“Drain the Jacuzzi!”

“This government isn’t too big to fail, it’s too big to succeed.”

“We don’t want an economy built to last, we want an economy built to grow.”

“This is Obama’s Washington.”

I wonder, however, if one of the points she hammered throughout the speech really registered with her audience.  Her signature line in this speech was “The door is open.”  She meant that political conditions are becoming conducive to a renewed commitment to small government and liberty.  People’s mindsets are changing.  We are not governed by the “rules” of political seasons past; the door is open to choosing our candidates and charting our nation’s future on a different basis.  The door is open to not accepting a continuation of the false compromises of previous decades.

(As I go to press, I see that Tina Korbe picked up on this theme.)

I have referred to those false compromises – “compromises” in which the conservative, small-government side gave up virtually everything – as the “old consensus.”  I see it losing, bit by bit, in this primary season.  People are no longer obediently making their political choices within the parameters defined for them by the professional political class.

This doesn’t mean that the voters have ideal candidates with whom to make their statement against the old consensus.  Santorum and Gingrich both have their drawbacks, as Paul always has.  But a critical mass of voters has recognized that Romney is the old consensus, and they are rejecting it.  The CPAC vote was remarkable for Romney’s 38% — because it wasn’t bigger, because Santorum got 31%, and even Gingrich, in a conclave of the politically connected, got 15%.

Everyone outpolled Ron Paul at CPAC, even though he has regularly won the CPAC vote in the past.  This signals a change in the mindset of politically active conservatives – not merely a new perspective that it’s overwhelmingly important to defeat Obama, but a perspective that the core of the conservative movement is shifting, and we need a serious mainstream candidate because it is a life-or-death matter to be effective in the political process.

That obviously doesn’t mean the CPAC voters think we need a “moderate,” leadership- and media-approved candidate.  If it did, they would have gone for Romney, rather than voting 46% for the mainstream candidates who are not Romney – and who are perceived, in many if not all cases correctly, as less satisfied with and enthusiastically “managerial” about the matter of big government.

But the point to take away is that voter sentiment, as it relates to the meaning of different candidates and the basis of government, is changing.

And that, I think, is about half the reason why Sarah Palin didn’t throw her hat in the ring for this campaign cycle.  Her evaluation of political conditions is remarkably accurate and prescient:  she saw, long before most of the voters did, that the game of expectations itself needed to change, and that only we could do it.

What strategic value was there for Palin in participating in the Cynical Media Slime-fest and All-Out Kick-em-in-the-Nads, mud-slinging, business-as-usual, expectations-on-autopilot primary season?

Six or eight months ago, the sea change in the voters’ sentiments and propensities might have been foreseeable, but it hadn’t happened yet.  Those who think Palin could have won lots of primaries on the basis of pre-primary voter sentiments are wrong, I think.  After all, the business-as-usual approach – Karl Rove tells everyone how bad a candidate is, the media magnify his or her every quirk or mistake, the media and some (not all) of the other candidates pile on with allegations that range from hostile spin to outright falsehood – has so far felled our most conservative candidates.

But in the process, the voters have been changing.  That’s what Palin saw before others did.  Do I think she is counting the days to a brokered convention?  No.  There is no one who could reasonably adopt that as a “plan.”  She won’t run this year; that’s my rational assessment as well as my gut feeling.  (I could of course be wrong, although I think some big conditions will have to change more for that to be the case.)

But if she does run, it will not be because she has changed, but because we have.  There are political conditions in which she could run successfully, and conditions in which she couldn’t.  The latter have constituted our political environment up until the last couple of months.

If the conditions are changing now, I believe that is largely because voters are having to wise up to the flaws in our own thinking by going through this ugly spectacle.  We already knew that the media have no intention of giving our candidates a fair shake, and that many in the GOP leadership want to submarine the small-government conservatives.   What many voters didn’t understand is that if we want to select leaders of character, we have to graduate from high school, and overlook the vicissitudes of “presentation” that sometimes make good people look like buffoons to those who see without humility, mercy, or discrimination.  We have to see with better eyes.  We have to think independently of the jeers embedded in the media narrative.  We have to be wiser citizens, placing in political leadership only the hope that is appropriate to free men and women.

We can’t have a candidate who sounds like Mitt Romney, but will lead the way a small-government conservative would.  That’s not an option.  What we’re doing in this primary season is coming to grips with that reality.  I think Palin knew instinctively that we would have to, before it would make sense for her to jump back into the electoral fray.

But, as I said, I think that’s only about half the explanation.  The other half is that Palin is an evangelical Christian.  She believes God has a plan for her life, and that He gives her a certainty in her spirit about the big choices she has to make.  I suspect she has had a peaceful certainty that joining the campaign as a candidate for 2012 was not something she should do.  If she were to analyze it, she might say that God knows better than any of us how the voters’ concerns and expectations are going to change.

Meanwhile, the door is open.

J.E. Dyer’s articles have appeared at The Green Room, Commentary’s “contentions,” Patheos, The Weekly Standard online, and her own blog, The Optimistic Conservative.

The reason Romney hasn’t had that much real political success is that he doesn’t have much in the way of a political philosophy.  When political conditions are set for him by outside agency, he’s an effective manager.  His admirable record at Bain, and his achievement in organizing a faltering Olympics for success, attest to that.  But his record as governor of Massachusetts indicates that in a political role, he accepts existing conditions as given, and seeks merely to optimize certain narrow priorities within them.

He is not committed to political principles, but to management.  The two things are different, and one of the worst mistakes Republicans make is to imagine that management trumps political principle.  In fact, the management focus knuckles under repeatedly to political pressure (see Romney in Massachusetts, Schwarzenegger in California, and generations of big businesses facing political activists).  Only philosophical commitment, based on irreducible and non-negotiable ideas, can stand – or prevail – against the assault of demagogic-statist political themes.

It is clear from his passage on “the very poor, the very rich,” etc, that Romney is operating on the vague, complacent mindset conventionalized by left-trending American politics over the last 80 years: that government must “help” certain demographics, while rebuking others; and that no amount of evidence will induce us to change our definition of “help,” or our assessment of the need for it.

What that means in practice is a “cycle of poverty” welfare regime for the very poor; a symbiotic relationship for government with the very rich; a selective dismissal of the impact of government regulation and taxes on our economic conditions; and an incessant, increasingly expensive use of the middle class as a political football.

Those are the factors that have created our current, untenable situation.  Its greatest impact is – as always – on the poorest among us.  The poor have less opportunity today than they did as little as 40 years ago to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps,” through enterprise and investment as opposed to narrowly-defined “education” and “jobs.”  And the principal reason is that regulation has them surrounded.  It has suppressed job opportunities, made it harder to set up in small business or as an independent contractor, and jeopardized saving by increasing the prices of the goods and services needed for survival.

Impoverishing the middle class with taxation and job-killing regulation hits the poor even harder than it does the middle class.  The middle class is what ultimately employs the poor, by exercising market demand; if it has less purchasing power, the poor lose jobs and business opportunities.  Forcing the price of goods and services up with regulation also hits the poor harder than it hits anyone else.  Policies that seek to suppress the industries and commercial activities disliked by activists hit the poor harder than anyone else.

Government favoritism, toward unions and big business alike, hits the poor harder than anyone else, because it is based on favoring the already connected, and preventing independent “upstarts” – frequently the poor – from competing with them.  Besides distorting markets and costing everyone more in price terms, favoritism also creates a public debt burden, which hits the poor again by adding to the economic discouragement of the middle class.

A separate but intertwined aspect of this issue is the one Newt Gingrich has spoken passionately about:  the debilitating and demoralizing effect on the poor of the very programs that, in Romney’s formulation, keep them “taken care of.”

I truly don’t think Romney means to be cavalier about the poor.  But his wording indicates that his first political instinct is managerial rather than liberty-promoting.  The two postures pull in different directions.  Governments are perennially inclined to try to manage their people.  They don’t naturally respect their people’s liberties and dignity; they have to be ordered to, and kept under constant surveillance and rebuke.  Romney is not the man to do that.  He appears to see the poor, like a lot of other things, as a managerial problem for government.

In the present case, respect for the people would entail acknowledging and revising policies that are socially destructive, and seeing whoever is poor at a given time principally as a “middle-class in waiting,” in need of liberty and opportunity.  It is still possible to offer public assistance without maximizing the disincentives thrown up by government to enterprise and independence for the poor.  The key is to avoid the deadly idea that assistance programs render the poor “taken care of,” as if the poor are a bill coming due.  The poor are people – the source of all creativity and wealth – who will largely respond to and make the most of the same incentives as the middle class and the rich.  America is, if nothing else, a demonstration of the truth of that maxim.

Romney consistently comes off as having an old-school interventionist approach to government.  He also seems to have missed the right’s whole welfare-vs.-enterprise discussion of the 1980s and ‘90s.  He is clearly not someone who would say that for the good of the people and in the interest of our most precious, most empowering commodity – liberty – government needs to stop doing whole categories of things.  Romney doesn’t reflexively or naturally formulate any comment on policy in small-government terms.

It is not, in fact, conservative to think of the poor as “taken care of” by the destructive, self-perpetuating welfare regime in the United States.  Far better for the poor to have the kind of opportunity, and the buying power of their earnings and savings, that they do not have now, but would have if the load of regulatory overreach, predatory taxation, and constituency-tending-by-overspending were lifted on Americans as a whole.

J.E. Dyer’s articles have appeared at The Green Room, Commentary’s “contentions,” Patheos, The Weekly Standard online, and her own blog, The Optimistic Conservative.

Romney is not a small-government, limited-government conservative.  He will not go on offense against the dangerous principles on which government is being conducted today in the United States.  This is thought by many to be behind his “electability,” but it makes him the most defensive of potential Republican candidates.

RomneyCare is only one example of Romney’s comfort with big government, but it’s an important one.  Romney has continued to defend the principle of an absolute purchase mandate, levied on anyone with an income and a pulse.  The health “insurance” purchase mandate is not like the mandate for driver’s insurance, because citizens can opt out of being drivers.  But avoiding the health-insurance purchase mandate of RomneyCare requires opting out of life (or leaving Massachusetts).

Purchase mandates are not so much a states’ prerogatives issue as an issue of the principles controlling the purpose and scope of government.  RomneyCare is wrong for Massachusetts because it’s bad government.  Of course people in Massachusetts can choose to levy such a mandate if they want, but that doesn’t make it a good idea.  It puts government in an intrusive role that not only invites but demands a spiraling level of intrusion, one that pits citizen against citizen, rent-seekers against taxpayers, and government against liberty.

The US federal government is engaged today in far too many things that promote all three of these conflicts.  Advocacy groups leverage the EPA to prevent business activities that would generate thousands of jobs.  Both unions and big businesses lobby incessantly for regulations and special laws that will ensure they don’t have to face the consequences of unprofitability.  Yet very often, the conditions that make them unprofitable are themselves produced by regulation, rather than market factors.  These sources of cost to the public purse go increasingly uncriticized; the fiscal disaster, we are told, can only be averted by taking more from the taxpayers and further modifying the taxpayers’ behavior.

Health care is, as always, a prime example of this kind of interplay.  Once the premise of public funding for health care is established, everything anyone does becomes a cost issue for the public treasury.  There are some protected categories of behavior, like those that lead to STDs and AIDS, but constituencies arise for controlling people’s eating habits and fertility, and for proclaiming everything under the sun – including the sun itself – to be a public health hazard.  The urgent necessity of controlling what people do is amplified by the centralized, spiraling cost of health-care disbursements.  Few forms of government-brokered activism are as inimical to individual liberty.

Government – not social or economic dynamics – is now the primary means of pitting citizen against citizen.  This needs to change: the scope and independence of federal agencies and the regulatory impulse need to be dramatically reined in.  We can’t afford for the federal government to continue on the premise of the last 80 years.  The basic premise must change.

This doesn’t mean that the changes need to be abrupt, but they do need to be scheduled and prosecuted with determination.  Only someone who believes that, however, will be willing to make the case, and face down the multifarious opposition to reducing the footprint of government on principle.  Reduction on principle means that government can’t come back in 10 years and start regulating again things that it was ordered not to regulate in 2013 (or tighten regulations that were loosened).  It means that the apparatus for reclaiming an over-regulatory posture won’t even be there in 10 years.

Romney is not the man who will do this.  He has coexisted comfortably with the regulatory premise throughout his public life – even during his years at Bain Capital.  He sees a need to change some regulations on the margin, but he is not an advocate of fundamentally changing the premise on which we now regulate ourselves.

Although it’s not the point of this post, I will suggest, for comparison, what a truly deregulatory posture might look like.  Besides eliminating, or at least drastically reducing, the size and charter of the EPA and other federal agencies, a key shift in principle would be requiring that Congress positively approve every new regulation.  We already have the condition in which Congress sets parameters for the regulatory charters of the various agencies – and that is what has gotten us to the current environment of wild, often incoherent overregulation.  It is a good principle to start with, that whatever forms of regulation Congress doesn’t have time to attend to directly, we don’t need anyway.

Much reduction in the footprint of regulation would flow from that.  I also like Rick Perry’s proposal to reduce the amount of time Congress spends in session.  It is shifts in principle like this that will change the basis of government.  Changing that basis is our only hope for arresting the fiscal freight train headed for the mother of all wrecks.  But Romney is not the candidate who will push for the changes we need.

That doesn’t mean he wouldn’t be better than Obama.  He would.  But electing Romney will mean at least four more years of playing on defense:  trying to mitigate the score being racked up by the other side, rather than playing on offense to score touchdowns for liberty and smaller government.  That’s why so many of the voters can’t get excited about Romney.  They know we need someone to lead us in a direction of fundamental change – a shift in the principle of government, back toward the limited-government idea of the Founders, plus a very big reduction in its footprint – and they know Romney won’t do that.

I would put the other candidates (with Ron Paul as an outlier) in this order, as to how much they would push for fundamental change: Perry, Gingrich, Santorum.  All three would go further than Romney would in this regard.  If any of these candidates got a Republican-controlled Congress, we could expect some amount of actual reduction in the persistent basis for regulation.

Romney’s approach would be to tinker with it on the margins.  I will vote for Romney if he’s the choice, just as I will vote for any of the other three.  But what we need is a small-government president who will go on offense.  Defense will only stave off the eventual loss.  And as we see with the Republican apathy over Romney, in politics – unlike football – defense isn’t exciting or motivational.

J.E. Dyer’s articles have appeared at The Green Room, Commentary’s “contentions,” Patheos, The Weekly Standard online, and her own blog, The Optimistic Conservative.

Romney, the son of a politician, has been running for office, holding office or thinking about running for office for more than two decades. “Just level with the American people,” Gingrich growled. “You’ve been running … at least since the 1990s.”

For some reason, Romney can’t do that. Or at least it seems like he can’t. His authentic inauthenticity problem isn’t going away. And it’s sapping enthusiasm from the rank and file.

Goldberg is right, but the underlying theme that voters need to be reminded of is that during so many important debates fromhealthcare, jobs, Wall Street Reform, confirmations, recess appointments, to taxes the culprits to invoke cloture or side with the Democrats typically are the same:  Senators Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe,  and Scott Brown–the trifecta of RINOs. All from the northeast, too.  See where I’m going with this?

Frankly, Romney, who the mainstream liberal media would like to see win the nomination, has yet to unite the GOP base.  His used car salesman pitch simply rubs people the wrong way.  We’ve seen this over and over again–even John McCain pointed this out and won in 2007′s primary–and now supports him–that should speak volumes to my point.  Romney has always been dogged by this and this is why we have such a large ‘Not Romney’ camp on the right side of the aisle.

The GOP is also paying the bitter price for not having anyone in line to succeed GW Bush.  The party’s internal tug of war will be an historical teachable moment and prepare the party for future elections.  The one saving grace is that, while the Democrats have Hillary, they have no one to succeed her at this point in time.  I say Hillary because she seems to be the only power broker left untarnished by Obama–even though she is an Alinsky kinda girl.

Additionally, the GOP presidential candidate will have a two-pronged mission as the nominee:  to beat the MSM and Obama.  However, enlightened voters now know for sure the media is mostly state-controlled, Obama was never vetted, and that his radical leftist ideology drives his policies, appointments, and regulations out of the mainstream.

Furthermore, the MSM needs Romney to offset Obama.  The formula is quite simple:  RomneyCare is to ObamaCare as Obama’s rhetoric is to Romney’s rhetoric all of which cancel each other out according to how the media sees it.

I’m not buying the media hype over who can beat Obama.  The primary is the primary and the game changes in the general.  Voters are more inclined to vote with their wallets.  We have gas prices averaging at almost $4 per gallon across the country, skyrocketing food prices, record foreclosures, record number of people on food stamps, high unemployment, ObamaCare, crippling regulations, and much more.  So if the MSM thinks that the historic 2010 midterm GOP wave was a whim, think again.  The Right accomplished its key mission of splitting the Congress so that Obama’s agenda could not be rammed through anymore.  Would we have liked the Senate, sure, but in 2012, the job will be finished.  My point is that who do we really want in the Oval Office?  A northeastern Republican who disavows the GOP or not.  We already have someone who does not have the consent of the governed.  Are we really going to take that risk again?

Finally, Romney has always touted RomneyCare as a great model for all the states to implement, but the reality is, the only person who implemented RomneyCare was Obama and now we have ObamaCare.  No thanks.

You can also tell from this message at the president’s campaign website:

This holiday season, we’re giving you a chance to have a little fun at the expense of a Republican in your life by letting them know they inspired you to make a donation to the Obama campaign.

Simply enter their name and email address below. Then, we’ll send them a message letting them know they inspired you to donate. [Emphasis added]

Keith Koffler at White House Dossier writes vis-à-vis the request for contact information:

The effort could help the Obama campaign build a database that would enable it to target Republican voters during the general election campaign. But, more perniciously, it could also become part of an [sic] Democratic effort to influence Republican primary voters to select a candidate Democrats think Obama could most easily defeat.

While Obama does have a troubling history of asking supporters to snitch on his enemies, I see this latest move as far less invidious, as just another sappy hook to raise donations. In fact, the message doubles down on a previous hook—dinner with Obama and his missus—by including the following as a footnote:

Important: By making a donation today, you’ll be automatically entered for a chance to have dinner with Barack and Michelle Obama. By clicking on the ‘Submit’ button below or otherwise participating in the promotion, you agree to be bound by these Official Rules and represent that you satisfy all of the eligibility requirements.

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A report from the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) reveals that 47% of Congress members are millionaires, some of them many times over. When you contrast that finding with the percentage of U.S. households with net assets of at least $1 million—a mere 4%—the handwriting on the wall is clear. Extend the number of seats in Congress to roughly 115 million, one for each household recorded in the 2010 census, and we become a nation of mostly very wealthy people. How’s that for wealth redistribution?

Sheila Krumholz, executive director of CRP, writes that “the vast majority of members of Congress are quite comfortable, financially.” That’s putting it mildly. Of the current 250 members who are millionaires, nine of them have over $100 million. One of them, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), is within hailing distance of half a billion dollars, with an average net worth of over $448 million.

Issa, who is the richest, is followed by Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) with $380 million, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) with $232 million, Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) with $193 million, and Sen. Herb Kohl (D-WI) with $174 million.

Since there are 531 Congress members in total, that means that 281 members have an average net worth of less than a million dollars. But is anyone in Congress poor? If the records obtained by CRP are accurate and truthful, the answer is a resounding yes. Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL) is in debt to the tune of $4.7 million. Rep. Steve Fincher (R-TN) is also reportedly in the red $3.3 million, followed by Rep. Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX), who owes $2.5 million.

But back to the good news: Despite the global economic meltdown and moribund recovery, the estimated median net worth of a current U.S. senator (senators tend to be richer than House members) is up about 11 percent, from $2.38 million in 2009, to $2.63 million in 2010 (the most recent year for which financial data were available).

A complete list of Congress members and where they fall on the wealth continuum is here. You might also enjoy tabbing over to a listing of the most popular investments among members of Congress. I’ll give you a sneak preview: The number one favorite investment vehicle is a company that paid no federal tax in 2010.

Do you think this is what the founding fathers envisioned when they established Congress?

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Follow me on Twitter or join me at Facebook. You can reach me at howard.portnoy@gmail.com or by posting a comment below.

‘Pick your metaphor,’ Carney said at his daily briefing Thursday while dismissing the GOP proposal … as a showy, but ultimately shallow alternative to Obama’s plan. ‘Window dressing or gorilla dust.’

Nakamura spends the next 400 words puzzling over the obscure phrase gorilla dust, which he ultimately traces back to one-time spoiler candidate Ross Perot. Excellent idea for a press secretary: Use figures of speech that no one will recognize.

Actually, it’s a perfect idea for a press secretary to Barack Obama, who himself tends to speak in tongues when communicating. Here is Obama’s own reaction to the GOP alternative:

Tonight, Senate Republicans chose to raise taxes on nearly 160 million hardworking Americans because they refused to ask a few hundred thousand millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share. They voted against a bill that would have not only extended the $1,000 tax cut for a typical family….

The comment is vintage Obama, which is to say pure straw man argument peppered with a favorite meme, this month’s flavor being fair share. The GOP has espoused support (if for political reasons) for extending the payroll tax cut. They are thus notseeking to “raise taxes on nearly 160 million hardworking Americans.” The bone of contention between the parties is not whether to extend the cut but how to pay for it.

So what did each of the parties propose? The GOP plan called for freezing the pay for federal workers for an additional three years, trimming the federal workforce by 10%, and forcing high-income earners to pay more for programs such as Medicare. The Democratic plan was “the usual”—i.e., raise taxes on the wealthy.

It is understandable that the Democrats would balk at the Republican proposal, which fails to conform to their worldview, where more government means better government. But why feign righteous indignation over what is just the latest example ofan inability of divergent minds to meet?

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Among Romney’s “strange food habits” are pulling the cheese from his pizza and the skin from KFC fried chicken, prompting Burnett to joke, “I’m glad to hear he’s got vices.”

What are some of his other vices? Well, there’s humility, if you can call that a vice. A relative of Romney confided in Allen that the multi-millionaire likes to “repair” holes in gloves with duct tape rather than throw the gloves away. And then there is Romney’s compulsive need to work out. He’s so committed to personal health that if his hotel has no gym, he’ll run through the hallways. Good thing for him that doesn’t sound weird.

Maybe my reaction to this portrait of the candidate is colored by his testiness and weak performance during his interview with Bret Baier on Tuesday, but these details are distressingly reminiscent of another candidate. They call to mind a candidate so pure of body that he would choke down a waffle for the cameras, though his preference would have been for a bowl of his standard high-fiber gruel—a man whose physical prowess was such that it drew admiration from the press.

That candidate, who went on to become President Barack Obama, has been exposed as a fraud. He may have convinced his acolytes that he runs a tight ship at the White House, where his staff is compelled to endure a “near-mandatory regimen [of] egg-white omelets and workouts with the president’s personal trainer,” but the man was—and for all we know still is—a smoker! Either he’s the unluckiest dude on earth, having gotten caught by the paparazzi time and again stuffing his face with fast food to score political points, or he shares his wife’s addiction to burgers and fries.

The bottom line is that the president of the United States doesn’t need to be Superman. I would have been perfectly content for Obama to live exclusively on milkshakes and candy bars throughout his first term if he made good on his promise to pull the country out of its financial black hole. My vote for the next president will likewise have nothing to do with his diet or affectionate anecdotes showcasing his human side.

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Follow me on Twitter or join me at Facebook. You can reach me at howard.portnoy@gmail.com or by posting a comment below.

Sad but true, yesterday the august group of 12 Congress members tasked with doing what Congress as a whole couldn’t admitted failure. The co-chairs issued a statement reading in part:

After months of hard work and intense deliberations, we have come to the conclusion today that it will not be possible to make any bipartisan agreement available to the public before the committee’s deadline.

Despite our inability to bridge the committee’s significant differences, we end this process united in our belief that the nation’s fiscal crisis must be addressed and that we cannot leave it for the next generation to solve. [Emphasis added]

Amen to that. Here’s a thought: Why not have the leadership of both houses each appoint three Senators and three Representatives to a serve on special committee charged with making those difficult cuts. You could call it the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction. Oh, wait…

In all seriousness, who couldn’t have seen this train wreck coming in August, when the Supercommittee was first formed? And who couldn’t have predicted the editorials and commentaries that would follow the failure? The Los Angeles Times editorializes:

Engaging in self-caricature, the Republicans insisted on no new taxes, a posture they modified slightly to propose $250 billion in new revenues, some offset by their other proposals, including making the Bush-era tax cuts permanent. Democrats, meanwhile, irresponsibly resisted meaningful cuts in domestic programs. Hobbled by their dogmatic opposition to taxes, the Republicans were arguably more intransigent. [Emphasis added]

The New York Times was similarly fair and even-handed in its reaction:

And, naturally, they [the GOP] rejected the proposal from supercommittee Democrats to cut at least $3 trillion from the deficit, because a third of it would have come from higher taxes on the rich. When you hear Republicans claim that Democrats refused to touch their sacred cows of spending, remember that the Democratic offer would have cut $475 billion from Medicare and Medicaid over 10 years, nearly half of which would have come directly from beneficiaries….

These plans actually tipped too far in the direction of spending cuts. By comparison, the Republican offers were risible.

Finally, for comic relief, here is Eugene Robinson:

No, the sun didn’t rise in the west this morning. No, Republicans on the congressional supercommittee didn’t offer meaningful concessions on raising new tax revenue. And no, “both sides” are not equally responsible for the failure to compromise.

As usual, the two parties began with vastly different ideas of what it means to negotiate. Democrats envisioned meeting somewhere in the middle, while Republicans anticipated not moving an inch. This isn’t just my spin, it’s a matter of public record: Before the 12-member supercommittee ever met, House Speaker John Boehner warned that it had better not agree to any new tax revenue.

The stark reality is that both sides hunkered down because neither wanted to face the certain condemnation from their base that was sure to ensue if they made the needed concessions. But the Democrats deserve special blame for introducing straw man arguments into their statements to the press during the three-plus months of failed negotiations. The fiercely partisan Democratic co-chair Patty Murray spoke early and often about the need for the rich to “share the burden” as if the wealthiest Americans were currently getting a free ride rather than picking up the tab on 38% of all tax revenues.

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• Obama and the meaning of shared sacrifice
• Solution to the debt crisis: Tap the nation’s “additional income” reserve
• Obama’s economic “fairness doctrine”

Follow me on Twitter or join me at Facebook. You can reach me at howard.portnoy@gmail.com or by posting a comment below.

20111114KMC – Radio Podcast
20111114KMCVid – TV Podcast

*Find The Kevin McCullough Show on our newest affiliate of the month: WGCF-FM – Paducah, KY
(including the ciities of: Paducah, KY., Cape Girardeau, MO., Paris, TN., Carbondale, IL.)

ON THE KEVIN McCULLOUGH SHOW:

1. THE HEADLINE ITEMS:
Well, based on Saturday night’s debate–won by either Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, or Ron Paul depending on who you like, the polling has improved for the former speaker putting him ahead in at least one poll of both Mitt Romney and Herman Cain. Also many are crediting Rick Perry with the best idea from the debate, and showing that he’s the best sport of all the candidates. Ron Paul won in not getting that much time to filet himself. kmcradio@gmail.com

2. THE PRACTICAL DILEMMA:
So are we missing something when thinking and talking about the Penn State scandal. Several pro-family groups are making a big deal about the homosexual element to the sodomy performed on the victims in the matter. But wouldn’t it be just as insidious if it were done to girls as well? PLUS there are much bigger reasons being missed all together by those highlighting the link to homosexuality. Our culture isn’t merely on homosexual-overload, it’s on rampant-unimpeded-sex-in-your-face-all-the-time overload, as the Sasha-visits-the-kiddies issue highlights. Your replies: kmcradio@gmail.com.

3. THE GOD THOUGHT:
“As we seek first the kingdom of God, we will discover that through the good times and the bad, in days of pleasure and days of pain, through our laughter and through our tears, God is at work in us!” CONTINUE: “God Thought” on facebook!

Also able to be heard via a snappy smart phone listening app for the AFR Radio Network at that same time each night 8pm EST. Download Apple’s iTunes AFR’s app here. Android and other smart phones may download here.

2.  That Rick Perry had anything to do with the “leak” of “information” about sexual harassment complaints against Cain to Politico.

3.  That Mitt Romney was behind the “leaks” either.

4.  That the mythical ability to silence baseless innuendo, or spin it and come out smelling like a rose, or avoid it altogether, is a qualification for being president of the United States.

5.  That the left-wing mainstream media act in good faith when they retail these allegations.

6.  That media coverage of such allegations and innuendo is some form of vetted professional activity, rather than just a glorified form of slam book smears and middle-school cafeteria gossip.

7.  That it is incumbent on any of us to take the endless effluvia of the media smear machine seriously.

8.  That it is a sign of intelligence to thoughtfully consider these charges-without-evidence, rather than simply dismissing them.

9.  That the whole circus matters to our choice of president, in terms of illuminating for us the character or abilities of any of the candidates.

10.  That any of these cheap-allegation dramas is even about the candidates, rather than about us, and whether we have any judgment or discrimination when it comes to what we let the media fill our heads with.

If a competent prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich, today’s media can smear one – and then make it look like some innocent ham sandwich over there behind the counter did it.  But the media can only do this because we cooperate with them, by simply accepting every negative, damning, evil thought they suggest to us.

Keeping the barrage up is virtually cost-free for them.  They are not going to stop, no matter how conclusively it is proven that they are full of shinola.  Accepting their cues, and spending day after day discussing things on their terms, is the actual problem.  And that problem starts with us.

There is no corrective for this problem in the mechanics of politics or the media’s M.O.  Politics and the media aren’t going to change.  Period.  We have to decide what our characters and priorities will consist of.  Do we have the strength of mind to say this? – “Don’t bother me with your innuendo about Herman Cain.  I want to talk issues.  We need to cut spending, reduce regulation, and undo all of Obama’s dangerous executive orders.  We need to restore a constitutional balance of power in the federal government.  And that’s just for starters. Iran is closing in on a nuclear weapon.  China is menacing all of Asia.  European security is in jeopardy, and so is ours.  That’s what I want to talk about.  The future of the republic is at stake.”

Who cares if “they” think we’re stupid?  Are we seriously going to let this election degenerate into a suicidal snark free-for-all because someone might think we’re stupid, if we don’t bite on every worm the media dangle on the hook?

Any one of us could be in Cain’s or Perry’s position – or Bachmann’s, or Palin’s, or that of any conservative front-runner past or present.  Ronald Reagan himself wouldn’t have triumphed over this kind of media attack.  He would have looked every bit as caught off guard and flat-footed.  One thing the blogosphere does is amplify cheap, off-the-cuff opinions and send them echoing back to us in chorus, as if “everybody” now thinks Candidate X is toast and his character is in shreds.  Is that really true?  What obliges us to think so, other than the kind of fearful, triangulating approach to our personal opinions that we should have overcome by the time we got our high school diplomas?

Herman Cain hasn’t been convicted of sexual harassment, nor have charges been filed against him.  It would be public record if these things had happened.  It is not a sign of intelligence or moral discrimination for conservative voters to feast on vague allegations against our candidates, which we are told by third parties were made by persons whose names we don’t know, and which never resulted in prosecution or sanction.  As a rule for life, that’s no way to think about morality, law, society, or other people’s characters.

And Cain’s not even my preferred candidate.  But this applies to all of them.  If we wait for cheap “bad news” about other people to cease flowing, we’ll be stuck obsessing over it for all eternity.  It doesn’t have to be true or significant; it will just keep coming.  How much we are preoccupied with evil allegations is up to us.  We only think it’s the media doing this to us.  In reality, we’re doing it to ourselves.  We have the power to say no: we’re not playing any more.  Until we do that, the MSM will have us by the short hairs.

Oh, and one more thing I don’t believe:

11.  That Americans are too foolish and weak-minded to figure this out.

J.E. Dyer’s articles have appeared at The Green Room, Commentary’s “contentions,” Patheos, The Weekly Standard online, and her own blog, The Optimistic Conservative.

*Catch the next episode at 8pm EST on radio stations across America or by way of podcast:
20111012KMC – Radio Podcast
20111012KMCVid – Video Podcast

*Find The Kevin McCullough Show on our newest affiliate of the month:
WGCF-FM – Paducah, KY
(including the ciities of: Paducah, KY., Cape Girardeau, MO., Paris, TN., Carbondale, IL.)

ON THE KEVIN McCULLOUGH SHOW:

1. THE HEADLINE ITEMS:
The “Occupy” movement steps forward the next level. In demonstrations on Tuesday going so far as to claim that violence was necessary for genuine economic help to come about. ALSO: The latest excuse for a debate was held by Bloomberg last night, yikes. The swords were out for Cain, we’ll hear from Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum. kmcradio@gmail.com

2. THE PRACTICAL DILEMMA:
A piece in the Atlanta predicts the “End of Men.” A female friend from Washington DC pointed this article out to me yesterday and today we begin a very important discussion of what the essence of this column would end up looking like. Sick of men? Think everybody else is? Your replies: kmcradio@gmail.com.

3. THE GOD THOUGHT:
“There is no second blessing or spiritual experience that can magically propel us to a state where we no longer struggle with sin. That won’t happen until we finally get to heaven. Between now and then we walk the hard road to glory.” CONTINUE: “God Thought” on facebook!

Also able to be heard via a snappy smart phone listening app for the AFR Radio Network at that same time each night 8pm EST. Download Apple’s iTunes AFR’s app here. Android and other smart phones may download here.

Christie suspended the film tax credit program in 2010 to close a budget deficit, but the 2009 season still qualified for the credit.

“I have no interest in policing the content of such projects,” Christie said in a statement. “However, as chief executive I am duty-bound to ensure that taxpayers are not footing a $420,000 bill for a project which does nothing more than perpetuate misconceptions about the State and its citizens.”

To those of you who don’t live in New Jersey, please be advised that orange-dyed overexposed (in every meaning of the word) louts are the exception, not the rule, to the Garden State’s inhabitants.

Jersey Shore is awful enough that companies pay the orange-dyed “stars” not to use their products:

The Situation doesn’t usually require a lot of motivation to lose the shirt. But Abercrombie & Fitch wants him to go one further — the company has offered to pay “Jersey Shore” cast members to stop wearing clothes carrying their brand.

The preppy teen retailer said Tuesday it would pay a “substantial payment” to Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino or any cast member who stops wearing its clothing on the popular MTV reality show because the series is “contrary to the aspirational nature of the brand.”

Coach didn’t like Snooki carrying their purse to the bar, either.

Thank you, Governor Christie for ending the $420,000 Jersey Shore tax break.

And, A&F, you can pay me to not wear your clothes any time, too.

Cross-posted at Fausta’s blog

First the good.  There was a significant little body-language incident that said more about Perry than anything he actually gave voice to.  When Newt Gingrich took the MSNBC panel to task for setting up divisive questions for the candidates, and then called on all the candidates to focus on why ObamaCare is bad rather than being drawn into attacks on each other, some of the other candidates joined the audience in applauding.

But Perry led the applause, in particular for Gingrich’s point about the candidates keeping focused and not letting internecine attacks become the story.  It was a good point, and Perry applauded it vigorously enough to attract the producer’s attention.  The camera on Perry was cued because he did what a leader does:  he enthusiastically endorsed a good point made by another – even by a competitor – because the point was worth taking onboard for the larger effort.

It’s just a second or so of video, but it was a classic gesture of executive leadership.  It seemed to come to him reflexively, from long experience of being in the central chair and not worrying about who has the good ideas, who expresses them in a timely and encouraging manner, and who gets the credit.

It was equally significant as evidence that Perry focuses on the big picture.  If you watch the other candidates, you can see the gears whirring in some of their brains, as reasons crowd in on them for taking exception to one aspect or another of Gingrich’s rebuke to the panel.  You can make a case against some of what Gingrich said, as the bloggers have done in the hours since the debate.

But Gingrich was right:  the thing that matters is that ObamaCare is disastrous, and that it needs to be repealed and replaced – and so does Obama.  Such focused clarity is rarely characteristic of Gingrich himself, but Perry recognized it immediately and endorsed it wholeheartedly.  He was right to, and his gesture made it clear that it is second nature to him to be the leader of an effective team.

Now for the “other.”  I have no objection to Perry referring to Social Security with the words “Ponzi scheme.”  But the reference needs to be formulated better.  Social Security is being run like a Ponzi scheme.  That doesn’t mean the program itself was launched with the criminal objective of a Ponzi scheme.  There are implications from the designation “Ponzi scheme” that don’t apply and cannot apply to Social Security:  e.g., that it’s a criminal enterprise and needs to be summarily shut down, that it preys with felonious intent on the unsuspecting, that it’s deliberately designed to culminate in absconded principals and an empty bank account and unrecoverable losses.

Don’t get me wrong:  I would be prepared to manage our way out of Social Security entirely.  I don’t think we need the program at all, and it certainly should not be the retirement plan of first resort for any American.

But saying that doesn’t mean I want to put a stop to Social Security the way a criminal’s career is halted by arrest and incarceration.  Perry doesn’t either.  No serious Republican candidate does.  There is no one who advocates cutting off payments to today’s seniors who depend on Social Security – which is what would be done if the federal government interrupted a genuine, privately mounted Ponzi scheme, and was deciding how to award any remaining assets.

Taking the “Ponzi scheme” reference national needs to be done in a different way.  The adjustments should be pretty simple:  change the wording to “Social Security is being run like a Ponzi scheme,” rather than saying it “is” one, and make the point that we need to reform the program gracefully.  “Ponzi scheme” leaves the valid and important impression that participants will find all the expected money gone; it’s worthwhile keeping the shorthand.  But I would urge Perry to inflect his discussions of this topic differently.  “Ponzi scheme” need not be emphasized quite so much, as if people haven’t gotten the point yet.  Outside the precincts of the MSM, the point is gotten; it’s time to assume it as understood, and build on it to address, in positive terms, the policy basis for proceeding from here.

J.E. Dyer’s articles have appeared at The Green Room, Commentary’s “contentions,” Patheos, The Weekly Standard online, and her own blog, The Optimistic Conservative.

There was much riding on the debut of Gov. Rick Perry in the conversation of the GOP race. A race he came to dominate in less time than any other candidate on the floor.

On display would be not only the aggressive, misleading, and flat out dishonest gamesmanship of Brian Williams of NBC and John Harris of Politico, but the attempts by the other candidates to present Perry as somehow not the guy equipped to run the country.

Couple this with the heart-wrenching circumstances he faces in he and Ron Paul’s home state with wildfires that have devoured more than 1000 homes, and Rick Perry was a man tonight besieged from every angle. The heart, the mind, the friend, the foe… all gunning for him, testing him, and seeing how he would fare.

What the nation saw was a man who thought before he spoke, chose words wisely, and in whatever moment he found himself in, someone who wasn’t merely able to be conversant about the issue, but penetrate the tone, spirit, and focus of the discussion that caused everyone else on the stage to respond… to him!

This would’ve been a win for Rick Perry just on the mathematical equation of judging debates. But considering the increased odds he was up against, the smoothness with which he won, translates into massive points of confidence of those already supporting him, and for those yet decided, his plain speak common sense drew them in.

Odds were this debate could’ve set up a huge battle between Romney and Perry kicking off with Romney landing damaging blows. That picture never happened.

Romney was basically defeated for the night when the discussion turned to Romneycare. His refusal to address the issue, and to pretend to change the subject to giving all fifty states waivers to Obamacare was deflated the moment Bachmann (who touted another strong performance) hit back with “overturn” not “waivers” is the only true solution.

Huntsman–who was given an ungodly amount of time to yammer on about essentially nothing, should be relegated to the ash-heap of 2011, as more or less Cain should be as well.

Just not enough substance, just not enough focus. And with the lightest resumes on the stage both should be sitting down.

WHAT ASTOUNDS ME about this GOP field is the articulate nature that everyone besides Huntsman and to a lesser degree Paul are able to exhibit. I believe Obama, on merits would lose a debate to any of the following: Santorum, Gingrich, Bachmann, Romney, and Perry.

That’s a very deep bench with this level of communication skill. And my only hope is that Gingrich was telling the truth tonight when he proclaimed that the entire stage wants so bad to see Obama beaten, that they would all immediately go to work for the eventual winner.

Whoever the nominee is to be, He/She will NEED that kind of support from such an articulate supporting cast. At the end of the day, Perry won–he won big, and is likely to add to those huge polling leads he has gained in recent days.

But perhaps you disagree–I’d love to know your response and perhaps read it on my nationally syndicated show tomorrow. Drop me an email to weigh in.

Kevin McCullough is a nationally syndicated talk radio host, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR, and best selling author of three books. His most recent being: “No He Can’t: How Barack Obama is dismantling Hope and Change.”

The president, she said, should use his bully pulpit to

bring the gangsters in, put them around the table, and let them know that if they don’t come up with loan modifications and keep people in their homes, that they’ve worked so hard for, we’re gonna tax them out of business. [Emphasis added]

To her credit, at least she didn’t recommend breaking their legs!

One is tempted to note that Waters is currently under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for using her influence to secure $12 million in TARP funds for OneUnited Bank, which was not only a major contributor to her campaign but on whose board her husband served as director. Then again, as Waters would be the first to tell you, OneUnited, which is minority-owned, is not one of the “gangsters.”

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But there is a big difference between the two situations, and it’s not that today there is no Soviet Union.  The difference is the character of the American people.  I’m not even talking about things like expectations for marriage and father-mother households: I’m talking about our expectations of government and society – or, as we used to put it, man and the state.  We no longer have the character and expectations of a free people, in the way Americans once did.

Before the ‘70s, Americans had not, by and large, bought into the idea of government as an agent of transformation for society or the planet.  In 2011, the evidence is that we have.  We think of government as children think of their parents:  as a source not just of food and shelter but of permissions, of ideas, of counseling and hope and the outlines of what is possible.  As parents transform their children from puling incompetents into people ready to assume a place in society, so government is now expected to both nurture and transform.

Although many warned at the time that government was getting too big and the American character was being undermined, there was still, in the 1970s, a much greater sense of self-reliance than there is now.  In comparison with 2011, there was almost nothing you did in life – for most Americans – that was a matter of “what the government would let you do.”  Constraints and restraints imposed by government were comparatively rare.  In most cases, they were crude and laughable, like Nixon’s wage and price controls in the early 1970s, or the regulation of air travel that prevented competition and kept ticket prices high (and discouraged the less well-off from availing themselves of the airlines, thus producing the wonderfully quiet, roomy, peaceful air-travel environment remembered so nostalgically by today’s senior citizens).

People in the 1970s could tell the difference between being regulated and not being regulated.  Regulation was overt.  It made the news.  Congress shouted and carried on about it – because back then, it had to be introduced and adjusted by Congress, rather than occurring as the result of bureaucratic processes in federal agencies that no more than 1000 average citizens in the entire country could locate on a map.

In 2011, Americans have no idea the extent to which they are regulated, and how much regulation costs them.  Regulation is the “new normal.”  People who can’t imagine dismantling the EPA, or OSHA, or the CPSC or the EEOC, because they vaguely fear that a bottomless pit with dragons lurks beyond the horizon of ever-increasing regulation, are not free citizens who have the mental liberty to make real choices.  Not understanding how much they are regulated, they also have no idea that a “normal” without today’s level of regulation might just be a great normal in which to live.

In the 1970s, Americans were still accustomed to greater freedom of action, and fought each new clamp on it strenuously.  In the 2010s, people don’t realize that the regulatory environment they regard as normal is what is narrowing their future by the day – and they have been trained to fear the very idea of life without incessant regulation.  They have been taught that the alternative to each and every form of regulation is destruction, despair, ruin, chaos, poverty, ignorance, injustice, disease, death, and the triumph of mean-hearted rich people.  As far as they know, there are two options, and only two: regulation, or an endless series of catastrophes.  There is no such condition as a satisfactory, unregulated outcome.  The unregulated life, to update Socrates, is not worth living.

A lot of Americans in 2011 would not elect Reagan, as their forebears did in 1980, because they don’t have the capacity to appreciate the level of genuine freedom voters wanted to return to when they put Reagan in office.  The truth is that when government has become – with our blessing – big enough to threaten Americans with federal prosecution if they resell a drop-side crib at a garage sale,* Americans have yielded up their important liberties, and are no longer eligible to exercise them.

I think Rick Perry looks like a pretty good guy.  If he’s the GOP candidate, I’ll vote for him.  But it’s important to understand that he’s more of a George W. Bush kind of good guy than a Ronald Reagan-type good guy.  He’s for business, for the middle class, for keeping taxes low and letting the people prosper.  But he doesn’t have a visceral antipathy to regulation and the enlargement of the discretionary scope of government.

It may be no accident that he and Bush have both been governor of Texas:  Texas, like much of “Red” America, has gotten to 2011 without having the reckoning with regulation that other states are having.  With its lighter regulatory load, Texas has continued to outgrow its regulatory environment, as California and New York have not.  Texas has been flying straight and level, rather than facing a painful stall-out – and what that means is that Texas’ leading politicians have not had to do the kind of serious rethinking of the trajectory of government that many among Tea Partiers and other right-wingers believe we need.

Don’t mistake me:  I’m a big fan of Texas.  The Blue states (and most of the Red ones, for that matter) should be so lucky.  But Texas is an example of the benefits of not letting things get too bad.  The important factor in Texas, moreover, is Texans.   What much of the country needs, however – not being populated by Texans – is a way back from things that have already gotten too bad.  It needs reversals more serious and fundamental than the gentle, marginal corrections to government that succeed with a more self-reliant citizenry.

The Reagan-era changes, important as they were, have been dwarfed by an unfettered explosion of government since he left office; what’s needed now is a reversal of the trajectory of government even more significant than that of Reagan’s legacy.  I’m not sure enough Americans are ready for that.  Rick Perry may, however, be just the man to hold the line against a worsening of our federal government’s incontinent profile, while the people get themselves sorted out.

He would unquestionably be better than Obama – and one thing I particularly like about him is that he seems to appreciate the scope of what he’s proposing to get into.  The next president’s term is going to be ugly; it’s unlikely to redound to the credit of anyone’s brilliant scheme of government-tweaking and economy-boosting.  Perry seems to have his head screwed on straight in the sense of not believing in more than government can actually do.  My main quibble would be that he hasn’t internalized the inherent danger to liberty posed by regulatory prophylaxis.

He may, with time, shift toward a more transformational political concept than he appears to have now.  Until a critical mass of the people does, the sentiments of individual politicians will have limited impact.  Perry as he is may not be the “Ronald Reagan” America needs today – but he may be as much of one as we are ready for.

* Actual advice from “Mom Houston,” a Houston Chronicle blog:

I want to throw out my old [drop-side] crib but am worried somebody may take it. What should I do?

Take your old crib apart and throw it out in pieces — one side one week, one side another week — so that nobody can rebuild it from the parts left on the curb or in the trash bin.

 

J.E. Dyer’s articles have appeared at The Green Room, Commentary’s “contentions,” Patheos, The Weekly Standard online, and her own blog, The Optimistic Conservative.

In short, you behave the way Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters has in recent days. Following her team’s drubbing in the budget debate, the congresswoman has been looking for someone to vent her spleen on. Ultimately, she selected the Tea Party:

We have to stand up and fight. It’s fight time…. I’m not afraid of anybody. This is a tough game. You can’t be intimidated. You can’t be frightened. And as far as I’m concerned, the Tea Party can go straight to hell.

Damning a portion of the electorate is decidedly behavior unbecoming a member of Congress, but Waters’ job is secure. In 2010 she was elected to her eleventh term with almost 80 percent of the vote in California’s 35th congressional district, this despite an ongoing investigation by the House Ethics Committee into campaign malfeasance. The district’s makeup is 81 percent minority.

Since Waters’ tantrum, the battle cry has been echoed by other members of the Congressional Black Caucus as well as race huckster Jesse Jackson. Rep. Frederica Wilson accused the Tea Party of holding Congress hostage (an original thought) and claimed the group has “one goal in mind, and that’s to make President Obama a one-term president.”Jackson said the Tea Party should be called “the Fort Sumter Tea Party that Sought to Maintain States’ Rights and Slavery.” (Granted, it comes tripping off the tongue, but you have to wonder whether it’s likely to catch on.)

Psychologists have a name for what Waters and her pals are experiencing: impotent rage. It’s a condition that, unchecked, can lead to rash behavior. The solution to uncorking the welled up anger is to find a constructive release for it—a target deserving of contempt.

Waters seemed on the right track initially, when she told a black audience in Detroit during the president’s “listening” bus tour:

The Congressional Black Caucus loves the president….  We’re supportive of the president, but we’re getting tired, y’all. We’re getting tired…. [O]ur people are hurting. The unemployment is unconscionable. We don’t know what the strategy is. We don’t know why on this trip that he’s in the United States now, he’s not in any black community. We don’t know that.

I believe I do know why the president skipped the black community. It is because he takes their votes for granted—probably with good reason. He received 96 percent of the black vote in 2008. His approval rating among blacks is currently at 88 percent. Why should he waste time canvassing for votes he is almost certain to win when he faces an uphill battle in the swing states this time around?

The situation creates a catch-22 for Waters and other black politicians. They can continue to rail out helplessly at forces they have no control over. Or they can accept the bitter reality that the messiah they thought they were electing is either mythical or yet to come. Is it possible that the calls to primary Obama will come from, of all places, the black community? It would certainly represent a healthy first step toward a post-racial America.

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The bruised egos of Washingtonians, and especially its political class, is another story, at least for those too thin-skinned to take some good-natured ribbing. Much of the comedic jabs were broadcast via Twitter. Here are several (h/t Washington Examiner):

@calebhowe: Breaking: Obama administration points out they ‘inherited’ fault lines from previous administrations.

@comradescott: Evidently the quake occurred on a little known fault line outside of DC called ‘Bush’s Fault.’

@charliespiering: I won’t stop shaking until Obama makes a speech telling me that everything is ok and that he has a plan.

@Ben_Howe: As all of DC leaves work at the same time, the United States experiences a brief economic recovery.

@TPCarney: Krugman says it wasn’t big enough.

@MaizeBlueNation: Fox News claims the Washington monument is leaning to the right, MSNBC claims it’s leaning to the left. More news at 11.

@politicoroger POLITICO had the earthquake story yesterday.

Charles Babbington of Associated Press offers a few more, minus attributions.

S&P has downgraded earthquake to a 2.0.

Rick Perry denies earthquake.

Michele Bachmann vows to bring all U.S. earthquakes down to a 2.9 magnitude.

There was just a 5.9 earthquake in Washington. Obama wanted it to be 3.4, but the Republicans wanted 5.9, so he compromised.

Not all of the barbs came from Twitter. The Wall Street Journal, noting that the quake reached Martha’s Vineyard, where President Obama was in the process of putting, wondered if “the temblor caused his ball to fall from the lip into the cup and help him win the hole, a la ‘Caddyshack.’”

Considering the kind of luck the president has been having lately, I’d be inclined to doubt it.

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Follow me on Twitter or join me at Facebook. You can reach me at howard.portnoy@gmail.com or by posting a comment below.

West’s latest confusing maneuver is quoting General Anthony McAuliffe’s storied response to the Germans at the Battle of the Bulge.  CAIR demanded that West cut off ties with Brigitte Gabriel and Pam Geller.  West sent a letter with the following response (image of letter reproduced at links below):

Dear Mr. Hamze and Mr. Shibly,

I am writing to you with regard your recent letter:

“NUTS!”

                                                Steadfast and loyal,

                                                //S//

                                                Allen B. West

                                                Member of Congress

The West communication is actually less entertaining than the earnest – not to say prissy – explanations of it being circulated at left-wing websites.  (See here and here, for example.)

Ann Althouse puts it this way: 

1-word response not understood by left-wing blog.

And they even see the historical reference. They just can’t put it together.

I don’t think I’d say they don’t understand it.  They’re just bumfoozled by it.  If you’re looking for dueling cases of epistemic closure, we may have one right here.  The right sees the West response, and – because its allusion is so recognizable and pithy – thinks it’s worth a cheer.  The left sees it, thinks first of all that it requires explication, and then proceeds to look squinty-eyed at it.  (It’s not as if the event itself “belongs” to either political faction.  It’s merely a data point from the lore of American tribal consciousness.  The difference is in the perspectives on it.)

I suspect most on the right feel the best homage to West’s statement is brevity in response to it.  As for the reaction from the left, it was captured in the last 10 seconds of this clip from the 1965 movie Battle of the Bulge.

J.E. Dyer’s articles have appeared at The Green Room, Commentary’s “contentions,” Patheos, The Weekly Standard online, and her own blog, The Optimistic Conservative.

My colleague Karl writes today about the retirement from the GOP horse race of Tim Pawlenty, and the settling of the race into a “Romney vs. Not Romney” dynamic.  Pawlenty didn’t succeed in being crowned Not Romney in the Iowa straw poll yesterday, but how secure is the tiara on Michelle Bachmann’s head?  Is Rick Perry destined to step into a phone booth and turn into Not Romney?  What will the voters’ judgments be in the bellwether states of South Carolina and Florida?

The whole question is interesting, and begs in turn the question whether the 2012 campaign will be the clear-the-decks, all-bets-off political turning point that many are hoping for.  I think, to begin with, that a lot of people would find the “Not Romney” category an incomplete formulation.  It’s not so much “Not Romney” as “the category voters are looking for that Romney doesn’t fit into.”  Which, granted, has no future as a bumper sticker – but the point is that the thinking of non-Romney voters isn’t “anyone but Romney,” it’s “where’s the candidate who reflects what I want and believe in?”

Rick Perry may fill that bill for an electorally useful number of voters.  I don’t think he’ll have much trouble with Romney in South Carolina, and I’d call it even-Steven for the two candidates in Florida.  There are a lot of retired Northeasterners there to whom Romney appeals, but Perry can expect to do well with Florida’s Cuban-American Republicans, small business owners, and military.  Jeb Bush’s and Marco Rubio’s endorsements will carry weight.  I think I know which way Rubio will go, but I’m not sure what Bush will do.

I’m also not sure Florida will be a make-or-break state.  Assuming its primary is in January (as proposed), the early vote and the likelihood of a close split will mitigate the impact of a loss for either Romney or Perry.  Other states are likely to be more significant tests of the dynamic Karl outlines; the primary schedule has Missouri probably voting in early February, and the very interesting states of Illinois, Tennessee, and Virginia voting in March, along with the Colorado precinct caucuses.  Those states may well be a better test of the electorate’s mood.  Will Romney win where we would expect him to?

The campaign may well come down to the convention vote, as it did in 1976.  It’s very possible Romney and Perry will both have good reason to consider themselves “still alive” when Pennsylvania votes in April, and Indiana and Ohio in May.  (I’m using the proposed primary schedule; not all dates may come off as currently envisioned by the states.)  If Bachmann stays in the race, racking up strong third-place finishes, the likelihood of the decision being delayed to the convention goes up.

It’s tempting to say that the question in 2012 is whether there will be a single Republican brand the voters will line up behind.  I think a more basic question is whether we have reached a tipping point in the popular sentiment that things not only have got to change, but that they already have.  We saw some evidence of that in the primary nod to Christine O’Donnell in Delaware last year, as well as in Florida’s revolt against the national GOP establishment in picking Marco Rubio over Charlie Crist, Nevada’s choice of Sharron Angle to face off against Harry Reid, etc.  There are multiple factors at work in the ongoing saga of Wisconsin, but one of them is the major shift in voter sentiment:  voters are willing to endure civil unrest, and the unhappiness of taxpayer-dependent constituencies, and continue to endorse the political leaders who are standing against those eruptions and doing what the voters asked them to do.

Have we reached the tipping point?  Are voters ready to buck conventional expectations and do things differently?  If they aren’t, and they hand the nomination to Romney, even a GOP win in 2012 will be taken as evidence that politics as usual is what people really want.  Opinions will differ on whether endorsing Rick Perry instead is a signal that voters seek real change.  It’s possible that he will function as a sort of operational pause for GOP voters and the republic:  conservative enough that he’ll get a lot of Bachmann and Palin supporters, but with a standard political resume of reassuring length and girth.  A Perry candidacy could well serve to postpone the kind of transformative reckoning the GOP had between 1976 and 1980.

The coming primary season is likely to be the most significant, informative one the GOP has had in decades.  We will know some things at the end of it that we don’t know today.  The biggest thing, I think, will be whether voters are still hoping to identify a standard-bearer for the “Reagan consensus,” or whether they see a need to rewrite the consensus.  If it’s the latter, my money is on an updated “Coolidge consensus”:  something starker, simpler, and purer than the Reagan consensus.

Are we ready for that consensus to emerge yet?  That is the question.  We’re closer than we were four years ago.  Because words matter, I don’t even want to hazard a guess about 2012.  But I do think there will be a sign one way or the other: whether Sarah Palin gets into the race, and what happens if she does.

J.E. Dyer’s articles have appeared at The Green Room, Commentary’s “contentions,” Patheos, The Weekly Standard online, and her own blog, The Optimistic Conservative.

CNNMoney is reporting that one out of every three White House staffers makes in excess of $100,000 dollars. And perhaps that wouldn’t be terrible if there were only 3, 9, 12, even 90 employees total. But there are 454.

And as the CNNMoney story points out, the list leans to the bigger payday. Only 3 WH staffers are volunteering their time – receiving no pay for the work they perform. (No doubt outside revenue allows them to donate their time to the nation’s cause.) But 21 staffers are raking in $172,000. Including newcomers Jay Carney and Bill Daley.

Supporters of the White House may say that as a contemporary CEO, the President’s salary of $400,000 and his executive team should receive competitive pay.

Yet one of the problems there is that in the world of real business, if anyone had produced the backwards “progress” that his team has, they would be getting pink slips, and taking hair cuts on options until they got the issues “turned around.”

There won’t be a huge outcry from the left on this, which is sad given that they like to play the class warfare game so often. But when you look at the average salary in the White House against the media salary for the American worker–you uncover one more “we’re better than you” scenario. And this where the aura of “us all being in this thing together” is growing thin and shrill for the one in ten workers looking for work who can’t find it, and the one in five American families who are working as hard as they can, but can not cover their most basic living expenses.

Parting question: The fact that CNNMoney is the one reporting on this disparity means “what” in terms of the middle left base that tends to put their trust in the Turner News property that supported Obama blindly through 2008?

I’m Kevin McCullough and that’s how I “Binge Think.”
And sometimes I write things to make you think too…

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Where can you find the radio station nearest you to hear Baldwin/McCullough? Simple enough… Click here! Where can you go to see it on television? Check your local listings, or on-screen guide. The fun is just kicking off for our television simulcast this week number 1 of the new Baldwin/McCullough MegaCast:

ON THE BALDWIN/McCULLOUGH MegaCast:
1. Dominique Strauss-Kahn may have caught a huge break in the case against him. Though ironically with all the evidence that has come out against his accuser this week, they still have not dropped the charges as of yet. But Stephen Baldwin wants to know which is worse being judged by a trial overseen by the American press, or living the kind of double standard life that makes you suspect to treatment exactly as the former IMF president is now facing? Your calls: 877.572.8446.

2. When XtreMEDIA this week produced the newest promotional spot for the best-selling “No He Can’t: How Barack Obama is dismantling Hope and Change” it was met with strong criticism by some online. People of faith were saying, “Praying for your leaders is what we should be doing.” So Kevin McCullough wants to know from those who do criticize his new book on such grounds, is it even fair to point out a person’s record? 877.572.8446!

BONUS: Why KMC blames Breitbart for the leak of Weiner’s X-Rated Revelation.

Baldwin/McCullough Resources:

KMC’s BRAND NEW BOOK is now available:

The Kind of Man Every Man Should Be .
MuscleHead Revolution: Overturning Liberalism with Commonsense Thinking .
The Death and Life of Gabriel Phillips
The Unusual Suspect: My Calling to the new Hardcore Movement of Faith .

Included in the charges were two counts of heavy focusing, four counts of failure to recognize, one count of felony myth-perpetuating, and a misdemeanor count of weighing in.

The delegates convicted Duncan on all counts, and approved the measure.

Later on, NBI 8 came up for debate. It sought a middle ground among factions within the convention hall arguing for and against approving the NEA board of directors’ early endorsement of President Obama for re-election in 2012.

The delegates will vote on the endorsement by secret ballot on the 4th. The endorsement requires 58% of the vote to pass.

The item proposed a mail-in ballot from delegates next January. It was defeated, but not until there was some debate over the early endorsement.

A little background is necessary. It was in NEA’s mind back in 2007 to endorse a presidential candidate a year before the election, and not wait until July of election year, when traditionally the nominations have been all but wrapped up.

But NEA’s timing was bad. It sought to speed up its endorsement process during the one election cycle when two candidates – Obama and Hillary Clinton – split the Democratic Party right down the middle.

Unable to choose between the two, the union hemmed and hawed and stalled until Obama had clinched the nomination, then endorsed him. Of course, they fully supported Obama in the general election, but I don’t know of a single political analyst who has claimed that NEA was uniquely instrumental in the Obama victory.

Fast forward to today, when the stars seem to finally align for NEA. They have a Democratic incumbent president with no primary challenger, and a host of Republicans they believe will send them back to the day when Pleistocene Man had to teach his children to hunt and fish without the benefit of a state pension.

Except many delegates are not thrilled with Obama and his Secretary of Education. Oh, they’re pretty happy about the money he’s disbursed to save their jobs, but he’s too pally with the education reform wing of the Democratic Party. So they’re trying to come up with a compromise between kissing his rear and telling him to go to hell.

Some of them think they’ve hit upon the solution: getting rid of Duncan. Duncan’s scalp is to be the price of an early endorsement.

But if they think that’s going to happen, they’ve misread Obama, and not for the first time. Here’s something I wrote after last year’s convention:

So here we are, not quite at the stage of open warfare between NEA and the White House, but headed down that road. Neither side shows an inclination to back down. In Congress and in statehouses, the clarity of its Professor Wagstaff stance will benefit the union. Obama and the Democrats will need NEA activism in what promises to be a challenging election year.

But when it comes to public and media relations, NEA’s entrenchment is disastrous. If the union rails against an Obama administration, it signals that it can’t work with anyone short of a hand puppet. An “us against the world” battle cry works wonders for union activism, but it’s problematic because “the world” has a lot more votes.

The teachers’ unions don’t like to be attacked, but what they are really worried about is being ignored. If we ever reach that point, then we’ll know the political climate has truly changed.

Tomorrow, Vice President Biden is scheduled to appear before the delegates. Whatever he says, it won’t reassure the delegates about the general direction of the Obama administration.

Will Obama effectively ignore NEA? Will he win anyway? And if he does, what then would his second term bring to public education? It’s hard to paint a happy picture for the union in national politics under these circumstances.

This isn’t really a surprise is it?

Well, maybe Harvard doing a study that came to some relevantly accurate conclusions is a surprise. But the outcome of the study itself?

And when you think about it, exactly why does it happen?

Very simply put. It’s all about the freedom, money, and reliance…

If what America stands for on “Independence Day” is being independent of other power’s oppression, tyranny, and control of the lives of the individual then July 4th is about the most Republican or Free Market holiday ever to come along.

Democrats on my show this morning took great exception to me implying that Democrats don’t wrap themselves in the flag (or show other forms of patriotism) because they don’t really like the ideals of the original concepts of America’s founders. If the progressives that are led by President Barack Obama are any indication, then what he sees America as is far different than a rebel republic throwing off dependency.

In Obama’s world – it’s more like a great big hug of uber-Government wet kisses. I detail much of this in my new book: “No He Can’t: How Barack Obama is dismantling Hope and Change.”

In Obama’s world – the best America can be, is apologized for, overseas, for months on end, as he began his term. (Is that patriotic?)

Is it a sign of “love for one’s country” to far more often than not see the worst in her?

July 4th parades – of which I’ve normally missed most of my 40-something years on this planet – are filled with red, white and blue, fire trucks, first responders (which here in the NYC can be very moving).

They also include that one moment, where a flat bed truck will be carrying several men (fewer each year) who are aged, some unable to stand who charged Normandy, survived Guadal Canal, or chased Nazi’s out of France.

When that truck appears all the pomp turns into cheers of respect, long loud seasons of applause, and usually with me nary a dry eye.

Then behind them are the Korean, Vietnam, Gulf War and War on Terror vets that fall in, usually walking behind the vehicle carrying the WWII’ers.

Never has any nation on earth spent more resources to bring freedom to more people than all of the rest of the world’s historic militaries combined.

If kids going to July 4th parades tend to come away from them resonating with more original ideas of the founders, if they walk away with a deeper appreciation of the sacrifice it has required to keep us free, and those ideas, and that appreciation are by extension more championed by Republicans, then the study got it dead on.

I wonder if the fact that this study was produced by Harvard would have any impact on the President’s willingness to lend any credence to it?

Heh… who am I kidding, whoops… almost forgot – time to go pick up my welfare check.

I’m Kevin McCullough and that’s how I “Binge Think”
Peddler of Compassion: “Cares Project 2011″
Author: No He Can’t

Stephen and Kevin CARE about your health!

As I was beginning to write my new best-selling book, “No He Can’t: How Barack Obama is dismantling Hope and Change” my heart grew increasingly sad. As I watched the entire health care debate in 2009, the tea-party revolt and the repeal push in 2010, and the reality of where we are now–I grew even MORE sad.

And this is why…

In all of the discussion about repeal, replace, Obamacare, Medicare, Medicaid, it just felt like the voice of common sense had completely died.

In my book I advocate a serious engagement by the reader into the debate of the day and the “rolling up of the sleeves” to take the process of finding solutions to problems into their own hands and to begin to leverage their abilities of thoughts, behavior, and impact to implement solutions that they find distasteful in the public arena.

It was over a year ago that Stephen and I founded XtremeCharity and through it we have been able to raise awareness and dollars for things like feeding those who were hungry, housing those who are homeless, and getting other resources to people in need.

But we didn’t have any solutions for the challenges of how people were forced to deal with their own health care. The maintenance of costs associated with staying well, or getting well, much less access to doctors that were in the least bit reasonable.

Our frustrations led us on a mission to uncover methods that could be discovered, put into place, and begin to genuinely change the look and process of taking control of one’s health. That mission culminated this morning with the announcement on national television and radio of “The Cares Project 2011.”

Combining free market principles with former top minds in the health care industry, and formulating innovative approaches with health maintenance and control of costs we are significantly reducing the expense of the process, increasing the access to medical resources, and exposing the corruption of outdated systems all at the same time.

Let me give you an example.

Even if you HAVE health insurance drug coverage, even government assistance for drug coverage, did you know that the drug manufacturers, in conjunction with pharmacies, have worked together with lawmakers to rig the prescription drug game? Even if you have a co-pay on your drug benefit–you are likely getting cheated. Here’s how:

Pharmacies are legally allowed to charge you the maximum co-pay on your policy every time you go for drugs. $25, $30, $45 – whatever your co-pay is they are legally allowed (and will) charge you that amount at almost every possible chance. Yet with the emergence of generics and the mass quantities drugs are produced at today some prescriptions will not cost the pharmacy more than $6-$12 to fill.

Well if you have a $45 co-pay and the drug is $6 – the pharmacy is allowed to pocket $39.

So step one of the CaresProject 2011 we wanted to immediately bring down the cost of your out-of-pocket cash, and with the help of a tremendous consortium of talent we have created the CaresCard. AND WE MADE IT AVAILABLE FOR FREE!

When you click and create one, take it with you to your pharmacy. It is honored at 60,000 pharmacies across the nation. There are only 62,000 or so pharmacies (not counting the 3,000 operated in prisons.)

No matter what type of feedback they give you, (positive, inquisitive, or negative) you instruct them to enter the CaresCard2011 into your prescription file into their system. The card, once entered, will automatically provide a trip wire so that if your drug is LESS than your co-pay you will never be charged the higher cost. And if you have no insurance at all it will also automatically discount generics as much as 55% and name brand drugs as much as 15-23%.

Bottom line is, you will IMMEDIATELY begin to save on every prescription you fill. And you IMMEDIATELY begin to put more money directly back into your own pocket. THIS is free market innovation, over turning the apple cart of Big Pharm, Big Government, and Big Brother.

Tomorrow on the show I will roll out the 2nd part of the CaresProject2011 and it will include a feature that will give you access to a U.S. Board Certified American doctor 24 hours a day, 365 days a year — UNLIMITED — for the entire year, for less than the cost of a single office visit.

But for now, please accept our CaresCard2011 as a personal gift from XtremeCharity and let a little hope fill your heart, that no matter how tough these times get, it will be our innovation, our determination to solve the problem, and our incredible charity towards one another as Americans that will ultimately solve the problem.

I’m Kevin McCullough, and that’s how I “Binge Think!”
I’ve been called a “MuscleHead”
And many say I’m full of “Hot Air”

Is Ohio becoming the most pro-life state in the union?

According to this report it seems darned certain to be trying. Reuters reports that the ban goes into place once a fetal heartbeat is detectable.

Fetal heartbeats have been detected as early as five weeks into a pregnancy, though most are consistently screened for at six weeks. In essence this ban eliminates any partial birth abortions, and of course that Satanic practice that President Obama voted in favor of FOUR TIMES in his home state called “Born Alive Abortions.” (In essence infanticide caused by neglect. You know babies dying in soiled utility closets and all…)

Compare the pro-life environment (all stemming from Ohio’s legislature actions) as opposed to the Planned Parenthood issues of Indiana and it might just be the new mid-west capital and champion for the lives of unborn children.

Critics point out that the Ohio legislation doesn’t include exceptions for rape, incest, or life of the mother.

And why should they?

Is it the child’s fault that he/she was created out of such horrific circumstances?

The bottom line is always about the HUMANNESS of the child, which always seem to somehow go unnoticed. We’re pretty good at understanding or stressing the “rights of the mother.”

And that always leaves me scratching my head wondering, who does protect the most innocent and vulnerable amongst us?

And as a conservative it pains me to admit that in this instance, it appears to be, the government… in the state of Ohio at least.

I’m Kevin McCullough, and that’s how I “Binge Think.”

I think it would make no sense for her to run. I think her chances of winning the nomination are small. The chances of winning the general election are probably nil. I think, for the same reasons you articulated, 60 percent negatives. That’s almost impossible to overcome. And it isn’t as if that is forever. Hillary Clinton had very high negatives at many points in her career. But over time, they tend to soften.

…The problem with her, I think, is that she is not schooled. I don’t mean she didn’t go to the right schools… But when it comes to policies, she’s had two and a half years to school herself, and she hasn’t. And that’s a problem. You want a president who will be able to not have to learn on the job. We’ve already had that… …with President Obama and with others… It’s the lack of effort to school herself and the lack of insight to see that she needs it…

…I think if you’re going to master policy, especially world affairs, you’ve got to know history. As you said, you have to know how things evolved, and she is weak on that. It’s not as if she can’t learn. The fact is it doesn’t appear as if she wants to sort of sit down, spend some months schooling herself, as many people have done in preparing for the presidency. If you’re a governor of any state, you face a narrow range of issues, and you don’t have to deal with the world. It’s incumbent on you to actually learn about it.

So, just to recap, Sarah Palin can’t win against Barack Obama because she has high negatives, she hasn’t “school[ed] herself”, and she’s weak on history. But an incompetent community agitator with no executive experience, no private sector experience and who is an acolyte of Alinsky is qualified because he has a beautiful, cultured speaking voice.

George Will‘s substantive reasons that Sarah Palin can’t win in 2012:

The independent voters have made up their minds about her, and it is a negative judgment they’ve made… After the 2008 campaign she had two things she had to do: she had to go home to Alaska and study, and she had to govern Alaska well. Instead she quit halfway through her first term and shows up in the audience of ‘Dancing with the Stars’ and other distinctly non-presidential venues…

Just to recap: independent voters have a negative opinion of Palin. And the fact that Democrat operatives had filed 18 frivolous lawsuits — all later dismissed — against her (source: Associated Press), which were bankrupting her family, had nothing at all to do with it. That, plus appearing in the audience of Dancing with the Stars, disqualifies her.

Is this really what passes for informed commentary inside the Beltway?

Remember: Krauthammer worked for Walter-Freaking-Mondale in 1980. George Will endorsed Howard Baker in 1980. Both of these guys completely missed the Reagan revolution.

Krauthammer and Will are certainly smart dudes, but their political instincts appear to be for s***.

Palin can win. Bachmann can win. Cain can win. Ryan can win. Santorum can win. Obama is a sitting duck if confronted with a true, articulate Constitutional conservative.

He’s a walking, talking disaster as President. And everyone knows it.

By the way, I’ve been out of town for a while. How are those Stimulus, HAMP, Cash-for-Clunkers, Weatherization, Green Jobs, Obamacare, “Banking Reform”, drilling moratorium, First-Time Home-Buyer Credit, auto company takeovers and QE2 programs working out?

 
Hat tips: Mark Levin and Gateway Pundit.
Cross-posted at: Doug Ross @ Journal.

Just to make this clear: I don’t care what anybody does in his spare time. Everybody, even politicians, are entitled to a private life. If they want to send questionable photos to young ladies when they’re married, well, I can’t say approve, but I can’t say I care. They can do whatever they want to do, as long as they don’t break the law (by, say, sending such pictures to an underaged girl).

Regarding the controversy surrounding Congressman Weiner, however, it’s time for some answers. Instead of fessing up, the good congressman would have us believe someone hacked his account and tried to smear him. That is a serious – a very grave, indeed – offense. If true, he should call in the Feds who could then hunt down the person who did this (if he can hack Weiner’s Facebook and Twitter accounts, what more does he have entrance to? His emails, for instance?).

But no, Weiner hasn’t done – as far as we know – any of this. Instead, he simply makes jokes about it, as if it were some innocent prank.

Why would he react that way (assuming his story is true)? I can’t come up with a satisfactory answer.

To call the situation ‘suspicious’ would be the understatement of the year. Weiner’s story doesn’t make sense – at all.

It’s time for some answers. Did Weiner call in the Feds? If not, why not? Does he think it’s perfectly OK for people to ‘hack’ the social network accounts of congressmen? Also: I do most certainly believe in the old adage that the cover-up is worse than the crime. If Weiner has lied about it – and we’ll need a serious investigation to find out whether he did or didn’t – he has to be held to account. That’s common sense.

In the meantime, I’m becoming increasingly angered by ‘liberals” attacks on Andrew Breitbart, whose Big Government website first covered this story. As I understand it, some leftists even implied Breitbart may have been responsible for the – ahem – hacking. If that’s not a ridiculous theory, I don’t know what is. Those who push this theory aren’t merely idiots, however, they’re simply dishonest hacks.

This post first appeared at Right Across The Atlantic. Follow me on Twitter.

Mr. Obama said that the typical political proposal to rationalize Medicare’s gargantuan liabilities is that it is “just a matter of eliminating waste and abuse.” His own plan is to double down on the program’s price controls and central planning. All Medicare decisions will be turned over to and routed through an unelected commission created by ObamaCare—which will supposedly ferret out “unnecessary spending.” Is that the same as “waste and abuse”?

Fifteen members will serve on the Independent Payment Advisory Board, all appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. If per capita costs grow by more than GDP plus 0.5%, this board would get more power, including an automatic budget sequester to enforce its rulings. So 15 sages sitting in a room with the power of the purse will evidently find ways to control Medicare spending that no one has ever thought of before and that supposedly won’t harm seniors’ care, even as the largest cohort of the baby boom generation retires and starts to collect benefits.

I’d like to take you back in time to highlight some important pieces including this one I broke at Big Government where I warned this was being crafted by the Democrats:

The deliberate setup for the White House power grab is built into the each of the health care bills and, if they fail, little-known twin bills called “MedPAC Reform of 2009” are waiting in the wings.  The bills, S.B. 1110 and H.R. 2718, craftily amend the Social Security Act and transfer the Medicare guideline and rule setting processes, from the legislative branch to the executive branch.  These bills offer cover to one another in case one doesn’t pass the House or Senate, respectively.  Remember, Democrats need to gain executive branch authority by amending the Social Security Act over Medicare regulations and physician fee schedules to transform the health care system in a single-payer, socialized system.

More importantly, Medicare’s regulations and physician fee schedules are the keystone to developing payer systems and reimbursement models across the entire health care industry.  And where Medicare goes, insurers follow.

To further reinforce my analysis, former OMB director, Peter Orszag, stated:

The Medicare Commission, or Independent Payment Advisory Board, would have the power to override Congress if it rejected cuts to the entitlements programme for seniors, said Mr Orszag, a key architect of the reforms signed into law this week.

“This could well turn out to be as consequential for health policy as Federal Reserve policy was for monetary policy,” he said in an FT View from DC video interview. “The commission will put its proposals forward and if Congress does not act on them, or if it votes them down and the president then vetoes that bill, they will automatically take effect. Huge change.”

Enter H.R 452.  With 81 Republican and Democrat co-sponsors to date, this bill would repeal the IPAB and give Congress the oversight it had before the lawmakers stupidly inadvently stripped themselves.  And now they want it back.  Now, if you remember there was a story that circulated in December 2009 that bears more coverage when discussing repealing the IPAB. The catch is the language  found in the law where it stipulates:

“It shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection.”

Additionally, back in January 2010, Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) explained that the Senate:

Would effectively be passing health-care legislation that includes a series of rules on how Congress would handle IMAB recommendations, and simultaneously will be keeping future lawmakers from changing it as they desire.
 
“We will be passing a new law,” he said, “and at the same time creating a Senate rule that makes it out of order to amend or even repeal the law.
 
“I’m not even sure that it’s constitutional, but if it is, it most certainly is a Senate rule (and not a law). I don’t see why the majority party wouldn’t put this in every bill. If you like your law, you most certainly would want it to have force to – for — future Senates,” DeMint added.
 
“(T)his goes to the fundamental purpose of Senate rules: to prevent a tyrannical majority from trampling the rights of the minority — or of future congresses.”
 
The subsection that cannot be repealed or changed contains a number of other stipulations on how Congress will handle the IMAB recommendations, even setting deadlines for specific committees to consider them, which DeMint said were also new rules. “These provisions not only amend certain rules, they waive certain rules and create entirely new rules out of whole cloth,” DeMint alleged.

The CNS article goes on to document an exchange between DeMint and Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and is a must read; Brian Darling of Heritage also provides terrific analysis.

The money question is:  Will the Democrats enforce this section with regards to H.R. 452 or will they let this come to the floor for a vote?  Because while the whole argument went down and the Republicans warned, the Democrats basically said–hey, forget about it.

From: Mitch Berg, Cheesed-Off Conservative

Re: Get off the can, get on the stick.

Senators,

I get the need for compromise.

I get the fact that the Democrats still control the Senate, and they’re not going to get their way for the asking.

I get that.

What I do not get is how none of you establishment Republicans ever seems to learn from history.    It was six  years ago when you had a majority, and a sitting President, and you – many of you occupying space in the Senate right now – blinked, and gave the Democrat minority everything they wanted – a legislative Manhattan, in exchange for some meaningless procedural trinkets.

And you’re doing it again, cutting a “deal” with the President to pass a continuing resolution in exchange for a vote on a Constitutional Balanced Budget Amendment.

A vote.

Erick Erickson (with emphasis added by me):

The GOP is not telling the Democrats they actually want the Balanced Budget Amendment, just a vote. This is wholly unacceptable. If Barack Obama wants to increase the debt ceiling, the GOP should go all or nothing — they must have their Balanced Budget Amendment in exchange for it. A vote is utter nonsense without a commitment from the Democrats to pass it by a two-thirds vote from both Houses.

But it gets more insane from there. Everything we feared, everything we knew would happen, is coming to fruition.

Why?

Because you, the “Senate GOP Leadership”, the ones who’ve been there forever, fear another government shutdown.  You remember – and have created a mid-level “leadership” that remembers – how badly the last shutdown cost you at the polls.

But that was in the cha-cha nineties, when things were generally awesome and the greatest crisis facing this nation was a lothario President, when the stock market was booming and people were generally fat ‘n happy, and the media was only too happy to tell them so.

But – I’ll emphasize this – it’s 2011 now.  The Obama Recession is underway.  A vast movement of Americans has had enough.  They reversed the Obamascenscion and put your – our – party back in power twenty years earlier than anyone thought it would be possible in 2009.  Because we are that pissed off!  There is a blogosphere, and talk radio, and Fox News; the mainstream media don’t have the stage all to themselves.  We can control our own narrative this time - if you are bold enough to seize the opportunity.

You, the “leadership”, apparently don’t get that.  Erickson (again, emphasis added):

Why? Because the GOP is finally being forced by the base to push for actual, substantive spending cuts instead of the death by a thousand paper cuts strategy of the leadership…Luckily for us, conservatives made such a stink about the last short term CR being, in fact, the last short term CR, the GOP is now forced to be a leader. The leaders are, however, reluctant.

Look, it is very simple — demand passage of a balanced budget amendment, defund Obamacare and Planned Parenthood, and if the Democrats balk, shut the government down.

Unfortunately for you and me, the GOP leadership is scared to death of and hell bent on avoiding a government shutdown. They may have no choice, so they better get ready.

Look – here’s the deal; we sent you there to kick ass, and kick Ass.  We sent you there to repeal Obamacare, to slash spending, to roll back tax hikes.

And we – the people who sent you to Washington in the greatest electoral turnaround in decades – are hungry for exactly that.

And if you don’t have the cojones to do the job, we will send someone to DC that does.

Cut the budget.  Shut down the government if you need to.  We’ll be there if you do.  The situation is different than in the nineties;  the media that covered the Democrats’ behinds back then doesn’t have a complete stranglehold now.  So do it.  Do what we sent you there to do.

And if you don’t?  You can join your constituents on the unemployment line.  Soon.

Do it.

That is all.

Cross-posted at Shot In The Dark.

Not so fast.  The post-election tea party has now evolved into the watchdogs of the state and federal politicians that they gave victories to.  The tea party now expects this new breed of politicians to adhere to their campaign promises (yes, I know) as well as tackle the real problems and actually do something about them.  Actions indeed speak louder than words, and in this case they directly affect our nation’s fiscal future–among other things.

Watch.  And listen.  H/T Caleb Howe

“They cannot agree with themselves,” said Hoyer. He called for Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to distance himself from Tea Party conservatives and forge a compromise between centrist Republicans and Democrats.

Hoyer said Boehner should abandon the additional cuts conservatives muscled into the bill introduced by GOP leaders that would have cut $35 billion in spending this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. After an uproar from conservatives, GOP leaders rallied around a bill that would cut spending by $61 billion. 

Of course he would say that.

This is not 1995 though and the game has changed, and frankly so have the rules.  The differences between 1995 and now is the fact that President Clinton used his veto power coupled with spot-on messaging:

On November 13, 1995, President Clinton vetoed a continuing resolution that would have kept the government running amid a budget impasse. The result was a partial shutdown. A few days later, he signed another continuing resolution providing funds for the government until mid-December. After that measure expired, he vetoed three appropriations bills, and another partial shutdown ensued. This one lasted until early January 1996.

Yes, Clinton called the GOP’s bluff and triggered a government shut down.  The blame supposedly fell at the Republican’s feet.  However, the GOP remained the majority party in the 1998 elections only losing five seats in the House, largely due to the fact that the GOP-led Congress passed popular legislation approval ratings remained consistent.  Furthermore, President Obama is signing the CRs–he has no option–as the Democrats control the Senate.  He couldn’t possibly risk the blame to lie with his party.

The Democrat’s political strategy, setup, and sting on the Republicans is as directed at the tea party as it is to fragmenting and alienating the GOP leadership with the freshmen members.  This attempt to weaken Boehner as a leader and cause voters to become disenfranchised with the GOP sets up the 2012 election.  

The GOP must remember that every time a Republican has the fortitude to stand up and call out the Democrats and the left, the people are behind them.  They crave someone with that leadership quality and fearlessness.  And this is why there is no front-runner in the GOP race to the White House.

Speaker Boehner must lead and unify the Republicans, stay on message, and obey the will of the American people.  If he doesn’t, the GOP will suffer serious consequences and the mantra of “not only conservative, but Republican” will vanish–setting up third party races in 2012, GOP incumbent losses, and Democrat wins.  However, if Boehner stands firm there will be no way the MSM machine will be able to beat back the sentiments and will of the American people for the results will be self-evident.

Crossposted at TMR

An anti-tax advocate, Mr. Braman began the petition drive soon after Mr. Alvarez proposed raising property taxes for 40 percent of Miami-Dade homeowners last summer to plug a large budget deficit, a result of plunging property values. The Miami-Dade County Commission approved the budget. At the same time, unionized county employees whose wages had been frozen were due for a raise under a prior agreement and to have some of their benefits reinstated.

But the criticism reached beyond agreements with unions and property tax increases. The once-popular mayor, who was first elected in 2004, gave hefty raises to top aides in 2009, at the height of the recession, and also used a government car allowance to help pay for a BMW.

This anti-tax sentiment is echoed by this report:

On Tuesday, Cuban-Americans will decide the fate of two Cuban-American Miami-Dade County politicians. Once, being Cuban American was good enough for Cuban-Americans to come out and vote for a candidate. That is no longer true.

As early voting took place, it appears that Alvarez and Miami-Dade Commissioner Natacha Seijas will be ousted:

As of Friday, nearly 55 thousand people had already cast their ballots at the polls; more than 67 thousand voted by absentee ballot.

A recent Miami Herald-CBS4-Univision 23 public opinion poll showed that Alvarez and Seijas will likely be turned out of office.

When a politician such as Alvarez reaches into the taxpayers’ pockets to “fix” the budget, can recall be expected as the new normal and will it apply to both parties who dare betray the people?

Update:  The largest polling precinct in Miami Beach is closed to voters.  Reports cite schedule conflicts:

But tell that to voters who went to cast their ballots at the Miami Beach Botanical Garden and found the city’s largest polling place was closed because clients in town for the Cruise show at the Miami Beach Convention Center had booked the garden for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Howard Srebnick, a Miami Beach resident and prominent criminal defense lawyer, said the Botanical Garden at 2000 Convention Center Dr. was shut down “without notice.”

Complying with the records request from the House Energy and Commerce Committee “would constitute a vast and expensive undertaking” and could “implicate longstanding executive branch confidentiality interests,” White House lawyer Robert Bauer wrote the committee. Translation: Nice try.

Before the Democrats rammed through the Obamacare bill (and don’t think for one little ol’ minute that our narcissistic President doesn’t love that branding), Obama and WH officials met with several high-profile insurance executives as the WaPo lists:

The list included George Halvorson, chairman and CEO of Kaiser Health Plans; Scott Serota, president and CEO of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association; Kenneth Kies, a Washington lobbyist representing Blue Cross/Blue Shield, among other clients; Billy Tauzin, then head of PhRMA, the drug industry lobby; Richard Umbdenstock, chief of the American Hospital Association; and numerous others.

The most concerning is George Halvorson as he was the only executive to meet with Obama.  And here is why:

“There really are two Americas when it comes to health care — the fully insured, primarily white America and the disproportionately uninsured minority America,” Halvorson wrote. “More than half of the total uninsured people in this country are minority. That fact alone should make the need to cover everyone in America a pure ethical imperative. This issue is not about economics — it is about equality. Universal coverage should be the next major civil rights issue for this country to face.

Halvorson also wrote an article in 2007 equating health reform to the “unfinished business of the Civil Rights agenda.” Halvorson discusses the disparities between the races and health care coverage and states:

If we considered no other issue than racial and ethnic disparities, this nation’s leadership — like the leadership of a number of states — should be moving this country down the path to an American form of universal coverage as quickly as possible. There is no more vital or meaningful way for us to honor and extend the great legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.

Again, Halvorson was also the only insurance executive to meet with Obama at that time.  Why?  Is it because Obama wants a single-payer system and sees himself as finishing the Civil Rights Movement, and Halvorson has the same viewpoint and the most to gain via Kaiser Permanente?  But, hey, there’s nothing to see here, right?  Or, is it that those meetings were, as Halvorson stated:

“The real discussion this time, behind those closed doors, is about changing the way care is delivered. Not about the cost.” 

Now, that is confusing.  According to former WH Budget Director, Peter Orszag, I thought that we were on an unsustainable path, so how could costs not come up in these meetings?  So, if we now know that those meetings were about how our healthcare is to be delivered, wouldn’t that be cause enough for alarm?  Some questions that pop into my mind are: how are those changes going to be implemented, what type of practitioner has direct access to patients, who has the ability to refer to specialists, who orders advanced tests/images, who makes the medical decisions, what protocols are being set/followed and who sets them, and do patients have access to all available treatment options.

Additionally, the Washington Times article cites that the Clinton and Bush administrations thwarted such calls:

President George W. Bush’s administration beat back efforts to reveal the dealings between Vice President Dick Cheney’s energy task force and industry. President Bill Clinton’s administration successfully resisted demands for records of its failed push to remake the health care system, which was overseen by then-first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.

However, unlike the previous scenarios, this is now the law of the land, American taxpayers will be footing the entire bill, and will potentially ultimately have their healthcare decisions placed in the government’s control.  Doesn’t that give us the right to that information trumping the “implicate longstanding executive branch confidentiality interests” excuse.  And since when does this administration give a hoot about costs, nullifying the argument that the compliance with the records request “would constitute a vast and expensive undertaking.”

To quote NRO’s Jim Geraghty, did the Obama administration just administer the Cee-Lo Green option on Americans?

Typo correction: I’ve corrected the WaPo citation as it should have been Washington Times.

‘Bill must have known about Jeffrey’s girls. There were three desks in the living area of the villa on the island. ‘They were covered with pictures of Jeffrey shaking hands with famous people and photos of naked girls, including one of me that Jeffrey had at all his houses, lying in a hammock.

‘We all dined together that night. Jeffrey was at the head of the table. Bill was at his left. I sat across from him. Emmy Tayler, Ghislaine’s blonde British assistant, sat at my right.

‘Ghislaine was at Bill’s left and at the left of Ghislaine there were two olive-skinned brunettes who’d flown in with us from New York. ‘I’d never met them before. I’d say they were no older than 17, very innocent-looking.

‘They weren’t there for me. They weren’t there for Jeffrey or Ghislaine because I was there to have sex with Jeffrey on the trip. ‘Maybe Jeffrey thought they would entertain Bill, but I saw no evidence that he was interested in them.

Sure he wasn’t. Bill never expressed interest in…oh, wait. Never mind.

There’s also this interesting tidbit:

‘I only ever met Bill twice but Jeffrey had told me that they were good friends. ‘I asked, “How come?” and he laughed and said, “He owes me some favours.”

Now what favors would Epstein have done for Bill such that he felt the ex-President owed him?

The other big news in the Epstein story today is that the FBI may reopen the case. For more on that check here.

Hintz touches on so many topics in his 3-minute rant–from transparency, public debate, having to read a piddly 144-page bill, to the 35,000 people outside clammoring to have their voices heard.

Really?

Where was he when the more than one million Americans gathered at the Capitol and were ignored by the Democrats?  Was Hintz outraged when Republicans said they needed time to read the 2,000+ page Obamacare bill?  Where was his outrage when Harry Reid slipped in his manager’s amendment replacing the entire Obamacare bill and then voted on it?  Was he outraged when Nancy Pelosi met with Obama and other Democrat leaders behind closed doors locking out Republicans during the so-called ‘conference’?  Was he outraged when debate was cut off on Obamacare by the Democrats in Congress?  I could go on and on (and wrote extensively about it) as this type “professionalism” was on display for two years with Pelosi and Reid at the helm.

But, at least Hintz gets why the Democrats are in the minority…and in Wisconsin.

For the record, this video was extremely difficult to find as it has continually been scrubbed by the compliant lefty media.

[A big thank you to Richard Hornsby for the photo]

This past Wednesday through Saturday, The American Conservative Union sponsored the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC. CPAC was open to all conservative activists who wanted to attend. This year, I had the honor of being a credentialed blogger for CPAC, and, thus, was able to sit in the bloggers’ lounge that was sponsored by Freedom Works. Tabitha Hale, the brains behind the bloggers’ row who put the whole thing together, really outdid herself. (All attendees should participate in a quiet “golf clap” for Tabitha.)

Folks, I had a blast this past week. Seriously, if any of you ever get the opportunity to attend CPAC, I highly suggest going. In fact, there are three very good reasons to attend CPAC next year (or any similar national conservative activist conference in the future). So, without much fanfare and ado, let’s get right to it.

1.) CPAC is a great place to hear some awesome political speeches, and meet many famous conservative political activists and politicians.

This year at CPAC, participants had the opportunity to listen to many famous pundits and politicians speak. Tim Pawlenty, Rick Perry, Haley Barbour, Ron Paul, Michelle Bachmann, Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, David Horowitz and Andrew Breitbart were some of the many famous speakers that were there. However, there were three speakers in particular that I, personally, thought brought down the house.

Herman Cain (who is a radio talk show host and the former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza) gave a speech that greatly exceeded the expectations of many people in the political class. Ed Morrissey–who wrote that Cain “stole the show” on Friday afternoon–has done a good job of collecting many of the highlights of Cain’s speech (the embed is below):

Cain said that the American Dream is being attacked by what he calls “the -ations” — legislation, regulation, and taxation. He continued that Republicans need to repeal and replace health care reform, and also “throw out” the “messed up tax code” and replace it with a new system.

The “objective of the liberals is to destroy America,” he Cain continued, but “if you can get a liberal to engage in an intelligent in the first place, ask them to strip away labels.”

Like, for example, Cain said, when liberals call anyone who disagrees with Obama a “racist.”

“They call me racist too just because I disagree with a President who happens to be black,” he continued. He told the crowd: “You are not racists — you are patriots.”

However, my favorite part of Herman Cain’s speech came when he said the following at around 8:10-8:20:

“Stupid people are ruining America.”

My husband and I nearly fell off of our chairs laughing when we heard that.

Then, on Saturday afternoon, Ann Coulter gave an excellent speech that had many good moments in it (particularly, from 4:40-5:15, 5:40-6:30, 7:40-8:20 and 12:50-13:45). (Oh, and Welcome to the Jungle by Guns and Roses was a cool choice for an entrance song).

However, Coulter was absolutely on fire during the Q&A that followed her speech (Q&A is her forte’). I would say that the best moment of her Q&A session with the crowd was when someone asked her, “Who is your least favorite Democrat?” (at 10:48-11:30 in the embed below), because Coulter responded by giving the following answer:

“That’s like asking me my least favorite disease. I can’t do my least favorite, I’m sorry”.

Then, she quickly quipped, “Cancer”. Again, my husband and I almost fell over laughing.

Now, immediately following Ann Coulter came Representative Allen West, the keynote speaker of CPAC. Before starting his speech, though, Congressman West was kind enough to visit the bloggers’ lounge and take questions from the bloggers there.

Oh, and Colonel West was gracious enough to take a picture with me as well.

[Thanks again to Richard Hornsby for the picture.]

And finally, Congressman West gave an incredible stem-winder that finished up CPAC with a bang. He was introduced below by Sargent Jason Auburn who guards the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. As Congressman West walked onto the stage, you could hear Right Now by Van Halen playing. All I have to say is Dammit, you know that you’re at CPAC when you see a colonel–introduced by sergeant who guards the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier–walk on the stage while Van Halen is playing. (None of that wussified“Yes We Can” foolishness over here. And yes, wussified is indeed a word–look it up.)

Now, onto the second reason why CPAC is a must for any aspiring conservative activist.

2.) CPAC is a great place to meet people and network, network, network.

First of all, I obviously can’t stress the whole networking part enough. It is one thing to converse with your fellow bloggers/activists online or via email–it is a whole ‘nother ball of wax to meet them face to face. When you meet someone in person, you can get a much better feel for who they really are by their body language or facial expressions–which are things that cannot possibly be conveyed by simply communicating with someone online. Furthermore, if you form a personal bond with someone at a conference like CPAC–even if you only talk to the person for, say, fifteen minutes–given the choice, they are much more likely to link to, or pimp, your stuff than someone that they think is a total douche (no matter how good of a writer the douche in question might be). (Hey, I don’t make the rules–those are just the facts. You have to accept the world how it is, not how you want it to be.)

Moreover, at CPAC, I had the unique privilege of meeting some of the most iconic bloggers/writers online. It was a phenomenal experience. I mean, it is so totally cool to actually meet people that you’ve been reading or conversing with for years online. (See the photos below that my husband took in and around the bloggers’ lounge).

The above picture is of Daily Caller reporter, and CNN contributor Matt Lewis on my left and Garrett Quinn of The Boston Globe (or Boston.com) on my right. Both of these gentlemen are extremely knowledgeable about politics, and Matt Lewis told me interesting stories about his experiences covering the NH primary. I highly suggest picking their brains if you ever get the chance.

Above is a photo of me and Caleb Howe, a man who needs no introduction. He is the assistant editor of Redstate.com, and is a legend in the blogging community. The dude is just too cool for color TV, and he makes any party that he attends teh awesome.

Above is a picture of me with the totally cool editor of the highly influential Right Wing News, John Hawkins (where I am also a contributor).

Above is a photo of me and my husband (Chris Fleetwood) that was taken right after Herman Cain spoke on Friday afternoon.

Above is a picture of myself with the awesome, iconic Ed Morrissey of Hot Air. He is the driving force behind what becomes newsworthy in the conservative blogosphere. A link by him is huge–nay, monumental. Enough said.

Above is a picture of myself with Fingers Malloy of FTR Radio and Parcbench (where I am also a contributor). Fingers is an intimidating looking guy, but don’t let the mohawk fool you–he’s a real sweetheart.

Above is a picture of Jeff Dunetz who is the proprietor of Yid With The Lid. Jeff is a great blogger who blogs at all of the “Big” sites.

Above is a picture of Doug Welch, otherwise known as the popular blogger Stix 1972. (Doug also blogs with me over at The Minority Report, and can fix any technical issues that you might have.)

The above photo is of lovely Adrienne Royer (proprietor of the awesome blog Cosmopolitan Conservative) on my left and talented writer Warner Todd Houston on my right.

Above is a picture of me with the great Jimmie Bise Jr–who is the proprietor of The Sundries Shack, and who also blogs with me in The Green Room.

Above is a picture of Oregon Tea Party head (and former congressional candidate) John Kuzmanich on my right, and a blogger from Red County named Jeff Reynolds on my left.

Above is a picture of me with two adorable, talented, young bloggers who make me feel old–Amy Miller of Pundit League and Alex Knepper.

Above is a photo of me with the adorable Tabitha Hale who was the brains and the force behind the bloggers’ lounge at CPAC (and who is also a contributor to Redstate.com). Again, she deserves a round of applause for her outstanding organizational abilities.

The above picture is of me and Nice Deb who owns the excellent blog Nice Deb. My husband and I had dinner with her and John Hawkins later in the evening, and she was very….well, nice. She just exudes this whole Midwestern class/politeness from every pore. Her blog is quite aptly named.

And, here is another photo of my buddy, the awesomely, awesome John Hawkins (with a myriad of boggers scurrying around in the background).

And finally, here he is ladies and gentlemen. The man, the myth, the legend who made the fedora cool–it’s the one and only Robert Stacy McCain (with me) in the above picture. This guy is only the coolest cat in the conservative blogosphere. Getting linked on his blog means that you’ve finally arrived. Enough said.

Oh, and I almost forgot to give you all one final piece of advice before we move on to point number three. ALWAYS BRING A CAMERA EVERYWHERE YOU GO AT CPAC. Why? Because you never know who you are going to run into there. For instance, when I went downstairs to get a sandwich I ran into Johnathan Martin of Politico. He was an extremely nice guy and we talked for a good ten minutes, but I had forgotten my camera upstairs. I never made that mistake again. So the next day, when we went to McDonald’s, I took my camera with me and look who I ran into:

Yes Ladies and Gentlemen, that would be Alfonzo Rachel of PJTV who is famous for his “ZoBama” impersonations–and, who was personally attacked by Charles Blow for being part of a “minstrel show” (because liberals are all “tolerant” and stuff).

And then, when we returned to the hotel lobby, I ran into Jim Hoft–otherwise known as Gateway Pundit. He is pretty famous in blogging world and was mentioned by William Kristol on Fox News Sunday for breaking open the Van Jones story. (Oh, and he’s a very nice guy as well.)

Now, onto the third reason why CPAC is the bomb for all budding conservative activists.

3.) You get to party like a rockstar in the Kruiser Cabana with the Red Eye guys and various other conservative celebrities.

During every major conservative convention, like BlogCon or CPAC, Stephen Kruiser of PJTV is kind enough to host awesome parties in his room–or, turn his room into the “Kruiser Cabana”. Stephen is just a stitch (as we say down south). And, besides working for PJTV, he is also a stand up comic and is a frequent guest on Fox’s Red Eye. Therefore, Kruiser tends to get a lot of high profile guests to come to his parties (like, for instance, the guys from Red Eye). In fact, the Kruiser Cabana was so kickin’ this year, that Stephen Kruiser was named CPAC’s Miss Congeniality.

[Below are some pictures that we took in the Kruiser Cabana, as well as at other CPAC hot spots.]

Above is a picture of me with Stephen Kruiser (in a purple shirt to my immediate right), and Bill Schulz (to my left) and Andy Levy of Red Eye fame.

.

Above is a picture of Red Eye host Greg Gutfeld and me. How cool is that? (Gee, I sound like highschooler.)

Oh, and here is a little bipartisan love for everyone. On my right is conservative writer Philip Klein of American Spectator and Politico, and on my left is liberal writer Tommy Christopher of Mediate. (They both know a lot about politics and are awesome to hang out with, by the way.)

Above is a picture of the lovely Pamela Geller who became quite famous when she discussed her opposition to the Ground Zero Mosque on 60 Minutes.

And, above is a picture myself with the lovely Kristina Ribali and the lovely Pamela Geller. Did I mention that they were lovely?

Above is a picture of Stephen Kruiser and my husband. I think that they are both cuties, but I’m probably a little biased. (I’m married to one, and I had a blast at the other one’s parties.)

And, above is a picture of the awesome Ben Howe of Redstate.com (brother of Caleb Howe–awesomeness runs in their family) standing next to my adorable hubby.

Now, that handsome man in the tri-corner hat above is frequent Fox News Business panelist Paul Erickson. He threw a killer party earlier that evening. (Yes, there is life outside the Kruiser Cabana at CPAC. But hey, Stephen, you’re still Miss Congeniality and no one can take that away from you.)

And, above is my good friend Amy Miller posing with me at Mr. Erickson’s party. (She’s so cute isn’t she?)

Above is the always awesome Robert Stacy McCain and the very gracious Paul Erickson. (Hmmm….I don’t know what I like better, the fedora or the tri-corner hat.)

Pictured above is me with the always adorable Alexa Moutevalis and the always awesome Caleb Howe. (Remember, awesomeness runs in the Howe family.)

The above picture is of myself with Steve Eggleston (proprietor of the great blog No Runny Eggs) and the always awesome Ben Howe.

The five cute guys in the above photo are as follows (from left to right): Kevin Eder (who runs the Facebook and Twitter pages for the Media Research Center and Newsbusters), Stephen Gutowski of Human Events and Eyeblast TV, Fingers Malloy, Chris Fleetwood and Steve Eggleston.

And, here we have the iconic Robert Stacy McCain on my right and John Howting on my left, who is president of Miami Universities ISI Chapter. (Man, those college Republicans are just so darn cute, aren’t they?)

Oh, and here is another picture of the beautiful Kristina Ribali. I’m sure all of you gentlemen reading this just hate seeing her again.

Above is a shot of me talking to Da Tech Guy, who is one of my all time favorite bloggers–and favorite people–in the conservative blogosphere. (Oh, and check out his cool fedora!)

Above is a photo of me talking to the always charming Christopher Renner. (Hmmm….what’s better, the fedora, the tri-corner hat, or the cowboy hat? Decisions, decisions.)

The above picture is of me and the lovely Sarah Rumpf, who is the proprietor of the blog Sunshine State Sarah. This was my first time meeting Sarah, but she struck me as a, well….very sunny person–not to mention, she was a heck of a lot of fun to hang out with.

In the above picture (starting from left to right), you’ve got the adorable Jenny Erickson whispering to the uber-cool and super hilarious Larry O’Connor from Breitbart TV. And next to them, is Dr. Gina Loudon (in the grey) whispering to Meredith Dake, Mr. O’Connor’s very pretty producer.

And, in this picture, I am posing with the lovely Dr. Gina Loudon on my right (yes, that Dr. Gina Loudon who smacked down sleazy VF columnist Michael Gross), and the lovely and talented Jenny Erickson on my left.

Above is a photo of John Hawkins and Nice Deb at a killer Thai restaurant called The Thai Kitchen (they have great red chicken curry). John, Deb, my husband and I ventured over there after CPAC on Saturday night prior to heading over to the Kruiser Cabana.

The above picture is of me and charming, polite Glen Asbury, who is the proprietor of the popular blog Ramblings.

Above is a picture of a gentlemen by the name of Brian Henchey who is the host of The New England Job Show. I just met Brian late that evening in the Kruiser Cabana when I blurted out to him that he “had great hair”, and then asked to take a picture with him. He laughed, thanked me for the compliment, and then politely complied with my request. However, Brian turned out to be a great conversationalist and an all around funny dude; therefore, I really hope to see him again at CPAC next year.

And finally, rounding out my collection of party pics is this final parting shot of me and Stephen Kruiser. (Oh, how I will miss the Kruiser Cabana). One more thing. That button on my hat says, “Dale Peterson for President”.

So, in conclusion, I think that I’ve concisely summed up why CPAC is a must for any and every aspiring conservative activist–not to mention, why it’s truly a “can’t miss” event if you want to meet the who’s who of the conservative blogging/activist world.

However, I just have one more thing to add before I leave you all. I think that next year’s theme song for CPAC’s keynote speaker should be Dreams by Van Halen, because it’s got a very patriotic video that mainly consists of incredible footage of The Blue Angels flying and performing stunts. Since we had one Van Halen song this year, why not have another one next year?

And on that note, I say that I truly can’t wait to see you all again next year!

PS–I took those hats home with me that I was wearing in those photos. (You can clearly see them poking out of my tote-bags in the above picture taken outside of Reagan International Airport on Sunday afternoon.)

PPS–I see you over there doing air guitar at your computer.

This column is cross-posted from Parcbench, and it is also posted at The Minority Report, Right Wing News and Hillbillypolitics.

Why is this news? Because as Daniel Foster at NRO notes, an entire generation has passed us by in three months. Here’s Christie himself responding to news of a new plan by Amtrak to build a tunnel across the Hudson into NYC:

There’s some dispute I’d say about how long a generation actually is, right? People say a generation, how long that is. In New Jersey as it applies to this a generation is three months. ARC is all a once-in-a-generation project.

All I said at the time were things that apparently were confirmed in the main by the press conference today. They’re advocating the Amtrak plan because they say that the feds should take the lead. I said the feds should take the lead if they thought the project was that important.

I said that it was a stupid idea to have a tunnel go to the basement of Macys, and on the whole, the Amtrak tunnel is going to go to an expanded Penn Station under the plan that I saw today.

Today, they touted this plan as ‘having better control over cost overruns.’ But the thing I find interesting about that is that these are the very same people who are saying months ago that I was fabricating the cost overruns. That they didn’t really exist. Someone better get to Chairman Wisniewski quickly so he can amend his talking points. Because now the Democratic United States Senators  are now saying that this project will have better control over cost overruns, that they were claiming months ago didn’t exist.

[...]

I hope all of you are taking note of all the dire predictions that were made and how wrong I was to have cancelled this. And now today the taxpayers of New Jersey are protected and you have real talk about a federal lead on a project that should have been a federal project all along and that if there are going to be contributions from the states, there are going to be contributions from all the states that benefit. Not just the State of New Jersey and its taxpayers which was the ARC plan. Sometimes, to make real change happen, you have to stand up and be counted and make the tough decisions and if I had been intimidated by all the rhetoric from all the folks who were shooting at us at the time, the taxpayers of New Jersey would be on the hook for untold billions of dollars.

I know there are a some on the right who scoff at Christie the You Tube phenom, but I hope the hype doesn’t obscure the substance. Christie keeps making these tough calls and, by my own admittedly biased score keeping, he’s getting nearly all of them right.

In the case of the ARC tunnel he took on three powerful Democratic Senators and most of the MSM over a principle of fiscal responsibility. After months of taking the heat, he has been totally vindicated, to the point where Sen. Schumer and others should be embarrassed for themselves. That’s not hype, that’s victory.

I’ll be posting 4-5 new Christie clips at my site Verum Serum throughout the day today. So as not to hog the bandwidth here in the Greenroom, I’ll post just one new clip, my favorite one, here later in the day.

First up, a little something to whet your appetite. A clip that suggests even former prosecutor Christie can appreciate the public’s view of lawyers:

There’s more and better coming but if you’re desperate, you can go back and enjoy these Christie classics:

• The Fun vs. The One – A fun clip and some thoughts about what it would be like to see Chris take on Barack in 2012 (sadly, it won’t happen).
• Just how desperate are liberals to stop the Christie juggernaut? This desperate.
• The 60 Minutes appearance – Christie is the go-to guy for tackling statewide financial problems.
• Democrats fear him.
• David vs. Goliath – Chris takes on David Gregory.
• Don’t make me “go Jersey” on you people.
• Awesome in Oregon – Before the election, Chris was traveling the country to support Republican candidates.
• Christie talking about the NJ legislature.
• Christie on what it takes to get a raise in public schools: “Are you still breathing?“
• Christie on the value of competition and the importance of rewarding excellence in education.
• Christie vs. NJ teacher’s unions.
• The “day of reckoning” is here.
• And the one that started it all…”You don’t have to do it.“

Like I said, there’s more coming…

John runs the blog Verum Serum and is also a contributor at Andrew Breitbart’s Big Journalism. You can follow him on Twitter @verumserum.