The American Jingoist

5. Marlin Stutzman Takes the Lead Among the Grassroots

6. The Model Candidate: Pat Toomey

7. Hack Editorialist Paul Krugman Takes on a Nobel Prize Winner and Loses

————————

1. I can’t make it any easier for you

Go here.

Enter your zipcode.

Your Congressman’s name and phone number will appear.

Call him and tell him to vote against the Senate’s health care plan.

How hard can that be?

2. ObamaCare to “Rip This Nation to Pieces”

Congressman Eric Massa (D-NY) gave us a glimpse into the inner workings of the House Democrat Caucus. Massa voted against ObamaCare when it came up in the House last year. He alleged on a New York radio station that he is being forced out of Congress because of his stance on ObamaCare. Aside from the validity of the allegations against him, Massa gives us a glimpse into a fight within the Democrat Caucus on the political viability of the President’s health care reform proposal. Massa shows us that there are some Democrats pleading with Speaker Pelosi (D-Ca) to back away from ObamaCare.

3. Government Health Care Is Not About Health Care; It’s About Government

Government Health Care is not about health care; It’s about Government.” So reads the last line of Mark Steyn’s latest brilliant article, which I strongly suggest that everyone read. He’s right, of course, but I’d go even a step further. It’s not just about government, it’s about a mindset and a freedom-squashed way of life. Once the government becomes more than just a safety net, becomes instead a catch-all stifling protective bubble, it kills freedom and the individual. At it’s core, freedom is meant to be risky. It isn’t safe; it’s just free.

Health care control is how the left intends to achieve their ultimate goals. They looked to Britain, for example, and saw that government health care was the key to total control. Make everything “for the common good”. Protect people from everything, even from themselves and you make them so dependent upon you that they will bend to your every will and you can further your agenda with little resistance. This is difficult, if not impossible, to change once the mindset is ingrained. Elections alone won’t do it.

Bob Bennett is such an arrogant senator that in 1994, when the United States Senate considered letting the masses park in their parking spots at Reagan National Airport and Dulles International Airport, Bennett joined Joe Biden and voted against the idea.

Even Barbara Boxer voted in favor of letting the public in.

5. Marlin Stutzman Takes the Lead Among the Grassroots

Dan Coats has a pretty website up now in Indiana. One thing you won’t there are the results of a devastating straw poll among tea party activists in Indiana.

Marlin Stutzman dominated the poll with Coats finishing dead last.

Now, I don’t put too much stock in straw polls, but they certainly are good at showing energy and trends. Compare it to the CPAC poll that had Ron Paul in first with Mitt Romney behind him. We know the energy is with Paul and Romney, being up there with him, sure looks like a contender.

Coats was at the very bottom. The energy is with Stutzman and Coats doesn’t even seem like a contender. Former Congressman Hostetler even beat Coats.

Also on Dan Coats’ website is a nice little press release with some platitudes by a few politicians in Indiana. Compare that to Stutzman who just picked up the endorsements of over 20 members of the Indiana State Legislature.

Marlin Stutzman also cleaned up at the most recent debate.

6. The Model Candidate: Pat Toomey

When Joe Scarborough and I talk each week on the radio, we frequently mention that former Congressman Pat Toomey is the model candidate for the Republican Party.

Though Pat Toomey is pro-life, his campaign focuses on jobs, business, regulation, and the free market. Back at the RedState Gathering in August (the next one will be announced very shortly), Pat Toomey gave me a copy of his book, The Road to Prosperity.

I read it then and, frankly, got sidetracked. But in thinking about a way forward for the GOP, I think Pat Toomey really presents a credible platform in his book. It is actually a very readable book.

I want to restart our Book Notes series. I was going to suggest we restart with Bastiat’s “The Law,” but let’s do that one next. Pat Toomey’s book is prescient and relevant to what’s going on right now.

7. Hack Editorialist Paul Krugman Takes on a Nobel Prize Winner and Loses

Hack editorialist Paul Krugman attacked Jim Bunning last week for blocking the extension of unemployment benefits. Krugman said “What Democrats believe is what textbook economics says”, namely that the government should keep paying unemployment benefits.

There’s just one problem. As James Taranto pointed out, a Nobel Prize winning economist has written a very popular textbook that points out exactly what Republicans are saying – “Public policy designed to help workers who lose their jobs can lead to structural unemployment as an unintended side effect . . . . Generous unemployment benefits in some European countries are widely believed to be one of the main causes of “Eurosclerosis,” the persistent high unemployment that affects a number of European countries.”

The author? Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman and his wife Robin Wells.

1. Murder as Politics: An Inconvenient Truth

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For March 8, 2010

2. The House Vote on the Senate Healthcare Bill Is the Final Vote; Obama Will Sign It Into Law

3. The Packards Want Carly Fiorina to Pack It In

4. Dear Harry Reid: Is Your Ivory Tower Padded?

5. Obama Invents Bush’s Idea

6. Robin Carnahan Wants Your Tax $ For Her Brother’s Company

7. Bob Bennett Must Go: His Campaign Staff is on RedState Attacking Conservatives

————————

1. Murder as Politics: An Inconvenient Truth

It is sad that this even has to be pointed out. With Joseph Patrick Bedell, the Democrat and Pentagon shooter, and Joe Stack, the crazed and angry Austinite, being lumped in as Tea Party activists, the right feels compelled to respond to a badly misguided media showing its left-wing bias.

Stack and Bedell, like Timothy McVeigh before them, are considered conservatives by the left, despite very clearly hating the right. In fact, if we were to be honest they like McVeigh are of a branch of anarcho-libertarian that hates both left and right.

But in a day and age when the media dwells on simple narratives devoid of reality, it is easier to lump them all in as conservatives, helping feed left-wing narratives about a violent right. And so the right must respond.

For just one example consider the Associated Press trying to blame Jim DeMint’s rhetoric as incitement for Bedell, a Democrat, and Stack a Marx quoting nut. This is the 2010 equivalent of Bill Clinton blaming Rush Limbaugh for Timothy McVeigh’s bombing in Oklahoma City. Never mind the facts, score points against the right.

Therefore, it is time for one of those inconvenient truths.

At least since the 19th century, it has been the left employing murder and death as a political weapon. From Hitler to Mao to Lenin to Stalin to Chavez to Castro to Guevera to Arafat to Pol Pot to Mugabe to [insert your favorite American union] to Margaret Sanger the left and its heroes have used death, violence, and murder to advance their agenda.

For every Pinochet or Netanyahu the left grasps for, the list is three times as long on the left.

It is inconvenient. The left will try to laugh it off or attack the person pointing out, but the truth remains.

It is not conservatives burning down homes in Washington State with the ELF. It is not conservatives throwing blood on women wearing fur. It is not conservatives burning down the Texas Governor’s Mansion during riots. It is not conservatives rioting during G-8 summits.

It is and has always been the left. Deal with it.

2. The House Vote on the Senate Healthcare Bill Is the Final Vote; Obama Will Sign It Into Law

Americans need to understand the devastating significance of the House vote on the Senate health care bill set for March 18th. The Democrats have-by design-created the perfect storm to take over the US healthcare system, while providing an ideal distraction-reconciliation.

First, let’s examine exactly how we got here. In late December, while Americans were arguing that no one had read the bill, Leiberman was posturing to vote against the bill with a public option, and the debate on abortion continued, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) took an existing HOUSE-passed bill, H.R.3950-the Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act of 2009-and here’s how it unfolded . . .

3. The Packards Want Carly Fiorina to Pack It In

“If Ms. Fiorina is what passes for conservative in Washington today, then the establishment has veered sadly to the left,” writes Arianna Packard, grand daughter of David Packard, the co-founder of HP, in a letter RedState has obtained a copy of.

Back at the turn of the 21st century, David Woodley Packard, the son of the founder, went to war against Carly Fiorina over the HP-Compaq merger. Vanity Fair documented the merger wars. It was not pretty. Both the Hewletts and the Packards opposed the merger.

The bitterness from the merger wars lingers on.

4. Dear Harry Reid: Is Your Ivory Tower Padded?

If Harry Reid’s Ivory Tower isn’t padded, it should be, because he is cuckoo pants. I submit as exhibit A [Harry Reid saying it's good news the U.S. lost jobs] (see the video).

5. Obama Invents Bush’s Idea

CNN is reporting that the White House is considering a military trial for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. WOW! What an inspiration! Why didn’t we think of this before? [face in palm].

6. Robin Carnahan Wants Your Tax $ For Her Brother’s Company

Missouri voters know that the Carnahan family fancies itself a Missouri political dynasty in the style of of the Massachusetts Kennedys. Like the Massachusetts Kennedys, the Carnahans are apparently also big fans of using the federal government to funnel massive amounts of money to their friends and family. Case in point: current Missouri Secretary of State (and presumptive Democrat nominee for the seat being vacated by Kit Bond) Robin Carnahan. A year ago in March, back when the stimulus was a relatively popular idea, Carnahan expressed her strong support for the stimulus as she began her PR campaign for the Democratic nomination.

Turns out, however, she had another (somewhat more undisclosed) motivation: her brother Tom Carnahan’s company.

7. Bob Bennett Must Go: His Campaign Staff is on RedState Attacking Conservatives

Here’s a personal reason Bob Bennett must go. His campaign staff has been on RedState under multiple guises attacking not just RedState readers, but also sitting United States Senators who happen to be real conservatives – see e.g. Jim DeMint.

It’s bad enough that an apparently married campaign worker is harassing female RedState readers, but to also be on here attacking Senator Jim DeMint, a Utah Sheriff who was merely rumored to be running against Bennett, and conservatives generally is beyond the pale.

1. Media Matters ADMITS Barack Obama Has Bribed Congressman Jim Matheson

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For March 5, 2010

2. Rahm Emanuel Is Dead. He Just Hasn’t Been Told Yet.

3. Abortion May Kill ObamaCare

4. EPA: Regulatory Mess, Economic Massacre

5. A Real Tea Party Worthy Amendment to the Constitution

6. Bob Bennett Must Go

————————

1. Media Matters ADMITS Barack Obama Has Bribed Congressman Jim Matheson

Media Matters, doing its typical shilling for the Obama Administration, threw up some lame talking points about Barack Obama appointing Scott Matheson, brother of Congressman Jim Matheson, to the federal bench.

The right has pointed out it has the appearance of bribery.

Today, trying to refute the accusation, Media Matters gives away the game. Casually in defending the appointment, Media Matters notes Scott Matheson told the White House in June of 2009 that he wanted Judge Michael McConnell’s job when it became available at the end of August 2009.

When does Barack Obama choose to appoint Scott Matheson?

Yesterday. The same day he has over the appointee’s brother, a congressman, to persuade the Congress to change his no vote on health care to a yes vote.

The Great Gavel Giveaway of 2010 is looking more and more like Gavelgate thanks to the industrious spinning of Media Matters trying to be helpful.

You know, giving Athena Innovative Solutions, Inc. defense contracts after $2 million in gifts to Duke Cunningham got Duke Cunningham thrown in jail. Giving a congressman’s brother life tenure on the federal bench in exchange for supporting the President’s legacy project is not much different.

2. Rahm Emanuel Is Dead. He Just Hasn’t Been Told Yet.

Streiff noted earlier David Broder beating down Dana Milbank over Milbank’s Rahm Emanuel stories.

Broder believes that Emanuel is not the source for Milbank, but it is abundantly clear Rahm Emanuel either directly or indirectly is trying to cover his bottom as the Obama administration crumbles.

It started mid-February with a hagiographic tale of woe in the Obama administration and how Rahm Emanuel is the hero and adult in the room.

A week later it followed with another look into the White House with Obama as the wimp and Rahm as the muscle. Earlier this week Rahm became the voice of reason according to the Washington Post and the Politico fawned over Rahm’s bromance with Sweet Lindsey Graham.

Reading between the lines, Rahm Emanuel is dead. He may not know it, but the man has no pulse left. His ghost is now trying to defend his legacy in the White House. Chief of Staff – the real one – Valerie Jarrett killed Rahm.

How do I know? I’ve heard from multiple people who, interestingly enough, are close to the White House who tell me that David Axelrod and Valerie Jarrett are calling the shots and Obama increasingly relies on Jarrett for advice because she knows the Obamas, not necessarily Washington.

Then there are all the pro-Rahm stories in the last few weeks. Those stories do not happen randomly. There is a purpose. And the prevailing message is simple – if the President would listen to Rahm Emanuel, he’d not be in the mess he presently is in. And if Rahm is not being listened to and is now leaking that he is not being listened to, the wheels on the bus will go round and round over his body.

3. Abortion May Kill ObamaCare

The abortion issue may take down ObamaCare, even if Congress pulls the Health Care Nuclear Option in a desperate attempt to pass the bill. Congressman Bart Stupak (D-MI) declared yesterday that “several Democrats who voted for it the House would oppose it next time around” without removing pro-abortion language in the Senate passed ObamaCare bill. This is a big problem for the proponents of ObamaCare, because under the special rules of the reconciliation process, ObamaCare can’t be fixed.

4. EPA: Regulatory Mess, Economic Massacre

The Environmental Protection Agency announced on December 7, 2009, that greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide emissions, contribute to air pollution that may reasonably be anticipated to “pose a threat to our health and welfare.” If this finding is allowed to become law, the Obama Administration will succeed in gaining greater control over everyday life in America, at a time when small businesses are already struggling.

After the endangerment finding was announced, an unnamed White House official prophesied that if Congress failed to pass climate change legislation “the EPA is going to have to regulate in this area.” The source went on to say, “[The EPA] is not going to be able to regulate on a market-based way, so it’s going to have to regulate in a command-and-control way.”

The pattern is becoming clear. The Obama Administration – unsatisfied with the process of representative democracy – disregards the Constitution and forces upon the American people an agenda that Congress would not pass and the majority of Americans do not want.

5. A Real Tea Party Worthy Amendment to the Constitution

Some of you may have already seen their op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, but three conservatives in the House, Congressmen Jeb Hensarling (TX), Mike Pence (IN), and John Campbell (CA) introduced a constitutional amendment today to control spending by limiting it to one-fifth of the economy. The Spending Limit Amendment would keep spending as a percentage of GDP at the historical average since World War II, as it is set to more than double in the years ahead.

6. Bob Bennett Must Go

When given the chance to vote on an amendment that would have prohibited social security surplus funds from being spent on other government programs, Senator Bob Bennett opposed this no brainer.

1. Once More Unto the Breach

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For March 4, 2010

2. If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Bribe ‘Em: Obama Now Trading Judgeships For Votes

3. GOP Does Not Want A Black Man In The Senate

4. Is Nancy Pelosi Trying to Lose the House?

5. Should Obama Politicize The Fed?

6. Bob Bennett Must Go: Gay Marriage Edition

————————

1. Once More Unto the Breach

As you read this, President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, and Senator Reid are lining up their troops to drag their government takeover of health care across the finish line. This is no easy task considering how strongly the American people have objected. Even so, they are absolutely determined to jam this through with an iron fist regardless of the electoral consequences.

Some of you may be worried by news reports that President Obama is again trying to appear bipartisan by giving lip service to ideas supported by Republicans. Don’t be. As long as the basis of his plan puts Washington in charge of Americans’ health care, there is nothing more to discuss. Don’t get me wrong. We’d love to see him support our ideas on their own merits. But the half measures he’s offered to toss on top of a trillion dollar bill are not a serious effort at bipartisanship.

While Republicans stand strong, however, the Associated Press reports that at least 10 House Democrats who voted against the Pelosi bill may be considering changing their vote if given the opportunity.

2. If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Bribe ‘Em: Obama Now Trading Judgeships For Votes

Chicago-style politics once again coming home to roost. The Weekly Standard is reporting that Obama is now selling judgeships for health care votes.

For anyone other than a delusional egomaniac, the fact that you have a super majority yet still cannot pass legislation – because no one wants it – would be enough to tell you, hey, maybe this isn’t a very good idea. Not Obama! Raised up politically in Chicago, he resorts to what he knows; strong arm tactics and outright bribery. This isn’t the first time more than just shades of his Chicago political background have come into play. He pulled the Chicago version of the petulant child saying “La la la, I can’t hear you” when he tried to freeze out Fox News and censor the citizenry’s news.

3. GOP Does Not Want A Black Man In The Senate

First, the GOP said it needed diversity and chose the orange Charlie Crist over the Latino, Marco Rubio.

Then the GOP said it needed to do better outreach in the black community, so it ignored Michael Williams in Texas and tried to find a rich white guy to run for the Senate.

Now that Kay Bailey Hutchison has lost the Texas primary to Rick Perry without even making it into a runoff, the Washington, D.C. Republicans are scared to death a black man might actually get appointed to the Senate as a Republican.

Kay Bailey Hutchison has said over and over and over, as recently as a few weeks ago, that she would leave the Senate by November. Now the Senate Republicans are begging her to stay so they don’t have to have Michael Williams.

Why?

Michael Williams is not only black, but he is a Jim DeMint supported conservative.

I hope you get the sarcasm here. No, the GOP is not truly trying to block Marco Rubio and Michael Williams because they are minorities. The GOP is trying to block them both because they are conservatives who have the potential to win.

4. Is Nancy Pelosi Trying to Lose the House?

Ask yourself this question: if Nancy Pelosi were trying to lose control of the House, what would she do differently? Elevating her extreme liberal California pal Pete Stark to temporary leadership of the Ways and Means Committee is a great way to further alienate independents and divide Democrats.

Stark is the man who called the black Secretary of Health and Human Services ‘a disgrace to his race.’ He blamed the first Gulf war on cheerleading from his ‘Jewish colleagues.’ He said a female colleague learned what she knew about medicine from ‘pillow talk’ with her physician husband. He accused a California official of wanting to ‘kill children.’ Just last year he secretly taped the ethics investigators looking into the tax break he claimed for establishing resident in Maryland, and he berated and insulted them while he did so.

5. Should Obama Politicize The Fed?

Should President Obama politicize the Federal Reserve? If so, what would he accomplish? Ezra Klein of the Washington Post seems to think he should, and that this would somehow magically create jobs – but you would look long and hard for an explanation of how this would work.

For those of you unfamiliar with his work, Klein is the Washington Post’s resident left-wing blogger (as opposed to its resident left-wing activist, Greg Sargent, or its resident right-wing bloggers or activists.of which it employs none) and one of the prime examples of a paid, professional left-wing blogger who has never held a job besides blogger/pundit. Klein is well-read, wonkish and earnest to a fault – he’s perhaps the last man in Washington who takes government financial projections at face value – but often comically insulated from how the world works, and why. I follow his Twitter feed in large part for the entertainment value of watching him attempt to navigate the most mundane daily tasks – he gives off the impression of a man who can’t brush his teeth in the morning without a position paper telling him how. I suppose in some ways I was like that myself once, but then I went to law school, got married, got a job, kids, a house, a mortgage.the sort of things that force you to engage the world at a level other than theory.

Anyway, Klein posted yesterday on his enthusiasm for a piece by Neil Irwin, also in the WaPo, on the opening of a third vacancy at the Fed and what it could mean for monetary policy going forward.

6. Bob Bennett Must Go: Gay Marriage Edition

Bob Bennett, so intent on winning re-election in Utah cast as the social conservative he is not, insisted that he be the Republican point man on gay marriage in Washington, D.C.

Bennett sponsored a resolution that would force DC to put the issue to a referendum vote.

But did Bennett fight for the legislation and force the Senate to vote on it?

Nope.

Gay marriage begins in DC tomorrow. Thanks, Bob.

Oh, and thanks to Bennett’s bungling, Catholic adoption agencies in DC that refuse to handle gay adoptions are having to shut down.

2. Boulder, Colorado, starts talking about something

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For March 2, 2010

1. No More Earmarxists

3. Liberals Ask Mommy to Punish Yoo/Bybee

4. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights outs Hugo Chavez

5. Your Call: Will Moderates Take Over?

———————————————————————-

1. No More Earmarxists

This year many of us will be faced with a similar dilemma—wondering whether a Republican politician, who claims to be a conservative, is the real deal or the type who goes along to get along and will end up being part of the problem.

For self-described conservatives, it is easy to be pro-life, pro-troops, and pro-tax cuts. In most races, that is not how you separate the wheat from the chaff. You separate them on the basis of their belief in limited government—in short, do they think that government should do stuff. Period. And there is no better bellwether of politician’s proclivities toward limited government than whether they request and defend earmarks.

I know, I know. Many defenders of the Republican establishment don’t want us to talk earmarks. Earmarks are not the problem! They amount to such a small portion of the federal budget. Earmarks are the only way to deal with an intransient bureaucracy. They divide Republicans when we should be focused on battling the Obama Administration’s liberal agenda. Earmarks are the only form of constitutional spending and need to be defended no matter how unpopular. Its about the CONSTITUTION—didn’t you know??

The arguments are many, but they are all full of holes.

2. Boulder, Colorado, starts talking about something

It appears that, for all the supererogatory publicity, all the celebrity promotion, all the doomsaying, all the prevarication, the green agenda is breaking on the shoals of reality.

Recently, the (British) Institute of Physics — as Mencius Moldbug wryly comments “only the national physics society of the country that invented physics” — released a statement on the Climategate emails which begins with about as thorough a rebuke as can be imagined from a bureaucratic institution.

3. Liberals Ask Mommy to Punish Yoo/Bybee

Like a spoiled and petulant child who has tattled on a sibling to Daddy to no effect, angry liberals who are mad that Bush Administration lawyers suggested it was legal to put a terrorist in a box with a caterpillar have decided to try the other parent to see if they get a more satisfactory response. By way of reminder, the DoJ cleared Yoo and Bybee last week of professional misconduct in connection with the issuance of the infamous “torture” memos which suggested that throwing neck-braced terrorists against fake walls might not be illegal. Ever content to parody themselves, outraged liberals offended at our very uncouth treatment of people who plot our national destruction have been busy demanding the heads of current law professor John Yoo and current federal appeals judge Jay Bybee ever since. Apparently, they now want the DC Bar and Pennsylvania Bar to take some sort of action against Yoo and Bybee.

4. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights outs Hugo Chavez

From the give credit where credit is due file: The Washington Post editorializes today on the damning Inter-American Commission on Human Rights report on Venezuela that was issued last week. The evisceration of Venezuela’s democracy is laid out in dispassionate detail–the judicial and media crackdowns, the elimination of the private sector and the targeted use of violence against any and all opposition. Our tendency has been to dismiss Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez as a minor annoyance–a buffoon who bumbled his way into power and would bumble out again at some point, or, worse, to embrace him as a modern day Che Guevara who channels low-cost heating oil through the kindly auspices of Joe Kennedy and Bill Delahunt to underprivileged Americans. But this report paints a very different and ugly picture of a canny, ruthless manipulator who has over the last decade effectively consolidated the power of this once-vibrant democracy into his despotic hands.

The response so far has been a resounding so what? Why should we care, and even if we could summon the energy to care, what can we do about it? Unfortunately, the answers to these questions are now we should care very much and there is precious little we can do–although if Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would read this report it would be a start.

5. Your Call: Will Moderates Take Over?

I want and need you to pay serious attention to this.

The Los Angeles Times is running a story today about the rising tide of moderates sweeping into the GOP. This will only happen if you let it.

6. *Another* faux-populist Lefty group for potlatching money?

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For March 1, 2010

1. Senator Bunning: “I Object”

2. A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats. Sort of.

3. Obama administration kills 23K space-related jobs in Florida.

4. Repent Ye All Sinners For The End Of The World Is Nigh

5. Lying and Cheating to Pass ObamaCare

7. Those Bitter Gun-Clingers.

8. Bob Bennett Must Go

———————————————————————-

1. Senator Bunning: “I Object”

Late last week, while most Americans were watching the Olympics, Senator Jim Bunning (R-KY) was standing strong for the American people on the floor of the United States Senate. Oh, it won’t be portrayed as such – believe me. But when no other Senator, including anyone in Republican leadership, would stand up, Senator Bunning took to the floor to object to a unanimous consent request to call up and pass the House-passed extension of a number of expiring so-called “stimulus” and other benefit programs, because Bunning dared to ask the simple question of how these extensions would be paid for.

Now, to be fair, Senator Bob Corker did come down to help Senator Bunning – basically saying he would stay on the floor to help defend Bunning’s right to object, and he deserves credit for that. But Bunning was the loan objector. And he did so because these “temporary” extensions have been rolling now month after month with no effort to pay for them. Moreover, Democrats are designating the extensions as “emergency” spending so that they can avoid complying with the very “PAYGO” requirements for which they love to path themselves on the back. Included, of course, is the unemployment insurance extension as well as an extension for COBRA coverage, but in addition, are extensions of the highway trust fund, satellite television and other expenditures.

Senator Bunning’s refusal to acquiesce caused quite a few heated exchanges on the Senate floor, according to Politico, culminating in Senator Bunning muttering “tough sh*t” from his Senate seat after being berated by Democrats for a few hours.

2. A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats. Sort of.

The first part of the title to this post is a very common phrase amongst conservative circles. In it’s simplest form, the phrase means that as long as we can improve the general economy we will improve the lot of everyone actively involved in the economy. Generally, this statement is true. A growing economy grows total compensation for workers at all levels. The phrase is incomplete though. You can’t artificially raise the tide. You’ll drown a lot of boats.

The Obama Administration is set to do just that.

3. Obama administration kills 23K space-related jobs in Florida.

So they can spend that money right here on Earth:

“Revised projections now show that about 23,000 workers at and around Kennedy Space Center will lose their jobs because of the shuttles’ retirement and the new proposal to cancel the development of new rockets and spacecraft.”

4. Repent Ye All Sinners For The End Of The World Is Nigh

You know, I hate it, absolutely hate it, when leftists hijack quotes from the truly great people from history. They’ve lifted sayings from Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, and others in order to make it appear our Founding Fathers would be very much against the way the U.S. has fought the war against the terrorists who perpetrated the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America. Of course, most Americans have seen these attempts as nothing more than spin by the leftists; because, in reality, that is all the left has, spin.

Today’s New York Times will contain a long and rambling missive from the Goreacle, who has hijacked this quote from the great Winston Churchill: “Sometimes doing your best is not good enough. Sometimes, you must do what is required.” First, this is the quote: “It’s not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what’s required.” (You figure the guy who invented the Internet could have found the right quote on Google; but I digress.) Second, Gore attempts to spin the quote to justify the economic destruction of the United States in order to stop the completely unproven theory of man-made global warming. To steal the words of Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC), I would say to Gore “You lie!!!”

Worse yet, Gore’s tirade reads like a homily given by a preacher to his congregation.

5. Lying and Cheating to Pass ObamaCare

Now that the feel good politics of the Blair House bipartisan Summit is over, the left is gearing up to lie and cheat their way to victory. Now claim may be bold, yet it is objectively true. The left is lying about the American people’s opinions on ObamaCare and they are cheating to get the bill passed. The next few weeks will determine whether the American people get ObamaCare passed against their will with no opportunity for a minority number of Members of Congress to protect the will of a majority of Americans.

6. *Another* faux-populist Lefty group for potlatching money?

It’s interesting to see the difference between intent and result in this Washington Post article on a quote-unquote ‘Coffee Party’ that’s ready to take to the streets on behalf of the Left. It’s not really quotable, but the gist of the article is that there’s this movement that showed up in reaction to the Tea Party folks and is trying to duplicate their success. Slow going, but it’s early days – and besides, aren’t both groups looking for the same thing, really?

7. Those Bitter Gun-Clingers.

Remember when Obama made that speech about all those marginalized people who distrusted all the good things government could do for them and therefore headed out to the remote wilderness away from civilization where they could bitterly cling to their guns and religion? Unbeknownst to Obama, he was describing the majority of Americans. Note especially how even independents break on this question:

“A majority of Americans think the federal government poses a threat to rights of Americans, according to a new national poll.

“Fifty-six percent of people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Friday say they think the federal government’s become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens. Forty-four percent of those polled disagree.”

8. Bob Bennett Must Go

From Sunday: He is a sitting United States Senator. He’s been around for decades. That means nothing this year. From the Governor to Congressmen to the legislature, Republicans in Utah have decided to sit this one out.

From Saturday: “Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, backed an individual mandate as part of a bipartisan health reform bill he pushed with Democratic Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden. Their bill had a handful of other Republican sponsors as well.”

From Friday: Bob Bennett, when asked about the constitution, once referred to it as “an outmoded document from an agrarian society.”

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

Health care reconciliation is an exercise in futility.

Posted by Moe Lane (Profile)

Saturday, February 27th at 12:30PM EST

4 Comments

Ed Morrissey sums up his major counter-argument thusly to Andy McCarthy’s argument that progressive Democrats are ready to trade control of Congress in exchange for imposing health care rationing on the populace:

Andy may be right that Democratic leadership has made the decision that political oblivion is an acceptable cost for a one-time remaking of America that Republicans will find difficult to reverse in the next session. However, I suspect that this strategy doesn’t account for the fact that the people who will actually have to end their careers may not appreciate getting forced into marching off a cliff while the leadership stays safely in their rear-echelon bastions of San Francisco and New York City.

…and I’d like to add my two cents: it won’t work anyway. People like to talk about how government programs and agencies never die, once instituted, with the Great Society and the New Deal being the most used examples. What’s not mentioned is that both of those programs were popular. People wanted a Social Security program. They wanted Medicare. They do not notably want this monstrosity of a health care bill*. And if the Democrats decide to (and manage to) force it down our throats anyway, Republican legislators will find a way to shut it down in January 2011. The government has had over two and a quarter centuries to develop bylaws, operational procedures, codicils, and whatnot; there is always going to be a legislative fig leaf, suitable for framing and rationalization.

I consider this bill dead. But if the Democrats are so determined to resurrect it, fine: we’ll just prune their internal power structure down to the roots in November and kill the bill again in January. In fact, that sounds kind of fun.

RedState Morning Briefing

For February 26, 2010

1. The Sham Wow Summit

2. Night of the Living Progressive Seminar Callers

3. Is Charlie Crist About to Flee the GOP?

5. Post Party Summits

———————————————————————-

1. The Sham Wow Summit

There are many reasons the Republican Party is often referred to as the Stupid Party. Many Republicans thought that after the President overshadowed the GOP at their Baltimore retreat last month, going to Blair House yesterday would just be another PR disaster.

It was anything but.

The GOP won the day so convincingly that even the traditional media had to praise the party for talking issues.

Contrast that with Barack Obama who scowled, berated, lied, and harassed the attendees — not to mention filibustered them.

In the most ironic moment of the day, Barack Obama lectured Virginia Congressman Eric Cantor on having the Democrats’ 2,700+ page health care bill on his desk at the meeting. Obama called it a “prop.” At the same time, Democrats were in the newspapers admitting that, in effect, Barack Obama was using the GOP as a prop in a vain effort to show bipartisanship on health care.

There is bipartisanship on health care. There is bipartisan opposition to it. The Democrats must realize today that they would get nothing out of the meeting. They will now try to force health care deform through Congress on a majority vote in each house.

2. Night of the Living Progressive Seminar Callers

Get ready, Sean Hannity and Dr. Laura: here come a whole raft of zombie-like “progressive” seminar callers, with talking points via the intertubes.

3. Is Charlie Crist About to Flee the GOP?

The speculation is building that Charlie Crist is going to leave the GOP.

Here’s what will happen if Charlie Crist leaves the GOP. The DC-GOP Establishment crowd will attack RedState, Jim DeMint, and Marco Rubio for shrinking the GOP. Instead of pointing out that moderate Republicans are sore loser who don’t play well with conservatives, conservatives will be attacked for chasing Crist out of the party.

Crist might like a three-way race with Meeks and Rubio, but he still has no path to victory. In fact, he’ll be wrestling with Meeks over the same voter pool as independents drift right toward Rubio.

The Club for Growth notes that Senator Bob Bennett sponsors and supports the so-called “Healthy Americans Act,” a trillion-dollar government takeover of healthcare that rivals ObamaCare for being a massive big government proposal. It would increase job-killing taxes, impose an individual mandate, increase health care costs, and would give Washington the authority to regulate every health care plan in the country.

5. Post Party Summits

American Majority is one of the groups I heartily endorse every chance I get. It is not Democrat. It is not Republican. It is conservative.

American Majority is committed to training people to run not for
Congress, but for local office — farm team building. These guys are terrific and their training is the best I’ve seen in a very long time.

Then there is Smart Girl Politics, one of the fastest growing activist groups in the country. I’m a big fan.

Today I’m delighted to announce RedState is teaming up with American Majority and Smart Girl Politics for some post-party summits. At a time when Americans are losing their allegiance to political parties for the sake of parties, we’re focusing more and more on ideas and ideals. The group that makes the best case for its ideas will win.

It is not enough to stand on the sideline and it is not enough to protest — conservatives must learn how to implement freedom and liberty on the ground in their communities. With the right tools and training, conservative activists can be successful in taking their community back to the principles of limited government, individual freedom and the free market.

In the era of post-party politics, it is essential that the limited government movement have knowledge of and the ability to implement the tools of 21st century political engagement. These regional summits are going to give attendees the tools they need to go home and win. If you are looking to become more politically effective, attending one of the Summits is a must!

Across the country we are going to team up, collaborate, and work to win. We’ll start in Pittsburgh, PA on April 23rd. Then we’re off to Jacksonville, Denver, Indianapolis, Boston, Kansas City, and Charlotte.

2. Day Two: the Speaker and House Majority Leader Back Away from ObamaCare

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For February 25, 2010

1. Divvying Us Up By Race – Native Hawaiian Style

3. Obama to Reward Favorgate Figure with Top Campaign Post

4. Obama Not That Concerned with Keeping the Arkansas Senate Seat

5. Bob Bennett Must Go. On March 23rd, Utah Voters Can Make It Happen.

6. Scorched Earth: Charlie Crist Steals State GOP Records & Leaks Them to Press to Smear Rubio

———————————————————————-

1. Divvying Us Up By Race – Native Hawaiian Style

Chief Justice John Roberts once famously quipped, “it’s a sordid business, this divvying us up by race.” He did so in the context of the Supreme Court case LULAC v. Perry, and the application of the Voting Rights Act to carve up Congressional districts in Texas based heavily on racial composition – in which phrases like “majority-minority districts,” and “candidates of choice” are the operative phrases.

Yesterday, the Democrat-led U.S. House of Representatives voted basically along party lines, 245 to 164, to divide Americans up by race even further, and design governments according to individual heritage.

Sound bizarre? It is, but it is indeed what is happening.

The House believes it is a priority for Americans to pass legislation that will create an unconstitutional, separate, race-based government for individuals who are descendants of native Hawaiians. Indeed, the bill defines the group that can qualify thusly: anyone who is “a direct lineal descendant of the aboriginal, native people who – resided in the islands that now comprise the State of Hawaii on or before January 1, 1893.”

2. Day Two: the Speaker and House Majority Leader Back Away from ObamaCare

Turns out that the interpretation that the Dems are bluffing on reconciliation is a charitable interpretation. It assumes they have a plan.

The other alternative view, that the President really is serious about reconciliation, is so unserious that most in D.C. don’t take it seriously. (Read Eric Cantor’s House Whip Count Memo here about why the Dems do not have the votes in the House for Reconciliation.)

The naivete, the inexperience, the reality-bending-ability to seriously believe that one more speech or one more try will make it pass, must be so pervasive in the mind of the President and those around him, that you have to wonder what will happen to the psyche of these Pollyannas when reality finally and urgently cannot be ignored or hidden, from what will be their ever widening eyes.

Add the irrationality of the Speaker on passing “universal health care” to the mix, and you have the makings of yet another uber-trainwreck — the first was last August, the second December-January, and now, the third in April-May or May-June?

3. Obama to Reward Favorgate Figure with Top Campaign Post

Politico has a piece today on preparations President Obama and his inner circle are making for his reelection campaign, which the article states is set to launch early next year. Mike Allen reports that the campaign is likely to be run out of Chicago and staffed by a cadre of veterans from Obama’s 2008 campaign.

Of particular interest given the news of the week is the role Allen reports for White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina.

4. Obama Not That Concerned with Keeping the Arkansas Senate Seat

One might think that Barack Obama needs every vote he could possibly get if he hopes to cram a massively unpopular health care bill through the reconciliation process in a shaky and gunshy Senate. So when Blanche Lincoln – who faces a tough but not impossible re-election fight in Arkansas – piped up and requested a little more moderation from the President, you might have expected Obama to at least sound conciliatory in his response.

Wrong.

5. Bob Bennett Must Go. On March 23rd, Utah Voters Can Make It Happen.

From now until March 23, 2010, I’ll will put up a daily post on why Bob Bennett needs to go.

Let’s start with this one:

According to the Salt Lake Tribune on September 12, 2009, “Few politicians have more ties to Freddie [Mac] and Fannie [Mae] than Utah Senator Bob Bennett, who topped all Republicans in campaign contributions from the mortgage duo since 1989.”

Utah can do better than that.

6. Scorched Earth: Charlie Crist Steals State GOP Records & Leaks Them to Press to Smear Rubio

There is growing speculation that Charlie Crist is going to run as a independent candidate in Florida as he continues sinking in the polls. Just a few weeks ago, Crist and Vice President Biden were caught having a private meal together in Miami. In addition, Crist has returned to embracing the Obama stimulus fraud. Either he’s going Democrat or he’s going independent.

Before he goes, however, Crist is determined to do everything possible to run a scorched earth campaign against Marco Rubio. The latest is beyond the pale. Crist has taken the private credit card records of the Republican Party of Florida and leaked them to the press.

The only records leaked, of course, were those of Marco Rubio. As the Speaker of the House in Florida, Rubio had a credit card with the Florida GOP. He used it to help get Republicans elected, though some of the charges were personal. Rubio reimbursed the Florida GOP for the personal expenses.

That hasn’t stopped Charlie Crist from misappropriating the records to smear Rubio. But for perspective, Charlie Crist’s hand picked Director of the GOP in Florida charged in one month what Rubio charged in two years.

1. Racist Donny Deutsch slurs Marco Rubio.

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For February 24, 2010

(pic joe stack)

2. Crist Campaign Hemorrhaging Staff

3. The Crisis of Consent: Republicans Must NOT Abet Obama’s ShamWoW! Summit

4. Favorgate

5. Republicans Attacking Rubio, DeMint, and RedState

6. Save the Date: March 23, 2010 – We Begin Taking Back the GOP

————————

1. Racist Donny Deutsch slurs Marco Rubio.

‘Coconut,’ for those lucky enough to have missed it up to this point, is a derogatory racial epithet hurled against dark-skinned individuals deemed insufficiently ‘authentic.’ It suggests that the individual in question is ‘brown on the outside, white on the inside.’ When used by someone of the same ethnic identity as the slurred individual, it takes on the additional connotation of ‘race traitor;’ when used by someone of Caucasian ancestry, it typically represents an opportunity to express racial hatreds in a socially acceptable manner. The Other Side has, shall we say, a history of such things; and if we ever have that full and frank discussion of race that’s been promised the first question that I plan to ask is going to be about precisely why this is acceptable behavior among them.

2. Crist Campaign Hemorrhaging Staff

First, Charlie Crist squandered a safe GOP Governor’s mansion in order to advance his vain and futile Presidential ambitions. Then, he squandered a lead of over 30 points in the polls to Marco Rubio, who was almost a total unknown, despite being flush with enough cash from out-of-state donors to completely flood the airwaves. Then, his personal firewall, state GOP chair Jim Greer, was taken down in flames by party activists angry (in part) over his support for Crist. Now, the polls consistently show him facing double-digit deficits and an opponent who is dominating the conservative vote in a Republican primary.

If you’ve ever watched a campaign quickly catch fire and implode before, you know the next two steps before even reading them. First, ridiculously overconfident bragadoccio. Cue Charlie Crist.

3. The Crisis of Consent: Republicans Must NOT Abet Obama’s ShamWoW! Summit

In an alarming finding, the Rasmussen Report found only 21% of Americans believe the Democrat-controlled U.S. government has the consent of the governed. Amazingly, this view is held by only 32% of Democrats.

Spurred by the unjust Wall Street Bailout, this crisis of consent is exacerbated by an Obama Administration and its Democratic Congress’ insistence on ramming through a government-run health care scheme in defiance of the sovereign American people’s emphatic opposition.

Now, having already pre-determined its outcome, the Obama Administration will hold a health care summit. The summit’s goal is to persuade the public that the Republican minority is “forcing” the Democrats’ heavy-handed tactics to foist this abominable bill upon Americans.

The truth is otherwise: it is the public and centrist Democrats who have to date stopped this radical proposal, which will raise the cost and lower the quality of Americans’ health care.

. . . .

Consequently, with due respect for the President and ultimate respect for the American people, the Republican leadership has no choice. It must NOT accept the administration’s disingenuous summit invitation to “negotiate.”

4. Favorgate

We take a break from the hyperventilating over the latest moves in the slow-motion kabuki dance that is the Obama Administration’s efforts to ram its federal takeover of the health care system down the throats of the overwhelming majority of Americans who oppose the various bills to take a look at what should be a much, much bigger story.

Last week, Democratic Senate Candidate Joe Sestak, a retired Admiral, let slip in an interview that someone in the White House offered him a position in the Administration if he would drop his primary challenge of Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania. Sestak wouldn’t elaborate on which job he was offered – speculation centers on Secretary of the Navy – but it hardly matters. As Jeffrey Lord points out, federal law prohibits anyone from offering, soliciting, or receiving any federal office in exchange for a political favor.

5. Republicans Attacking Rubio, DeMint, and RedState

Lest you think the Republican Party really has gotten on the Marco Rubio bandwagon, this morning’s Politico can disabuse you of that notion.

It’s like one of the scenes from your standard horror movie. As the monster is swept into the water/lava/mud/chasm/other plot device, it tries to drag the protagonist with it to its death. Think of the Balrog grabbing Gandalf on its way down.

In any event, check out this quote about Marco Rubio going to South Carolina to do a joint fundraiser with Jim DeMint . . .

6. Save the Date: March 23, 2010 – We Begin Taking Back the GOP

One month from today, Republicans and Democrats in Utah will convene in their caucus meetings. The meetings will help select delegates for the Utah party conventions.

I’m interested in the Republican one.

The people of Utah have a United States Senator named Bob Bennett. He is the 8th most liberal Republican and Utah happens to be the most conservative state. Utah is also a socially conservative state. Nonetheless, Bob Bennett rubs Utah’s nose in his record.

Bob Bennett supports same sex marriage benefits at the federal level.
Bob Bennett supports comprehensive immigration reform including amnesty provisions.
Bob Bennett supports federal funding of abortions.
Bob Bennett supports an individual mandate forcing Americans to buy insurance or be fined by the federal government.
Bob Bennett supports many other policies opposed by the people of Utah.
Bob Bennett also opposes many policies the people of Utah want.

More disturbing about Bennett is that when he feels threatened, he moves right. But when the threat goes away, Bennett moves back left. We can eliminate the drifting by taking him out at the Utah Republican Convention.

For the next month, every day, I will begin laying out the record of why Bob Bennett must be removed from office by the voters of Utah. Every day you will see just how out of touch Bob Bennett is and why defeat is necessary.

We can move Utah to the right. And if we defeat Bob Bennett, it will scare Orrin Hatch into moving back right. Together, we will take back the GOP and take back Washington.

Now, some of you in Utah are asking how you can get involved. It is easy. All you have to do is be 18 years or older and show up at your local precinct meeting. A list will appear in your local paper and you can call the Utah GOP too. For more information read this quick overview.

On March 23, 2010, Utah Republicans can begin moving the country in the right direction.

If you are wondering about this picture, go here.

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For February 23, 2010

(pic of reid)

1. Dems Can’t Figure Out if the House or Senate Goes First

2. Shock! Obama Campaign Promise Fulfilled!

3. Chicago Sun-Times Carries Water for the Mob’s Favorite Banker

4. Daniels 2012?

5. Sid Blumenthal’s Kid is a Lying Hack. Like Father Like Son.

————————

1. Dems Can’t Figure Out if the House or Senate Goes First

The ObamaCare roll out has run right into, well, itself. From the true-believer-ObamaCare-cheerleader-a-go-go, Jonathan Cohn:

“Apparently unresolved, still, is the question of which House votes first. And that’s no small thing.”

The above is a classic example of irrational thought defined. They have no legislative language. (This is another way of saying they do not know what is going to be in the bill, or what it will say once they decide what to put in it.) They know House Dems are freaking out because ObamaCare is hated by the public, the seniors and the independent voters. They do not have a clear reconciliation strategy, despite their chest beating and big bet making while holding a pair of twos. They do not even know if they will start in the House or the Senate.

This will end badly for the White House and the Dems.

2. Shock! Obama Campaign Promise Fulfilled!

“I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that … this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow.” – Barack Obama, June 3, 2008.

… or stopped even. The prophecy of the One has been fulfilled!!!!

“Scientists have been forced to withdraw a study on projected sea level rise due to global warming after finding mistakes that undermined the findings.”

Yet another card removed from the geodesic dome of cards that is AGW hysteria. The green scare is falling apart faster than furniture made from recycled materials, but you’ve got to listen to Britain if you want to read about it. The domestic, domesticated press haven’t the stomach for it.

3. Chicago Sun-Times Carries Water for the Mob’s Favorite Banker

In this incredible piece, the Chicago Sun-Times begins the long and arduous process of carrying water for the mob’s favorite banker, Democrat Illinois Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias. For those not familiar with Giannoulias’s sordid recent past, Giannoulias has admitted to approving a number of high-risk loans to convicted mobsters when he was acting as Vice President of his family’s bank (Broadway Bank); loans which contributed to Broadway Bank’s current financial crisis. Furthermore, while the bank was in dire financial straits, the bank mysteriously paid the Giannoulias family a substantial dividend. Furthermore, Broadway Bank made loans to entities owned in whole or part by convicted influence peddler and Obama booster Tony Rezko during Giannoulias’s tenure. And frankly, when it comes to Giannoulias this is just scratching the surface. However, if you thought the Chicago media couldn’t at least attempt to cover up for Giannoulias’s many, many indiscretions, think again.

4. Daniels 2012?

Around here, we are trying to keep people focused on 2010, and for good reason. However, over the weekend, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels made an announcement that deserves at least a brief mention. Over the last year, Daniels has repeatedly and unequivocally denied that he will run in 2012. Over the weekend at the NGA meeting, Daniels for the first time expressly indicated an interest in running.

5. Sid Blumenthal’s Kid is a Lying Hack. Like Father Like Son.

You know Sid Blumenthal. He was Hilary Clinton’s hack in the White House who specialized in destroying other people through smears and lies.

His son Max is taking Sid’s tactics to a new level with an attack on James O’Keefe so over the top that every major media outlet that ran the story has had to retract it. Max Blumenthal’s story was flat out not true.

It’s important we keep up with these things because Blumenthal the Younger, unaccomplished in anything in life, is riding his daddy’s name to the bottom of the pile of bile. The left will keep subsidizing Max as long as his dad is alive.

1. The Good, The Bad, The Discordant, and the Uncomfortable

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For February 22, 2010

2. The Leader

3. Why the jobs aren’t coming back

4. CPAC 2010: 1994 is in the air.

5. As CPAC Convenes In Washington, Orrin Hatch Tells Tea Party Activists to Shove It

6. Defeating Bob Bennett. It is Looking More Likely

7. Bob Bennett Is Really Worried. Senate Staffers Begin Assault on RedState Criticisms.

8. Marlin Stutzman Gets Big Endorsement

————————

1. The Good, The Bad, The Discordant, and the Uncomfortable

This morning I was greeted to close to 100 emails of mixed reviews on Glenn Beck’s speech. There seem to be a lot of people who did not like Glenn Beck equating the Republicans to the Democrats. For an example, let me refer you to Bill Bennett. Secretary Bennett and I had an encounter on CNN the other night sounding out similar themes. He did not like me batting down the establishment GOP as something less than he thought they were.

Glenn Beck’s speech gave resonance to what a lot of the tea party activists and conservatives at CPAC feel – the GOP is as bad as the Democrats. But we have to have a very careful caveat here: the GOP has not been good on spending and portions of economic policy. We cannot make it, however, a blanket statement. As Glenn Beck said last night, “One party says it will tax and spend. The other party says it won’t tax and will spend.” We have to be careful in our zeal to clean up Washington not to take that for more than what it is.

Therein lies much of the concern. There is real angst that some people are agitating for a third party because of what they see as an unrepentant GOP. And the fear is that Glenn Beck is feeding this. I hope he is not. I would have to part ways if that were the case. History shows that neither the most popular third party candidate, Teddy Roosevelt, nor the richest, Ross Perot, were ever able to get elected. All they did was get the Democrat elected.

And for those of you who think that is no big deal, let me ask you again: how many Americans are going to die because of Barack Obama’s handling of our national security? If you think the GOP would be as bad on this issue, you need a reality check.

It is the GOP that wants to cut the costs of health care through expanding the free market. It is the GOP that wants to fight the enemy instead of compromising with them. It is the GOP that wants to upend our failing public schools and make them actually teach instead of function as a retirement home for teachers union employees. It is the GOP that stands in defense of freedom against tyranny. It was, for example, the GOP that stood with Honduras against Hugo Chavez while Barack Obama gave a full throated embrace of the communist dictator and the thugs of South America.

But the GOP still does have problems. My position and that of this site is to go conservative in primaries and Republican in generals. That will not change. There are a few points worth mentioning in this regard.

2. The Leader

Many, many reporters have asked me who the leader of the conservative movement is right now or who the leader of the tea party movement is.

They rarely report the answer, though they should be paying attention to it. In the CPAC straw poll, one name dominated the pack. With the highest favorable ratings (73%) and lowest unfavorable ratings (8%), Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina led the field – scoring higher popularity than Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Mike Pence, John Beohner, Mitch McConnell, or Michael Steel.

It’d be easy to dismiss the polling except that, unlike the Ron Paul vote for winner, DeMint’s popular scores across the field from young to old, conservative to libertarian oriented.

3. Why the jobs aren’t coming back

The Politico has an interesting story about Toyota up. It seems the company does not much care for this administration.

It is not, however, just Toyota. Lots of businesses and industries are feeling the same way. In large part, this is why the jobs are not coming back. Businesses are deeply, deeply worried about the activist bent of the Obama administration and the anti-free market stance it has repeatedly taken on issues. The uncertainty and antagonism are causing businesses to keep money on the sidelines.

4. CPAC 2010: 1994 is in the air.

Another year at CPAC has come and gone. Another chance to meet and greet, to hear pontifications, to be uplifted by rhetoric and share in good fellowship and bad, overpriced hotel food (and service!). Many things about CPAC were the same this year, and some were different. For instance, much less of the conference’s attendees were college students bussed in to stuff the straw poll ballot box. So far as I know, Ann Coulter didn’t intentionally steal the show with any outrageous remarks. And this time, there was actual internet access in the hotel.

But by far the most important difference was the atmosphere. Since the first CPAC I attended in 2007, this was the first time I really had the sense that the attendees smelled victory on the horizon.

5. As CPAC Convenes In Washington, Orrin Hatch Tells Tea Party Activists to Shove It

One of the stories coming out of CPAC this year is the embrace of the tea party movement not by the Republican Party, but by the conservative movement.

The issues of spending and smaller government are shared across the board.

But while conservatives are embracing the tea party movement, Republican Senators continue castigating tea party activists and hoping they shut up and go away. The latest is Senator Orin Hatch who is petrified that tea party activists might elect Mike Lee and defeat Bob Bennett in Utah.

6. Defeating Bob Bennett. It is Looking More Likely

Box Elder County, Utah had a GOP straw poll last night. Bob Bennett may be celebrating his win in public, but in private he is putting on Depends and girding himself for defeat. It is pretty clear after Box Elder’s straw poll, regardless of just how meaningless straw polls tend to be, that Bob Bennett is in serious, serious trouble.

Bob Bennett received 121 votes while Mike Lee received 100. Candidate Bridgewater got 50 with candidate Eagar getting 35.

But here’s the thing and why this straw poll is notable even though straw polls can typically be dismissed like the CPAC one: Mike Lee has not had a meeting in Box Elder yet, and he got 21 votes less than Bennett. More troubling, and why this straw poll has some credibility, is that Utah is going through a caucus process. Straw polls can, in fact, reflect the passion of the crowd that turns out in a caucus.

7. Bob Bennett Is Really Worried. Senate Staffers Begin Assault on RedState Criticisms.

Bob Bennett must be really worried. In the past couple of weeks, a few people have come to RedState to defend Bob Bennett against our pointed criticisms of just how bad he is.

And if this is a defense of Bennett, Bennett is not defendable. . . .

Now, I wonder which Senate staffer it was. And how do I know it was a Senate staffer? We here at RedState can trace the IP address, which goes right back to the United States Senate. The most recent comment actually comes from a Comcast IP address in Virginia.

Bob Bennett and his Senate buddies must be really worried to come here and defend him in indefensible ways.

8. Marlin Stutzman Gets Big Endorsement

The President Pro Tempore of the Indiana Senate is throwing his support behind Marlin Stutzman only a few days after seemingly looking at supporting Dan Coats.

See also this excellent column in the Washington Examiner by Ken Tomlinson profiling Stutzman and why he is a terrific fit for Indiana.

1. Passion, Risk, And Reward

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For February 19, 2010

2. NY-SEN: Kudlow vs. Schumer?

3. CPAC Blogger Lounge is open for business

————————

1. Passion, Risk, And Reward

Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey showed true and very real leadership yesterday at CPAC. To understand why, and I hope conservative groups and tea party activists read this post several times, you need some context.

I get asked all the time where the good guys are. We all know some guy somewhere who we want to enter the arena. We want one of our guys there. We know the guy would be miserable. Most often the guy never steps up and volunteers. Most often we settle for something less than even second best. But sometimes, just sometimes when the moon hits the water just right, our guy enters the arena. Our guy decides he will take the slings and arrows, suffer the insults, and risk embarrassment and defeat, because he decides we are right – if good men sit on the sidelines because politics is rough, dirty, or aggravating, the lesser men will win.

That’s not to say the lesser men are bad men. Most are very good men. But while anyone who steps into the arena for any excuse under the sun has some amount of ambition, often times it is the most ambitious of men – ambitious for their own advancement – who enter the arena, make the compromises needed to win, and then immediately set to work to win re-election, not to change the country or stand on principle.

At this point, I hope you are following along and paying close attention – particularly if you work for a conservative group or are an active tea party activist.

Let me repeat myself first. Sometimes, just sometimes when the moon hits the water just right, our guy enters the arena. Our guy decides he will take the slings and arrows, suffer the insults, and risk embarrassment and defeat, because he decides we are right. Good men sometimes need to take a risk, be bold, and enter the arena come what may.

But then you know what? The conservative movement’s system breaks down around them.

2. NY-SEN: Kudlow vs. Schumer?

I’ve suspected for some time now that the California Senate race against Barbara Boxer was basically the high-watermark Senate race for the GOP – that is, the toughest race that has a non-trivial chance to be winnable if everything breaks just right. But the recent withdrawal of Evan Bayh from his own re-election race in Indiana (not as “safe” a seat as Boxer’s, given Indiana’s natural Republican tilt, but an entrenched incumbent with a $13 million warchest) is a reminder, as was Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts, that you really never know where your opportunities are until you press them.

The GOP in New York is already stretched fairly thin trying to fight a two-front war against what should be vulnerable candidates, Gov. David Paterson (who is basically doomed, but likely will be replaced as the Democratic nominee by the more formidable Attorney General Andrew Cuomo) and his Senate appointee, Kirsten Gillibrand (who should emerge successful from what nonetheless promises to be a vigorous challenge from former Tennessee Congressman Harold Ford). Former Long Island Congressman Rick Lazio is the leading contender to be Republican nominee in the Governor’s race, while the Senate field lacks even a candidate as mildly well-known as Lazio, assuming George Pataki resists entreaties to run.

Now, with polls showing the generally invulnerable-seeming Chuck Schumer bleeding popularity, Republicans may open a third front if they can talk longtime CNBC/National Review economics commentator Larry Kudlow into running.

3. CPAC Blogger Lounge is open for business

Estimates are at about 10K attendees for this year’s event. So far we’ve had Marco Rubio and Jim DeMint addressing the crowd. Both were fantastic, as expected, and got the audience fired up. Rubio detailed several key ideas he has for how to turn the country back from the Obamination that we find ourselves experiencing today:

Reform the tax code, reduce tax rates across the board
Eliminate double taxation – abolish capital gains, dividends, interest, death taxes
Lower the corporate tax rate so it is competitive with the rest of the world
Stop big govt energy madates such as Cap & Trade
Put the consumer in charge of healthcare spending in America
Pass lawsuit abuse reform
Undertake serious measures to get control of national debt
Terrorists attack to impose their view of the world on as many as they can; America is standing in the way
- We will do whatever it takes, as long as it takes, to defeat radical Islamic terrorism
- We will stand with our allies like Israel
- We will capture them (terrorists_, get useful info from them, bring them to justice in front of military tribunal at Gitmo, not a civilian courtroom in Manhattan (BIG APPLAUSE)

The agenda here is rich, and there will be more where that came from. Watch the action on Twitter via hashtag #cpac10. And watch the front page throughout the conference…we’re all working to bring the conference to you live!

2. The National Republicans Dig In Their Heels on Fiorina

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For February 18, 2010

1. Sharon and Mt. Vernon

3. From Pelosi, With No Love

4. Mugged By Reality: The Misgovernment of San Francisco

5. The ObamaCare Nuclear Option

1. Sharon and Mt. Vernon

Back in the 60’s, people did things like get together and hammer out shared statements on unifying goals. In 1960, William F. Buckley and a group of likeminded conservatives, put together the Sharon Statement. Adopted on September 11, 1960, the statement provided a broad, general statement of principles around which conservatives could rally.

The statement has stood the test of time.

Today, fifty years later, conservatives are gathering at Mt. Vernon outside of Washington, D.C. to sign on to the Mt. Vernon Statement. I’m a signer and I’m out at Mt. Vernon today.

This statement is not intended to replace or supplant the Sharon statement, which stands the test of time – including its statement on communism.

The goal of the Mt. Vernon Statement is to provide a central platform around which social, economic, and fiscal conservatives can find common ground for the operation of government and society.

2. The National Republicans Dig In Their Heels on Fiorina

With friends like these rallying around Carly Fiorina, she doesn’t really need many enemies.

“Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who has done more than any Democrat to keep climate legislation alive this year” went out to California the other day to campaign for Carly Fiorina.

After being battered for the ridiculous Demon Sheep web ad, Fiorina probably could use the help, but with Dana Milbank praising Graham around the same time for out doing the Democrats on keeping cap-and-tax alive (a position Fiorina supports) it probably wasn’t a wise move.

But it’s not just Graham who is going all in. In a concerted NRSC effort, all the major leaders who have been sabotaging GOP gains in recent years are rallying around Carly.

Mitch McConnell is holding a fundraiser for her. No doubt he will regale her with tales of how she too can kowtow to the Democrats and obstruct people like Tom Coburn who simply wanted the health care bill read.

Lamar Alexander is helping too. You remember Lamar! right? He’s the Senate Republican leader who lectured the GOP on offering up “differentiating legislation”, i.e. legislation that would highlight Democrat vulnerabilities, and instead insisted the GOP offer up “common ground legislation” so they could show the public the GOP is willing to work with the Democrats.

3. From Pelosi, With No Love

An unusual fundraising email Wednesday greeted the inboxes of supporters of the National Republican Congressional Campaign. In an email “from” Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, “naive” Republicans were instructed to stop fretting over rising unemployment figures because “Democrats are in control now.”

“We are creating a dependence on the government and we are succeeding,” the email, dripping with an rare degree of sarcasm for beltway correspondence, read. “[J]ust look at how great things are one year after Democrats passed the ultra-successful stimulus bill.”

The email, which was also posted to the Committee’s web site, has not yet elicited responses from Speaker Pelosi’s office or their Democratic campaign counterpart, according to an NRCC official.

4. Mugged By Reality: The Misgovernment of San Francisco

I have not previously followed the work of San Francisco political reporter Benjamin Wachs of SF Weekly; apparently he’s an increasingly cynical and disenchanted liberal following the ever-appalling doings of San Francisco city government. Thanks to the heads-up from Josh Trevino, it’s worth taking a little time to look over Wachs’ uproariously acid farewell to his beat, which practically defines “going out in a blaze of glory.” Seriously, read the whole thing.

The real meat, though, is in a lengthier article by Wachs and Joe Eskenazi from December on how San Francisco is, in their view, “The Worst-Run Big City in the U.S.”.

5. The ObamaCare Nuclear Option

Over at NROnline’s The Corner, Daniel Foster wrote an interesting piece where he explained how Vice President Joe Biden could press the button to launch the Senate’s reconciliation Nuclear Option. This strategy is the only way the Democrats can get ObamaCare across the finish line and to the President’s desk in the next few weeks.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s office has come up with this partisan strategy to pass a version of ObamaCare that must start in the House. They need the help of Vice President Biden to usher the bill through the Senate’s consideration, because the plan includes the Vice President issuing rulings, as President of the Senate, that will avoid a filibuster. Ironically, the Pelosi strategy is all happening as President Obama’s schedules a public bipartisan meeting of the House and Senate to work on a deal to find common ground on health care reform. The President and Democrats are readying the ObamaCare Nuclear Option if the summit does not produce a deal. ObamaCare has been soundly rejected by the American people. The election of Senator Scott Brown in Massachusetts and poll numbers (thank you Real Clear Politics) prove that people don’t want ObamaCare – yet the Obama Administration and Members of Congress are still attempting to pass a version of this bill. As a result of the election of Brown and the sagging poll numbers for ObamaCare, the Democrats have come up with a partisan strategy to pass ObamaCare in the form of the Health Care Nuclear Option.

1. Exodus From Climate Change Bandwagon Begins en Masse

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For February 17, 2010

2. The One Way Street

3. I Bet They Didn’t Mirandize Him

4. CPAC Bound

————————

1. Exodus From Climate Change Bandwagon Begins en Masse

BP America, Conoco Phillips, and Caterpillar (among others) have announced their intentions to quit the Climate Action Partnership, a group whose mission is to “call on the federal government to enact legislation requiring significant reductions of greenhouse gas emissions.”

BP American says it “intends to go solo in its quest to influence the national discussion on climate change.” Conoco says it’s quitting to “focus on reducing near-term greenhouse gas emissions by developing its natural gas operations.” Caterpillar says it wants “to focus on commercializing technologies that it said would accomplish the same goals pursued by U.S. CAP.”

What they didn’t say was said for them by Myron Ebell, Director of Energy and Global Warming Policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (“a public interest group dedicated to free enterprise and limited government”).

2. The One Way Street

I wrote this last November, but in light of current events (see e.g. McCain v. Hayworth) I think it is worth posting again.

We hear this all time – conservatives in the GOP have to play nice with the moderates.

We never hear the other, that moderates should play nice with conservatives. Why is that? Consider the facts.

3. I Bet They Didn’t Mirandize Him

Great news from Afghanistan: “Secret Joint Raid Captures Taliban’s Top Commander” putting aside for today the fact that the NYT leaked a secret again…something they do quite frequently.

4. CPAC Bound

As RedState does every year at this time, we’re all packing up and heading to Washington, DC to cover CPAC 2010.

We’ll be up there all week live blogging the speeches, snagging interviews, being interviewed, and seeing the sights and snow.

Stay tuned.

1. Will The Media Cover This Angle?

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For February 16, 2010

2. Why We Should Rally Around Marlin Stutzman in Indiana

3. Let’s help Tamyra D’Ippolito get the 500 votes she needs

4. Atheist Christians, Republican Democrats, and Other Absurdities – What’s at Stake in CLS v. Martinez

5. Joe Biden’s Raging Hypocrisy

6. Redemption: Climate Change Was A Lie

7. This is The Gaian Workers’ Paradise of Cambridge. Welcome.

————————

1. Will The Media Cover This Angle?

The media, liberal Republicans like David Frum, and every left-winger out there has for a year decried, bemoaned, ridiculed, and laughed at conservatives for an alleged “purity test” for candidates.

I have been a chief target of those attacks from the Republican establishment, pundits, the left, and the media. Never mind that is was never true. I’ve always said the GOP should go right where it can go right. That’s not everywhere.

Unperturbed, folks from the GOP establishment and Republican pay-to-play organizations to your friendly national news correspondent, have gone after me and conservatives for our alleged purity test. Charlie Crist is a victim. Kay Bailey Hutchison is victim. Carly Fiorina is a victim. Bob Bennett is a victim.

You get the idea. These “fiscal conservatives,” which increasingly means someone is pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage, and pro-tax increase, are all victims of the conservative movement’s purity test.

The media has droned on ad nauseum about this.

But what of yesterday? Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana is bidding goodbye to the United States Senate. He’s had enough. But why? Well, CNN reports this little gem that might otherwise be missed:

“He hates the Senate, hates the left bloggers,” a friend and longtime adviser to Bayh said. “They are getting their wish, pure Democrats in the minority.”

[insert the scratching sound of an abruptly halted record here]

2. Why We Should Rally Around Marlin Stutzman in Indiana

With the surprise announcement today of Democratic Senator and former Indiana Governor Evan Bayh retiring, the dynamics dramatically change for the Republicans in Indiana. The DC Republican crowd pushed former Senator Dan Coats into the race last week.

I get that a lot of people will back Dan Coats. I have a lot of respect for Dan Coats. But the man retired in 1998 and then publicly announced he was moving to North Carolina. Then he became a lobbyist.

The GOP needs to change its public image that voters have. It should not be using retired Senators who moved out of the state and become a lobbyist to do that.

We need younger faces and fresher voices. We need guys like Marco Rubio. And we need guys like Marlin Stutzman.

Marlin is pro-life. He supports the second amendment. He will be right on spending. He is a perfect fit for Indiana. His farming background is compelling. He’s voted conservatively in the Indiana legislature.

I believe the GOP can do better and can rebuild and can raise up young conservative leaders. I believe Marlin Stutzman fits the bill and is someone we will not regret rallying behind.

3. Let’s help Tamyra D’Ippolito get the 500 votes she needs

This could be fun. Democrats in Indiana are trying to clear the field for Brad Ellsworth to run in Evan Bayh’s spot.

Tamyra D’Ippolito is about 1000 votes short of getting her petition in for qualifying.

Those of you in Indiana should go out of your way to help Tamyra get the signatures she needs by TODAY at noon. Go here for the details on how to help her.

Let’s help the Democrats have a contested primary too!

4. Atheist Christians, Republican Democrats, and Other Absurdities – What’s at Stake in CLS v. Martinez

Can a public university force a religious student group to deny its faith in order to exist on campus? Does the First Amendment allow government-run colleges to simply ban any group from associating around any common ideas? Can government treat a religious organization’s faith requirements for voting power and leadership positions as the equivalent of racism? The Supreme Court will be examining those questions this term in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez.

For the last three decades, Christian student groups have fought to be treated equally with other student groups on campus. Prior to 1981, many universities refused to permit Christian students to worship on campus or even to meet on the same terms as other groups. When the University of Missouri-Kansas City kicked a Christian student group off campus in 1979 for the unpardonable sin of “worshipping,” dozens of schools called the school to ask for advice on how to do the same.

5. Joe Biden’s Raging Hypocrisy

I have to admit a lot of ambivalence about this post.

One the one hand I feel silly doing this because we all know what is going on. After struggling for four years to ensure an American defeat in Iraq and endeavoring to effect a “slow bleed” of our military, Obama and Biden are now trying to take credit for policy decisions that were in place when they took office and which they pledged to undo. We all know that.

On the other hand, I am offended at the lack of integrity of the ongoing clown conspiracy now governing our nation. We have never in our history had a government that had such a distant relationship with the truth or with a sense of honor, dignity, or propriety. We become complicit in their lies everytime we let their claims pass without rebuttal.

I’ll let America’s Rain Man speak for himself . . .

6. Redemption: Climate Change Was A Lie

What must be done now is to award the email hacker with the next Nobel Peace Prize, revoke Al Gore’s, confiscate all the profits that have been made from furthering the lies and misdirections of the climate alarmists (including Michael Moore of course), shut down the UN’s Climate wing, and immediately dismantle and disrupt the EPA and the last 20 years of restrictions and regulations and blockades of access to American energy resources. Oh yeah-let’s burn the Cap & Trade bill and shutter the whole economy-destroying Ethanol nonsense while we’re at it.

Why you ask? Because it has finally come out that there has been no global warming since 1995.

7. This is The Gaian Workers’ Paradise of Cambridge. Welcome.

The City Council of Cambridge, MA established the Cambridge Climate Congress in 2009 and charged them with recommending actions to combat the “climate emergency” which currently threatens Life As We Know It in America’s most intellectual city.

The committee was seated in December, and considering the gravity of the emergency, has acted with alacrity in preparing a vision of the City’s New Green Future. The Drafting Committee’s first stab at a set of recommendations (a 20-page .pdf file) is available here.

While none of these measures have yet been enacted, they represent a window on the soul of the radical environmental movement, and the authoritarian means by which they’re prepared to force their vision on the rest of us.

2. Our Deeds Live On The Longest

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For February 12, 2010

1. Palin Fear

3. Debra Medina – A Tea Party Cautionary Tale

4. Barack (not George) wants to track you by use of your cell phone

5. American Exceptionalism, and the Last Full Measure

————————

1. Palin Fear

A lot of us have wondered why Obama spokestoad Robert Gibbs has been taking every available opportunity to belittle Sarah Palin. It is always unseemly when a paid representative of the President uses his position and taxpayer time to slag on a private citizen or a new organization. Unseemly, of course, is part of the ambiance that you get with the current administration but the frequency of Gibbs’ criticisms stood out even by the cesspool standards of the White House press operation.

Today what we’ve long suspected was the truth has been revealed. The White House fears Sarah Palin.

2. Our Deeds Live On The Longest

America’s 42nd president, Bill Clinton, was reportedly hospitalized with chest pains this afternoon in New York. Hopefully he’ll be fine, but naturally any threat to his health puts one in mind of the man’s legacy as a two-term president.

What struck me is this: when he was president, there was endless debate about Bill Clinton. Was he a liberal at heart who tacked to the center for pragmatic reasons, or was he essentially a moderate? Was he wasting his prodigious political talents, or was campaigning all he really knew to do well anyway? Did he revive liberalism from its decline, or validate the Reagan Revolution?

But nine years after he left office, as his presidency begins to recede into history and his party has passed to new leadership, this much is clear: it doesn’t matter anymore what Clinton’s intentions were, or what his talents were, or what he believed in. It doesn’t matter anymore who was up or who was down in his Administration, or who leaked what to which newspaper, or how he went about making decisions. It doesn’t matter who the public blamed or what the polls said. It doesn’t matter what Clinton said, either – we remember a few stock phrases (other than the embarrassing ones about his various scandals, probably his most enduring line was his campaign’s standing reminder to then-candidate Clinton that “It’s the economy, stupid”).

What matters from the Clinton Administration is what the president and his Administration did, and what it failed to do.

3. Debra Medina – A Tea Party Cautionary Tale

I have to admit I am something of a skeptic about the Tea Party movement for a lot of reasons. This is not to say that I’m not also a skeptic about the GOP but only to say that spontaneous eruptions of political enthusiasm through modern history have more frequently been associated with disillusionment and disengagement (see Perot, Ross) and atrocities (see French Revolution) than they have been with lasting political change.

Yesterday I pointed out an anti-Second Amendment speaker who was allowed to share center stage at the National Tea Party Convention with a birfer. The problem there, at least at first blush, was the absence of a mechanism to vet speakers.

Today, by way of Ed Morrissey at HotAir, I want to direct your attention to Texas and Debra Medina.

4. Barack (not George) wants to track you by use of your cell phone

Remember back when the left was freaking out about about the NSA terrorist surveillance program initiated by George Bush (in the wake of 9-11) whereby the NSA was authorized by executive order to monitor phone calls and other communications involving known or suspected terrorists (or their associates) coming into or going out of the United States without a warrant?

5. American Exceptionalism, and the Last Full Measure

From time to time it wouldn’t hurt if conservatives compiled and published a list of just what makes up American exceptionalism. I say this for two reasons. One, progressive bloggers and writers seem unable or unwilling to provide a list of just what their banner standsfor, and God knows Bernie’s tried to yank it out of them. Still there seems to be this unspoken understanding among Left-wing believers that they are all on the same page. I doubt they are, even in the higher reaches of academe, except for that one thing we’ve discussed before, and that is the things they are against, the things they hate…which by and large is achievement by people they consider to be beneath them. I doubt most will admit this, or even know it. Lenin knew exactly what he was talking about when he used the term “useful idiots”…which incidentally, is what they think of conservatives.

So I think conservatism should go them one better. For young conservatives especially, it’s important to know just where this train’s going before getting on board.

But more importantly, even amidst a battle that has been going on several years now, the most prominent aspect of American exceptionalism, the one that really hushes the Left, I’ve found, is almost never mentioned anymore by prominent members of out cause.

Let me explain.

2. John Brennan: Not A Serious Policymaker

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For February 11, 2010

1. No.

3. Online Left: Joe Biden contemptuous of soldiers.

4. PA-13: How scared are Dem incumbents?

5. Former Dem Guv to Obama: Fire Kaine, White House Advisors

————————

1. No.

I am hearing from multiple, prominent people that the Republicans in Washington are seriously thinking of caving and having an on camera sit down with Barack Obama even though their pre-conditions for a meeting will not be met.

Why?

Because the GOP does not want to be seen as the Party of No.

Right now the federal government is headed into its fourth straight day of closure due to weather. The nation has not stopped operating. The markets are open. The citizenry is working. Kids are going to school. Washington may be ground to a halt, but the free people of the country are working, productive, and far better off than if bureaucrats could make it into office.

In other words, the people are doing just fine without Washington being open for business. Why then do we need more of Washington? Why then do we need more government?

If the GOP meets with Barack Obama, they will be compromising for more government at a time the people want less government. That is the fatal flaw that undermines any on camera appearance. People are not saying we can’t do better. What people are saying is that Washington will make things worse.

Unless Barack Obama is prepared to unleash the free market to drive down health care costs – a sign he could only send by rejected the pre-existing plans, which are filled with government growth and mandates – there is no point to meet with him.

The GOP should not worry about being seen as the Party of No. It was saying “No” to Obama’s agenda that got Scott Brown elected. The GOP should worry about about being seen as capitulators and compromisers willing to sell out the American people for a seat at the table or a better image with the press.

Ronald Reagan said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’” The GOP should remember the American people still think that and know the GOP is all too happy to be from the government.

Mitch McConnell and John Boehner need to tell Barack Obama, “No.”

2. John Brennan: Not A Serious Policymaker

When Obama and his fellow travelers tried desperately to engineer American defeats in two wars, hamstring covert operations directed against terrorist organizations, and carry out a “slow bleed” of American forces in combat, they were acting as the domestic arm of al Qaeda for all intents and purposes.

Since Obama’s anointing last January, he has scrupulously avoided using the terms “win” or “victory” in regards to America’s wars. He has doubted that winning is possible as Emperor Hirohito is not available to sign a surrender on the deck of the USS Missouri (link provided for the benefit of those readers who think that *I* believe that Hirohito signed the surrender document) which was certainly encouraging to the men and women fighting in Afghanistan. His feckless management of the war in Iraq, subcontracting that responsibility to America’s Rain Man, Joe Biden, with no goal beyond a withdrawal of combat forces by this summer seems designed to ensure that Iraq will remain yet another suppurating sore in a region which desperately needs stable governments. One can only conclude that the Administration is staffed by idiots and geopolitical naïfs working under the direction of a man who believes all political difficulties can be overcome by blaming President Bush.

The difference between our criticism of Obama and the criticism directed by Obama against President Bush is this: Obama’s criticism was focused on ensuring American defeats in two wars and a curtailing of American power in the world. Our criticism is focused on ensuring that Obama cannot engineer defeats in two wars we are winning and on increasing American power.

3. Online Left: Joe Biden contemptuous of soldiers.

So sayeth Eric Robinson of Yale.
So sayeth The Political Carnival.
So sayeth Crooks and Liars. Although, to be fair, some of their commenters shared that contempt of Biden’s towards the troops.

All because of that black bracelet he wore…

Oops, sorry, that wasn’t Joe Biden; that was Sarah Palin that they were attacking. Because Robinson doesn’t have the mother-wit to tell black from bronze, and because he doesn’t have the intellectual integrity to bother to check to find out where she got the bracelet from. Turns out that HeroBracelets.org gave one to her, as well as one to Vice President Biden, who (rightfully) was happy to accept it.

4. PA-13: How scared are Dem incumbents?

Allyson Schwartz (D-PA-13) represents a district that John Kerry won 54-43. In 2008, she won 63-34. But she’s scared this year. How scared? Scared enough to put the screws into the leaders of the national and state firefighters union to get a firefighter and bar owner named Brian Haughton to not run.

5. Former Dem Guv to Obama: Fire Kaine, White House Advisors

Former Governor of Virginia Doug Wilder Tuesday urged President Barack Obama to remove Tim Kaine-a fellow member of the Virginia Governors club who once earned Wilder’s endorsement-from his post atop the Democratic National Committee.

“[A] spate of recent losses in races that Democrats should have won underscores what has been obvious to me for a long time,” Wilder wrote in a column for Politico. “The Chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee is the wrong job for him.”

Wilder, who became the nation’s first black governor in 1990, also had tough words for the President, writing that Obama’s seemingly permanent campaign may be hindering legislative successes.

2. Criticizing The President Only Strengthens Our Enemies

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For February 10, 2010

1. Why It Is Important

3. NY Times IPCC Alibi Falls Flat

4. Farewell to the Architect of the ‘Slow Bleed’ Strategy

5. Craig Becker Defeated

————————

1. Why It Is Important

Today, Senator Jim DeMint’s Senate Conservatives Fund is launching a money bomb for Marco Rubio.

You need to understand specifically why it is important that this be a success.

DeMint is under massive and sustained attacks from establishment Republicans for daring to challenge the hand picked candidates of the Washington GOP crowd. These people think you and DeMint are a joke. These people think that you cannot beat them at what they view as their game.

They blame Jim DeMint for pushing Arlen Specter to the Democrats. Even the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal attacked Jim DeMint for endorsing Pat Toomey. But now Toomey is beating both Specter and Sestak in the polling.

Then there is Marco Rubio, the target of the present money bomb. The Republican leadership in Washington flocked to Charlie Crist. They launched “on background” attacks against Jim DeMint in Roll Call for daring to step out of line and back Rubio.

And all the while they said DeMint could not win. He could not raise the money. You would not give the money. And the conservative effort would fail.

That is why it is important to support this money bomb. That is why it is important to give what you can. Show Washington that Jim DeMint and conservatives across America will take back the Republican Party from the leaders who support compromising with Obama on national health care, who support bailing out automakers, and who support plans like TARP.

If Jim DeMint fails, it will be seen as our failure.

2. Criticizing The President Only Strengthens Our Enemies

So sayeth White House deputy national security adviser John Brennan, at least. Funny how that never occurred to him and his fellow Democrats when George W. Bush was in the White House. Someone needs to be taken out behind the woodshed. Consider Brennan’s whining and bellyaching about being called out for sucking at his job.

3. NY Times IPCC Alibi Falls Flat

One and a half cheers to the NY Times for the article “Skeptics Find Fault With U.N. Climate Panel,” which admits to some of the scientific and ethical problems facing the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and IPCC head Rajendra Pachauri. But the Times being the Times, while it lays out some of the damning facts, it omits key damaging details (especially regarding the egregiously amateurish nature of the IPCC’s errors regarding the Himalayan glaciers) and otherwise spends the rest of the article trying to explain away Dr. Pachauri’s problems, with hilarious results.

The most hilarious of these is the Times’ effort to instruct you, the reader, on why there’s no financial conflict of interest in payments received by Dr. Pachauri from various businesses with interests in the panel’s work.

4. Farewell to the Architect of the ‘Slow Bleed’ Strategy

Let’s journey back to February 2007. At this time, the U.S. was approaching its 4th anniversary in Iraq, the military death toll had passed 3,000, and Iraqi civilians were caught in the middle of a furious sectarian battle that had been kicked into overdrive by the bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra.

General David Petraeus had just been tapped to take over Multinational Force-Iraq, and was ramping up a “surge” in troops there in preparation for the implementation of his counterinsurgency doctrine in the theater – a comprehensive overhaul of Iraq war strategy that would ultimately prove to be incredibly successful. Democrats in the House had just passed a non-binding resolution condemning the “surge” in troops (Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called this a “symbolic victory in the fight over the Iraq War,” despite the fact that the Senate version of the resolution fell 4 votes short of cloture. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said “It’s pretty clear that a resolution that in effect says that the general going out to take command of the arena shouldn’t have the resources he thinks he needs to be successful certainly emboldens the enemy and our adversaries”).

This was the setting for perhaps the most insidious move of Jack Murtha’s career, if not his life: the design and introduction of what he called a “Slow Bleed Strategy” designed to deprive soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines in Iraq of the supplies – bullets, armor, etc. – they needed not only to push forward in Iraq, but to keep themselves alive while there. The rationale behind Murtha’s aptly – if appallingly – named Slow Bleed Strategy was that, if the supply chain to our troops in combat could be forced to dry up, enough of America’s warfighters would be killed in action that President Bush would have no choice but to “redeploy” our military men and women out of Iraq and back to America.

5. Craig Becker Defeated

People are policy and while much attention has been focused on the profusion of buffoons and poltroons Obama has installed at the cabinet and sub-cabinet level positions in his administration, the real work of radically changing the character of our government has been entrusted to anonymous apparatchiks.

Some of these have bubbled to the top and have resignd: green czar and self identified communist Van Jones, UN financial reform guru and part time identity thief Jide Zeitlin, performance czar and tax cheat Nancy Killefer. Safe schools czar and pedophile apologist Kevin Jennings remains on the job as do others.

Today, however, we may have won one small battle in the war to keep the adminstrative machinery of the nation out of the hands of people who are opposed to our system of goverment. Obama’s nomination to fill the a vacant seat on the National Labor Relations Board has fallen to a bipartisan fillibuster.

1. The Obama Trap and the GOP

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For February 9, 2010

2. The Voters Of PA-12 Will Choose A New Representative Through A Special Election

3. Mike Pence Endorses Marco Rubio

4. Focus on the Family and Pam Tebow Play the Pro-Abortion Left like a Stradivarius

5. 30 Inches of Snow in Washington Therefore We Need a New Agency

6. A Money Losing Business Comes Out For Government Subsidy

————————

1. The Obama Trap and the GOP

Democrats returned to Washington after being battered all of August over the health care plans. Barack Obama decided to rebuild their energy and so he spoke at a joint session of Congress to talk health care.

Throughout the speech he said he wanted to hear about GOP counter-proposals and repeatedly accused them of having none. Every time, congressional Republicans held up their proposals so he could see they did have counter-proposals.

Nonetheless, from that speech in September until today, Barack Obama has insisted the GOP had no proposals. He insisted the Democrats work behind closed doors and shut out the GOP.

Now, because the House Republicans gave the President a chance to improve his image at their retreat, Obama wants to sit down with Republicans at his guest house in front of TV cameras and discuss the proposals the GOP has had all along that he pretends he knew nothing about.

If Barack Obama cannot be genuine and interested in Republican ideas when the cameras are turned off, there is absolutely no way he can be genuine and sincere with the cameras turned on.

2. The Voters Of PA-12 Will Choose A New Representative Through A Special Election

The important practical question following the death today of Congressman John Murtha is what happens to the House seat he held on behalf of the people of Pennsylvania’s 12th District. The good news, so far as I can tell from early reports, is that Ed Rendell won’t get to appoint an interim replacement, but rather the voters will have to choose one in a special election.

This is yet another critical election; recall that Obamacare passed the House with a 3-vote margin of victory, and any effort to run it back through the House with the watered-down Senate langauge on abortion will cost at least two of those votes (Bart Stupak and Joseph Cao), while now two others (Robert Wexler and Murtha) have left the House since the vote was cast.

3. Mike Pence Endorses Marco Rubio

The steady drumbeat for Marco Rubio keeps going on and on. Today he is picking up the endorsement of Congressman Mike Pence.

Congressman Pence said, “I am proud to endorse Marco Rubio for the United States Senate. Marco Rubio’s faith in free markets, limited government and traditional moral values make him the right choice for Republicans in this race. At a time when the American people long for leaders of principle, Marco Rubio will be a courageous check and balance on the current Washington establishment.

“With Washington spending money we don’t have and empowering the government at the expense of individual freedom, we need more leaders like Marco Rubio who are willing to take a stand for the common sense and common values of the American people.”

4. Focus on the Family and Pam Tebow Play the Pro-Abortion Left like a Stradivarius

The job done by Focus on the Family and the Tebows with their much-publicized Super Bowl advertisement was nothing short of masterful. In fact, I’m not sure that word describes the level of mastery Focus on the Family showed with their domination of the pro-abortion left through last night’s ad and the public relations battles leading up to it.

To fully understand what a massive PWNing of the Left this was, it’s necessary to briefly look back at the last couple weeks of hype and debate over this ad. When it was reported that Tim Tebow (who, despite being a dirty, jeanshorts-wearing Florida Gator, is a model citizen and upstanding individual) was appearing in a Focus on the Family commercial with his mother which was being aired for the purpose of encouraging people to Choose Life, the Leftists in the media (a redundancy, I know) and in the political sphere went into a frenzy.

5. 30 Inches of Snow in Washington Therefore We Need a New Agency

These people never stop generating the laughs.

There are thirty inches of snow in Washington, DC. Here in Macon, Georgia, an area global warming scientists have long predicted would become a desert, we are 24 inches into a rain surplus in the past 365 calendar days.

You know what this all means right? We need a new federal agency to “study and report on the changing climate.”

6. A Money Losing Business Comes Out For Government Subsidy

It should be no surprise that an organization like the New York Times, which is a consistent money loser these day, is in favor of a government take over of the student loan industry. A group of people who have shown no ability to run a successful business tend to hate success. But their reasons for doing so are not just nonsense, but total distortions of reality.

The Times writes, “The direct loans would not be handled by the government, but through colleges and universities, just as Pell grants are now.” That’s nonsense. If a student who has student loans financed via, say, Chase as I do and does not like Chase’s service, the student can go to Wells Fargo. In all cases the colleges and universities handle most of the dealings, but it is the backside of the equation the Times chooses to ignore.

1. The god Who Makes Sure We Know He is There

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For February 8, 2010

(scandal pic)

2. Sarah Palin: Authentic and on the Money

3. White House Counterterrorism Chief John Brennan Tries Implicating Republicans

4. Sen. Kit Bond makes Robert Gibbs cry

5. Obama Installs Democratic Activist, Fundraiser in U.S. Attorney Post

6. Daniels Led Bayh by 10 in NRSC Poll, Not Asked to Run

7. Science, not Evangelism: India quits IPCC

————————

1. The god Who Makes Sure We Know He is There

Football. It’s not just America’s past time, it is an escape from the monotony of daily life, from politics, and from life’s little encumbering affairs that bog us down.

But Barack Obama will have none of it.

Like last year, this year Barack Obama made sure to disrupt the pre-game show with an interview just to make sure we all knew, if we didn’t pay attention to any of the other press conferences he has had in the past week, that he is there.

It is a bit funny. The real God is a more active, yet more invisible, presence in all of our lives, from the beating of our hearts, to the rain that wets the soil, but he does not feel the need to do press conferences every other day to make sure we know he is still in charge?

What is it with Obama that compels him to get in our faces at the times we most want to escape politics – regardless of party – to have an interview with Katie Couric. Perhaps they, both pro-abortion advocates, felt the need to subtly balance out Pam Tebow.

In the secular world, the government takes the place of God – standing in for social services in place of the church, standing in for worship in place of fixation on a deity, etc. In the third world, the Dear Leader also makes sure to put his face everywhere so all can venerate him everywhere.

Thus we become a third world nation.

2. Sarah Palin: Authentic and on the Money

Governor Sarah Palin took to the stage at the National Tea Party Convention on Saturday night and hit it out of the park. She hit all the notes perfectly. She threw in some great lines. But above all else, she proved herself authentic, sincere, and in touch with conservatives and independents.

You can see the whole speech here. As Andrew Malcolm noted, she started by recognizing Ronald Reagan’s birthday, which was the day of her speech.

Governor Palin offered a full throated endorsement of the tea party movement, a movement that has seen as much hatred and scorn from the media and both political parties’ establishments as the Governor herself.

She said, “The Republican Party would be really smart to start trying to absorb as much of the Tea Party movement as possible” and also said Republicans should not be afraid of primaries.

Here’s the thing – and it is what I mentioned the other day. Sarah Palin’s history in politics is of not a reformer in general, but of a house cleaner. She has, in every job she has held, rooted out corruption and cleaned up the place.

3. White House Counterterrorism Chief John Brennan Tries Implicating Republicans

I’ve got some additional thoughts on the Tea Party Convention, which I sneaked up to so I could see it myself, here.

If Barack Obama hoped to calm people down over the panty-bomber incident, he just failed massively. Sunday morning, White House Counterterrorism Chief John Brenan tried to get the Republicans to share in the blame.

Not only did it not work, but the Republicans are coming forward to say Brennan is totally full of it and are mad as all get out.

4. Sen. Kit Bond makes Robert Gibbs cry

This week, Missouri’s Senator Kit Bond massively pwned Obama Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.

Last week, Gibbs revealed in a press conference that the FBI had been receiving more cooperation from The Christmas Pantybomber (Umar Farouq) Abdulmutallab. Senator Bond is the ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee and received this information from FBI leadership. According to Bond, the FBI instructed the committee to not disclose Abulmutallab’s cooperation. But Gibbs did just that.

5. Obama Installs Democratic Activist, Fundraiser in U.S. Attorney Post

President Barack Obama Friday tapped Democratic National Committee member Tim Purdon as North Dakota’s next United States Attorney, landing the president in the same political minefield once occupied by Democratic Senator Max Baucus after he nominated his girlfriend for a similar federal post.

A veteran Democratic bundler, Purdon found a unique affinity with trial lawyer John Edwards, on whose campaign he was a state chairman. According to his firm, Purdon specializes in criminal defense and personal injury lawsuits and possesses no prosecutorial experience, for which the White House is making no bones.

It is, after all, within the purview of the President to appoint persons to fill the 93 U.S. Attorney posts, even persons politically aligned with the administration, but most have at least some prosecutorial experience.

While the White House’s website did not include Purdon’s name among other pending nominations and appointments as of Friday morning, the entire North Dakota Congressional delegation-all Democrats-issued congratulatory statements.

6. Daniels Led Bayh by 10 in NRSC Poll, Not Asked to Run

Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels today promised to remain neutral in his state’s upcoming Republican Senate primary, but admitted to being “startled” by Coats’ surprise candidacy.

Former Senator Dan Coats is “just alarmed about the country, I can tell you that from talking to him,” Daniels said of Coats, who contacted the governor Monday about his potential challenge to Democratic Senator Evan Bayh.

Many Republicans criticized Coats’ candidacy as a recruiting failure for the NRSC, seemingly buttressed by Daniels’ admission today that, despite leading Bayh by 10 percentage-points in internal polling by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, he was not approached about running.

Daniels, who many are hoping will consider a 2012 presidential bid, said he was also unsure who courted Coats.

7. Science, not Evangelism: India quits IPCC

Now that word has spread that the works and sources of the International Panel on Climate Change are neither “peer reviewed” nor based on “peer reviewed” publications, here come the consequences and loss of credibility. India is quitting the IPCC, and the quote from Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh is just beautiful:

“There is a fine line between climate science and climate evangelism. I am for climate science.”

1. The White House Dangles a Carrot, but the Private Sector Sees the Big Sticks Coming

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For February 5, 2010

2. Man Who Attacks Pope as “Hurting People in the Name of Jesus” Gets Appointed to Oversee Faith-Based Initiatives

3. Goring the Ox: Why John Oxendine Must Be Defeated

4. While there is life, there is hope

5. After Obamacare: What Do Conservatives And Republicans Want on Health Care?

6. Democratic Illinois Lt. Gov. Nominee Arrested for Domestic Battery

————————

1. The White House Dangles a Carrot, but the Private Sector Sees the Big Sticks Coming

Lately, President Obama has tried to assure the American people that he’s working really hard to get our money back from that TARP bailout he’s been using as a revolving slush fund. Nonetheless, since yesterday was a day ending in “y”, it was evidently time for another bailout. Rules are rules, after all.

This time it was $30 billion for loans to small businesses.

2. Man Who Attacks Pope as “Hurting People in the Name of Jesus” Gets Appointed to Oversee Faith-Based Initiatives

This is really disturbing.

Barack Obama has appointed Harry Knox to the White House’s Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

In March, Knox began an attack on the Catholic Church during a speech before the gay rights group Human Rights Campaign.

Knox, attacking Pope Benedict XVI directly, said the Pope and, through him the Catholic Church, is “hurting people in the name of Jesus.”

After his appointment, Knox was confronted with his comment and reaffirmed that he hates the Pope.

The Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships’ charter states that it “will work on behalf of Americans committed to improving their communities, no matter their religious or political beliefs.” Really?

A man who is willing, even with such an appointment, to attack the head of a church with millions of active congregants , cannot be trusted to fairly work with Catholics. The Pope is called the Holy Father for a reason and attacking the Holy Father does little to prove a commitment to improving communities no matter their religious or political beliefs.

3. Goring the Ox: Why John Oxendine Must Be Defeated

Yesterday I gave you background on Georgia Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine and why I think Republican Primary voters must unite to defeat him.

Let me give you some more today.

Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA) is one of the most conservative Republicans in Congress. He is unapologetic in his demands for smaller government. He has no shame in defying Republicans leaders in Congress, routinely voting against the party and in favor of budget cutting legislation. The guy is a conservative hero in Congress.

Last year, after Georgia’s Lt. Governor dropped out of the Georgia Governor’s race, the presumption was that Lynn Westmoreland would jump into the race and become the front runner. John Oxendine started calling Westmoreland repeatedly. The calls became so regular and so harassing, Congressman Westmoreland finally had to tell Oxendine to stop calling because Westmoreland would not under any circumstance ever endorse Oxendine.

Let’s step back for just a minute. . . .

4. While there is life, there is hope

Back in 2005 the pro-life movement took a hit when judge after judge decided that an incapacitated woman could be killed by dehydration. At the time, we on the pro-life side were lambasted as some kind of mindless Neoliths who were incapable of understanding even the simplest biological concepts while those in favor of this abomination patted themselves on their all too often white- and black-clothed backs and congratulated themselves on successfully squaring the circle of a previously unsolved ethical conundrum. In short, it was a replay of the arguments over abortion except this involved a helpless woman who was inconvenient to her husband, not a baby who was inconvenient to its mother.

We were right then to fight for the right of the defenseless to not be killed and today the science vindicated our position and especially the position of Mary Schiavo’s parents who claimed they detected lucidity beneath the paralysis.

Today’s Washington Post reports “In ‘vegetative state’ patients, brain scanners show some alert minds”.

5. After Obamacare: What Do Conservatives And Republicans Want on Health Care?

Democrats trying to defend their flailing healthcare bills have tried, repeatedly, a two-pronged attack on the mostly united Republican opposition to the various plans floated by the Senate and House Democrats and the Obama White House. One is to suggest that Republicans are criticizing the proposed Democratic solutions without having any of their own – implying that there really is no other choice but to pass a Democratic bill and that Republican opposition is irresponsible. The other and related contention is to argue that Republicans have a responsibility to cooperate in bipartisan fashion on the bills currently under consideration, rather than seek those bills’ defeat.

These arguments are useful as political spin, but they are wrong.

6. Democratic Illinois Lt. Gov. Nominee Arrested for Domestic Battery

What Chicago election is complete without elements of domestic violence, prostitution and tax evasion?

A Chicago pawnbroker who financed his campaign with nearly $2 million of his own wealth, Scott Lee Cohen Tuesday won the Democratic Party’s nomination for Lieutenant Governor. But with new details of Cohen’s sordid past emerging today, Democratic primary voters will soon be wishing they had given his five rivals a second look.

Cohen allegedly held a knife to his then-girlfriend’s neck in October 2005. Charges were later dropped after the woman, once convicted of prostitution, failed to appear in court to testify against Cohen.

A police report of obtained by the Chicago Sun Times said the woman had scaring and defensive wounds on her hands “from trying to defend herself against the arrestee swinging the knife at her.” Additionally, Cohen “pushed [the] complainant’s head against [a] wall, causing a bump on the back of her head.”

The arrest came only months after Cohen’s former wife filed for divorce and was awarded by the courts a temporary protection order. Cohen’s deep bench of troubles don’t stop at reports of domestic violence, as records also indicate also he had federal tax problems.

1. Hey, remember when Obama wanted Judd Gregg for Commerce Secretary?

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For February 4, 2010

2. Pelosi Spends Hundreds of Thousands on Travel, Alcohol

3. Goring the Ox: The Georgia Republican Party is on Suicide Watch

4. Shoot Me Now Please

5. A Few Words on RedState and Mark Kirk

————————

1. Hey, remember when Obama wanted Judd Gregg for Commerce Secretary?

Remember when a bunch of groups got freaked out about it because it meant that a Republican would be instantly aware of any organized shenanigans designed to muck about with the Census?

And remember when the President hastily pandered to those groups by declaring that Gregg wouldn’t be overseeing the Census?

And remember how Gregg then – and quite rightly – told the President what he could do with his Cabinet position?

Remember all that?

2. Pelosi Spends Hundreds of Thousands on Travel, Alcohol

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has squandered over $101,000 tax dollars on “in-flight services” on congressional delegations since 2008, according to new documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the government watchdog group Judicial Watch.

Expenditures on Pelosi-led CODELs, the group’s report shows, include thousands for liquor, beer and wine. Receipts show purchase of Johnny Walker, Grey Goose, Beefeater, Maker’s Mark, Courvoisier, Dewars, Bombay Sapphire and more, all courtesy of the American tax payer.

During the same two-year period, the entirety of Speaker Pelosi’s travel expenditures, including the use of Air Force aircraft for herself and relatives, cost the Department of Defense $2,100,749.59.

Judicial Watch’s report Wednesday captured the attention of the social conservative American Family Association, who called Pelosi’s expenses an “abuse of taxpayer dollars” in an urgent action alert to supporters.

3. Goring the Ox: The Georgia Republican Party is on Suicide Watch

I’ll tell you bluntly, I will vote for former Georgia Governor and potential Democratic nominee Roy Barnes over Republican John Oxendine, Georgia’s Insurance Commissioner now running for Governor. At least with Roy Barnes we’d get no worse than present Republican Governor Sonny Perdue and would know honestly what we are getting.

John Oxendine is Georgia’s Rod Blagojevich, complete with bad hair. If the Georgia GOP were to nominate him, the party would be committing suicide.

John Oxendine will say or do anything to get elected. His principles and ethics are malleable and blow with the wind. The only thing Oxendine cares about is his political ambition. For all the people who washed their hands of scandal plagued Georgia House Speaker Glenn Richardson, but have Oxendine stickers on their cars, get ready to engage in full Lady MacBeth syndrome should the Ox get elected. It won’t be women bringing down Ox, but it will be scandal. And with it would fall the Georgia Republican Party.

4. Shoot Me Now Please

Perhaps it is that the Indiana GOP can do no better than recruiting former Senator Dan Coats to run against Senator Evan Bayh.

I do not dispute that Coats is a rock-ribbed conservative. But, and it is a substantial but, he retired in 1998 to become a lobbyist for King & Spaulding, and the next time anyone saw him, he was trying to convince conservatives that Harriet Miers was a conservative.

That’s not helpful. Yes, a lot of conservatives did the same. But this guy was out of the national spotlight from 1998 to 2005 when that happened, then disappeared again. Certainly he is more active in Indiana and no doubt he is beloved by a lot of conservatives in Indiana.

I don’t dispute that he could rally conservatives. This post has very little to do with Coats and a great deal to do with the Republican Party.

What I dispute is that Dan Coats is a stellar recruit. The GOP has an image problem. Part of the problem is that the GOP keeps picking old white guys. Part of the problem is that the GOP seems dated and therefore out of touch.

Recruiting an old white guy who retired in 1998 does not seem like out of the box thinking. There is a big difference between picking a guy who retired more than a decade ago and picking a guy who lost an election in the last few years. A big difference.

I have no dog in this fight and I don’t plan on taking a side. If Coats is the best, then Coats is the best. If he is the nominee, I’ll send him a check.

But you cannot tell me we can’t do better than bringing back out of the pasture a guy who voluntarily went into the pasture back in 1998.

5. A Few Words on RedState and Mark Kirk

There are a couple of points to be made about this race and how it turned out. First, Kirk’s win was not the result of some nefarious party or NRSC conspiracy to suppress conservative candidates. Mark Kirk simply was the best representative for GOP primary voters in Illinois, in the considered opinion of those voters. You can’t even blame his win on a failure of the anti-Kirk sentiment to coalesce around a single candidate; Kirk comfortably topped 50 per cent, which means that even if it were a heads-up race between Kirk and Hughes, Kirk would have won comfortably. For many years, Kirk has been successfully cultivating his political fortunes with Illinois voters (yes, even the Republican ones), and his win was deserved on the merits, and was accurately reflective of the Illinois GOP. This is NOT a case where the primary system was short-circuited or where the “establishment” spent a bunch of money to flood out an equally-viable conservative alternative. The primary voters in Illinois have spoken, and spoken loudly, and their choice should be respected.

1. Barack Obama Admits That “By Design” You Remain Unemployed

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For February 3, 2010

2. Betraying the Lie

3. Meet fourteen worrying Democrats.

4. Obama’s Energy Tax Will Even Tax Strippers

5. “Full Bluff Mode”

————————

1. Barack Obama Admits That “By Design” You Remain Unemployed

Many of us have been saying it for a while. The White House intended that the stimulus money, which the White House intended to use to save or create jobs, would not really be spent in 2009 as unemployment soared to over 10%.

On page 9 of Obama’s budget proposal, we find that, in fact, the White House is now admitting this fact. You are still unemployed by government design.

Barack Obama writes, “By design, the bulk of the remaining 50 percent of Recovery Act funds will be deployed in the coming months of 2010 and during the beginning of 2011 to support additional job creation when our economy continues to need a boost.”

So wait? Even after 18 months all the money won’t be spent?

To put this in perspective, consider what the President said in his State of the Union address . . .

2. Betraying the Lie

This Sunday the nation will be treated to a very controversial thirty second advertisement during the Super Bowl. It will be about a mother whose doctor told her she had to have an abortion because she was ill and her son would either die or be severely handicapped. She chose life instead and her son, Tim Tebow, grew up to quarterback for Florida.

There will also be a series of ads with scantily clad women and misogynistic men engaged in onscreen sexual perversion and debauchery akin to dogs in heat. NOW and Planned Parenthood have no problem with those commercials this year. Pam Tebow is enemy number one.

The wrath of the pro-choice organizations and feminists betray the lie that is pro-choice. Pam Tebow wants us to know about her choice, but these groups want to stop her. Had she instead filmed a commercial in which she praised her doctor’s advice and had an abortion, these groups would be fine. Subtract away the nonsense of the non sequitur and we’re left with an inescapable conclusion: pro-choice groups view only one choice as meritorious.

The beauty of Pam Tebow’s commercial extends beyond the message of her commercial. The commercial takes a position held by a majority of Americans and blows away the smoke and mirrors put up over a number of years by abortion advocates and feminists. The groups that run full page ads of women with duct tape on their mouths every time a Republican President nominates a judge want to put duct tape on Pam Tebow’s mouth. The groups that praise the poll tested phraseology of “pro-choice” really do not want anyone to hear about the choice they deem illegitimate. God bless the Tebow family for taking the slings and arrows so the rest of us can revel in the hypocrisy of the advertisement’s opposition.

3. Meet fourteen worrying Democrats.

List extrapolated from here from Reid Wilson:

Candidate	District	PVI	Cook Rating
Mike Ross	AR-04	R+7	Likely Dem
Allan Boyd	FL-02	R+6	Likely Dem
Alan Grayson	FL-08	R+2	Toss-Up
Suzanne Kosmas	FL-24	R+4	Lean Dem
Sanford Bishop	GA-02	D+1	Safe Dem
Bill Foster	IL-14	R+1	Lean Dem
Frank Kratovil	MD-01	R+13	Toss-Up
Ike Skelton	MO-04	R+14	Lean Dem
Earl Pomeroy	ND-AL	R+10	Lean Dem
Dina Titus	NV-03	D+2	Toss-Up
Mike McMahon	NY-13	R+4	Lean Dem
Michael Arcuri	NY-24	R+2	Lean Dem
Chris Carney	PA-10	R+8	Lean Dem
Ciro Rodriguez	TX-23	R+4	Likely Dem

…and the reason that you can tell that they’re worrying is because everyone on that list commissioned a poll in the last three months of 2009.

4. Obama’s Energy Tax Will Even Tax Strippers

The President’s proposed 2011 Budget has tax-raising bulls-eye squarely on every demagogue’s favorite target, “BIG OIL”. Nobody likes Big Oil, right? They’re the Shells, the Exxons and the BPs who keep jacking up gasoline prices, right? WRONG. Regardless of what you think about Big Oil, those companies will hardly notice this tax increase. No, this baby will fall squarely on the backs of smaller, non-integrated domestic producers. The direct cost of this inept policy will be:

Loss of American jobs,
Loss of American GDP,
Increased oil imports, and
Reduced energy security.

The current tax system has been in place for many decades. It has been successful at doing what it was designed to do: making it easier to raise money for the risky hydrocarbon exploration business, and providing an incentive for marginal producers to keep their low-volume domestic “stripper wells” on line.

Obama proposes to change that.

5. “Full Bluff Mode”

As the reality of the political and economic situation that the White House and the country finds itself in – brought on to us by that February rite of passage, the budget – health care reform is fading in the rear window.

Highly unpopular, expensive, politically painful for proponents and manna from heaven for opponents – there was one Dem who was consistently correct and brave about what health reform would bring his party. He is the Dean of the sane Dems on health care, Lawrence O’Donnell, who was the Democratic staff director for the Senate Finance Committee during the 1993-94 Clinton health care debate.

And O’Donnell says the Dems are “in full bluff mode.”

1. The Visuals Are Bad All Around

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For February 2, 2010

2. But I Thought the Canadian System Was So Much Better

3. On the Art of Channeling Kanye West

4. Marco Rubio Takes 12 Point Lead. Let’s Help Him Finish Off Charlie Crist.

5. RNC Press Shop Takes a Hit

6. We’ve got a big announcement

————————

1. The Visuals Are Bad All Around

Bart Stupak is learning a valuable lesson in dealing with Barack Obama.

The visuals all around on this look bad – especially with the Winter Olympics coming up.

Congress funds a $1 million scholarship fund at Northern Michigan University for aspiring Olympic athletes. Robert Costa notesthe scholarship was renamed in 1998 for Bart Stupak’s son who had committed suicide.

Stupak, you will remember, insisted that Obamacare not fund abortion, even against the wishes of Barack Obama.

On Monday morning, when Obama unveiled his budget he had killed the B. J. Stupak scholarship for aspiring Olympians. The Olympics begin in ten days.

Classy.

2. But I Thought the Canadian System Was So Much Better

A Canadian Premier is coming to the U.S. for heart surgery. A Premier is like a Governor.

We keep hearing how terrible and awful the American health care system is compared to the Canadian one. So why is he coming here?

3. On the Art of Channeling Kanye West

Senator Arlen Specter and his brash temperament are back in the news.

The incorrigible Republican-turned-Democrat attended a Pennsylvania Progressive forum Saturday, opposite his primary opponent Representative Joe Sestak, where he stormed the stage prematurely during Sestak’s closing remarks.

Explaining why he is best suited both professional and politically for the post, Sestak was unexpectedly greeted by Specter, prompting a moderator to bluntly ask the senator to “get off the stage.”

4. Marco Rubio Takes 12 Point Lead. Let’s Help Him Finish Off Charlie Crist.

Rasmussen has the political earthquake out today. Charlie Crist’s team was unavailable for comment as they were in the bathroom collectively unable to contain themselves.

Boom.

But folks, we cannot afford to get complacent. We can finish off Charlie Crist now. Pledge what you can to the Marco Rubio money bomb. Let’s ensure he is in a financial position to finish off Charlie Crist and clinch the Republican nomination.

Maybe this is why the media is reporting Charlie Crist had beakfast in Miami with Joe Biden the other day. Perhaps Crist is planning on jumping ship or taking a President appointment to lead up the relief effort to Haiti.

5. RNC Press Shop Takes a Hit

The latest senior aide to bolt from the Republican National Committee headquarters, national press secretary Gail Gitcho is leaving to oversee Senator-elect Scott Brown’s communications operation, it was reported Sunday by CNN.

Gitcho, who held communications posts in the campaigns of John McCain and Mitt Romney, is the third senior communications aide to depart in two months, fueling speculation of mid-cycle internal strife.

6. We’ve got a big announcement

The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) – a project of the American Conservative Union Foundation, in association with Young America’s Foundation and Human Events – is happy to announce that RedState.com will sponsor Bloggers Lounge. This is RedState’s first time sponsoring Bloggers Lounge. CPAC 2010 takes place February 18-20 at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington D.C.

As part of its responsibilities, RedState will vet and approve bloggers to attend the CPAC. “It is a pretty big deal this year,” said RedState’s Editor, Erick Erickson. “This is the first year Bloggers Lounge will be located inside the ballroom where the main event happens. Conservatives from across the country will hear people like Marco Rubio and Glenn Beck and bloggers will, for the first time, be in the room with them.”

CPAC Director Lisa De Pasquale said, “We’re pleased to have this opportunity to work with Erick Erickson and RedState on CPAC’s Bloggers Lounge. Their expertise, reputation for quality content, and focus on issues important to conservatives make them the logical choice to help us lead CPAC’s modern media efforts.”

More than 100 bloggers from both large and small websites will be invited to sit in Bloggers Lounge. They will be given credentials to access the room and special events will be organized for them.

To apply for Bloggers Lounge credentials, please email cpacbloggers@gmail.com.

NOTE: If you want to be credentialed, please include your name, the name of your blog, your blog’s URL, and your twitter ID if you have one.

1. The Crass Duplicity of Nancy Pelosi

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For February 1, 2010

2. More Groveling By Obama

3. Sen. Snowe Flat Out Rejects Reconciliation in Talks with Dems

4. SOTU From An Energy Perspective

5. Adam Andrzejewski Surges

6. Early 2012 Posturing: The Money Game

————————

1. The Crass Duplicity of Nancy Pelosi

Saturday’s Washington Post carries an op-ed by Marc Thiessen, author of Courting Disaster, concerning Nancy Pelosi’s ever morphing story over what she knew about waterboarding. Before we go farther, in order to keep Media Matters or some other lefty from having an aneurysm let me stop and advise everyone that Courting Disaster is published by Regnery Publishing, a division of Eagle Publishing which is the [::ominous music] parent company of RedState.

Thiessen points to an incident in 2004 when Nancy Pelosi was House minority leader and intervened in a CIA operation she objected to. He rightfully points out that if she was able to stop one operation then her whole defense on the issue of not speaking up on the issue of waterboarding becomes viable only to the lobotomy-based community. I think, however, there is a bigger story here.

2. More Groveling By Obama

For the life of me I really don’t understand what in Heaven’s name is going on here. When I first encountered it at Ace of Spades I thought they were pulling my chain. But the AP cut line makes clear what is going on:

“U.S. President Barack Obama bows to Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio at MacDill Air Force Base on Thursday, Jan. 28, 2010 in Tampa, Fla.”

The mayor of Tampa isn’t a Third World potentate, totalitarian dictator, or terrorist leader so I can’t understand why Obama would be in full-bow mode. Is bowing now the standard way the President greets people these days? Is he misoriented, for some reason, and thinks Tampa is a terrorist stronghold or an enemy of the United States? Does the US owe Tampa a boatload of money and the bow just good business practice?

3. Sen. Snowe Flat Out Rejects Reconciliation in Talks with Dems

Do not freak out about Sen. Snowe talking to the Dems.

Senator Snowe has rejected moving forward on any health care bill with the Democrats using reconciliation. This is GREAT NEWS. Without reconciliation the Dems will be in a de novo – start at the beginning – situation, which is where they should start.

If the desperate Dems try reconciliation, this time, they will have a far more serious Republican strategy of “outright war” to deal with – and the repercussions of being on ObamaCare on the Senate floor and in Senate Committees for months and months.

The Dems would be so bloodied and beaten and wounded by the end of their attempt, ObamaCare would not pass, and they would have destroyed the less than one percent chance to explain to the American people that they are not dangerous radicals that ignore what the people want, and keep cramming ObamaCare down the public’s throat because they, the Dems in Washington, know better.

4. SOTU From An Energy Perspective

Wednesday’s State of the Union address was as much about the subjects the President avoided as about the issues or policies he proposed.

The word “wind” occurs not once in the speech. References to solar energy have to do with the number of jobs created building solar panels. Gone are the promises of a future of Rainbows, Unicorns and Magic Windmills; the Administration seems to have come to the realization that wind and solar may make a marginal contribution, but they will never be primary energy sources.

Now the focus is on “advanced biofuels” and “clean coal technology”. Advanced biofuels, relying on algae and whatnot for the generation of diesel equivalent, is one of those technologies that looks great in the lab. Its problem will be scalability, whether industry can figure out how to replace gasoline milllions of barrels at a time.

Clean coal gets the support of the big utilities and the coal companies, but implicit in their support is the government’s financing of the huge capital commitment.

5. Adam Andrzejewski Surges

Gateway Pundit brings news that Adam Andrzejewski has the big mo and has surged into second place with just two days to go in the Illinois primary.

This is terrific news.

Learn more about Adam here.

6. Early 2012 Posturing: The Money Game

A kinder, gentler year for Republicans, 2009 witnessed the flipping of two governorships-one in the newly-designated purple commonwealth of Virginia-and the Senate seat long-held by the late Ted Kennedy. The prospective 2012 Republican contenders, too, have capitalized on the base’s renewed vigor, with early front-runners pulling in-and dolling out-millions for their political action committees.

1. Things are so bad there is a betting pool on which DEMOCRAT screams ‘You Lie!’ tonight.

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

BREAKING NEWS: Obama Lies About Lobbyists

January 27, 2010

Tonight, Barack Obama said, “To close that credibility gap we must take action on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue to end the outsized influence of lobbyists; to do our work openly; and to give our people the government they deserve.

“That’s what I came to Washington to do. That’s why – for the first time in history – my Administration posts our White House visitors online. And that’s why we’ve excluded lobbyists from policy-making jobs or seats on federal boards and commissions.”

Maybe this explains why his national security policies are so weak. He put William Lynn in the Pentagon as Deputy Defense Secretary. Mr. Lynn was a lobbyist for Defense Contractor Ratheon. I guess the Deputy Defense Secretary is not a policy-making job.

But it is not just Lynn.

Eric Holder, attorney general nominee, was registered to lobby until 2004 on behalf of clients including Global Crossing, a bankrupt telecommunications firm [now confirmed].
Tom Vilsack, secretary of agriculture nominee, was registered to lobby as recently as last year on behalf of the National Education Association.
William Lynn, deputy defense secretary nominee, was registered to lobby as recently as last year for defense contractor Raytheon, where he was a top executive.
William Corr, deputy health and human services secretary nominee, was registered to lobby until last year for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, a non-profit that pushes to limit tobacco use.
David Hayes, deputy interior secretary nominee, was registered to lobby until 2006 for clients, including the regional utility San Diego Gas & Electric.
Mark Patterson, chief of staff to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, was registered to lobby as recently as last year for financial giant Goldman Sachs.
Ron Klain, chief of staff to Vice President Joe Biden, was registered to lobby until 2005 for clients, including the Coalition for Asbestos Resolution, U.S. Airways, Airborne Express and drug-maker ImClone.
Mona Sutphen, deputy White House chief of staff, was registered to lobby for clients, including Angliss International in 2003.
Melody Barnes, domestic policy council director, lobbied in 2003 and 2004 for liberal advocacy groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the American Constitution Society and the Center for Reproductive Rights.
Cecilia Munoz, White House director of intergovernmental affairs, was a lobbyist as recently as last year for the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic advocacy group.
Patrick Gaspard, White House political affairs director, was a lobbyist for the Service Employees International Union.
Michael Strautmanis, chief of staff to the president’s assistant for intergovernmental relations, lobbied for the American Association of Justice from 2001 until 2005.

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For January 27, 2010

Just a quick note to let you all know I’ll be on CNN tonight providing words of wisdom on Barack Obama’s State of the Union address. With Steve Jobs unveiling Apple’s latest product today, we will find out which jobs get the most attention: the ones Obama claims he will create or the one delivering a revolutionary new product. I’m betting on the latter. – Erick

2. A Somewhat Bizarre Presidential Proposal On Student Loans

3. NEW POLL: Marco Rubio BEATS Charlie Crist

4. Mike Pence Will Not Run for Senate

5. Illinois Republicans are Obligated to Vote Against Kirk Dillard

6. Climategate: The Ongoing Search for Peer Review

7. Carly Fiorina Doubles Down

————————

1. Things are so bad there is a betting pool on which DEMOCRAT screams ‘You Lie!’ tonight.

Tonight, President Obama will unveil his State of the Union.

Said one well connected Democrat last night, “Things are so bad there is a betting pool on which DEMOCRAT screams ‘You Lie!’ tomorrow night.” Well, tomorrow night is now arrived.

This past week, Americans have been treated to two very awkward scenes – Barack Obama speaking to a group of elementary school students with his teleprompter and Barack Obama speaking to his middle class task force with a teleprompter.

The man is extremely scripted. The visuals subject Obama to appropriate ridicule (school kids + teleprompter. Really?!?), but the script he is using is the true punchline for jokes.

For the past year, Barack Obama has called everything he does “unprecedented” and “historic.” His favorite four letter word is “Bush”. A day does not go by without someone in the administration blaming George Bush for all their ills. Counter-intuitively, the Democrats even blamed George Bush for Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts.

Tonight, it will be interesting to see how often he blames George Bush and how often he resorts to stale cliches the public is no longer buying. Obama, his teleprompter, and the rhetoric they deploy have become the butt of late night jokes. When Barack Obama loses Jon Stewart, he is in real trouble.

But there is a greater trouble for Barack Obama and one very few people are discussing. It is, however, the greatest threat to the Obama administration and is not easily reversed. If he cannot turn back from this threat rather soon, no successes with jobs, the economy, or anything else will save him.

2. A Somewhat Bizarre Presidential Proposal On Student Loans

With student loans, Obama reportedly now wants to put time and income-based limits on how much you have to pay back. Your student loan payments will be capped at no more than 10% of the amount by which your income exceeds a “basic cost of living” amount. And all your debts will be forgiven after 20 years if you work in the private sector, or 10 years if you have a government job.

Higher education is like healthcare in that payments to providers are already heavily subsidized by government. Also like healthcare, the cost of education is rising every year far more quickly than the general inflation rate. Obviously, higher education is an increasingly large burden on middle-class families.

But colleges and universities are also like hospitals and medical practices in another sense: with no built-in incentives to cut costs, they don’t cut costs. That’s the problem we ought to be looking to solve. Instead, Obama wants to create yet another middle-class entitlement that will quickly become permanent, and will permanently enrich a special class (educators) at society’s expense.

Overall, this proposal makes extensive consumption of higher education a no-brain decision. I agree that the middle class is harmed by the skyrocketing cost of higher education. But to repeat the parallel with healthcare, people will automatically use too much of anything they don’t have to pay for.

3. NEW POLL: Marco Rubio BEATS Charlie Crist

A new poll shows Marco Rubio ahead of Charlie Crist for the first time in the race.

The Quinnipiac University poll has Rubio ahead by 3 and also beating Kendrick Meeks, the expected Democrat.

Likewise, Senator John Cornyn is now saying of Rubio, “His chances are better now than they’ve been at any point earlier.” Nonetheless, Cornyn is standing by his man Charlie Crist.

4. Mike Pence Will Not Run for Senate

Sources are confirming for me this morning that Congressman Mike Pence (R-IN) will not run for the United States Senate.

Lots of people on the outside have been pushing Pence, but he has all along seemed interested in staying to fight for 2010. A Senate run would bring into question his ability to lead the House GOP Conference at the same time.

This is refreshing news to many conservatives who were fearful that Pence leaving the House would leave its leadership devoid of a truly conservative voice.

interestingly, I’m also hearing that Pence is not opposed to higher office, just not the Senate. Hmmm . . . He’s going to be traveling a whole lot in the coming year helping candidates and meeting voters across the nation. The many conservatives floating Pence 2012 might have some incentive to keep that effort going.

5. Illinois Republicans are Obligated to Vote Against Kirk Dillard

Triple P polling shows the GOP race for Illinois Governori si tight. Eight points seperate 5 candidates.

Surprisingly, the leader is Kirk Dillard. We must oppose him.

Dillard endorsed Barack Obama. He even shot a commercial for Obama. When McCain became the nominee for the GOP, Dillard shut up, but the record is still there.

We must oppose this guy.

I know folks in the McKenna camp. He’s a rather establishment fella, but not bad and would be much more acceptable than Dillard.

Then there is the intriguing choice of Adam Andrzejewski. He just got endorsed by Lech Walesa who said, “I applaud Mr. Andrzejewski’s commendable effort to bring real reform to politics. His insistence on transparency in public life is badly needed not only in the great state of Illinois, but in any democracy.”

6. Climategate: The Ongoing Search for Peer Review

I hear they’re telling a joke at the International Panel on Climate Change: Knock knock. Who’s there? Peer Review. Peer Review who? Your guess is as good as mine.

But seriously, I thought it was bad enough when a single reference to a piece of speculative fiction about Himalayan glaciers made it into a “peer-reviewed” IPCC report. But it turns out to be a trend.

7. Carly Fiorina Doubles Down

Jesse Jackson is a hateful, left-wing activist. Does any one deny this? His Rainbow/PUSH Coalition clearly promotes a number of lefty causes if you visit the home page:

“Stimulus II Needed to Stimulate the Grass Roots”
“Reduce the Rate: 1% Student Loans”
“Rainbow PUSH Coalition Applauds Announcement of New DOJ Unit to Focus on Unfair Lending Practices

It doesn’t get better exploring the site, either. Read the commentaries and find gems like these:

“Much of America has come a long way on race, as the election of Barack Obama demonstrated. The Republican right-wing not so much.”
“The rabid-right – led by Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh – accused the president of hating white people.”

There is no doubt where Jesse Jackson is politically. And yet here is Carly Fiorina’s fast talk at Hogue News to cover for her comments about Jackson that RedState blew the lid off of on Friday.

1. A little reality check on the so-called “spending freeze”

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RED STATE BREAKING NEWS

January 26, 2010

Sources are confirming for me this morning that Congressman Mike Pence (R-IN) will not run for the United States Senate.

In fact, later today the Congressman will send out a letter to supporters outlining his reasons. In it he will write:

“First because I have been given the responsibility to shape the Republican comeback as a member of the House Republican Leadership and, second, because I believe Republicans will win back the majority in the House of Representatives in 2010.”

This is refreshing news to many conservatives who were fearful that Pence leaving the House would leave its leadership devoid of a truly conservative voice.

The full letter from Congressman Pence is here at RedState.

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For January 26, 2010

2. The Cold Heartedness of Bureaucracy

3. No-Bid Barack

4. NYC Police Commissioner: We Were Never Consulted on Terror Trials

5. Barack Obama Prepares to Drive Up the Costs of Education

————————

1. A little reality check on the so-called “spending freeze”

Barack Obama will be announcing a “spending freeze” on discretionary spending during the State of the Union address. Pay close attention to the words: discretionary spending. The word on the street is that his request will exempt “the Pentagon, veterans programs, foreign aid and homeland security” from this so-called “freeze.” There are a couple of key items to consider:

What exactly does he mean by “freeze?” Does it mean “freeze the level of spending at the bloated 2009 numbers”? Or does it mean “don’t increase these programs any more in 2010 than we did in 2009? Or does it mean “stick to historic growth levels, rather than Obama-caliber spending increases”? Inquiring minds want to know.
Discretionary spending means non-entitlement spending. When you subtract out entitlements: Medicare & Social Security, and then you subtract defense-related spending, there is precious little left. In fact, it comes out to less than nineteen percent of the federal budget.* Barack Obama’s so-called “stimulus” program totaled around $750B – that’s almost 50% greater than the entire non-defense discretionary budget for 2009. Freezing 19% of the federal budget is a drop in the bucket. (see page 8 of this PDF)

Note one other key item in that Federal Budget PDF document. As of the year 2017, “Net Interest” – the interest paid on the national debt – exceeds ALL non-discretionary federal spending. If Barack Obama wanted to have a real impact on the federal budget, both now and in the future, he would cease and desist from these so-called “stimuli” that are doing little or nothing to fix the Obama Recession.

To propose a spending freeze of any sort is good political theater for Obama, but it will have virtually no impact on the financial standing of the United States of America.

2. The Cold Heartedness of Bureaucracy

Remember how the Democrats vehemently denied both the existence of the death panels and the cold nature of the decision making processes that would be invoked to save money on health care?

Well, then you should not be shocked to learn the Democrat leadership of the House of Representatives is prohibiting members of Congress from putting links to Haitian Relief efforts on their websites and encouraging donations to the Red Cross, Salvation Army, and other groups.

But don’t worry. The House Democrats say it is permissible for members of Congress to link to the White House’s relief effort. Just not private sector charities.

3. No-Bid Barack

To varying degrees, every presidential candidate makes promises during the course of the campaign that the realities of governing eventually cause the winner to break. But never has the US seen a president like Barack Obama, whose broken campaign promises far outnumber his fulfilled ones.

The list is seemingly endless: no lobbyists in the administration, closing Guantanamo Bay, a tax cut for 95% of Americans, a net reduction in federal spending, no new taxes for anyone making under $250,000, health care negotiations on C-SPAN, on and on. All broken. What’s more, each of these was broken in absolute terms, not as a result of any nuanced position or interpretation.

Today comes word of another campaign promise to be added to the ash heap of “history’s unmarked grave of discarded campaign promises,” to paraphrase a prior occupant of the Oval Office. As a candidate, Barack Obama promised to, “put an end to the abuse of no-bid contracts once and for all.” So it was only a matter of time before Obama was certain to be discovered awarding no-bid contracts of his own.

4. NYC Police Commissioner: We Were Never Consulted on Terror Trials

Mike Bloomberg’s Chief of Police spoke to the New York Young Republican Club last week, and he told the stunned audience that the Obama White House never consulted with the NYPD or Mayor Bloomberg before announcing a decision to try Khalid Sheikh Muhammad in lower Manhattan.

5. Barack Obama Prepares to Drive Up the Costs of Education

When Obama takes to the podium for the State of the Union, one of the things he is allegedly going to push is a wholesale federal take over of the student loan industry.

Already, his plans are causing a lot of students, particularly of private higher ed colleges and universities, problems with getting financing for education. Obama intends to shut out the usual third party lenders and put everything within the federal government – under a program that has been shown repeatedly to be highly inefficient and burdensome for academic institutions.

More troubling, by putting everything under the Department of Education, universities and colleges will be forced to adhere to federal rules, some of which conflict with the values of sectarian institutions that presently use the third party student loan system for their students.

The feds controlling the student loan industry means the feds get to tell academic institutions what values they can and cannot promote among the selection and disciplining of their students.

Brigham Young, etc. better watch out.

1. Is it really ‘fringe’? And is the game coming on for Pat Hughes?

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For January 25, 2010

2. JD Hayworth to Challenge McCain

3. Marion Berry (D, AR-01) cuts and runs.

4. Congressional Democrats to AMA: Go Pound Sand

5. Filibuster “Reform” On Senate Agenda

6. Thiessen and Amanpour

————————

1. Is it really ‘fringe’? And is the game coming on for Pat Hughes?

Pat Brady, the Chairman of the Illinois Republican Party, says the anti-Mark Kirk element within the GOP is ‘fringe.’

That’s actually not quite true and is precisely why so many conservatives in Illinois don’t like Brady or Kirk – they feel repeated disrespected and treated as fringe.

In fact, considering how active the Illinois Tea Party movement is in opposing Kirk, Brady is, in effect, calling all of those activists fringe. He might want to be careful.

Conservatives across the country are seriously considering a last minute air-drop of support into Illinois for Pat Hughes. The thinking goes that the last minute effort to help Scott Brown put him over the finish line and the same could be done in these last eleven days before the Illinois GOP primary.

If conservatives come out early next week in an organized fashion, throw a pile of targeted money into Illinois, and rapidly drive up Pat Hughes’ name identification, the polling in Illinois suggests Hughes will win.

2. JD Hayworth to Challenge McCain

There’s been speculation about this for a while, and now it’s all but official. Former Congressman JD Hayworth – a staunch conservative during his 12 years in the House – will challenge John McCain for his Arizona Senate seat.

3. Marion Berry (D, AR-01) cuts and runs.

Somebody call up Stu Rothenberg and Charlie Cook (ooh, Charlie had this one as Likely Democratic): they need to adjust their Democratic DOOMWatch lists again.

4. Congressional Democrats to AMA: Go Pound Sand

Here’s a completely unsurprising and predictable story.

Do you remember how many conservatives spent months trying to figure out why the leadership of the American Medical Association signed the nation’s doctors up in support of Obamacare? Many conservatives argued that the AMA was being shortsighted – that Congressional Democrats would ultimately betray the AMA, despite the powerful group’s consistent advocacy of the president’s health care rationing bill. We knew that the AMA had made a deal with the devil: they backed Pelosi and Reid only because they promised the ‘doc fix’ – permanent relief from huge reductions in Medicare reimbursements. We said that Democrats would use the AMA endorsement and then turn against the group when they had the chance.

Well, we were right.

5. Filibuster “Reform” On Senate Agenda

The ink is yet to dry on Senator-elect Scott Brown’s certification to be the 41st vote against ObamaCare and the left is readying a multi-pronged attack on the filibuster. Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Congressman Jim McDermott (D-WA) have opened up a front in both the House and the Senate to lower the threshold for Senate leadership to stifle debate and amendment. Don’t be fooled. These are merely first shots in an all out war by the left to exterminate the one rule in the Senate that makes it difficult for the Obama Administration to railroad though an unpopular left wing agenda.

6. Thiessen and Amanpour

I have written about this before. Marc Thiessen was on with Christiane Amanpour earlier in the week on CNN’s International network to discuss his new book. They had a heated confrontation that is well worth watching.

The interview was to air on the U.S. network today, but because of the situation in Haiti, it got bumped. Nonetheless, I think you should consider taking a few minutes and watching.

Here is clip one.

Here is clip two.

Please note that Regnery Publishing, the publisher of Marc’s book, is owned by Eagle Publishing, Inc., our parent too.

1. Obama’s Unicorn of Hope and Change Died Under the Weight of Ted Kennedy’s Ego

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For January 20, 2010

folks, I’m sorry for the delay this morning. My internet access went down around 1:00 a.m. this morning and I’ve been trying to get online ever since to get this up. My apologies. — Erick

2. NEXT.

3. The Ungovernability of the American Republic

4. New York Democrat Official to Switch Parties; Run for Governor?

5. Boxer: Don’t Worry, Obamacare Pays for Abortion

6. Vice President Biden v Senator Biden on Filibuster

————————

1. Obama’s Unicorn of Hope and Change Died Under the Weight of Ted Kennedy’s Ego

In Massachusetts, Barack Obama’s unicorn of hope and changed died under the weight of Ted Kennedy’s ego. The left gets angry when it is pointed out, but it is an objective fact.

Once Kennedy’s condition became terminal, he could have resigned his seat in favor of an appointment or special election. Instead, the Democrats and Kennedy decided he should martyr himself to advance socialized medicine in America. Had he resigned before the health care debate began, the Republican victory in Massachusetts would be a myth. Instead, it is now a reality. Yes, you can credit Ted Kennedy with killing health care, not just Mary Jo Kopechne.

ObamaCare was on life support. Scott Brown just removed its feeding tube thanks to Ted Kennedy.

There are ten other things to take away from Scott Brown’s victory. . .

2. NEXT.

This message goes out to every vulnerable Democratic Congressman representing a Republican or even centrist district – and after tonight, who among you is not vulnerable? It is a simple message: we can do this the easy way, or we can do it the hard way. The easy way is, you suddenly decide that you have a burning desire to spend more time with your families. So you don’t run for re-election, you walk off stage technically undefeated, and you go join a lobbying firm. The hard way is, you do run for re-election, and we pry you out of your seats.

We want to do this the hard way. We will enjoy doing it.

That’s your only warning. And remember: nobody is going to be able to save you. If the President, the DSCC, the DCCC, the DNC, the SEIU, ACORN, and the netroots couldn’t manage a win in Massachusetts… what do you think that they can do for you?

3. The Ungovernability of the American Republic

When the left starts talking about nations becoming ungovernable, stock up on guns and ammo, because that usually means they’ll start forcefully agitating for a more governable country according to their definition of governability.

That is a real and very inconvenient fact of history spread across continents.

And thus it begins here.

4. New York Democrat Official to Switch Parties; Run for Governor?

Remember back when the Republican party was dead in the northeast? It now appears to be a growth industry.

5. Boxer: Don’t Worry, Obamacare Pays for Abortion

This morning the president’s health care rationing bill may be facing its own death panel. But for yesterday at least, Democrat leaders claim that they are just days away from enacting this monstrosity. If the Senate bill is about to come for a vote in the House – as some suggest – ‘pro-Life Democrats’ will have to explain their vote for a bill that Barbara Boxer says provides government coverage for abortions.

6. Vice President Biden v Senator Biden on Filibuster

The left is organizing a public relations campaign to rid the Senate of the filibuster rule and they intend on using a strong arm tactic to exterminate dissent and debate. With a simple majority vote, many of the same Democrats who were apoplectic about Republican plans to rid the Senate of the filibuster for judicial nominees in 2005, are readying a parliamentary maneuver that they denounced during the Bush presidency. Consistency is not a strong point of politicians and Vice President Joe Biden has completed a flip flop on the filibuster than will make your head spin.

Vice President Joe Biden, who is President of the U.S. Senate pursuant to the Constitution, has reversed his course on the filibuster.

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For January 14, 2010

5. Democrats Go Into ‘Sheer Panic’ Mode Over Massachusetts

6. Where’s the Nobel Prize Money, Mr. President?

————————

As we learn more and more about Haiti, we know for sure that nation is truly devastated. The Salvation Army is where I always give money. The organization gives a phenomenal amount of its proceeds to the cause, not to administrative overhead.

Folks, you know I always say give to candidates. But candidates can wait. Relief cannot. Please give what you can.

We can help. Right now the people of Haiti need it.

Thanks.

The only explanation I can think of for this is that Arnold is still nominally a Republican. His emergency budget plan for the state of California builds in an expectation of funds from the current and/or the next Federal stimpack.

Standard & Poor’s observed, rationally enough, that there’s no guarantee that Obama will write over so much of your and my money to California, so they downgraded the state’s debt to A-, one of the lowest investment-grade ratings. That means California has to pay a lot more money in interest every time they borrow, and will have fewer investors available to lend to them. Which of course makes their fiscal crisis all the worse.

Now you’d think California would be too big to fail, especially since they reliably give 55 electoral votes to every Democratic presidential candidate. Bill Clinton, as President, seemed to spend as much time in California as he did in Washington.

But today, David Axelrod was quoted as saying that he recognizes California’s problems, but can’t solve them all from Washington. To recall a famous line from the Seventies: Drop dead!

It seems that the further you get from the elites in Washington DC, who have a stake in Harry Reid remaining in power, the more likely you are to find African Americans who have a problem with Harry Reid’s comments about Barack Obama. And while I don’t agree with Doug Wilder on much, he makes a point that Reid and his defenders have attempted to gloss over: just because Barack Obama has (unsurprisingly) forgiven Reid, that’s not the end of the matter. Harry Reid’s surprising use of a term that is at best, antiquated and at worst, racist, is not a concern just for the president. It speaks to the way Reid views the African-American community as a whole. Wilder thinks Reid needs to apologize more broadly to the American people.

Well well. After the media carrying Martha Coakley’s water for an entire day, claiming that report John McCormack tripped instead of, as McCormack claimed, being shoved to the grown by Coakley aide Michael Meehan, Meehan has now issued an apology for shoving McCormack.

Yet again we have the bulk of the mainstream media carrying a Democrat’s water and buying wholesale their spin.

5. Democrats Go Into ‘Sheer Panic’ Mode Over Massachusetts

The Democrats have gone into ’sheer panic’ mode over Martha Coakley’s campaign in Massachusetts.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) has made expenditures to help Martha Coakley.

Read that again.

NOT the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), but the campaign committee for the House of Representatives.

Why would House Democrats be spending their precious resources on someone running for the United States Senate? Because they know it would destroy Nancy Pelosi’s agenda to have Scott Brown in the Senate.

6. Where’s the Nobel Prize Money, Mr. President?

I’ve been waiting for some time for President Obama to announce what charity or charities will receive the $1.4 million in Nobel prize money awarded him. With all of the negative press he’s had and continuing plummeting polls numbers, you would think he’d donate the cash now. I’m sure he will donate it, but it seems odd that no announcement has been made.

1. Martha Coakley: Nuns are Bad, Pedophiles are Good.

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For January 15, 2010

2. The Story The Media Is Missing Because It Does Not Fit Their Narrative

3. Martha Coakley: Terrible Prosecutor

4. Martha Coakley Disses Fenway Park, Shaking Hands With Bostonians. No, Really.

5. Mike Pence: Health Care: “This fight ain’t over”

6. What Do Sarah Palin and Jesus Christ Have In Common?

————————

1. Martha Coakley: Nuns are Bad, Pedophiles are Good.

Every once in a while a combination of stories comes along in politics that is so bizarre you can’t believe you’re actually writing about it. This is one of those times. Fresh after taking a run at Fenway Park fans in a public interview yesterday, Martha Coakley decided today that she’d insult another institution nobody in Massachusetts gives a crap about: Nuns. Here she is discussing why Nuns shouldn’t be allowed to work in Catholic Hospitals – private institutions that have zero problem with accommodating the consciences of the nuns . . . .

WAIT. THIS STORY GETS WORSE.

While Nuns and Fenway Park are on Martha Coakley’s bad list, it turns out she has a good list. Know who’s on it? Pedophiles.

2. The Story The Media Is Missing Because It Does Not Fit Their Narrative

Let’s admit there is media bias. We know there is despite the best efforts of some on the left to deny it.

I cannot tell you the number of reporters at major networks and newspapers who will, in private moments, admit there is a real bias.

In most cases it is not an intentional bias. It is a product of being largely highly educated, liberally inclined, white urbanites who live on the Upper West Side, have drivers whisk them off to their studio or out of Adams-Morgan into downtown DC where they hang out with other fashionable liberals who, unlike me, think Jimmy Choo is a shoe manufacturer and not, a I thought, a Chinese restaurant.

They talk about what’s in the New York Times Magazine and on its front page. They gossip about who isn’t sleeping with Maureen Dowd anymore. They go to wine country in France, tie the latest J. Crew sweater around their neck because Michelle does, and otherwise live in an insular world of group think.

The preconceived notions they develop in this insular world of their likeminded friends colors what gets reported and what doesn’t. The majority of Americans who realize global warming is a scam are pooh-poohed as ignorant because all the guys at Brown, Harvard, and Vassar say so.

The credible scientists who disagree with the group think are shunned as holocaust deniers. Republicans and conservatives are treated as the same creature.

David Gergen’s latest bout of conventional wisdom is serenaded on NPR and David Frum is celebrated for speaking truth to power from the renovated carriage house behind his posh home on the northwest side of Washington. The women from The View are considered intellectuals, except for that Republican one who is just on their for the affirmative action quota for wingers.

Sarah Palin is disdained because she had a Down Syndrome child and all the forty something first time moms dropping their kids off (assuming it’s not the nanny doing it) at Birch Wathen Lenox, Trinity, and Dwight before going to work at their six-figure jobs know that smart women abort Down Syndrome babies – there’s a great clinic in SoHo where you can shop fashionably after the baby is chopped up and sucked out.

Sometimes the bias is more patent, open, and intentional. After all, friends do want to help out their friends and likeminded brethren on the left. Any criticism of Obama is racist and conservatives sometimes must pay the price.

The mainstream media arising out of that culture misses stories that don’t fit the narrative or don’t make it past the New York – DC corridor echo chamber.

Right now the media is missing a really big story. It does not fit their narrative.

3. Martha Coakley: Terrible Prosecutor

It’s worth recalling, as the Massachusetts Senate election approaches, that Martha Coakley is not just some bland Democratic machine apparatchik. She’s a bland Democratic machine apparatchik with a long record as a prosecutor that includes some very ugly things.

Exhibit A is the notorious case, familiar to readers of the Wall Street Journal over the past three decades, of Gerald Amirault. The case, discussed in summary here, was a terrible miscarriage of justice involving fantastical accounts of sex abuse of children, exposed by Journal reporter Dorothy Rabinowitz; it was originally prosecuted by another politically ambitious Democrat, Scott Harshbarger. And then Martha Coakley took over.

4. Martha Coakley Disses Fenway Park, Shaking Hands With Bostonians. No, Really.

Given the serial fiascoes of the Martha Coakley for Senate campaign – veering from gaffe (her claim that there are no terrorists in Afghanistan) to comedy (misspelling her own state’s name in an attack ad) to ham-handedness (a staffer barrelling over a Weekly Standard reporter trying to ask about the Afghanistan gaffe) to outright panic in her communications with national Democrats, who are now tapping into their House campaign fund to prop her up – you would think, five days before Election Day, that the second coming of Shannon O’Brien has run out of ways to hand Scott Brown an upset victory in the race for what was for decades Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat (but, as Brown has reminded us, remains the people’s seat to do with as they wish).

5. Mike Pence: Health Care: “This fight ain’t over”

When Harry Reid passed a government-run health care bill two weeks ago, he believed the long battle was done. He was wrong. After months of speaking out against a government takeover of health care – via phone calls, letters, town halls, protests and online activism – the American people will not quietly accept this fate. Now, the roughly 2,000 page bill is being negotiated behind closed doors – even after the president promised at least eight times that this process would be televised.

C-SPAN has offered to broadcast the negotiations anytime, anywhere. This failure to respond to C-SPAN’s broadcast request is appalling. While transparency was once the “touchstone” of Obama’s campaign, it’s clear that promise was mere campaign rhetoric.

6. What Do Sarah Palin and Jesus Christ Have In Common?

I don’t know what it is about Sarah Palin that sets people off, but there is very little in between. The reaction people have to Sarah Palin is very much the reaction many people have to Jesus – both offend and disgust the secular values of some and with others failing to embrace either sends you straight to hell. Judging by my conversation with Governor Palin a few weeks ago when I asked her why the left has more compassion for Al Qaeda than for conservative women and minorities, I think she gets it and finds some humor in it. . . .

But there is a serious problem developing among some of Palin’s biggest fans.

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For January 14, 2010

5. Democrats Go Into ‘Sheer Panic’ Mode Over Massachusetts

6. Where’s the Nobel Prize Money, Mr. President?

————————

Folks, you know I always say give to candidates. But candidates can wait. Relief cannot. Please give what you can.

We can help. Right now the people of Haiti need it.

Thanks.

But today, David Axelrod was quoted as saying that he recognizes California’s problems, but can’t solve them all from Washington. To recall a famous line from the Seventies: Drop dead!

Yet again we have the bulk of the mainstream media carrying a Democrat’s water and buying wholesale their spin.

5. Democrats Go Into ‘Sheer Panic’ Mode Over Massachusetts

The Democrats have gone into ’sheer panic’ mode over Martha Coakley’s campaign in Massachusetts.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) has made expenditures to help Martha Coakley.

Read that again.

NOT the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), but the campaign committee for the House of Representatives.

6. Where’s the Nobel Prize Money, Mr. President?

1. I declare DOOM for Martha Coakley (D, MA-SEN).

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For January 13, 2010

2. Dem Congressman Blasts Interior Sec’y Salazar’s Policies, Rhetoric

3. Sen. Dodd (D-CT): Health Bill “is hanging by a thread, obviously”

4. Chat With Sean Duffy – Live on RedState

————————

1. I declare DOOM for Martha Coakley (D, MA-SEN).

I’ve been fighting the urge: it’s Massachusetts. But let’s review the evidence.

The latest Rasmussen poll: 49/47 Coakley/Brown. That’s +2 Coakley for likely voters. Definite ones? +1 Brown. The total shift is +7 Brown in a week.

Internal Democratic polling (via AoSHQ) is saying Coakley +5. Last week? Coakley +14. +9 shift to Brown, in other words.

They’re not just paying union members to hold signs for Coakley: they’re paying Brown-voting union members to hold signs for Coakley.

And lastly: Coakley is scared. She admitted to being frightened in a conference call today at the way that Scott Brown has come out of nowhere to disrupt her coronation. She needs money. The campaign that bragged about the 5.2 million dollars that they raised last year needs money. That’s why the DSCC is throwing almost 600K into the race. So that Martha Coakley can maintain parity against the interloper.

(pause)

DOOM.

2. Dem Congressman Blasts Interior Sec’y Salazar’s Policies, Rhetoric

Rep. Dan Boren (D-OK02), like most energy-state Congressmen, knows upon which side his bread is buttered. Oklahoma’s economy depends heavily on the energy industry, and the industry has always treated the Sooner State well. Many of the recent advances in petroleum and natural gas technology were pioneered by the independent companies who call Oklahoma their home.

“Big Oil” left Oklahoma many, many years ago. Oklahoma is the “independents’” home: Chesapeake and Devon, to be sure, but also privately-held, family businesses and smaller private companies: Kaiser-Francis, Continental Resources, and Samson Resources.

The independents that Dan Boren knows sure don’t feel like “Kings of the World”. They’ve had about four or five years of really tall cotton out of the last twenty-five, a quarter-century that has seen total industry employment cut in half. The survivors are where they are because they deserve to be, not because anyone gave them an easy road.

3. Sen. Dodd (D-CT): Health Bill “is hanging by a thread, obviously”

RealClearPolitics has the key parts of Dodd’s statement in a video clip and CBS News reports the Trillion Dollar President’s approval rating has hit a new low – 46%.

Senator Dodd (D-CT) gives his normally rambling comments, among them:

“If this is all about surviving politically, then we’re missing the whole purpose of what we’re supposed to be doing,”

which is ironic and easy for him to say because he just announced his retirement. Dodd was widely seen as one of the most unlikely to win re-election. He has visibly aged.

4. Chat With Sean Duffy – Live on RedState

Today on RedState at 11:30 a.m. ET, we are going to do a live chat on RedState with Sean Duffy, who is the Republican candidate about to mop the floor with David Obey up in Wisconsin.

1. Our Friend Paula Nowakowski

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For January 12, 2010

TODAY IS RUSH LIMBAUGH’S BIRTHDAY. MEGA DITTOS, RUSH!

2. The Man Who Would Keep Us Safe From Terrorists Would Rather Focus on Baptists Than Islamic Terrorists

3. I’m Afraid Sarah Palin Might Be Ruining Herself Unintentionally

4. Harry Reid Among The Race Hypocrites

5. What Hath Barack Obama Wrought?

6. Charlie Crist Will Drop Out of the Senate Race

7. Patrick Hughes v. Mark Kirk: Illinois May be a Test Case for the Effectiveness of Tea Parties

————————

1. Our Friend Paula Nowakowski

We in the conservative movement are not shy to criticize members of Republican leadership – and by implication (or occasionally, directly) their staff. But those of us who have worked on Capitol Hill know precisely how hard it is to find good staff, how hard those good staff members work, and how important they can be – not just to the members – but to the conservative cause.

We lost one of the best of those staff members this weekend – our friend, Paula Nowakowski. Paula was a long time adviser to Leader Boehner, having started with him back in 1995, and was most recently his Chief of Staff.

Paula was “of the revolution” and never lost her fervor for the battle. She was a friend to conservatives and did her best in the face of the Washington Republican establishment to keep the Republican Conference on the right track.

I noticed when I looked for some updates online that one of the typically classy loony left posted a posthumous rant about Paula – which I know she would take as a badge of honor. I won’t link to it, but it read, in part, “…she pushed the most stringent anti-abortion crap along the political highway, and for years, she has been the chief of staff of one J. Boehner… This woman has been pushing Reagan and newt’s ultra-conservatism for decades…”

Yep. And I suspect the conversation with St. Pete is going quite well.

God Bless you, Paula. We’ll miss you.

RIP.

2. The Man Who Would Keep Us Safe From Terrorists Would Rather Focus on Baptists Than Islamic Terrorists

Had Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) not put a hold on the nomination of Erroll Southers to be the head of TSA, he might have been confirmed by the Senate without any serious digging into his background.

We know, for example, that the White House now admits it did not vet Mr. Southers. In fact, were you to pass through a TSA checkpoint at the airport, you will have been more heavily vetted that Mr. Southers.

But now there is new and far more troubling information about Mr. Southers caught on video. According to Erroll Southers, pro-life Christians and our support of Jews is a bigger threat to national security than Al Qaeda.

Mr. Southers, in 2008, said he was more worried about “Christian identity” terrorist groups inside the U.S. than islamic terrorists. What are “Christian identity” terrorist groups? White-supremacists naturally. The KKK. And the Southern Baptist Convention.

Southers identifies pro-life groups and anti-government activists as particular problems.

Yes, you read that right. Mr. Southers is worried more about tea party activists than Islamic terrorists.

3. I’m Afraid Sarah Palin Might Be Ruining Herself Unintentionally

I swore I was going to keep my mouth shut on this, but I keep getting emails from people along the lines of “if you don’t say it, who will?”

Yeah, I guess I have become that guy.

I am afraid Sarah Palin is going to harm herself unintentionally over this tea party convention in Nashville.

Full disclosure: I have asked several of the tea party organizations that, early on, I was supportive of to stop using my name and RedState’s logo. I think the tea party movement has largely descended into ego and quest for purpose for individuals at the expense of what the tea party movement started out to be.

That’s not to say it is in every case. I have much good to say about groups like Tea Party Patriots, but I think this national tea party convention smells scammy.

Let me be blunt: charging people $500.00 plus the costs of travel and lodging to go to a “National Tea Party Convention” run by a for profit group no one has ever heard of sounds as credible as an email from Nigeria promising me a million bucks if I fork over my bank account number.

I am led to believe a number of the sponsors who lent their names early on have grown wary of the event. That lines up with what I am hearing.

4. Harry Reid Among The Race Hypocrites

By now most of you have seen Harry Reid’s reported remarks, from a book on the 2008 election, enthusing that Barack Obama could be a successful presidential candidate because he was “light-skinned” and “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.” The real story here is the Left’s hypocrisy: Reid has committed a sin that would be unpardonable by anyone but a Democratic politician.

5. What Hath Barack Obama Wrought?

I know I am not the only one who has said we’re playing with idiocy in Barack Obama’s efforts to try terrorists in civilian courts.

Check out this news.

“A federal judge has tossed out most of the government’s evidence against a terrorism detainee on grounds his confessions were coerced, allegedly by U.S. forces, before he became a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay.”

6. Charlie Crist Will Drop Out of the Senate Race

The Crist campaign says it is not true, but the writing is on the wall. Again and again the media turns against Crist.

Another blow to the Crist campaign came today as the Republican National Committee’s War Room sent out this unflattering story about the failures of the Crist campaign.

The RNC did that.

But Crist valiantly made a blow stand this evening in Pinellas County. It is his home county. After seeing Marco Rubio win every single straw poll of every single county in Florida that has had them so far, Crist knew that tonight he would win the Pinellas County GOP straw poll. It is, after all, his own freaking county.

Crist lost. The vote was 106-54 in Marco Rubio’s favor. In Charlie Crist’s home county.

Charlie Crist is going to drop out of the U.S. Senate primary in Florida. The writing is on the wall. It reads “Mene Mene Tekel Parsin”.

7. Patrick Hughes v. Mark Kirk: Illinois May be a Test Case for the Effectiveness of Tea Parties

February 2, 2010 is the Illinois Republican Primary. Less than one month away. Patrick Hughes is running an upstart campaign against the would be Republican nominee, Mark Kirk. Patrick Hughes is as far right as Kirk is as far left.

Patrick Hughes aims to harness the conservatives and tea party activists in Illinois who feel marginalized by Kirk and the Democrats further to the left of him. On Friday, Mark Levin endorsed Patrick Hughes and urged conservatives to rally to Patrick Hughes in this last month before the primary.

It makes a compelling case to see just how rapid a response the tea party activists and conservatives can make in a Republican Primary. Should Patrick Hughes win the GOP primary, it would send shock waves across the nation and severely shake the foundations of the GOP establishment.

2. Democrats To African Americans: Your Degree Of *Blackness* Determines Our Fortune

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For January 11, 2010

1. Where are they now?

3. New York Democrats: Trying KSM in NYC is Kind of Risky

4. Unemployment still at 10%.

5. Dem Scheme: Seat Brown Late if he Wins, Until After Health Care Gets to Senate

6. Why is Barbara Boxer Screwing California?

7. The Daily Caller is Up

————————

1. Where are they now?

News broke this weekend that a forthcoming book on the 2008 election will report Harry Reid making some incendiary remarks about Barack Obama. Specifically, Harry Reid said Obama has “no Negro dialect, unless he wants to have one.”

Let’s take the Wayback Machine to 2002, shall we? We’ll take a look at the Democrats’ responses to Trent Lott’s statements (and subsequent apology) about Strom Thurmond, which were widely condemned as “racist.” Lott had said “we wouldn’t be in the mess we were in today” had Thurmond won the Presidency way back when Thurmond ran as a Dixiecrat.

‘His apology does not take away the sting of his divisive words…‘ – Barbara Boxer
‘I can tell you if a Democratic leader said such a thing, they would not be allowed to keep their position,’ – Mary Landrieu
‘What he said was insensitive as hell; it’s very offensive,’ … ‘Race is serious stuff. It’s not something you kid about.‘ – Joe Biden
‘…the GOP must decide whether Lott ‘represents the views of the majority of Republicans in the Senate and in our country.‘ – Hillary Clinton
‘We need political leaders who are healers, not dividers,’ … ‘I hope that Senator Lott’s apology will translate into action and that he will advance policies that bring us together as a nation rather than pull us apart.‘ – Dick Durbin
‘When connected to past comments and votes, this statement casts a dark shadow over Sen. Lott’s ability to be a credible party leader‘ – Diane Feinstein
‘Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a Democrat, described Lott’s comments as ‘outrageous’ and ‘completely inexcusable.’ ‘Those kinds of comments have no place in our society and should be repudiated by every American,’ Stabenow said in a statement. ‘At this point, the Republican caucus in the U.S. Senate needs to think long and hard about the kind of values they want their leadership to represent.‘ – Debbie Stabenow
“The Republican Party itself has to drive out Trent Lott. If they have to stand for something, they have to stand up and say this is not the person we want representing our party.” – Barack Obama

2. Democrats To African Americans: Your Degree Of *Blackness* Determines Our Fortune

When Trent Lott suggested that “we wouldn’t be in the mess we are today” back in 2002 had Thurmond been elected President 54 years earlier, the Democrats were quick to tie the segregationist element of Thurmond around Lott’s neck (rather than the State’s rights element) and summarily had Lott tarred, feathered, effigied, and FIRED from his leadership position in the US Senate. Note to class-NEVER did Lott affirm his support of segregation, and NEVER were we asked to consider Thurmond’s embrace of the 10th amendment. We were just told Thurmond’s segregationist ideology HAD to be what Lott was talking about and that he must, therefore, be run outta Dodge.

How, then, does Harry Reid get to keep his job when he sees the quality of African Americans according to their skin tone and linguistic prowess? The answer shouldn’t be looked for in Michael Steele’s paid-to-be-mad rants, nor in Republican wails against double standards. The answer needs to found in the opinion of the people he represents where it should be…not with the media, the elites and the professional pundits. It’s not hard to see that Reid, just as with Bill Clinton, sees African Americans as political tools and foregone voting bloc conclusions. Let THEM express themselves in the voting booths. Let the rest of us just sit back and watch.

3. New York Democrats: Trying KSM in NYC is Kind of Risky

Remember back when Charlie Schumer, Kirsten Gillibrand, and the rest of the New York Democrats thought that trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York City posed no significant security risk? Remember how they said we could easily guarantee the safety of New Yorkers whose memories of 9/11 remained fresh? Well, apparently they’re suddenly worried, because now they’re concerned enough about costs that they’re demanding the federal government pay billions for it.

You can sign our petition to protest the KSM civilian trial by going here.

4. Unemployment still at 10%.

I was hoping for a drop down into single digits, even if it was a high one. But hope is not a plan, as the current ruling party seems determined to prove. Short version: we lost 85K jobs last month – they were expecting a gain – and the number is only holding still because a lot of people gave up looking for work. If you count that number, we’re at 17.3% and that’s up from 17.2% in November. The report then goes into a lot of detail to avoid coming out and saying that the economy’s currently in neutral, we’re on a slight downward slope, and the administration’s turned on the windshield wipers and called it setting the parking brake.

5. Dem Scheme: Seat Brown Late if he Wins, Until After Health Care Gets to Senate

In a clear demonstration of the Speaker’s comment that we will do “almost anything” to pass health care, the Democrats have said they will delay seating Scott Brown, the GOP candidate for Senate in Massachusetts if he wins the race for former Senator Kennedy’s Senate seat on January 19th.

Talk about lighting a torch while standing is in a field of gasoline! The Dems would be really putting on their crazy train if they tried this.

This plan is rank with corruption. Not only would they be denying the will of the people of Massachusetts, but they would be corrupting our process even further to do it – I mean, besides buying off Senators Nelson and Landrieu – you know.

For the Dems to be planning in this level of detail for a loss is revealing, and puts an explanation point on the great anger at ObamaCare in the nation – and the Dems desperation in even considering this CHEAT.

6. Why is Barbara Boxer Screwing California?

Just this week, California’s liberal Governor took aim at the Reid-Pelosi health care overhaul. His strong language must have stung the Californians who played such a large part in crafting the bill: Boxer, Feinstein, Pelosi, and others. Even Governor Schwarzenegger had the good sense to leave his ideology at the door when he realized the bill would bankrupt the state; not so with Boxer. Even when her antidiluvian liberalism obviously conflicts with the state’s interests, she’d rather tell the voters of her state to pound sand than give up on a government takeover of health care.

If you’re wondering why Barbara Boxer cannot break 50% in polls of her Senate race, it’s likely because even the voters of deep-blue California recognize that Boxer is too extreme.

7. The Daily Caller is Up

Many of us on the right have been eagerly awaiting Tucker Carlson’s new project, the Daily Caller. It’s finally live. Check it out here.

Welcome to the fight, guys.

Please join us in signing the petition against the trial.

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For January 8, 2010

PLEASE MAKE THIS A MUST READ

Go here and learn about the Human Events petition on the KSM trial in New York. Join the growing list of Americans who are opposed to trying terrorists in civilian courts in New York.

1. Al Qaeda Says Barack Obama Doesn’t Know What He is Talking About

2. Government’s case weakening against the U.S. Navy SEALs?

3. OK…*Someone* Is Lying To Us About Terrorists

4. Nelson: Everyone Will get the Cornhusker Kickback

5. Bob Bennett: An Old Dog With an Old Schtick

6. My mistake

————————

1. Al Qaeda Says Barack Obama Doesn’t Know What He is Talking About

According to Barack Obama, Al Qaeda keeps attacking us and recruiting new terrorists because GTMO exists.

Unfortunately for Obama, Al Qaeda says the recent attack on the CIA was actually because of our drones.

If we follow Obama’s logic that the existence of GTMO causes terror attacks, we must conclude that Obama will now shut down the remote drone program.

Of course it is frightening to follow Obama’s logic.

According to him, GTMO is used as a recruiting tool in the Arabian world. Al Qaeda recruits terrorists who want to come to America to kill us because their brethren are in GTMO.

Do not … REPEAT … do not ask Barack Obama how moving the GTMO prisoners to a prison on domestic soil will somehow cause Al Qaeda to say, “Yo, we’re cool now.” In fact, if GTMO causes Al Qaeda to want to come to America to kill Americans, how much more so will a prison in Illinois incite them to come here and not only kill us but also free their brethren.

This guy is an amateur.

2. Government’s case weakening against the U.S. Navy SEALs?

We’ve been repeatedly noting, there is an effort afoot to bring the public’s attention to the plight of three U.S. Navy SEALs (Julio Huertas, Jonathan Keefe and Matthew McCabe) who, as part of SEAL Team 10, have been brought up on charges that one of the most-wanted terrorists in Iraq, Ahmed Hashim Abed, received a boo-boo during a raid in September.

In early December the trio plead not guilty to charges of dereliction of duty and making false official statements. One would expect the government, having already brought charges, to be prepared to move forward to trial, originally set for two of them a fortnight from now.

Well, if you thought that, you’d be wrong.

3. OK…*Someone* Is Lying To Us About Terrorists

CBS News is reporting that the White House claims there was “No Xmas Day In-Flight Warning” and, further, that they refute the claims of an LA Times piece that suggested “border enforcement officials found information in a database suggesting the alleged terrorist, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, had extremist ties.”

4. Nelson: Everyone Will get the Cornhusker Kickback

Senator Ben Nelson (D-DeadMeat) continues to try to distance himself from his Obamacare bribe and his vote for the bill.

5. Bob Bennett: An Old Dog With an Old Schtick

I keep saying that conservatives need to take Bob Bennett out at the Utah Republican Convention. It would be relatively low cost. The odds are the GOP would keep the seat. Any of the candidates from Cheryl Eager to Mike Lee would push the seat right.

Bob Bennett is the 8th most liberal Republican in the Senate from the most conservative state in the nation.

He can and must be beaten. If he fails to get 60% in the Utah GOP Convention, he will be forced into a primary. If someone else gets 60%, that person automatically becomes the nominee.

I don’t want to pick between the candidates – I’m partial to Eager and Lee – but if the candidates start going after each other, I will weigh in. This is about taking out Bob Bennett. The candidates need to focus on him.

Here is another reason why. I’ve told you all along that Bennett was working behind the scenes to undermine the GOP effort on health care obstruction. The Heritage Foundation considers Bennett’s health care proposal worse than what Barack Obama proposed.

A lot of you did not believe me or questioned it. Well, consider what he did in 1994 during the debate on Clinton’s healthcare plan.

6. My mistake

I’ve got to issue a bit of an apology to Stephen Colbert. For once the lefties online are right about something.

In gearing up for the Colbert Report, I spoke several times to Stephen’s staff. We went over the topic areas to be discussed, played twenty minutes of question on the types of areas he’d pursue, and then in the green room Monday night kind of recapped.

My twittering never came up. So when defending my statement on Linda Douglass that she was the Joseph Goebbels of the White House, I told him she’d called anti-health care deform activists “brown shirts.” Actually, she didn’t. In trying to remember why I had called her that, I got her confused with Congressman Brian Baird, which happened about the same time as all the other stuff. Sorry for getting her confused with Brian Baird, or rather I guess I should apologize to Brian Baird for getting him confused with a hack like Douglass.

I actually called Douglass that related to her demand for people to turn in their neighbors by forwarding in their emails with supposedly lies and mistruths about health care.

Please join us in signing the petition against the trial.

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For January 7, 2010

SIGN OUR PETITION

Human Events and RedState (well, Human Events did all the heavy lifting on this one) created a petition to oppose the KSM trial in New York. We’re going to collect the names and we’re going to get this petition delivered to the powers that we. We all feel very strongly about this one.

1. If You’ve Traveled Through Airport Security, You Have Been Screened More Thoroughly Than Obama’s TSA Pick

2. Health Care Suicide Bombers: Instead of 72 Virgins, They Get Ambassadorship

3. Blanche Lincoln: Nelson’s Deal Should be Dropped

4. Barack Obama’s favorite four-letter word: “Bush”

5. Brit Hume and Public Profession of Faith

————————

1. If You’ve Traveled Through Airport Security, You Have Been Screened More Thoroughly Than Obama’s TSA Pick

This would defy credible explanation unless you understood that the Obama administration really is a collection of amateurs.

Professionals do not let this happen.

Erroll Southers is Barack Obama’s nominee to head the Transportation Safety Administration – the TSA, that organization that screens passengers getting on airplanes.

One would think the Obama administration would screen the man in charge of screening the rest of us. But they did not.

Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) has done the country a great service. He put a hold on Mr. Southers because Southers refuses to say whether or not he opposes TS unionization.

Without Senator DeMint’s hold, Mr. Southers may have cleared the Senate before anyone realized that the White House had never screened Mr. Southers. Now, the Washington Post is reporting there are some serious, serious issues in Mr. Southers’ background.

2. Health Care Suicide Bombers: Instead of 72 Virgins, They Get Ambassadorship

Byron Dorgan and Chris Dodd have blown up a barrel full of socialism, potentially spreading it’s toxic mix all over the country, lowering mortality rates, driving up health care costs, and giving the nation a health care bill no one is happy with.

Now they will quit.

The Republicans need to take note of this because we are, in fact, beginning to see something new from the Democrats. As I and others have written about before, the Democrats recognize there is no longer such a thing as a permanent political majority. Instead, the Democrats can effect a permanent policy shift in the country and are willing to take the hits to do it.

The ramifications of this are huge. Dodd and Dorgan, powerful senators, are taking bullets for the team. They are voting to pass health care deform, knowing that doing so will cause their defeat. So to save face and be martyred, they’ll take themselves out instead of having the voters do it. Obama will reward them not with 72 virgins, but with cushy appointments.

From here on out, I think the Democrats realize they are headed back to the minority. It may take 2012 to make it happen, but with that knowledge, they are going to go all out advancing their radical socialist agenda gambling that the GOP, back in power, will not have the guts or veto proof majorities to roll any of it back.

3. Blanche Lincoln: Nelson’s Deal Should be Dropped

Ben Nelson said he never asked for Harry Reid to give Nebraska more funding for Medicaid, and now Blanche Lambert Lincoln says that bribe should be deleted from any final health care bill.

4. Barack Obama’s favorite four-letter word: “Bush”

“Blame Bush” has been Obama’s favorite strategy for trying to deflect blame for his mishandling of virtually every challenge he’s faced since ascending to his throne almost one year ago. But is this approach still resonating? I think not. Obama refuses to stop blaming his predecessor for his own shortcomings. The latest blame-fest came with the December 25th pantybomber incident.

Immediately following the Christmas terrorist attempt by Omar Abdulmutallab, the Obama administration sprung into action in an attempt to pass the buck to Bush.

5. Brit Hume and Public Profession of Faith

We conservatives spend a lot of time – on this website and elsewhere – fighting for freedom and limited government. We do so because we believe ourselves to be right -confident that if government will simply get out of the way, free men will prosper. We therefore will not sit idly by while the world succumbs to tyranny and statism, and instead, we will do our absolute best to speak truth to those who will listen and to offer solutions to the problems we face based on these simple principles.

Similarly, those of us who are Christian believe that we know the truth – confident that in turning over our lives to Christ, we shall receive eternal salvation and regeneration through the Holy Spirit. Christians therefore are not to sit idly by while the world succumbs to sin, false idols and reliance on self over faith in God, and instead, actually are called to do our absolute best to speak the truth to those who will listen and to share the good news of salvation and His redemptive power to the worldly problems we face for those who will believe and repent.

And so it goes with Brit Hume.

2. Musings on the Terrorist Threat, our ‘Citizen of the World’ President, and Sundries

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For January 06, 2010

I’ll be on the Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer this afternoon at approximately 4:40 p.m. ET.

1. Roll Tide!

3. Collective Bargaining Has Hurt Border Patrol, TSA Shouldn’t Make Same Mistake

4. Democrats are Worried in Massachusetts

5. Crist’s Boy Greer Goes Down

————————

1. Roll Tide!

Okay, so this post really isn’t about the Crimson Tide, but there is a crimson tide out there this morning – the Democrat dead pool.

Bill Ritter, the Governor of Colorado, is gone.

Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) is gone.

Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT) is gone.

These three, announced all on the same day, come on the heels of all the other Democrats retiring and Parker Griffith switching to the GOP.

Meanwhile Evan Bayh is looking more and more vulnerable in Indiana.

Something is happening. Whatever it is is most definitely bad for Democrats and good for freedom.

The crimson tide of Democrat destruction rolls on. Is it a coincidence that Alabama has an elephant as its mascot?

And yes, this post is dedicated to Joe Scarborough, righteous fan of Alabama and now purveyor of eponymous premium Starbucks coffee.

2. Musings on the Terrorist Threat, our ‘Citizen of the World’ President, and Sundries

For years, Democrats have told us that one of the biggest problems in America is that we’re not taken care of well enough by our government. From government health care, to Social Security, to further reduced minimum ages of mandatory government school attendance, to tighter restrictions on the rights of personal armament and self defense, the left has long sought – and continues to seek – to wrap every American in a governmental security blanket from which there can be no escape.

Thank goodness there were a few Americans on flight 253 from Amsterdam on Christmas Day who had the wherewithal, the independence, and the assertiveness to take down a wannabe killer instead of simply sitting idly by like lambs awaiting slaughter, unsure of what to do in the face of their government’s failure to prevent them from being put in such an awful situation.

3. Collective Bargaining Has Hurt Border Patrol, TSA Shouldn’t Make Same Mistake

In light of the Christmas terror attempt, we must make sure that our airport security is as strong as possible. Unfortunately, Democrats in the Senate appear intent on confirming a new leader for the Transporation Security Administration (TSA), that would presumably make good on President Obama’s campaign promise to union bosses that he’d force TSA into collective bargaining even though it would weaken our security. [A nominee who has also submitted false testimony to Congress about improperly accessing private background information.] If that were to happen, the same union bureaucracy that has crippled the American auto industry and made service at Post Offices the punch line to jokes could soon be a way of life at America’s airports.

If TSA were forced to collectively bargain with union bosses it could weaken security by . . .

4. Democrats are Worried in Massachusetts

I’ve got more and more people telling me the Democrats are actually worried about Scott Brown now.

We have to be careful though. This race is going to be won or lost on Massachusetts issues. Gov. Patrick is not exactly popular right now. There are other issues up there. Our temptation is going to be to make it a national race about health care.

It is true that were Scott Brown elected, health care would pretty much be DOA in the Senate. But, if this race is nationalized and Scott Brown loses, the Dems will try hard to spin it as a victory for Obama. We’re in a catch 22 over it.

That said, given that no one would be surprised if the Democrat won up there, we might as well see what we can do for Scott Brown. If he does not win, we are hold steady at the status quo. If he wins? Game changer.

5. Crist’s Boy Greer Goes Down

Reports are all over the net pointing to the ouster of Jim Greer as the Chairman of the Republican Party of Florida. Greer is a Crist loyalist, hand picked by Crist presumably to provide the needed support for his Senate aspirations for 2010.

After months of interference in the Republican primary Party members in Florida have decided it’s time for Greer to go. Not a second too soon if you ask me.

So where does that leave the RPOF? Good hands, that’s where.

The overwhelming speculation is that John Thrasher, who was supported by Jeb Bush, will be taking over the Party.

This is good news. Celebrate by donating to Marco Rubio.

These are the fruits of our activism.

Go here and sign this petition.

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

Stop what you are doing. I need your help real quick.

It is to protest the civilian trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York City.

Human Events put it together and I’m glad to put my name on it. We’re going to deliver this petition to the government and protest this senseless act by Barack Obama.

I don’t know how many people are going to get killed because Obama would rather lawyer up than soldier up, but we need to make sure the government knows the American people think this KSM trial is nuts.

Please sign the petition. If you want more info, please read Jed Babbin’s fantastic column today on the KSM trial.

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For January 05, 2010

1. 9/11 Didn’t Happen: The Obama Administration Tries to Prove George Bush Was Wrong

2. Barack Obama: A President That Wasn’t

3. Asia one more area Obama has failed to engage

4. If Conservatives Are Serious About Their Resurgence, They Will Defeat Bob Bennett (R-UT)

5. The Republican Unicorns and Reality

1. 9/11 Didn’t Happen: The Obama Administration Tries to Prove George Bush Was Wrong

It would be one thing if our lives were not at stake.

Barack Obama has decided he is going to show the world that George Bush was wrong in how he conducted the war on terror. Bush decided to send foreign terrorist enemies to GTMO for questioning by the military and, in a few cases, to be water boarded to get answers.

Obama is above that He is better than that. Barack Obama is going to prove to the world and to the 55-60% of Americans who prefer to kill lest we be killed that he is better than them all.

Unfortunately for us, our lives are at stake.

According to the Washington Post, because Obama decided to treat the terrorist who wanted to blow up Delta 253 over Detroit as a criminal instead of a terrorist, the terrorist now has a defense attorney who has advised the terrorist that he does not have to cooperate or talk.

So how as the Obama administration decided to respond?

They are going to give the terrorist a plea bargain.

A plea bargain. For a terrorist. This isn’t prosecuting a war. This is playing Law & Order. We have a President who really does believe all the world is a stage and he is a Screen Actors Guild member.

How many Americans will die because Barack Obama decided to lawyer up instead of soldier up?

2. Barack Obama: A President That Wasn’t

Hillary Clinton once said, during her run for President against her current boss, that the Presidency was no place for on the job training. She said she would be ready to lead from day one and that she would know what to do when that 3 am call came to the White House. Whether or not true of Hillary, we have learned these last 12 months that it is certainly not true of Barack Obama; Obama was NOT ready to lead from day one and he has failed to lead ever since. His own 3 am calls are going straight to voice mail (he’s out shooting hoops you see, or working on that birdie putt on Maui) and his on the job training continues with very little acquired knowledge to actually show for the troubles he has caused Americans.

3. Asia one more area Obama has failed to engage

So you have to ask yourself if you trust Obama to engage on this critical issue. Domestically he has been busy – when not golfing – twisting every possible arm to pass health care reform against the wishes of the American people. He spent precious time and resources on Copenhagen and seems intent on passing a devastating Cap and Trade system (if vulnerable Democratic senators don’t convince him to hold off).

On the national security front, he seems incapable of recognizing the war on terror as anything more than a law enforcement or public relations battle; and avoids making the necessary commitments and hard choices. He has damaged relationships with the CIA and our allies around the world and blamed former President Bush at every possible opportunity.

On top of all of this, the President’s leftist base is full of anti-free trade unions intent on preventing critical trade agreements from moving forward despite their obvious benefit to the American economy and the important role they play strategically.

Do you think President Obama has the capability and inclination to ignore the shrieks from the unions and diligently pursue free trade in Asia as a counter-weight to the growing strength of China and the Islamic world? Does having Hillary Clinton at the State Department make you feel any better?

4. If Conservatives Are Serious About Their Resurgence, They Will Defeat Bob Bennett (R-UT)

Poor wittle conservatives. Nobody wistens to the poor wittle conservatives.

The Senate Minority Leader talks like a conservative, but behind closed doors he does everything he can to shut down conservative small government agenda items and pro-life measures so he doesn’t have to vote for them.

House guys are little better. Remember Dede Scozzafava and the House GOP support for her?

Everyone likes to flirt with the conservatives and get their money, but they all get the joke – at the end of the day, conservatives will perform any act the Republican establishment asks to be performed, including acts Monica Lewinsky would blush at and run from.

Everybody gets the joke.

It is no wonder the tea party movement polls better than the GOP.

To the Republican establishment, NY-23 was just a temper tantrum. In fact, I know of more than one allegedly conservative elected Republican who loved the results of NY-23 because they think it finally put conservatives in their place.

That’s the reality of it. Conservatives are and have been perfectly willing for far too long to accept Republican establishment leaders who either actively hate conservatives or are wholly indifferent to them.

Trust me, the people who treat pro-lifers with the most distain are not pro-choice leftists, but leadership Republicans who want their money and vote, but otherwise wish they’d shut the heck up.

And that situation is going to continue until conservatives decide to take a Republican scalp in a GOP primary.

5. The Republican Unicorns and Reality

Remember 2000? Bush spent a good bit more in resources in California than any sane person thought prudent. He lost California.

Republicans have, for a long time, been losing California. Ahnuld (writing it this way so I don’t have to look up the proper spelling of his last name) has largely been a fluke. He came to power in 2003 during the Gray Davis debacle and won re-election largely by becoming a Democrat.

Nonetheless, Republicans keep spending money to win statewide in California. Look at the NRSC’s commitment to Carly Fiorina.

Compare California to Massachusetts. That state is probably as tough as California, but it has elected a string of Republican governors from Bill Weld to Mitt Romney – it has had Republican governors who have behaved more Republican than Ahnuld and have won within the last decade.

But while the GOP has been standing behind Carly Fiorina in California in pursuit of the mythical GOP win there, the same cannot be said of the GOP helping Scott Brown in Massachusetts.

I think we should take a serious look at Scott Brown.

1. WH in full CYA/BDS mode over Christmas attack.

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For January 04, 2010

I hope you had a happy new year. Just on a personal note, I’ll be on the Colbert Report on Comedy Central tonight at 11:30 p.m. ET. It should be interesting.

2. A Lack of Presidential Leadership

3. Something Wicked This Way Comes

4. Could this actually be the greatest and potentially the deadliest of Obama’s screw ups so far?

5. Barack Obama’s Vulnerabilities Will Get Us All Killed

6. The Trillion Dollar President’s War on the Word Terror

7. The Dozen Sacrifices Demanded by the Dems’ Pagan God of Health Care Reform

8. The Bottom Line on Wall St. and Bank Profits

9. Democrats resegregate DC school system.

————————

1. WH in full CYA/BDS mode over Christmas attack.

A quick survey of priorities:

In 2001, the American government’s response to a successful series of terrorist attacks was to look outwards to see who to hit for this*.
In 2009, the American government’s response to an only-because-we-got-lucky unsuccessful terrorist attack was to look inwards to see who to blame for this. (H/T: Nice Deb)

I think that, all things considered, I prefer the first approach.

2. A Lack of Presidential Leadership

You remember Tom Kean, don’t you? He’s the former chairman of the 9/11 Commission – that same commission whose policies in its massive report Barack Obama guaranteed to implement.

Obama has not. In fact, one of the chief priorities of the 9/11 commission was the ability to effectively cross reference people on terrorist watch lists with passenger manifests for airlines. Hasn’t fully happened.

Commission Chairman Kean was on State of the Union with John King earlier today. He made some real news.

3. Something Wicked This Way Comes

In Little Rock, Arkansas, a muslim under investigation after returning from Yemen gunned down army recruiters.

On July 25, 2009, in Denver, CO, an Afghan-American went into a beauty supply store to beginsoldier building a bomb to blow up New York. Again.

In Ft. Hood, Texas, a solider gunned down his fellow soldiers after having had a stint in Yemen.

In New York City, an empty van sat for two days with forged law enforcement documents. We know very little else about the incident.

In the air over Detriot, MI, a Nigeria trained in Yemen tried to blow up the plane. He appears to have been helped get on the plane in Amsterdam without a passport. The passengers on the plane saw another man arrested when they landed in Detriot, but the authorities first denied it then said it was someone from a different flight. The passengers dispute this.

Then we had the attack on the CIA in Afghanistan by the soldier ranked highly enough to get to them without pre-screening.

Yemen warns of hundreds more.

This is all in the last six months or so. The frequency of the probing and testing has accelerated. What must they be planning?

As I have asked before and then again, let me ask another time: how many Americans will die because of Barack Obama’s weak leadership?

Something wicked this way comes and I have no faith these amateurs in office will be prepared for it.

4. Could this actually be the greatest and potentially the deadliest of Obama’s screw ups so far?

I missed the implications of this up front and I bet you all did too, but I am hearing from members of the American intelligence community and some on the outside closely connected to those on the inside who are raising a huge red flag right now.

It appears Barack Obama inexperience and amateurishness has just started bonfires on the bridges connecting him to the American intelligence community and delivered a huge, HUGE psychological win to Al Qaeda.

5. Barack Obama’s Vulnerabilities Will Get Us All Killed

234 days into George W. Bush’s first contentious year in office, four planes were hijacked and used as missiles to strike the United States. Shortly thereafter, Richard Reid tried to blow up another jet.

George Bush never tried to disown 9/11 or Richard Reid. He never tried to say, “hey, it was Clinton’s problem.” Sure, in fact, a lot of what led to 9/11 happened on Bill Clinton’s watch and he failed in most every measure to shut down Al Qaeda.

But after 9/11, George Bush didn’t spend his first day, second day, or third day blaming Clinton. He set out to destroy Al Qaeda. After Richard Reid, we’ve been pretty darn safe flying.

In fact, under George Bush leading scholars and pundits declared Al Qaeda marginalized. By 2003, the pontiffs of miasmatic beltway wisdom were near unanimous that Al Qaeda was near dismantled.

At the end of the first year of Barack Obama’s administration, there’s something moving in the shadows of Mount Doom. It wasn’t there while George Bush was in charge. But Barack Obama is no George Bush. And the strategy of blaming Bush for being weak on terror will not work after eight years of blaming Bush for being too bloodthirsty.

6. The Trillion Dollar President’s War on the Word Terror

Does anyone believe that The Trillion Dollar Health Care President – as in, all he can do is spend and print a trillion dollars – cares one wit about the war on terror?

This is the same Trillion-Dollar-all-I-care-about-is-health-care-President who strains mightily to ever use the word terror, or the phrase war on terror.

His Homeland Secretary went a whole hearing with out using the word terror, but prefers the term a “man-caused disaster.”

This is the same President and White House who refused to term the Fort Hood attacks by a deranged Muslim terror – and had to be dragged kicking and screaming to any where near that point only because of an email trail by the shooter to radical clerics and websites.

I’ll bet the only reason that President Obama waited three days to make his statement about the system’s failure is that the White House took a poll which showed the Trillion Dollar Health Care President being pummeled.

7. The Dozen Sacrifices Demanded by the Dems’ Pagan God of Health Care Reform

The reason that health care reform has previously never passed, is that the smart Democrats stopped themselves when the political costs of health care reform were weighed against their gains.

But Crusaders do not measure the costs. They fight until they and all around them die.

And the leaders of the Crusaders tell their own – ignore the costs! We must! We must! We must cram it down their throats! This is a moral battle.

8. The Bottom Line on Wall St. and Bank Profits

2009 was one of the very best years in history for the financial industry, with over $50 billion in profits for the top half-dozen firms alone. Forget for a moment about the fact that this industry was literally saved from death with taxpayer dollars. The real question is, what are they there to do?

The short answer to that question is that the financial industry exists to make capital available, and to allocate it efficiently to productive uses in the real economy.

Instead, what did the financial industry do to make its money? The Wall St. firms ran proprietary trading programs as never before, and they raked in huge fees underwriting issues of debt by the largest corporations, who used the money to improve their balance sheets but not to invest in new productivity.

The old-fashioned banks spent the year lending Fed funds to the Treasury, profiting risk-free from the steep yield curve.

9. Democrats resegregate DC school system.

Are you surprised? I’m not surprised.

You know, there’s a part of me that would almost prefer that this was evidence of some sort of long term payback – one that would have been in the works for about 150 years at this point – against African-Americans by the Democratic party. At least that would be a reason to wreck school choice. It would be a conscious decision. Instead, though, I’m faced with the tawdry reality that the Democratic Party simply just doesn’t care.

1. Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall, and Back Again

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For December 30, 2009

2. The Obama Administration Gives INTERPOL More Favorable Immunities Than American Law Enforcement Agencies

3. Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) Defunded Airport Security Screenings to Help Campaign Donors Instead

4. Senator Jim DeMint Steps Up Again to Lead. McClatchy Newspapers Cries.

5. Meet Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, Global Climate Hustler

6. Hey, Pete Stark’s (D) under an ethics investigation!

7. Colorado Political Analysis: 2010

————————

1. Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall, and Back Again

After many, many conversations, the RedState Morning Briefing was launched at the beginning of 2009. I tried a number of formats and finally found one that worked well – enough information to help out without a massively unreadable email (usually). If a story is of interest, a reader can click a link and get all the details.

For the past year, I have churned out the Morning Briefing every single week day except Thanksgiving, the day after Thanksgiving, Christmas Day, and now this week, New Years Eve and New Years Day.

Over the past year I’ve had the flu, taken a vacation, had a nasty stomach bug, and still before bed each night I’ve put the Morning Briefing together and then gotten up at four o’clock each morning to put the final touches on it, update it as needed, and get it off to be of use to conservatives across the country. Through rain, shine, sleet, snow, the occasional technical outage, stomach bugs, summer, fall, winter, and spring the Morning Briefing gets out the door every weekday morning by 5:00 a.m.

It has been a real joy to get up each morning knowing I am having a measurable impact and offering real help to conservatives. I’d like to give a special thanks to the sponsors who now help cover the costs of a growing email. I couldn’t do it without them.

And I would not do it without all of you who read it. God bless you all. Have a happy and safe new year. The Morning Briefing will be in your inbox bright and early Monday morning, January 4th. I promise. Oh, and I’ll be on the Colbert Report that night.

2. The Obama Administration Gives INTERPOL More Favorable Immunities Than American Law Enforcement Agencies

This is an extremely serious issue.

The best and most reasonable take comes from Andy McCarthy. Let me put this in perspective for you.

American law enforcement agencies at the local, state, and federal level are bound by open records act laws. At the federal level, the Freedom of Information Act applies.

Knowing that an intrepid reporter can, after establishing credible sources, file a judicially enforcible FOIA request to obtain information from a law enforcement agency is one of the chief deterrents to law enforcement agencies from abusing discretionary power.

Additionally, Interpol is a foreign power, but operates out of the U.S. Department of Justice inside the United States. While Interpol has some limited immunities given by Ronald Reagan in the early 1980’s, it does not – or at least did not until last week – have immunity from the 4th Amendment. Consequently, this international agency could, should it abuse its powers, have the federal government seize its assets, etc.

In other words, the international police organization Interpol was treated like every other law enforcement agency in America – it was subject to FOIA requests and could, like any arm of a municipal, county, state, or federal government agency, have its property taken by the federal government if it crossed the boundaries of criminal law protection for the accused.

For no discernible reason whatsoever, last Wednesday when no one was looking, Barack Obama signed an executive order giving all immunities of foreign powers to Interpol.

In other words, Interpol is now in a better position than any American law enforcement institution that operates on American soil. It cannot have its records searched or seized and it is not subject to the restraints of sunshine and transparency that FOIA requests can bring.

At a time when Obama is worried about ensuring the rights of terrorists against the abuses of the American government, he has no problem surrendering American rights to an arm of the United Nations.

3. Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) Defunded Airport Security Screenings to Help Campaign Donors Instead

In fairness, that money was just sitting there, all fat, dumb and happy, and practically begging to be misappropriated to some domestic pork program. Besides, how was Dodd supposed to know that international terrorists would come up with the novel idea of using explosives to try to blow up airplanes?

“Back in July, Senator Chris Dodd, D-Conn., proposed an amendment reducing aviation security appropriations by $4.5 million in favor of firefighter grants – a notoriously ineffective program. In fact, the money was specifically ‘for screening operations and the amount for explosives detection systems.’”

This pet program of Dodd’s wasn’t funding firefighters, by the way. It was funding firefighting-flavored processed pork substitute; you can tell the difference via the fact that the program doesn’t actually work.

4. Senator Jim DeMint Steps Up Again to Lead. McClatchy Newspapers Cries.

McClatchy Newspapers is the alleged “news” organization that runs terrorist propaganda out of Iraq as legitimate news. It’s Washington editor tried very hard to push local McClatchy reporters in North Carolina to write damaging stories on Blackwater. It hired anonymous Iraqis during the Iraq War to write lots of unverifiable stories about the horrors of American soldiers.

Today, in another example of its bias, its national news feed runs the headline Who’s running the TSA? No one, thanks to Sen. Jim DeMint.

Compare that to the Washington Post, which ran the identical story with the headline “Republican senator DeMint holds up nomination for TSA chief”.

The McClatchy headline is not even true. In fact, it is objectively a lie.

5. Meet Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, Global Climate Hustler

Do you ever wonder who stands to benefit from global trading in carbon credits?

We’ve looked at some of the investments of former VP Al Gore with “green” investment bank Kleiner-Perkins. We’ve also considered the Top 10 Green Energy Whores and the Climate-Industrial Complex, led by General Electric. These are companies who stand to win big in the New Green Economy, and are not above gaming our democratic system in the pursuit of green profits.

Now, the Telegraph graces us with an interesting look at the commercial pursuits of Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, Chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The good Dr. Pachauri makes Algore look like a piker.

6. Hey, Pete Stark’s (D) under an ethics investigation!

You know Pete: he’s that crazy Democrat who goes around threatening to throw journalists out the window when he doesn’t like the questions. He’s also that crazy Democrat who’ll take over for Charlie Rangel at Ways & Means if Rangel ever has to answer for his ethics violations, which is probably not the least reason why the Democrats haven’t thrown Rangel out of a metaphorical window of his own. Anyway, Pete’s getting investigated: the Washington Times is guessing tax evasion, real estate where-does-he-actually-live edition.

Yes. You’re all shocked that a Democratic politician wasn’t paying his taxes.

7. Colorado Political Analysis: 2010

Colorado’s political landscape is unique, in that it is a microcosm of voting behavior of the nation as a whole, usually leading the national trends. When I moved here almost ten years ago, the Governor’s Mansion, both U.S. Senate seats, five of seven U.S. Congressional seats, and both State Senate and House chambers were controlled by Republicans. Today, the situation is completely reversed and the Democrats are in control. Fortunately, due to the Democrats’ mismanagement in Washington and Denver, we have the opportunity to turn the tide back in our favor. Colorado is a frequent battleground for political groups trying to sway the state one direction or the other.

1. Seven Things Wrong With The Anti-Terrorism Policies of the TSA

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For December 29, 2009

I will be filling in on the radio in Macon, GA this morning from 6:00 a.m. until 9:00 a.m. If you are curious, you can listen here.

2. Mitch McConnell Tries to Have It Both Ways

3. Rep. Clyburn abandons public option on behalf of Democratic party.

4. Jake Tapper pins Robert Gibbs like a butterfly.

————————

1. Seven Things Wrong With The Anti-Terrorism Policies of the TSA

There are several fundamental problems with the way the United States Transportation Safety Administration combats terrorism. These have their roots in fighting the war for the freedom of mankind as a public relations problem. Too often we take a security theater approach, apparently in an effort to reassure the public that everything is fine and the system is working. Meanwhile, things may or may not be fine.

2. Mitch McConnell Tries to Have It Both Ways

Friends, it is important for me to keep harping on this issue because we have really been betrayed in the Senate by the Republican leadership. It is abundantly obvious now that the Senate GOP played to beat the spread, not to beat the bill.

Yesterday, I noted Jake Tapper asked Mitch McConnell a plainly worded question: “[W]ill that be one of your first items should you regain control of the Senate, repealing what you guys call Obama-care?”

McConnell refused to say yes or no. In fact, he never answered the question.

There was, however, another nugget in the interview with Tapper that needs the spotlight.

From the transcript, Jake Tapper asked, “You’ve been criticized by several conservative voices, Rush Limbaugh, Erick Erickson at Redstate.com and others, for not doing enough to stop health care reform. As the Senate Democrats passed the bill, you said this fight is not over, my colleges and I will work to stop this bill from becoming law. So what are you going to do and what can you do with only 40 votes?”

McConnell answered

Well, first, every single Republican opposed the measure. All of the procedural devices that are available to slow down a measure were employed. It didn’t pass until Christmas eve at 7:00 a.m. The American people are overwhelmingly opposed to the bill. I’m not sure what’s to criticize about that from a conservative point of view. And of course, the bill is not law yet. It’s still got be reconciled between the House and Senate. There are deep differences among Democrats. Every single Democrat in the Senate provided the one vote that passed this 2,700-page monstrosity. It cuts Medicare by half a trillion dollars, raises taxes by half a trillion dollars, and instead of curbing the rate of increase of insurance premiums, most Americans’ insurance premiums are going to go up.

This bill is a colossal failure, and that’s why the American people were literally screaming at us, you know, please, don’t pass this bill.

Two things to point out here. First, he says “all of the procedural devices” were used to slow the bill. Second, he again falls back on “deep differences among Democrats” – the same differences he said he would exploit to kill the bill.

Let’s roll the tape.

3. Rep. Clyburn abandons public option on behalf of Democratic party.

Here we go.

“The House’s third-ranking Democrat said Sunday that he can support a healthcare reform bill without a public option.”

Translation: House Democrats are going to abandon the public option. Ignore the nonsense about more choice and reduced costs: that’s for the rubes and the netroots. They went with the #3 House Democrat to make the announcement because both Pelosi and Hoyer want to appear to be reluctantly going along with this, instead of enthusiastically: if the endgame ends up reminding you of their FISA ‘capitulation,’ well, there’s a reason for that.

4. Jake Tapper pins Robert Gibbs like a butterfly.

As the guest host on Sunday’s “This Morning with George Stephanopoulos” show, Jake Tapper tried to school Robert Gibbs on the meaning of the word “transparency,” as well as the difference between public “voting” and secret “negotiations” on health care reform, but Gibbs was having none of it.

By his own admission, Tapper – “in the spirit of the Christmas season” – gave Gibbs more than one chance to explain away why President Obama is choosing to ignore his campaign pledge to “‘have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so the people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents and who is making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies.’” And even though Tapper used a wry restraint throughout his post about the verbal exchange, the title for the article says it all.

1. Barack Obama’s Post-Modern Liberal Syllogisms Keep Falling Apart

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For December 28, 2009

I will be filling in on the radio in Macon, GA this morning from 6:00 a.m. until 9:00 a.m. If you are curious, you can listen here.

2. DHS Director Janet Napolitano: “the system worked.”

3. Whose Tent Is Bigger?

4. The Power of Plain Speaking

5. Senator DeMint Objects to the Appointment of the Conferees

6. Die Cheap For The Sake Of Your Fellow Americans

7. Charter Schools: Why Can’t Republicans Make This Issue A Winner

8. Greentech hurts poor people, pollutes land.

————————

1. Barack Obama’s Post-Modern Liberal Syllogisms Keep Falling Apart

On September 19, 2001, writing in the Hyde Park Herald Barack Obama attributed 9/11 related terrorism to, “a climate of poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair.”

Even more so, Obama went on to say:

“They see poverty all around them and they are angry by that poverty. They may be suffering under oppressive and corrupt regimes and that kind of environment is a breeding ground for fanaticism and hatred.”

“It’s absolutely critical that the U.S. is engaged in policies and strategies that will give those young people and these countries hope and make it in their self-interest to participate and create modern, open societies like we have in the U.S.”

Obama has, in fact, held to this position for the better part of a decade despite the evidence that the 9/11 attackers were, in fact, mostly rich kids.

In his Cairo speech, Barack Obama did not directly mention “poverty,” but instead went with the white man’s burden – an indirect way of saying the same thing – pontificating that “tension has been fed by colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims.”

Contra Obama, it turns out that yet again, the Al Qaeda terrorist who tried to blow up a Delta jet on Christmas Day was another rich kid.

2. DHS Director Janet Napolitano: “the system worked.”

…words fail me. Via Hot Air Headlines:

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Sunday that the thwarting of the attempt to blow up an Amsterdam-Detroit airline flight Christmas Day demonstrated that “the system worked.”

3. Whose Tent Is Bigger?

Had this been Christie Todd Whitman or a host of other Republicans, it would have been the lead story on the nightly news today.

William Daley of the Chicago Clan, former Bill Clinton’s Commerce Secretary and Al Gore’s President Campaign Chairman in 2000, sees all sorts of apocalyptic warning signs on the horizon for the Democrats.

4. The Power of Plain Speaking

Politicians of all stripes go to Washington and lose the ability to relate to people. Part of that is an inability for politicians to speak plainly, even when talking to the base.

I have criticized Mitch McConnell repeated for wanting to beat the spread instead of actually beating health care. Being in the good old boys club that is the United States Senate means Senators often put collegiality before the fight.

Some of you have said I have been too hard on Mitch McConnell, but I stand by the comments.

In Matthew 5:37, Christ told his disciples, “Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’.” His brother James in his eponymous book at 5:12 echoed Christ, writing, “Above all, my brothers, do not swear-not by heaven or by earth or by anything else. Let your “Yes” be yes, and your “No,” no, or you will be condemned.”

This is not to say Mitch McConnell is “condemned” or “evil” or anything of the like. This is just to point out that sometimes plain speaking is a good thing. And often, politicians should actually say “yes” when they mean “yes” and “no” when they mean “no,” instead of dancing around the issue.

What is this all about? Today on This Week With George Stephanopolous, Jake Tapper, filling in for George, asked Senator McConnell, “Do you think that Republicans running for Senate in 2010 should run on a platform of vowing to repeal the health care reform bill, should it become law? And will that be one of your first items should you regain control of the Senate, repealing what you guys call Obama-care?”

Senator McConnell’s answer?

5. Senator DeMint Objects to the Appointment of the Conferees

When Senator DeMint engineered, and Republican Leader McConnell actually objected to the appointment of the conferees, he was really handing the ball off to the left wingers – progressives if you will – and now they have their shot to either hold their own clan members who are against the Senate compromises and force them to vote No, or have their policy demands be ignored and take the crumbs from Senator Nelson’s and Senator Lieberman’s table.

Now, because of the Senator DeMint’s objection, unless the House votes for the Senate bill unchanged – which is highly unlikely (see below) – then the Senate ObamaCare bill must be amended on the House floor to gain the votes they need to pass it on the House floor. And because of Senator DeMint’s objection to the appointment of the conferees, there will be no conference, or conference report.

If the House amends the Senate bill, they then have to send the amended bill back to the Senate – where all the 60 vote margin cloture votes still apply – cloture on the motion to proceed, and cloture to end the filibuster and cloture on any amendment.

6. Die Cheap For The Sake Of Your Fellow Americans

This piece in the NYT flies in the face of all those who accused us of fear-mongering when we dared call out Congress on the issue of so-called “death panels.” I, for one, was uncomfortable enough with the idea that a gaggle of self-appointed hens in Congress would assess my worthiness and determine whether sufficient resources should be allocated to keep me alive through some horrific medical event. If the Times is to be believed, it is MUCH worse – Hospital budget administrators (under constant attack from Government oversight and regulation to contain costs) will make our life and death decisions for us, and they’ll do so while competing for financial rewards from the Federal Government.

7. Charter Schools: Why Can’t Republicans Make This Issue A Winner

Charter schools work – on so many levels. Charter schools educate kids. Charter schools promote local control and parental involvement. Charter schools succeed in stark contrast to the failed policies of the NEA and the Department of Education.

One New Orleans charter school changes the culture, sees the results

New Orleans’ corrupt, decrepit Orleans Parish School Board was mortally wounded before Katrina. The State-run Recovery School District had started to take over failed Orleans Parish schools, and the charter movement had a toe-hold.

Katrina wiped the slate clean. Charter schools led the comeback. Now, fully half of Orleans Parish’s public schools are charter schools, a higher percentage than any other city in the nation.

8. Greentech hurts poor people, pollutes land.

Business as usual, in other words. Remember, it doesn’t count if it’s not impacting the First World.

1. RedState Catching Ben Nelson Trying to Make Himself Look Honorable While Behaving Dishonorably

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For December 24, 2009

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.

Isaiah 9:6-7 (KJV)

Merry Christmas from RedState.com. The Morning Briefing will return on Monday. We were going to take today off, but there is just too much news.

2. The Greatest Scam On Earth

3. Hesitating in the face of volley fire.

4. Parker’s Progress. The Curious Evolution of a New Republican Congressman

5. I think I’d rather have a stocking full of coal…

————————

1. RedState Catching Ben Nelson Trying to Make Himself Look Honorable While Behaving Dishonorably

Yesterday, showing real leadership, Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) ground the United States Senate to halt for a brief time, making us wonder why Mitch McConnell had been unable to do that in the past month.

DeMint went down to the floor of the Senate and made a motion to suspend the rules of the Senate to allow the insertion of one more amendment into the health care legislation. His amendment? A prohibition on cash for cloture.

DeMint’s amendment, which he and Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) had originally co-authored and passed back in 2007 only to see it killed, would prohibit Senators from accepting targeted earmarks for their states in exchange for votes on legislation. This time, Senator Durbin made a motion to table Senator DeMint’s effort, saying he did not understand why Senator DeMint would think an anti-cash for cloture amendment was needed.

Ben Nelson of Cornhusker Hustle fame went to the floor of the Senate to vote for Senator Durbin’s effort to kill the DeMint motion. But, once the fair Senator from Nebraska saw that there were enough votes, without his, to kill the DeMint effort, Nefarious Nelson went back and changed his vote.

There is just one problem for Ben Nelson. 700 miles away from the action in Washington, D.C., the lowly Editor of RedState.com reached out to a Senate contact and got from the ash heap the actual factual very real Senate Clerk’s roll call tabulation sheet.

You can see it for yourself right here. You’ll note how the Clerk put a line in the “Yea” column for Senator Nelson, then scratched through it, putting a line in the “Nay” column. That’s what the clerk does when a Senator switches his vote.

700 miles away from Senator Nelson, RedState still PWND him.

2. The Greatest Scam On Earth

Today the Senate of the United States voted on a constitutional point of order raised by Senators Jim DeMint and John Ensign.

The Senators challenged the constitutionality of the individual mandate in the Democrats’ health care legislation. The individual mandate is a federally imposed requirement that every man, woman, and child in the United States obtain health insurance on pain of financial penalty or, in the Democrats’ proposal, jail.

Put more plainly, if you chose not to have health insurance, the Congress of the United States intends to punish you by taking away your property or your life via incarceration.

All 39 of the Republican Senators still present in Washington today voted that the individual mandate is unconstitutional.

Let me repeat that – every Republican Senator still in Washington, D.C. today voted that it is unconstitutional to impose an individual mandate on the citizens of the United States.

Happy?

Well now ask yourself this: why would Republicans Bob Bennett, Lamar Alexander, Mike Crapo, Lindsey Graham, and Judd Gregg be co-sponsors of S.391, the Wyden-Bennett health care plan.

3. Hesitating in the face of volley fire.

Back in the day – which is to say, the days before reliable automatic weapons were present on the battlefield – armies relied pretty heavily on volley fire and rigid discipline to win battles. There were two reasons for this: first, of course, the more missiles you have in the air at once, the harder it is to get out of their way. The second reason was psychological: charging in the face of steady fire – even essentially unaimed fire – is extremely difficult. Armies and their generals simply had to accept that there would be casualties, and that the proper response was to keep moving forward and return fire. So it usually came down to determination versus determination. Sometimes the one side broke and ran… and sometimes one side simply hesitated in the face of a sustained series of volleys. It sounds counter-intuitive, but that can happen when your troops are braver than your generals. Or when your generals simply don’t know what to do next, and don’t have the capacity to improvise.

Why am I bringing this up?

4. Parker’s Progress. The Curious Evolution of a New Republican Congressman

It was a bright and happy December day. Not a cloud was in sight, the weather was a balmy 60 degrees and Congressman Parker Griffith wanted to give Speaker Nancy Pelosi a Christmas present. It wasn’t the infamous “Mental Health Ticket” that he once offered to have Santa put under her tree. He has switched his allegiance from Democrat to Republican. He had several things to say about this yesterday as he prepared to celebrate Christmas at home.

Parker Griffith will not be a shoo-in for reelection. The Republicans in Madison and Huntsville would probably choose Barack Obama over Griffith in a Pepsi Challenge. The Good Doctor’s reputation in Republican circles is toxic like the streams flowing near Chernobyl.

Griffith’s problems with his new base are profound and of his own making. He does nasty the way Southerners skilled in the verbal arts do nasty. Take my word for it, it’s nasty.

5. I think I’d rather have a stocking full of coal…

The number of things with which I agree with President Obama is fairly small. One thing I do agree with him on however is his characterization of the Constitution. Back in 2001 as he was lamenting the failure of the Warren Court to bring about “redistributive change”, he stated “…the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can’t do to you. Says what the Federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf…” While the negative liberties characterization doesn’t make any sense, at the core about what the Constitution does, he is right.

As the President and Congress prepare to enact what is possibly the most unconstitutional law ever passed, it may be of some value to look at why exactly President Obama is right on the Constitution and wrong on ObamaCare.

1. Mitch McConnell Surrenders

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For December 23, 2009

2. Final Thoughts on the Senate GOP ‘Messaging’ Strategy

3. Jim DeMint to Force a Vote on Constitutionality of the Individual Mandate

4. 3Q GDP increase decreased again.

5. Making the Death Panels Permanent

6. A Tale of Hope, Change, Deep Pockets and Open Hands

7. Nikki Haley Rising

8. Huge Blow to Charlie Crist Today

9. What does it mean to be a Republican?

————————

1. Mitch McConnell Surrenders

An ice storm is coming. Some of the Republicans don’t want to get stuck in D.C. for Christmas fighting for freedom.

So Mitch McConnell and Harry Reid have agreed not just to vote on the health care package on Thursday morning, but also to lift the debt ceiling.

Then they’ll fly home. All before the sun even makes it to its peak position in the Christmas Eve sky.

Yes, the GOP got the Democrats to go to Christmas Eve. But only for show and face saving.

The GOP will vote against the health care package having not run out the clock, and then they’ll help the Democrats raise the debt ceiling.

As Roll Call puts it, “Under the agreement between Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), votes on final passage of the health care bill and a two-month extension to the debt limit sometime before early afternoon on Christmas Eve.”

Two blows for freedom with Mitch McConnell’s cooperation.

2. Final Thoughts on the Senate GOP ‘Messaging’ Strategy

The Senate Republican Leadership under Mitch McConnell and Lamar Alexander told us to trust them.

They were going to offer a series of “messaging amendments” to point out all the flaws in the health care legislation. The rest of us said no – force a vote on the legislation while the Dems did not have 60 votes.

They ignored us.

Then we said drag out the legislation as long as possible. They ignored us until votes were scheduled, making the dragging out impossible. When the scheduled time for the votes came, it did not matter if the bill was being read, the votes would happen.

Along the way, McConnell and Alexander pooh-poohed anyone who suggested the messaging strategy was doomed to failure.

There were 501 amendments offered.

Mitch McConnell offered only one.

Lamar Alexander? He did not offer a single one.

So intent on avoiding being labeled by their friends in the press and on the aisle opposite as “the Party of No,” they rolled over and became the “Party of No Problem.”

3. Jim DeMint to Force a Vote on Constitutionality of the Individual Mandate

Awesome news.

The Senate Republicans failed to ever make a fuss about the individual mandate. If I had to guess, it would be because Bob Bennett of Utah, who whispers in Mitch McConnell’s ear more than any other Senator, is a huge proponent of the individual mandate and, as luck would have it, is about to get a Democratic health care bill that looks almost identical to his own Wyden-Bennett compromise plan. As an added bonus, he can vote against it and still see it pass.

Nonetheless, there are serious issues about the constitutionality of the individual mandate. The federal constitution sets forth the limited powers of the federal government and not one of those powers seems to suggest that the Congress of the United States can compel the citizens of the nation to buy certain products.

Jim DeMint and John Ensign are going to force a vote on the issue. Democrats will be forced to take a position on whether or not the federal government can force individuals to buy products on pain of criminal penalty.

4. 3Q GDP increase decreased again.

Remember that 3.5% growth in Q3? You know, the one that supposedly represented us bouncing back, and not in a dead-cat sort of way?

Yeah. Not precisely.

5. Making the Death Panels Permanent

What exactly is Harry Reid trying to prevent future Senates from repealing? Bureaucratic regulations enacted by the Death Panels. So, for example, though the Death Panels are prohibited by statute from passing “rationing” regulations, under the definitions, the panels can pass regulations setting priorities for treatment. So, they can say a 40 year old must get treatment for the same condition suffered by a 70 year old before the 70 year old can get treatment, thereby letting the 70 year old whither and die waiting for their turn.

And Harry Reid intends for the Senate, in perpetuity, to be prohibited from every changing that regulation without a super-majority of the Senate agreeing to ignore that prohibition.

Lastly, why in God’s name would the Senate Majority Leader want to make the Death Panel regulations the only thing in the Obamacare legislation that is not subject to amendment, repeal, or change by the United States Senate?!

6. A Tale of Hope, Change, Deep Pockets and Open Hands

Elected on a pledge to deny Beltway lobbyists the undue influence they have previously been afforded, President Barack Obama’s inaugural year in office is on pace to be the most lucrative yet for influential K Street lobbyists.

According to figures collected by Politico, Washington’s influence peddlers will likely shatter last year’s record of $3.3 billion spent on lobbying Congress and the White House.

President Obama’s record is one of soaring rhetoric but compromised values. When push comes to shove, shove had better be prepared to contribute significant sums of money.

7. Nikki Haley Rising

A new poll from South Carolina shows State Representative Nikki Haley has moved into third place (PDF) ahead of Congressman Gresham Barrett.

Attorney General Henry McMaster and Lt. Governor Andrew Bauer are tied at 22% with Haley moving up to 13%.

This is really good news for Haley. She’s moved up in the polling and is now ahead of an otherwise popular sitting Congressman. Significantly, Nikki Haley is in second place with voters aged 45-64 and tied with McMaster in second place for voters aged 30-44.

8. Huge Blow to Charlie Crist Today

When Charlie Crist is losing even the establishment he is in serious trouble.

Congressmen Lincoln and Mario Diaz-Balart have withdrawn their endorsements of Charlie Crist.

9. What does it mean to be a Republican?

First, let’s get this out of the way. The news today of Parker Griffith becoming a Republican is a huge blow for Nancy Pelosi and one that her own party is, tonight, blaming her for. It is an embarrassment to President Obama who, like Bill Clinton, is seeing conservative and independent minded people fleeing him as fast as possible.

But, on our side of the aisle, we need to ask, given that all Parker Griffith did was change the letter next to his name from a “D” to an “R”, what exactly does it mean to be a Republican?

The GOP embraced him with open arms as one of us today. Should they have done so?

1. We Are No Longer a Nation of Laws. Senate Sets Up Requirement for Super-Majority to Ever Repeal Obamacare

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For December 22, 2009

2. A Lesson From Christmas of 1776

3. What About Those Messaging Amendments?

4. Obama Administration Repatriating Gitmo Detainees to Failed States

5. Well Done, NRSC

6. The Conservatives in the Races

7. Dick Cheney: Conservative of the Year

————————

1. We Are No Longer a Nation of Laws. Senate Sets Up Requirement for Super-Majority to Ever Repeal Obamacare

If ever the people of the United States rise up and fight over passage of Obamacare, Harry Reid must be remembered as the man who sacrificed the dignity of his office for a few pieces of silver. The rules of fair play that have kept the basic integrity of the Republic alive have died with Harry Reid. Reid has slipped in a provision into the health care legislation prohibiting future Congresses from changing any regulations imposed on Americans by the Independent Medicare Advisory Boards, which are commonly called the “Death Panels.”

It was Reid leading the Democrats who ignored 200 years of Senate precedents to rule that Senator Sanders could withdraw his amendment while it was being read.

It was Reid leading the Democrats who has determined again and again over the past few days that hundreds of years of accumulated Senate parliamentary rulings have no bearing on the health care vote.

On December 21, 2009, however, Harry Reid sold out the Republic in toto.

2. A Lesson From Christmas of 1776

The first key vote has been cast. The Democrats got their 60. But there will be several more votes.

Yes, this Christmas, the American people face a tyrannical Congress and narcissistic President hell bent on forcing upon them – over their clear opposition – a healthcare bill that will reduce the quality of American healthcare, cost trillions of dollars, increase taxes, empower the national government to mandate what the American people must or mustn’t buy, and that will, among many other immoral things, provide federal funding for abortions.

But this is not the first Christmas Americans have faced daunting odds. The Christmas of 1776 should serve as inspiration for us.

3. What About Those Messaging Amendments?

What did I say about Mitch McConnell’s “messaging strategy” early on? The GOP would need to offer up amendments that made it very difficult for the Democrats to vote against the particular amendments – from the Doc Fix to requiring everyone be on the Democrats’ plan including Senators, etc. etc, etc.

Karl over at Hot Air has been paying closer attention than me to the offered Republican amendments and finds McConnell’s strategy to be an embarrassment across the board.

4. Obama Administration Repatriating Gitmo Detainees to Failed States

Administration officials last week quietly repatriated twelve Guantanamo Bay detainees, seen as a prelude to the White House honoring President Barack Obama’s pledge to shutter the controversial detention facility by January 22.

Among those released were six Yemenis, four Afghanis, and two Somalis, many of whom have been in American custody for the last eight years.

The two Somalis, Mohammed Sulaymon Barre and Ismael Arela, were entrusted into the custody of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) by Justice Department officials. A former British protectorate known locally as Somaliland received the pair and, according to local press accounts, immediately freed the former terror suspects.

5. Well Done, NRSC

So Rudy Giuliani made it official today that he will not challenge Gillibrand for her NY-Sen seat. For those who have not been keeping track, polls have shown Giuliani consistently leading Gillibrand by a relatively comfortable margin. By way of contrast, Gillibrand and Pataki (who will almost certainly get the GOP nod with Rudy out of the race) are currently neck-and-neck in polling. So, the NRSC’s failure to recruit Giuliani into this race, given NY’s partisan tilt, moves this race effectively from toss-up to leans dem territory.

Also today, yet another poll was released showing that North Dakota Governor John Hoeven would crush Byron Dorgan in a hypothetical matchup for Dorgan’s Senate seat. The poll also showed Duane Sand (the presumptive GOP nominee in Hoeven’s absence) trailing Dorgan by a healthy margin. In other words, if the NRSC successfully recruits Hoeven, this race instantly becomes “Likely R” – if not, it remains “Likely D.” The problem here is that Hoeven said in 2008 that he would likely make a decision on his entrance into the race by September or October of 2009. That time frame has come and gone, and not a peep from Hoeven. Thus, while the time for Hoeven to enter the race has not passed (the official filing deadline is in next April), the signs do not look promising for Hoeven’s entrance into the race.

So, to recap, in 2 races where the NRSC could have recruited a candidate who polled better against the Democrats by double-digits, they are thus far 0 for 2.

6. The Conservatives in the Races

Do you believe that conservatives can win general elections?

Do you think that the GOP has the best chance since 1994 to make gains in the House and Senate this coming year?

If you answered yes to both questions, let me ask you another one: why shouldn’t the GOP try to nominate viable conservatives in its primaries instead of just going with the candidate the conventional wisdom thinks can win up front?

Look at Marco Rubio. He started the race at 8% and is now tied with the incumbent Governor of Florida for the GOP nomination.

I keep hearing that we need to back X candidate because that candidate can win. Really? Isn’t that what the NRSC said about Crist?

7. Dick Cheney: Conservative of the Year

In a perfect axis of all powerful conservatism, John Bolton writes the profile of Human Events’ Conservative of the Year.

The winner is Vice President Cheney.

1. If you oppose health care deform, you are a racist, hate-spouting, Aryan who roots for the assassination of Barack Obama

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For December 21, 2009

2. Amateur Barack Obama’s Speechifying Causes an International Incident

3. The Extraordinary Measures Needed to Kill the Bill – Updated with Vote Numbers

4. Shorter Ben Nelson: Killing Indian Babies is Fine, Just Don’t Kill White Babies

5. Nelson Caves; McConnell Strategy Fails

6. The McConnell Obstruction Record on Big Ticket Items

7. Hutchison Implies Fellow Republicans Are Anti-Troops

8. Remember $4.00 per Gallon Gasoline? Just Wait.

9. The NRSC, DeVore, and the fight at hand.

————————

1. If you oppose health care deform, you are a racist, hate-spouting, Aryan who roots for the assassination of Barack Obama

From the floor of the United States Senate, today Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse proclaimed as much about opponents of health care, including his Republican colleagues inside the United States Senate.

The President of the Senate let him get away with it.

Senator Whitehouse specifically said, “They are desperate to break this president. They have ardent supporters who are nearly hysterical at the very election of President Barack Obama. The birthers, the fanatics, the people running around in right-wing militia and Aryan support groups, it is unbearable to them that President Barack Obama should exist. That is one powerful reason. It is not the only one.”

There you have it – gone are the days when Democrats compared American soldiers to Nazis on the floor of the Senate. Today, Democrats condone one of their own calling, from the floor of the Senate, the majority of American citizens Aryan hate mongers rooting for the assassination of the President of the United States.

And yes, Whitehouse was referring to the majority of American citizens.

2. Amateur Barack Obama’s Speechifying Causes an International Incident

While Americans are fixated on the weekend blizzard and the health care debate, the rest of the world is fixated on the disastrous “climate change” talks in Copenhagen.

More importantly, though world leaders could not agree on much of anything significant, they could all agree on one thing: Barack Obama screwed up a delicate situation and unintentionally sunk the deal.

For a man who is supposed to be a brilliant speaker and skilled diplomat, leaders from London to Beijing are openly blaming Obama for screwing up Copenhagen. About the only thing good anyone can say about his performance is that he left early.

Seriously.

3. The Extraordinary Measures Needed to Kill the Bill – Updated with Vote Numbers

The corruption of using the public treasury as a check book to buy the votes of Senator Nelson and Senator Sanders – in the face not only overwhelming public opposition, but also in the face of a public that now wants Congress to do nothing on health care – means that extraordinary measures are needed to kill ObamaCare.

This plan, if executed properly, will kill the bill and it will give opponents two more bites at the apple, after it passes the Senate.

There are some atmospheric conditions that will help this plan work. For example, both sides of the net roots should cease fire on posts against each other. There must be a truce until the bill is dead. The target is the bill, not each other.

So, for those on the left who have decided to kill this bill, they are welcome to join in this the kill-the-bill fun.

4. Shorter Ben Nelson: Killing Indian Babies is Fine, Just Don’t Kill White Babies

Poor Ben Nelson. He went on John King’s show today and told King, “[I]f you think it’s fun having both sides on an issue mad at you when you’re trying to do something in good faith, just think, it’s like going home and getting bit by the family dog. So how – who enjoys that?”

We all know the truth, however. The proof is in the pudding of Ben Nelson’s arrangements with Harry Reid.

Nelson said he was standing firm on pro-life issues, but in fact his compromise will not help him. His compromise authorizes federal funding of abortions on Indian Reservations, but will make it difficult for white Americans to have access to abortions during Republican administrations.

That is the key. Under Nelson’s compromise, abortion access will fluctuate based on who the President is. A pro-life President will have the power to make it more difficult. A pro-death President like Barack Obama will make it exceedingly easy. The only constant will be federal abortion funding for Indians.

I guess Ben Nelson has no problem with the multi-century history of the feds trying to exterminate Indian populations. Surely Ben Nelson knew what he was agreeing to.

5. Nelson Caves; McConnell Strategy Fails

It was never about abortion. For Sen. Ben Nelson, a devout appropriator, it was all about the benjamins. In exchange for a “compromise” that forces federal taxpayers to fund abortion, the supposedly pro-life senator from Nebraska will receive a permanent earmark to pay for all future Medicaid increases in his state. In short, taxpayers across America are now on the hook for abortions in New York and Medicaid cost overruns in Nebraska. Somewhere Sen. Landrieu is cursing herself for being such a cheap, early date.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle in the Senate, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has continued his war of words against the bill. Unfortunately for the vast majority of Americans who overwhelmingly oppose the government-run health care plan and the future generations who will have to pay for it, actions speak louder than words, and in that department Sen. McConnell has come up woefully short yet again.

6. The McConnell Obstruction Record on Big Ticket Items

Senator Mitch McConnell has lost almost every major legislative battle he has managed.

In the early ’90’s, he managed opposition to the Motor Voter Bill, which encouraged groups like ACORN to register fraudulent voters. McConnell refused to filibuster the motion to take up the bill – something that would have served as a key delaying tactic.

Moreover, Sen. McConnell sat by idly as sponsors of the bill played “let’s make a deal” – offering amendment after amendment to buy off opponents of the bill. A bill, which initially had more than enough votes to kill it, ended up passing because of McConnell’s ill-advised strategy.

A decade later, McConnell managed the opposition to the Incumbent Protection Act a/k/a the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act to take away the free speech rights of Second Amendment groups during heated elections. McConnell threatened and cajoled to prevent Republican senators from offering “killer amendments” to the bill. McConnell explained that he would bring a lawsuit to overturn it in the courts.

Well, after the bill’s passage, McConnell did bring a lawsuit. He lost.

Now, Senate Minority Leader McConnell could once again end up losing this historic battle against ObamaCare legislation – when we had it within our power to defeat it.

7. Hutchison Implies Fellow Republicans Are Anti-Troops

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, despite having promised to stay and “fight” against healthcare in Washington while campaigning for Texas Governor (and in so doing, jamming up her fellow Republican candidates in Texas while they wait for her to supposedly resign in March), refused to support her fellow Republicans in an important cloture vote.

Yet now, in an “I was for the filibuster before I was against it” moment reminiscent of John Kerry, Senator Hutchison put out a statement that basically implies that her fellow Republican Senators are somehow against the troops. Given that we all know this to be false – is this a case of Senator Hutchison wanting her cake and eating it too? Nooo… it couldn’t be.

8. Remember $4.00 per Gallon Gasoline? Just Wait.

Despite Kyoto, despite Copenhagen, despite the New Green Economy and despite the Democratic Party, world oil demand is expected to increase by 0.8 to 1.5 million barrels a day in 2010, depending on the source of your forecast. That kind of increased demand could lead to a substantial increase in oil prices; when demand exceeds production capability by just a little bit, the price reaction is usually pretty strong.

What has the Obama Administration done to prepare for such an eventuality?

Nothing. Well, nothing positive.

9. The NRSC, DeVore, and the fight at hand.

When Ben Domenech, Mike Krempasky and I founded RedState over five years ago, we spent much time discussing the new site’s mission: Would it be conservative first, or Republican first? What happens when the interests of conservatives and Republicans conflict? Are there lines that we as conservatives will not cross for the sake of Republicans; and are there lines that we as Republicans will not cross for the sake of conservatives? We settled on some answers to these questions that generally remain in effect for the site today – but we did not settle on the answers to those questions. The tension between movement and Party is, outside of foundational principles, the defining characteristic of our unwieldy, fractious, and beautiful union of partisan and principle: and I believe it’s a creative and necessary tension that anchors idealism to pragmatism, and preserves pragmatism from surrender.

It is in this light that we view the conflict between the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and the Senatorial campaign of California Assemblyman Chuck DeVore on which I am privileged to serve as communications director. Enough has been written about it here at RedState and elsewhere, and it’s sufficient to note two things: first, that the conflict was consciously chosen by the NRSC when it decided to recruit and sustain Carly Fiorina as a moderate-pragmatist alternative to the conservative stalwart; and second, that this conflict is not the foundation for conservative victory in California in 2010.

It is therefore over as far as we’re concerned.

1. A year since the Wasilla Church Burning…

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For December 18, 2009

2. Sen. Nelson (D-NE) Rejects Abortion “Compromise” – Not at Yes is the New No

3. Franken’s Axe

4. Conservative Republican Participation

5. For the good of the GOP, will Charlie Crist drop out?

6. Bill McCollum, Presumptive GOP Nominee for Florida Governor, Throws Charlie Crist Under the Bus

7. How Cap and Trade Plans to Cripple Our Economy

8. Why we must unite behind Nikki Haley. All of us.

9. Free the SEALs

————————

1. A year since the Wasilla Church Burning…

…which, as a reminder, was a deliberate, premeditated attempt to murder women and children via arson; and there has been no progress in the investigation since the last time I checked. In fact, despite the fact that somebody tried to burn down a church as part of a political statement – I am uninterested in feeding the delusions of those who would argue otherwise* – federal law enforcement agencies are apparently not investigating this themselves.

2. Sen. Nelson (D-NE) Rejects Abortion “Compromise” – Not at Yes is the New No

The left-right-center squeeze is on.

Now, Senator Ben Nelson – who was not bought off by offers of $500 million in earmarks for his state, or cowed by threats to close every Nebraska military base – has rejected the abortion “compromise” language. It’s not just abortion either, Senator Nelson also cited other concerns he had with the legislation.

So, if you are counting Senators who are not YES votes, that count would be . . .

3. Franken’s Axe

Senator Al Franken today caused a stir among his colleagues, breaking from the Senate’s long-held standards of collegiality when the gavel-wielding Minnesota Democrat denied Senator Joe Lieberman an additional minute to finish his remarks.

Lieberman-who has been vilified by progressives for rejecting the controversial public option, most recently by MoveOn today-was interrupted by Franken when his remarks exceeded the allotted ten minutes.

“I’m sorry. The senator has spoken for ten minutes,” said Franken, acting as the chamber’s presiding officer.

In such occasions, members request unanimous consent from their colleagues for an additional moment or two. Such requests are summarily granted.

Franken, however, had little interest in hearing the remainder of the Connecticut Independent’s remarks on Medicare. “In my capacity as the senator from Minnesota, I object,” he said, with an unmistakable smirk.

4. Conservative Republican Participation

Events of the past year should persuade every serious conservative that the Republican Party is the only practical party vehicle for us.

For a year now, we have seen how much damage the left would do to America if they get their way.

We should have no doubt now as to the disasters the left would create if conservatives, angry with terrible mistakes of many Republican politicians, say, “I hate the Republicans. Let the leftist Democrats win and take all power in the country for awhile. So what?”

We know what the leftists want if they obtain all power. They are statists as ambitious for total power as Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. Without effective opposition, they would go as far as Hugo Chavez wants to go.

They are on the brink of destroying the system of checks and balances and separation of powers so wisely established by America’s founding fathers.

Their agenda would ruin our country for the foreseeable future, surely beyond our ability to recover in our lifetimes.

Now is not the time for us to take our marbles and go home.

Now is the time for all good conservatives to work together whenever we can to promote conservative principles successfully through the Republican Party.

5. For the good of the GOP, will Charlie Crist drop out?

The first survey in the Florida Senate race was 54-8 in Charlie Crist’s favor. When Rubio broke into the mid-teens, Charlie Crist’s campaign said that for the good of the GOP, Rubio needed to withdraw.

The NRSC endorsed campaign of Charlie Crist said Rubio would lose to Democrat Kendrick Meeks. Crist said that Rubio staying in the race would cause money to be spent unnecessarily in the GOP primary.

John Cornyn and the NRSC said they were endorsing Charlie Crist because they did not want to have to spend a bunch of time and effort in Florida and . . . wait for it . . . Rubio could not win.

But wait.

The Rasmussen poll shows the race now tied. I suspect we will soon see other polls showing, if not a tie, the Crist lead down from 40 points to single digits, if not showing Rubio in the lead.

6. Bill McCollum, Presumptive GOP Nominee for Florida Governor, Throws Charlie Crist Under the Bus

How bad is it for Charlie Crist? So bad that the presumptive nominee for the GOP’s gubernatorial candidate has thrown Crist under the bus.

Speaking at an event in Ocala, FL, Bill McCollum listed his priorities for Governor and, as the Associated Press notes, they “look[] a lot like the one Gov. Charlie Crist had in 2006: education, lawsuit limits, property insurance and property taxes.”

Here is where it gets interesting. . .

7. How Cap and Trade Plans to Cripple Our Economy

If you can’t understand conceptually why a Cap and Trade system is such a bad deal, how about a concrete example?

The European Union is a signatory of the Kyoto Protocols and have been dealing with a Carbon Cap and Trade system for several years. This article in today’s Wall Street Journal shows how the potential profit from the sale of carbon credits directly led to the loss of 1,700 jobs in a British steel plant.

Usually, we worry about the unintended consequences of new, far-reaching regulation. As the article makes clear, however, crippling the economies of the Western Democracies for the benefit of the “developing world” (read: China and India) is precisely the intent of Cap and Trade.

8. Why we must unite behind Nikki Haley. All of us.

Interestingly, as I write this, word comes from the paper that one of the GOP candidates for Governor of South Carolina, has been AWOL from his day job. Gresham Barrett, a South Carolina Congressman, has been absent from more votes in the United States House of Representatives than any other Congressman, Democrat or Republican.

Barrett is, like the other guys in the race, a good guy, but I have to ask what these guys have sacrificed for their principles. We are used to guys compromising in the name of comity and saving face and power. Rarely do we see a politician willing to be punished for sticking up for principles.

That brings up to Nikki Haley. Back in 2008, Nikki Haley was up to be chairman of the South Carolina House’s powerful Labor, Commerce and Industry (LCI) Committee.

Unfortunately for Haley, she had pushed legislation for greater transparency and spending restraint in the state legislature. The Republicans in the state legislature who talk a good game on fiscal conservatism, but don’t practice it, were angry. They told Haley if she did not back down, they would punish her.

She refused. The House Speaker yanked her chairmanship.

Haley, even then, refused to back down and forced an awkward vote for the GOP.

9. Free the SEALs

If you haven’t signed it yet, please consider signing the petition to free the Navy SEALs.

As you know, several SEALs are being courtmartialed after the capture of the terrorist mastermind of Fallujah. The guy got a bloody lip.

Please sign the petition. Join tens of thousands of other Americans in support of our finest.

1. Senate Democrats Subvert the Rules of Order

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For December 17, 2009

2. Sen. Baucus Admits Senators Don’t Understand the Bill

3. Michael Moore To Boycott Constitution

4. House Democrats Go Turtle

5. The Trillion Dollar President’s Latest Gaffe

6. The Big Energy Lie

————————

1. Senate Democrats Subvert the Rules of Order

We can only hope the Senate Republicans learned their lesson today.

As so many of us have tried to tell Mitch McConnell for weeks and weeks and weeks, the Senate GOP must throw everything they can at killing the health care bill. Instead, we have seen the Senate Republicans working collaboratively with the Democrats on a series of messaging amendments that no one has paid attention to.

Finally, Senator Tom Coburn decided to fight. Yesterday, Senator Sanders of Vermont introduced a 700+ page amendment and asked for unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Senator Coburn objected.

The Clerk began to read the amendment.

But then something curious happened – something that violates the sacrosanct nature of the Senate’s rules; rules so inviolable that until yesterday neither Democrat nor Republican ever risks crosses the rules in over 200 years.

In short, the Democrats have now crossed the rubicon and conservatives are left telling Mitch McConnell, “I told you so.”

2. Sen. Baucus Admits Senators Don’t Understand the Bill

As noted above, Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) objected to the the unanimous consent request that the “reading of the amendment be dispensed with” when Senator Bernie Sanders’ (admitted Socialist – VT) single-payer amendment (SA#2837), totalling 767 pages, was called up. It is notable that there are two co-sponsors: Sherrod Brown and Roland Burris.

BUT, it’s gets even better.

Right before he did that, Senator Coburn asked unanimous consent for an amendment that would, in effect, certify that all Senators have read and understand the bill.

Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) objected. The specific excange, notable in its absurdity, can be seen here. The specific text follows, and you can see a general summary of today’s floor proceedings here.

Money quote from Senator Baucus: I THINK IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO CERTIFY THAT ANY SENATOR FULLY UNDERSTOOD [the health care bill].

3. Michael Moore To Boycott Constitution

On Twitter, Michael Moore blamed the people of Connecticut for killing hundreds of thousands of Americans. Why? Because they elected Joe Lieberman to the Senateo who has delayed the public option. Moore demands the people of Connecticut start a recall effort or Moore will organize a boycott of Connecticut.

There is just one problem.

Recall laws as applied to members of Congress are unconstitutional.

What’s even better is Moore has an article at his own website, a repost of a Politico article, featuring a Connecticut state legislator calling for Lieberman’s ouster. The article, on Moore’s own website, points out that recall is not possible under the constitution.

4. House Democrats Go Turtle

Via The Hill comes this remarkable piece indicating that Nancy Pelosi is throwing up the white flag in a last-ditch effort to save the Democrat Majority from summary pummeling in 2010. She will not make the House of Representatives vote on any controversial matter unless the Senate goes first.

For those who aren’t keeping track, given the total failure of the Senate to accomplish anything on Obama’s legislative agenda other than throw tons of money in the direction of Wall Street Bankers, Pelosi’s decision here comes as a complete surrender of any hope of advancing the liberal agenda.

5. The Trillion Dollar President’s Latest Gaffe

“President Obama told ABC News’ Charles Gibson in an interview that if Congress does not pass health care legislation that will bring down costs, the federal government “will go bankrupt.”

I see, we need to spend $2.5 trillion on a government take-over of health care – or the U.S. will go bankrupt?

Uh, huh. It is like the skit from Saturday Night Live – the trillion dollar man says he is worried about debt, but all he does is spend money.

Amateur hour continues at the White House.

6. The Big Energy Lie

The Big Energy Lie goes something like this:

The United States has only 2-3% of the world’s oil reserves, but consumes 25% of global production.

Those words have been uttered by our Dear Leader as well as his Secretaries of Energy and Interior. The idea justifies “progressive” Administration policies ranging from “green jobs” to Cap and Trade to foreign affairs.

And they are deliberately designed to mislead.

Let’s study the fraction that results in that paltry 2-3% number.

1. Senate Democrats on Verge of Deal

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For December 16, 2009

2. A Bomb Goes Off in Florida

3. Howard Dean: “Kill the Senate Bill” – Updated, Sen. Nelson tells Obama NO

4. Lieberman Haters Need a Little Self-Awareness

5. Do Conservatives Need to Look in on Illinois’s Senate Race?

6. House retirement watch

————————

1. Senate Democrats on Verge of Deal

Don’t believe everything you hear. The Senate Democrats are not on the verge of a collapse. They are on the verge of compromising every single thing they want just so they can get a “health care reform” bill passed.

Here’s what I’m being told . . .

2. A Bomb Goes Off in Florida

Last night in Washington, close to one hundred leaders of the conservative movement gathered in a townhouse just down from the United States Capitol to hear Senator Jim DeMint and Florida Speaker Marco Rubio at a Senate Conservatives Fund fundraiser for Marco Rubio.

The people in the room for Rubio were the same people who blew up NY-23, helping Doug Hoffman and crushing the chances of a far left Republican, Dede Scozzafava.

Just prior to the start of the fundraiser, a bomb went off in Florida. According to Rasmussen, the Florida Senate primary is now tied between Rubio and Crist.

For perspective, only about six months ago, Rubio was in the single digits with Crist safely over 50%.

Jim DeMint told the crowd that Rubio is one of a handful of “new Republicans” running to take back our country. And the new poll shows it is working.

3. Howard Dean: “Kill the Senate Bill” – Updated, Sen. Nelson tells Obama NO

From Plum Line, which has published an advance look at a radio interview Howard Dean recorded for Vermont Public Radio. Dean said Democrats must now kill the health care bill.

The question is whether Senator Sanders (I-VT) and Senator Burris (D-IL) or any other Senator agree, and I suspect the answer to that is a big YES.

4. Lieberman Haters Need a Little Self-Awareness

It’s amusing to watch the swarm of enraged Democrats promising revenge against Joe Lieberman for his daring to oppose the Medicare buy-in. Isn’t this the party that has spent the last year constantly ridiculing Republicans for supposedly demanding ideological purity in their ranks? What’s particularly amusing is that the Democrats screaming bloody murder don’t seem to have the slightest self-awareness of the contradiction in their positions.

Even putting the hypocrisy aside, the accusation that Republicans seek philosophical purity is belied by the contrast between Democrats’ calls for revenge and the GOP’s treatment of its moderate senators.

5. Do Conservatives Need to Look in on Illinois’s Senate Race?

Mark Kirk, the front runner in the race for the GOP nomination for Illinois’s Senate seat, appears to be cruising to a sure primary victory in February. His challenger, Patrick Hughes, has not made ad buys yet, has no name recognition, and for all intents and purposes has barely put on a political campaign. Hughes also only has $340,048.00 on hand compared to $2.3 million on Mark Kirk’s side.

If conservatives united behind Hughes, Kirk could be in serious trouble in the primary. Republicans, however, have got it in their heads that Mark Kirk is the only Republican who can win the general election.

Talking to more and more Republicans in Illinois, I have a few concerns. I have said for a while that I would be fine with Kirk in Illinois, and I would. I think taking about Bob Bennett in Utah must be a much higher priority for conservatives. But conservatives who are happy to “grin and bear it” with Kirk may at least want to consider the following . . .

6. House retirement watch

nterest in the recent spat of Democrat retirements from the House of Representatives has highlighted interest in a House Retirement Watch. So far, 23 members of the House – 11 Democrats and 12 Republicans, have announced plans to leave the House by the January 3, 2011 end of the 111th Congress. We’ve got the list.

1. ObamaCare Supporters Have Been Wrong About Everything

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For December 15, 2009

2. Pew and the Democratic War on Science.

3. Why are we paying for Congress’s laundry?

4. Despite Claiming Otherwise, the NRSC Endorses Carly Fiorina

5. Charlie Crist Lies Again About Marco Rubio

6. LF 9: The Religion of Government

————————

1. ObamaCare Supporters Have Been Wrong About Everything

To the Democrats, the ends justify the means to pass health care. Speaker Pelosi is widely rumored to have told an assembled K Street cognoscenti that she would sacrifice 30 Democratic House seats to get health care reform passed – and, of course, she said “We would do almost anything to pass a healthcare bill.”

The White House has convinced itself that it in the interest of all Democratic Members of Congress for ObamaCare to pass.

But the reality is that ObamaCare is a political failure, and therefore it is not in the political interest of Members of Congress to pass ObamaCare.

2. Pew and the Democratic War on Science.

For the record, I don’t actually care if somebody believes in stuff like astrology. But fair’s fair, and if we’re going to have to listen to liberal elites sneering about creationists, said elites can take the time to explain why they don’t sneer at astrology devotees.

3. Why are we paying for Congress’s laundry?

Earl Glynn has a fascinating look at congressional expenditures that taxpayers are paying for.

Guam’s Delegate, for example, had all of us pick up $6,090.00 in food expenditures in Guam. Madeleine Bordalio may have no vote in Congress, but she can stick it to the taxpayers nonetheless.

There’s also an $8.80 laundry bill taxpayers paid for and a whole lot more. Most interesting to me is that the Guam Delegate who has no vote and is only there because we took Guam from Spain in a war over a century ago and wanted to be kind has billed the taxpayers for more than any of the guys who can actually vote.

4. Despite Claiming Otherwise, the NRSC Endorses Carly Fiorina

I realize we’re playing adolescent word games with the NRSC when it comes to Carly Fiorina. Just last week, John Cornyn said the NRSC would not be endorsing anyone, including Carly Fiorina.

Reconciling that with the fact that the NRSC is entering into a joint fundraising venture with Fiorina is impossible.

5. Charlie Crist Lies Again About Marco Rubio

It is called projection. The big spending, tax-hiking cover of the Florida accuses his opponent who has always been committed to cutting spending and taxes as being a big spending tax hiker.

Come on, Charlie. Even the media is calling you out for your lies.

6. LF 9: The Religion of Government

RedState continues its review of Jonah Goldberg’s book LIberal Fascism.

“But it’s worth looking at Reich as a true acolyte of the religion of government.”

When I came to the above sentence, it occurred to me that the same could be said for many of the most prominent liberal / progressive / statist politicians in today’s world. “Man-made global warming” is obviously one of the religions of today’s Democratic Party. If Abortion isn’t the most sacred of the faiths, it’s really far up there. But Jonah Goldberg points out the truth of the matter is that Hillary Clinton and others are true religious believers in the power of Government as a religion or a faith.

2. The Difference Between Being *A* Conservative and Being Conservative

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For December 14, 2009

1. Fight.

3. Reminder to Libertarians and Independents of What the Democrats Stand For

4. Dems Fight Each other to a Stand Still in the Senate over Drugs

5. ObamaCare Starts to Show Cracks, Update: Lieberman Tells Reid to his Face: Nyet

6. Sen. Ben Nelson: I will not vote to end the filibuster

7. Sen. Reid to GOP: I need some time off to raise money.

8. Queen Bee Hutchison Always Wants Her Cake and Eat It Too

————————

1. Fight.

“If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival. There may even be a worse case: you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.”

- Winston Churchill

The Founding Fathers created a Republic, but 60 Senators are poised to take it away. With the pending disaster of the passage in the Senate of a bill nationalizing one sixth of the U.S. economy and our entire healthcare system at a cost of over $2.5 trillion, we are faced with a crucial question: are the Republican senators using every means at their disposal to stop this looming, tyrannical abuse of power? Unfortunately, the answer appears to be “no.”

The Senate, unlike the House of Representatives, has parliamentary rules and procedures that give the minority the ability to stall legislation. In fact, unlike the House, the minority have the ability to virtually paralyze the Senate. Doing so is not something we would want or expect for every bad bill that comes through Congress, but the proposed healthcare legislation is probably the worst piece of legislation ever considered by the United States Congress. It is the most intrusive, most damaging, most costly, most dangerous bill to the economic and personal freedom and liberty of individual Americans that Congress has ever considered. If there is any bill that deserves being stopped by shutting down the Senate, it is this one.

There are a whole series of parliamentary maneuvers that could be used by Republican senators to stop this bill. There is a hard backstop to the current process (Christmas). The Republicans’ goal should be to prevent Reid from passing the bill before that time. If he goes past Christmas and is forced to adjourn or recess, the momentum will shift in favor of those opposing the bill.

How could this be done? Read on to find out just how easy it would be. Then ask yourself why the GOP hasn’t been doing it.

2. The Difference Between Being *A* Conservative and Being Conservative

Lately, we have collectively been saying a lot of people are conservatives, the noun, when we should be saying they are conservative, the adjective. Here is a good example:

George W. Bush is not a conservative. He is conservative, but not a conservative. While Christianity has certainly always defined who George Bush is, conservatism has not. Put another way in which I think we can all agree, George W. Bush’s gut instinct is a conservative one, but the fiber of his being is not that of a conservative.

I don’t mean to pick on a President I like, but it was Rush Limbaugh in 2005, who was the first real conservative (noun) to say George W. Bush was not a conservative, but had conservative instincts.

Here is where the trouble comes in – there is no rule to separate between the two.

3. Reminder to Libertarians and Independents of What the Democrats Stand For

This is just a friendly Sunday reminder to our libertarian and independent friends that in addition to spending hundreds of billions (or trillions) of dollars on a government takeover of healthcare, and in addition to spending hundred of billions of dollars on failed economic stimulus programs, and in addition to implementing worthless environmental regulation that has the effect of a massive tax increase, the Democrats are still wildly in favor of massive increases in government spending on, well… everything.

4. Dems Fight Each other to a Stand Still in the Senate over Drugs

Senator Carper (D-DE) has put a hold on Senator Dorgan’s (D-ND) drug re-importation amendment, who in turn, has objected to the Senate moving on any other health care amendments, until his pending drug re-importation amendment is voted on.

Got that? It’s a Dem on Dem cage match.

5. ObamaCare Starts to Show Cracks, Update: Lieberman Tells Reid to his Face: Nyet

Senator Lieberman told Senator Reid to his face this morning that he will vote against the Reid vapor deal.

6. Sen. Ben Nelson: I will not vote to end the filibuster

Everyone in the country closely following the ObamaCare saga have been waiting for Senator Nelson (D-NE) to give us a sense of where he is on the bill since his abortion restriction amendment failed last week.

Yesterday, Senator Nelson – a long time pro-lifer – said:

“I can’t support cloture [ending the filibuster] on the next round,”

and that adds a second large monkey wrench in the Senate ObamaCare gears.

7. Sen. Reid to GOP: I need some time off to raise money.

He had a fundraiser in New Orleans that he rather badly needed to do, and never mind the rhetoric on how important it is to pass health care rationing.

The GOP mocked him, as was only fitting. The GOP is, in fact, using it as local campaign fodder; and so Senator Reid doesn’t get to go to New Orleans. He’s quite upset about it, too*: it’s unclear to whether it’s from being done unto as he has done, or simply because Reid needs all the help that he can get.

8. Queen Bee Hutchison Always Wants Her Cake and Eat It Too

Known in Senate circles as the Senator who must have her way – even if it means a few tears in the leader’s office – Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) is the queen of wanting to have it both ways. She wants to run for Governor of Texas without giving up her Senate seat. She wanted to move up Senate leadership without taking a risk to run. She wants to be the “conservative” in the primary, and the candidate with “broad appeal” in the general election. She wants to be pro-choice and pro-life. This leaves one scratching his head a bit.

Please go here to RedState for the all the ways the Senate Republicans could be, but are not now, deploying to kill this legislation.

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

A RedState Weekend Update: FIGHT

- Winston Churchill

How could this be done?

To start with, they should stop constantly agreeing to “unanimous consent” requests from the Democrats. Senate Republicans, to date, have allowed Democrats, by unanimous consent, to process 10 amendments. The amendments that have been accepted – Democrat amendments – did not make the over 2000-page atrocity any better. The Republican strategy of trying to pass their own “message” amendments carries no message unless you consider “no strategy to kill the bill” a message. There are no amendments that could possibly make this bill a palatable piece of legislation – and any amendments the Republicans get passed that supposedly make the bill “better” may just make it easier for the Democrats to get final passage. If the Republicans want the news media to cover what they are doing to educate the American people even further about the atrociousness of this bill, they have to create drama on the floor of the Senate. And the only way to do that is through an all-out fight with no holds barred. They need to look like Braveheart, fighting to the end to save freedom. Because, in fact, it is our very freedom and liberty that is at stake.

The most powerful words in the Senate are “I object.” Senate Republicans should have been shouting those two words on the Senate floor early and often from the moment this bill was considered, instead of the complete silence we have heard – other than to constantly agree to conduct business through unanimous consent. Here are just a few ways those words can (and should) be used in a very effective way:

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For December 11, 2009

1. Joe Barton’s Folly – Congress Has Nothing More Important to Do Than to Run College Football?

2. A Chain of Command No-Go on the New Afghanistan Strategy

3. Howard Dean: I Love This Compromise, Which I Thought Up, Because it Empowers Bureaucracy & Leads to Single-Payer

4. The Bailout That Never Ends

5. Democrats declare war on West Virginia. Again.

6. Ted Kennedy, Pro-Lifer

————————

1. Joe Barton’s Folly – Congress Has Nothing More Important to Do Than to Run College Football?

I honestly don’t know what happens to these people when they get to Washington. That city really is a deadly disease.

Congressman Joe Barton (quasi-R – TX) apparently has so much time on his hands that he is teaming up with like-minded big-government nationalists to try to tell the American people and colleges around the nation how it must determine it’s college football national champion. Indeed, his bill has passed out of the House Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection Subcommittee – and Barton has had “good conversations” with those bastions of limited government, Henry Waxman and Barack Obama, about moving the bill forward.

Well, thank goodness these guys are on the ball, or how would we survive? How could we possibly sort this out without the wisdom of Washington, D.C. – those great men and women who have given us the over $12 Trillion in debt, the TARP program, Katrina-relief and now want to tell you what health care you can have.

2. A Chain of Command No-Go on the New Afghanistan Strategy

In my previous life; one of my jobs was to teach leadership and tactics to students at the US Army Ranger School. In this course students are placed in a simulated combat scenario, given a mission to complete and then graded on their units actions to carry out the mission. In a platoon size scenario, there are several graded positions. If the student makes one or more major mistakes they fail the mission. If they fail too many missions they don’t pass the phase and are either dropped from the course or recycled through that particular phase or through the whole course.

None of these are fun, and in some cases failing the course can be a career threatening event. Mindful that the Army needs Ranger School graduates, and that a failed student is a loss in training resources, and trying to be fair, the instructors try (even if former Ranger students don’t believe it) to be judicious when assigning a “No-Go” to a student. But, occasionally something would happen (or not happen) that was so bad, so utterly unacceptable, that instructors would fail the entire chain of command for a patrol. This was a serious event. The battalion commander for that Phase of Ranger School would have to be informed and the entire instructor chain of command would be involved in a review of the reasoning behind the grade and the facts of the case. It was not a casual action.

I thought of that when I read a Washington Post article dated December 6, that described the process of creating the new Afghanistan strategy. In it, there was this account . . .

3. Howard Dean: I Love This Compromise, Which I Thought Up, Because it Empowers Bureaucracy & Leads to Single-Payer

While others have reported that a bipartisan group of Senators arrived at the current Senate compromise all on their own, Howard Dean says that’s not true. It seems that he’s responsible for the proposal currently being considered in the Senate.

4. The Bailout That Never Ends

The $700 billion Wall Street bailout last year proved exceedingly unpopular with regular Americans. Nevertheless, House Democrats, with their tin ears to the ground, are looking to make bailouts the status quo by creating a permanent bailout fund.

The financial regulation bill cooked up by Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), the “Barney Bill,” offers a smorgasbord of bad policies that will affect every American. The Barney is yet another leg of the Giant Government Takeover of major industries pushed through the House this year. If your appetite for bigger government wasn’t satiated by the Car Takeover (GM and Chrysler), the Energy Takeover (cap and trade) or the Health Care Takeover, Barney has something designed just for you: The Financial System Takeover.

There are many reasons to oppose the financial regulatory overhaul bill on the floor this week, but the major reasons are that it will further tighten credit, allow bureaucrats to chop up U.S. businesses they deem “too big,” cost consumers more and kill jobs.

5. Democrats declare war on West Virginia. Again.

Well, it’s not like the state voted for the current President anyway. The often-strained history between West Virginians and national Democrats stretches back to 1863. Still, this is a little… petty… of the Democratic party, isn’t it?

6. Ted Kennedy, Pro-Lifer

An observant reader notes that my description yesterday of Ted Kennedy’s support for legal abortion as “lifelong” is an overstatement. In fact, early in his public career, even Ted Kennedy had not yet embraced the casual cruelty of his party towards the defenseless unborn; indeed, Kennedy’s rhetoric in those early days, displays genuine compassion for the defenseless unborn. Given Kennedy’s centrality to Democratic strategy on this issue – he was the leader of the fight against the Bork nomination – it’s interesting to look back. Here’s Kennedy during his 1970 campaign for a second full term in the Senate . . .

1. The Very Necessary Republican Civil War

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For December 10, 2009

2. A Kennedy Tries To Tell The Bishops How To Be Catholic

3. A Nobel versus a Noble Peace

4. Senator Reid’s Vapor Deal

5. White House to Congress: Nice Economy You Have There. Be a Shame if Something Happened to It.

6. The Poll Republican Establishment Types Would Prefer You Ignore

7. Fun Facts About Methane

————————

1. The Very Necessary Republican Civil War

Yesterday, in an interview with the St. Petersburg Times, I said in 2010 one of my big targets is the GOP establishment. Yep. It’s being characterized as a civil war. I prefer to think of it as a coup. It is time for the grassroots to take back the party. If a fight is necessary, I’m game for that.

While I was away from my computer most of the day, that statement kind of exploded yesterday.

But what do I mean? It’s pretty simple.

The media narrative every time Republicans lose is not that Republicans lose, but that conservatives lose. Without fail, every election cycle, made worse by John McCain being the 2008 nominee, is that conservatives cannot win. In 2008, the narrative was that conservatives cannot even make it out of the GOP primary.

As often happens, the media narrative when repeated enough starts being treated as fact, particularly among Republican establishment types who crave acceptance in the media. Their thinking is pretty grade school: “Reporter says conservatives can’t win. Therefore I will not be conservative. They will look at me and say ‘winner.’”

Sadly, this attitude has infected the great bulk of the Republican establishment. The only way to change this is for conservatives to win. But this year, unlike most other years, there is a very real problem. The Republican Establishment is out to beat conservatives to make sure once and for all that the media narrative is established fact.

Conservatives must fight back and win in Republican primaries.

2. A Kennedy Tries To Tell The Bishops How To Be Catholic

For all their protestations to the contrary, liberals have an awful habit of trying to tell people of faith, notably the Catholic Church, what their faith means and how it should apply in the political sphere. If you can stomach the irony, let’s take a look at the latest example of this genre, an opinion piece in the Politico by Robert Kennedy’s daughter, former Maryland Lieutenant Governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend.

3. A Nobel versus a Noble Peace

The Navy SEALs have helped us reach a noble peace in Iraq. The people are largely free. The markets are largely free. The government is largely operational. Violence is down. And the bad guys keep getting captured.

Recently, Navy SEALs captured the mastermind of the Fallujah massacre, Ahmed Hashim Abed. In that massacre, four Blackwater employees were rounded up and slaughtered. The SEALs have done many other fine things in the past year, and beyond, including rescuing Captain Phillips of the Maersk Alabama.

Contrast them with Barack Obama who has done nothing except expand the deficit and talk. The world community who hates the men who keep us safe at night has given one of their own the Nobel Peace Prize for prospective work.

4. Senator Reid’s Vapor Deal

In a classic have-it-both-ways-moment, Senator Reid has been selling the media and the public the following story line: in a breakthrough deal we took out the public option, but its not dead.

Uh, huh. The deal that was supposed to buy off Senator Lieberman’s opposition to any form of a public option, did not kill the public option. So, if you don’t kill the public option, how do you get Senator Lieberman’s vote?

5. White House to Congress: Nice Economy You Have There. Be a Shame if Something Happened to It.

In the wake of the Obama administration’s brazen move earlier this week to bypass Congress and enact cap-and-trade via regulatory fiat, the Obama administration has now taken to actually threatening Congress to (further) harm the economy if Congress does not cover their backside by passing unwanted legislation.

6. The Poll Republican Establishment Types Would Prefer You Ignore

What are we told about conservatives by the Republican establishment? Let’s see: they need to be seen and not heard, they are hurting us with independents, their philosophy is outmoded, they stand for nothing but “no,” and if we move right the voters will reject us.

What do we know from reality?

As Republicans stood up to Obama, their polling among independents went up.

Independents more closely identify with conservatives than liberals.

When Obama targeted Rush as too conservative, Rush’s ratings went up.

More voters already view themselves as conservative than liberal.

After Joe Wilson called the President a liar, Wilson racked up the cash from across the nation.

And now there is this.

7. Fun Facts About Methane

On Monday, the EPA moved to regulate six “greenhouse gases” by finding that their contribution to Global Warming constitutes a hazard to human health. One of those gases is methane, the lightest and most abundant hydrocarbon, chemical symbol CH4.

This finding by the EPA unmasks an unscientific charade and a regulatory power-grab.

2. All I Want for Christmas?

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For December 9, 2009

1. See, I Told You So?

3. The Obama Administration’s Pedophilia Supporting Czar Goes Further Down the Rabbit Hole. Or Something Like That.

4. Nelson prolife amendment tabled: Nelson (D, NE) caving to follow.

5. Tim Gill’s Merry Band Failed in New York.

6. Barack Obama is not the solution to the problem. Barack Obama IS the problem.

————————

1. See, I Told You So?

What was I saying? Something about the GOP Strategy of offering up amendments, all of which died, with reciprocal amendments from the Dems, was just allowing the Democrats to improve the bill and buy time for 60 votes?

Guess what? That’s what happened.

Now the GOP has a choice – keep up the “messaging amendment” or actually fight. Their choice.

2. All I Want for Christmas?

It is becoming increasingly likely – indeed, possibly inevitable without either massive public outcry, a little luck, or both – that Americans will get a massive lump of coal in their stocking for Christmas this year – in the form of Washington-run healthcare.

Sure, it is possible that Democrats will fail to pull together 60 votes – getting trapped between watering down the public option enough to earn yes votes from the Independent Joe Lieberman (CT) or (supposedly) Republican Olympia Snowe (ME), and keeping the public option strong enough to maintain yes votes from admitted socialist Bernie Sanders (VT) and like-minded liberals who refuse to admit they are actually socialist, such as Sherrod Brown (OH).

But, given the pressure coming from the President, the lack of response from Senate Republicans and a building compromise among liberal and moderate Democrats to hide (but not really eliminate) the public option under a “trigger” or an “OPM-managed” plan – the Senate may well pass a bill which Speaker Pelosi could take up and pass “as is” and send to the President to sign on Christmas Eve.

3. The Obama Administration’s Pedophilia Supporting Czar Goes Further Down the Rabbit Hole. Or Something Like That.

Let’s be honest – the reason Barack Obama’s “Safe Schools Czar” Kevin Jennings is safe in his job is because the acts of indecency that he supports are so vulgar no one on television or radio wants to talk about them. And the more we learn, the more disgusting and perverse it gets.

We’re rapidly getting to the point where it is easier to talk about the perversions Kevin Jennings has not taught kids than to talk about the ones he has.

4. Nelson prolife amendment tabled: Nelson (D, NE) caving to follow.

They tabled the amendment that Senator Nelson offered for the health care rationing bill – the one that would have aligned it with the Stupak amendment for the House version – on a largely party-line vote (54/45, with Byrd not voting). Senator Nelson, despite vowing to filibuster*, is even now revising and extending his remarks.

5. Tim Gill’s Merry Band Failed in New York.

You may remember Tim Gill from this Atlantic Monthly profile. Gill is the multi-millionaire gay man who helped fund the left’s take over of Colorado.

Gill is playing for keeps and gay marriage. He funds local races and state legislative races to get legislatures to pass gay marriage without the consent of the voters. He keeps a low profile, bundles with lots of donors to obfuscate what is happening, and tries to elect people who sound conservative in their races, but then push the gay agenda once in office.

He hit a brick wall in New York last week.

6. Barack Obama is not the solution to the problem. Barack Obama IS the problem.

After I posted a story about how there is virtually no one in the Obama administration with private sector business experience, I began to further consider the practical implications of this. Intuitively, one would conclude that a group of policymakers who don’t understand business and capitalism probably would not have a clue about making public policy that is friendly to business. And indeed, this appears to be the case. At every turn, the Obama administration is promoting legislative action that is harmful to businesses – new taxes, regulations and other economically harmful policies.

This ignorance of what drives the private sector was proven by Barack Obama himself this week, at his so-called “Jobs Summit,” where the POTUS stated . . .

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For December 8, 2009

1. Insiders Asking of McConnell: What’s the Strategy?

2. Nice Guys Only Finish Last If We Let Them

3. Cap-and-Tax Bad for Farmers, Rural America

4. The Coming Wave

1. Insiders Asking of McConnell: What’s the Strategy?

Since coming to Capitol Hill, current Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has been recognized by some in the media as a master strategist when it comes to playing the legislative rules for all they’re worth. But, with amendments to the Obama government health care takeover sailing through the Senate almost as quickly as they’re read, some conservative insiders are wondering why the GOP is not taking advantage of Senate rules to slow down the votes and delay the final vote until after Christmas.

That would be Harry Reid’s worst nightmare come true. According to the latest Rasmussen Poll, only 41% of Americans now support the Obama health care plan. And if the Senate Democrats are forced to go home and face voter wrath head-on over the Christmas holidays, it could spell the end for the legislation in the 111th Congress.

With that being the case, even some House leaders are wondering why McConnell doesn’t simply require unanimous consent on any, or every, amendment that comes to the floor. The maneuver would force Reid to get 60 votes before proceeding on each amendment. And some of the bill’s opponents are suggesting it could sideline it until next Christmas.

Of course, it is looking more and more likely that Mitch McConnell actually wants the legislation to pass. He seems to be gambling that if it passes, he becomes Senate Majority Leader.

2. Nice Guys Only Finish Last If We Let Them

We have all heard the saying “nice guys finish last.” Why is that exactly? It seems to me that nice guys only finish last if we let them.

In this coming election year, we have the chance to get some nice guys (and ladies) elected.

Over the past few years, the establishment GOP has become bloated, corrupt, greedy, inept, licentious, devoid of ideas, and weak. It has passed legislation to grow government while talking about cutting it. Its leaders have excoriated the lobbyist culture while lining their pockets. It has bungled campaigns and strategy to block Barack Obama’s legislation. The problems extend from Washington into the states.

This year, the story the media is not covering is the rise of the GOP grassroots against the GOP establishment. From Florida with Marco Rubio, to Texas with Michael Williams, to California with Chuck DeVore, and to Pennsylvania with Pat Toomey, we the conservative grassroots have a chance to defeat the GOP Establishment that has led us from a majority to a minority, from 55 Senate seats to 40, from a small government to a large one.

But it is not just at the federal level. We have an obligation, regardless of where we live, to help at the state level too. We must make sure the nice guys who fight with us are successful across the board.

3. Cap-and-Tax Bad for Farmers, Rural America

We like to say that we have the safest, most abundant, most affordable food and fiber supply in the world. But this isn’t just a boastful expression, it is a reality. Our farmers and ranchers are responsible for feeding folks living in our country and throughout the world.

But, cap and tax legislation threatens that safe, abundant and affordable food and fiber supply. The agriculture industry, as we know it, will not survive under the heavy burdens of a cap and tax policy.

4. The Coming Wave

The online left has been busy selling the narrative over the last several month that the Democrats’ electoral problems are due to problems with their base. The theory being touted by the leading luminaries of the leftist fever swamps is that if only Democrats were more liberal, they’d be doing better in the polls. The only problem with this theory, of course, is that it represents the exact opposite of the truth.

1. Senate Republicans Fiddle While America Burns

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For December 7, 2009

2. “There is a worry that Sen. Nelson means business,” – Dem Aide says

3. When Breaking Out the Guillotine, it is Best to Chop Off All Heads at Once. The Costs of Cleanup are Cheaper.

4. Will Google be Neutral and Transparent with its new service

5. DeVore for California

————————

1. Senate Republicans Fiddle While America Burns

Right now in America, the people of this great nation are staring down the loaded barrel of government-run healthcare. If this bill passes, it is no less than the end of America as we know it. You know it. Most Americans knows it.

Yet the people most in a position to do anything about it right now – Senate Republicans – are doing absolutely nothing. If anything, they actually are HELPING Democrats by offering amendments to “highlight problems in the bill,” giving the Democrats the opportunity to produce “cover votes.”

Consider the comments of the number two Senate Republican, Jon Kyl, on Bill Bennett’s radio show, being hosted by Rick Santorum. In response to the question, “what is your strategy, to the extent you can share it,” Kyl said, “actually, I think we can be fairly upfront about it. Our strategy is not actually to delay and not take votes.” He added, “our strategy is to have a lot of good amendments and highlight the problems in the bill,” and “it is not our strategy to somehow slow things down.”

This is what happens when Senators sit around their offices with overpaid, but largely incompetent staff in fancy rooms scattered about the Capitol – and they listen to pollsters and political strategists talking about how unpopular this bill is, but stressing that Republicans “need to be for something.”

2. “There is a worry that Sen. Nelson means business,” – Dem Aide says

And all the kings horses, and all the kings men, couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again…OK, we aren’t there, yet.

But the left is starting to flex its muscles and are beginning to be annoyed, and really concerned about all the compromises that have been made thus far.

The pro-abortion forces know that there is a good chance the bill will not go to conference, where the leadership can change it at will. The first thing that would go would be the abortion restrictions – but having a House-Senate conference is not a certainty. The fastest way to the President’s desk, is to send the Senate bill directly to the House for an up or down vote – if it passes.

3. When Breaking Out the Guillotine, it is Best to Chop Off All Heads at Once. The Costs of Cleanup are Cheaper.

In 2002, Republicans took over the Georgia State Senate and Governor’s Mansion for the first time since the Civil War.

In 2004, the GOP took over the State House of Representatives.

In 2006, the GOP completed its take over of the State of Georgia, capturing the Lt. Governor’s seat, the Secretary of State’s Office, and solidifying its hold on the legislature.

In 2008, when the GOP was crumbling everywhere, it was a banner Republican year in Georgia.

In 2010, the Republicans might be annihilated from the State of Georgia. They would deserve it.

A Lt. Governor caught with his pants down, a Speaker of the House who tried to commit suicide, and a host of potential leaders waiting in the wings all with adultery problems – the GOP deserves destruction in Georgia if it does not clean its own house immediately.

Put simply, while breaking out the guillotine to chop off Speaker Glenn Richardson’s head, the Georgia Republican Party needs to line up Mark Burkhalter, Ben Harbin, Casey Cagle, and a few others behind him. Do it all at one time.

Cleaning up all the blood at once will be far cheaper in the long run.

4. Will Google be Neutral and Transparent with its new service

Up until now, Google has been able to avoid being hoisted by its own Net Neutrality due to the fact that the firm has not been directly involved as an ISP, but rather has been a partner of ISPs such as T-Mobile. We can point out all we want how they have more money and more market power than any ISP, but until they started providing the services that ISPs provide, we could only get so far.

But now, the day comes that Google gets further into the ISP business. Google is launching its own public DNS server. Ignore the misleading Register header, but read the content. The Google Public DNS is a direct launch of a service that ISPs provide, and that puts Google even further into the role of a gatekeeper. They can already make a site disappear from the Internet from the perspective of their searchers, with no transparency in the process whatsoever. Now they can make a site entirely inaccessible to its users because without a DNS lookup, your webpage, your email, your everything will create error messages instead of connectivity.

So here’s the question: Will Google obey its own Google/Obama/Genachowski Net Neutrality principles, or will Google Public DNS be as non-neutral and non-transparent as every single other service Google provides? Will Google deny DNS forwarding for any domain they deem a ’spammer’ and deny ‘Pagerank’ to?

5. DeVore for California

Where the establishment goes, we should all be worried. Just as they led us from 55 seats to 40 seats in the Senate and just as they are leading us off a cliff in the Senate through failed messaging tactics, the establishment is going to lead us off a cliff in 2010.

I just can’t keep my mouth shut on this one. I have no problem with Fiorina, but my heart and mind are with Chuck DeVore. He is one of us. He will be a leader, not a Mitch McConnell follower. DeVore will stand with Jim DeMint. Fiorina would be no better and no worse than Kay Bailey Hutchison, drifting with the present failed Senate GOP leadership.

1. Dude, Where’s My Strategy?

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For December 4, 2009

2. A “God-Given Right to an Abortion.”

3. The Dysfunctional Democrat Government

4. Struggling To Muster Strength For Supporting Obama’s AfPak Strategy

5. Butler – The Latest Leftist Obama Judicial Nominee Pushed By Disrespectful Democrat Senators

————————

1. Dude, Where’s My Strategy?

Instead of using every trick in the book to defeat Sen. Harry Reid’s government-run health plan, Senate GOP leadership is idly sitting by while Democrats tweak the bill to buy off votes. Instead of doing everything in its power to block a bill that is solidly opposed by more voters than not, Senate GOP leadership is allowing Sen. Reid to process amendments and move the trains as if this bill, the largest government takeover of the private sector in American history, represented nothing out of the ordinary. With each passing amendment, Democrats become closer and closer to buying off the all-important 60th vote.

To fully grasp the near-criminal ineffectiveness of the party’s current strategy, just peruse the following news stories and ask yourself, “Do narratives like these increase or decrease the likelihood of Senate approval of government-run health care?”

AP: “The 61-39 roll call Thursday by which the Senate adopted an amendment to safeguard coverage of mammograms and preventive screening tests for women under a revamped health care system.”

Reuters: “U.S. Senate bolsters preventive care for women”

Bloomberg: Senate Approves Plan to Boost U.S. Mammogram Testing

Top GOP leaders have mistakenly convinced themselves that the key to defeating the bill is to process a number of Republican “messaging” amendments while letting Democrats offer whatever amendments are necessary to buy 60 votes.

There are three fatal problems with this strategy: 1) leadership insists on pushing its own too-clever-by-half “message” instead of listening to the clear message faxed, e-mailed and phoned to every elected official in Washington (“KILL THE BILL!”), 2) as evidenced by the articles above, the current “messaging strategy” is an abysmal failure, and 3) by allowing amendments to be processed at no cost to the majority party, GOP leaders are merely greasing the skids for government-run health care.

In the movie “Braveheart,” William Wallace tells Robert the Bruce, a noble who had the desire but not the guts to do the right thing, “Men don’t follow titles; they follow courage.” It would be refreshing to see more of the latter from those with the former in the United States Senate.

2. A “God-Given Right to an Abortion.”

Apparently, they held an anti-Stupak rally yesterday in D.C. in an effort to sway the Senate’s deliberations on Obamacare. You may not have heard about it because no almost no one came. In any event, at this rally, some sad excuse for an alleged Christian minister made the following statement . . .

3. The Dysfunctional Democrat Government

When Republicans ran Washington, Democrats regularly complained that they were terrible managers. They argued that because of Republican incompetence, deficits were high, deadlines were missed, money was wasted, and rules were ignored. It called to mind PJ O’Rourke’s famous quote about Republicans: The Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work and then they get elected and prove it.

But if Republicans were inefficient when they had control of Congress and the White House, Democrats are worse. As we approach the end of the year, they seem to have accomplished almost none of the basic functions needed to keep the government running . . .

4. Struggling To Muster Strength For Supporting Obama’s AfPak Strategy

I believe, as does Der Spiegel, that Obama doesn’t really mean what he says about Afghanistan.

Though not a fan of Der Spiegel, I think they have this one right. In trying to find some modicum of “hope” in Obama’s campaign trail-like rhetoric, all I came up with was a terrible speech full of lies, half-truths, emptiness and half-heartedness. He really doesn’t want to deal with a war when there’s so much to be done, still, with his domestic agenda. For all the talk about security and a strong America, what Obama really wants (and has wanted all along) is to get OUT of the warfighting business all together and settle in to the Federal takeover of America’s private sector.

5. Butler – The Latest Leftist Obama Judicial Nominee Pushed By Disrespectful Democrat Senators

The United States Senate Judiciary Committee just voted along party lines, 12-7, to send the nomination of liberal activist Judge Louis B. Butler Jr. to the floor of the Senate. The Democrats did so, according to friends inside the room, in a disrespectful manner… talking over Republicans who wished to voice their disapproval and tried to – heaven forbid in the U.S. Senate – actually debate the nominee. I am told Schumer and Whitehouse were on their cell phones, and a number of Democrat Senators were talking loudly during the limited debate they even allowed.

Classy.

1. As Predicted, the Senate Republicans Are Improving the Health Care Bill so it Passes

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For December 3, 2009

2. Rumsfeld to Obama: What Requests For Troops in Afghanistan Are You Talking About?

3. Strikingly, Obama’s Afghan Strategy Manages to Repeat Almost Every Single Mistake Made in Iraq

4. Barack Obama Trots Out Joe Biden to Attack George Bush

5. The hypocrisy of Google

6. Put more lipstick on that Public Option pig!

————————

1. As Predicted, the Senate Republicans Are Improving the Health Care Bill so it Passes

Friends, it is as bad as I feared. The Republicans are playing so nice with the Democrats in the Senate that they are improving the health care bill so it can pass.

Here is an email from Don Stewart in Senator Mitch McConnell’s office. (Yeah, you want to click through to see what’s going on, but it might just ruin your day)

2. Rumsfeld to Obama: What Requests For Troops in Afghanistan Are You Talking About?

One line in President Obama’s orgy of blame-Bush-for-everything speech last night has prompted former Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld, who managed the Afghan war for five years, to call for the President to back up his assertions. Secretary Rumsfeld’s statement, issued in a press release this morning.

“I am not aware of a single request of that nature between 2001 and 2006. If any such requests occurred, ‘repeated’ or not, the White House should promptly make them public. The President’s assertion does a disservice to the truth and, in particular, to the thousands of men and women in uniform who have fought, served and sacrificed in Afghanistan.”

“In the interest of better understanding the President’s announcement last night, I suggest that the Congress review the President’s assertion in the forthcoming debate and determine exactly what requests were made, who made them, and where and why in the chain of command they were denied.”

Robert Gibbs cheerfully responded to Donald Rumsfeld’s denial that he’d denied troops to Afghanistan with, first, a clarification that Obama had been talking about the post-Rumsfeld era of 2008.

Robert Gates, the man who held the job in 2008 – just got thrown under the Obamabus.

3. Strikingly, Obama’s Afghan Strategy Manages to Repeat Almost Every Single Mistake Made in Iraq

Handed a top-to-bottom review of, and a revised strategy for, this long-ignored front in the Global War on Terror by the outgoing Bush administration, President Barack Obama stepped to the microphone in February and gave a platitudinous speech that echoed precisely what his predecessor had said in the last months of his own presidency. When that speech alone failed to miraculously make the war in Afghanistan simply go away, Obama spent months dithering over whether or not he should give another Afghan strategy speech (as American troops and Afghan civilians were dying at a rate higher than they had been at any point in the conflict).

Finally, when the problem again refused to just go away on its own, Obama succumbed to public demand that he actually say something about the troops, and the war, he has responsibility for in Afghanistan as America’s commander in chief. Fortunately, he had amazing resources (besides brilliant military brass like David Petraeus and Stanley McChrystal) to rely on in his decision-making process in the form of a host of lessons learned over the last six years in Iraq. With so recent an example of so much not to do in a war, Obama couldn’t help but learn from previous mistakes and make a sound decision on Afghanistan….right?

4. Barack Obama Trots Out Joe Biden to Attack George Bush

Though filled with assertions and outright lies that Bush dropped the ball in Afghanistan, Obama was rather respectful in his Tuesday night speech.

That was Tuesday. My, my how 24 hours makes a difference.

Sent from Barack Obama’s campaign team at barackobama.com, I got this note from Joe Biden tonight about the Obama policy in Afghanistan . . .

5. The hypocrisy of Google

I’ve said before that Google was treading dangerously near to hypocrisy in the contrast between its promoted public policy and its own internal policy, but now the large, wealthy firm has gone well over the line.

Google is a widely outspoken proponent of the Obama administration’s Net Neutrality plan. At the core of this plan are two “principles” outlined by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. First is the principle of neutrality that “would prevent Internet access providers from discriminating against particular Internet content or applications, while allowing for reasonable network management,” as Genachowski has said. The second is the principle of transparency that “would ensure that Internet access providers are transparent about the network management practices they implement.”

Conveniently, the same two principles Google wants private ISPs to meet, Google itself flagrantly ignores . . .

6. Put more lipstick on that Public Option pig!

What are we up to now, six different names for the public option? Let us count the ways desperate Democrats have tried to re-brand, re-tool, re-name or re-invent what is, by all accounts, a plot that will ultimately force millions of Americans into the waiting arms of government health care bureaucrats.

During the 2008 campaign, the public option was described as “government-run plan similar to Medicare.” Whoa…really? The same Medicare plan that cannot now meet its own financial obligations and is projected to be come up short by $38 trillion by the time the youngest Americans will need it? No wonder we haven’t heard that description much lately.

After the presidential inauguration, talk of the public option steadily picked up steam, reaching a fever pitch in August when senior citizens were shouting down their elected officials and canceling their AARP memberships in droves, and while Tea Party activists were getting their fingers bitten off at town hall meetings – all due to strong opposition against any form of government-run health care.

By late October, Speaker Nancy Pelosi knew it was a tough sell.

2. West Point is ‘The Enemy Camp’

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

RedState Morning Briefing

For December 2, 2009

1. . . . – - – . . .

3. Washington Post’s Left-Wing Activist Confused As To Why Dick Cheney Is Newsworthy

4. Amateur Hour at the White House: The State Dinner

5. From Gov. Mike Huckabee: Washington State Tragedy

6. WOW! Goldman Sachs Execs Arming Themselves Against…the SEIU?!?

7. Wrong From the Start: Top Ten Outrageous Claims About the Stimulus

8. James Carville Upset Over Something Called ‘Heath Insurance’

9. VOTE FRAUD: OH College Democrats Implicated in Vote Bounty Scheme

10. Liberal Fascism: Chapter 7

————————

1. . . . – - – . . .

Barack Obama spoke at West Point last night on the issue of Afghanistan. In 4608 words, he did not once mention the word “victory” and the closest he came to using the word “win” was those three letters appearing in the word “withdrawing.”

True to form, Obama spent most of his speech decrying the Bush administration going into Iraq. He said – a lie – that “Commanders in Afghanistan repeatedly asked for support to deal with the reemergence of the Taliban, but these reinforcements did not arrive.” The historic record shows that George Bush never denied commanders in Afghanistan the support they requested.

The historic record shows that Barack Obama is not even granting McChrystal the General’s preferred troop level. McChrystal wanted 40,000 troops to 80,000 troops. So Bush gave the Generals in Afghanistan everything they wanted, despite Obama saying he did not, and Obama is not giving his General what was requested, despite saying he is.

The historic record also shows that Barack Obama, despite his denials tonight, very clearly dithered on General McChrystal’s request, waiting more than ninety days to make a decision and prolonging action for at least another thirty days – mischaracterizing McChrystal’s request in an effort to save face and, yet again, defend himself from Dick Cheney.

That Obama even had to say “there has never been an option before me that called for troop deployments before 2010, so there has been no delay or denial of resources necessary for the conduct of the war” is proof of just how powerful and resonate Dick Cheney is. How many times now has Dick Cheney gotten the best of Barack Obama? I’ve lost count.

The man who publicly opposed the surge in Iraq is now committing to a surge in Afghanistan, while still attacking the policy in Iraq. The key part of the Iraq strategy that Obama is attacking was the open ended surge in Iraq (nevermind that Obama refuses to use the word “surge”).

Proving yet again that he is a rank amateur, Obama intends to have a surge of 30,000 troops in Afghanistan, but concurrently announce the timeline for their withdrawal. This is akin to announcing to burglars exactly the time at which you intend to depart your house and also announcing you intend to turn off the burglar alarm. Al Qaeda will just wait us out. They’ll only need to wait a year. The men who spent years planning 9/11 are more patient than this President who wants instant gratification in a never ending campaign.

Please read the rest of the post to discover Obama’s “Motel 6 Defense Policy.”

2. West Point is ‘The Enemy Camp’

After a week of media ridicule over Barack Obama calling everything he does from flushing the Oval Office toilet to sneering at the press “unprecedented,” he wisely did not use that word in front of West Point graduates – soldiers who have been trained to repel the invading hordes of British soldiers, fight a Civil War, two world wars, etc.

Nonetheless, there was an interesting word choice used by one of Obama’s sycophants in the media. NewsBusters notes Chris Matthews of MSNBC referred to West Point as “the enemy camp.” Matthews said, “He went to maybe the enemy camp tonight to make his case. I mean, that’s where Paul Wolfowitz used to write speeches for, back in the old Bush days. That’s where he went to rabble rouse the “we’re going to democratize the world” campaign back in ‘02. So, I thought it was a strange venue.”

3. Washington Post’s Left-Wing Activist Confused As To Why Dick Cheney Is Newsworthy

follow a handful of writers on the Left to keep tabs on their latest pathologies (and, on rare occasions, to get out in front of stories when they actually have a point), and I must say that few of them provide such a persistent source of entertainment as Greg Sargent, formerly a paid left-wing activist employed by the Soros-funded Talking Points Memo family of sites, and now a paid left-wing activist employed by the Washington Post. While the WaPo has always been admirably even-handed in its selection of op-ed writers – unlike the New York Times, it not only gives a decent amount of airtime to conservative voices but uses talented intellectual combatants like Charles Krauthammer, not Washington Generals “conservatives” like David Brooks. The WaPo’s news coverage, however, has remained stocked with the same sorts of establishment liberals who staff all the big-city newsrooms. But hiring Sargent as a full-time blogger was something different: there’s no hiding the fact that he’s a professional activist, and many of his blog posts are uncritical reprints of Democratic press releases without even the usual effort to cloak them in the garb of a news story. It is sadly telling that the WaPo felt no need to hire a professional activist on the Right, but then most of the online Right consists of part-timers with day jobs, anyway.

One of the more ironic of Sargent’s hobbyhorses, therefore, is his participation in the Left’s campaign to rid the airwaves of any remaining conservative voices or coverage of their arguments. In today’s installment, he makes the self-evidently ridiculous argument that the media shouldn’t cover criticism of the Obama Administration by Dick Cheney, who if you recall not only just completed 8 years as the Vice President of the United States, but has also served as Secretary of Defense, White House Chief of Staff, and House Minority Whip during his decade in Congress . . .

4. Amateur Hour at the White House: The State Dinner

Let’s be clear: this story about the White House party crashers is not about the Salahis couple. This story is now about just how amateurish the White House is. Barack Obama has done his best to let the world know he does not care about the safety and security of the United States and he is now broadcasting to every John Wilkes, Charles, Leon, and Lee Harvey that he does not care about his own security either.

5. From Gov. Mike Huckabee: Washington State Tragedy

The Maurice Clemmons presented in a commutation request in the year 2000 was much different than the one who is being sought for the killings of the police officers.

The case before me was of a 16 year old who received a disproportionate sentence of 108 years for burglary and robbery charges. He had already served 11 years in Arkansas prison by that time, which is more time actually served than most similar cases would have netted in sentencing alone. Under Arkansas law, governors don’t parole anyone. The Post Prison Transfer Board does. That board can recommend clemency, and in this case recommended by a 5-0 vote that his sentence be reduced. This was one of 1000-1200 cases I reviewed each of the 10 ½ years as Governor. 92% of the time, any request for clemency was denied. Most of the ones granted were for clearing a person’s record for a minor offense from 20 years previous. The trial judge in the case supported the commutation. During the legally required 30 day public comment period before action on the case was complete, there were no objections registered by my office by any authorities, despite claims of the local prosecutor that he “was afraid something like this would happen.” Interestingly, if he was so afraid, then he has failed to explain why in 2004 when Clemmons was back in prison for a parole violation, his office failed to pursue charges and in fact DROPPED them, allowing Clemmons to go free, move to Washington, and for reasons beyond me, continue to avoid extradition back to Arkansas or be kept by Washington authorities as he displayed signs of psychotic behavior. I am responsible for the commutation in 2000. I would not have commuted his sentence in 2004 after the re-arrest or in any of the years following. I can explain my decision in 2000. I cannot explain the decision of the very vocal prosecutor in Little Rock who seems to avoid answering the questions as to why he didn’t keep Clemmons in prison in 2004 or get him brought back to Arkansas for his repeated parole violations.

There are some glaring facts that some conservative talkers seem to miss . . .

6. WOW! Goldman Sachs Execs Arming Themselves Against…the SEIU?!?

We first saw this on the blog of the Union of Purple People Eaters (aka the SEIU), so we had to ‘fact-check’ the story and, sure enough, it appears to be true.

According to Bloomberg, executives at failed-NJ governor John Corzine’s old company, Goldman Sachs, are applying for handgun permits and exercising their Second Amendment rights to keep and bear arms.
While it should always be everyone’s (except outlaws’) right to carry, locked and loaded, in this case, the “why” is a bit odd.

7. Wrong From the Start: Top Ten Outrageous Claims About the Stimulus

The White House will convene a “jobs summit” tomorrow against a backdrop of rising unemployment, soaring debt, and declining public confidence in the Obama Administration’s economic program. Washington Democrats staked their credibility on a nearly trillion-dollar ’stimulus’ that was supposed to be about putting people back to work, but has instead produced countless examples of wasteful government spending while more than three million more Americans have lost their jobs. Even the accounting methods designed to keep track of the ’stimulus’ have been widely discredited. Given the last 11 months of outrageous ’stimulus’ claims, the American people are right to wonder whether Washington Democrats can be trusted to create jobs and cut the deficit. Here are the top ten claims with their corresponding facts.

8. James Carville Upset Over Something Called ‘Heath Insurance’

The NRCC has come up with a great way for activists who do not trust the NRCC to get involved in defeating Democrats.

They’ve set up a website called Reverse The Vote. The site is raising money to defeat 24 Democrats who voted for Nancy Pelosi’s health care legislation, despite their congressional districts being clearly opposed to the plan.

The key is, and this is why I fully support this, the NRCC isn’t controlling the money. It is not going to go to a hand picked candidate that activists do not like. The money will only go to the Republican who actually wins a Republican Primary. So, give money now and when the voters pick the best Republican to beat one of these 24 Democrats, money will flow to that candidate.

What does this have to do with James Carville? Well . . .

9. VOTE FRAUD: OH College Democrats Implicated in Vote Bounty Scheme

Embattled Athens County, Ohio Democratic Chairwoman Susan Gwinn was indicted Monday on two counts of election-related bribery, special prosecutors announced today.

Gwinn, who last month was charged with six felonies for campaign finance crimes and money-laundering, became the subject of a voter fraud investigation after an email from College Democrats Vice President Kellie Galan surfaced in which students were promised a cash bounty for every voter brought to the polls.

“Remember, if you bring a friend from 4th ward they are more then [sic] a friend, they’re 5 bucks!” Galan wrote to fellow College Democrats in the email.

10. Liberal Fascism: Chapter 7

Our book notes series continues. Please remember to read Chapter 8 of Liberal Fascism for next week. And somebody else is going to have to do the front page review because I’ll be traveling that day.

1. Senate GOP Decides to Improve Health Care Bill so it Can Pass

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

Sorry the post is late.

RedState Morning Briefing

For December 1, 2009

2. Obama’s Achilles Heel

3. John Hoeven May Hold the Silver Bullet for Obamacare

4. Net Neutrality Update

5. Radical Islam Finds Voice In New York College

6. From the Inane to the Insane

————————

1. Senate GOP Decides to Improve Health Care Bill so it Can Pass

This is frustrating.

The Senate Republican Conference is giddy that its first amendment to the health care legislation is to preserve the bloated Medicare bureaucracy. The Senate Democrats want to do what they always accuse the GOP of doing and cut Medicare. The GOP is apparently giddy at the opportunity to rub the Democrats’ noses in their Medicare cuts.

So now the GOP is using its first amendment to reaffirm the Democrat theory that Medicare cannot be cut and cuts even to the rate of growth of Medicare are also wrong.

The GOP could have, by chance, offered up the Stupak language, which has not yet been inserted. The GOP could have offered up an amendment to split the Democrats up front. The GOP could have done nothing and moved on to let cloture fail, thus killing the bill. Instead, Democrats and Republicans will no doubt join hands and vote to put the money back in Medicare, making it a grand bipartisan exercise.

What next? A GOP amendment to guarantee breast cancer screenings in the legislation?

Having started from the presupposition that the health care legislation is going to pass, the GOP seems to be signaling it will work to “improve” the legislation just enough to overcome a filibuster.

The legislation has 57 votes already. The GOP does not need to offer amendments to improve the bill – they need to bring it to a vote and kill it. Preening for cameras and favorable press coverage is going to get the bill to 60 votes and a signing ceremony.

2. Obama’s Achilles Heel

A friend of mine told me about a meeting he had with Goldman Sachs’ CEO in Atlanta at the beginning of the year. Someone asked the CEO what he thought of the new Obama administration. The CEO admitted he voted for Obama, but then said how stunned he was at lack of advisors surrounding Obama who had come from the private sector.

In fact, a new study shows Obama has fewer advisors who’ve made a living in the private sector than any other American President in the last 108 years – since the turn of the 20th century when the business of America became business.

The Republican Party should be able to exploit this issue. The American people, at the end of the day, believe in, work in, and want to support the private sector. Contrary to the Obama and New York Times spin that there is no stigma attached to food stamps, the American people do not want to be dependent on the government for their food, health care, or income.

But that is Obama’s solution. To every problem, Obama offers government. He can offer no other because he has surrounded himself with no job creators, no producers, no captains of industry, and no free market champions. That’s not the change the American people were hoping for.

3. John Hoeven May Hold the Silver Bullet for Obamacare

For many years now, Byron Dorgan has sailed comfortably to re-election in North Dakota despite his liberal voting record in one of the reddest states in the union. This year, however, Dorgan has been one of the key Senators responsible for shepherding Obamacare through the Senate. A recent poll released by Zogby indicates that if popular Governor John Hoeven challenges him, Dorgan may be dead in the water.

4. Net Neutrality Update

In theory, the idea of a National Broadband Plan is to give faster Internet access to more people. You see, people frequently think America “lags behind” the rest of the world because certain statistics show America to have worse Internet access than other countries. The problem with those statistics is that they don’t account for population density. A country like Japan, South Korea, or the Netherlands has a much denser, more urbanized population, and so it’s easier to run the wires you need to give them all Internet access.

But all a progressive needs is a good crisis, and they’re calling this a crisis.

5. Radical Islam Finds Voice In New York College

Despite Wahhaj’s altogether sordid and troubling past, the imam was invited with open arms to campus of Queens College by the Muslim Student Association (MSA), whose members just days before attended a College Republican film screening event of an anti-radical Muslim film and reportedly laughed and muttered “good” as beheading footage of American businessmen and the collapse of the World Trade Centers aired.

At a debate following the film, one MSA member said, “If I had enough money I would be part of the jihad army, I would kill all the Jews,” according to one College Republican present. Another spoke of getting a “bomb.”

6. From the Inane to the Insane

Just a few days ago, the “big news” was an inane circus starring two people who crashed a White House State Dinner. The stories, the photos, the calls for investigations, more funding, firings, in other words, the typical madness will all follow. Of course, few will thank publicly the men and women of the Secret Service, who keep so many so safe for so long.

While most of the major news outlets seemed totally taken with the gate crashers, few Americans were made aware of a mockery of justice that became public that same week, namely the prosecution of three brave Navy SEALS who face ruin for, among all things, capturing a terrorist who brutally killed, maimed, defiled and hanged four American citizens in Fallujah, Iraq in 2004.