wrote to Obama asking him if he intends to comply with the WPA.

“Friday is the final day of the statutory sixty-day period for you to terminate the use of the United States Armed Forces in Libya under the War Powers Resolution,” reads the letter, spearheaded by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.). “As recently as last week your administration indicated use of the United States Armed Forces will continue indefinitely.”

Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah), Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) also endorsed the letter.

The White House did not respond to requests for comment Thursday.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) is another vocal critic of the Libya intervention. He has vowed to introduce legislation Monday invoking the War Powers Act in an effort to pull U.S. forces from the conflict.

Other Congressers say a Libyan resolution would not be approved by Congress, and others yet show complete disdain for the law:

Sen. Dick Lugar (R-Ind.), senior Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, warned earlier in the month, however, that such a resolution would likely be shot down in the Senate.

Others, including [Sen. Carl] Levin (D-Mich), simply think that formal congressional authorization for the Libyan intervention is unnecessary. Still, he left open the possibility that the upper chamber could eventually act on a Libya resolution — if “a number of legal questions” are ironed out.

I'd like to know who those "other" scofflaw Senators are who don't think Congress has to provide authorization for war, but Levin is notable. He voted against the Iraq War on the grounds that it was a unilateral action being taken by America, even though there were over 30 countries in the American coalition at the time. That number grew to 40 countries. Now Levin has done a complete turnaround, and believes the President can go to war without even AMERICAN approval. That's what I call unilateral action. Btw, there are 28 countries in the NATO coalition at war in Libya. That's less than Bush had for the Iraq War, which leads me to believe some of our Congress critters have a rather subjective view of the term "unilateral".

I have not heard a peep about the expiring Libyan War legality from our illustrious and unbiased mainstream media. I wonder if that would be true if President Bush were still in office ? Anybody who believes it would be true, please step forward and accept your Naivete 2011 Award. If Bush was still President, he'd be vilified.

At the last possible minute, on the 60th day of the Libyan war, Obama wrote a letter seeking congressional authorization:

Facing criticism from Congress that authority for U.S. military action in Libya is about to expire under the War Powers Act, President Obama asked congressional leaders late Friday for a resolution of support for continuing the military involvement.

"It has always been my view that it is better to take military action, even in limited actions such as this, with congressional engagement, consultation and support," Obama wrote in a letter to the Democratic and Republican leaders of the House and Senate. "Congressional action in support of the mission would underline the U.S. commitment to this remarkable international effort."

Um, no, it hasn't "always" been Obama's view that Congress should be supportive. At the beginning of the Libyan conflict, the Obama Administration didn't even try to involve Congress, and also said they had no intention of doing so. Congress was left out of the loop:

Lawmakers said they weren’t told much by Secretary of State Clinton, Secretary of Defense Gates, Joint Chiefs Chairman Michael Mullen or Director of National Intelligence James Clapper that they couldn’t read in the newspaper or see on television.

They said one dynamic was very clear: The administration doesn’t much care what Congress thinks about the actions it’s taken so far.

Challenged on whether Obama overstepped his constitutional authority in attacking Libya without congressional approval, Clinton told lawmakers that White House lawyers were OK with it and that Obama has no plans to seek an endorsement from Congress, attendees told POLITICO.

And, as if to add insult to injury, news broke during the House briefing that Obama had already signed an order authorizing covert action in support of the rebels. When asked about it after the first briefing, House members were unaware the president had taken that action.

Also notice that Obama said in his letter that it was "better" to take military action with "congressional engagement, consultation and support". Sorry, Mr. President, but it isn't "better" to have the "support" of Congress when going to war, unless our country is under attack or imminent threat, neither of which is the case with Libya. It is mandated by the Constitution that Congress authorize war. The Constitution isn't optional. Even the portion of the War Powers Act that gives the President blanket power to engage in war for 60 days before obtaining congressional authorization could be successfully challenged as being unconstitutional in court. Obama is acting like he's the King Of America, who can decree whatever he wishes. That's not how it's supposed to work.

There was no way for Congress to respond to Obama's last minute request for Congressional authorization. The House wasn't even in session last week.

Obama is trying to cover his rear, but the Libyan War is now illegal by any standard.

Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has been in Congress for 29 years. He has a degree from Harvard Law School. You'd think Schumer might have some idea about how our government works. You'd be wrong. Here's Chucky, who never met a camera or microphone he didn't like, opining on our three branches of government:

There's your Schumerian civics lesson for today. The three branches of government are the House, the Senate, and the President (if Sarah Palin had said this, it would be on a continuous 24-hour loop on CNN). It's odd that Schumer, a lawyer, would forget all about the Judicial branch of government, but it's not that odd. Democrats aren't too fond of the Judicial branch these days, seeing as how another federal judge just ruled ObamaCare to be unconstitutional. That prompted assorted liberals to claim the judge was engaging in "judicial activism". I've come to learn that to liberals, "judicial activism" is when a judge applies the Constitution to overturn legislation liberals like. It means nothing more than that.

For the record, the three branches of government are the Igneous, the Sedimentary, and the other one.

Back to ObamaCare, here's White House advisor Stephanie Cutter's bizarre take on the ObamaCare ruling:

"The judge's decision contradicts decades of Supreme Court precedent that support the considered judgment of the democratically elected branches of government that the act's individual responsibility provision is necessary to prevent billions of dollars of cost-shifting every year by individuals without insurance who cannot pay for the health care they obtain," White House adviser Stephanie Cutter wrote in an Internet posting.

Allow me to translate. Cutter is saying it's not the job of the judiciary to overturn legislation passed by the legislative and executive branches, because there are decades of precedent in which the judiciary didn't overturn legislation….

Wow. Using Cutter's logic, we wouldn't need a Judicial branch of government at all, or a Constitution either. All we'd need is the "considered judgement" of Democrats. I wonder if Cutter is related to Schumer. Naturally, it is precisely the job of the Judicial branch to overrturn legislative overrreach by Congress and the President. It's their job to insure legislation passes constitutional muster. That's WHY we have a Judicial branch. It's known as checks and balances. Perhaps Cutter, like Schumer, believes that PROPER checks and balances consist of a Democratic-led House, a Democratic-led Congress, and a Democratic President all agreeing that ObamaCare is great, but that type of unilateral rule is what has Hosni Mubarak in trouble in Egypt. In fact, when Democrats aren't in power, they call such things "tyranny of the majority". You may have heard Democrats use that phrase once or a thousand times during the Bush years, though they've stricken the phrase from the English language now. These days, they deem opposition to Democrats to be "obstruction". You've heard that word used by Democrats once or a thousand times since Obama became President. Such intellectual honesty, those Dems.

From the "Never Let A Crisis Go To Waste" files, some liberals are hard at work trying to turn the crisis in Egypt to their political advantage. Like rust, they never sleep. MSNBC's Chris Matthews tried to blame it on Bush and the Iraq war, but the grand prize winner in the Loony Liberal Logic category goes to global warming alarmist Joe Romm, NPR, and John Podesta of the Center For American Progress, who blamed the Egyptian crisis on, you guessed it, global warming:

Political unrest has broken out in Tunisia, Yemen, Egypt and other Arab countries. Social media and governmental policies are getting most of the credit for spurring the turmoil, but there’s another factor at play. Many of the people protesting are also angry about dramatic price hikes for basic foodstuffs, such as rice, cereals, cooking oil and sugar.

This summer’s extreme global weather raised fears of a “Coming Food Crisis,” as CAP’s John D. Podesta and Jake Caldwell warned in Foreign Policy: “Global food security is stretched to the breaking point, and Russia’s fires and Pakistan’s floods are making a bad situation worse.” Earlier this month I discussed how, in fact, “Extreme weather events helped drive food prices to record highs.” Back then, experts were worried about food riots. Now they are happening.

Energy insecurity and climate instability have now become key factors in food insecurity, which in turn has become a key factor in toppling governments

Those who think that the serious impacts of climate change — and our inane energy policies — on the world economy and U.S. national security are decades away are simply not paying attention.

Can anyone remember what floods, fires, droughts, and food shortages were blamed on before global warming ? I'm pretty sure they were just considered natural events, though I don't want the loons to start calling me a flat-earther, a denier, or any of those other "scientific" names they call people. Conservative blogger Michelle Malkin made the observation that the logic the loons use to decide whether global warming is the cause of everything something is similar to the way Monty Python decided if a woman was a witch. This is too funny not to use:

Update – I've found there is a problem with the Monty Python video playback. Rats. You can view the video on YouTube here.

So, I guess either the Egyptian crisis is caused by global warming….or Egypt is a duck….or made of wood…and is therefore a witch. Burn it !!!

When the new Congress convenes, the GOP-led House is planning to move on several fronts.

1. They are going to try to repeal ObamaCare:

The new Republican-controlled House plans to schedule a vote to repeal the sweeping health care overhaul before President Barack Obama delivers his annual State of the Union address late this month, incoming House Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) said Sunday.

“We have 242 Republicans,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.” He added, “There will be a significant number of Democrats, I think, that will join us. You will remember when that vote passed in the House last March, it only passed by seven votes.”

Upton, whose committee will play a key role in the GOP's effort to roll back the law, said that he believes the House may be near the two-thirds majority required to override a presidential veto.

Regardless of how the repeal vote turns out, the GOP will go after pieces of ObamaCare:

Upton specifically called out the requirement for businesses to complete 1099 tax forms, the individual mandate and the amendment on abortion introduced by Michigan Democratic Rep. Bart Stupak. "We will look at these individual pieces to see if we can't have the thing crumble," he said.

This should cause quite a stir. Democrats will fight back:

Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine, appearing on CNN, said “health care reform is going to go down in history as one of the great achievements of this president.”

And Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) said repeal is a lost cause for Republicans.

“We cut prescription drug bills for senior citizens by 50 percent,” she told CBS. “We've already made sure that young adults up until they're 26 can be on their parents' insurance. A constituent in my district came up to me a few weeks ago and thanked me for saving her $3,000 a year because she could put her two adult children back on her insurance," she said.

"That's what the Republicans are going to be proposing to repeal this week," Wasserman Schultz added. "It's not going to happen. If it's about jobs and the economy and reducing the deficit, wasting time and money and adding to the deficit by repealing health care reform or on the attempt is irresponsible.”

In order for the Republicans to successfully repeal ObamaCare, I believe they will have to come up with a REPLACEMENT for it, a better idea. If the GOP forgets all about that part of it, they might be doing themselves more harm than good. I'm all for repealing ObamaCare, as long as something better takes it's place. We can't just stick our heads in the sand and pretend spiraling health care costs are not a problem.

2. Rep. Darrell Issa plans to go after wasteful government spending by the Obama administration:

The Republican congressman who is taking over responsibility for congressional oversight called President Obama's administration "one of the most corrupt administrations" on Sunday and predicted that the investigations he is planning over the next two years could result in about $200 billion in savings for U.S. taxpayers.

Issa, who as chairman will have subpoena power, said he will seek to ferret out waste across the federal bureaucracy. While he used fiery rhetoric in describing the Obama administration in a series of television interviews Sunday, he said he will focus on wasteful spending, not the prosecution of White House officials.

Asked on "Fox News Sunday" about reports that the White House is staffing up on lawyers to prepare for his oversight hearings, Issa said: "They're going to need more accountants.

"It's more of an accounting function than legal function," Issa said. "It's more about the inspector generals than it is about lawyers in the White House. And the sooner the administration figures out that the enemy is the bureaucracy and the wasteful spending, not the other party, the better off we'll be."

Issa said he plans to lead bipartisan investigations on food and drug safety, as well as Medicare fraud.

"We can save $125 billion in simply not giving out money to Medicare recipients that don't exist for procedures that didn't happen," Issa said on CBS's "Face the Nation." "These are real dollars. Ten percent of the deficit goes out in wasted money – money that doesn't get one person health care in Medicare."

On the CNN show, Issa said: "When I look at waste, fraud and abuse in the bureaucracy and in the government, this is like steroids to pump up the muscles of waste."

Here is a list of investigations Issa has planned:

As the replacement for outgoing Democrat Henry Waxman, Issa is aiming to launch investigations on everything from WikiLeaks to Fannie Mae to corruption in Afghanistan in the first few months of what promises to be a high profile chairmanship of the top oversight committee in Congress.

According to an outline of the committee’s hearing topics obtained by POLITICO, the House Oversight and Government Reform is also planning to investigate how regulation impacts job creation, the role of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the foreclosure crisis; recalls at the Food and Drug Administration and the failure of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission to agree on the causes of the market meltdown.

A look at the preliminary hearing schedule illustrates that Issa plans to stay away from hurling subpoenas at the White House.

In investigating the impact of regulation on job creation, the committee plans to ask why the economy hasn’t “created the private sector jobs the president has promised,” and he’s calling in business leaders to explain “about the government regulations that are doing the most harm to job creation efforts.”

“The committee will examine how overregulation has hurt job creation and whether the administration intends to try and abuse the regulatory process to implement regulations that Congress would reject,” according to an outline of committee hearing topics.

Issa also wants to study why the financial crisis commission couldn’t reach consensus last year. He’d like to call Phil Angelides and former Rep. Bill Thomas (R-Calif.), the chair and ranking member of the committee, to determine if there was any agreement on the panel in relation to the cause of the meltdown.

Thar's a new sheriff in town, and his name is Darrell Issa.

3. The Republicans might demand budget cuts in exchange for raising the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling:

Austan Goolsbee, chairman of the U.S. Council of Economic Advisers, said if Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling, the “impact on the economy would be catastrophic.”

“I don’t see why anybody’s playing chicken with the debt ceiling,” Goolsbee said today on ABC’s “This Week” program. “If we get to the point where we damage the full faith and credit of the United States, that would be the first default in history caused purely by insanity.”

The government is slated to hit the legal limit on borrowing, $14.3 trillion, early this year. Congress must agree to raise that ceiling or the U.S. could be forced to default on its obligations.

After candidates supported by anti-deficit Tea Party activists were elected on pledges to rein in government spending, some lawmakers have said they would demand budget cuts in exchange for voting to raise the debt ceiling.

The U.S. has a $1.3 trillion federal budget deficit. President Barack Obama’s debt-reduction panel failed last month to agree on its chairmen’s recommendations for ways to reduce the annual deficit to about $400 billion in 2015.

The plan would have increased taxes by $1 trillion by 2020 by scaling back or eliminating hundreds of deductions, exclusions or credits such as those allowing homeowners to write off interest on their mortgage payments. It would also have cut individual and corporate income tax rates.

Goolsbee said he anticipates Obama will find common ground with Republicans on legislation to benefit the economy, citing investment incentives and tax cuts for workers and small businesses, and warned against cutting back on spending needed for economic growth.

“The reason the deficit is big this year is because we’re coming out of the worst recession since 1929,” Goolsbee said. “That’s the reason. The longer-run fiscal challenge facing the country is important.”

Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said failing to raise the debt ceiling “would be very bad for the position of the United States in the world at large.” Still, he wouldn’t vote to raise it “until a plan is in place” to deal with debt, Graham said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

If the GOP was paying attention to the last election, they definitely SHOULD demand some budget cuts in exchange for raising the debt ceiling. How else will the runaway freight train of government spending ever slow down ? The federal government has been kicking the fiscal responsibility can down the road for a long, long time now. It has to stop.

When Senate Majority Leader Harry "the war is lost" Reid (D-Las Vegas) realized the war was lost regarding passage of the Dems $1.2 trillion pork-filled omnibus spending bill (the Party Of No said 'NO!'), he had to pull the bill.

When Senate Majority Leader Harry "the war is lost" Reid (D-AQI) got the Food Safety Bill passed by a wide margin two weeks ago, he hailed it as a grand achievement, and Senate Democrats sent out press releases trumpeting their glorious achievement (was our food previously UNSAFE ? Who knew ?)….until members of the House Of Representatives reminded loser Reid that Article I Section 7 of the Constitution requires tax increase measures to be initiated by the House. Section 107 of the Food Safety bill raises taxes in the form of fees. Oops. The Food Safety bill might now be dead in the lame duck water. Democrats sure have problems with that Constitution thingy, don't they ? Rather odd for Senators who swear to uphold the Constitution when they are sworn into office. You'd think they might give the Constitution a peek. It's only 17 pages long.

Senator Harry "the war is lost" Reid (D-MX) and his lame ducks also lost on the DREAM Act, but loser Reid's losing streak ended yesterday, when the Democrats passed repeal of Democrat President Clinton's silly Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT) policy, with the help of a few Republicans. Hollywood celebrities are absolutely thrilled, though I don't see it as such a big deal. After all, gays were already allowed in the military, they just had to keep quiet about their sexual predilection. I always thought it was rather dumb to kick someone out of the army because he told someone else he was gay, but on my list of political priorities, DADT was so far down the list that it barely registers a shoulder shrug. Now the gays that are already in the military won't be kicked out of the military for telling someone else they are gay. Big whoop. Gay marriage is a lot bigger civil rights issue to me.

But that's just me. As I said, Hollywood celebs are ecstatic. Here are a few examples:

Lady Gaga: "Can't hold back the tears+pride. We did it!i Our voice was heard + today the Senate REPEALED DADT. A triumph for equality after 17 YEARS."

Ellen DeGeneres: "Thank you Senators for pushing us one step closer towards full equality."

Ricky Martin: "One step closer to #equality!! #DADT is gone!Historical! #lgbt."

Cyndi Lauper: "Historic day. 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' repealed. It's about time. Step by step we're headed towards full equality."

No word on when Lady Gaga, Ellen Degeneres, Ricky Martin, and Cyndi Lauper will join up and fight for their country. Because the celebs are all liberals, it definitely won't be until the imperialist criminal American war machine stops slaughtering innocents all over the world in pursuit of hegemonic world domination and abandons all wars for oil and other capitalist wars of choice, wars that kill children and other living things for no reason whatsoever. Peace out.

Makes one wonder why these celebs wanted gays in the military in the first place. Shouldn't they have wanted gays OUT of the military, the way it used to be before the celebs got involved ? Oh well. I guess the liberal Hollywood celebs wanted equal rights for ALL baby killers, including the gay ones….or something like that. I can't keep up.

You're probably starting to wonder when I'm going to get around to the world ending on tuesday, so here it is – after the omnibus bill was scuttled, the House Of Representative put forth another resolution that would continue to fund the federal government, but it will only fund the government until tuesday. I'm not kidding. They voted on friday to extend government funding until tuesday, four days later. That was curious, though by itself it doesn't mean the world will end on tuesday. Here's the kicker….on tuesday, the same day government funding runs out, we will have both the winter solstice AND a lunar eclipse, the first time this has happened in 456 YEARS. Coincidence ? I don't think so !!!

Yeah, baby ! How do you like me now ? This also explains why Obama agreed to extend the Bush tax cuts – because the world is going to end in some cataclysmic event and it won't matter !!!

When I found out about this, the first thing I did was to check and see if the world ended the last time the solstice and a lunar eclipse coincided, 456 years ago in 1554. I can't be sure, but it appears the world did NOT end in 1554, though the Tudors were going through some turbulent times under King Henry VIII back in the day. So many dead wives. Perhaps something wicked this way comes.

In order to find out more, I checked with an established spiritual source, the Wiccans:

The celestial eccentricity holds special significance for spiritualities that tap into the energy of the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year and a time that is associated with the rebirth of the sun.

"It's a ritual of transformation from darkness into light," says Nicole Cooper, a high priestess at Toronto's Wiccan Church of Canada. "It's the idea that when things seem really bleak, (it) is often our biggest opportunity for personal transformation.

"The idea that the sun and the moon are almost at their darkest at this point in time really only further goes to hammer that home."

Cooper said Wiccans also see great significance in the unique coupling of the masculine energy of the sun and the feminine energy of the moon — transformative energies that she plans to incorporate into the church's winter-solstice rituals.

Since the last time an eclipse and the winter solstice happened simultaneously was just under five centuries years ago, Cooper said she wasn't familiar with any superstitions or mythologies associated with it.

Aha ! The ritual transformation of darkness into light ! That sounds pretty ominous, though on second thought, it does happen every morning.

I'm also totally onboard with the Wiccans idea of coupling masculine and feminine energies, if you know what I mean…wink, wink. I only hope I get to do it more than once every 456 years. What am I, a monk ?

In conclusion, the world might end on tuesday…or it might not. Maybe it will snow. I can't be certain. What I wonder is, if the world does end tuesday on Obama's watch….how will he blame it on Bush, and what will be the implications for 2012 ? You better get your talking points ready, liberals. Just in case.

A recent Gallup poll showed Congress had only a 13% approval rating.

I am shocked. 13% actually approve of Congress ??? Who are these people ??? Have they been living under rocks ???

This is a Congress that increased federal spending by trillions during the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Tax revenue will have to go to it's highest level in American history to pay for all the government spending unless the spending is reversed.

This is a Congress that passed PAYGO legislation requiring any new government spending to be paid for. That is responsible legislation, but the same Congress that passed PAYGO spent the rest of it's session totally ignoring PAYGO. We have the largest dollar deficits in American history, by far.

This is a Congress that passed 1,000-2,000+ page bills that nobody in Congress read and nobody understood. As Speaker Of The House Nancy Pelosi so infamously said about ObamaCare, "We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what's in it." A 2,000+ page financial regulation bill was passed that has scores of unlimited and undefined new powers given to the government. Those new powers will be determined at some later date without any further legislative input. They might as well have called the bill the Government Can Do Whatever It Wants bill.

This is a Congress that couldn't be bothered to deal with the expiring Bush tax cuts until the very last minute, thereby keeping people and businesses all across the country in a state of uncertainty in this economic downturn. Thanks for nothing, Congress.

This is a Congress that couldn't even be bothered to do it's most basic legislative duty and pass a federal budget. The budget was due on October 1, 2010, two and a half months ago.

And now, at the eleventh hour, this Democrat-led Congress has given one final middle finger salute to the country with the announcement of a $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill filled with over 6,000 earmarks. The nearly 2,000 page bill was written behind closed doors by six Congress critters, was announced on tuesday, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wants it to be voted upon on SATURDAY, with only three days in between left for reading the bill. If that happened, it would be yet another enormous bill passed that nobody read and nobody understood.

You may remember, about two weeks ago, the majority of Republicans voted for a temporary earmark ban, and the majority of Democrats voted against it, causing it to be defeated in the Senate by a 56-39 vote. Now you know why the Democrats voted against it. They wanted to push one final pork-fest through their final lame duck session. The pork in the omnibus spending bill is estimated to cost the taxpayers $8 billion, though I'm fairly certain that figure will rise as more pork is found crammed into the bill as the Senators' aides actually read it. Senators are too busy to read the bills they vote upon themselves.

In perusing a list of the earmarks by Senator's name, what stuck out immediately was the fact that the two biggest porkers were Republicans, Sen. Thad Cochran and Sen. Roger Wicker, both from Mississippi (the next 17 biggest porkers were all Democrats). These guys must have missed november's election results, along with their own votes to temporarily ban earmarks (unless by 'temporary," they meant 'for two weeks.') In fairness to Cochran, he did vote against the temporary earmark ban, unlike so many of his hypocritical GOP brethren who voted for it while leaving their own earmarks in the omnibus bill. If they were inserted prior to the earmark ban vote, then those Republicans who voted for the ban should pull their earmarks from the omnibus bill. We'll have to wait to see if they do. If they don't, I hope Fox News, conservative talk radio, and the blogosphere outs every single one of them, as I'm sure they will. Bill Hemmer of Fox News already called out Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) for his hypocrisy on the issue. Cornyn has 45 earmarks in the omnibus spending bill. On Hemmer's show, Cornyn tried to say he was for an earmark moratorium, but said his own earmarks were "individually defensible." Jerk.

Overall, the GOP is in revolt over the bill. New House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) said if President Obama is serious about supporting the earmark moratorium, as the President said he was last month, then he should threaten to veto the bill unless the earmarks are removed.

Don't count on that happening. Despite Obama's own words (which apparently DON'T matter), the White House appears more interested in political blackmail than reform. Here's what we have heard from the White House so far:

The White House says the Omnibus spending bill in Congress is "not great" but "beats a year-long Continuing Resolution" even while the earmarks included in the bill would mean the president would have to back off his statements that he would not sign a bill with so-called "pork."

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has been the most outspoken administration member of the bill, saying a Continuing Resolution, or CR, would actually hamper defense efforts world-wide. "I don't much like the earmarks either," Gates said at the White House briefing Thursday. "But, I have to look at the alternative. A year-long continuing resolution would be a $19 billion cut in the budget."

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs reiterated the president's position on the earmarks in the bill, saying the president would prefer legislation that does not include earmarks, but with funding for the federal government set to run-out on Saturday, it appears the administration may have to take what the Senate is offering.

Got that ? Poor Obama has no choice but to sign the porky spending bill, because, golly gee, the poor widdle government is gonna run out of money, and oh no!, we might have to cut the budget by $19 billion (shriek!), so now we have to put the taxpayers on the hook for another $8 billion in pork, because, gosh darn it to heck, there's just no other choice.

And if you believe that, I have a bridge to nowhere to sell you. The truth is, the Dems waited until the very last minute to propose the omnibus spending bill BECAUSE they could frame the conversation this way, and because they hoped they could have very limited debate about it as the deadline approaches. Remember, Congress has had the entire year to produce a budget for 2011 and didn't do it. This White House and this Congress WANT to spend as much taxpayer money as they possibly can before this Congress is out the door. They fear the next Congress will make it much harder, as I hope to hell they do.

All I can say about these lame ducks is – good riddance to bad rubbish. I hate you.

And who are the 13% who approve of this behavior ? I suggest drug testing.

President Obama announced the formation of a deficit commission last february to address the federal government's addiction to spending tons more money than it takes in. This addiction has become so serious that we now have annual deficits over a trillion dollars and a federal debt of $14 trillion. The addiction is so serious that we haven't had a Democrat-controlled Congress balance the budget since 1969, even though the Democrats have been in control of the federal purse strings for the majority of the time since then. You never hear about that from the mainstream media, do you ??? The last responsible Congress we had was the Republicans in the 1990's, which led to three balanced budgets (sorta), the last one being in 2000.

Yesterday, we learned the deficit commission has been a waste of time, because the deficit commission will reject it's own recommendations, according to Jake Tapper of ABC News. The deficit drug addicts are still mugging the rest of us for our cash, and our ship of state is still a ship of fools:

ABC News has learned Andrew Stern will vote no on the deficit commission’s plan to reduce the national deficit by nearly $4 trillion. Mr. Stern, the former president of the SEIU, has informed co-chairmen Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson that he will be the fifth member voting no, ending the commission’s hopes of officially passing the plan to Congress. The commission needed votes from 14 of the 18 members in order to pass the plan to Congress.

Mr. Stern joins Sen. Max Baucus and Reps. Dave Camp, Paul Ryan and Jan Schakowsky in voting against the plan. He is also the only non-elected official to vote against the plan.

A few thoughts.

First, why in the hell would anyone in their right mind (Obama) put Andy Stern, a left-wing union guy who has never been elected to office, and who is committed only to higher taxes and more government spending and wealth redistribution, on a flipping DEFICIT COMMISSION ? I know the answer, but I'll let someone else say it. There's barely a spending cut in the world Stern would agree with, and he'd reject out-of-hand anything that might help solve our unfunded entitlement problem. He wants MORE entitlements, not responsible reform. Stern was a 'no' vote from jump street. The only way Stern would have voted 'yes' was if the deficit commission's sole recommendations were 'increase taxes by $20 trillion and confiscate all the rich people's money (while carving out a union exemption so Andy Stern could keep all HIS money).'

Second, while I expected Democrats on the deficit commission to be against deficit reduction (liberal Democrats are basically for ever more government spending and ever higher taxes to support that spending. How they can possibly believe that will lead anywhere other than total fiscal meltdown mystifies me), I was surprised that two Republicans, Reps. Dave Camp and Paul Ryan, also voted 'no.' I was especially surprised by Ryan's vote. He is one of the few Congressmen whose fiscal chops I respect. His Roadmap For America's Future contains some very good ideas I'd like to see debated in Congress. Ryan said he voted against the commission's recommendations because "it not only didn't address the elephant in the room, health care, it made it fatter." Okay, Congressman, but in order to make ANY progress on deficit reduction now, with a split Congress and a Democrat in the White House, you're going to have to agree to something you don't like in order to move the ball forward. The other Republican 'no' vote from Camp was because he doesn't want to raise taxes. Ryan and Camp are both making the same mistake. They are giving away a possible $4 trillion in deficit reduction over a few issues they could address at another time, after another election.

The deficit commission's report did explode a couple myths about Obama. These myths have been exploded before, though liberals keep trying to deny it:

2) Health reform's cost savings apparently were bogus. Remember how Democrats boasted that health reform would cut the budget deficit by $170 billion over the next decade and far more after that? The deficit commission must not have gotten that memo. It says health spending projections under the new law "count on large phantom savings" and the reform law's new long-term care program that the report calls "unsustainable." As a result, Congress will still need to enact "a number of other reforms to reduce federal health spending and slow the growth of health care costs more broadly."

5) Obama is a big spender. Although President Barack Obama has talked about fiscal discipline — and set up this deficit commission — his own budget plan would spend $350 billion more on so-called discretionary programs over the next decade than if the government were just left on autopilot, according to the report.

The upshot is, President Obama has made the job of eliminating the deficit and reducing the national debt much more difficult, which all sane people already knew.

Some other deficit commission conclusions you can find at the previous link were:

-The federal government is horribly managed (no sh*t).
- Millions of workers don't pay into Social Security (almost 10%).
- The tax code is a hopeless, loophole-riddled mess (again, no sh*t).
- It's actually not that hard to cut the deficit (yeah, until you add politics into it).

So now the deficit commission's recommendations won't even be debated and voted upon by Congress. What a failure. Our representatives are still unserious. Our spending and debt addiction remains. What a tragedy for this country and it's future. Let's hope the new Congress puts these issues back on the table instead of abdicating all responsibility like the current Congress has done.

I'll leave you with the following video from Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK), which says it all:

Speaking of failure, doesn't the government shutdown tomorrow, because Pelosi, Reid, and company couldn't be bothered to do their jobs and pass a federal budget ? Unreal. Actually, I don't think it's fair to call Pelosi and friends 'failures.' They aren't good enough.

Consider Obama refudiated.

I'm breathing a sign of relief today. President Obama and the Democrats unchecked grasp on the reins of power has been stopped. Good job, America. Republicans racked up historic wins in these elections, taking control of the House, wresting governorships and state legislatures away from Democrats, and erasing the Dems huge advantage in the Senate. The champagne dreams of the liberal elite to control every aspect of our lives is now officially on hold. If for no other reason, we can celebrate the fact that there will be no disastrous cap-and-trade scheme looming on the horizon to wreak havoc on our economy, drive more jobs away, and further impoverish our citizenry.

Congratulations to the Tea Party movement for shining a giant spotlight on the fiscal insanity that has been taking place in this country, which energized the opponents of the control freak nanny types who shill for progressive Big Brother. The Tea Party was a driving force for liberty in this election, and made great strides in the face of an avalanche of slander and mudslinging from the lying losers on the left. Good job, Tea Party.

Congratulations to Ohio for electing Republican John Kasich as our next governor. You may not know it from listening to Governor Strickland's meaningless campaign ads about how Kasich once worked for Lehman Brothers, but Kasich was the Chairman of the House Budget Committee beginning in 1995. He was the chief architect of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, and instrumental in giving this nation it's last balanced federal budgets during the Clinton years. Hopefully, he can do the same to fill Ohio's $8 billion budget gap, and create an environment conducive to prosperity here, unlike what our current and previous governors have done.

Congratulations to Americans for listening to liberals from the President on down repeatedly hurling insults at Americans and calling Americans ignorant. You responded appropriately, America, and threw those jackasses out on their asses. I don't know how the liberal loons thought such a strategy would benefit them, but I guess that's why they are liberal loons in the first place.

Congratulations to Florida for electing Republican Marco Rubio to the Senate and sending the spineless political chameleon Charlie Crist packing. In this calendar year, Crist said both "I'm a dedicated Reagan Republican," and "I will caucus with the Democrats." What a tool.

Speaking of tools, Florida also kicked the left-wing loudmouth, Rep. Alan Grayson, to the curb. Grayson was a complete embarassment in the House Of Representatives. He dumbed down virtually every discussion in which I saw him take part. He had the juvenile mentality of a mischievous 14-year old. Good riddance and good job, Florida.

Congratulation to America for not electing bad Republican candidates. Senate candidates Christine O'Donnell of Delaware and Sharron Angle of Nevada were defeated. This further shows the wisdom of the voters. We don't want bad Senators no matter where they come from. Angle's defeat comes with an asterisk, where the Nevada voters were faced with the impossible choice between Angle and Democrat Harry 'the war is lost' Reid. A ventriloquist's dummy with a GOP lapel pin could have defeated Reid in this election, but Angle was too 'out there' and scared the voters away. Sorry Nevada, you were in a no-win situation.

Liberals only fared well in the strongholds of liberal power, places like bankrupt la-la-land, where California elected Governor Moonbeam, Jerry Brown, again. Brown gave a rambling victory speech in which he sounded to me like he was stoned. La-la-land also sent Democrat Sen. Barbara Boxer back to Washington D.C. over Carly Fiorina. California will never learn. I also have bad news for California stoners – Prop 19 to legalize marijuana failed. Bummer, dudes.

In Massachusetts, Democrat Rep. Barney "financial crisis" Frank won by a wide margin, thereby proving that voters may not be so intelligent after all, at least not in liberal districts.

I had to tune into MSNBC last night to watch the liberals crying in their beers. All the "big guns" were there: Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Ed Schultz, Chris Matthews, Lawrence O'Donnell. They came up with a million excuses for why the Democrats lost, but they never managed to come up with the actual reason – America doesn't want what Obama is selling. America is not as far left as Obama, Olbermann, Maddow, Schultz, O'Donnell, and Matthews. The promise of Obama in 2008 has turned into the reality of Obama in 2010, and America doesn't like what it sees.

While I do see this election as a repudiation of the left, I don't see it as a mandate for Republicans. The Republicans won because they are the only other choice besides the liberal Democrats. Where else was the electorate supposed to go ? Now the Republicans share the responsibilities of leadership with Obama and the Dems. America doesn't trust the Republicans any more than it trusts the Democrats. We'll be watching you, GOP, and if you don't change your evil ways, we'll throw you out in two years just like we did the Democrats. We'll keep throwig the bums out until we have a government that behaves responsibly. That's what we should do, anyway. I hope we will.

President Obama is scheduled to make an announcement today at 1pm. Anyone wanna bet he's gonna be a lot more friendly to Republicans than he was before ??? If I were a betting man (which I am), I'd bet we're going to hear lots of words like "bipartisan" and "work together" coming from the President's mouth, and not so much of words like "enemies" and "they can't drive." That's' the CHANGE I HOPE for, anyway.

One of the mysteries of this election cycle is how Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) could possibly be leading his congressional opponent, Sean Bielat (R-MA), by 13 points in the polls. I confess I know next to nothing about Bielat, but I do know a lot about the incumbent Frank. Given this knowledge of Rep. Frank, unless Bielat opens his rallies with 'Sieg Heil' or 'Praise Lucifer,' I have to question the sanity of the Massachusetts voters.

A brief history. Barney Frank was at the forefront in pushing the quasi-government enterprise Fannie Mae to get involved in more and more questionable mortgage loans prior to the financial crisis. He resisted all attempts to rein in the systemic risks associated with Fannie Mae's activities, despite repeated warnings. I submit the following video as a memory refresher (for Democrats):

Notice who WAS trying to regulate Fannie Mae and who WASN'T. It flies directly in the face of the liberal claim that the Republicans were anti-regulation. In fact, Republicans were the almost the ONLY ones trying to regulate Fannie and deal with the systemic risk during the Bush years. The Republicans could not, however, overcome the objections of a unified Democratic party against them and get a regulatory bill passed. Nothing happened, and the mortgage meltdown is now history.

Barney Frank's gay lover was a Fannie Mae executive from 1991 to 1998:

The two lived together in a Washington home until they broke up in 1998, a few months after Moses ended his seven-year tenure at Fannie Mae, where he was the assistant director of product initiatives. According to National Mortgage News, Moses "helped develop many of Fannie Mae’s affordable housing and home improvement lending programs."

Critics say such programs led to the mortgage meltdown that prompted last month’s government takeover of Fannie Mae and its financial cousin, Freddie Mac. The giant firms are blamed for spreading bad mortgages throughout the private financial sector.

Although Frank now blames Republicans for the failure of Fannie and Freddie, he spent years blocking GOP lawmakers from imposing tougher regulations on the mortgage giants. In 1991, the year Moses was hired by Fannie, the Boston Globe reported that Frank pushed the agency to loosen regulations on mortgages for two- and three-family homes, even though they were defaulting at twice and five times the rate of single homes, respectively.

Three years later, President Clinton’s Department of Housing and Urban Development tried to impose a new regulation on Fannie, but was thwarted by Frank. Clinton now blames such Democrats for planting the seeds of today’s economic crisis.

"I think the responsibility that the Democrats have may rest more in resisting any efforts by Republicans in the Congress or by me when I was president, to put some standards and tighten up a little on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac," Clinton said recently.

After being instrumental in blocking regulation over two presidencies, guess who Barney Frank blamed for the lack of regulation, the mortgage meltdown, and the subsequent financial crisis ? If you said "right-wing Republicans," as Thomas Sowell pointed out in his recent column titled, 'Is Barney Frank ?', you win a cigar (one never used by Bill Clinton on Monica's Lewinsky). In his column, 'Is Barney Frank ?: Part II', Sowell shows further the depths of Frank's deception:

When federal regulators uncovered irregularities in Fannie Mae's accounting, and in 2004 issued what Barron's magazine called "a blistering 211-page report," Barney Frank lashed out — not at Fannie Mae, but at the regulators who uncovered Fannie Mae's misdeeds. He said "a leadership change" in the regulatory agency was "overdue."

Rather than regulate Fannie Mae, Barney Frank wanted to fire the regulators who uncovered Fannie's wrongdoings. This idiot's actions abetted criminality.

Fast forward to 2010. Guess who is the Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee today, the committee that oversees the mortgage and banking industry ? Yes, kiddies, it's STILL Barney fricking Frank, despite Frank's record of aiding and abetting the financial meltdown. Un-be-liev-able. Rewarding absolute failure must be a plus for Democrats these days.

Now that the you-know-what has hit the fan and the American economy crashed and burned in large part due to Frank and his merry band of regulation resisters and bad mortgage pushers, Barney Frank is singing a brand new tune, even though the finanial regulation reform recently passed by Congress and signed by Obama did nothing to regulate Fannie Mae. Frank counts on you forgetting all about the old tune he sang for the last two decades. Now Rep. Bawney Fwank says he wants to abolish Fannie Mae and her little brother Freddie Mac, just in time for the ELECTION. How convenient:

In an appearance on Fox Business Network tonight, Frank said they should be replaced with new programs to support affordable rental housing.

"I think they should be abolished," Frank said. "The only question is what do you put in their place. This is a situation where given the importance they had come to play in housing, you can't tear down the old jail until you build a new one. And that's a process that we've started."

Frank went on: "I have been very critical for a long time that not everybody should be a homeowner. There are people in this society who for economic and frankly social reasons can't and shouldn't be homeowners. I do want some government help to build affordable rental housing."

"There were two problems with the housing market," Frank said. "People were making loans that shouldn't have been made, and Fannie and Freddie were then buying those loans in the market. One of the things we have already done is to take every possible step to stop the bad loans from being made."

Translation – When Frank says he has been very critical for a long time that not everybody should be a homeowner, he means he turned on a dime after the housing crash and is hoping nobody notices what he said and did for all those years before. He hopes nobody notices that Barney Frank led the charge to our mortgage meltdown. Thanks to our lamestream media, lots of people don't know. Barney Frank is emblematic of everything that is wrong with Washington D.C. He couldn't tell the truth if his hair was on fire. He lies, misdirects, never accepts responsibility, and has absolutely no problem with being so profoundly dishonest. He is an amoral slug who would say or do anything to keep himself in power.

And the Massachusetts voters are about to re-elect him. It's astonishing.

Btw, the bailouts of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have cost taxpayers nearly $200 billion so far. The final cost could go as high as $363 billion over the next three years, according to the agency overseeing those entities, making Fannie/Freddie the single largest bailout hit to the taxpayers by far. Thanks, Barney.

Liberals, after 8 years of complaining about President Bush running up the federal debt (as did I), and after 20+ years of complaining about President Reagan running up a relatively minor amount of debt (Obama ran up nearly as much debt in his first year as Reagan did in two full terms), now wholly embrace Democrats running up the debt at a pace unmatched in American history. Obama makes Bush look like an amateur debt runner-upper by comparison, but I see no outcry from liberals over this. Liberals have completely switched course, completely switched arguments. Now, they demonize Republicans for insisting additional federal spending be paid for (as demanded by the Democrats own PAYGO legislation, which liberals trumpet. Go figure). Somebody will have to explain this to me, because I can't make any sense of it whatsoever.

Liberals babble on about tax cuts for the rich or something, but that doesn't make much sense either. If the Bush tax cuts for the rich were reversed, it would only add around $50 billion per year in federal revenue (the amount is arguable. Could be less. Could be more). Reversing the Bush tax cuts would barely make a dent in our yearly trillion+ dollar deficits. Reversing the Bush tax cuts wouldn't even offset the additional federal spending and borrowing announced in the last week, not to mention that nearly all economists agree raising taxes during a recession is a really bad idea. History agrees, though Obama and his Democratic Superfriends do not. I call them Suprefriends because they have superhuman powers that normal people do not possess. For example, they can turn borrowing $1.5 trillion per year into a GOOD thing. Bush could NEVER have gotten away with that, being a mere mortal and (ick) Republican. The Superfriends can also pass PAYGO and then completely ignore it without generating so much as a peep of protest from the mainstream media. The Superfriends can even praise themselves for passing PAYGO months AFTER completely ignoring it, and the peepless media still doesn't peep. Instead, the media continues peeping about whether there might be a racist among the millions of Tea Party members. They've been peeping for, let's see, about 17 months over that one, because, you know, President Obama is black (well, half-black. Close enough, I guess). Maybe the Tea Partiers should come out with a statement saying they are only protesting Obama's white half. Maybe that would please the race-based liberal media's sensibilities.

But I digress. This post is supposed to be about spending money we don't have, which has become the preferred way of life for Obama and his Superfriends (Shazzam ! Responsibility gone !). Here are a couple weekly updates on the Superfriends Spend-a-Palooza Spectacular:

1) After decades of Congress ripping off the Social Security Trust Fund, Social Security finds itself in the red this year (I'm sure there's no connection there, lol. The Superfriends tell me there isn't, but still, I'm suspicious. I don't have superpowers, but I can add and subtract). Congress says it is going to dip into the $2.54 trillion SS Trust Fund to make up for a $41 billion SS payout shortage this year. Here's Allan Sloan of the Washington Post to explain how it will work:

This year's cash deficit, the first since the early 1980s and the biggest ever, means the government will have to borrow money to redeem some of the Treasury securities in the trust fund. Even at a time when Uncle Sam is borrowing $1.5 trillion a year to keep his checks from bouncing, $41 billion is real money.

Question: Golly gee, Mr. WaPo reporter, why would we have to borrow money to get the SS funds when there's $2.54 trillion in the Trust Fund ?

Answer: Because there isn't anything in the Trust Fund. Congress spent those funds long, long ago, you rubes. You've been swindled by your own government. Still want to hand your health care over to them ?

Thus, $41 billion is added to the deficit to coverup the SS scam.

(Note – Everyone should read and understand the information in the previous link about SS, especially those liberal folks who've been foolishly arguing with me about SS for years.)

2). A few weeks after Obama and his Superfriends passed a financial regulation reform bill that they laughably claimed would prevent future bailouts, they passed….more bailouts. This time it is $26.1 billion to bail out state workers and Medicaid. Obama said the bill will save the jobs of 300,000 teachers and other government workers, such as police officers. Unlike previous Dem bills, this bill is actually paid for (golf clap), because the Democrats didn't have enough votes in the Senate to pass it without paying for it, as they desired. Their Shazzam ! Responsibility gone ! magic didn't work this time. They needed a couple Republican votes. Thus, the Dems paid for the funding by closing tax loopholes on multinational corporations (raising taxes) and….cutting funding for food stamps ??? I have to admit, this took me by surprise. I can think of a hundred ways to cut government spending, but cutting the food stamp program never occurred to me. The Dems are taking from the poor to give to the middle class. Specifically, they are giving to the unions.

I always wonder why, instead of bailing out the public employees unions, we can't cut some of their pay and/or benefits to avoid the layoffs. After all, they work for us, the taxpayers, and public employees already earn twice as much as private sector employees. Why should we bail them out ? The entire setup is nothing more than the poorer private sector folks bailing out the wealthier public sector folks, the same as with cutting food stamps. It's perverse.

But instead of cutting public employee pay back a little to keep teachers on the job, the government plays the same old tune. They scare the hell out of the public by threatening to lay off a bunch of teachers and police officers, and then the "benevolent" government pretends they are coming to the rescue, usually by raising taxes. What they are really doing is catering to the Democratic base, the public employees unions, at the expense of other (usually poorer) taxpayers. This partially explains why American education costs are skyrocketing, without a corresponding improvement in the quality of that education. One way or another, the government still works it's Shazzam ! Responsibility gone ! magic on us…and we sit back and take it like the marks we are.

If there's any bright side…november isn't that far away.

Congressman Paul Kanjorski (D-PA) is a great guy. He really likes to use taxpayer dollars to help people…especially if those people are members of the Kanjorski family. Some years ago, Rep. Kanjorski secured earmarks of $9 million in federal grants for an energy company called Cornerstone Technologies LLC. Cornerstone was run by members of the Kanjorski family, including the Congressman's nephew, Russell Kanjorski (remember his name). Sweet deal for the Kanjorski's. It's good to have friends in high places. Even sweeter, Cornerstone ran it's company out of a building owned by Congressman Paul Kanjorski, so all the rent paid by Cornerstone (which was really paid by the taxpayers) went into the Congressman's pocket.

Unfortunately, the Cornerstone Kanjorski's didn't know how to run an energy company. It went bust in 2003. The $9 million in taxpayer funds went down the drain. Here's a Fox News video recounting the entire sordid tale. Try not to throw up on your computer screen as you watch this, because it is sickening:

I especially liked the part where Congressman Kanjorski tried to blame hiw own self-serving corrupt activities on "the Republican machine." Evidently, Kanjorski has a sense of humor in addition to being a crook.

Somehow, Congressman Kanjorski is still in office instead of in prison where he belongs for bilking the taxpayers. Way to go, Pennsylvania voters. I wonder if anyone outside Fox News even reported Rep. Kanjorski's corruption. It's good to be a Democrat, I guess. Things didn't go quite so well for, say, Duke Cunningham.

Now we fast forward to today. President Obama recently announced $2 billion in guaranteed government loans to two energy companies. For those who don't know, a "guaranteed government loan" means if the companies go belly up, the taxpayers are on the hook for the dough. Nice deal for the companies receiving the funds, not so nice deal for the taxpayers.

One of the companies receiving guaranteed government loot is Abound Solar, a startup company that just began ramping up to produce solar panels in 2008. Abound Solar is getting $400 million from Obama. Well, technically, Obama is borrowing the $400 million, because the U.S. government is on it's ass, dead broke.

Now for the trivia question – Guess who is the Vice President Of Marketing for Abound Solar ?

(Cue the theme song from Jeopardy)

De-de-de-de, de-de-de, de-de-de-de-deep, de-de-de-de-de……

If you said, Alex, who is Russell Kanjorski ?, you would be absolutely correct. After bilking the taxpayers with Cornerstone, Russ Kanjorski landed another plum top management job with another company being financed by the taxpayers. Don't that beat all !

The CEO of the Abound Solar startup is Tom Tiller, who previously headed up a company that produced recreational vehicles and atv's. Tiller was made the CEO of Abound about three months ago. He has no experience with solar technology, but he is a Harvard MBA. Abound Solar has other investors besides the American taxpayers. A hedge fund company, an asset management company, former Goldman-Sachs persons, former Lehman Brothers persons, other Harvard grads, etc. have invested $150 million in Abound. The company is also aligned with BP on some biofuels projects. BP used to call itself the "world's first green petroleum company," if you remember, but I doubt anyone living on the Gulf Of Mexico would agree with that description.

The other company receiving big Obamabucks is a Spanish company called Abengoa, who will receive $1.45 billion. Former Democratic VP Al Gore has an investment in that company, though the amount is unknown. It's that transparency thing again. The $1.45 billion investment in Abengoa is to build a concentrated solar plant outside Phoenix, Arizona. The plant is supposed to provide energy for 77,000 homes once it reaches full capacity (there are about 500,000 homes in Phoenix). It will create 85 permanent jobs. That's not a typo. 85 jobs for the $1.45 billion investment.

Speaking of Spain, that country made a big committment to solar power, with heavy subsidies from the Spanish government. What Spain has found is that the solar panels don't pay for themselves. They cost far too much, and require massive ongoing government subsidies. Now Spain wants to cut back on solar power.

But I'm sure that could never happen here. I bet Russ Kanjorski would agree.

Reading several recent news stories, it occurred to me that other countries understand what made America great better than we do these days, or at least better than our current leadership does. There are several lessons we need to relearn.

The first lesson comes from a news item I read about how China will soon overtake the United States as the world's leading manufacturer. It is forecasted to happen next year, ending America's 110-year run as the world's leader (which is how we became an economic powerhouse). China has learned from America that producing goods leads to solid economic growth and jobs. America has increasingly become a consumer-based service economy, and lately our leaders are acting like it's the government that produces economic growth and jobs, a falsehood. In a free country like ours, the government, the public sector, actually consumes wealth for the most part. As I mentioned in a recent post, China, as a result of it's market-based reforms, has become the world's largest creditor nation, while we have become the largest debtor nation.

The next lesson comes from, of all places, a former communist country, Russia. Dmitri Medvedev, the Russian President, sees an opportunity for Russia to take a prominent place in what he calls a new world economic order, which he says will rise out of the ashes of the financial crisis and end the heyday of western, and particularly American, dominance. Listen to what Medvedev is proposing for Russia:

Mr Medvedev laid out a series of new initiatives that aim to boost its attractiveness as an investment destination. “Russia needs a real investment boom”, in order to achieve its modernisation goals, he said. To stimulate that, Mr Medvedev announced Moscow would introduce zero taxation on capital gains for companies working on long-term investments starting from January next year and said Russia was improving the legal system to provide better protection for businesses against the long arm of bureaucracy.

Mr Medvedev said the state would concentrate its efforts on fostering a good business climate. “No matter how many state-owned companies we have, modernization will happen, above all, through private business. And only if there is competition,” he said. “The state should not tear down the apples from the tree of economics. What the government should do is help grow our apple orchard, develop our economic environment.”

Mr Medvedev said he was cutting the list of strategic enterprises five fold in order to reduce the role of the state in the economy and foster more private initiatives.

Russia is proposing pro-growth, private sector, business-friendly policies with less interference from the state to grow it's economy. In America, Obama is proposing quite the opposite – bigger government, anti-business, centralized control, and ever more regulation.

Since when did Russia understand market economics better than the United States Of America ? Why are we letting that happen ?

The final lessons come from our neighbor to the north, Canada, and it comes from another unexpected source, Canada's Liberal Party. First, one must understand that Canada's Liberal Party is actually their center-left party. What we call liberal (left-wing) in America is called the New Democratic Party in Canada. The Canadian Liberal Party is liberal on most social issues, but have made several smart conservative moves on fiscal issues, as pointed out in this Associated Press article.

The first lesson concerns how Canada largely avoided the banking crisis that devastated America and Europe:

The banks are stable because, in part, they're more regulated. As the U.S. and Europe loosened regulations on their financial industries over the last 15 years, Canada refused to do so. The banks also aren't as leveraged as their U.S. or European peers.

There was no mortgage meltdown or subprime crisis in Canada. Banks don't package mortgages and sell them to the private market, so they need to be sure their borrowers can pay back the loans.

In Canada's concentrated banking system, five major banks dominate the market and regulators know each of the top bank executives personally.

Notice that even though Canada is dominated by large banks, which we have been calling "too big to fail" in this country, there was no housing meltdown, because Canada doesn't bundle and securitize mortgages like we do. The Canadian banks don't sell their mortgages like we do. Canadian banks HAVE to know their customers can pay back their loans. The survival of the Canadian banks depends on it. That's the way the mortgage market used to work in America as well, until our government changed all the rules and let secondary mortgage entities like Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Wall Street investment firms into the mortgage game, which incentivized our mortgage lenders to hand out loans like penny candy and then sell them. The government actually took these steps in the guise of lessening risk, one of the great ironies of all time.

Speaking of Fannie Mae, it is now primarily owned by the government (the taxpayers), and Fannie, along with other government mortgage entities, are still buying and selling houses like crazy, selling them for pennies on the dollar. The cost to taxpayers is $146 billion and rising. Before it's all said and done, Fannie Mae will be the single largest receiver of taxpayer bailouts.

And the recent financial regulation reform bill EXCLUDED Fannie Mae from it's reform. Great work, Congress. As usual, it was partisan politics over practical reality. The financial reform package leaves the secondary mortgage market TOTALLY in place, despite the ludicrous dog and pony show the Democrats put on to claim they were "ending bailouts forever," and "ending too big to fail." God, they think we're stupid. Fannie Mae is the biggest of the "too big to fail" in the mortgage market. As one realtor said in the article linked above, "we're all working for the government now."

The other lesson from Canada's Liberal Party concerns how it balanced it's budget. This one will make Obamamaniacs roll over in the graves they are digging for our country:

[Canadian] Liberals took office facing a $30 billion deficit. Moody's downgraded Canada's credit rating twice. About 36 percent of the government's revenue went toward servicing debt.

"Our situation was dire. Canada was in a lot of trouble at that point," Martin said. "If we were going to preserve our health care and our education system we had to do it."

As finance minister, he slashed spending. A weak currency and a booming U.S. economy also helped Martin balance the books. In the 1998 budget the government estimated that about 55 percent of the deficit reduction came from economic growth and 35 percent from spending cuts.

"The rest of the world certainly thinks we're the model to follow," said Martin, who was prime minister from 2003 to 2006. "I've been asked by a lot of countries as to how to go about it."

Canada eliminated it's deficit via economic growth policies and spending cuts. Are you listening, Mr. Obama ? Are you listening American liberals ?

Let's summarize the lessons we've learned today from other countries, which happen to be lessons America knew for a long, long time but appear to have forgotten. In order to restore America, we should – cut taxes on investment, cut government spending, enact pro-growth, business-friendly policies, restore our manufacturing sector, stop politicizing the mortgage market to "increase home ownership," and replace it instead with the old way of making mortgage loans, under which banks were highly incentivized to make responsible loans to qualified individuals. We should do everything we can to help the private sector, instead of growing government to the point that it strangles our economy.

That's what we should do, and it also happens to be what I've been advocating on this blog (gosh, I'm so smart. Allow me to pause a moment to pat myself on the back).

But instead we have the Obamamaniac in charge, doing the precise opposite, following the failing quasi-socialist European big government entitlement model that has the West collapsing under mountains of debt, as I pointed out in my recent post, Living On Borrowed Time.

It's not too late, America, but our time is running out. If you remember anything as you cast your ballots come november, remember that.

Or, we can send our President back to school for an Economics 101 course, and hope for the best.

House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) has been making quite a name for himself lately.

In the Democratic primaries in South Carolina, the voters nominated a completely unknown Senate candidate, Alvin Greene, who hadn't even campaigned, who hadn't attended the S.C. Democratic convention, who can barely speak coherently, who faces felony obscenity charges, who is unemployed and lives with his father, and who apparently got elected due to him being the first candidate listed on the ballot (Dem voters didn't know who any of the candidates were, according to a Democratic polling firm).

Faced with such a 'stupid is as stupid does' outcome, Rep. Clyburn flew into Democrat face-saving action, immediately accusing Alvin Greene of being a "Republican plant," based upon…well, based upon nothing, other than it sounded to Clyburn like it might work. He had exactly zero evidence upon which to base his claim, and Alvin Greene says he has always been a Democrat.

Naturally, the left-wing blogosphere picked up Clyburn's made-up charge and reported it as if it was stone-cold fact. Damn those dirty Republicans ! They always steal elections ! Just like they did in 2004 and 2000,…and 1988, 1984, 1980, and 1972…and 1712, 1506, and 126 BC !! Damn them !!! The nutroots went foaming-at-the-mouth wild. In other words, the nutroots pursued business-as-usual.

Several top Democrats are calling for an investigation of Greene, and have called for him to step down from the Senate race, where he has about as much chance of defeating incumbent Republican Jim Demint as your company softball team would have of defeating the New York Yankees. The Dems say they want Greene to step down because of the felony charge, but Greene says he's not guilty, and he's not stepping down from anything. In reality, the Dems want Greene to step down because he's an embarassment to them, and the other S.C. Democratic Senate candidate, Vic Rawls, might have a snowball's chance against Demint. You know what they say about the Democrats. They are always looking out for the little guy, and that's why they are trying to overturn the will of the voters in South Caroli…..wait a second. That sounds more like screwing the little guy, just like Dems did in the 2008 presidential primaries, where they excluded entire states from the primary process. Oh well. That was probably Bush's fault, right nutroots ?

Clyburn's "plant" accusations don't stop with Alvin Greene. Rep. Clyburn has come up with no less than THREE plants in South Carolina, including the man who ran against Clyburn, hoo ha. All three "plants" were African-American, and were not backed by the state Democratic party. Apparently, any candidate who wins or runs in a Democratic primary in South Carolina who is not the choice of Clyburn and his Democratic honchos is a "plant." I guess we can't have non-party machine candidates going around running and winning elections. Heavens, no. That might lead to diversity chaos in the Democratic party. Some of these "plants," like Clyburn's opponent, Gregory Brown, actually believe <shudder> that the GOVERNMENT IS SPENDING TOO MUCH MONEY. That kind of crazy talk is considered heresy by the Left. No government led by Democrats can spend too much money. Only government's led by Republicans can spend too much money. It's basic (ill) logic.

On sunday's State Of The Union program on CNN, Rep. Clyburn was just the man to explain this (ill) logic to us. He said we need to "look to the future with a little more compassion and bipartisanship," and we need to stop talking about "cutting taxes, cutting taxes, cutting taxes."

Allow me to explain what Clyburn means.

In Demo-speak, "compassion" means the government should be able to steal ever increasing amounts of private wealth, though they use the more genteel-sounding term "redistributing wealth." Regardless of the term they use, they are forcibly taking the money from citizens who earned it and putting it in the government's hands, to be used as the government sees fit. This is the essence of what it means to be a liberal. It's about thievery, er, I mean "compassion."

In Demo-speak, "bipartisanship" means the GOP should shut the hell up and just go along with the Democrats on the "compassion" thing. The end.

In Demo-speak, "cutting taxes" is either a) horrible and racist when Bush did it, or b) help for the working man when Obama did it. Clyburn actually praised Obama's tax cuts on the same CNN program that he railed AGAINST cutting taxes. I think Clyburn is a plant.

Cutting government spending is NEVER an alternative for a James Clyburn. He actually thinks the government isn't spending enough. He said a second stimulus package should be discussed on that CNN program. Liberals actually believe that in a country up to it's ears in debt, with major revenue shortages, with federal spending having literally doubled in 10 short years, with trillion+ deficits with no end in sight, with a major recession that was caused by overspending and overleveraging…..the answer is for the government to SPEND EVEN MORE. This should be coined the Paul Krugman Theory Of Economic Mass Destruction. It's comparable to treating a patient who is going into anaphylactic shock due to a bee sting allergy with a massive injection of more bee venom. It's desirable only if the objective is to KILL THE PATIENT.

To those of James Clyburn's ilk, this is "compassion." To me, it sounds more like death.

I haven't had time to generate a new post for nearly a week now, so I have a few different topics I want to comment upon briefly.
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The other day I heard NBC news bemoaning the fact that Rep. David Obey (D-WI) will not seek re-election. NBC practically deified the guy in it's failed attempt at accurate reportage. I assume the rest of the non-Fox News teevee media did the same, being that the rest really ARE the same (Democrats). I'd like to add my two cents about Obey. He is the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, and is therefore more responsible than any other Congressperson for the explosion in federal spending over the last years. He wrote the stimulus bill boondoggle, and was instrumental in constructing and passing ObamaCare, which will raise everyone's health insurance premiums, raise spending further, raise taxes, create a massive new entitlement, and insert the federal government between doctor and patient.

Btw, Obey said his only regret about the stimulus bill was that it wasn't LARGER. I'm not kidding.

People like Obey are the problem with Congress. Good riddance.
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Barack Obama's presidential election victory has two definite positive aspects. First, it showed that African-Americans can win major elections in the United States, and second, 32 African Americans are running for Congress this year…as Republicans, according to the New York times. The Times claims this is the biggest black Republican surge since Reconstruction. I seriously doubt that, but I'm sure all liberal groups will come out publicly to celebrate the new-found diversity within the Republican party (that was sarcasm, in case my left-leaning readers missed it).
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Speaking of Congress, guess who's ba-a-ack and running for Congress in Ohio ? Former Democrat James Traficant from Youngstown, who served nine terms in Congress before serving seven years in prison for bribery, tax evasion, and obstruction. This is just one more example of the "most ethical Congress in history," as Nancy Pelosi called her Democrat cronies after they took over from the "culture of corruption," which is how Nan described the former Republican-led Congress. Being a felon doesn't prohibit one from running for Congress. I guess the thinking is – without criminals being eligible, how could they possible fill all those Congressional seats ?
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Here's the funniest thing I heard about all week.

The Phoenix Suns NBA basketball team donned jerseys emblazoned with the words 'Los Suns' to protest the new Arizona law targeting illegal immigrants. In addition to the incorrect grammar (the correct English-to-Spanish translation of 'The Suns' is 'Los Soles,') and in addition to the fact that Suns owner Robert Tarver, who supports the Suns protest, owns a number of banks which received $140 million in TARP bailout funds (if he really needed the money, maybe he should have sold the basketball team before grabbing taxpayer cash), the Washington Times made a great suggestion:

"[W]hile millionaire athletes become walking billboards for a political cause, the state of Arizona might want to review the terms of its relationship with the Suns. If Mr. Sarver wants to use his team to push a political agenda, perhaps citizens can push back. Imagine Phoenix residents channeling the spirits of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. by turning up en masse to Suns games, sneaking in without tickets, demanding special services like free food and access to box seats, overtaxing arena security and ruining the game for the people with tickets. They can call it a celebration of diversity."

I love it. Let's see how the Suns owner would react to people crashing HIS gate. I'm certain his reaction would be quite different. I'm also wondering when Prez Obama, an NBA fan, is going to weigh in on how greedy those professional athletes are for making so much money. Maybe the Los Suns should redistribute THEIR wealth to the illegals. Let's see how long their protest lasts then.
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I know how disappointed the Leftmedia was when the Times Square bomber turned out to be yet another Muslim jihadist, rather than the violent right-wing Tea Party nut the left has been dreaming about and masturbating over for better than a year now. NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Fox News Democrat Bob Beckel, MSNBC's Contessa Brewer, and even Geraldo Rivera all salivated over the prospect of a potential white male Tea party Times Square bomber. A Daily Kos poll had 8% thinking it was a jihadist, and about 80% thinking it was a Tea Partier or a right-wing anti-Obama nut of some kind. That is some serious wishful thinking.

I commisserate, lefties. Your thin-skinned political correctness nerves must be getting very frayed by now with the complete absence of Tea Party violence, especially when we are witnessing one violent left-wing protest after another, both here and around the world. I wish the Left better luck in the future. Hopefully, an unhinged Tea Party affiliate will blow up an IRS building soon and kill hundreds of people so you left-wing pr*cks can feel all happy and righteous again (and yes, that was sarcasm too, mixed in with a heaping tablespoon of disgust).

I do commend our brilliant Homeland Security Secretary, Janet Napolitano, who made the following statement immediately after the Times Square bombing attempt. "We're treating it as if it could be a potential terrorist attack," said Secretary Master Of The Obvious. Gee, ya think ?

Finally, when Rep. Andre Carson (D-IN) was asked about the Tea Party movement, Carson, unfazed by reality, chose to fixate upon the "real" threat:

"I worked in homeland security. I'm from intelligence, and I'll tell you, one of the largest threats to our internal security — I mean terrorism has an Islamic face — but it really comes from racial supremacist groups. Its the kind of thing we keep a threat assessment on record [for]."

Notice how Carson sickeningly equates the Tea Party movement with white supremacist groups. Could he be a former….Reverend ? Also of interest is how Carson says the "real" threat doesn't come from jihadists. It's white people we need to worry about. This dude needs PC-ectomy surgery very, very soon.

(Note to liberals – I'm not saying true white supremacist groups don't need to be watched. They do, but the Tea Party movement is NOT one of those groups. Andre Carson is being racist by pretending it is).

On April 16, 2010, the Securities And Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a civil fraud suit against Goldman Sachs, alleging that the Wall Street investment bank sold mortgage-backed securities to investors that were secretly designed to fail. About a week later, A Senate subcommittee investigating the financial crisis released internal Goldman Sachs e-mails that seemed to support the SEC's allegations that Goldman Sachs was simultaneously selling the securities and betting against them. Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich), the chairman of that committee, said "Goldman made a lot of money by betting against the mortgage market."

I find myself in the unenviable position of offering a partial defense of Goldman Sachs at this point. Imagine for a moment that you work at Goldman Sachs, and have been selling mortgage-backed securities for years. Those securities were very profitable, ever since 1999 Clinton administration legislation (introduced by Republicans and with more Republican than Democratic support in Congress) allowed investment banks like Goldman Sachs into the mortgage market, which was previously illegal. From 1999 forward, a huge housing market bubble was created, and in 2007 that bubble began to burst. Housing prices began to fall dramatically, as did the value of those mortgage-backed securities. If you worked at Goldman Sachs in 2007, wasn't it the smart move to bet against the mortgage market by short-selling on the futures of those securities ? We all know now that it certainly was the smart move. The short-selling of those securities was not illegal. In fact, it's the essence of what Wall Street does. It buys and sells based upon market conditions, and market conditions CHANGE. As Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of Goldman Sachs, wrote in one of the released e-mails, the firm "lost money" on the housing market, "then made more than we lost because of shorts." In another e-mail, Goldman's Chief Financial Officer wrote of making $50 million in one day via short-selling. In another e-mail, Goldman executives wrote about how one subprime lender was facing "wipeout," and another's demise was "imminent." Another executive said "sounds like we will make some serious money," by short-selling.

If there was any fraud at Goldman Sachs, it wasn't because they were selling short, it was because they were selling short without advising their customers to do the same. They were still selling the mortgage-backed securities they were betting against. That determination will be left to the courts.

This leads me to the next part of Sen. Carl Levin's statement condemning Goldman Sachs:

"Investment banks such as Goldman Sachs were not simply market-makers, they were self-interested promoters of risky and complicated financial schemes that helped trigger the crisis," Levin said. "They bundled toxic mortgages into complex financial instruments, got the credit rating agencies to label them as AAA securities, and sold them to investors, magnifying and spreading risk throughout the financial system, and all too often betting against the instruments they sold and profiting at the expense of their clients."

Sounds pretty bad, but let's put it in perspective. Goldman Sachs did about $500 MILLION worth of residential mortgage business in 2007, less than 1% of the firm's business. By contrast, the quasi-government agency Fannie Mae's mortgage portfolio was in excess of $700 BILLION as of August 2008. Fannie Mae was the largest bundler and securitizer of mortgage loans in the country, BY FAR. Goldman Sachs is a small fish by comparison. Where are Sen. Levin's condemnations of Fannie Mae ??? Fannie (and her little brother Freddie Mac) kept bundling and selling those "toxic mortgages" right up until the moment the financial system imploded. Fannie Mae executives knew the market was collapsing. Where are the fraud charges against Fannie ? There are none, and to add insult to injury, Fannie Mae is exempted from regulation under the financial regulation reform legislation working it's way through Congress. In addition, Fannie Mae, as a Government Sponsored Enterprise (GSE), was also exempt from regulations in place for private financial institutions. For example, private firms had to maintain a capital/asset ratio of greater than or equal to 3%. A GSE like Fannie did not, placing it a greater risk than the private firms, thus placing the entire housing sector at significantly greater risk.

Btw, to my knowledge, the so-called financial regulation reform under consideration does NOT prohibit investment firms like Goldman Sachs from remaining in the mortgage market (though Goldman Sachs has become a bank holding company now). It does not re-implement the laws in place from the Great Depression (Glass-Steagal) up until the 1999 Clinton legislation (Gramm-Leach-Bliley). Fannie Mae has now gone into government consevatorship, but there are no plans to liquidate it. A July 30, 2008 law enabling expanded regulatory authority over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac increased the national debt ceiling by $800 billion. In other words, the taxpayers are massively on the hook for the excessive risks placed on our financial system by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which were/are effectively run by the government. THAT is the systemic risk, not Goldman Sachs.

But our politicians tell us we're supposed to be really angry at Goldman Sachs, and with tons of media reinforcement, we have largely bought into the misdirection. I even bought into it myself, more than I should have. I apologize for actually believing anything any politician ever says. I should know better by now. We're supposed to be angry at Wall Street, with good reason, but why the hell aren't we angry at the government who did this to us ?

There's a lot wrong with the incestuous relationship between Goldman Sachs and the federal government. No question there. Goldman Sachs received over $12 billion in TARP money it didn't need (Goldman Sachs made a net profit of $13.39 billion in 2009 and also made a profit in 2008). Goldman Sachs repaid it's TARP loan plus interest within several months of receving it. Many of the banks getting TARP funds didn't need them, and were forced to take them. The government was playing a good game of charades with those bailouts.

The latest estimate of the bank bailout losses is down to $87 billion. The single largest loss is the GSE's, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ($85 billion). The second largest loss is the help given to homeowners facing foreclosure ($49 billion). Next is AIG ($48 billion). Then General Motors ($28 billion). The private financial institutions have repaid their TARP loans plus interest, actually MAKING A PROFIT for the Treasury of $115 billion, offsetting the real losses.

So tell me, who should we be the most angry at…banks who made the risky loans the government wanted them to make (to increase homeownership so the politicians could pat themselves on the back)…or the government (both parties), who set the entire financial house of cards in motion, who legislated the financial crisis into existence, and who constantly demonize the private sector while never placing any responsibility on itself for it's massive irresponsibility ? That government irresponsibility ($12.8 trillion national debt, unrestrained spending, and exploding unfunded entitlement liabilities) has placed the entire future of the country at systemic and excessive risk.

Placing complete confidence in politicians to do the right thing is like relying on a referee who has bet on the game he's officiating to call the game fairly. Odds are pretty good that won't happen. The odds are even greater that politicians who are vying for re-election and partisan power over the entire country are not going to be honest. Much greater. Off the charts. Question everything they do and say, especially the ones who are currently IN power. They are the most dangerous.

Left-wing political mythology holds that President Bush referred to the U.S. Constitution as nothing but "a goddamned piece of paper" in 2005. Bush allegedly said this in frustration over constitutional issues with the Patriot Act. Though it is very unlikely Bush ever spoke those words, many left-wingers still believe he did say them, even though the unreliable anti-Bush website that originally made the allegations, Capitol Hill Blue, has removed the story from their database.

While it's not the least bit surprising that lefty sources would invent an anti-Bush story, it occurs to me that Congress and the Executive branch almost always treat the Constitution as nothing but a g-d piece of paper. They treat it as a nuisance, or they ignore it altogether. This is a pretty shabby way to treat the supreme law of the land, the law both Congress and the President are sworn to uphold. Rather than uphold the Constitution, our federal government invents specious justifications to get around it.

On the ObamaCare health insurance mandate, which forces all Americans to buy health insurance from a private company, our scoundrels in Congress ludicrously cite the General Welfare clause (see here what the Founders actually meant) or the Commerce clause (whichs has NEVER been used before to force a person to purchase a product from a private company). They completely distort the meaning and intentions of those portions of the Constitution. To add insult to injury, when 16 states (so far) announced their intentions to sue the federal government over the unprecedented insurance mandate, the White House responded by calling it a political stunt. Now, I don't know what the outcome of those lawsuits will be, but referring to constitutional issues as a "stunt" is greatly troubling, especially from a President who is a former Constitutional law professor. I can't help but wonder what he was teaching his students.

Republicans don't get off the hook here by any means. They may be concerned about the Constitution now, finally, but they haven't been so very concerned with it in the past either. Conservative columnist Walter Williams wrote an article called Ruled By Scoundrels, which points out that many of the most outrageous, constitutionally-questionable intrusions of the federal government DIDN'T come from the Democrats:

The March 10 issue of Human Events carried a special report on the 10 most outrageous government programs. Their 18 judges included conservative/libertarians such as former Rep. Dick Armey, R-Texas, former Delaware Gov. Pete Dupont, Mark Levin, president of the Landmark Legal Foundation, and David Boaz, Cato Institute's vice president.

The Legal Services Corp. headed the list, followed closely by the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Act and the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931. Rounding out the list were: Americorps, Endangered Species Act, No Child Left Behind Act, Amtrak, Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) Standards, Title X Family Planning Act, and the provision of welfare payments to non-citizens and illegal aliens.

Human Events, a conservative, Republican-leaning publication, unlike Democrats who protect scoundrels in their party, wasn't reluctant to list the presidents who sponsored or supported these outrageous government programs. Most of the programs were born during Republican administrations. Herbert Hoover was in office when the Davis-Bacon Act was written in 1931. Richard Nixon presided over the births of the Legal Services Corp. (1974), the Endangered Species Act (1973), Amtrak (1971) and the Title X Family Planning Act (1970). Gerald Ford sponsored CAFE standards (1975), and George W. Bush signed off on the No Child Left Behind Act (2002).

If we have two political parties ignoring the Constitution, why do we even have a Constitution ? What good is it ? If it can be ignored at will, it IS nothing but a goddamned piece of paper.

Walter Williams included the following in his article:

Rep. John Shadegg, R-Ariz., has introduced the Enumerated Powers Act several times. It would require each act of Congress to contain a concise and definite statement of the specific constitutional authority relied upon for the enactment of each portion of that act or else the bill could not go forward. Shadegg's Enumerated Powers Act (HR 175) went down to three crushing defeats.

Can we ask for more compelling evidence of Congress's contempt for our Constitution, or do you think our congressmen are simply reflecting the constitutional contempt of the people?

Why do you suppose Congress would repeatedly vote against a bill that required constitutional authority for it's actions ???????

It wouldn't be because Congress doesn't want ANYTHING to limit it's power, would it ? And if Congress can do anything it wants, we really don't have a Constitution at all, do we ? It IS just a goddamned piece of paper. Sure, maybe the Supreme Court will strike down a law here or there once in a while, but we also have Presidents and Congresses trying to install activist judges who will rule THEIR way, who will change the meaning of the Constitution according to political ideologically rather than proper application of constitutional principles. The left-wingers are professionals at that game.

A final word of warning….

"Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny." – Thomas Jefferson

Watching the health care debate over the last year has made me almost physically ill. It confirmed all my worst suspicions about our federal government. The lies, the spin, the ignorance, the corruption, the backroom dealings, the phony cost estimates, the buying of votes, the use of government force, the subversion of the Democratic process, the government going against the will of the people, the ongoing taxpayer ripoff, the catering to special interests….it's disgusting.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) is the guy who singlehandedly destroyed the Democrats health care reform cost estimates at Obama's phony health care summit. Ryan also has a better health care plan than the one the Dems put forward, and it was ignored and rejected out-of-hand. Obama and the Dems preferred instead to promote the lie that Republicans didn't have a health care plan. That was one lie out of a sea of lies coming from the White House on the issue.

This statement by Ryan pretty much sums up why America is disgusted with the entire process, and why Congress' approval rating is in the dumper:

“And now I want to return to the Health Care Frankenstein. Most Americans understand that government-run Health Care is not free, not cheap, and not compassionate. I think most Americans believe Congress has no idea of what the public demand will be for subsidized Health Care. They are correct. When Medicare was enacted, Congress guessed it would cost about 10 percent of what it turned out to be after 25 years. Heck, Congress couldn’t even figure the cost of the 3-month long Cash for Clunkers subsidy last year, underestimating it on the order of 1 to 9. Most Americans know the Congressional majority are clueless about what their government-run Health Care system is going to cost.
“The drama that brought this creature to life was unedifying … part tragedy and part farce. Ethical categories went out the window. Never in history have the deliberations of Congress been subverted on this scale. The secrecy, the lack of transparency, the half-truths were stunning. The votes called at midnight … the 2 and 3 thousand page bills members of Congress had no time to read before the votes … the sordid backroom deals, the Cornhusker Kickback that shamed Nebraska, the Louisiana Purchase, the ‘Gator Aid’ Medicare privilege for Florida, the additional Medicare dollars for states whose wavering representatives only yesterday were ferociously denouncing earmarks … the federal judgeship dangled for one lawmaker’s brother … the raid on the Medicare piggy bank … the lie that $250 billion for ‘doc fix’ shouldn’t count as a Health Care cost … the double-counted deficit estimate scam that would land any accountant in jail … the proposed Slaughter rule that Congressmen not record a vote on a bill their constituents hate, just ‘deem’ it passed and vote on the amendments…and to complete the farce, the phony Executive Order pretending not to fund abortions when the Health Care bill, as ‘the supreme law of the land,’ does fund abortions. The level of political corruption to buy the votes for this debacle makes all past examples look penny ante by comparison.
“Self-government stands or falls on integrity, not only in those who represent you but in the enactment of law. This indecency soiled our freedom and embarrassed the democracy we promote in other nations. And this may not be the last of it. To enact its transformative agenda, this leadership employs the Machiavellian saying that the end justifies the means. America was born in a revolution against that whole idea. Soon it will be the norm.
“The Constitution and the consent of the people are all that stand between limited and unlimited government power. Zealous ideologues with the best of intentions brush aside the limits on power in order to get whatever they believe is good for the people … no matter what the people believe. Our system of freedom can survive an assault, but it won’t survive if the people are frightened, or angry, or asleep at the switch. A great Democrat, President Andrew Jackson, once said: ‘eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty.’ We can thank our current leaders at least for this: they have awakened the nation to the danger of taking self-government for granted.”

Exactly.

Ryan's entire statement at the above link is well worth reading.

I don't want to get too far ahead of myself, and 2012 is a ways off, but as far as I can see, the GOP doesn't have a real good presidential candidate. Maybe they should give Paul Ryan a look. Ryan's the ranking member on the Budget Committee, and I know I'd like to have a President who can add and subtract for a change.

I don't really want to write about this subject, but the media has been obsessed with it for days, so I guess I should. If you have been near a tv news program, you already know there has been some ugly language directed toward members of Congress, there have been a few instances of vandalism (broken windows) at Democratic party headquarters around the nation, and a bullet hit the window of Republican Eric Cantor's campaign headquarters.

Naturally, we all condemn this type of behavior. Democrats and Republicans both condemn it. Certainly, every member of Congress condemns it. That should go without saying, but because it appears more of the bad behavior is coming from right-wingers than from left-wingers (this time), the media and Democrats have to pretend like this is somehow representative of the entire conservative movement. The left-wingers have to pretend Republican speech is responsible for it, or the entire Tea Party movement is responsible for it, or Fox News is responsible for it, or talk radio is responsible for it. Instead of calling it what it is, a few fringe nuts acting up, which exists all across the political spectrum, we have to pretend that conservative speech is somehow inciting people to violence, and it is a huge powderkeg about to explode.

I have to note, the same narrative NEVER seems to exist when left-wingers are engaging in vandalism, violence, threats, and ugly speech. For example, at the recent G20 summit in Pittsburgh, left-wing anarchists and other left-wing protesters smashed store windows, threw bottles at the police, set trash cans on fire, etc, but you NEVER heard the media warn about the dangers of left-wing violence. You never heard anyone tell the left to tone down THEIR rhetoric, and you never heard Republicans in Congress tell Democrats to get their people under control, as Democrats are telling Republicans now. In fact, you probably didn't even know the anarchists are left-wingers, because the media never told you. As another example, when the previous President, Republican George W. Bush, was hung in effigy, had a film and a book released about assassinating him, had Air America running skits about assassinating him, and even had the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, John Kerry, talk about killing him, you NEVER heard any warnings about left-wing extremism from the mainstream media. Evidently, that kind of left-wing incitement to violence isn't worth reporting. It doesn't fit the mainstream media narrative. But when left-wing nuts like Janeane Garofalo or Keith Olbermann call the Tea Party movement racist, the media laps it up and repeats it ad nauseum.

Unfortunately, threats against public officials is nothing new. They are always despicable and cowardly acts, and far more common than we know, because usually, the public officials don't make them public. Such acts should be condemned whether they are coming from the left, the right, or the center. They should not be exploited to fan the flames of partisan anger, which will only raise the possibility of more threats and/or increasing violence. Republican Eric Cantor talked about those who would fan the flames, and said it best in the following video:

Even more unfortunately, I don't have to look very far to find someone who will fan the flames of partisan anger. My blogger pal, the Reverend at the Blog Of Mass Destruction, wrote about the recent threats and vandalism on his blog. The Reverend has a way of starting out with a valid point and then taking off on an extreme tangent into sheer insanity. The linked blog piece was no exception. He attempted to falsely characterize words by Republicans Michelle Bachmann, Sarah Palin, and John Boehner as calls to violence, when in reality they were nothing but calls for conservative political action. The Reverend ended his hysterical rant by saying everyone on Fox News (except Shep Smith) and the conservative radio talkers should be charged with crimes. CRIMES. I guess their crime is what most of us would call freedom of speech. I can't help but feel a little sorry for the Reverend, who is sounding more and more like Hugo Chavez as time goes on. Chavez just arrested the owner of a television station in Venezuela because the owner criticized Chavez' government. This is how the Reverend thinks we should treat conservatives in America. He thinks we should arrest them for their political opinions. Pitiful. Like most crazy people, the Reverend is unable to recognize his own craziness.

After nearly fifty years of ripping off the American public, the government scam known as Social Security is coming undone. In 2010, Social Security revenue will not be enough to pay benefits to retirees. The Associated Press reports:

The retirement nest egg of an entire generation is stashed away in this small town along the Ohio River: $2.5 trillion in IOUs from the federal government, payable to the Social Security Administration.

It's time to start cashing them in.

For more than two decades, Social Security collected more money in payroll taxes than it paid out in benefits — billions more each year.

Not anymore. This year, for the first time since the 1980s, when Congress last overhauled Social Security, the retirement program is projected to pay out more in benefits than it collects in taxes — nearly $29 billion more.

We have to start tapping into the alleged $2.5 trillion in IOU's in the so-called "trust fund." ???? How do we do that ? Here's how:

Sounds like a good time to start tapping the nest egg. Too bad the federal government already spent that money over the years on other programs, preferring to borrow from Social Security rather than foreign creditors. In return, the Treasury Department issued a stack of IOUs — in the form of Treasury bonds — which are kept in a nondescript office building just down the street from Parkersburg's municipal offices.

Now the government will have to borrow even more money, much of it abroad, to start paying back the IOUs, and the timing couldn't be worse. The government is projected to post a record $1.5 trillion budget deficit this year, followed by trillion dollar deficits for years to come.

Yes, kiddies, we have to BORROW the money to pay those SS IOU's. That's because the "trust fund" doesn't exist. It's just paper. Congress spent your SS "trust fund" money long ago. Borrowing the money will drive our deficits even higher, and the piece de resistance is….guess who gets to pay back all that borrowed money ???? Why, it's us, the American taxpayers who funded Social Security in the first place !!! We get to pay for it all over again !!! What a deal ! That's your government at work for YOU (stealing your money) !!!

Now, you will hear various government officials say that SS is "backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government." That's supposed to make us feel all warm, fuzzy, and safe, but again….the "full faith and credit of the U.S. government" only means that the government can FORCE us taxpayers to pay for SS…all over again. It means nothing more than that. It only means we've been ripped off, but the government will make make it all good by ripping us off some more. That's the government's definition of "faith." They have "faith" that they can forcibly extract more tax dollars from us after stealing our trust fund.

SS will soon go into permanent deficit status:

In the short term, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects that Social Security will continue to pay out more in benefits than it collects in taxes for the next three years. It is projected to post small surpluses of $6 billion each in 2014 and 2015, before returning to indefinite deficits in 2016.

For the budget year that ends in September, Social Security is projected to collect $677 million in taxes and spend $706 million on benefits and expenses.

Social Security will also collect about $120 billion in interest on the trust funds, according to the CBO projections, meaning its overall balance sheet will continue to grow. The interest, however, is paid by the government, adding even more to the budget deficit.

Congress will undoubtedly "fix" SS again, as they've "fixed" it so many times in the past, by raising SS taxes (again) and/or cutting benefits (again). Remember, when SS started FDR promised that the SS tax would never be more than 1% of income. Because Congress has systematically raided the SS trust fund since the 1950's to cover up it's own fiscal irresponsibility, YOUR SS taxes are raised over and over, and YOUR SS benefits are slashed over and over. That's the nature of a scam. A scam ultimately collapses under it's own weight, as did Bernie Madoff's scam, which was a drop in the bucket when compared to SS.

Good thing we aren't in enormous trouble with borrowing money already. Oh wait, we ARE:

The national debt — the amount of money the government owes its creditors — is about $12.5 trillion, or nearly $42,000 for every man, woman and child in the country. About $8 trillion has been borrowed in public debt markets, much of it from foreign creditors. The rest came from various government trust funds, including retirement funds for civil servants and the military. About $2.5 trillion is owed to Social Security.

And don't forget the $55 TRILLION in unfunded Medicare entitlement liabilities. There's that little matter to deal with, and now we have President Obummer about to add trillions more in entitlement liabilities with his boneheaded health care reform. What could possibly go wrong ? Besides everything, that is.

Here's one of those government jackasses prattling on about that "full faith and credit" bilge:

Good luck to the politician who reneges on that debt, said Barbara Kennelly, a former Democratic congresswoman from Connecticut who is now president of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.

"Those bonds are protected by the full faith and credit of the United States of America," Kennelly said. "They're as solid as what we owe China and Japan."

Well, that's great news. We're sure on solid financial footing with airheads like Kennelly in charge. About as solid as Greece, where rioters have taken to the streets. How long will it be before that happens here ???

In closing, I can only say, if we don't get off of this Big Government ship of fools real soon, all of us will sink together, and that will be the social justice we richly deserve for our collective irresponsibility. Politicians, especially Democrats, always talk about doing this or that "for the children," but if we really want to help our children, we need to get our fiscal house in order to give our children's futures a snowball's chance in hell. As of now, things couldn't look worse. The enduring shame of the greedy baby boom generation looks to be that we indulged ourselves at the expense of future generations. We may be the first ones to leave America worse off than we found it. That is a legacy I can't embrace.

Quote Of The Day: "we have to pass the [health care] bill so that you can find out what is in it" – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)
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Burning Fiscal Issue: "he's trying to pawn himself off as a fiscal conservative. And yet just in recent weeks, two weeks ago it has come out in news accounts he had a Republican Party of Florida credit card that he charged $130 haircut, or maybe it was a back wax — we are not sure what all he got at that place." – Governor Charlie Crist (R-FL), talking about U.S. Senate primary challenger Marco Rubio, who is leading Crist by 32 points in the latest poll.
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A New York Corruptocrat State Of Mind: Recent scandals in New York…Gov. Eliot Spitzer, Gov. David Paterson, Rep. Charlie Rangel..and now, I give you Rep. Eric Massa, who recently resigned from Congress amid year-long allegations of improper sexual contact with male staffers. This guy is some piece of work. In recent days, Massa said he wouldn't seek re-election because he had cancer. Then he resigned immediately when the sexual allegations came out. Then he said he was pressured out by Democrats because he was against ObamaCare (ObamaCare isn't liberal enough for Massa). Then he went on Glenn Beck's show and said he did grope and tickle a male staffer. Then he went on Larry King's show a few hours later and said he didn't grope anyone. Massa called Obama's Chief Of Staff Rahm Emanuel "the son of the devil's spawn," and described the following nude shower scene, with Emanuel allegedly threatening Massa that he better vote for ObamaCare or else – "I am showering, naked as a jaybird, and here comes Rahm Emanuel, not even with a towel wrapped around his tush, poking his finger in my chest, yelling at me." The White House denies the incident ever occurred. When Larry King asked Massa if he was gay, Massa refused to answer, saying the question was an insult to gay people. If you are interested in this bizarre tale, The Washington Post has a pretty good take on it here.
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ObamaCare To Bring Down Deficits, Part Red Sea: Here's President Obama singing the merits of health care reform, from Fox News:

"Our cost-cutting measures mirror most of the proposals in the current Senate bill, which reduces most people's premiums and brings down our deficit by up to $1 trillion dollars over the next decade because we're spending our health care dollars more wisely," Obama told an audience at Arcadia University in Glenside, Pa., a suburb north of Philadelphia.

Obama was so proud of these cost-saving numbers in the latest version of health care reform, he delved into a bit of Washington-speak to back them up.

"Those aren't my numbers," Obama said to the rising applause of the estimated 1,300 in attendance. "They are the savings determined by the Congressional Budget Office, which is the nonpartisan, independent referee of Congress for what things cost."

Sorry, Mr. President. You're numbers are a wee bit off. The actual ObamaCare deficit reduction estimate from the CBO over the next decade – $132 billion. The real deficit increase estimate over the next decade after all the Democrats smoke and mirrors accounting tricks are stripped away from ObamaCare -$460 billion. (link)

Nice try, Obama.
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Canadian Socialist Health Care Paradise: Because almost every pro-ObamaCare Democrat under the sun has come out with some American health care horror story in order to further their cause via emotion rather than logic, I have one such story from that wonderful government-run Canadian health care system, where everyone is covered for everything and life is beautiful all the time (or so say liberals). From the Toronto Sun, this article is titled 'Sick Man Faces Bankruptcy Or Death':

Kent Pankow lives in Edmonton, in a province and a country that is trying to either kill him or bankrupt him.

No sense mincing words.

Suffering from brain cancer, Kent Pankow was literally forced to go to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. for lifesaving surgery — at a cost to family and friends of $106,000 — after the health-care system in Alberta left him hanging in bureaucratic limbo for 16 crucial days, his tumour meanwhile migrating to an unreachable part of the brain, while it dithered over his case file, ultimately deciding he was not surgery worthy.

Now, with the Mayo Clinic having done what the Alberta Cancer Board wouldn’t authorize or even explain, but with the tumour unable to be totally removed, the province will now not fund the expensive drug, Avastin, that the Mayo prescribed to keep him alive and keep the remaining tumour from increasing in size — despite the costs of the drug being totally funded by the province for other forms of cancer.

Kent Pankow, as it turns out, has the right disease but he has it in the wrong place.

Had he lung cancer, breast cancer, or colon cancer, then the cost of the drug — $4,555 per treatment, two times a month — would be totally covered by Alberta’s version of OHIP.

But he doesn’t.

And so he is not only a victim of brain cancer, he is also a victim of arbitrary discrimination.

Our supposedly universal federal health care system, the pride of most Canadians and the political struggle of America, is only as good as the length of the waiting line and whether you have the right disease at the right time.

After writing more than 150 letters to everyone from the prime minister to virtually all health authorities both federal and provincial, and being ignored in return, Kent Pankow’s wife, Deborah Hurford, decided to finally go public.

Btw, Canadian official Danny Williams, the premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, chose to have his heart surgery in the United States. Williams said, and I quote, "This was my heart, my choice and my health…I did not sign away my right to get the best possible health care for myself when I entered politics." So much for Canada's universal health care paradise.

Exit question – Is MORE bureaucracy really the way we want to go with health care in America ? With ObamaCare, that is exactly what we will get.

Republican Scott Brown's improbable Senate victory in the bluest of all blue states, Massachusetts, has sent the Democrats reeling. Their reflective navel-gazing has begun. I look at this as a wakeup call for the Democratic party. Will they now "get" it, or will they remain in denial ? Will they continue pushing policies the American people do not want ? If so, they will continue to isolate themselves, and they will continue to lose, as they have in Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Virginia this year.

It's too soon to make that call, but early indications are not promising. This morning I heard Robert Gibbs, Obama's press secretary, say the Dems just need to "retool their message." Wrong. That's not it. The people understand the message of the Democrats all too well. That's not the problem. The problem is, the people don't agree with the Democrats message. I heard MS-NBC's Norah O'Donnell blame the loss on Coakley not taking the campaign seriously enough. That's waaay wrong. Nobody takes a Senate seat lightly, and Martha Coakley certainly didn't. O'Donnell then said Coakley lost due to anti-incumbent sentiment. That's a pretty bizarre statement, considering Coakley wasn't the incumbent.

The excuses will continue, but Coakley lost because the American people are turning against all the divisiveness, the catering to special interests, the corruption, the partisan business as usual, and the wasteful big government arrogance of Washington D.C. Scott Brown tapped into America's dissatisfaction, and the silent majority (independents) went with him, overcoming the Democrats 3-1 voter advantage over Republicans in Massachusetts. Nowhere is the dissatisfaction of the American people more evident than in the Tea Party protest movement (which the Democratic party has arrogantly denigrated to the nth degree), and Scott Brown got that support, by saying things like this, from his victory speech:

Most of all, I will remember that while the honor is mine, this Senate seat belongs to no one person and no political party – and as I have said before, and you said loud and clear today, it is the people’s seat…When I first started running, I asked for a lot of help, because I knew it was going to be me against the machine. I was wrong, it was all of us against the machine… I go to Washington as the representative of no faction or interest, answering only to my conscience and to the people.

I certainly hope Scott Brown means it when he says he will represent no faction or interest, but rather the American people. We shall see. He's certainly right that it is all of us against the machine. This government is, after all, supposed to be of the people, by the people, and for the people. It's not supposed to be for Goldman Sachs, the health insurance companies, the lawyers, the unions, or any other particular special interest. We are all in this together. We should pursue policies that are responsible for the nation as a whole. That means, first – national security. Second – fiscal responsibility.

Brown also tapped into the disagreement the American people have with some of the policies of the Democrats, and to this, the Democrats SHOULD take heed (and the Republicans too, for that matter):

In every corner of our state, I met with people, looked them in the eye, shook their hand, and asked them for their vote. I didn’t worry about their party affiliation, and they didn’t worry about mine. It was simply shared conviction that brought us all together.

One thing is clear, voters do not want the trillion-dollar health care bill that is being forced on the American people.

This bill is not being debated openly and fairly. It will raise taxes, hurt Medicare, destroy jobs, and run our nation deeper into debt. It is not in the interest of our state or country – we can do better.

When in Washington, I will work in the Senate with Democrats and Republicans to reform health care in an open and honest way. No more closed-door meetings or back room deals by an out of touch party leadership. No more hiding costs, concealing taxes, collaborating with special interests, and leaving more trillions in debt for our children to pay.

In health care, we need to start fresh, work together, and do the job right. Once again, we can do better.

I will work in the Senate to put government back on the side of people who create jobs, and the millions of people who need jobs – and as President John F. Kennedy taught us, that starts with an across the board tax cut for individuals and businesses that will create jobs and stimulate the economy. It's that simple!

I will work in the Senate to defend our nation’s interests and to keep our military second to none. As a lieutenant colonel and 30-year member of the Army National Guard, I will keep faith with all who serve, and get our veterans all the benefits they deserve.

And let me say this, with respect to those who wish to harm us, I believe that our Constitution and laws exist to protect this nation – they do not grant rights and privileges to enemies in wartime. In dealing with terrorists, our tax dollars should pay for weapons to stop them, not lawyers to defend them.

Raising taxes, taking over our health care, and giving new rights to terrorists is the wrong agenda for our country. What I've heard again and again on the campaign trail, is that our political leaders have grown aloof from the people, impatient with dissent, and comfortable in the back room making deals. And we can do better.

They thought you were on board with all of their ambitions. They thought they owned your vote. They thought they couldn’t lose. But tonight, you and you and you have set them straight.

Dissent is the lifeblood of any democracy, which the Democrats should pause to consider before they viciously and falsely attack the Tea Party movement, and last night in Massachusetts, dissent won. Big time.

This morning on the Blog Of Mass Destruction, my friend the Reverend, a liberal by anyone's standard, reminded me that Thomas Jefferson was the founder of the Democratic party……..as if the current Democratic party bears any resemblance whatsoever to the one Jefferson represented. It certainly does not, and I'll leave you with the following Jefferson quote to explain exactly why not:

"A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned – this is the sum of good government." – Thomas Jefferson

Does that sound like any current Democrat you know ? Not by a country mile. The current Democrats see almost no bounds for the government (except maybe in granting terrorists the full civil rights of American citizenship). They want the government to intrude on everything and everyone. THAT is the problem, and that is the Massachusetts and Tea Party message.

We hope the Democrats are listening.